A new survey just came out by RatePoint, which found that just 36% of small business owners are using social media to reach consumers. That’s about half the rate among larger businesses. The Ratepoint survey also confirmed that 20% of small business owners said they didn’t think that their customers spend time on sites like Facebook or Twitter, and 27% said they weren’t sure.
The other side of the Social Media numbers show that the American population from every demographic is certainly online in large numbers participating in social media either through a computer, their phones or TV. However, in order to see the opportunities for your business success in Social Media will require you to look at the bigger picture outside of your world.
In the mid 1990s when I was designing websites I explained to my clients that you do not build a website to please you, you build a website to please your customers. Too often business owners want their marketing to please them and forget that it’s about the customer. The same holds true for Social Media, do not assume that because you do not care for Social Media that your clients and future customers do not.
Probably the biggest issues for small businesses entering the Social Media landscape is where to start, what to do and how often to do it. Small businesses tend to take one of two approaches when they do not have a plan of action. The first is to splash into Social Media spending a lot of time participating on every social media platform they find which leads to early burnout and ill feelings about the benefits of Social Media. The second way is to stick one toe into the Social Media waters participating in a slow erratic way as to not build any consistencies with their potential audience. This also leads to burnout and ill feelings about the benefits of Social Media.
Our suggested method for small business owners with limited resources is to take a planned tiptoe approach building traction on the popular social media platforms where your target market interact regularly and then increasing your participation on other platforms as you gain traction.
The key word is “PLAN.” Before getting into social media PLAN before you EXECUTE. What are the best social media platforms for you to begin with. If your business is B-to-C then Facebook will probably be the better choice, if your business is B-to-B then you should be looking at LinkedIn to begin your entry. The first biggest mistake comes from launching your social media campaign on the wrong platform. The Wall Street Journal just published an article about how difficult it is for B-to-B companies to get Facebook Fans. Even in that article the companies that are having social media success point out that its about being where your market is at.
The next step to grow your social media market is to be consistent with providing content. I suggest that 3 posts a week are a good way to keep your brand on people’s mind. Posting a resource, information on your business and asking a question related to your industry is applicable enough to consistently keep people engaged with your brand. Keep in mind that the three main areas of Social Media are Listening, Communicating & Publishing. As long as you are conducting those three activities on a regular basis you have a strong chance of building leads through your social media campaign.
There are tools out there to assist you with publishing your content on a schedule basis so you are not always at the keyboard participating. A number of my clients use Hootsuite to schedule their Social Media updates and there are other tools you can use as well.
One other note when it comes to publishing, publish a Blog on a regular basis. Blogging is your voice, it adds a personal feel to your web presence and your Blog can be scheduled and shared on your social media platforms as this one is. This Blog went live at 10:00am October 21, 2010 and it was shared on my Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. However, I wrote this Blog on October 20th.
The last key step is to Listen to what people are saying about your brand and your industry. There are some real time social media conversations where people are looking for solutions to problems you can solve. The goal should be to use listening software that track keywords in social media conversations in either real time or on a delay basis so you can respond to the conversations. I learned the power of listening in social media when last year I asked a question on Twitter about webinar software. Within two minutes of me asking the question I received 4 direct messages from webinar companies that wanted to provide me with a demo of their platform.
In summary the key for small business to successfully navigate the Social Media ocean is to:
- Plan where you want to start at instead of jumping into the ocean without knowing what direction to travel.
- Choose your entry platform based on your targeted goal. Different Social Media platforms appeal to different groups of people.
- Engage on the platform in a consistent manner. 3 times a week or a similar schedule.
- Be sure to Listen to the conversations about your brand and industry for insights and prospecting opportunities.
- Communicate by sharing resources and knowledge. Providing incentives from time to time is also a good strategy.
- Publish on a consistent basis. Blog on the regular, create white papers and share your stories.
Use this tiptoe approach to Social Media to keep from drowning in the Social Media ocean of opportunity.