Social Media for Small Businesses ~ Where Do You Start and How do you Maintain It?

Posted in Wendy Troupe's Perspectives by Wendy Troupe on July 8th, 2009

 

Awareness of the potential that social media can possess has begun to settle into the consciousness of small business owners. My local Chamber of Commerce is buzzing about it and is planning a panel discussion about it in September. The questions that are usually posed have to do with gaining a better understanding of each of the tools (blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter) and then choosing which to use.

The underlying fear that business owners typically have is maintaining another channel of communication. Many do not get beyond addressing this obstacle and those that do, typically start out full force and then as the burden of maintaining the flow of information takes hold, it fizzles.

What’s missing is the reason behind using social media in the first place.I suggest identifying an existing administrative burden that you struggle with and structure a solution that changes the dynamics of the business problem and redirects existing resources to facilitate it.

---

Awareness of the potential that social media can possess has begun to settle into the consciousness of small business owners. My local Chamber of Commerce is buzzing about it and is planning a panel discussion about it in September. The questions that are usually posed have to do with gaining a better understanding of each of the tools (blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter) and then choosing which to use.

The underlying fear that business owners typically have is maintaining another channel of communication. Many do not get beyond addressing this obstacle and those that do, typically start out full force and then as the burden of maintaining the flow of information takes hold, it fizzles.

What’s missing is the reason behind using social media in the first place.I suggest identifying an existing administrative burden that you struggle with and structure a solution that changes the dynamics of the business problem and redirects existing resources to facilitate it.

A Strategy is the Path You Choose to Take

Aligning your social media endeavors with clear business goals is called being strategic which is where you have to really think and identify your short and long term goals — both to grow your business and to lower your costs. Social media can be used to achieve both types of strategic endeavors. To really get into understanding strategy, check out Erika Andersen’s Being Strategic. If not, just accept that strategy just means “the best way I can think of to get to the goal.”

It is important to remember that strategies are flexible and can change as more urgent needs arise. If your goal is to increase your sales, then choosing to blog about your product features is a good first step. If this doesn’t convert into sales, then you can choose to post your entries into LinkedIn to generate more awareness and get some feedback as to other types of content to generate interest.

Possible Goals that Fuel Your Strategy

Here’s a quick list of some ways one could use social media in alignment with business strategy:

• Customer service
• Customer loyalty
• Product/Service education
• Lead generation
• Organic keyword marketing (SEO/SEM)
• Thought leadership
• Event & announcement promotion

There are, obviously, many more ways to use social media, but you get the idea. From these goals, you can develop strategies.

Social Media Strategies & Channels

Choosing the best social media tool or combination of tools that will be serve your objectives is the next step. Here are some examples:

• Customer service – blog about how you solve the most common customer service issues and invite others to submit their solutions.
• Customer loyalty – create a Facebook page that awards a “customer of the week” and invite your community to identify others who are successful product advocates.
• Product/Service education – write several how-to posts.
• Lead generation – create a LinkedIn group around the business need that you support and facilitate it with content that moves a prospect to a conversion point.
• Organic keyword marketing (SEO/SEM) – identify your target keywords and use them in your website, blog, twitter or any other communication that you generate so that you rate better for the search terms that matter to you.
• Thought leadership – author blog posts that add value to your industry and Twitter them to gain awareness as a trusted voice.
• Event & announcement promotion – develop Twitter festivals to generate buzz and anticipation around your events and use your blog as a glorified press release engine.

General Rules of Thumb

When using social media, here are some practices that if used, will help you to be successful.

• Pictures – are worth a 1,000 words. Include them in your blog posts and Facebook pages whenever possible.
• Hyperlinks – provide links to relevant information and to your customer often.
• Two-way communication – use sharethis.com and rss feeds to enable the flow of information to and from your website, blog, Facebook pages, etc.
• Calls to action – make simple and consistent calls to action and don’t confuse with too many links, pictures, or other distractions.
• Conversational style – be simple, concise and relaxed with your content so as to be inviting and conversational.
• Give – sharing is the name of the game and generating good karma builds your community; comment and participate with other thought leaders in a meaningful way.
• Transparency – remember that the best way to succeed in this space is to be open and real; in other words, admit to your mistakes and demonstrate how you overcome them; it is the best way to build trust, respect and loyalty.
• Personality – make sure your personality is present and accounted for; chances are this is why you’re successful in business and it is how your customers identify with you.

What Works For You?

Follow this method and it will get you off on the right foot and you’ll have the best chance at success. The beauty is that there is no right or wrong; it is finding what works for you and the individual needs of your organization.

Was this useful to you? What else did you want to share with everyone about your own successes? What’s worked or not worked for you?

Tags: Social Media Strategy
Posted in Wendy Troupe's Perspectives | View Comments

Making the Case for Social Media ROI: The Need for Measurement, Analysis, and Benchmarks Aligned with Business Objectives and Backed by a Comprehensive Social Media Strategy

Posted in Wendy Troupe's Perspectives by Wendy Troupe on July 1st, 2009

 

It seems that the natural evolution of social media occurring is taking shape in the marketplace. We’re beginning to round the first corner of acceptance and many businesses have begun to dabble in the space and for those who already have, they are talking about how it has helped them develop new methods of marketing their brands and connecting with their online communities.

“By now it’s a widely accepted marketing maxim that a brand isn’t simply what its marketing department says it is but what its customers say it is.” – AdAge

But companies are still tentative to make a solid commitment to integrating social media into their overall organizational structure including sales, marketing, PR, communications, customer service, advertising, etc. because it has yet to be segmented in a way that organizations can understand – with KPI’s (key performance indicators).

---

It seems that the natural evolution of social media occurring is taking shape in the marketplace. We’re beginning to round the first corner of acceptance and many businesses have begun to dabble in the space and for those who already have, they are talking about how it has helped them develop new methods of marketing their brands and connecting with their online communities.

“By now it’s a widely accepted marketing maxim that a brand isn’t simply what its marketing department says it is but what its customers say it is.” – AdAge

But companies are still tentative to make a solid commitment to integrating social media into their overall organizational structure including sales, marketing, PR, communications, customer service, advertising, etc. because it has yet to be segmented in a way that organizations can understand – with KPI’s (key performance indicators).

Mining social media content is like black gold. Nowhere else can you find candid and informative insights into the minds of your prospects and customers. When data can’t be gathered and assembled in a way that is meaningful to a business, the business intelligence can’t be recognized and its potential realized.

I see the problem as three-fold.

1. Lost in Translation: Although organizations have begun to accept that it is a viable space to occupy, social media is still generally misunderstood. It is not being quantified and qualified in a way that speaks to all organizational functions. It is confusing for a user to use these tools and understand the terminology behind the data like “engagement”, “reach”, “sentiment”. How does that translate into how your blog is performing, whether your SEO is benefitting from your Facebook page, and the like?
2. Real Business Intelligence: Today’s social media analytics do a good job at sorting through data but don’t do the analysis and pull what is relevant and meaningful out of the data. Social media strategy built upon this intelligence and includes insights around a product, brand, competitive positioning and the industry as a whole.
3. Metrics for ROI: Developing an ROI methodology based on key performance indicators (KPIs) that define intent, project conversion rates and expected value for each audience and each action for existing and new customers, uses rates and values to project expected revenue for each audience and normalizes by averaging expected values has to be part of the equation.

I recently read the MarketingProfs blog entry by Amber Nashlund “Kodak Clicks With Social Media Success” where she interviews key Kodak marketing representatives about their early adoption (2006) and success using social media to communicate, share information, build relationships with customers and more importantly, to increase and grow their audience awareness of the brand.

When asked about how they define their ROI, Kodak listed recognition in the marketplace, increased readership and customer feedback and measured success. While these are relevant qualitative success metrics that are translated into a business context, none reflect quantitative metrics like sales, new leads and qualified subscribers could also be measured, .

In this case, Kodak could develop ROI around a targeted campaign aligned with key metrics such as developing a campaign to increase authority. Kodak establishes success metrics around the amount of influential blogs linking to theirs, a pagerank relative to that of a competitor, the amount of organic traffic per month and the amount of traffic that converts to sales.

A benchmark is set, a strategy is developed using social media to achieve the authority, and individual goals are set as a measure of success (ie “N” pagerank by a certain date, “Nth” position in Pagerank relative to competitors by a certain date, “N%” of organic traffic per month, “$N per month attributable to referrals from the blog).

Everyone wants to have a general answer to the question “what is the ROI with social media” but like any return on investment, the business objective must be defined first, business intelligence must be gleaned from analysis of the social web, a social media strategy is developed based on this intelligence and business objective, the metrics and measurement are identified to determine its value and then it is measured against the investment required to execute. In other words, ROI.

Tags: Social Media Measurement
Posted in Wendy Troupe's Perspectives | View Comments