Over the past week, there have been a few incidents of poor Social Media etiquette by some famous tweeters. First Rashard Mendenhall shared is feelings about the death of Osama Bin Laden, then later this week, Reggie Bush made a comment about his time off during the NFL lock out, then when he was ridiculed by his followers, said it was a joke, and everyone should have known it. What is most troubling for me about these incidents are that I am sure that Reggie Bush and Rashard Mendenahall both have highly paid PR consultants, who should have given both a lesson on what is appropriate and what is not on Social Media. In today’s Social Media world, whatever information you put out, has the chance to be picked up pretty quickly, and could have major repercussions. So how does a small business walk the line between giving their opinion while not causing a bad public relations mark on the company?
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Common Sense Social Media Etiquette
Why Small Business Owners Should Not Be Afraid of Social Media
As we move further along in 2011, more and more companies, especially small businesses, are beginning to realize the value that social media can add to their business. According to a recent report put together by Michael Stelzner of the Social Media Examiner, where he polled 3,342 business owners and analyzed their experiences with social media, more than 90 percent of marketers surveyed responded they view social media as being important to their business. And of that 90 percent, no-one has benefitted more than small businesses. Here are a few quick highlights from the report that show areas where small business owners saw greater benefits than their peers:
- The self-employed and small business owners were more likely to report new partnerships, with at least 59% noting a benefit.
- Small businesses were twice as likely to find qualified leads than other types of businesses.
- Forty-eight percent of self-employed and small business owners saw improved sales as a direct result of their social media efforts.
- The self-employed (59%) and small business owners (58%) were more likely than others to see reductions in marketing costs when using social media marketing.
Even with all this data supporting the benefits of social media, I still find a lot of opposition when speaking to small business owners about their use (or non use) of social media. Below you will find a few reasons why I believe small business owners should NOT be afraid of social media.
Reason #1: All good things take time
There are two objections I often hear about time, when it comes to social media. The first is that there isn’t enough time in the day, and the other is it takes too long to see results. Let’s take a look at both of these objections a little closer.
Social Media Strategy
No matter how often I say it, or how loud I yell, I still get told everyday from customers, I want a Facebook page, so that I can increase my sales. Social Media is not a magic pill just like any other marketing tool that we use to increase our business, it takes hard work and lot of sweat equity. The nice thing about most social media is that they truly are built on sweat equity and not money.
Would you start your business without a strategy? Just open the doors and hope that people will stop by and spend their money. That sounds ridiculous. Yet according to eMarketer“One-half of companies have no social strategy”, they are just hoping that someone finds them. This is still a new medium and is a chance to get out and play with it. This eMarketer report is looking at big companies, what an advantage for small business to jump ahead of the curve. Sit down and come up with a strategy and you are ahead of many larger companies. Social Media is like the wild west right now, if you have no strategy it can be very easy to get lost in all the confusion. Look at each component and see if it is in your companies interest to get involved. Most importantly have fun! The most importan component of Social Media is to be social interact with your customers, you will gain so much information along with building a great reputation.
The Secret Behind Social Media
This weekend I attended the Future Midwest Conference. The conference had two main objectives from my point of view. First was to learn how other companies are using different tools to make their business better, and secondly was to show the world that Michigan and the Midwest are tech savvy, and need to recognized. I found the conference very informational and found some great tools that I will be sharing with you in the future. Once I get a chance to play with them and show how they can really build your business. The one underlying theme that I thought really resonated with me, was that there are many really cool things going on with Social Media, but it still comes down to building and maintaining a relationships. We talk a lot about the online community, what is this online community that we speak of. When I was growing up I lived in a small city that had a tight community. People watched out for each other. To be considered part of the community, you had to add value. It is great if you have thousands of followers on Twitter or friends on Facebook, but if you are not adding value to them, what are you getting from this relationship. Social Media is still new and is growing up. I believe that in the future to be successful on Social Media, a person or business will be accountable for what they do in the community. As Chris Barger, the Global Director of Social Media for General Motors said in his presentation, “Social Media needs to use basic business practices”. You need to conduct yourself on-line just as you would with a face to face meeting. There is no magic elixir in Social Media, there is only hard work and sweat equity. What is your secret behind Social Media?
Six Pixels of Separation-Highly Recommended
When I founded NxtGen Marketing, I knew very little about how to actually code a website. Actually I never had any intention of building websites, I had planned on helping small businesses to use the power of the internet to strengthen their marketing plan. After only a few weeks, I came to realize that to help small businesses to succeed I needed to start at the basis for every good internet marketing plan, a website. Even though I had earned a bachelors degree and a MBA, I went back to community to college to begin my training in web development. As I have stated in an earlier post Education Goes A Long Way, I am a big believer in never stop working to educate yourself. This is especially true with social media, since it is so new and is changing on a daily basis. I went to my local bookstore a few weeks ago looking for a new book to read, and came across Mitch Joel’s “Six Pixels of Separation”.