Social Media: Hype or Must Have?

Where is the third most populous place on earth? It is not India or Indonesia, but Facebook. So with over 500million users and people spending a growing amount of time there every day, can you make money there as a small business owner?

I believe the answer is both yes and no. Sounds like I am sitting on the fence, but I am not. My limited experience of social media (SM) networks indicates that if you expect to make sales directly from its use, you are in for disappointment. Where SM works best is as a reputation builder and from there it is possible to leverage it to drive traffic to where you CAN convert interest into sales. Of course where reputations can be build they can also be destroyed and social networks will do this quicker than anything else. By their very nature they spread ideas and opinions very fast and generally have more credibility in the users eyes than traditional media devices.

If you are in the Business-to-Consumer market, I believe you MUST have SM networking in your marketing activity plan. Consumers are paying less and less attention to traditional advertising and more to what their friends are saying on Facebook or Twitter. The ROI is a bit harder to measure in the B2B space. How many overworked, financially stressed business owners spend much time twittering or on Facebook to find out information, or have an extra hour or two per day to update their profiles? I think the jury is still out, but never-the-less ALL business owners should up-skill themselves more in this area and quickly. The pace of change is increasing and who knows where it will lead. If you aren’t on the train now, when you finally can see how to leverage SM networks for your business, it may be too late to jump on. I believe social media networks should primarily be used to strengthen your BRAND in the marketplace and to increase the level of trust that customers and potential customers have in you. Provide interesting and useful content. Aim to help people and educate them. As the level of trust increases, so too should the referrals, inquiries and conversion rates at the pointy end of the sales process. Or so the theory goes.

So how should a business owner implement SM network tactics? The first thing to do is STOP. Take a bit of time to PLAN your activities and make sure you are doing it for the right reasons, know who your target is and how best to engage with them. Some questions to ask yourself:

1. What are the needs of my business?

2. What am I using the site for?

3. Whose attention am I trying to get

4. Which sites do I want to take on?

5. What will be the hub of my SM network and what are the spokes?

6. How can I drive traffic to my website or my place of business?

7. Who’s going to manage my page/blog/twitter/etc?

8. Who’s going to be the personality of my SM posts?

Once you have answered these questions you are a bit better prepared to start monitoring the SM networks you are likely to use and then jump in with your own activities. Then like any marketing activity, monitor, review and improve what you do. Get into it.

For help with your small business marketing needs, contact the Andy Burrows for a FREE no obligation review of your business at Icon Business Solutions