What All Small Businesses Should Know About Social Media
Here’s what I learned from Roohi Moolla—social media expert, founder of socialbiznow.com, and author ofFacebook in 14 Days! A Practical Guide to Get Your Business Online (available on Amazon)—about the best ways for small businesses to utilize social media.
What Small Businesses Should Know About ALL Social Media
Many people don’t see the larger picture when they look at social media. Social media has three legs: the business aspect, the technical base, and the marketing component.
One of the biggest challenges for small businesses with social media is that they think of it as being free. The tools are free, but in order to implement social media you need to apply resources, and you need to have a specific strategy, concrete goals, and a roadmap of where you’re going to go. There will also be technical issues when you implement your social media strategies. The better understanding you have of what’s actually involved and what you want to get out of it, the more you’ll get out of using social media.
The first step is an audit, an inventory of what you have currently. Let’s say you have a Facebook page. Does it provide content, beyond getting someone to like the page? Or maybe you have a website. Does it work for what you want? Does it drive enough traffic your way? Is it converting people into customers? These are the kinds of questions involved in an audit. Then, based on the audit, make some measurable goals. For example: I want to have this many comments on Faceboook in this amount of time. Then create your road map, showing what you’re going to do, when, and where.
People who are still struggling with the concept of social media may not understand the power of sharing. But that’s what everyone in marketing is getting so excited about. Moolla calls it MLM—multi-level marketing, using the power of social media. When you have a piece of content someone else likes, they will share it to everyone who likes and follows them, and this will continue on in a pyramid effect. Ultimately what you’re doing is leveraging the power of sharing so that social media acts as your marketing arm or sales tool. And that part is certainly free. The resources required to build the content aren’t free, but that MLM on your behalf is free, and that is extremely powerful.
Content is the core pillar of what social media is all about: quality content, authentic content, content that people will find interesting and engaging. If this kind of content isn’t there, people won’t follow or share. You should focus on building content in an area where you’re an expert. You can build a real niche, which is also really good for Search Engine Optimization. You build your level of expertise and your information so that people will share it. But it must be engaging and entertaining; entertainment is really important to getting shared.
Let’s say you have a website. You could add a blog to your website, which promotes you as an expert. And you could ask guest bloggers to contribute. (For example, if you’re an organic gardener, you could ask a local winery to recommend wine pairings for your recipes on your blog). It’s really important to partner with other people and share information. When you share, link, partner, and engage in conversations, listeners find that more interesting than you just talking about your business, and they are more likely to share with others. Again you get that opportunity to market, not just to your target market but to those of the people you partner with. And you’re really building up other people. Social media is about engaging with actual people, which is a really different way of doing business from the old style of interruption marketing.
On social media, you’re letting go to some extent, taking a risk, and exposing your brand. This is actually easier for small businesses, who already have that one-to-one, personal relationship to the customer. Bigger businesses have a more controlled brand, and it’s harder for them to let go. On social media, regardless of the size of your business, you really need to be authentic, know who you are, and be true to your own voice. Then again, you also need contingency plans and mitigation plans in place, in case the conversation starts to go in a direction you don’t want, so you can step in and redirect the conversation.
Even if you don’t have the resources to participate in every social channel, at least register an account on each of the biggies—YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook—using your business name. Claim your space. You can’t do all of them, but claim your stake in the big ones. Which one or two are most important to you depends on your type of business. (Going back to the organic farmer, she might make videos teaching her recipes and put them up on her YouTube channel, but she might not use Twitter as much for her audience.) The decisions a small business makes about their social networks should depend on their goals and strategy, time and resources.
In your social media strategy, think about integration and syndication. Integration is posting on one network and having it automatically show up elsewhere; syndication is about publishing in one place and having it show up in many places automatically. There are a lot of tools available for this.
Regardless of what how your business decides to approach social media, you absolutely have to have a website that’s up-to-date and current, and a blog. Nothing else can replace or substitute for these things.
What Small Businesses Should Know About Facebook in Particular
Studies show that the kinds of small businesses who do well on Facebook are in fields like retail, entertainment, food, movies, music, photography, games. If you’re a banker or a realtor, you need to have a different kind of strategy for Facebook. It’s not so much about entertainment, so you need to be more imaginative.
98% of people who click “Like” will never return on their own. But if you are posting interesting content, it will appear in people’s streams after they have Liked your page.
On Facebook, it takes effort to build content over time. If you’re just going to post once a week, there’s no point. The post won’t be seen. You have to post regularly, several times a day. Businesses shouldn’t be afraid of this, as long as they have interesting content to share. If someone is going to be annoyed, they can hide you. But it’s very unlikely, because your posts are among hundreds of others scrolling by.
People on Facebook have 160-180 friends on average. EdgeRank for Facebook is about your engagement level with someone else; if we engage regularly, I’m more likely to see your posts rise to the top of my screen. This is how Facebook uses algorithms to filter the content we see. So if businesses don’t provide content that people engage with, it won’t even be seen.
Personal profiles and business profiles are being blended on the new Facebook timeline. So look at how you can leverage the timeline to achieve your goals.
Remember that Facebook changes all the time. You don’t own what you have on Facebook. It cannot and should not replace your website.
Here’s an example of two large businesses handling their Facebook pages very differently. Goldman Sachs has a Facebook page that’s completely uncontrolled. A lot of the comments are unfavorable. A community has formed, there are opinions and conversations happening, and by failing to participate, the company is completely missing an opportunity to engage with their community. By contrast, real fans started a Coca-Cola Facebook page. When the company found out about it, they brought them into the fold of their marketing strategy and brought the page founders, and all the followers, along. That is the way to go.
Roohi Moolla Take-Away: Absolute Musts
You must post regularly with engaging content.
You must have an up-to-date website and blog, and you must pay attention to them. This is where you can build your brand and control your content. Unlike your Facebook page, it really belongs to you.
You must pay attention to your customers. The opportunity is there now today to find out more about your customers than you ever could before. Don’t miss it!
