Small Business and Social Media – A BETTER Approach

Social media is growing like the proverbial weed, and getting the attention it deserves. I think even to the most casual observer the effects of social media not only on individuals, but small businesses as well, is apparent. Most small business owners realize a need to leverage social media to grow their businesses, but in my conversations with owners many do not know where to start, or how to get the most out of their social media experience.

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Should they Twitter, Plurk, Pownce? How about Myspace, Facebook, Bebo or LinkedIN? What they do know is that they must blog, digg, and Stumble to be successful right? And at the end of the day they'll want to post a video to YouTube, and upload photos to Flickr before going to bed.

With all these social media outlets to promote their business their only worry is when will they have time to work? My advice is this...the social media outlet is less important than what you do within the outlet. That's why the B.E.T.T.E.R approach works. You'll be concentrating your time and efforts in value adding activities regardless of what network you choose to be involved with.

For some small businesses that have taken the step to expand their social presence many feel like they aren't "doing it right", and for others they feel just having the presence is good enough. Both ideas are flawed, and if your business is approaching social media in either of these ways I hate to say it, but you're wasting your valuable time.

So what's the answer for small businesses to get the most out of the plethora of social media outlets out there? I'm going to suggest a B.E.T.T.E.R approach for small business owners which should help them expand into the opportunities social media is offering. It's exciting times for small business, never has a business been able to reach so many people, so quickly, and with such little investment other than time. Again the outlet you choose hardly matters, what you do within that outlet will determine your social media success.

Belong

• Belonging is crucial. Wherever you choose to hang your social media hat you have to remember you are now part of a community, and you need to belong in that community. You can't move to a nice neighborhood, be anti-social with your neighbors, and then expect to be invited to all the dinner parties. Social media is the same kind of neighborhood. You need to belong to the community, really care about what is going on with the members of that community, and make connections. Then and only then will you be invited to the block party.

Engage

• You must engage the community. Engagement comes in many ways, but it hardly ever comes from promoting your product or service. As a member of a social media community you have to ask yourself, "why would other members of this community care about me?" It doesn't have to be that you have an over the top personality so people are automatically drawn to you...it could be that you asked someone about their hobby, or made a genuine comment on a photo they posted, that's what makes people interested in you, it's the two way conversation that engages. No different in the real world, you most likely talk with your neighbors about their kids, hobbies, what they do on the weekend, than the fact they sell life insurance.

Transparent

• You have to be prepared to be transparent. This doesn't mean you need to post your company tax return on your Facebook page, but it does mean you will need to open up enough that people feel they know you. Again, they need to know you...the person behind the social media page, not the business persona. Many people know me as Small Biz Bee on the social sites I am a part of, but I am always willing to share information about myself, and sign my name to many of the post/comments that I make. It's this transparency people enjoy, t hey like to know that I talk about business, but can also share that I love the Portland Trailblazers, and am a die hard U of O fan, that transparency makes me real, and it is a key factor to social media success.

Trust

• You absolutely need to build trust to thrive in social media. This goes hand in hand with transparency, as the more transparent you are the more people will be willing to trust you. Never jeopardize the trust you are building. How important is trust? Here's an example:

• Britney Spears just tweeted this out to her followers on Twitter. Great, except we know that Britney rarely, if ever is really the one posting. Usually she has a publicist do it for her. Does this help build trust? Not really, like most I would take this with a grain of salt. On the other hand take somebody like social media expert Chris Brogan

• When he tweets this out to his followers we know for certain that it's him, he's taken the time to build that trust. Interesting to note who has more followers? Chris has over 19,000 while Britney, worldwide pop icon has around 7,800. Chris is more popular than Britney online, and it will stay that way as long as Britney keeps abusing our trust.

Explore

• Don't be afraid to explore. There really is no right or wrong with social media as long as your are following the guidelines I am setting out here. Too many business have the antiquated mindset that they can't just try something out to see if it works, because in the brick and mortar world they come from you just don't operate that way. Those barriers have been completely destroyed with social media. You'd never buy 100 shirts with pink elephants on them to try out at your retail clothing store. If they don't sell that would be a costly experiment. But you can post a picture of the shirt on Flickr, Tweet a pic out on Twitter, write a post about the shirt on your blog, and get feedback. You've risked nothing, and gotten invaluable information. Nobody will remember you as the weird shirt guy! The same goes with trying out different social sites. Get in their and see what resonates the most with you. Maybe you don't get Twitter, but Facebook makes sense to you. You'll never know what works for you until you get in there, explore, and try it all on for size.

React

• Social media is in a constant state of change as it evolves and matures. As a business owner spreading their wings in social media, you need to be ready to react to those changes. What if all of a sudden Facebook changes their business model and starts to attract only 16 year old girls? Great if you have a Facebook presence and your company sells Hanna Montana merchandise, but not so great if your company sells term life insurance. Be ready to react to changes, or shifts in the dynamics of the social world. What's nice about social media is it is perfectly okay to say "YouTube was great for me last week, but next week it looks like it is going to stink, I'm moving on".

Follow the above outline and I assure you you'll see your social media presence expand and your business benefit. Get out there, have some fun, explore...and BE YOURSELF!

Don't forget to take a $100 of our hard earned money just by sharing your story!

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Tagged as: BETTER Approch, small business, Social Media