Social Media Strategies for Small Business by Rich Brooks
December 3, 2008
12:17 pm | 1 recommendation | 1 comment
Recently I received an email from someone who had been reading some of my recent articles on Facebook. He saw that I had an open invitation to friend me on Facebook, and he wondered whether he wanted to start using his established Facebook account to connect with business associates, or create a new account specifically for that purpose.
Well, the answer for Facebook is easy: Facebook's terms don't allow yout to create multiple accounts, nor do they allow you to create one for your company. (For advice on how to get your company onto Facebook, check out my recent article Facebook for Small Business and Entrepreneurs.)
However, outside of Facebook, the rules of social media are murkier. Personally, I think that having two accounts on any one social media site would add too much stress to an already busy social media calendar. And where do you draw the line between business and friendship?
I've heard from Facebook experts who say you shouldn't put anything on your Facebook profile that you wouldn't want on the front page of the New York Times (or Fast Company magazine, for that matter.)
Well, maybe they're not living as interesting lives as you and me.
Although I believe a life/work balance is important, I no longer see them as opposite sides of some giant scale. Rather, there are elements of my personal life that infiltrate my work day, and parts of my work that follow me home. This has even gotten more crazy now that my wife and I work together.
However, I don't see this as a bad thing. As long as I'm enjoying what I do for work, as long as it fulfills a need for me and I'm passionate about it, I expect there to be a lot more overlap between life/work. Social media is just breaking down that wall faster.
There are some tools in Facebook and other social media sites that let you determine your levels of privacy, allowing you to share your kids' photos with friends and family, but not with business associates. Take advantage of them.
However, as small business owners/participants, one of our strong selling points is our accessibility. Social media plays to our strengths in this regard. So go ahead and let everyone know that you're excited for the upcoming Spiderman musical, or that you're heading out to your kids recital. It makes you seem more real.
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November 14, 2008
01:31 pm | 1 recommendation | Be the first to comment
Once you start "living" in more than one social media space, the idea of updating your status across multiple Web sites gets tedious fast.
However, Ping.fm is a tool that can update your status across dozens of popular social media sites. Once you sign up for Ping.fm you'll be able to add your login credentials for a host of popular social media sites. The list keeps growing, but it includes such heavyweights as:
And a couple dozen others. It's also a great resource for you to decide which new sites to check out.
Ping.fm will automatically blast to all the social media sites you've set up, but you can include some "triggers" that will send (or refrain from sending) your updates to select sites.
The only frustration I've had using Ping.fm -- which isn't their fault -- is that LinkedIn cuts their status updates at a lot shorter than the common 140 characters. I've had more than one person alert me that I made a mistake with my last LinkedIn update.
Come on, LinkedIn, get with the program!
That small complaint aside, Ping.fm is an essential tool for any self-respecting social media marketer. Now, if I could only get something like Ping.fm to help manage my real world life.
Rich Brooks
Self-Respecting Social Media Marketer
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November 4, 2008
08:28 am | 1 recommendation | Be the first to comment
This month's flyte log (our email newsletter) has arrived and the subject is Six Simple Steps for Getting Business from LinkedIn.
Although I've had a LinkedIn account for a few years, I really didn't use it much except when someone I knew found me and asked me to join their network. More recently my activity picked up as LinkedIn added features like Answers and Groups, and this past week LinkedIn added a bunch of Applications to further enhance their services.
If you've been passive in your LinkedIn usage lately, or don't have an account at all, it may be time to revisit LinkedIn. Start by reading Six Simple Steps for Getting Business from LinkedIn.
I also was interviewed late last week by Dan Schawbel of the Personal Branding Blog in a post called It's Time for You to Become a Master Brand Using LinkedIn.
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October 27, 2008
07:38 am | 1 recommendation | Be the first to comment
In the hip world of social media, LinkedIn sometimes feels like John Hodgman's PC in the Mac vs. PC ads. It's Facebook in khakis. As hip as business casual. Unlike other social media sites, you can't upload photos, you can't post videos, and you can't trick out your page. Of course, this can also be seen as its biggest strength.
For a while, LinkedIn was little more than a tool to post your resume online. Sure, some head hunters became power users and leveraged the network, but for most of us, it was just about accepting or rejecting plaintive missives that read:
I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.
- Your ex-employee / One-time vendor / College dormmate / Random Dude
Recently, however, I have been getting more into LinkedIn because of Answers and Groups. Answers allows you to ask questions or answer other people's questions in your area of authority. (Hopefully.) You can learn and help others while establishing your expertise and connecting with other people.
Groups is another tool that won't set the Web 2.0 world on fire, but is a nice addition. You can join an established group or create your own. Groups can be alumni associations, or be geographically oriented, or be between members who share a religious or political affiliation. As a group moderator you can control who gets to join your group as well.
The Groups come with discussion forums you can enable, and more recently a News feature where members can post news stories or articles for group discussion. Which is a hell of a lot like discussion forums, but with an upload feature.
If you've been using LinkedIn on autopilot for a while, it may be time to jump back in. Ask a question, or check out the Groups Directory to see if there are other professionals who live in your area or share your concern about sustainable business practices. And if one doesn't exist, create it.
Rich Brooks
Find Me On LinkedIn
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October 20, 2008
07:43 pm | 1 recommendation | Be the first to comment
The gym I belong to has an inspirational message posted that changes weekly. Today there was a quote from Barbara Hall from her book A Summons to New Orleans that ended:
Look. Listen. Choose. Act.
And I thought, "that's the perfect way to explain how to get started with social media."
Social media is a term that covers a lot. Blogs and podcasts certainly fall under that umbrella term. It also includes social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook or MySpace. It covers social bookmarking sites like Delicious, Digg and Reddit. Don't forget photo sharing sites like Flickr, or video sharing sites like YouTube. And my current addiction: the microblogging platform known as Twitter.
In fact, as soon as I'm done with this post I'm going to go over to my Twitter account and annouce that I've started blogging at Fast Company.
Look. There are so many social media sites and more coming every day; it's impossible for any one person or even a business to be active in all of them. As a small business owner, I know how much time it takes to runa business, manage people, bring in sales, balance the books, find good health care coverage, etc., etc.
The first step is to look at some of the more popular social media sites out there and think about whether they would be a good fit for you, and whether your customers and prospects may be hanging out there.
Listen. Many marketers and small businesses hear about social media and think it's a get rich quick opportunity. They jump in with both feet, pushing their products on Facebook or Twitter, and wonder why no one's buying.
Social media is not about making the sale. It's about building and strengthening relationships. When you find a few social media scenes to check out, listen more and talk less. Interruption marketing doesn't work in the social media arena. By listening you can find out what people think about your company, your products, your competition and your industry.
Choose. Like I mentioned before, you can't be active at every social media site, and you will only get out of these endeavors what you put into them. Better to be active in just one or two, than a tourist in a dozen (or a hundred.)
Although you may enjoy the "social" aspect of social media, as a business you may want to make sure you concentrate your efforts where your customers are. If it's at Facebook, start there. If it's Twitter, get tweeting. If it's MySpace, God help you. Or, ask your teenager to guide you.
Act. Once you learn the acceptable types of behavior at your social media sites of choice, get involved. Post images, videoes and links. Answer questions. Be helpful. Don't try and sell. If you provide value in your posts, or Tweets, or videos, you will attract people to you.
And that's just where you want to be.
In this blog I plan to explore social media and talk about how small businesses can use social media to understand their customers and prospects, provide service, and ultimately grow their business.
Social media now is like search engines in the late nineties: people who get it and utilize it will have a competitive advantage over their competition.
If you have any questions about social media: the tools, guidelines, personal experience, please share them here and we'll all learn more together.
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