PRESENTED BY

SOCIAL MEDIAFOR SMALL BUSINESSES

Ann Handley

Ann is Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs and the co-author of

“Content Rules“

2

Hmm… a single most effective way? I’m not sure there’s one effective

way to use social media, but there is one key: Consistency. Unlike other

kinds of marketing, social media requires ongoing and active

participation, and the communities you build there require consistent

nurturing. The most successful companies using social media don’t have

a one-and-done campaign mentality, but understand that it’s an ongoing

commitment.Think of your social media efforts as less like marketing, too,

and more like publishing. In other words, think about growing your

audience and following that by providing them with interesting, solid,

enjoyable, and sometimes fun information that will interest them. It’s not

about pushing your messages out. It’s about connecting through content:

Curating and creating content, amplifying that content through social

channels, and then refining and responding to your audience. Which, by

the way, is exactly what publishers do.

Brad Feld

Brad has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur for over

twenty years. He has co-founded Foundry Group, Mobius Venture

Capital, and Intensity Ventures. Brad is also a co-founder

of TechStars.

3

If you are the founder of a small business, It’s really easy to use social

media – just do it. As the founder, you’ve got to dive in and embrace it

fully and authentically. It’s not something you can hand off to someone

else or delegate – you have to incorporate social media into the voice of

your company, which has to come from you.

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Deborah Ng

Deborah Ng is Conference Director for BlogWorld NY and LA

conferences and is also the Author of Online Community

Management for Dummies which is due out later this year. Deb

publishes a blog at Kommein

4

Smart small business owners use social media to build communities

around their brand in order to have honest discussions about their

product or service. By offering rewards, and perks, and gathering

feedback and acting upon said feedback, the small business owners

aren’t only learning what drives their community, but they also create

advocates who are happy to recommend the brand to others.

Francine Hardaway

Francine is co-founder of Stealthmode Partners and is an

accomplished consultant, speaker and writer and blogs at

Stealthmode Blog.

5

There is no single most effective way for a small business to use social

media because there is no such thing as a typical small business. If you

look at the way the category of small business is routinely sliced and

diced, it could be by SIC or NIC codes or by number of employees. But if

you talk to small businesses about what they do, they categorize

themselves by what they do: I am a doctor, I am a pool cleaner, I am a

welder, I am a web developer. And many small businesses are fiercely

local.For any of these, the best start is monitoring. Not for your brand,

probably unknown, but for generic things people are talking about in your

field: lousy landscapers who leave the gate open to let the dog out,

people who want fences that don’t block their view. Dry cleaning that isn’t

poisonous. Web sites that have e-commerce carts. Getting customers to

your coffee shop in the afternoons.Look for 1) ways your business can

address common problems better. 2) ways you can offer better customer

service 3) ways to connect personally to potential customers in your

geography.And, BTW, don’t expect miracles. Social media is not free: it’s

a time suck. And it doesn’t make sales. It does build brand. But that takes

personal participation over years.

Gini Dietrich

Gini is CEO of Chicago based Arment Dietrich and is an

accomplished, author, speaker and communicator. Also, Gini’s

famous blog, SpinSucks, is known web-wide

6

The most effective way a small business can use social media is really

three-fold: 1) Use Google alerts to keep yourself updated on what’s being

said about you, your business, the industry, and your top three

competitors. It’s a free tool and it’s a must have for any digital program

planning. 2) Learn the basics of search engine optimization and how to

use social, in combination with SEO, to increase your Google juice. 3)

Develop a really smart content marketing program. We talk a lot about

this at Spin Sucks, but every company eventually will become a media

company. If you can get there now, before anyone else does, you’ll be a

good 18-24 months ahead of your competition.

Jamillah Warner

Jamillah Warner is a poet with a passion for business and is the

Marketing Coordinator at Nobuko Solutions

7

Use social media to stay top of mind with your community.A lot of small

businesses struggle with ways to monetize their social media efforts. But

using it to meet your people where they are (on Facebook, on Twitter, on

LinkedIn, etc) helps them to remember and reconnect with you, more

often. In business, reconnecting leads to that repeat sale. If you guys are

in the same social network, then your feed shows up in their social

stream. Your solutions, tips, advice, rewards, contests keeps you in the

loop. Plus, you get to overhear what they love and hate–and feedback is

always good for business.We trust what we know. Social media gives

people a chance to “know” you differently and remember you consistently.

And it gives you the chance to “know” your clients.

Jill Foster

Live Your Talk founder and videoblogger Jill Foster

(twitter.com/jillfoster) is a speaker coach for people in technical and

social tech fields (or as some say: a speaker coach for techies).

She’s coached CEOs, entrepreneurs, and innovators makin’ it

happen for stages like TED and TEDx, Ignite, and other keynotes.

8

What was most liberating when first diving into social media for my

business was to make the mental decision that perfection was not the

goal, just consistent participation. So to that end, I learned and listened

regularly on a few social networks when starting out. Then experimenting

with content creation began to unfold. And I eventually became a big

proponent of video. It was (still is!) a natural fit for my work as a speaker

coach and how I want to ultimately engage with & teach my client

community.For small businesses getting started, it’s an exciting time in

social media. In your authentic way, I suggest greeting the social space

with a sense of discovery for who you serve and a willingness to

experiment.

John Gruber

John Gruber is an Apple enthusiast and writer of Daring Fireball

9

The most effective way a small business can use social media is to be

honest and plainspoken about news and information of interest to

customers. That’s it.

Kristi Hines

Kristi Hines is a freelance writer for Future Simple’s Growth

University and is a blogging and social media enthusiast. She’s also

a blogs at Kikolani

10

The most effective way small businesses can use social media is to utilize

it as a way to engage with their audience. Social media isn’t all about

marketing and sales – it’s also about customer support and service. It can

be a great way to simply get content to your clients and potential clients

to help them learn more about your industry as a whole. Overall, social

media can help you build relationships that lead to stronger brand loyalty

among your clients.

Liz Strauss

Liz is a Brand Strategist, Community Builder, Founder of SOBCon.

She blogs at LizStrauss.com and Successful-Blog.com

11

Social media offers small business a chance to share expertise with new

customers when they’re searching for answers and even before problems

occur. Sharing information via social tools can attract people who share

the same values. With a clear shareable message that invites people to

participate, a small business can reach out to customers and connect in

more ways than ever before, responding with speed, ease, and meaning

that builds lasting relationships online and off.

Michael Stelzner

Michael Stelzner, founder of SocialMediaExaminer.com and author

of Launch

12

The most effective way a small business can use social media is to focus

on developing a content strategy (ideally in the form of a blog). People

love sharing great content on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Let your

content become the reason people choose to come back time and again

to your site.

Missy Ward

Missy co-founded Affiliate Summit and FeedFront magazine, is co-

publisher of Revenews and also runs Suze Orman’s social

networking site, Money Minded Moms. You can find more about all

that Missy does on her website

13

Social media marketing is very noisy, so unless you figure out a way to

cut through the hubbub, your ROI will be DOA. The best way to do this is

to first figure out what you want to achieve by using social media

(branding, commerce, customer service, employee communications, etc.)

and develop a focused strategy (content, budget, resources, etc.) before

you even bother jumping in.The important thing to remember is that no

matter what you’re going to use social media for, your audience is not

going to grant you permission to engage them if you don’t share in their

interests. Be the type of person that they want to connect with by listening

to their needs and providing reliable and relevant information they’re

looking for.

Seth Godin

Seth Godin has written 13 books (all bestsellers) that have been

translated into more than 30 languages – his latest book is Poke

The Box.

14

The answer is that a small business should be run as if everyone else

had a social media account and you don’t

Steve Garfield

Steve Garfield is the author of Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to

Building Your Business, founder of Boston Media Makers, and host

of SteveGarfield.tv

15

The most effective way small business can use social media is to think of

it as having a conversation with friends and friends you haven’t met

yet.When I post to twitter, I’m sharing things that I’m interested in. Lots of

times I’m making comments on the news, or or forwarding interesting blog

posts. As it relates to video, I’ll share news on new cameras, new

software, and new websites. For me, twitter is a place where what used to

be a one-to-one conversation is public. Many of my followers retweet my

posts and that exposes them to friends I haven’t met yet.When I follow

people on Twitter, I get to see shared moments of their lives, and get a

sense of who they are. It’s a great way to see what people are like, and

can help you decide if you might want to work with them in the future.The

bottom line is that social media should be all about social first, and

business second. From time to time I’ll post about my book, Get Seen,

and about my live show SteveGarfield.tv. Those posts though, are

probably around 1% of what I am sharing on social media.Businesses are

made up of people, and social media is people.

Susan Payton

Susan Payton is a writer for FutureSimple Growth University. She is

also the President of Egg Marketing & Communications

16

Small businesses first need to understand the goal of social media. It’s

not to generate overnight sales; it’s to build trust with current and future

customers. Engage in conversations, share links (even if they’re not your

own), ask questions and respond to comments about your brand. Social

media is only one channel of your marketing strategy, but it’s an important

one. Use it to find out what customers want and what they don’t want.

Learn from what your competitors are doing in this space and do it better!

Viveka von Rosen

Viveka is a social media enthusiast, speaker & trainer. She also

hosts #LinkedInChat & is the author of Linked Into Business. She

also runs the social media resource Smart Blonde Media

17

I think people get very caught up in the numbers game – even I

recommend creating as many connections on LinkedIn, “Likes” on

Facebook and Followers on twitter as possible. I believe the mistake

many people make is thinking that huge networks with slick automated

functions is the way to do social media. The reason social media works is

the people. If we focus solely on building giant networks but forget to

create a genuine relationship with some of those connections, then we’ll

never attract the people to eventually purchase our product or service.

Recently I’ve become excited about the Social CRM apps being

developed – hoping one of them will help me create a system where I am

regularly reaching back out to the very individuals who helped position

me in the first place. To answer the question directly – what is one of the

most effective way a small business can use social media? To connect

and build relationships with their ideal customer base, one person at a

time.

Yvonne DiVita

Yvonne is a very long time blogger, author, Co-Founder at

BlogPaws and President at Windsor Media Enterprises. Yvonne

blogs at Lip-Sticking Blog

18

There is no way around it – you must first understand why: Why are you

venturing into blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc. Is it

primarily to increase sales or leads? Is it for branding purposes? Is it to

learn the tools as you go? The goal of social media is to be social. If you

are not prepared to make friends and connect with your customers on a

real-time basis, you will find social media frustrating and time-consuming.

To be most effective, learn everything you can about the tools – test them

over time – and devote an hour or two a day to participating, without

worrying about ROI. The ROI will be apparent, over time. To put that in

perspective – what’s the ROI of your cell phone? Apply your answer to

social media.

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