Smeb release

BUSINESSBLOGS.CO.NZ PRESENTS

Social Media for Small Business

A guide for small business owners who just want facts not HYPE

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Confucius

S O C I A L M E D I A F O R S M A L L B U S I N E S S

About this Book
Everywhere you look people are writing about social media: newspapers, magazines,
bloggers, news channels, in-flight magazines, books and even your mum.

After reading a few of these articles you will notice the same key theme coming
through; if your business is not using social media then you are missing out on
massive opportunities.

I have created this eBook to help the small business owner make sense of social media
and clearly separate the parts of “social media” that could work for your business and
help you identify the mindless copycat ranting of people that call themselves “experts”
who do more damage than good.

This eBook comprises of our own strategy for using social media that works for our
clients and us. Additionally the eBook contains a selection of articles that provide a
wealth of information for the small business owner.

However the first thing I want to cover off with you is the importance of not panicking
and thinking that your business will fail if your not using social media right now.

You may remember the over-hyped, near religious ranting, of the ecommerce 90’s
when people were preaching that most shopping would be done online and there
would only be a few bricks and mortar businesses left in the world.

Ha! Someone forgot to tell Wal-Mart and the other megamalls around the world and
all the local stores we all love and cherish.

What I have found is that when something new and shiny comes out you have the
early adopters who come in, claim it as the only future we have and then start
panicking everyone else.

So settle in and read this eBook before you start spending any money and time on
social media. I do hope you will gain a little more information that helps you to make
better decisions about how you can utilize social media for your business.


About the Author
Marc Krisjanous is the technical lead at Mobilize
Mail Limited responsible for CampaignHub™
(http://www.CampaignHub.co.nz) which provides
social media solutions for New Zealand businesses.

Marc has been in the Internet “game” for over 10
years so far and loves the challenge of new and
evolving technologies.

About CampaignHub™
CampaignHub™ provides social media solutions for New Zealand businesses starting
at strategy right through to the tools used to attract, filter and identify real prospects
for your business.

CampaignHub™ is also unique in the market insofar as it helps clients grow their
networks by leveraging off CampaignHub’s own extensive social network
communities.

“We set a higher bar for this Campaign and reached it. It’s amazing how much can
be achieved in two weeks and how easy it is to measure ROI.

The CampaignHub team took care of everything once again and they were great at
coaching me through the phases including post campaign follow up.

Running these campaigns is going to be a regular occurrence for us – thank
goodness Mobilize Mail created CampaignHub for our business.”

Josie – Rodney Wayne, Wellington (Client’s testimonial)


Social Media for Small
Business
Copyright © 2011 Mobilize Mail. Ltd.

Notice of Rights
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written
permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations included in critical
articles or reviews.

Notice of Liability
The author and publisher have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of the
information herein. However, the information contained in this book is sold without
warranty, either express or implied. The authors nor it’s dealers or distributors, will be
held liable for any damages caused either directly or indirectly by the instructions
contained in this book, or by the software or hardware products described herein.


Table of Contents
About CampaignHub™ ............................................................. i
Social Network Versus Social Media ........................................ 3
Outbound Marketing ................................................................. 4
Inbound Marketing ................................................................... 6
The 3 Most Important Social Networks Your Business Needs a
Presence In .............................................................................. 8
Social Media is NOT Free ...................................................... 14
The BIGGEST mistake you can make online ......................... 18
You need a Home Base ......................................................... 19
Knowledge For Greater Email & Social Media Success ......... 24
Choose Relevant Content For Higher ROI ............................. 25
Is Social Media Too Expensive for Small Business? .............. 27
Vital Tips for New Zealand Businesses New to Social Media . 29


1
Chapter

What is Social Media?
In this chapter I cover the basics of “Social Media” and introduce the 3
most important social networks you should consider for your business.

Social Network Versus Social Media
The first item on the agenda is to clarify the term “social media”.
This term has been used since the beginning but in fact when
people talk about “social media” they are normally taking about
social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

“Social media” initially was the term used to describe the
technology that is used to create social connections or community.
However once mainstream media started talking about Facebook,
Twitter and other online communities they used “social media”
instead of the correct term “social network”.

Anyway – “social media” sounds less nerdy than “social network”.

The term “Social Media” is new but what it represents is as old as
the Internet itself. Before our children talked about Twitter,
Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube, StumbleUpon, Digg Bebo
and the other 100’s1 more there was Internet Relay Chat (IRC),
forums, bulletin boards and of course good-old email.

Indeed, even before the likes of Facebook and Twitter some of us
were already communicating with each other using globally
connected computers as the latest communication channel.

A common definition for the term is:

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites


“Social Media” is the use of technology combined with social
interaction to create or co-create value.2

So if we have been socializing since the dawn of time why is “social
media” currently having huge amounts of press coverage?

Well it’s because you and I are not listening anymore.

Outbound Marketing
Most businesses attempt to disrupt in order to gain your attention.
Here are some examples of how businesses attempt to disrupt:

• Loud TV commercials full of terrible color combinations,
big letters and head-banging background music.

• Telemarketers who have an amazing knack of ringing
people just when they have relaxed in front of the TV.

• Overly aggressive shop assistants who won’t be able to
afford to eat if they don’t sell you something.

• Adverts injected into TV programs, radio shows, video
games, music, movies etc…

• Pumping hypnotic music and familiar smells into the shop
that spark happy memories of your childhood.

• Letterbox mail (direct un-addressed mail).

• And all of our favorite, unwanted emails (SPAM).

• Let’s not forget a common reason – straight-out lying.

Let me ask you a question (it’s really two)…

When reading the newspaper (the real paper version) do you ever
notice and read the adverts?

What about reading articles on a website – do you read the
advertisements?

No?

2 http://www.ducttapemarketing.com


Well that is how most businesses try to get noticed - by disrupting
long enough to get you to take action or at least remember their
brand.

The term used for this type of marketing is called “Outbound
Marketing” and it’s failing fast. Viewers are creating walls to block
out the disruption and we are using technology to do the job.

How many anti-disruption devices do you use?

• SPAM filters for unwanted email.

• The rubbish bin for direct mail.

• Caller ID for telemarketers.

• Visual blind spots for advertisements online and offline.

• The mute button or services such as TiVo for TV ad breaks.

• Ignoring or abusing shop assistants.

The image below shows visually how businesses try and disrupt in
order to get some ‘sell’ time with you. However since this style of
marketing has been going on far too long, we have now created
walls to block or filter out the disruption.

Source: http://www.BusinessBlogs.co.nz


In fact some of us are so sick of being disrupted that we have
turned to social networks to connect and be entertained, and
ignore traditional media e.g. newspapers, TV etc…

How many of us see our own children spend more time in front of
the computer than the TV? Maybe you and your friends are
spending a bit more time checking out the latest funny videos on
YouTube or trying to connect with lost love interests on Facebook?

So if we all have put up walls to block disruption and now spend
more time using social networks such as YouTube and Facebook
how can businesses connect with you?

Well the answer is simple – they also use YouTube, Facebook and
other sites to connect. But what is so powerfully different now is
that you and I are in control of the connection NOT the business.

It is extremely hard for a business to disrupt consumers in the
social networks because they first have to get permission via
“friendship requests”. The control is now in the consumer’s hands
to accept or deny a connection with a business.

Even if you give them a chance and accept their request to connect,
if they disappoint you, it takes just one click from you and they are
gone from your network.

This change in how we connect is a major challenge for businesses
and slowly but surely some of them are waking up to find that the
only way to spend time with you is to gain your trust and respect,
so you accept their requests to join their network.

This process of gaining your trust and respect so you listen is called
“Inbound Marketing”.

Inbound Marketing
Consider this scenario - you’re at a party chatting with close friends
and out of the blue a stranger joins your group and starts handing
out their business card and starts talking about their business.

What is your reaction?

Well I guess it would be to smile politely, slip the business card in
your pocket and hope like hell he or she leaves the group as fast as
they arrived.


This scenario is a good example of “Outbound Marketing” using
disruption and ultimately generating a negative result.

How “Inbound Marketing” works in this same situation is the
stranger would very politely introduce herself to the group saying
she is interested in the group’s discussion. When the opportunity
presents itself the new group member would provide her input to
assist with the enjoyment and knowledge of the discussion. On no
account would she try to sell you anything!

When the new group member leaves the group what would you all
think about her? Would you want to know her name and look for
her at the next party?

This is “Inbound Marketing”. A business provides advice and value
to you for nothing in return. Overtime you gain trust and respect
for this business and when you do need to buy what they sell, 9 out
of 10 times you will go with them instead of their competitors. You
might even feel so good about the business that you refer your
friends to them.

The image below shows visually how “Inbound Marketing” works.
Businesses use social networks to connect with you in a manner
much like our party example. They add value and enter into
discussions with you in order to help out. Overtime, out of interest
or need, you will contact them and ultimately buy from them or
refer your friends.

Source: http://www.BusinessBlogs.co.nz


As you can see “Inbound Marketing” uses social networks and
services to connect with prospects and clients. This is why you see
a lot of articles about how businesses should use social media.

However, as a business there are many ways to really “shoot
yourself in the foot” in social networks. Just like any real-life party
there are defined social rules and etiquette to follow.

The 3 Most Important Social Networks Your
Business Needs a Presence In
In this section I am going to provide a basic overview of the 3 most
important social networks for your business.

My advice is to ignore all others as they have fewer people
compared to the ‘big 3’ and with limited time to invest in social
networks your business wants maximum bang for your buck.

To help explain how each of the big 3 social networks work I will
use a “real-world” analogy that I hope you can relate to.

So here we go – the most important social networks for business.

LinkedIn – “Ladies and Gentlemen’s Business Club”

Take yourself back 100 years and imagine being invited to the
“Ladies and Gentlemen’s Business Club” for a polite afternoon tea
to discuss worldly events. The dress code is dinner suit and cocktail
dress and all discussion is extremely polite and in no way
confrontational. All unpleasant issues are discussed elsewhere.

In my opinion this sums up LinkedIn really well.

To have any success in LinkedIn you must be on your absolute best
behavior and act at all times in a most professional manner. If you
get this right you can be introduced to some very exciting
opportunities and networks.

Some of my best opportunities and contacts from social networks
have come via LinkedIn but it’s not for everyone. LinkedIn is best
for business consulting and specialist services. It’s not great for
business owners looking for customers for their flower shop or
hardware store.

You also have to spend a reasonable amount of time connecting
and chatting in LinkedIn before anyone starts remembering you.


Out of the top 3 social networks it requires the most effort and is
best suited for consulting and services businesses.

Twitter – “Where is your soapbox?”

Twitter is the latest sweetheart in “social media” and in my opinion
the least understood so I will devote a bit more to explaining this
darling of social media.

It has taken me over 12 months to understand what Twitter is truly
about.

Let me explain Twitter to you…

Every city in the world has street performers. People who do funny
and dangerous acts in public places all for a few coins tossed in a
hat.

The type of street performer I want to look at is the one that
entertains not through physical action but through the use of voice.
They normally stand on a “soapbox” and entertain you via their
witty conversation or powerful views on topics such as politics and
religion.


This is what Twitter is all about – you get on your electronic
soapbox which amazingly is called a “handle” 3 and make yourself
heard on Twitter normally by sharing links to interesting articles,
videos or images.

You also present your views on topics that interest you. Just like
our street performer people hear you and come over to listen. If
they like you they will turn up each time you get on your soapbox.
In the Twitter world these people are called “followers” (a bit like
band groupies).

You have only 140 characters (letters) per yell, which forces people
to use text language like they do on mobile phones if they have a lot
to yell about. You can of course yell as often as you want but then
you get called a “Spammer’ so really it’s not that easy.

The most “successful” or “popular” people4 on Twitter are mainly
BIG industry business leaders such as Sir Richard Branson, Steve
Jobs etc... or celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher5 who currently has
over 5 million followers (groupies) .

For the average businessperson it takes a lot more effort and time
to get noticed. Some business owners I know spend up to an hour
each day chatting and sharing interesting stuff. Now if you can
invest an hour each day chatting with people on Twitter then you
may get some form of ROI but if you cannot spend at least an hour
per day then you need to look at using some form of automation to
help you to continue to post messages. If you are not on your
soapbox entertaining people frequently then no one follows you.

We have been using Twitter for well over a year now and I now see
a common pattern with most small businesses that attempt to use
Twitter.

The pattern follows these steps.

1) The person creates their Twitter profile and starts to work
locating and communicating with anyone who is discussing
topics that fit into what they sell.

2) The person can then spend up to 10 minutes (or more!!) each
working hour checking their Twitter “stream” for any
developments on discussions or people contacting them. They

3 For the sane among us its also called a “profile” or “account”.
4 Success in the Twitter world is denoted by the number of followers you have - this is of course hotly denied by
the hardcore Twitter users but in essence is how people view your power or success.
5 http://twitter.com/aplusk


contribute a heap of time, energy and information helping out
others – for free.

3) Over the initial 3-4 month period the person spends a lot of
time forming relationships within Twitter and in time they may
actually meet the people in café’s or functions (called “Tweet-
ups”).

4) After the 4th month or so we see a critical decision being made
by the person. What happens around this time is that there is a
clear distinction between the people who were using Twitter to
help feed their pipeline and people who actually have started
using it as a social outlet. The people who were hoping that all
the effort they contributed over the 3- 4 months helping others
was going to feed their pipeline are normally disappointed at
the effort/result ratio and they abandon Twitter. That’s why up
to 75% of all Twitter accounts are actually abandon and why the
owners of Twitter are working out how to release all these
abandoned accounts so people can reuse the profile name
again.

So why is the effort/result ratio so low with Twitter?

Well - because people on Twitter like sharing content with each
other. In fact if you’re not famous and want to have a large
following just share interesting links. That’s what we do and the
people will come.

Unfortunately this never really results in increasing your pipeline
to the level where the results of your effort pay for your time.
Unless you use the right strategy which I will show you latter on 


Unfortunately this is how most small businesses appear on Twitter.

Facebook – “Let’s meet at the mall”

Facebook is by far the largest and most active social network in the
world currently sitting on 500 near 600 million. Some even say
that Facebook will be the new Internet due to people spending
most of their online time in Facebook.

A good way to describe Facebook is to think of it as the world’s
largest shopping mall. Like many people you meet your friends at
your local shopping mall to eat, chat, buy stuff and generally hang
out. Facebook for many is the online version of their favorite
shopping mall.

And like a real world shopping mall there are businesses selling
stuff. People walk around the shopping mall window-shopping. If
they like what they see they walk into the shop to take a closer look.
On Facebook a business has a shop front, which is called a “Page”.
This is a businesses official presence in Facebook. For your
business a Facebook Page is your shop front.


One mistake many businesses make is assuming that they are
“sexy” enough for Facebook in regards to bringing customers to
their door.

Here is a question for you – have you ever seen a lawyer,
accountant or mortgage broker in a shopping mall? And if you did
by chance – did you see many people go into their shop? I doubt it
because people go to shopping malls to be entertained just like on
Facebook.

I am not saying that if you are a lawyer/accountant or the like you
cannot find success on Facebook – you just need to take your lack
of “sexiness” into consideration. You should in fact have a
Facebook Page for your business but really focus your efforts using
LinkedIn where people do expect to talk about and seek out
processional services.

A word on YouTube – Be your own movie star

I don’t consider YouTube a direct social network for business even
though online communities form around people who post a lot of
videos. YouTube in my opinion is great for hosting videos you have
as you can easily embed the video on blogs/websites, Twitter,
Facebook and most other social networks. The best part is you
don’t pay for the bandwidth!


Not everyone can stand in front of a video recorder and chat for a
few minutes on a subject without going blank, saying “um” 100’s of
times and coming across as boring. It takes a lot of practice and
skill for most people and hence the reason why there are not many
business owners using video as a way to communicate with their
clients and prospects.

Video is a very powerful medium to use to get your message across
in a very personal and direct way.

Hosting the video on YouTube also utilizes YouTube’s community
features which encourages a community to form around your
videos.

Since this eBook is for “Social Media Newbies” lets leave YouTube
for another time.

Social Media is NOT Free
In summary, as a small business owner who, I would guess, has
limited time, money and staff resources you need to reflect on the
following.

3 Models for Using Social Media

We currently have defined 3 options for using social media as a
business tool:

1) Manual – this is the option where you or your staff members
participate within the social networks. You monitor any
comments or posts directed towards your profiles and respond.
Many “experts” generally consider this the only approach for
social media. Below I will provide some key points that you
need to be aware of if you chose this option.

2) Automated – in this option, which is used by most news
based businesses such as CNN and Reuters, information is
posted to your social network profiles by software. Businesses
use this option to publish their content to social networks to
encourage readers back to their site. There is little or no manual
interaction.

3) Hybrid – this is the option we use. We post content to our
social network profiles using our social media software for
business. The posts contain links back to our online assets such


as blogs and websites. We also have staff that monitor the
profiles once a day for any communication and respond if
required – BUT – the response is always designed to send them
back to an online asset we own. We always treat social
networks as channels back to our own assets. Generally if
people are interested in you or your business they will normally
contact you via email or phone. Maybe it will change in the
future.

To further discuss the “Hybrid” option a little more I want to share
with you a key finding we made when we reviewed our 1-year of
social media research in 2010.

On Twitter people want content – they are generally not looking
for communication or “engagement”. The funny thing is most
social media “experts” will scoff at this statement; and a lot have,
but if you really monitor what is going on within Twitter like we did
the profiles that got the most results for business shared
interesting links with their followers. They hardly chatted to
followers and if they did they generally ended the conversation as
fast as they could and pointed the person back to their website.

Why?

Because most people who have been active on Twitter for at least
3-4 months start to work out that unless you are very famous or
you are offering mega-good deals on your products such as Dell
then the bulk of people you engage with will not be prospect
material. Most are looking for FREE and entertainment.

Facebook is a different beast entirely in that you can draw in
prospects but only if you would be successful within a physical
shopping mall because the same mentality is used within Facebook
as I mentioned above.

LinkedIn is a closed network and the only option you have is
manual and we would never go into LinkedIn with anything else
but the manual option as its all about B2B reputation and
networks.

Key Points on using the Manual Option

As promised above here are some key points that you need to be
aware of when using the manual option.


1) Social media is not FREE. Participating within social networks
will cost your business time, money and staff resources. Make
sure you monitor how much business resources you are using
up and every month compare how many real prospects you got
out of this effort. Even better how many converted prospects?
Most “experts” will say that this is not how you should use
social media – “it’s the end game” or “its all about engagement
and adding value”. That’s fine but are you in business to make
profit in the short term so you can keep the cash-flow flowing
or are you here to work for free? Just like your sales rep that
will take a prospect out for coffee – your business can only
absorb this for so long before you expect some return on that
coffee.

2) Do not what ever you do hand this task over to your summer
grad or your new marketing “manager” who is fresh out of
education. What you post on the Internet stays on the Internet
for a very long time. Social media has given people the power
to spread content at such speed that serious PR damage can be
done to your business in seconds. If an irate customer contacts
your business via Twitter and starts ranting abuse (yes it
happens every day) and your “Social Community Manager”
fresh out of a marketing course gets offended and “gives some
back” to the customer you will witness first hand how far that
comment will be spread throughout the entire Internet. So
either you manage the communication or you get a trusted and
mature person that can handle outright abuse. Many young
people cannot change their “out of work” communication
mentality when communicating within social networks as a
business representative.

3) I would guess that you have spent quite a bit of time and money
creating official business processes for dealing with people
contacting the business such as sales processes and customer
support processes. When you open up your business to the
social networks you are in fact adding another channel for
people to communicate with your business; people will also
consider it an official channel. Make sure your processes can
handle these new forms of communication channels.

4) My final point or recommendation is if you are just starting out
with social media work out if your customer type(s) is in fact
using social media and if so what social networks? Twitter?
Facebook? LinkedIn? Once done just focus on that social
network only. You will get yourself into a big mess trying to


have a presence in all networks and also waste money if your
customer type is not present.

In the next chapter I will introduce part of our own strategy for
using social networks to help feed our clients pipeline as well as
our own.


2
Chapter

How we use Social Media
In this chapter I will introduce the part of our social media strategy used for
increasing our customers pipeline.

The BIGGEST mistake you can make online
The biggest mistake a business can make is assume it has any right or
control over what it has created within a social network such as Facebook.

Most people assume (wrongly) that their social profiles, groups, pages and
followers within Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and any other social network
are their property.

That’s very – very wrong.

You basically don’t own anything within social networks – you merely rent
out a temporary space within their environment and they can kick you out
whenever they want.

The owners of social networks own everything you add to their network:
content, videos, images, attachments and even followers. It means nothing
to them that you paid some contractor $5,000 USD to build your flash
Facebook Page with its own shopping cart.

Actually for an example let us have a look at Facebook.

Facebook started off as a closed network for university students (forgive the
terminology – I live in New Zealand and that’s what we call them over here)
years ago and that’s why people joined.

Over a very short period of time they have opened up your personal account
to developers, advertisers and any business that has knowledge of their
“Social Graph” API to suck your personal data out of FaceBook. Read this
article for more info: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/facebook-
rogue/

Visit us at BusinessBlogs.co.nz 18 © Mobilize Mail Ltd


So do you really think Facebook believes you have any rights within its
environment?

Nope – and most6 social networks don’t care either.

So what does this mean?

Well, since you have no rights within the social networks you are spending
all your time and money in building something you don’t own – would you
see this as slightly risky?

We do and this is why we only consider social networks such as Facebook
and Twitter as channels to your “home base”.

You need a Home Base
A “Home Base” (“HB”) is something that you own such as a corporate
website or blog.

The asset is outside of any social network or “hosted service” such as
Wordpress.com.

Your HB is where you invest the bulk of your time that you have allocated
for online branding and attracting prospects to your business.

You use social networks as channels to attract people from these networks
to your HB. On your HB you have “sales funnels” that are designed to
capture as many visitors contact details as possible.

Makes sense?

Below is a visual of what I am talking about.

6 I use “most” as there could be some obscure social network that I don’t know about that does give you

some rights to your own data – but I would doubt it.



Let us have a look at each component within the image.

The “cloud” containing people are the potential prospects within social
networks that you need to attract out of the social network back to your HB.

Now you can attract people out of social networks by providing links to
content on your HB such as helpful articles about a topic they are interested
in and also happens to be a skill set of yours.

For example if you are a tax accountant you could write an article titled “10
Tips to reduce your Business Tax”, publish it to your website/blog and then
provide a link to the article on your Facebook Page and Twitter profile.

People interested in reducing tax payments (who isn’t?) will click the link
and end up at your HB.

So what you need to do next is offer the visitor an easy way to be alerted to
more great articles on tax that your publish on your HB. The way we
recommend to stay in touch is a free monthly email newsletter.

NOTE: If anyone tells you that email marketing is dead ask them to explain
why Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn/YouTube/HubSpot.com/News sites and



other blogs and social networking sites use email to communicate updates
to their members.

The answer is email marketing is still, to this day, the best way to get your
business in front of people. Your email ends up on their personal devices
such as their computer and mobile phone and they have given you
permission to contact them.

Your brand constantly stays in their conscious and your brand more
importantly ends up in their subconscious so when they need to buy a good
or service that your business offers your brand comes straight up from their
subconscious and hits them like a freight train!

The sales funnel on your HB is the banners and input forms that allow your
visitor to sign up to your free email newsletter. Have a look at the “sales
funnels” also know as “call to actions” we have on one of our blogs.



And that’s just the home page!

We have links to free newsletters and eBooks throughout the site and we
even mention these great resources within articles we publish on the site.

Day-by-day our email database grows with more prospects and the more
value you provide (like free informational eBooks) the more likely your
prospects will become clients for your business.

This builds a level of trust between you and your prospects that will result in
many of them becoming your clients when they need you.

We consider our email database our prospect database and the best part
about this is we own the database NOT Facebook, NOT Twitter
nor any other social network.

So if we or our clients ever get kicked out of Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn
or whats more likely the social networks change their rules and may start
charging a fee for businesses to be within their networks you still have your
prospect database safely stored within your environment – not theirs.

So the most important points to take out of this chapter are:

1) You have no rights within social networks as content producer;
whatever you create within a social network you do not own
including your list of followers.



2) If you get kicked out of the social network you will more than likely
lose everything you created within that social network including your
list of followers.

3) You need to create a “Home Base” that you spend the bulk of your
time building up so when people arrive they are overwhelmed with
information available which will give them more reason to come
back and ultimately sign up to your email newsletter.

4) Your “Home Base” must have sales funnels that are designed to get
as many of your visitors into your email marketing database as
possible because email is still the most effective way to keep in touch
with your prospects.

5) You own your email marketing database and no social network can
take this away from you.



3
Chapter

Extra Resources
In this chapter I have included further reading about best practices for small
business using social media and email marketing.

Knowledge For Greater Email & Social Media
Success
Information – What Are You Sharing?

The quality of your email and social media network is more than likely
directly attributed to the information you are sharing. Knowledge is power
and content is king for retaining and growing email and social media
networks. Be discerning and choose highly targeted relevant content (news,
views) that educate, entertain, share and inspire your followers. Now where
your content residing?

Bring Your Followers To You

Place your content on your own online assets e.g. Your blog, website.
Remember you do not own social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter
therefore we recommend you publish your daily or weekly blog posts,
articles, e-books on your website, or blog site and reach out to your
networks in social media and email with broadcasting style messages – that
bring these people to your blog or website to read your articles, posts, news
and views. Once they are on your site they can elect to also view your
‘services or products’ or elect to learn more about your business. Which
brings me to the next tip – Call to Actions.

Call To Actions

A quick question for you – can you name more than one highly visible Call
to Action on your blog or website? You may be wondering, what is a Call to
Action? A banner or sign up form to join your email newsletter is a Call to
Action (C2A), so is a ‘quote request’ form or a ‘request to interview’.



Essentially a C2A is an instruction that encourages the viewer to take some
action resulting in your business getting information from that person that
allows your business to contact them. An example is the trusty email
newsletter sign up – e.g. Join Our Newsletter for the latest updates
including deals – click here – by clicking on the link the person may arrive
at a sign up page that asks for the person’s first name and email address.

KISS Approach To Sharing

Your Social Media and Email followers will remain with you longer if you
are sharing relevant high quality information. They will work for you too by
sharing your content (blog posts, articles etc) with their colleagues, friends,
associates and your business will reap the benefits with more prospects
acting on your ‘Call to Actions’ requesting quotes, downloading your e-
books or joining your email lists. Knowledge truly is all powerful and how
you share that knowledge with your followers in social media and email can
be taken care of with systems and sharing tools.

http://blog.mobilizemail.com/2011/03/09/knowledge-for-greater-email-
social-media-success/

Choose Relevant Content For Higher ROI
When it comes to email, online marketing, or any marketing for that matter,
it’s a good idea to put yourself in your customers’ shoes to ensure what you
are saying and how you are communicating is actually going to gain a
positive reaction from them. It’s not rocket science, just plain common
sense.

Constant interruptions offering products and services they don’t want or
need is the quickest way to become ‘untweeted’, ‘unfriended’ or just plain
ignored by your customers. Your aim is for them to welcome your
interaction, not find it annoying. It needs to be recognizable, entertaining,
informative and a catalyst for them to engage with you on a regular basis.
This type of content is often referred to in the US as ‘magnetic content’.

Here’s an analogy with a bit of a New Zealand twist that might help you to
see where I’m coming from.

When developing your content, whether for an ad, a tweet, a blog or any
other online social marketing tool, think of the words as a ‘woollen sock’ and
the potential customers as ‘biddy bid’s. Remember them? If the (words)
sock even lightly touches the (customer) biddy bid, they’re stuck together
for good.



Nearly two thirds of marketers in the US use this approach as part of their
social media strategies, making it the most common approach for
developing content. Check out the statistics below from a June 2010 study
by King Fish Media, HubSpot and Junta42.

When developing your content, ponder these five points:

1) Is the content unique?

2) Will the content be of any use to your customer?

3) Is the content well written?

4) Is the content fun?

5) Does the content make good use of the medium you are using (e.g.,
social, mobile, video)?

Know Your Customers And Cater To Their Needs



The one thing you have in common with your current customers is that they
know your brand. That’s all well and good. But how well do you know your
customer?

When developing your next online marketing campaign, be it on Twitter,
Facebook, Youtube etc. don’t just focus on the products you want to sell,
draw the customer in by honing in on their buyer behaviour, attitude and
lifestyle.

You’ll get a much better reaction from a mother with small children if you
offer her a 24 pack of nappies at a heavily reduced price, rather than the
opportunity to work out to increase her biceps.

Mobilize Mail has a survey feature as part of their email marketing solution.
Surveys are a great way to seek to understand (your clients/prospects) so
you can be understood.

http://blog.mobilizemail.com/2010/12/10/choose-relevant-content-for-
higher-roi/

Is Social Media Too Expensive for Small Business?
Social media has made a positive impact on the world and for business,
however, is social media too expensive for small business?

Most small businesses struggle with lack of cashflow, lack of skills to
manage all the facets of running a business and importantly a lack of time.

Social media has provided a way for prospects and customers to directly
communicate with the business sometimes bypassing the official
communication channels that have been created, by the business, to reduce
running cost such as providing customer service self-help forums and
websites. But when we look at social networks such as Twitter where there
is a need to have a “bum on seat” to monitor the profile for any
communication. You can see how the cost of providing this channel can be
an expensive endeavor.

The likes of Telecom and TelstraClear providing this service is not really an
issue when it comes to cost – its more of an issue on how to officially
process the communication coming in and how to deal with irate customers.
For small business the “bum on seat” is more than likely the owner of the
business and done mostly after hours since the day is normally full
managing the normal operations of the business.

How much time should a small business dedicate to social media?



How much time on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and any other social
networks?

If you are reading one of the many case studies ranting about the benefits of
social media and how you must be on there “engaging” or you will go out of
business – take a step back and look at the examples they provide of the
successful New Zealand businesses using social media. I have talked about
this before here: “Vital Tips for New Zealand Businesses New to Social
Media“ but normally the examples are either major businesses such as
Telco’s and banks or two small businesses here in New Zealand namely
Giapo and Wine Vault TV both of whom are fantastic on social media but
the time spent by both of them within social networks is unsustainable by
most small businesses.

Added to that the fact that only 34% of New Zealand businesses have a
website (!!) you can see that social media can actually be an expensive and
steep learning curve for small business if not managed correctly.

Why?

Because participation in social networks at the time of writing this piece
requires some level of technical awareness and knowledge of how social
media works. For example, if your staff member loses it on Twitter and
becomes less than professional with an irate customer then the customer
can spread the entire conversion around the Internet – remember – its all
public. The customer can send links to the dialog to their friends which they,
in turn, can pass on the conversation to their friends and so on… Now, I bet
you can show me examples of this being done via email but with email you
need an email address so the impact spread is confined to some degree and
the chances of the story being of interest to the media is slim. Not so with
social networks where the network is the media.

So one irate customer can in fact cause a considerable PR disaster that
remains forever on the Internet.

I am not saying you should run from social media. What I am saying is
understand why you want to be on social media and look at how to control
not only the cost to your business participating in social networks but how
do you deal with the unofficial approach to communication and the
demands and expectation of having to instantly respond to any
communication coming in.

I have over the last 12 months of providing social media solutions to New
Zealand businesses via CampaignHub (New Zealand social media case
studies) come to the conclusion that how businesses use social media will
change because right now we are in the early adopter stage with social
media as a business tool and when the early and late majority come



onboard most will balk at the current time and cost it takes to successfully
use social media without any proof of ROI.

It comes as no surprise to me that our social media solutions for business,
which utilise smart engagement technology to reduce cost and effort and the
fact we leverage off our on large social networks to bring prospects to our
clients doors, has been in demand since day one and is now the most
profitable source of revenue for our businesses.

http://businessblogs.co.nz/2010/12/is-social-media-too-expensive-for-
small-business/

Vital Tips for New Zealand Businesses New to
Social Media
I would like to share with New Zealand business owners some tips and
advice on entering the world of social media (social networks) or what some
call “social media marketing”. T he tips and advice given are based on our
8+ years dealing with online communities (starting with PropertyTalk.com)
and now providing social media solutions for businesses in New Zealand.

You need a “Home Base”

A “home base” is your blog or website that you can direct people to from the
social networks. Your home base is critical to your success online because its
where you should have all the information about your business and
products/services that you sell. You should have an automatic (and
efficient) sales funnel in place to capture interest and filter raw prospects
into warm leads before your sales team is engaged (if you don’t know what
that means then read this article for the basics in capturing prospects). Plus
if you get banned from Facebook or suspended from Twitter you should at
least have some of your community in your email marketing database and
thats important because email marketing still has the highest conversion
rate of all.

Social Media/Networking is NOT FREE

Creating a presence within social networks takes a heap of time – 1 hour per
day minimum. Becoming known and actually having a community of
people takes skill and even more time. Make sure you only invest your time
in communicating with people who are in your target market. I have seen
New Zealand small businesses chat with people all over the world even
though they do not sell outside of New Zealand. Don’t confuse social needs
with your pipeline needs. Make sure you set goals for your participation in



social networks such as collecting 10 email addresses or phone numbers of
prospects per month.

Do not confuse work with play

A classic mistake with Kiwi businesses! In my previous post “So You Think
Social Media Will Save your Business?” I present a common pattern of how
Kiwi business owners act in social networks. Basically the people they
communicate with end up being friends and with most Kiwi’s they find it
hard selling to their friends. Always remind yourself what your mission is
using social networks – work or play?

Concentrate on 1 social network only

There are 100’s of social networks out there most of which are a complete
waste of time for businesses. What I recommend you do if your new to
“social media” is create a Facebook Page for your business and concentrate
on making that a success by adding content from your blog, interesting
articles you have found, comments, videos, images etc.. each business day.
Invite your friends, prospects and clients to your Facebook Page and “chat”.
This exercise will give you a very good feel for how social media works and if
you can “chat” with people you know on a regular basis you will see how
much effort it takes. Latter on if you find that this is indeed feeding your
pipeline then you may feel like spreading your wings and looking at
YouTube for videos or even Twitter. Have a look at this website’s Facebook
Page for ideas => Business Talk on Facebook. And lastly if you are very new
to social media avoid Twitter as it can be a complete time vacuum. Over
80% of Twitter accounts have been abandoned and in my opinion its
because business people make the mistake of believing Twitter is for
communicating. Yes thats right – read this => Twitter: 10 Psychological
Insights. This article explains why we do what we do on Twitter and have
over 50,000+ followers in our Twitter hub.

Don’t believe the hype!

If you pick up any business magazine these days you should see at least 1
article stating how fantastic social media is for business. Before you start
panicking that you are missing out on the greatest thing since sliced bread
consider this:

1) Most of the proof that the New Zealand social media “experts”
provide are case studies from overseas especially the US where the
adoption of social networks is more widespread for businesses. If
they do use New Zealand based companies they will always refer to
big business such as telcos and Air New Zealand. They may sprinkle
in 1 or 2 small business success stories such as Giapo. The case
studies are unrealistic for the bulk of New Zealand small businesses



of which ONLY 34% of Kiwi businesses own a website but that does
not stop the experts from telling you Twitter is going to save your
business.

2) If you are struggling to fill your pipeline then focus on SEO (Search
Engine Optimisation) which basically means having your
website/blog end up on the first page of search results for your
product or service. Remember! People who are looking to buy will
search online. People who come to your site from social networks
will be looking for fun and something to burn away the hours at work
(note: if you have a well setup sales funnel you should be able to
capture social media visitors and convert some to prospects – more
info of how we do it here=> How to convert social network traffic to
prospects.

Leverage off someone else’s effort

Leverage, leverage and more leverage. It has taken us over a year to build up
an active and responsive bunch of communities in the major social
networks. We spend over 4 hours per day deep in social networks helping to
promote our clients. Isn’t it smart to take advantage of our efforts or other
businesses like us to gain exposure? Starting out from “less than zero” in
social networks is a lonely place. At the very least you should be submitting
content to this site (its free) to gain exposure or participating in our Project
Campfire program (again – free).

http://businessblogs.co.nz/2010/11/vital-tips-for-new-zealand-businesses-
new-to-social-media/



4
Chapter

How we help our clients
The Internet is a big place – a very big place.

So how do people find your business online?

Well there is search.

People who want to buy a product or service will more than likely search for
options and opinion using Google or other search engines.

As a business owner you want these people to find your site because these
people have passed the “sell it to me” phase – they are ready to buy – they
want what you sell.

Unfortunately for most small businesses their online presence is somewhat
“limited” and mostly invisible to Google. Without major help and expense
they will never appear in the magic first page search results.

This is what most small businesses look like on the Internet – an Island



Businesses also make the mistake of thinking that social networks is an easy
way to get more prospects when in fact its much harder in terms of effort
and time than working on improving your status with Google. “Social
Media” is made up of two words the first being “Social”. That means most
people are within social networks to be social they are not looking to buy
something. That’s why they use search engines.

This is the “Catch 22” dilemma– it can cost a heap and take a lot of time to
rank high in Google especially if your business is within a very competitive
sector.

What we do is help small businesses “get found” on the Internet by alerting
our established online communities on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and
also our email subscribers and visitors to our blog assets (including
PropertyTalk.com, BusinessBlogs.co.nz, BusinessBlogsHub.com,
FinanceTips.co.nz and other online assets) to your business.

By using our email and social media solutions for business we connect your
“island” up with our extensive online communities so you are not invisible
anymore. The connections we form with your “island” are instantaneous
not time consuming like building up search rankings or trying to build an
online community by yourself.



The hardest part for small businesses gaining an online brand presence
within social networks and search is the effort, time and cost it takes
starting from zero.

If you are interested in how we can help you “get found” on the Internet
please contact us at: http://www.MobilizeMail.com


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