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Social Meda Success for Small Business

by Mike Mintz on Feb 21, 2010

427 views

This is a presentation about social media success for small business. It focuses on three areas (1) brand (2) community, and (3) passion. Focusing on the video Social Media in Plain English by Common C...

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This is a presentation about social media success for small business. It focuses on three areas (1) brand (2) community, and (3) passion. Focusing on the video Social Media in Plain English by Common Craft, we take the ice cream analogy to the next level and look at the behaviors that work for jumping into the social media game.

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Mike Mintz I’m a lawyer who works with businesses to do phenomenal things online. Blogging since 2005 (Jurisgamer and how it got me a job), Multimedia YouTube stuff ($200 and some creative passion), community building (relationships). Currently work for LexisNexis, a company that sells every product a lawyer needs to do their job. I manage their social media activities. I am starting my own small business, called Mintz Media Labs and expanding my client base beyond Lexis.
It was called “Material Handling Integrators.” They sold and fixed forklift trucks. He built the business based on his expertise (15 years in the business), connections, and passion for helping people get things done.
Setting his own goals. Answering to himself. Making decisions that mattered. These were just some of the things he loved about owning a small business. If social media had been around back then, I’m sure my dad would have used it to build MHI.
Everyone can do this. It’s not hard to get started. Decide where you want to start (think simple) and jump in. Be consistent. Build an army.
AND THEY’RE DOING IT RIGHT! Unlimited resources, better brand recognition competitive prices and services Lack personal touch and don’t care who they stomp out (“just business”) All establishing presence online
Walmart has a fan page on Facebook with over 660,000 fans. Who are these people?!? Why would they want to be a fan of Walmart? It doesn’t matter. Facebook has over 350,000,000 users – that’s more people than the total population of the United States (308,727, 684 as of this morning).
Walmart’s offical sponsor of moms is a marketing campaign aimed at their “target buyer” (no pun intended) Indirect loyalty branding Building sales through interests and community. This is a hockey spot, but it shows common bonds between moms rather than appealing to the need to buy sports equipment. The underlying message is that Walmart gets you, hockey moms, and can provide for you. Encouraging customers to share their stories and creating customer evangelists
Notice the headline: subtle sales pitch. It sells an principle “you can’t put a price on health” and proposes a solution “We can help you get everything you need to stay healthy for less.” All 660,000+ fans saw the content Over 1,200 people rated the post (“like this”), a low risk engagement Over 240 people commented on the post, a higher risk engagement This type of engagement creates brand loyalty
Getting on the Internet used to require special technical skill. Now everything is at your finger tips. You can create a blog in 30 seconds, build a network of 100 business contacts in a day, and publish a book without sending it to a publisher. As Thomas Friedman said at the dawn of social media in 2005 “the world is now flat.” That couldn’t be more true. The only thing keeping you from getting online and doing phenomenal things is you. Steven Pressfiled in his book, The War of Art, calls this the Resistance. The Torah calls it the Yetzer Hara. Either way it keeps you from reaching your goals and tells you this social media thing is too complicated for you. It is a liar! You can get social media and I’m going to show you how by talking about ice cream.
We’ll start with this video. It shows the basics of social media in an easy to understand way. The people of Scoopville love their ice cream. After doing some focus groups and customer research Big Ice Cream Companydecides it can maximize profits by offering vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice flavors. The people of Scoopville are content. Then one day a new invention comes to town which changes everything: ice cream makers. Suddenly, everyone in town is making their own ice cream and coming up with some pretty interesting flavors. Some flavors like Velvet Berry are very popular, while others like Pickle have a samll, hardcore following. Big Ice Cream Company still makes the best vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice cream and finds that sales actually increase because of everyone’s excitement about ice cream. After some time there are too many choices, so one owner decides to set up a message board outside their store allowing people to describe the flavor, rate it, and leave comments about it. Soon, everyone else puts up similar boards and the result is that ice cream flavors improve based on customer feedback. Watch the video for the full effect, but I think you can see the parallel.
Be different than the BIG guy (brand). Tactic = create a presence Create a digital “Main Street” (community). Tactic = commit to consistent action and connect others through what you offer Be insanely passionate about your product (sales) tactic = help them find what THEY need (even if they don’t buy it from you)
It’s not hard to build a presence online. It takes 10 minutes to build a solid Facebook page. Same for a blog on Word Press. A Twitter page is even quicker. Getting up online is easy. When you find out the best places for you to be online, do simple things that make people stop and look (don’t complicate things) Find what works for you and build from there. As you create more of a presence and share what makes your business great with others online, they will begin to tell your friends. This is how a buzz is started. Eventually happy customers can become advocates and practically do your marketing for you.
Share tips that can help buyers solve a problem, even if it doesn’t directly sell your product. Become a resource for people even if they aren’t customers. Share generously.
A blog is a very powerful way to get your message out. It can be short posts about your business, favorite customer stories, or even weekly photos from the workplace. I once advised a hair salon to start a photo blog called “Scenes from the Salon” showing employees at work, hair styles, and customers. This was easy to do and made her stand out from hundreds of other salons in the area. Bringing customers together creates closeness and makes you stand out.
It doesn’t matter what tools you use. The important thing is finding what works for you and your business. What is going to let you show the online world what makes you a great small business? The 1950’s sweet shop was special because people felt at home there. They felt cared about. Selling ice cream was secondary. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz talks about creating an experience: a third place between work and home where people would feel comfortable gathering. He rarely mentions coffee. What experience are you creating? How can you use online tools to spread that experience? Profiles on social media sites are a good first step.
Once you start experimenting, find what mix of tools works well for you. Facebook: create a fan page for your business. It allows customers to become “fans” of your business, comment on what you post, and give you direct feedback. You can also share things with them like special deals, insights, and personal stories. Twitter: I love Twitter. You can use it to update status on almost every social network, and there are plenty of ways to use it on the go. I rarely sign into the actual Twitter site, but use my login and password all over the web. It can be used for search, monitoring what people say about your company or industry, but most of all, it is a low risk way of building new relationships (@replies). Linkedin: great for connecting with professional customers and seeing what other businesses in your field are doing. The groups on the site are a quick way to build communit, and are similar to fan pages. The recommendation feature is another way of building credibility - if you have customers who are passionate about your business, ask them for a recommendation on Linkedin. Yelp and Foursquare put local businesses on the map. Customers can write reviews, for better or for worse, on Yelp. Foursquare makes a game out of visiting your storefront. Customers enter your business on the map and whenever they are physically near it they can “check in” to that location on the “game.” The possibilities here are endless for small business.
We first started shopping from MyMakolet.com a few months ago. The best thing about these guys is their customer service (something I thought I had left behind in America). They have a very personal touch, are starting to use community tools, and are consistent in the way they treat you.
Enthusiasm is attractive. When selling online and in social media, being insanely passionate about your product and field will translate to your customers. Show them the human side of your efforts. Be transparent. Show them why they should love it as much as you.
You need to believe in your product and business. Going online is not a magic pill. It takes work, patience, and revisiting. Be prepared for the lurkers. These are people who may show up at your site and never do anything. Web myth says 90% of people online fall into this category. That means 9 out of every 10 visitors to your site will do nothing but read and click. This is powerful. If you can get the eyeballs, show the passion, and get them to return you’re half way to the sale.
Gary Vaynerchuk made $60 million dollars in sales last year from his video website http://winelibrarytv.com. His show is all about wine tasting, but Gary makes the subject fun to watch even if you don’t care about wine. He’s appeared on lots of TV shows, and even had Conan O’Brian eat cigars, dirt, and cherries to develop his pallet before trying a Shiraz. What makes Gary successful in social media is his passion for what he’s doing. He brings an energy that is generous to his audience and creates excitement.
Regardless of what you think of President Obama, there is no denying that social media gave him a distinct advantage to overcome his opponent in the last election. He followed the three steps: Presence: he created a brand online as well as off Community: his grass roots following made him the man on digital Main Street Passion: using blogs, YouTube and other tools he communicated his passion which translated into votes Why should using social media to succeed in small business be any more difficult than using it to be elected President of the United States?
Everyone can do this. It’s not hard to get started. Decide where you want to start (think simple) and jump in. Be consistent. Build an army.

Social Meda Success for Small Business

by Mike Mintz on Feb 21, 2010

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