The document summarizes a forum on using social media for small businesses. It discusses using social media to establish legitimacy and relevance, enable innovation, and empower businesses and customers. Specific platforms like blogs, forums, images and videos are mentioned. The focus should be on the business and leveraging others' resources. Case studies from member businesses demonstrate how social media grew business, raised funds, and improved communications. Social media allows constant communication with customers to address issues early and share updates.
2. ! Legitimacy and Relevance
! Innovation
! Empowerment
! Bonus: Business Focus
3. ! Blog – Wordpress
! Forum – Facebook, Google+
! Images – Flickr
! Videos – Youtube
! Status Page – Twitter
! Recruiting and Networking - LinkedIn
4. ! Your product / service is common –
the good ideas have all been thought
of, so:
! Enable innovation throughout your
business
◦ Marketing
◦ Sales
◦ Implementation
◦ Client Services / Support
5. ! A voice to and from your customers:
◦ New ideas heard in real time
◦ Answer concerns at the frustration stage,
not the anger stage.
◦ Proactive connections.
! A voice to and from your employees:
◦ Humanize the staff behind your product
and service.
◦ Gain advice / insight from a community.
6. ! Use social platforms to keep the focus
on your product or service.
! Don’t worry about setting up hosting
for things. Use the Platform.
! No maintenance. No updating. No
security patching.
! Leverage someone else’s IT team.
9. “We are a technology startup with a very small marketing
budget. We have been very active on social media and this
has been a great source of customers for us. Since 1/1,
including Google Plus, Wikipedia, Quora, Facebook and
Twitter, more than 10% of our traffic came from these
social media services. We have close to 700 followers on
Twitter and 200 fans on Facebook. This has allowed us to
grow our business by word of mouth. We also raised some
money from Angel investors in NH and Boston. I can't
imagine doing this without LinkedIn.” – Gerard Murphy,
CEO
11. “We currently own and manage three separate, locally
focused staffing and consulting companies (Alexander
Technology Group, KBW Financial Staffing and Recruiting,
and The Nagler Group). Social Media has been a
contributing factor to our growth as we integrate all of our
job openings with Twitter and Facebook. By maintaining a
consistent social media presence, site visitors can
predictably find fresh content and local job openings by
staying in touch with us through our social media
channels.” – Jason Alexander, Principal
13. “We have used Twitter to create sales leads where cold
calls had not worked; we have used Facebook to enhance
friends-referring-friends to our product; and our Tweets
have earned us followers including the CMOs of several
national brands--which gives us credibility and open doors.
One word of caution--think before you share. :-)” – timo
platt, CEO
15. “At a time when customers want up to date information on demand, social media
platforms like twitter and facebook have become indispensable tools for PSNH.
PSNH uses these tools to communicate with thousands of customers at once or
individual customers one on one to relay information about power outages and the
other important energy issues. First used during the restoration following the Ice
Storm of 2008, twitter in particular has become the go to resource for PSNH during
major storms to communicate outage figures, restoration estimates, and safety
messages to customers and the media. Twitter has also allowed for customers to
communicate instantaneously with PSNH to report downed poles, wires, and
blocked roadways, information which helps our crews complete their work more
efficiently. Going forward, PSNH is committed to expanding its use of social media
and technology in order to serve customers better. While twitter and facebook are
our main focus, PSNH has a presence in almost all social media platforms and is
always experimenting with adding new tools to better serve customers." – Mike
Skelton
17. “Social Media is a megaphone to and from our customers.
When we have new things to tell the world about, our
followers help us to shout it from the rooftops. On the
contrary, if we have a problem or customer isn’t happy, they
can shout it from the rooftops – which is why we provide
proactive outreach via social media, before frustrations turn
to anger – and why we drive our mantra of Engineering
Excellence through all functions of Dyn.” – Tom Daly, CTO
We’re hiring!
18. Contact Us
NH High Technology Council Tom Daly, Chairman
36 Lowell Street, 2nd Floor tom@dyn.com
Manchester, NH 03101 @tomdyninc
603.935.8951
info@NHHTC.org
@nhhtc