Social Media in Small Business is Anything But Small

“Social Media in Small Business is Anything But Small”

…Featuring Brian Solis

It’s Time To Go Social!

Mark SchmulenGeneral Manager of Social MediaConstant Contact

Email: mschmulen@constantcontact.comBlog: http://blogs.constantcontact.com/

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@mschmulen

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Welcome!

@briansolis

TheBrianSolis

BrianSolisTV

Meet Brian Solis

www.constantcontact.com/socialmedia

We’re Making Social Simple

Join The Twitter Chat

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2. Once you have a Twitter account, go to www.tweetchat.com, and click on “Sign in”

3. Enter your Twitter username and password, and click “Allow”

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The Rise of the Social Consumer

YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine

Serves over 9B streams per month

More than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each month

People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook

More than 100 million Tweets fly across Twitter every day

Social Feeds = Content Discovery

Customers are Checking-In

Consumers expect to be rewarded

Likes create a form of social currency

Facebook has increased traffic by 100%. The number of orders has jumped 30%.

Actions Become Social Objects…Broadcasting Every Step

Social Triggers Purchase Decisions and Shared Experiences

Members of social networks spend 1.5x more than the average Internet user

Small-business owners have dramatically upped their usage of social media for marketing in the past year

For business owners, social media ultimately should be a two-way street. It’s about business owners connecting with customers and customers connecting with businesses. Susan Sobbott, president

Spreading the Word

SmallBusiness

Social vs. Traditional Marketing

63% of small businesses say word-of-mouth marketing is the most effective way to market their business and find new customers

Reach Out to Bloggers and Tastemakers• Find bloggers who write about your space or

related experiences• Assess their “angle”• Create a story that’s special to them• Package an experience that inspires them to

share with their audience• Create “social objects” that help them tell their

story – Video– Pictures– Customer story

A 360 Approach to Social Media

Tom Bihn: A Look at a Complete Approach• Seattle-based Tom Bihn is a small business that

makes and sells travel bags– Competes against very big companies

• Uses social media and engagement to spur word of mouth

• Uses profiles in multiple networks to connect with customers and prospects

• “Anytime a company is given more ways to directly communicate with customers, it’s an opportunity for growth”

Tom Bihn: Blogs• Blog provides a centralized

source for information• Features customer stories• Spotlights real world use• Solves problems and answers

questions through posts• Demonstrates expertise

Tom Bihn: Flickr• Not just a catalog• Showcases products and uses

– Packing techniques and tips• Involves customers in feedback and design

– Creates products based on insight• Tagging, describing and titling pictures helps

them show up in customer searches

Tom Bihn: Facebook• Invites people to join them on Facebook• Interacts with the community• Offers specials/deals• Shares reviews• Spotlights customers• Hosts scheduled chats to answer questions

Tom Bihn: YouTube• Shares videos of products and demonstrates

usefulness• Uses “story telling” to describe products

Tom Bihn: Twitter• Includes a nice mix of

– Retweets– Customer experiences– Company mentions– Thank you messages for customers– Announcements of new products and updates– Travel regulation notices from the Transportation Safety

Administration– Links and photos from the company’s blog

Giantnerd: Reviews• Giantnerd is a social platform

totally dependent on consumer presence, opinions, wants, needs

• Consumers earn rewards for being social

“We want the wisdom of the crowd to help consumers make more educated purchases.”Randall Weidberg, nerd in charge

Giantnerd: Twitter• @GiantnerdCEO

– President uses Twitter to humanize the brand

– Answer questions– Engage with consumers– Share experiences

• @Giantnerd– Celebrates the community

“We want the wisdom of the crowd to help consumers make more educated purchases.”Randall Weidberg, nerd in charge

Giantnerd: WikiNerdia• Involve the community• Share knowledge• Help less experienced adventurers• Shape experiences

Giantnerd: Blog• Promotes pillars of social

shopping• Reinforces the company’s

Core Values

Your Keys to Social Media Success

Top 10 Ways to Excel in Social Media10. Competitive intelligence

9. Insight and performance

8. Development of relationships through engagement

7. Lead generation

6. Customer service

5. Coupons/Discounts/Promotion

4. Becoming a resource

3. e-commerce + f-commerce

2. Increasing awareness and demand

1. Word of mouth

Humanize the Business• Seattle’s Emerson

Salon earns 75% of its business from Facebook, Twitter, and its blog

• Social presences are prominent on their website– Corporate– Stylists

• Fuses online and real world communities

Build a Following• In addition to Twitter

and Facebook, Butter Lane Bakery follow the appetite of their consumers– Yelp offers– Yelp venue page– Blog on Tumblr– Power group buys on

Groupon + LivingSocial– Foursquare specials

• Scales resources through Postling

Start Conversations• Liberty Bay Books

focuses on Scandinavian and nautical books– Owner Suzanne

Droppert shares everything that inspires her from books to travel to food

– Uses Twitter and Facebook to keep community up to date on in-store events

– Blogs and creates videos to tell stories and share experiences

“People will mention they saw a post of mine on Facebook, and we’ll talk about it over coffee here in the store.”

Channel Your Inner Artist• Based in Eureka

Springs, AK Feather Your Nest creates homemade gifts

• Owner Gina Drennoncreated presences on Facebook, Twitter, Etsy

• Blogs• Engages with bloggers

“I’ve seen our web stats increase, followers increase, interactions increase, and most importantly, sales increase. I’ve made many meaningful connections with bloggers and magazine editors that have featured our products and our store. I can positively say that at least half of the national press we’ve received is due to contacts we’ve made over social media.”

Special Offers• California Tortilla (@caltort), a chain of

39 Mexican restaurants based in Rockville, MD, sends coupon passwords via Twitter– Customers must say at checkout to redeem

the offer

• Chris Manna’s Woodhouse Day Spa tweets special discounts and offers for massages and manicures everyday– Twitter is a popular source of new

customers

Sales• Coffee Groundz (@coffeegroundz) uses the direct

message channel on Twitter to receive and prepare orders

• Reports 20 to 30% increased sales and market share

• Company loses its primary social champion and is also losing its social cred as a result

Customer Service• MightyLeaf Tea uses Facebook

and GetSatisfaction to answer customer questions

• United Linen in Bartlesville, Okla. manages expectations via Twitter– When a major snowstorm hit the

area, UL used Twitter to let customers know deliveries would be delayed

Direct Sales• Brian Simpson (@BSIMI) helped The Roger Smith

in New York monitor dialogue related to NY hotel stays and travel

• Offers specials to attract new guests• Uses Twitter search to identify prospects and

offer them a 10 percent discount on the lowest-rate rooms

• Twitter and other forms of social media have netted between $15,000 to $20,000 in additional revenue

Mobile and Geo Location Marketing• Local businesses use social tools

to identify customers within the area

• Kogi (LA) and The Crème BruleeCart (SF) broadcast mobile locations and offers– Each stop is greeted by lines of

customers• Kogi is now considered the world’s

first “viral eatery” and has over 76,000 followers

• @cremebruleecart has over 14,000 followers

Advice, Help, Direction

• @homedepot seeks individuals who are tackling home projects to offer tips and instructions

• BestBuy’s @Twelpforce helps consumers with decisions related to consumer electronics

• H&R Block helps people seeking tax and finance advice

• @NAKEDPizza offers advice, answers questions, related and unrelated to pizza– Twitter made “the cash register ring”

• The Wydler Brothers Realty Team offers insights in the Washington, D.C. market

Events• Coffee Groundz hosts "tweetups”

– Attracts hundreds of customers • RedWire, an online collaboration provider, uses

Twitter to spread the word about Wired Wednesdays– A weekly gathering of entrepreneurs looking to share

ideas• Milwaukee burger joint AJ Bombers hosts

Tweetups and FourSquare events to get customers Tweeting and Checking-in

Rewards• Berry Chill (@YogiJones) uses “Sweet

Tweets” to reward its followers with free yogurts

• Monique’s Chocolates in Palo Alto acquired 50 new customers and over 100 redemptions for a special “buy one get one” for truffles via FourSquare– Redemptions converted into 25% repeat

business– Compared to an ad in a local paper, it earned

1 new customer for the cost of $300

Bringing the Experience to Life• Umi Restaurant in San Francisco tweets

about the fresh fish of the night with colorful hunger-inducing descriptions– Gets five new customers a night from Twitter

• Scott Seaman’s Bed and Breakfast operates in a town of 1,500 residents– Uses TweetDeck to talk to people who tweet

with keywords related to this business– Shares experiences to lure new customers

Become the people we want to reach…

@briansolis

www.briansolis.com

www.future-works.com

http://bit.ly/engageme

http://bit.ly/prbook

www.nowisgone.com

www.constantcontact.com/socialmedia

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To join our Twitter Chat:1. Don’t have a Twitter account? Go to www.twitter.com, and create a

username and password

2. Once you have a Twitter account, go to www.tweetchat.com, and click on “Sign in”

3. Enter your Twitter username and password, and click “Allow”

4. In the box at the top of the TweetChat page, enter the “hashtag” for our Twitter Chat, #CTCTsocial, and click “Go”

5. To participate, type a short message in the box at the top of your screen, and click “Update”