what about transparency?

There are all kinds of buzz words in social media and one of the most often buzzed about is transparency.

Transparency means all kinds of specific things, but in general, the simple definition is be honest.

As a small business owner, this is something you don't even make a conscious decision to do. Everyone knows that when a business misrepresents itself, promises something it can't deliver, uses bait and switch, or any other shady tactics then word gets out and business suffers. If customers can't trust you, they don't want to use you.

Here's a good general rule of thumb - what applies in the real world also applies online. The seeming anonymity of the online world is an illusion. Those who are less than honest are eventually found out and word gets out to your customers, often through social media.

So, those specific things I mentioned? Here are a few:

Be Yourself.Don't misrepresent the size, location, experience, or capabilities of your business or staff. Case in point, on the simple website, I use first person pronouns to identify my company. I don't say "we" because, at this point, simple is "I".

Review Honestly. Starting an account on a reviewing social media and then padding the page with fake reviews is not honest. Asking friends to write reviews for you is a gray area - are they truly objective customers? Inviting customers to review is ok, but using incentives or rewards to get them to review is shady.

Give Credit.If you use source material to write comments or blog posts, give credit where credit is due. Identify the writer and link the source.

As someone who helps small businesses market themselves online, transparency is my top priority. Ethically speaking, once my clients' social media is in place, aside form monitoring it, I don't interact with it at all. I'm a social media Joan Goodall, observing and recording.

Now, I'm going to go watch Kell On Earth, eat some popcorn and then floss. OK, maybe that is a little too much transparency.

what about twitter?

So what about Twitter? If social media is the ubiquitous topic of the day, Twitter is running a close second as the thing that everyone from marketers to mobile service providers to bloggers to well, marketers, are also talking about.

But what does Twitter mean to you as a small business owner? Will it work to build your business online?

The simple answer: Twitter is simply a marketing tool. And like any other marketing tool if you apply it properly, thoughtfully, and creatively to your marketing objectives, it will work for you.

It kind of drives me nuts to write that, by the way. Honestly, Twitter itself has kind of driven me a little nuts for the last two years. I was hoping to see it go the way of the Atari 2600, candy colored iMacs and ICQ. But, based on current stats, it doesn't look like Twitter's going away soon.

I'll be the first to admit it, although I joined on January 11, 2008, I've been a very slow adopter of Twitter. How slow? I've only written two tweets in two years. The first scintillating post? "I am reading a good book." Yes, I know. Brilliant stuff. The second, written just twenty four minutes later: "Emailing my friend X." Clearly, my heart was not into it.

Why was my heart not into it? As an English Literature major, copywriter, senior content developer, and career-long usability proponent, the often unintuitive 140 character tweets, peppered with #'s, cul8r's, @'s and bit.lys really irked me.

But I digress. Let's take this post back to you. How can Twitter help businesses online? Let's look at great example: New York City street vendors. Because they constantly have to move throughout the day, many NYC mobile food vendors were early adaptors who would tweet their current positions as they were forced to travel around neighborhoods. Almost overnight, they were able to solve the problem of telling hungry customers where to find them, while also telling them specials of the day, and coupons and deals. Three birds. One tweet.

Just remember, Twitter is just one tool in your marketing stockpile.

An interesting follow up to the food vendor success is found on the Midtown Lunch blog, where the writer advises street vendors that "While Twitter can be a monster marketing tool that can create instant crowds (and profits) it’s not usually the case. Like any business you have to pay your dues, and build up your customer base over time. It’s not going to be easy at the beginning, but the key (as it has always been with street vending) is consistency. Don’t be lured in by the freedoms that you think twitter affords you."

Now that's good advice all small businesses can benefit from.

As for me? Will I be incorporating Twitter into my social media marketing plan for simple? Probably. How? Well, I'll tweet you that once I decide the best way to make it work for my marketing goals.

this seems familiar ...

Why does Taco Bell have a "shrimp blogger"? Why did Tyra Banks need a "FierceBook" page to pick her latest pack of America's Next Top Model hopefuls? Why has the humble cell phone become more complex and do more things and run simultaneous apps?

From TV commercials to hardware and software development, from experts talking about "SM" on their blogs to those who are writing that if you claim you're an expert in social media you're not on their blogs, and just about everywhere else, social media is the ubiquitous topic du jour.

And it all seems awfully familiar ... (if this were TV, this is the part where wavy dream lines and mystical music would cue and the calendar on your iPhone would reset itself to 1998)...

OK, seriously. Having been in the interactive marketing industry since 1997, all the current hype surrounding social media does seem eerily reminiscent of those heady days somewhere in between the writing of the Cluetrain Manifesto and the spectacular Dot.Com bust of 2000. (I even found a blog post advising mistrusting those of a "certain age" who claim to understand social media. Bless her heart.)

And it would be easy to be cynical about the whole state of social media today (full disclosure, I was for some time). But I've come to realize that unlike the euphoria founded in the very newness of the dot.com era, social media excites people because of the nature of what it is at its core: a really immediate, personal way to communicate with other people.


So what does all this mean for you as a small business owner? The simple answer:

Social media has become the latest marketing trend because it is:

Accessible.Social media is instantly accessible to you. Unlike dot.com marketing vehicles, you don't need to know how to program, hire a developer, market your site online, or even buy hosting. You simply log-in to places that have already done these things for you and begin publishing.

Attended.Your audience is already online. Unlike the early internet days, where we had to sell the medium as well as the vehicle, the people you want to reach are already using social media in record numbers.

Participatory. While digital marketing initiated the conversation between companies and customers, social media enables customers to direct the conversation.

Sustainable. Because it is an ongoing conversation with your customers, it is a marketing medium with built in freshness. Social media enables your marketing to grow organically and constantly.

Evolving.Social media is simply the next evolution of Internet (often called web 2.0); a very free-flowing, instant, and personal version of the Internet with which we started. Because of this nature, it follows that social media will only continue this constant evolution, thus providing you with more opportunities to use it to achieve your marketing goals.

So, while social media won't replace traditional marketing, digital marketing, or find your lost dog (oh wait, that mobile service provider's TV ad claims it will - "Sarah! You're home!"), it is going to be around for a while. At least until the next iteration ...

how often?

You might have noticed that I haven't posted since last week. I've been busy working on two client projects, which is great, hurray business! But, as the little voice in my marketing head started to speak louder and louder, "go post on the blog already", I decided I better get on it and write about frequency.

If you do a Google search on the topic you'll get dozens of answers, many of them on, you guessed it, blogs. You'll also find a variety of opinions on how often a person should blog. And, ironically, when it comes to advice on the Internet, I always take it with a grain of salt.

So, to be effective, how often should a small business owner post to their blog? The simple answer: how often works for you?

Let me put it this way, if your time is best spent creating your product or out selling it or doing the books or any other task your core business needs you for, sitting down and writing a blog post probably won't be time best spent. I won't tell you that you need to write a post or two a day, because that isn't good for your business in the big picture. But, as you work throughout the day, you can be thinking about what you will write when you do write next. Maybe something will happen during your day that inspires a great entry. Really interesting, insightful, and useful posts are what appeal to your readers most, anyway.

So rather than giving a strict schedule of posting, here are some points to guide you:

On Message: Before you blog, think about your marketing objectives and make sure every posts helps work toward those goals.

Interesting: As I mentioned, if your posts are useful, insightful, funny, entertaining, or any combination of these, people will check your site for updates.

Brief: You don't have to write a novel each post. Streamline your copy, use bullets, short paragraphs, make the copy easy to scan.

Topical: Make sure your posts reflect what is going on right now. Print out a calendar and write down post topics that correspond ahead of time. Relate your posts to current events. Stay relevant.

Useful: Provide links to related information that you find helpful. Write a sentence or two about why you are providing the links and why you think your audience will get something out of them too.

Valuable: If it goes with your marketing strategy, use your blog to provide discounts, deals, and special offers.

Connected: Are you using other social media to support your blog? Frequent activity on a micro-blogging site or a quick one liner of Facebook can go along way to keep you in peoples' minds.

Conversational: Actively involve your audience in the conversation. Ask them questions, give them an opportunity to talk about themselves, their opinions and needs. Follow up with posts that involve their input to keep the conversation rolling.

Good luck and good writing. Now I have to get back to that client work!

Look for our next post: Gazelles and Lions (really this time, it's a good story.)

what's in a meme?

About four years ago I participated in a new business pitch for a Fortune 500 consumer packaged goods company that wanted to understand how they could use social media as a marketing tool. This was at the beginning of the social media emergence into the marketing work space. We were not even referring to it as social media.

I had been following and using the technology for years on a personal level. At the time, I was really hesitant how a massive company could take this extremely personal communication medium and manipulate it into a marketing tool. And honestly, at the time, I didn't really think it was such a great idea to encroach upon people's personal conversations with marketing.

So, in order to better understand how to harness the technology for marketing, I started delving more into the medium and culling out great examples that had gone viral - literally getting passed around and shared with people in exponential numbers. What I soon found was that each example had a "meme" that hooked users into watching and, most importantly, sharing the piece.

Simply put, memes are just little snippets of popular culture that, for whatever mystical reason, really resonate with people. They can relate to the meme, identify with the meme, and feel special for understanding or finding and sharing the meme. And it takes off. Memes have been around forever and are not limited to online media. For example, in the movie Forrest Gump it is slowly revealed that Forrest is responsible for inventing lots of cultural memes, such as the smiley face, the fad of jogging/running, the "--it happens" bumper sticker, and so on.

A more recent example is the Weezer video for "Pork and Beans," which features recent social media memes, like the T-shirt guy, Mentos ghysers and that crying Brittany Spears fan kid.

So, four years ago, my conclusion was that for a company to be successful using social media they would need a great big juicy meme idea that people would overlook as advertising and would identify with more as a cultural phenomena.

Turns out, I was wrong.

Why? Four reasons:

Social media is just like any other marketing tool. Sure, a big meme idea would be great to get attention, but without solid marketing strategy behind it, it won't achieve the marketing objectives it needs to achieve. As long as you are following that one simple concept your efforts will eventually be successful.

Social media doesn't need to reach a massive audience, it needs the right audience. Just like any other form of marketing, if you're not reaching the right people, what's the point? A meme piece might reach millions of people while a carefully crafted one might reach thousands of a specific niche audience. That is going to make all the difference because if the message resonates within that niche, they will share and act upon it.

They can't all be Super Bowl ads. Just like not all TV spots are awe-inspiring masterpieces of the medium (Apple's Mac spot during the 1984 Super Bowl comes to mind) not all social media campaigns are going to go crazy viral. But, because of its ease of use, low production costs, ease of frequency, a good social media marketing program can be the workhorse of your marketing efforts.

You're initiating an active conversation. Properly done, your social media will not just get people to talk about you, they will be talking with you.

So, what's in a meme? The answer is simple: A spectacular idea will always be shared, but a focused, targeted message will be acted upon by the appropriate people.

Look for our next post: Gazelles vs. Lions

how to say it?

As a small business owner you already know what to say - and how to say it - on social media.

Social media is a one-to-many conversation and every day in real life you have dozens of conversations with people about your business. From customers that walk into your shop to people you network with at industry events to your family and friends, you're practicing real world social media all the time.

Using social media as a marketing tool is simply having those conversations online.

It sounds easy and it is. But just like a real life conversation, the same rules of social etiquette need to be followed in order for you to be accepted, understood and successful.

For example, you've probably been to a work function, like a networking luncheon, with That Guy. You know, that guy that talks a little too loud, a little too long and a lot too much about himself and his own business. Like most people, you probably smile and listen for a short time and then excuse yourself, cross the room as fast as possible, and hope he's not seated at your table. You might even avoid him at the next function.

This is exactly what happens when you don't converse properly on social media. Even worse, on social media people don't even have to worry about smiling and being polite. They can just click you away.

So, how not to be That Guy on social media? Simple: Just remember that every time you sit down to post online, even though you are working to achieve specific marketing objectives you are also talking directly with your colleagues and clients - in your own voice. If something sounds great in your head, double check and ask yourself is this something I would really say to a client or potential customer? Does this read the way I really talk? If I met a person who reads this would my online persona reflect my real persona?

Also, did you notice that I just wrote "talking directly with your colleagues ..."? The word "with" is also a key point in in creating successful social media conversations. Even though it is your social media it's not all about you. Like a live conversation, the more you can involve those you are talking with the more engaged and receptive they will be to what you are discussing. Take it back to the lunchtime work function: if you sit at the table and only talk about yourself, you miss connections and opportunities to see how the people seated with you could work together. By using social media to provide an opportunity to communicate with you, you're making those same kind of connections online.

These two points are pretty much the basis for effective social media conversations. And I am going to follow my own advice here and ask you something: what specific questions do YOU have about communicating via social media? Use the comments tool below and I will answer your questions in an upcoming post.

Look for our next post: what's in a meme?

does it work?

Does social media really work for small businesses? I was going to write more about how to talk to your customers using social media (and will soon), but a few days ago found this article on eMarketer: Small Biz Doubles Social Media Adoption and wanted to share my thoughts on it - and this question - first.

After reading the article, I created the following breakdown:

The strengths: According to the survey cited in the article 61% of small businesses with social media marketing in place have found new customers. Most found customer acquisition and branding were the primary marketing goals they achieved. About half believe they will make money within the year using social media.

The weakness: Half the respondents said social media took more time they thought it would. Although one fifth found it profitable most say that, at this point, they are only breaking even with their current use of social media. The main social media used by the respondents was simply a company page on a social marketing website and posting updates to the page.

The threats: A full 75% of small business owners are already implementing initial social media marketing. Despite the mixed results, linked data in the reportrevealed that nearly seven in 10 small business owners will put more dollars toward social media in 2010.

The opportunity:

• The strengths reveal that more than half of small business social media users are already experiencing some success.
  
  
• The weaknesses show what isn't working for small businesses and provide a check list of things to address before implementing your social media marketing efforts. Being aware of the cost of your time spent away from your core business, it might make financial sense to outsource your social media marketing. Similarly, as we discussed the many types of social media in an earlier post, determining the most effective mix and getting the most out of the mix by frequent, targeted maintenance will yield better results. It also points to the fact that dabbling with one social media outlet is akin to running one TV spot on one evening once a month. It's luke warm, but could be more effective by simply upping frequency and message content.
  
  
• The threats help predict what's ahead for your competition. They've already adopted the technology and are planning investing more in the months ahead. What will be your move?
  

So, does social media really work for small businesses? The answer to that is simple. On a limited scale, it already is. And those small businesses that put the effort, dollars, and marketing strategy into the medium will see even better results. And those that stay ahead of the pack, aren't afraid to implement strategies, review results and continually maintain and tweak their social media strategies will see the best results.

If this sounds like too great a cost, just remember, social media is an international broadcast medium that literally costs a fraction of any other broadcast media, as tertiary costs such as production, media buying, and creative services are curtailed or simply not required.

what do you say?

This morning I called a client out of the blue and told him I had a case of the Mondays. A little while later a new customer came in and the first thing I told her was that I thought the closing ceremonies of the Olympics were weak. Then, I did a mass emailing of all my business contacts and told them the score of my lunchtime Bejeweled game. In each exchange, I concluded by saying, "Peace. Out."

OK. In all honesty I didn't do any of these things, but every day on social media across the web, these types of conversations are taking place.

Social media is simple to use. So simple, it's easy to forget that real people are on the receiving end of your messages. Before you post, it's important to remember who you are talking with and, most importantly, why you are talking to them.

It's also important to remember that the Internet is forever. You might delete a post, but it will never go away.

So what do you say? Just think back to your reason for initiating social media in the first place - your marketing objectives.

Are you trying to get more people into your shop? Talk about a reason for them to come in and visit - new merchandising, a new shipment, a special event. Are you trying to sell more of a specific item? Tell users you have them in stock and give a link to an article from a reputable source telling how amazing that item is. Want to get people to review your business, ask them and give them a direct link to Yelp.

It's also a good idea to really think about who you are talking with. Chances are, you approach conversations with customers and potential customers differently than you do your friends. Maintaining that same voice is critical to using social media successfully. (This is an important point, and I'll post more about it later this week.)

As long as you stay focused on what you want your social media to achieve for your small business, you will always know what to say.

Look for tomorrow's post: how do you say it?