Posts Tagged ‘yellow pages’

I hear this question a lot. When a small business starts getting involved in social networks, such as Twitter, the owner wants to know if they should allow any personality to show or not. The question is a valid one, and my opinion comes down pretty heavily on one side. However, before I give that to you, I want to walk through the process that a small business goes through when its first dipping its foot into social media.

Why Do You Get Involved?

As a small business owner, there is really only one reason to get involved in social media. You want to get sales. If you are moving into social media for this, congratulations, you are still ahead of the curve.

Its possible that you were involved in social media on a personal level before you decided to bring your business into the mix. Most of us have Facebook pages and LinkedIn accounts. However, you probably didn’t spend that much of your personal time on these sites. As a small business owner, you simply don’t have all that much personal time.

So when you decided to bring your business into social networks, you probably didn’t already have a huge personal presence. You have to build something from scratch for your business. You think, and rightly so, that social networking can drive sales to your business. But you may be mistaken in how you think that will happen. Lets look at where most small businesses are coming from in terms of marketing driven sales.

Where Are You Coming From?

As a small business, the truth is, you probably don’t do a whole lot of marketing. You are probably considering social media because you have heard its effective and, just as importantly, its free. There is no shame in this. Free marketing can be just as effective as paid.

When a small business does market in the offline world, it is usually in the form of newspaper ads, yellow pages, and post cards. And because all of these things get expensive, you probably don’t do these as consistently as you would like. With social networks, you will be able to be very consistent. In fact, it is a necessity.

When you market now, you probably spend a fair amount of time talking about your business and hoping your message will reach people who are ready to buy. This traditional form of marketing could also be called interruption marketing.

So, it would make sense if you tried the same tactics on social media. You may think that the best thing you can do on Twitter and in your newsletter is to provide deals and advertisements for your business. When you first start out, you will likely want to talk about your business all of the time. That is what you are used to doing. You get sales by telling people what you do.

Let me intervene right here. If there was a television station that was all commercials, all of the time, would you watch it? No, you would not. Likewise, people will not pay attention to you online if you are a 24/7 commercial. Its okay to make some mistakes when you get started. But in order to make social media worthwhile for your business, you need to get a feel for what it is all about.

How Long Does it Take to Get Comfortable?

Getting comfortable with social media tools is an important aspect of your success. If you don’t “get it”, you will never make a dime and will be wasting your time.

“Getting it” involves more than learning the technology. You also need to learn the people. Your prospective customers don’t log in to Facebook with the hopes that they will see a promotion from your business. People aren’t interacting looking to buy. Instead, they are looking for entertainment, education, and answers to their problems.

What you need to do is take enough time building relationships so that you can get a feel for your prospects and how they use social media. Then you can position yourself to be an entertainer, and educator, or a problem-solver.

This takes buying in to the power of online relationships. If you think its all a gimmick, please feel free to stay away. If you don’t spend time on social networks yourself, you aren’t going to be able to find the perfect voice for your business. If you learn how to interact, on the other hand, you will be turning up all kinds of new opportunities for your business.

Should You Be Yourself or Not?

Making the decision about whether you should let your personality shine through on social networks needs to be informed by your own usage of these tools. The  question is whether  your business is interesting without your personality. Also, you need to recognize how important you are to your business’s brand.

Think about this. The most popular people on Twitter are, well, people.  Businesses get follows, but there is less of a personal connection. If you are going to be interacting and building relationships on social networks, it is much easier to do it as a person. And as a person, you can build trust and point people back to your business.

My answer to whether you should be yourself on social networks is a resounding yes. It starts with you taking a different view of social media than you take with your traditional marketing. In a way, social media is more about sales than marketing. This is because its about personal connections. When you are on Twitter or Facebook, your big goal should be to build a network. It is only later that you can tap that network to drive sales. And when you are ready to, you will already have a good understanding of what your prospects will respond to.

In the end, it does all come down to sales. But its not a numbers game. Social media allows you to build a group of qualified prospects that respect you first, and then buy from you second. It is hard to build this kind of network as a faceless business.

Don’t be afraid to be a person. You are a person when you make a sales call, or when you talk to a customer on the phone. Be the same person online. Join social networks as yourself and contribute to the conversations. You will have plenty of opportunities to talk about your business. And if you do decide to send out a special offer, at least there will be people listening.

photo credit: We-Present: Travel-UggBoy-The-Photographer!

Have a Small Business Question? Ask me and I will answer it here – email me with your question now.

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Bradford Shimp is the publisher of All Biz Answers. He is also the co-creator of Idea Anglers, a place to see your ideas come to life through collaboration. Follow on Twitter @bradfordshimp. Let Bradford help you with your business – visit BroadRiverCreative.com

Twellow is an interesting tool which acts much like a yellow pages for Twitter. You can search by topic or by geographic region. You can also sort your searches in a number of ways, including how many followers a person has.

If you are trying to build a network for your business on Twitter, you should be using Twellow. You can find new colleagues and people who would be ideal customers.

If you are a virtual assistant, for instance, you will want to connect with other virtual assistants. There is a lot to be gained from networking within your field of expertise. You will also want to find people to connect with who might hire virtual assistants. Small businesses for example. Or online marketers.

To find any of these people, simply type your search term into Twellow. If you want to follow people directly from Twellow, you will have to create a free account, which simply involves you providing your Twitter log in information.

You can go down the list and decide who you want to follow. If you want to follow top people in your field, simply start with the person with the most followers and go down. If, however, you are hoping to build relationships and get customers, look for people with 50 to 100 followers and follow them. If you engage with these people, they will be more likely to engage back, and you can start a relationship.

Don’t follow too many people at once. Do a few at a time and then find a way to engage with them. This can be a reply to a tweet or you can strike up a conversation. The goal is to establish the connection. You won’t establish a relationship with everyone. You want to find those who are active on Twitter and who are interested in your topic. In other words, find people that share your passions.

Continue to revisit and refine your searches on Twellow. Build networks based on interest and location. Twellow is a very useful tool in your quest to build a worthwhile Twitter network.

Have a Small Business Question? Ask me and I will answer it here – email me with your question now.

Get Unique Content Weekly with The Letter

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Bradford Shimp is the publisher of All Biz Answers. He is also the co-creator of Idea Anglers, a place to see your ideas come to life through collaboration. Follow on Twitter @bradfordshimp. Let Bradford help you with your business – visit BroadRiverCreative.com