Reaching Your Audience: An Introduction to Social Media Tools for Small-scale Business

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1 Reaching Your Audience: An Introduction to Social Media Tools for Small-scale Business Briefly outlined are four main social media tools: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and blogging. Each one of these tools is easy to use with a little practice, and can be easily managed by you or a staff member, eliminating the need to hire a third party publicist or marketing firm. This is a key benefit to the business as it is cost effective. This provides the business with full authority on not only the message delivered to the customer, but also the timing; social media, when used properly, can provide instant and controlled access to your customer. Overview It is important for a modern small-scale business to have a successful online presence. The primary way to establish and build this presence is through a website. The costs both through initial investment of money and your time of creating and managing an effective website should be factored in when estimating your business start-up costs. However, a website is no longer sufficient on its own with the evolution of technology, the internet, and access to information in general. Whether you are selling a product or service, your consumer wants to know what it is, how they can access it, and they want to know as easily as possible. To reach this audience, a small-scale business owner can use social media tools. Photo by: AJ Cann via Flickr Facebook Facebook has surpassed Google with search requests and is now the most trafficked site on the web. With its 700+ million users, Facebook is reaching a worldwide audience. 1 1 Facebook Page Business Advantages to Support your Local Media Marketing Strategies, Accessed March 20,, Social Media Tools for Small-Scale Business, page 1 of 5 Mark Rennie, SIFE, Royal Roads University

2 In 2011, over 15 million Canadians were subscribed to Facebook, with an average of 9 million logging in daily 2. This is an incredible amount of traffic and considering Facebook is a free tool, this presents a huge opportunity for a new business to instantly achieve access to a broader demographic. Creating a Facebook page for your business is extremely easy, requiring only the administrator(s) of the page to have a personal page(s). Once the page is set up, it is as easy as posting on your wall 3 to provide instant updates to your customer. There are five key benefits to be gained by using Facebook to promote your business: VISIBILITY: As your network grows, your reach will grow. The more people you are connected to will increase the visibility for your business, expanding the opportunity to attract new customers. SHARE-ABILITY: When you publish relevant and interesting content on Facebook, your network will share it with their friends. With the easy option to share content, more people can become aware of your business, and will potentially connect with you either through Facebook or your website. BRANDING: The more people and potential consumers become aware of your business, the more your brand will appear on Facebook and on the web as well. Becoming a visible brand is important for gaining attention, web presence and ultimately starting interactions with potential customers. TRUST AND AUTHORITY: You can t buy trust and authority; you have to earn it. Your audience will pay attention when they think you are trustworthy, and your communication will have weight and your audience will listen and share with their own network. CONNECTION: Social networking is all about building connections to people with the same interest. An average Facebook user has about 130 connections. The more relevant connections you can build, the better. Keep in mind however that building relevant connections can take some time. other processors and wholesalers. Maple syrup producers, Christmas tree producers, and wild berry producers are typical of this group 4. Twitter Twitter has become the new darling of the Internet. However, it's not just for kids anymore; businesses can leverage Twitter as an effective listening and communication tool and use the power of Internet Speed to gather and share information. The digital world can be a great place to be. 5 Twitter is another easy way to utilize social media and market your brand in a cost effective manner. Twitter is an instant messaging system that allows an individual to post a brief message - up to 140 characters of text - to a list of followers. It is widely used to update followers (who are often consumers) as well as encourage feedback. Twitter can also be used to post pictures, send direct messages, and re-tweet messages to further extend and enhance the experience for your followers. Photo by: Jon Gossier via Flickr A Twitter account is easy to set up! You only need to visit Twitter.com, create a handle (a 2 Mind Blowing Canadian Facebook Usage Statistics, Accessed March 20,, 3 A wall post is a picture, video or status update that would be of relevance or interest to your customer. 4 Facebook Page Business Advantages Business Benefits of Using Twitter, Accessed March 20,, Social Media Tools for Small-Scale Business, page 2 of 5

3 username) and password. From there, you can explore people and businesses with common interests, and start tweeting. Benefits of using Twitter include: INDUSTRY CONVERSATION: Your target audience and/or potential prospects are likely on Twitter where they may be discussing their frustrations or are communicating positive experiences. Why not be a part of that? Participate in the conversation when it makes sense to do so. BRAND AWARENESS: Not unlike Facebook, businesses can use Twitter to keep their brand present and available for the consumer to engage with. You can also keep followers up- to-date (and provide a link) with your website and Facebook sites, as well as any blogs/videos you may have. COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE: The chances are extremely high, especially with the growth of Twitter, that your competition is already live and tweeting. Take the opportunity to monitor what they are discussing; perhaps they are launching a new product, or they could be facing some struggles and an opportunity might present itself. ENGAGING WITH YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE: Twitter provides you access to interact with potential customers. You can engage with them by responding or re-tweeting something they posted. You can also manage your reputation by how you tweet; being honest, transparent, and even having some fun with it will help you better manage customer relationships. CHEAP RESEARCH: Twitter is a great way to pose questions about your industry or product to the people are most interested your followers. It also provides a mechanism for customers to give you feedback on what they may have liked or disliked, or what they need or want. Based on this instant feedback, a new business can make quick adjustments and get fast answers to any problems they may face Business Benefits of Using Twitter. YouTube YouTube provides a more viral approach to marketing versus the information sharing methods provided by Facebook and Twitter. Viral marketing is defined as marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message. Successful viral marketing relies on a high transfer rate from person to person. If a large percentage of recipients forward a message or content to a large number of their own contacts, the overall growth snowballs very quickly. If the transfer numbers get too low, the overall growth Some Quick Facts about YouTube: it is the third most visited site on the internet; It is the second largest search engine on the internet; It is the world s largest video sharing platform; It receives over 3 billion viewers every day; 13 million hours of footage was uploaded in quickly fizzles 7. YouTube is a salient example of viral marketing. YouTube is a free tool that can be used to effectively promote your product or service. You Photo via: Flickr 7 Marketing Terms; Viral Marketing, Accessed March 20,, rketing/ Social Media Tools for Small-Scale Business, page 3 of 5

4 can create and upload a video to share, and use your Twitter, Facebook and website to promote what you have created 8. As with other social media outlets, YouTube is a great way to promote your brand. The best way to get noticed is to create something fun and unique all that you need is a video camera and an hour to make a video and upload it to the site. If people like it, they will pass it along and your audience will increase. Furthermore, because YouTube is affiliated with Google, your video is likely to appear in a search result when someone uses the search engine for your business or search for something similar. Blogging One additional social media tool to help with internet marketing is blogging. While blogging has decreased in popularity with the recent and more instantaneous marketing methods of Twitter and Facebook, there are still benefits. A blog is a frequent and chronological publication of what is happening with your business, and Photo by: Iris Pisces via Flickr would generally be subscribed to by your client base or others who share a common interest 9. Running a blog for your business has many advantages; you are not limited to a word count as you are on Twitter, and blog postings tend to be more formal than Facebook updates. However, people subscribe to blogs and rely on regular updates, so you may need to set expectations from the outset. Your customers may expect frequent posts, so set a guideline that you are sure to follow. Be reasonable; set the expectation that you will post one entry per week, and stick to it. That way, you can focus your marketing resources on other, more efficient methods, while still meeting the expectations of your customer 10. Summary Social media tools not only supplement a business marketing strategy, but make it easier. Conventional marketing strategies such as a website need to be in place, and these tools can help supplement and promote information on your website. The benefits of using one (or all) of these tools can really help a new business take off. We have discussed the cost benefit, but these tools are also convenient. It may seem daunting at first to learn about various new technologies and how to use them to effectively manage your business, but take the time to learn and explore them. They provide a small-scale business owner with a fast and free way to advertise, and it can be fun too! You can create quick links to these outlets from your website, and provide have the links on a business card. Customers have higher expectations for how they want to receive information, and a successful small business owes it to themselves to have that same standard. Social media is an efficient, cost effective, and modern way to reach customers and ensure a sound marketing mix. 8 Video for Business YouTube Statistics 2011, Accessed March 21,, 9 Marketing Terms; Blog, Accessed March21,, 10 Advantages and Disadvantages of Internet Blogging, Accessed March 21,, Social Media Tools for Small-Scale Business, page 4 of 5

5 Social Media Tools for Small-Scale Business, page 5 of 5 Mark Rennie, SIFE, Royal Roads University