Social Media for Small Business Owners

I’m giving a talk next week at Asian Women in Business about Social media for small business owners. Over the last few months, I’ve been thinking a lot about what my point-of-view is regarding social media for SBO’s. I don’t for a minute doubt the value social media provides any business. However, I want to be cognizant of the fact that social media, like any other business channel, requires immense time, resources and investment for limited tangible results. And I wonder if that is a hard sell for a SBO.

I’ve been interviewing and speaking with SBO’s since the last few days and am hearing mixed opinions. Most SBO’s see immediate value in social media but the results don’t often match up to their expectations. And mostly that comes from a case of misguided expectations.

There is a LOT of information on the Internet for SBO’s interested in using social media. But just sifting through it and reading about it can be overwhelming and cause action – paralysis. I don’t want my presentation to be just another talk crowding the web. While there is no one-size fits all approach when it comes to social media, I do want to provide my audiences with a strategic framework to think about social media.

I just wanted to jot down some thoughts here before I begin framing them into a presentation. I’d love feedback and ideas on making this better.

1. What you don’t know about social media: Social media is old news. This talk is not a SM 101/ but lets start with a reality check. Yes, we’ve heard the astounding numbers. 350 Mil+ users on Facebook. 50M on Twitter. etc etc. But what you might not know is this – only 5% of people on Twitter create 75% of the conversations on it. 85% of iphone users use only between 2-4 applications. (So hold your horses before you invest 50% of your marketing budget into a new application)

Bottomline: Share of attention is difficult to achieve UNLESS there is a compelling value proposition.

2. Lets talk about you. Have a clear understanding of your business goals and then think about how social media platforms can help you achieve them. You are not Dell. You are not Zappos. What are YOU trying to achieve from social media? Entertainment networks use social media to drive tune-in and awareness; Magazines use social media to increase readership and build audiences; the korean BBQ Truck uses Twitter to drive foot-traffic and inform its fans of the truck’s locations. And other retail brands use facebook and Foursquare to drive sales and promotions. What is your business goal and is it something that social media can help you achieve it?

What are then some of the goals that SM can help you achieve? From a sales POV – social media can give you a terrific understanding of your customers; help you build thought leadership in you area of business/ expertise and help occupy mindshare. Social media also offers a more direct advantage in terms of driving promotions, foot traffic, sales and positive reviews. (Think yelp.com twitter.com and foursquare.com) The usual arc into success in social media is 1) build audiences 2) to drive awareness and 3) ultimately inspire action.

3. Understand your audience. This is important. Once you have your goals clearly outlined, think about your audiences and where they enjoy spending time on the Interwebs. Are they talking about you or your competitors somewhere? Are they they just a handful or are they in droves?

4. Prioritize your investment. What’s right for your business? Each platform helps you achieve specific objectives. Linked in with business networking, Twitter with customer service, relationship building, Facebook with fan engagement.

5. Rules of Execution.

No overnight results: The amount of time you invest in social media is directly proportional to the results you can expect from social media: Setting up a Facebook page of Twitter profile isn’t enough.

Not about the numbers: Not yet anyways. Focus on the quality of your interactions not the quantity. An entertainment client of ours has 30K less followers on Twitter than its competitor. In spite of this, our client tweets are just as re-tweeted (slightly more often, in fact) as the competitor tweets.

Measure. Optimize. Adapt. The beauty of social media is real-time results. Twitter is still far limited in providing results – but Facebook gives you the opportunity to track progress, see what’s working and what’s not and make changes in real time.

This is a work in progress. But any thoughtful comments and constructive criticism will be super helpful.