Stay tuned! Check out our latest videos, television appearances and podcasts.
Connect With Customers
Are
NASE Members Making The Most Of Social Media Tools?
By Jan
Norman
It wasn’t too long ago that micro-business owners could
contemplate – in all seriousness – whether they needed a business Web site.
Now – in all seriousness – a business without a Web site is like a
salesman without business cards.
Even customers who live within a mile
of a shop or office wonder if the venture is legitimate if it doesn’t have some
Internet presence. And many business Web sites are now being enhanced with
features such as blogs, podcasts and v-casts that connect with customers. Is
your micro-business keeping pace by offering the latest and greatest interactive
elements?
NASE Member William Jewell makes the majority of his sales
through his Web site, www.historicalwoods.com. As owner of Historical Woods of
America Inc. in Fredericksburg, Va., Jewell removes damaged trees from
historical locations, such as Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello home in Virginia,
and makes products from the wood. In addition to his Web sales, he also sells
products at craft shows and in gift shops.
“We’re trying to do
everything in-house through the Web site or craft shows,” he says.
NASE
Member Kim Neel, owner of Alala LLC in Columbia, S.C., sells post-surgical
supplies for cancer survivors. She appreciates the necessity of having a Web
site, even though a large portion of her target market doesn’t use the Internet.
“I do have an online store, but the site is mainly informational,” she
says of her Web site at www.alala.info. “We have links to helpful resources like the
American Cancer Society, but we get very little revenue.”
One of Neel’s
assistants set up an Alala page on MySpace, the most popular social networking site, but the firm
hasn’t done much with it. Neel and her business partner Sherry Norris are
exploring how to put a video on the Alala Web site to demonstrate a new product
invented by Norris’ husband. The product makes it easier to put on a compression
sleeve that’s used to treat a swollen arm that often occurs after breast cancer
surgery. It would be a good candidate for an online video product demonstration.
Jewell and Neel are like many micro-business owners who use their sites
for marketing and e-commerce. But today the Internet offers a rapidly growing
list of social media tools that micro-business owners can add to their Web sites
or use in connection with those sites to boost their marketing.
Neel has
heard of blogging (commentary on a Web site), podcasting (online audio
programming) and Twitter (messages of fewer than 140 characters), “but it would
take so much energy to figure out how to use them,” she says.
Jewell,
too, has yet to use such interactive tools.
But like many other
micro-business owners, Jewell and Neel are asking themselves whether learning
and using these tools would be worth the time and effort.
Business
Benefits Of New Online Tools
The biggest advantage of new online
social media tools for business is that they allow interaction between consumers
and businesses. The owner can talk to customers and prospects; find out what
they’re thinking, buying and no longer buying; ask them questions; answer their
questions; show them how to use products and more.
As micro-business
owners learn about these opportunities, more see business applications. In a
recent survey by SurePayroll, an online payroll service for small businesses,
55 percent of respondents said that online social networking tools have value
for business, and 20 percent had actually obtained at least one new customer as
a direct result of using social media tools.
A separate study by Access
Markets International (AMI) Partners found that 600,000 small businesses plan to
deploy integrated social networking services in the next year, double the
300,000 currently using them.
“Business-focused social networking offers
an effective, relatively inexpensive and lucrative opportunity to keep steady
communication with existing partners and clients as well as incubating new
relationships,” says AMI Partners analyst Nikki Lamba.
Microsoft
recognizes that these changes can be intimidating for busy micro-business owners
who don’t have a full-time tech staff. So the company offers a free, online
booklet, “Let’s Talk: Social Media for Small Business.” Written by John
Jantsch, author of “Duct Tape Marketing” (Thomas Nelson Inc., 2007), the
booklet explains the basics of social media such as blogs, RSS feeds, social
networks and Twitter. You can download the booklet for free at http://smallbusiness.officelive.com/socialmedia.
Web Site Communication Tools
Because two-way
communication is the most important part of social media tools, Jantsch thinks
micro-business owners should start with blogging. A blog, short for Web log, is
merely a Web site with frequently updated commentary. Typically a blog
encourages comments from readers and provides links to related content on other
Web sites and blogs. Chances are, many of the Web sites you visit are really
blogs. Micro-business owners can combine their existing Web site with a blog to
connect in a personal and continual way with customers and prospects.
You can use posts on your blog to tell customers about new products or
services, announce special sales, poll customers about a possible change in the
business, and become known as an expert in your industry.
Tom Peters,
author of “In Search of Excellence” (Collins Business in 2004), is blunt
about the need for business owners to blog.
“If you’re not blogging,
you’re an idiot,” he told a September 2008 gathering of owners of businesses on
the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies. “No single
thing in the last 15 years has been more important to me professionally than
blogging … It’s the best marketing tool and it’s free.”
Other online
communications tools that micro-business owners can put on their Web sites or
link to include podcasts (radio-like audio programs), v-casts (podcasts with
video) and YouTube videos.
Podcasting, which takes its name from the Apple iPod personal media
player, started in September 2004. Since then it has exploded into hundreds of
millions of programs such as the tax podcasts by NASE National Tax Advisor Keith
Hall.
Such programs establish their hosts as experts in their field and give quality
content to their Web sites, which in turn attracts more online traffic and more
business.
And the great part is that anyone with a computer, microphone
and free software can create a podcast. An inexpensive camera adds video.
Millions of businesses have used YouTube to distribute product demonstrations. These videos can
easily be put into a blog or onto a Web site.
One famous YouTube example is Blendtec,
which manufactures high-end blenders. The company has posted a series of “Will
it Blend?” videos on YouTube
that demonstrate a Blendtec blender chopping up ballpoint pens, iPhones, golf
balls and other odd objects. In less than two minutes each video demonstrates
the strength and power of a Blendtec blender.
Social Networks
One of the fastest growing online marketing tools for businesses is
social networking.
MySpace, with more than 117 million users, and Facebook, with more than 70
million, are the best known. But hundreds of niche networks have sprung up in
the past year. Ning, a Web site that provides a platform for anyone to start a
social network, projects there will be 4 million specialty social networks by
2010.
“Social networking offers small-business owners an inexpensive and
effective way to connect with their customers and prospects,” says David Rohrer,
online marketing manager for SurePayroll.
To use social networks effectively, you
want to sign up and be active on the networks most used by your customers and
prospects.
For example, Facebook started as a site for college students, but now its
average user is between the ages of 30 and 40. Lymabean has stepped into the
void. It targets college students and offers interactive tools about individual
campuses as well as the surrounding towns. A restaurant or clothing store in one
of those targeted towns might want to participate in Lymabean to reach its college
customers.
LinkedIn is a social
network for business professionals. It connects people with similar interests
for business rather than social purposes. It’s a great place to ask business
questions, do market research, network online, find employees or consultants,
and find customers.
“One of the core marketing, strategic objectives of
social networks is to expand your reach and open up new avenues of networking,”
says author Jantsch. “On any social network … it’s important that you take a
little time and get to know the culture and the accepted norms.”
Participants in any social network don’t appreciate a hard sell, but
they do want to know about a business and how they can benefit from what the
business has to offer.
Twitter is a different type of niche social
network. Anyone can participate, but their answers, called Tweets, are limited
to 140 characters in response to “What are you doing?” The typical initial
reaction to Twitter is, what’s the point? But a growing number of entrepreneurs
are finding that following and being followed by customers and colleagues on
Twitter helps their businesses. They can announce new products or a sudden
service outage, ask advice, get instant feedback about products, services or
events, and build relationships.
Online Directories
In
addition to your own Web site, you should make use of online business
directories, such as superpages.com. These let you list your business for free, and
some allow consumers to review products and services they have used.
Lymabean, the college social
networking site, allows businesses to list themselves and events they host for
free in the towns where they’re located. It also sells advertising, but to
attract site visitors, the site wants a robust directory of things to do and
places to go.
The fact that more Web sites and blogs allow comments can
benefit micro-business owners. Your customers can post rave reviews about your
business, products and services. On the other hand, unsatisfied customers can
criticize your business, products or services online.
So how do you keep
track of comments being made about your business? Google Alerts. Every time your
business name shows up online, Google will send you an e-mail update. Go to Google.com to set up a free
alert. It’s just one more of the interactive online tools that can help your
micro-business.
Freelance writer Jan Norman has a blog at ocregister.com/jan. Give her
your feedback.