Social Media For Small Business 5 10 11

Social Media for Small Business: An Introduction

Workshop content: Ron Marshall | Design/Layout: Rayven WalkerFerndale Career Center713 East Nine Mile RoadFerndale, MI 48220248.545.0222ferndaleschools.org/fccfacebook.com/ferndalecareercentertwitter.com/ferndalecareerlinkedin.com/in/ferndalecareercenterLinkedIn Groups: Ferndale Career Center • EmployNet

How Seriously Must You Take Social Media?

Various social media, Web-based outlets that help users build relationships and share information, not only allow awareness of your company and your messages to spread quickly online, but it also can help you create profitable, lasting relationships with your customers, influence the conversation involving your brand, and drive sales less expensively and more quickly than traditional methods.

How Do We Start the Right Way?

Ask yourself:What are my company’s strategic goals?What tactical instruments do we currently

use?How can social media elements bolster (or

replace) our current tools to better …Reach and serve our customers?Reduce our costs? Increase sales?

Tactical tools @replies #hashtags Lists

Strategic thrusts Broadcast virally Develop leadership Initiate new relationships Respond to customers Generate traffic

Tactical tools Pages Groups Events

Strategic thrusts Build relationships One-to-one marketing Direct sales Stay visible Be transparent Develop events Generate traffic

Strategic thrusts: Leverage talent and knowledge Create alliances Brand leadership Initiate B2B marketing Check references Generate traffic

Company Benefits

Will It Blend?

Will it blend Glowsticks? An iPod? A tiki torch?

Marketing director George Wright found out that the company’s CEO and the R&D team used wooden boards to test the toughness of their blenders. He invested $100 and convinced the CEO to blend other things to film.

Now, BlendTec, the 186-person commercial blender division of KTEC, uses two official Web sites, their YouTube channel, Facebook Page, and Twitter account to connect to customers, humanize the company, and incite impressive sales growth, driven mainly by their series of outlandish Will It Blend videos.

Social Footprint

Zappos: CEO Tony Hsieh figures he goesthrough 1,000 tweets a day that are eitherdirected at him or mention Zappos. Goal isto have 50,000 online video reviews on their Web site by the end of 2010. Hasgone from zero to $1.2 billion in less than 10 years just selling shoes.

A Little Bird Told Them

“Dell says Twitter has produced $1 million in revenue over the past year and a half through sale alerts. People who sign up to follow Dell on Twitter receive messages when discounted products are available the company's Home Outlet Store. They can click over to purchase the product or forward the information to others.” [From http://www.internetnews.com/webcontent/article.php/3790161/What+Keeps+Twitter+Chirping+Along.htm#]

Per their Web site, the company supports a strong online community with http://en.community.dell.com/ serving as a “decentralized hub.”

The Price of Sacrifice

Getting in the conversation …

Group breakout:List 3 to 5 areas your business excels in

and share them with the groupDiscuss and write down at least three ways

the group sees that you can use these tools to attract attention to those areas of strength

Other Social Stars

• Communication• Skype/Google Voice

• Social Bookmarks• Digg/Reddit/StumbleUpon

• Locations• Foursquare/Google Places/Facebook Places

• Reviews• Yelp/MetroMix

• Social Buying• Groupon

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