Small Business Starting to Use Social Media Successfully
I talk about small business Internet marketing more than anything else since a lot of people that I know are small business people. That’s why I blog about their experiences and their issues because these people are often viewed as the backbone of any true economic recovery that might take place. While big business still use the “bad economy” as an excuse to cut jobs at record pace the little guy is trying to make it happen. Heck, as a result of the continued layoffs from the big boys more small businesses are being born every day. As a result, social media adoption by SMB’s has increased as well.
A study reported by the Center for Media Research which was done by Network Solutions and the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business tells us
….social media adoption by small businesses has doubled from 12% to 24% in the last year. Small businesses are increasingly investing in applications including blogs, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles.
It’s good to see the little guy get more involved with social media. Unlike search marketing (in particular paid search) social media allows for some true creativity and because of its relatively low cost (notice I didn’t say free) the small business has less of a chance of getting burned. I can’t tell you how many times I speak to SMB’s who bemoan how much money they have spent on paid search and have seen no return. Social media opportunities are a breath of fresh air to these people.
The chart below tells the story
This kind of activity is something that will reinvigorate a struggling SMB and can even lead to cost savings as they learn what is really working with their advertising.
Dr. Alan Glazier, CEO and Founder of an eye and vision care center, said “… I was forced to consider alternative options to keep my business visible… with a very small investment in social media marketing, I was able to generate new business opportunities… (and) most importantly, my marketing budget has been reduced by more than 80%… “
Maybe Dr. Glazier’s sense of humor is helping as well (needing to find alternatives to keep his vision care center visible…Good one, doc).
Of course, as with anything it’s not all party hats and celebration. SMB’s struggle more with some of the downsides of the social media “effect” because they are often not able to spread the work out over other team members because they may not have them. Also, there is fear around social media as to whether it can open a can of worms that they are not ready to handle.
50% of small business social media users say it takes more time than expected. While social media adoption has doubled in the last year, there are still some roadblocks to small businesses fully exploiting its potential. Another 17% feel that social media gives people a chance to criticize their business on the Internet. Related to this, only 6% feel that social media use has hurt the image of the business more than helped it.
While it is never the silver bullet or the “automatic win” that many SMB social media hucksters proclaim it to be there is a lot of opportunity for the SMB to be promoting their business and finding more business than ever before. The odds are not stacked against the SMB in social media as they can be with other marketing options but the old adage “you gotta be in it, to win it” is more real than ever.
Tell us a good SMB social media story or encounter you had. Some really creative ideas never get outside of the towns they are hatched in unless we tell someone else. Let’s hear it.
People You Know Influential, Social Media Isn’t, in Purchase Decisions
People may be more honest on Facebook these days, but we still don’t trust them. MediaPost reports that an ARAnet study shows social media and search engine recommendations coming out tied among the general population—but search engine recommendations leap out in front among affluent (>$75,000/yr—49%) and younger adults (25-34—50% vs. 31% for social media).
However, the general consensus was that personal advice from friends or family members was tops, with 59% rating it as important in influencing their buying decisions. But to me, that sounds like a completely different dynamic—are we supposed to be measuring the influence of people we know vs. strangers vs. corporate messages, or are we measuring what medium is more influential? If your mom delivers her advice via your Facebook wall, are you less likely to take it than if she told you in a phone call? Is it surprising that most people trust people they know, who know them and their preferences, than random strangers on search engines or social networks?
Maybe the medium isn’t the message.
The full breakdown, however, does show an interesting breakdown among the information from people we don’t know (and from corporate sources):
Overall, most people participating in the survey — 59% — choose personal advice from friends or family members; followed by TV news or other broadcasts at 40%; search engines Google, Bing, Yahoo or Ask at 39%; TV ads, 36%; articles in newspapers or magazines, 33%; newspapers or magazines ads, 31%; online articles, 28%; and radio news or other broadcasts ads, 25%.
The remainder of the breakdown follows. Direct mail came in at 24%; radio ads, 20%; emails from retailers or manufacturers, 20%; online ads, 19%; messages or posts on social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or MySpace, 18 percent; and billboards, 15%.
Also note that the younger segment found social media to be far more influential than the general population did—31% vs. 18%. They also liked corporate information more: 32% (vs 20% for all respondents) appreciated information in emails from retailers or manufacturers, and 30% believed online ads were influential.
So really, what we’re saying is that younger people on the Internet are more influenced by random strangers and advertising.
What do you think? Is it the source of information or the medium used to convey it that has more influence here?
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Microsoft’s Outlook As a Social Hub?
Many folks like to talk about how anything labeled a Microsoft web strategy is an oxymoron considering the company’s less than stellar track record in the online world. That doesn’t mean that they will stop trying though. In an apparent attempt to ensure that they are seen as relevant in the social space the software giant is bringing some new friends into its ubiquitous Outlook product. Those friends are Facebook, MySpace and Linkedin. While it appears that Facebook is virtually everywhere it is quite interesting to see MySpace making some positive news these days. From a pure business play LinkedIn makes sense.
Microsoft Corp. is taking another step toward turning Outlook, its desktop e-mail program, into a hub for information from popular social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.
On Wednesday, Microsoft is releasing a “beta” test version of the Outlook Social Connector. The add-on software, which was first discussed last November, adds a new pane to the main e-mail reading screen on Outlook. When a user clicks to read an e-mail message, the new pane fills up with the sender’s most recent social-networking activities. Those could include the addition of a professional contact on LinkedIn or a “what I’m doing now” status update from Facebook.
I don’t know about you but the pace of social networking / media / marketing announcements can be dizzying . What’s even harder to consider is just how many of these options one person can actually use. Not to mention just how excited employers must be to see their employee’s inbox at work become another place to be distracted from doing that pesky work thing.
Will Kennedy, a corporate vice president for the Office group, said some of Microsoft’s business customers have expressed concern that employees will become less productive if they have all this extra information at their fingertips.
“We don’t want this to sort of be the next great time waster in the workplace,” he said.
That’s awful thoughtful of Microsoft to worry about workplace productivity but it’s hard not to imagine this won’t happen. Microsoft is spinning it by saying that the social part of it will increase productivity and that there are business related networking features that will increase productivity as well.
Microsoft’s new software also treats Outlook itself as a social network. If the e-mail sender and recipient are jointly working on a document stored on a company’s Sharepoint server, both will see updates if one logs on to make edits
One thing that may actually take the social out of this social networking tool is that there will not be capability to push updates back out to Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. So, I suppose it’s social in a “one way conversation” kinda way.
People using Office 2003, 2007 and beta versions of Office 2010 can download the updated Outlook Social Connector beta Wednesday. LinkedIn, which is primarily used for business networking online, is the first company to make its add-in software available. It can be downloaded from LinkedIn.com.
All I can say is good luck getting anything done while you are keeping tabs on everyone else who is not getting anything done.
29% of Companies Have a Social Media Policy
Does your company have a formal policy on employee social media usage during the work day (or after)? If not, you’re not alone: a report from employment services firm Manpower shows that only 29% of companies have a formal social media policy in place.
Obviously, far more companies block popular social media sites—another study in October showed that half of all companies block YouTube, Facebook and/or Twitter. But, as Mashable points out, those two stats aren’t mutually exclusive: there’s a difference between a written policy and simply avoiding the issue with blocking sites.
Most companies with a written policy (63%) say that it’s effective. But social media policies can cover much more than just work hours. They can also cover the company’s assets: in a written social media policy, you can establish guidelines for what employees can and can’t mention in social media (trade secrets and insider trading type stuff should be obvious, but isn’t always—and naturally, these rules can go too far, and could become the subject of unlawful termination lawsuits. Woot.).
I’m pro written policies: make it clear that your employees are not to spend work time watching YouTube videos, and enforce it. (Fire them, if that’s the policy.) However, this gets a little trickier when you’re using social media for business purposes, as more and more of us are—and even more tricky when you got on LinkedIn to send a message to get the contact info for a vendor and get sucked into the Q&A for two hours. (Apparently, most workers spend less than 30 minutes a day on social networking sites—which may be why most employers haven’t felt it necessary to come out with formal policies. Yet.)
What do you think? Should companies have formal social media usage policies for employees?
Will Tweet for Work
If you prefer to live in the real world you will agree that the job situation in the US is not getting better any time soon. If there are any political pundit types out there who want to duke it out about the what’s and why’s of this situation that’s fine. I’m just stating a fact.
This reality of the times we live in is played out all the time across social media channels. In particular, LinkedIn is the recruiters haven of social media as headhunters who collect connections like the business version of baseball cards. Collect’em all and trade with your friends who need a new VP of something or other. Hey, I’ll trade a VP of Biz Dev for two Directors of marketing!
Of course, you can’t expect something as current and pervasive as extreme unemployment to escape the grip of Twitter. The social media powerhouse is still figuring out those revenue thingys while other are using it for more and more practical purposes (that generate a penny for the company).
The newest is TwitJobSearch. We learn more from the New York Times technology blog Bits.
In the last month, 340,000 jobs have been listed on Twitter, said William Fischer, co-founder of WorkDigital, which created TwitJobSearch, a site that searches Twitter for jobs.
The latest tool that job hunters can use to find openings is called JobDeck, a new product from TwitJobSearch and TweetDeck, a desktop Twitter application.
TwitJobSearch scans Twitter for job postings by paying attention to the context in which employment-related keywords appear. For example, if a Tweet links to a story about the construction industry losing jobs, that should not show up on the list. If a Tweet says there is a job listing for an assistant to the vice president, the search engine needs to categorize it under openings for assistants, not vice presidents.
There are many early success stories in using Twitter as a job search tool and recruiting tool. JobDeck even pulls job listings from LinkedIn. This all makes sense especially of you are looking for some help with social related activities since those using the service are already at least on the platform. It doesn’t stop there though as the opportunities for many different jobs are popping up on Twitter.
The article gave this quick sketch of a real success story.
On Jan. 7, Richard Barton, chief executive of the real estate Web site Zillow.com, fired off this Tweet: “Greg Slyngstad & I are cooking up a consumer internet startup. R U our founding CTO? Seeking smart, passionate team-builder.” (Mr. Slyngstad and Mr. Barton helped start Expedia together.)
“We were deluged with résumés,” Mr. Barton said. “It’s the most powerful recruiting tool I’ve ever used.”
He has also hired three Zillow employees using Twitter, including its new marketing director. Mr. Barton says Twitter is especially useful for job announcements because, unlike e-mail, recipients do not need to respond unless they are interested in applying or know someone who might be.
So if you are in the market for a job or are looking for new job opportunities don’t discount Twitter as a great resource. Just be ready to make that first impression in 140 characters or less.
Cup of Joe: Give Me a Smart Phone With Pink & Purple Stripes
So the other day I logged into LinkedIn and went to my Inbox to view some messages. There I saw a connection request that I had obviously rejected back in November. I don’t like accepting request on LinkedIn unless I have met the said person face to face. So it’s not unusual that I would have rejected someone’s request. However, when I actually read this one request something was different. This person apparently met me while in Las Vegas at PubCon. Why did I refuse his request? Well, to be honest, I don’t remember the guy at all. I mean, I met a lot of cool folks at PubCon and apparently I met some non-memorable ones as well. Being non-memorable is a problem, especially for people at networking events.
I have to make a confession: I don’t have a trendy smart phone.
Now don’t get me wrong I have nothing against them, it’s just that my current phone does everything I need and more. I have been thinking lately about upgrading to a new smart phone, but quite honestly it has been really hard deciding which to pick. One of my old friends from college used to have a BlackBerry and now is using a Motorola Droid. So I called him up to get his opinion. We talked for a long time about all the different options in the smart phone market and I still didn’t feel any closer to picking out a phone that I wanted.
Why can’t I decide? What keeps getting in the way with this decision? Honestly none of the phones “jump out” at me. I mean really, when it all boils down to it, they are all the same. Sure some have different features. Some come with different services plans. Some come with different apps and widgets. But seriously they all pretty much do the same thing. Why aren’t any of the smart phone makers creating devices that stand out from the crowd? Why aren’t any of them creating memorable products? Why do they all pretty much look the same?
Why can’t I get one shaped like a banana with pink and purple stripes? I want one that can also open a bottle of beer, or something else equally ridiculous. Seth Godin will tell you that your brand has to be remarkable. However, before your brand can be remarkable it has to be memorable. It has to stand out from the crowd. It has to make me want to know more.
Yahoo Announces Top 2009 Searches (December, Deschember)
Yesterday, Andy took a look at the top searches for bing in 2009 (am I supposed to capitalize bing or not, someone PLEASE clear that up for me). Today, courtesy of Digital Beat we look at the top searches for Yahoo for 2009. Whether they are playing follow their new leader or they want to still be known as a search engine, honestly I don’t know. One thing for sure is, as Anthony Ha, wonders aloud
While we’re on the subject of “year in review” lists, I’ll add that I’m baffled that these lists are coming out now. I understand why some publications feel comfortable doing a list of the best movies or books or whatever (since critics have often received advanced copies or screenings of what’s coming out before the end of the year), but search terms? Really? Don’t we have another month to go?
Gotta agree with Anthony on that one but let’s not nitpick when there’s a silly list to dissect! Yahoo’s top searches read like a referendum on just how shallow we are in this world (social commentary is a freebie for you today)
1. Michael Jackson
2. Twilight
3. WWE
4. Megan Fox
5. Britney Spears
6. Naruto
7. American Idol
8. Kim Kardashian
9. NASCAR
10. Runescape
So to prove just how shallow I am, I recognized 80% of the top 10 and I have to ask this: “How the heck did NASCAR make the list?!” Is there wifi at stills now? I have to admit I have no clue about Naruto or Runescape.
I’m back because I did a quick search for each of those on Yahoo to goose their numbers and I have determined that I was better off not knowing about them but now I’m in.
Now when talking about business related searches we have the classic showdown between Facebook and Twitter and ……..drum roll please………
1. Facebook
2. Twitter
3. Hulu
4. Bing
5. iPhone
6. LinkedIn
7. Dollar Stores
8. Palm Pre
9. Rosetta Stone
10. Kindle
Well, while it still baffles me that people do searches for these terms at least Google didn’t make the list.
So now the question remains if Google will hold out and wait for 2009 to actually end before reporting their top searches for the year. Not much to look forward to, I agree, but it’s a slow news day.
The Tweets Are Coming — To LinkedIn
You know what’s missing from your social business profile on LinkedIn? Your tweet from yesterday, “Just remembered how much I like pickles.” Twitter and LinkedIn have anticipated your whim—today they’re announcing a partnership.
Okay, seriously, plenty of real business information is shared on Twitter. Depending on how you use the service, this really may be just what your profile needed—proof that you’re engaging with others in your industry, sharing helpful information, and have the know-how to do your job.
On the other hand, Twitter has also become an easy way to promote yourself—both in touting your abilities and giving yourself an actual promotion, to “guru.” Not everyone tweeting, and not everything said on Twitter, can be taken as evidence of expertise/guruosity/genius.
But don’t worry; if you’re tweeting so much to cover up the fact that you have nothing to say, you don’t have to add Twitter to LinkedIn. The New York Times reports:
LinkedIn’s 51 million members will now be able to send status updates — such as the fact that they are looking for an analyst on a certain topic, or posting a job opening — to Twitter on a case-by-case basis, and vice versa. People will also be able to add a section to their LinkedIn profile that contains their most recent tweets and view other people’s tweets when searching LinkedIn.
While this may get Twitter some more tweeting action and professional credibility, I think it’s probably an even smarter move for LinkedIn. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner “wants LinkedIn to be the hub for all professional conversation,” according to the Times—and this looks like just the way to do it.
But remember, if your Twitter profile has more about your cat than your clients, it may not be a good idea to include that in your professional profile.
What do you think? Is this a better deal for Twitter or LinkedIn? Will you use it?
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SMB’s – Behind the Curve or Right on Time with Social Media
We spend all day talking to each other about the importance of social media. I agree that it is important. We also seem to yell a lot about how social media can cure many marketing ills. I am often included in that kind of talk as well. We act as if social media is right for everyone to some degree or another. I feel that way most times but I am beginning to wonder if this is not putting the cart before the horse for the SMB (small and medium business) market.
The Center for Media Research shared a report that tells an interesting tale regarding the SMB and social media.
According to a new Citibank / GfK Roper survey of 500 small business executives across the United States, 76% have not found social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to be helpful in generating business leads or for expanding their business during the last year, while 86% say they have not used social networking sites to get business advice or information.
Why is that? Well, the next point tells the tale.
The survey found that general search engine sites such as Google and Yahoo! trump small business-focused sites and the WSJ.com as destinations for small business owners to seek business advice or information. 61% of respondents say they rely on these search engine sites.
The first reason offered for the apparent lack of social media sophistication is the lack of time. I don’t disagree but I think it may be more basic than that. I think it’s lack of trust. Most small business people are literally just starting to understand the basics of good web design and development so the social media thing is way ahead of them. Is it because they aren’t smart? No. It’s more likely that they aren’t just suckers who listen to everyone prattling on about social media and how it is the light unto their path to profits.
Many small business folks live around many small town folks. Small town folks may be using social media but they aren’t telling all of their cool friends in some urban center how they just crossed the street and are now successfully maneuvering down another block to do that again. They live where people are trying to get on with life in a difficult economic environment. As a result they are not interested in the latest and greatest social media trends. They are interested in getting what they need at the right price from someone they trust. Search engines and a good web site are more than enough to accomplish that in the vast majority of cases.
Here’s how business owners in this poll see social media
So go ahead and complain that I and the SMB just don’t get it. That’s cool. You have your opinion and it counts just as much as the next guy’s. What’s interesting though is that the battle cry of the hip or the Fortune 500 is yelled on a field far, far away from where a lot of people work, live and purchase. In fact, these aren’t battlefields at all. They are just simple places where people want some solid information they can trust and not just the referrals of ‘friends’ who wouldn’t know them if they stepped on them on their way to the next street corner.
Product Placements with Nobodies?
Let me guess: you’re looking for a way to get your clients’ products placed in all kinds of media—but you can’t afford any celebrity endorsements. Well, if you’re okay with your products being hawked by nobodies, you might be in luck, according to an AdAge article on Udorse.
Okay, at first it doesn’t sound so appealing: pay everybody and his dog for taking pictures of themselves with your products sounds like a good way to bankrupt yourself. But naturally, these people aren’t pulling in the same endorsement fees the big stars are.
But the real genius of the system isn’t from paying people to be pictured with your product—it’s the implementation. Udorse automatically uses Facebook photos for images with tagged products. Join the system and tag the product, and you’re taken to a short endorsement form to fill out.
Even better, the system isn’t just a flat-fee-for-photo rate—it’s more like affiliate marketing. When your friends take an action associated with the brand/product you endorse (presumably through your photo/tag/profile), then you get paid (via PayPal). Presumably, Udorse also takes a portion of that sale.
Facebook users (and they’re working on this with MySpace and LinkedIn, too) can also search for endorsements by topic.
Because they’re tapping the power of social networks, in some ways this is better than celebrity endorsements. Are you more likely to read a book recommended by a celebrity (yes, even Oprah) or one of your friends? On the other hand, we just said that affiliate marketing via social networks is, and I quote, “craptastic.”
If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go take pictures of myself with . . . every brand I have in the house.
What do you think? Can this system work? Will Udorse be able to get enough brands and members to make it work—and will they get enough of a cut to make it worth their while?
