Social awareness
Jul 08 2010
Just hearing the term social media can be enough to make you switch your computer off. It seems to be a domain occupied by people posting tweets about sandwiches, joining fan groups dedicated to paperclips and leaving smears of illiterate abuse in the wake of every web visit. But used correctly and its power can be enormous.
According to a recent survey, just 16 per cent of small businesses in the UK have Facebook or Twitter accounts, which suggests they could be missing out on a very cost-effective form of marketing. Undoubtedly it’s an annoying buzzword, but SMEs who are using the medium say it’s had a huge impact on their businesses.
Jo Westlake, director of the online cosmetics business Distribeauty, says Facebook has given her a new platform to target customers. ‘Doing promotions in an open community is effective because it quickly becomes viral,’ she says. ‘If someone joins a group or becomes a fan it’s available for their friends to see; that level of peer-to-peer communication is priceless. In November we offered a free shipping out day to subscribers and linked it in to Facebook. Before we did that we got around 6,500 views per day – afterwards we were getting 17,000.'
Matt Lea, product manager at software company Eleco, has managed to reach out to a new demographic by using social networking sites. ‘We have found a different target audience by using Twitter, for example, as users tend to be a younger demographic. This has led to a 10 to 20 per cent increase in sales, which we can attribute directly to social media,’ he says.
While it’s easy to dismiss social media as an opportunity for bored teenagers and office workers to exchange inanities, it’s also important to recognise that the medium is here to stay. Simply adopting a Luddite attitude to the technology in itself isn’t going to help you grow. And if your competitors are enhancing their market share with it, ignorance may be a luxury you can’t afford.
Five tips for social media
1) Facebook page
The site has more than 300 million users, so just attracting a fraction of this audience could give your sales a huge lift. Create a page today.
2) Start tweeting
You’ll need to spend half an hour doing some basic searches of the key words associated with your business to get an idea of what to include in your tweets. Use it to post short product launch announcements and your latest offers. Click here to join Twitter.
3) Blog on
Posting regular updates on your website will help improve your ranking on Google. And will enable people to interact with the ‘personality’ of your brand. Create a blog on sites such as blogger.
4) Get connected
LinkedIn is like Facebook but for professionals. As well as helping you identify new customers, this can be a great way to get referrals to new clients through introductions.
5) Multimedia
Multimedia (video, photos, audio) can be more complicated for SMEs to get to grips with, but will add life to your website. By using sites like Youtube and Flickr you can get more people involved visually with your products.
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