In her Handshake 2.0 blog post, Anne Giles Clelland nicely summarized a discussion consisting of threads across email, Twitter, blogs and telephone about affordable ways for small businesses to leverage social media for increased sales.
I thought I’d reiterate some of the core concepts and add a few new thoughts and links here.
Power of Self Publishing
Among the ideas we discussed is something I’ve called user-generated PR. Others have referred to the same idea as “vendor as publisher.” There are more places than ever to post your content. Find an online forum where your buyers are likely to congregate and determine what opportunities there are to get your content posted.
In general, the copy should be educational and not self-promotional. Still, a thought-provoking piece gets your name out there and offers the opportunity to link back to your website.
Establish a Digital Identity
Speaking of linking back, you will need to establish and build a digital identity. This means your businesses website, of course (see TechNewsWorld’s series on building a small business website) but it can also mean building out the brand by launching a blog about your speciality, and profiles on social networks that are appropriate for your niche.
These days most people go online to explore purchasing options and get the information they need to make buying decisions. As Anne says, Contact=Sales, and contacts are increasingly made online these days, on Twitter, blogs and social networks.
There are affordable ways to launch websites and blogs, and micros sites and landing pages – the Web destinations that provide a “welcome mat” to new business prospects, and help you capture their information through a registration form. However, if you are someone, who wants to build a website by yourself from scratch, you may want to start by trying to learn the basics of website creation. You can look for video resources such as how to create a website guide, web designing, website building with WordPress, and other such e-materials on the web that might come in help.
The Brand of “You” and the Power of News
Media Post had an article The Personal CPM: Quirky Idea or Future Marketing Reality?. According to the article, Forrester’s Charlene Li
hypothesizes that marketers will bid for access to personal social networking profiles with greater reach and influence among their peers.
I wrote about something similar in U R The Media on the Fusion PR Forum blog.
Back in the day, we called PR “media marketing,” the thought being that communications with information intermediaries like journalists required a special approach. These days, the reader of your news could just as easily be a prospective customer, who can discover the information in a Google search. So let’s not forget the power of news, and the press release.
For example, holiday product releases ought to be planned to meet the deadlines, and this is where scheduling software helps. When backed by substance and written well, news releases are less likely to be dismissed as just spam, even though one of the goals for your press release can be similar to the goals of a direct marketing campaign: generate customer demand for your new offerings.
The press release offers a non-threatening approach because the wrapper connotes news and information, it is more appealing in my opinion than a hypey direct email piece.
As Anne so eloquently says, it is The Great Forward. Each person can be a reflector, and the news can spread virally as search engines index it, and it is shared across social networks and news sites.
