Training my cat to NOT go outside…
Actually a test of a free iPhone app (from Bad Robot).

Cat Training

One of the greatest challenges facing small businesses that want to engage with customers and prospects via social media is coming up with content. Small business owners are great at running their businesses, but few are also professional writers on the side. Here’s some great news: social media is not perfect. In fact, perfectionism may be the bane of social media. The emphasis behind “social” is on being real, being transparent and having your company speak with a human voice. An occasional misspelled word or using imperfect grammar is not only acceptable, but is often viewed as refreshing and humanizing.

Let’s delve into the transparency aspect for moment. At my live seminars, I often ask audience members about their business, and recently found that one of the attendees was the owner of a hobby store with nine employees. They sell radio-controlled airplanes, cars and boats. I asked how his employees act when FedEx or UPS delivers the newest, hottest item. The response, as expected, was, “They practically fight over each other to be the first to open the box!” What do you think would have the biggest impact? A professionally produced television commercial or using a smart phone or flip-style video camera to tape thirty seconds of true excitement and posting it on YouTube? You can’t fake enthusiasm and there’s nothing more powerful than reality.

More good news: over half the content on social is shared content. Finding and sharing can be as impactful as creating! I live in the digital marketing space. It’s my hobby, my passion and my vocation. I read everything about digital marketing I can get my hands on, which means that on most days, I scan dozens of blogs that relate to digital marketing. When I find something that I think would be important to my readers or would resonate with my audience, I simply hit a button and share what I found by posting the link to Facebook or Twitter. My followers are small business owners; marketing is important to them, but they can’t justify the time to stay as current as I do because they have a business to run and their own area of expertise to explore in detail. I’m serving as a filter for them and trading my expertise for their attention, building loyalty and differentiating myself by saving them time. All of you are experts at what you do in comparison to your customers. Put that expertise, that experience, to work for you by sharing what you know and what you find valuable via social media.

How do you know if your content (what you’ve found or what you’ve created) is social-worthy? Good social content should always pass two tests: first, is it likely that your followers will want to share it with their followers? Second, will it incite your followers to comment on it? This second test leads to one of the most compelling properties of social media. When you post something that many people comment on, they’re essentially creating new content for you, on your behalf, as advocates for you. Remember when Tom Sawyer got all of his friends to whitewash the fence for him? Perhaps credit for inventing social media marketing should go to Mark Twain.

Last year, there was a headline in my local newspaper (I read it online, of course) that immediately caught my attention. Because it was nonsensical, I wanted to ignore it, and I was hoping no one else would see it. Unfortunately, it was picked up by every news service in the country, so you probably read it too. It proclaimed (smugly, I thought, because I’m a bit overly protective of email), “Email is Dead.” This was a quote, and it came from the COO of Facebook, so perhaps there was a small conflict of interest (uber-irony: they came out with their own email service soon after). A few months later, I read that Facebook was dead (which made me feel much better). Recently, the cover story of Wired Magazine stated, “The Internet is Dead”. Last month, I read that blogging is dead. I don’t know about you, but I missed these funerals somehow. I still use all of these tools every day, and I have a large audience using all of these tools everyday.

I love social media, and I think it’s a powerful engagement tool. But, your customers, prospects, and stakeholders communicate in a variety of ways. Some love Twitter, some Facebook, some even prefer (gasp!) direct mail. Which segment are you going to ignore? Which segment can you afford to ignore? Marketing today can’t simply revolve around your preferred communication style; you have to communicate in a style your customers and prospects like. Today’s common denominator of communication is still email.

Email is the original social media, it’s the core of social media, and, more importantly, email is how you monetize social media. Consumers in the United States use email as their primary communication vehicle and it’s their preferred choice when it comes to receiving marketing messaging. 95% of Internet users between the ages of 18 and 64 use email, and most of them use it several times per day, every day (more than half of you check it more than six times per day!). What about those 65+, you ask? An even higher percentage of Internet users 65+ use email and it’s the fastest growing age group. In most cases, it’s the sole reason they purchased a computer. At 75, they didn’t hop out of bed and buy a computer because they wanted to master PowerPoint that day (okay, at 75 they probably didn’t hop out of bed, period). They bought a computer because they want to communicate with their friends and family and email is how that’s done today.

Last year, Gallup did a survey and expected to find as people become more involved in social media, they become less involved with email. What they found was the opposite; more social media means more email. Just in the United States, more than 235 million people are sending and reading email, every day, multiple times per day. Can you ignore email? Is email really dead? Maybe you don’t need it after all, as long as you already have more than 235 million paying customers.

Most small business owners understand and accept that social media marketing hasn’t merely “arrived,” but has become a powerful force for engaging customers and prospects. Yet, many simply haven’t gotten started.

If you haven’t made the dive into social media yet, I understand. It sounds complicated, time-consuming, and fraught with danger. How does it work? How does it help my business? What if I mess up and write something foolish? The reality is, social media marketing does not have to be complicated. It’s really fairly simple, and you can impact your business by spending as little as 10 to 15 minutes per day, 2 to 3 days per week.

The following are the major challenges a small business faces when going social. My goal is to minimize all of them:

I don’t have enough time.

It takes about eight seconds to type a sentence, and even one sentence can be powerful. Your goal is to incite your followers to comment on your content, thus creating new content on your behalf. Don’t post stuff just to post stuff, only post when you have something you think will resonate with your audience. Good social content passes 2 tests: Will they want to share with their friends? Are they likely to comment on it?

Which social media platform(s) should I be on?

You’ve heard of Facebook and Twitter, but there are currently more than 1000 social media platforms and more are added every day. “Niche” social media sites, those devoted to a particular interest, are becoming more and more powerful. How can you possibly stay current on them? You don’t have to. As long as you’ve created a social presence and let the world know you’ve gone social by participating in one or 2 of the major platforms (like Facebook or Twitter), your followers will keep you current. They’ll let you know if you’re missing out on something important.

I’m not a writer.

The goal of social media marketing is to put a human voice on your business. You can (and should) write in a conversational style. Speak to your customers online the same way you would speak to them in person. Content? Answer the questions your customers ask you every day. Post a link to content you find online that you think would be valuable to your followers.

I’m never going to have a million followers.

Social media is about engagement. Having more followers than you can engage with may miss the point. What’s more valuable, a large number of followers who aren’t interested in you, or a small number who are (and are willing and ready to become advocates on your behalf)?

Bonus: Go Social in Less Than Five Minutes!

1. Register for one or two of the major social media platforms, like Facebook or Twitter. They’re free, so it won’t cost you anything. More importantly, you need to grab your name or business name before someone else takes them. Have you tried to buy a dot.com recently?
2. Follow me on Twitter. My “handle” is my name: @roncates (I had to settle for my real name because my street name, gangsta666, was already taken).
3. Need starter content? Feel free to copy and paste:Sharing a great article on the SCORE Success Blog by @roncates – “Go Social in 30 Minutes or Less” – It worked for me! http://blog.score.org/2011/ron-cates/go-social-in-30-minutes-or-less/