Why Your Small Business Needs to Look at Social Media as a Marketing Strategy

If you still think that social media is not relevant to your small business, think again. Marketers are discovering that social media represents a significant avenue for getting to potential customers. This is particularly true if your company is in a technology field.

R2i, an Internet marketing company, reports in a recent survey that 61% of U.S. marketing professionals it interviewed used social media for lead generation. In that same survey 27% indicated that they used social media to monitor online conversations about what was being said regarding their products or services.


What makes social media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace so attractive to marketers who are looking for quality leads? After all, these are social networks, not business networks. It is precisely the social aspect that makes these sites valuable. People reveal information about their interests, what they do for a living, what they read, their hobbies, personal stuff that can help marketers build strategies for creative approaches. Social media isn't a hard sell place. Marketers who recognize the nascent customer, the one who is not going to buy today but who can be reached over time, will be able to develop qualified prospects in employing the right social media strategies.

Those strategies employ cause and emotion more than price and promotion. So think about what you are marketing and who your customers are (a typical profile or a number of typical profiles) and do a little experimenting on a social network if you haven't already.

If you do your homework you will soon find many more reasons to deploy resources to social media to help you generate revenue. At worst you will find out what your competitors are or are not doing in the social media space.

Who do you think are the Top 10 Mobile Phone Networks in the World?

These numbers are the latest and represent the first quarter of 2010. When we think of wireless providers we tend to see North America as the primary market. But in fact the largest market by far is in Asia, followed by Europe and Latin America. Although India has great potential in terms of growth it significantly lags behind China in mobile customers.

Rank	Carrier	# of Subscribers	Primary Areas Served	Brands
1.	China Mobile Ltd.	538,900,000	China, Hong Kong	China Mobile
2.	Vodafone Group Plc	341,100,000	Europe, Middle East, Asia, Africa, U.S.	Vodafone, Vodacom, Verizon Wireless
3.	Telefonica	206,700,000	Spain, Latin America, Europe	Telefonica, Movistar, O2
4.	America Movil	206,400,000	Mexico, Central & Latin America, U.S.	Telcel, Claro, Comcel, Tracfone
5.	Telenor Group	179,000,000	Scandinavia & Europe	Telenor, Pannon, Kyivstar
6.	China Unicom	147,600,000	China	China Unicom
7.	Deutsche Telekom	150,200,000	Germany, Europe, U.S.	T-Mobile
8.	TeliaSonera	149,900,000	Sweden, Europe	TeliaSonera
9.	Bharti Airtel	127,600,000	India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh	Airtel
10.	France Telecom	123,700,000	France, Europe	Orange

When planning marketing strategies, even small companies have to pay attention to where market opportunities lie. Often they aren't in your own backyard as is the example shown here. Asia represents fertile ground for anyone in the mobile communications space.

Does Your Small Business Web Site Create Customers?

According to a recent Citibank survey of 552 small business executives, 37% reported that they did not use a web site to help them market their business. In that same study 84% indicated that they had not sold products or services using e-commerce and 62% did not use e-mail for marketing purposes. Of the 63% who did report that they had a web site, almost three-quarters found it to be an effective way to generate business.

No doubt you have experienced the fear, uncertainty and doubt, the FUD that comes along with making marketing investments in online activities. You are not alone. Many small business people feel compelled to create a web presence and then find themselves challenged by what next steps to take.

Creating that web site is a great first step in taking advantage of the omnipresence of the Internet as a means to communicate with prospects and existing customers. Driving them to your web site and turning it into an order taking mechanism to drive revenue requires considerable thought and then action.

"A website's ability to convert a visitor to a customer is a measurement of its effectiveness," states Joel Book, in the May 2010 issue of Electronic Retailer. Brooks talks about:

1. Driving Conversion Rates
2. Landing Page Optimization
3. Abandoned shopper re-engagement strategies
4. Creating repeat customers

In the next few blogs we are going to talk about all of these strategies in greater depth. I invite you to follow along, share your experiences by contributing to the conversation.

Latest CMSWire Article Focuses on Using Private Social Networks as a Mechanism for Improving Collective Wisdom

Organizations spend money on buildings, office equipment, and people. When needed it's easy to change the first two. People, however, represent a bigger challenge.

Experts on organizational change like Dr. Lewis Frees of Harmony Inc. focus on the people investment that businesses make with a focus on triggering collective intelligence. Check out my latest CMSWire article on this topic and let me know what you think.

Email Remains the Killer App Despite the Rise of Social Networks and Text Messaging

I've been using email since the late 1980s. So it is ingrained in me. I don't think of it as new or challenging in any way. But lately I've noticed that I'm using the email systems inside public social networks to send messages to "friends" and "contacts" in these online environments. I'm posting comments on their profile pages. Do I see this as a replacement for most of my communication. No! Just another way to connect to people.

That's the same way I feel about texting or text messaging. I've been using short messaging on my mobile phone for 5 years. That doesn't make me an early adopter by any means. What started off as an opportunity to stay in touch with my family throughout the business day without telephone calls has graduated into me using Twitter to send short messages to many people including family.

Windows Live recently conducted a survey of its users (see graph to the left) and found that 71% preferred to stay in touch with friends and business through email rather than social networks.

In that same survey users, however, were almost equally divided when asked about their preferences - text messaging versus email. It seems that even millennials, the digital natives
generation, still find themselves preferring email to other forms of communication, particularly in business settings.

In recent studies of millennials reported by Accenture email is increasingly being challenged as the preferred medium for corporate communication. It seems within this generation of users the younger you are the less you see email as significant. The numbers are quite revealing with older millennials spending 9.5 hours per week writing or receiving work-related emails, working mid-millennials, 7.7 hours and younger millennials in high school and college, less than 2 hours. The preference of these youngest millennials is text, instant messaging and communicating through social networks. Regardless of what age millennials are, blogging is not part of their comfort zone. The Accenture survey reported less than 30 minutes a week was spent on blogging, far less than the time spent using search, texting or interacting on social networks.


So here I am blogging, a digital immigrant, explaining the trends that businesses must be aware of as they hire the next generation of workers or interact with the next generation of consumers. Hopefully, when these millennials are doing Internet search they will find my blogs.

An Eco Font Tip - This is not an April Fool's Prank - Century Gothic beats Arial Anytime

The default font for most computer users is Arial. As reported in The Register, Diane Blohowiak, Director of Computing and Information Technology, at University of Wisconsin in Green Bay, in an effort to go green has switched the college's default email font from Arial to Century Gothic.

Why?

Apart from my own preference for Century Gothic over Arial, it appears that it is not just font appearance that makes this an appealing choice. Blohowiak's research showed that when Century Gothic is sent to printers it uses 30% less ink than Arial. With printer ink costing $10,000 per gallon, Blohowiak sees substantial savings in the office supply budget in making this change.

I did a little more research and found another "eco" font solution at of all things Ecofont. Ecofont shoots holes into your print characters to reduce the amount of ink you use by as much as 25% according to their web site.



I'm a great believer in using QuickPrint features on my home ink jet printer because I know it saves ink which saves me money. But it certainly doesn't save paper and the trees that are needed to produce the paper.

Of course we could all dispense with printing paper entirely, the dream of the electronic office finally realized. But it seems that computers have not eliminated hard copy as of yet.

So if I switch to Century Gothic, use Ecofont and select QuickPrint does that mean I'll be using no ink at all? Stay tuned to this channel for more "eco" friendly business advice and have fun with your fonts.
 
"Go green."

How Enterprise 2.0 Sales Teams Will Use Social Networks

I invite you to read my latest offering on CMSWire. The subject is the impact of social networking on sales organizations. Sales have undergone a technology revolution over the last two decades as CRM tools have taken hold. Today sales people do funnel management, with leads pouring in the top, and sales coming out the bottom. But social networking brings a whole new perspective to sales organizations, particularly social networking inside the firewall. Suddenly knowledge sharing, mentoring and succession strategies can be deployed to create overall improvements in the entire sales team's performance. Enjoy the article and tell me what you think.