Small business using Social Media

There is not doubt that social media had benefited the business sectors to a great extent especially in online marketing. I came across some articles featuring small businesses that are experiencing success by using social media as part of their marketing strategy. Here are two small companies and how they did it.

The James Store is a 63-year old women's and children's clothing boutique in the historic downtown of Granville, Ohio. The store set up its online store a couple of years ago and only started using Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to attract new customers locally and internationally. The store captured a wide range of loyal customers who became fans and the store gives out coupons that are only available on its Facebook fan page. Twitter is also used to send updates to customers and to alert them of sales, specials and store events. This was found to be more effective than sending emails. The store now enjoys popularity especially among women who are fond of distinctive brands like Vera Bradley, Vanilia, French Dressing and NYDJ.

Another small business, Wiggly Wigglers, a natural gardening company based in the rural part of England, used social media tools such as Facebook, blogs, and podcasts instead of traditional marketing tools. This saved the company 80 percent in advertising costs. Moreover, getting into social media gained the company hundreds of fans on Facebook and involved them in 170 different discussion topics. Wiggly Wigglers weekly podcasts from "Wiggly Sofa", covering the environment, gardening, farming, biodiversity have thousands of listeners from all around the world. This small gardening business use to serve 100 locals in the Lower Blakemere Farm in Herefordshire, but now serves 90,000 customers worldwide and delivers its products across Europe. In 2008, Wiggly Wigglers won the inaugural Global Dell Small Business Award.

Based on the experiences of the two small businesses, the James Store and Wiggly Wigglers, we could say that social media is indeed a powerful digital marketing tool. It's not just a fad anymore. How businesses, big or small, and social media will blend in the future would be interesting to find out.

By: Jenette Chiong

Social Networking: big opportunity for small businesses

The social networking phenomenon is growing dramatically in the recent years. An upsurge in the use of social networking websites is no longer limited to personal web pages alone. It has also become a digital marketing tool for businesses here and around the globe. Although, there are still companies who are adamant in engaging in social networking, not realizing the benefits one can reap from this technology, especially small businesses which do not have a lot of resources to fund a sophisticated advertising and marketing of their products or services.

Social networking is an easy and inexpensive way to create your presence in the online world, informing people that your business exists. It's a good opportunity to establish relationships, business contacts, making new friends with similar interests and finding old friends as well. It can also attract prospective customers and retain loyal ones. Facebook and Twitter are examples of networking sites that small businesses can use for free. These sites may be used to offer "deals of the day" and other promotions, company events and product information. The best thing about these sites is that it's the fastest way of getting the word out (call it word of mouth). If one customer is happy about your product, he will tell his friends about it, and chances are these friends of his will spread the news to several other friends in their group, thus providing positive endorsement. Also, these sites provide for interactive communication between your company and your customers. You just have to be genuinely responsive to what they say. Allowing customers to leave feedback or suggestions will make them feel that they are a part of the business, fostering better company-customer relationship. Feedback and suggestions in turn may give insights to improve your products and services.

This technology may sound too simple but engaging in social networking is not an effortless task. One must be willing to devote a lot of time nurturing his or her business community. Some companies even hire people just to maintain their company's social networking visibility. When Dell announced that they earned $3 million from using Twitter, it didn't happen overnight. It took Dell eighteen months to earn their first million and another six months to earn their last million dollar. For those small companies who are just starting out, experts say that spending two hours a day is enough and at least three months to see the result of their hard work. So what are you waiting for? Make friends in Facebook or join Twitter now.

By: Jenette Chiong

Social Media: What's it all about?

Social media has been making a buzz in every part of the globe. People consider it as the next big thing to hit the online world. It is utilized as a powerful tool in online digital marketing, as well as in media, and communications. Those in the know-how would easily pick up what's the buzz all about. But to a newbie or a non-IT person, it can be a bit difficult to grasp.

So what really is Social Media?
Social media, as defined by Wikipedia, is an online content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. This technology takes in different forms with a common purpose. And that is to bring people together to create a unique community that allows its members to share and publish information about themselves or their common interests, and to connect or communicate with people outside their communities.

Basically, all activities are centered on people generating relationships online with other human beings. There are diverse tools and applications of social media that users can utilize, depending on the type of information they want to share and the manner users want to interact with others.

So if a user wants to make a personal web page, wants to meet friends and keep up on what they are doing he can go to social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Xing, Hi5, and Bebo. Some users would like to join forums like phpBB and Phorum for online discussions on specific topics and interests. Others join content communities where users share particular kinds of content like bookmarked links (del.icio.us), photos (Flickr, Zoomr, Photobucket), and videos (YouTube), or subscribe to audios and videos thru podcasts like Apple iTunes. There is also another form of social media, the wiki, which allows the users to create or edit the actual site contents. One best known example is Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia.

Another form of social media are online journals called blogs (Blogger, Live Journal, OpenDiary, TypePad, WordPress), with entries displayed in reverse-chronological order. A blog may contain a photo, video, commentaries, events, or it's more like a personal online diary of an individual, with links to other blogs or web pages that are related to its topic. Also, blog pages give readers the ability to leave comments in an interactive format. Twitter, a combination of a micro-blogging service and a social networking website, enables its users to send updates and read messages or tweets through SMS.

There are still a lot of social media applications that users can avail of that are free. It can be through emailing, instant messaging, wall-postings, or file-sharing, the list can go on... Social media has been here for quite some time and it's not going away. As long as there are human beings in this world, social media will continue to exist. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand what social media is. It is simply about people...

By: Jenette Chiong