How to use Social Media to build a small business brand
I had an interesting conversation this evening with Lisa Peyton, the founder of the Thoroughly Modern Marketing blog, about how to use social media marketing to build your brand as a small business. In a nutshell, this is what I told her:
1. Keep it real.
2. Keep it relevant.
3. Keep it meaningful.
But to expand, here’s what I was thinking:
Keep it real. By that I mean, be YOURSELF. Don’t be all corporate or attempt to be overly professional in your posts on social media channels like twitter, facebook or LinkedIn. Be human. People want to engage with people, not with these false identities known as businesses. If you’re a small business, customers probably like the people that make your business work. Embrace your people and their unique personalities. Yes, that means occasionally tweeting about what you had for lunch, but see points 2 and 3 for more on that!
Keep it relevant. To the extent possible, stay within your sweet spot. Tweet about things that you know. If your business sells shoes, find compelling and unique content about shoes and share it. This can establish category expertise and ensure that your audience looks to you for the latest relevant information on shoes. The point here is to establish yourself or your brand as a voice in the category.
Keep it meaningful. Relevance only gets you so far if you’re not adding insightful points of view to the content. Relevance might get you ‘followed’ or ‘friended’, meaning gets you contacted. Stand out from the crowd by connecting the dots for people. Teach, share, and add value. Retweeting, for example, can be relevant. Overlaying a point of view can create meaning, as can engaging in REAL dialogue in these channels. If I look at your brand and see that you’re blasting one-way messages without much interaction, you’re not creating meaning.
-Scott
