5 Things to Know About Social Media

The November edition of Profit Magazine has a wealth of tips and information for the small business owner. One article in particular, fits right within Digital Daisy's domain: 5 things to know about social media. Here is an extract from the article that contains perspectives from Jess Sloss, a Vancouver social media strategist:

1. You're probably doing it already - off line

The small businesses that really get social media are the ones who are already doing it (off line). These are the people who are already active in their communities and active in their networking efforts - it's just an online extension of this, and another way of connecting to people.

2. You don't personally have to be "on" 24/7

If you can't maintain your social networking messages on a daily basis, use the tools available that let you be more effective, such as batch processing, which allows you to schedule events ahead of time.

3. It's just another element of marketing

You still need all the basic tenets of marketing: knowing who your potential customers are, the position you have in the market - nothing changes. This can help focus your efforts on the networks your customers are most likely to be on, whether that's Facebook, Twitter or popular youth sites like myYearbook.

4. Don't blow your budget

You can get into social media marketing on a shoestring - most of the tools and sites are free, which is a boon for micro-businesses and sole-proprietors. The trade-off of course, is your time. For companies that can't dedicate marketing staff to manage blog messages or reply to social media site feedback, take a lesson from busy celebrities and outsource or assemble a social networking team. Many of those high-profile tweets and blogs - fro Britney to Obama - are written by trusted staff.

5. It works if you can be yourself

The two things that can make you fail are fear and not being yourself.

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Fewer than 3 in 10 small businesses (28%) are using social networking to promote their business, according to a 2009 Harris/Decima survey for BMO. Only 18% use these sites to sell their products, and 14% are using them to test new ideas.