 Chad Harris |
Today more than ever you need to be social—virtually social, that is. Almost everyone is at least trying to use social media via Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon (a.k.a., Stumble), YouTube, Digg and similar social platforms. Here are some ways to use four specific virtual venues to your advantage. Facebook (www.facebook.com). Facebook interaction requires DAILY contributions to create relationships with “fans” or customers. Facebook is great—Facebook is fun—but Facebook requires a careful plan to execute an effective marketing program for your business. Experiment with product updates and study the users’ interaction. If you post a picture of citrus and one person makes a comment, and you post a picture of a beautiful planted container and 30 people comment … well, you can figure it out for yourself. Give people what they are looking for—not pictures of just boring old stuff. Boring old stuff is all over the internet. Instagram (www.instagram.com). This is a social platform for sharing life’s experiences via pictures you’ve shot with your Smartphone. It’s super social, and users are passionate about their interests there. Using highly targeted marketing campaigns can be very lucrative, but make sure you’re thinking long-term and not short-term. Twitter (http://twitter.com). This one is more complex with its hash tags, 140 character limitation and the crazy “I can make you millions” people who tout the Tweet. In fact, many businesspeople don’t understand Twitter and are using it like a Ponzi scheme gone bad. Twitter creates links to content that you post. These links are searchable by those powerful search engines looking for relevant content to help users find what they might be searching for online. So consider Twitter more like an automatic advertiser and create content-rich posts that are specific to what you are selling now. StumbleUpon (www.stumbleupon.com). Consumers are leaning toward sites that create content matching their interests. Stumble has capitalized on this. How does Stumble help me? I can create a Stumble account and post pictures of products that I sell. Stumble then matches these products to users’ interests, so, basically, people looking for what I sell find me. I recently got to test my own social butterfly prowess under some pretty dire circumstances that could have crippled my garden center. Instead, we flourished. On April 4, The Garden Gates, the business I operate in the New Orleans area, was struck by a devastating tornado. Rather than panic over what the storm had done to our center, we went virtually social. We launched an immediate Twitter-Instagram-Facebook marketing campaign from two perspectives. Beth Harris (my wife) posted pictures of what the store looked like before and after. I then started telling everyone in my social network, “This is how you find us.” Our objective was to get people talking about us—good …bad … it didn’t matter, as long as they were talking about us. This resulted in almost all of the news channels extending coverage beyond the immediate damage. I posted my cell phone on Facebook when the phone lines went down—and received more than 200 text messages from customers. Customers volunteered to clean the store up, some made us cookies, others brought us lunch, but the end result was that our community, both locally and nationally, was behind us. Making it work for you! Making social media work for your company is about understanding your limitations and your abilities. Consider working on the social media just like any other part of your business. Set aside 10 to 15 minutes twice a day to cultivate your “social butterfly,” and the results will speak for themselves. Even if success doesn’t come overnight, it will come. Contact Chad E. Harris, charris@ceverettharris.com; www.ceverettharris.com; www.thegardengates.com; follow him @ www.twitter.com/ceverettharris; friend him @ www.facebook.com/ceverettharris; watch him @ www.youtube/thegardengatesnola.com; read about him @ www.thegardengatesblog.com |
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