What are you building with your social media marketing? Are you building numbers only, or are you building a community around your small business? Your answer, I believe, will determine how successful your business will be in Halifax, Dartmouth, Truro and elsewhere.
I recorded the video below in early 2011 entitled “Social media numbers, what are you building?” In this video I challenged viewers to really look at what they were building. It still have some great key points worth hearing and putting into action. Please take some time to watch the video:
My company is no longer Alpha Computer Training and Consulting. Today, my business is Alpha Social Media Inc. I have moved more to social media training and away from general computer training. My new goal is to help small businesses do better using social media marketing.
Personally and professionally, I have been using social media since early 2008. I have seen “the Good, the Bad and the Ugly” of social media marketing. But one of the greatest mistakes I have seen is the mistake of treating people like numbers.
Fortunately today, many small businesses are getting back into building relationships and creating ways to make their customers feel valued. We are moving away from the box store mentality. Businesses are starting to understand the principle of referrals and word of mouth. Businesses can no longer tell their customers to go elsewhere if they don’t like something. We live in a day where reputation means a lot.
When a small business sees their customers in a personal way, they are not concerned about primarily building numbers. They want to relate and interact with their customers one customer at a time. They see every interaction as an opportunity to influence people and build upon that. Small business social media marketing should reflect this same mentality as well. There are people on the other end of social media; not just a number.
This type of thinking allows you to build your social media in a more reflective manner. You are not rushing to build numbers. You are building a healthy community around your business. And there is no rush. You are adding great people to your business. These people can end up referring your business to others. I hope this sounds good to you.
So I hope you will give some thought to what you are building as a small business. Just remember that it took you a while to build momentum for your small business, and it will take some time to build momentum with social media marketing as well.
