More and more small business owners are looking at social media as a means to market their products and services in new ways. Good idea since we already know that if Facebook's combined users formed a country it would be the world's fourth largest. What we know just recently is that small business owners doubled their use of social media in just the last 12 months. Now roughly 24% of small businesses are using it to some extent. See the story on that here.
In my marketing consulting work I always address social media as one way of improving an existing marketing mix with little to no extra investment. That sounds good, but the struggle I'm often confronted with when I make this suggestion is that the small business owner doesn't understand to what extent should their foray in to social media be about business and to what extent personal. Very good question.
My answer is that it should be a natural combination of the two just like it is in the real world. When we have lunch with a frend, isn't it usually both? We talk about our love lives, or kids, where we're going on vacation and how our businesses are doing. This is the way it should be in social networking, too.
I know what you're saying, "I'm not necessarily talking with my friends through Twitter and I'm definitely not going to talk about my love life!" I get it. It's just an example. You can talk about other subjects that might not so personal such as vacations, restaurants you like and your hobbies. Fair?
If you want a precise formula because you work that way, then my recommendation is a two to one ratio of business versus personal posts in whatever social medium you may be using. Now this ratio works well for Twitter and Facebook. With LinkedIn you may want to keep it to mostly business related posts since it doesn't seem to be much of a personal channel for anyone and you might look funny there posting a link to a photo gallery of your recent vacation to Belize. Or would you look more real than all the other stiff shirts? Interesting thought.
Now if you have a Facbook fan page, then you'll probably keep to almost all personal for your personal profile and almost al business for your fan page posts. As with much of life, it all depends. In this case on what medium you're using.
Why is this topic worth a blog post? Because it can look bad for you in social media when all you do is promote your business and that's going to be your bent towards using it. You have to resist this urge to be all business, because it then doesn't recognize the word 'social' in social media. There's one person on Twitter I follow who has more than 11,000 follwers and yet they almost never interact with any of them. How is that possible? And why is that a good thing? Seems hardly social.
Take a look at my Twitter profile and you'll see that I'm not all business and it feels right to me. And I try to engage with those I'm following, which also feels right to me. Almost every time I do try to engage, they write me back – the way it should be.
So, let's get to the bottom line here: if you want to use social media as part of your marketing plan but are hesitant to make it personal at all, then you should think about how you conduct yourself in the real world. Aren't you a combination there? If not, then you may be missing out on making deeper connections with those you meet at business functions but that's fodder for another post.
Let me know your thoughts on this by clicking on Comments below. I also hope you'll share this by Digging it or Tweeting it to open up the conversation to a wider audience. If you are local in Northern California and would like to spend more time learning about using social media for your small business, then you might like to attend my upcoming workshop on this very subject on March 13th. Let me know if you'd like more information on that.
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