As suppliers to small business, we are pondering creative ways to engage our prospects and clients with social media. Popular forums such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are challenging to use, especially as ECSB research has consistently demonstrated owners do not want to be marketed to in this space. But, here is the good news:
While small business owners do not want to be sold to (by you) in social media, they DO want to hear – or at least do not mind hearing – from you. ECSB asked small businesses:
On which of the following social media networks would you want suppliers to actively participate in (e.g., communicating directly with you)?
Source: ECSB, Jan 2011, n=1076
From a personal perspective, users react to status updates and vacation pictures on Facebook. As suppliers, it is unlikely we can replicate (nor should we) the same human emotion elicited from a funny vacation picture. But, is there a way to prompt meaningful sentiment with an issue important to the small business community? Is there a way to engage prospects and customers that encourages potentially profitable or meaningful behavior? ECSB suggests:
Try engaging small businesses using motivators such as pain points (life stage or industry) to have them opt into conversations. Or, celebrate milestones of current clients that will serve as testimonials for them to their customers/prospects (and, in turn, for us to our clients/prospects).
- Celebrate with them using Facebook,
- Brag about them using LinkedIn, and
- Hold them up as exemplars using Twitter.
It is not about us. It is about them. Use public forums to demonstrate your support for small businesses and you will resonate more than you think. Make some ripples. Ripples make more ripples.
on June 2, 2012
Respond
Title…
Ugh, I just wrote a long comment, but it disappeared when I hit send. Anyway, I’m not going to redo it again, so I just wanted to say great blog! Better than http://facebook.com! :-)…
on June 24, 2012
Respond
h my goodness! an amazing write-up dude. Thank you However I am experiencing issue with ur rss . Don’t know why Unable to subscribe to it. Is there anyone getting identical rss problem? Anyone who knows kindly respond. Thnkx
on June 25, 2012
Respond
Very interesting and amusing subject. I read with great pleasure. As an online application, there isn’t really much to customize with Twitter.
on June 25, 2012
Respond
It¡¦s really a great and helpful piece of information. I am happy that you simply shared this useful info with us. Please stay us up to date like this. Thanks for sharing.
on June 26, 2012
Respond
I¡¦ve learn a few excellent stuff here. Definitely worth bookmarking for revisiting. I surprise how a lot attempt you set to create this sort of fantastic informative website.
on June 27, 2012
Respond
Great work! This is the type of information that should be shared around the net. Shame on Google for not positioning this post higher! Come on over and visit my site . Thanks =)
on June 28, 2012
Respond
I was just searching for this information for a while. After 6 hours of continuous Googleing, finally I got it in your site. I wonder what is the lack of Google strategy that do not rank this kind of informative web sites in top of the list. Generally the top websites are full of garbage.
on June 28, 2012
Respond
Hey there! I’m at work browsing your blog from my new iphone 3gs! Just wanted to say I love reading your blog and look forward to all your posts! Carry on the superb work!
on June 29, 2012
Respond
You made fantastic nice points here. I performed a search on the issue and discovered almost all peoples will agree with your blog. Twitter, one of the newest social networks, is one that causes the most trouble for businesses.
on July 1, 2012
Respond
Tremendous things here. I am very glad to see your article. Thanks a lot and i am looking forward to contact you. Will you please drop me a mail?
on July 2, 2012
Respond
Thanks for your submission. I also feel that laptop computers have gotten more and more popular nowadays, and now in many cases are the only kind of computer employed in a household. The reason is that at the same time actually becoming more and more affordable, their working power keeps growing to the point where there’re as effective as desktop coming from just a few years ago.
on July 2, 2012
Respond
I have been surfing online more than 3 hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. It is pretty worth enough for me. Personally, if all website owners and bloggers made good content as you did, the internet will be much more useful than ever before.
on July 3, 2012
Respond
I like what you guys are up also. Such smart work and reporting! Carry on the superb works guys I’ve incorporated you guys to my blogroll. I think it will improve the value of my web site :)