There are lots of books out there to learn how to build a social media site. Unfortunately, the majority of them are written for large companies. It seems like they all start with the same steps:
- Go, and listen to what is already being said about your company on the social web.
- Chart what people in your industry are saying about you.
- Create lists of the positive, negative, and neutral statements about your company by industry insiders and customers.
But what if there is no mention of your company? You do a Twitter or SocialMention.com search, and nothing comes up. I can already hear small business saying, “No one’s talking about me; I guess have no place in social media,” and packing it in before they begin.
I would argue that much like David and Goliath, there are some advantages to being the small, unmentioned business. Of course, if you don’t start your new presence the right way, you are sunk right from the start. If you haven’t already read the “Starting Social Media from Scratch” series, please take the time to now.
For those that went and read the series, Welcome back. Hope you found it educational.
Continuing on… As a small business, you have advantages that the larger companies do not. First of all, you have a larger desire to handle customer service better. You understand that every customer, happy or sad, is how you make money; you don’t think in terms of “Hourly wage”, or even “Salary”. As a small business owner, there’s no such thing as “just doing your job”; you know that any loss of service directly corresponds to the loss of your money.
You have the ability to see every comment about your company, and to respond. You aren’t going to have to sort through thousands a day, and try to figure out which issues to address first. You can handle them one at a time. You have the ability to go and start actual conversations with your page as your identity. The small business has every advantage to build a loyal online gathering.
Given the option as a user, I would rather comment on a smaller social media page, where I can ask a question and receive an answer, or leave a comment that will be addressed. On a large, corporate social media site, filled with both happy comments and angry bashings, my question is more likely to be ignored, since the moderators are too busy putting out fires all over their page.
If you successfully start a social media campaign from scratch, as a “Little Guy” you have more advantages to make it a useful tool than a big lumbering corporation. Just remember to stay social.
