Small Business Tools Pro

However primitive the first incarnations appeared, believe it or not, the original social media tool was… email.

” Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one too many) into social media dialogues (many to many).”
- Wikipedia

Surveys conducted by Lyris suggest that the grandfather of social media (email) is still the preferred tool of choice although additional surveys indicate new media tools are being adopted by 4 in 5 US adults. As the survey suggests social media growth is not slowing and so business should be paying attention to the “elephant in the room”.

Benefits of social media:

1. Connect and engage with your customers
2. Low cost advertising
3. Building brand awareness
4. Measure your impact on the market

Before getting into a panic about not having a social media strategy it must be acknowledged that social media interaction will not work for every business. While you should certainly familiarise yourself with the tools used to communicate, the fundamental question to ask is “where are your customers hanging out?” If they’re online then obviously you need to join them there, but if not then perhaps it isn’t worth losing sleep over…yet.

Connecting and engaging with your customers is always a wise and prudent step in any business and while social media will certainly do that for you (if implemented correctly) it needs to make sense for your business. While big business is throwing a lot of money (and the kitchen sink) at honing their strategies the beauty of these tools lies in their relative low cost investment – which is good for small business.

Small business can’t afford the luxury of a “social media tsar” but that doesn’t mean you can’t make it work for you. Although the systems in place to measure your return on investment (ROI) are still in its infancy there are still some key performance indicators to look out for.

If taking your first tentative towards engagement online the tools you would want to use start with are what I call the “big 5”.

Skype, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube

Tip: Use Tweetdeck to dramatically reduce the time engaging online and to better measure your campaigns effectiveness.