Social Media for the Small Business

If you have a dedicated marketing department and a hefty budget, then setting up complex marketing strategy for Social Media is crucial for success. But what if you are a small business with limited marketing resources, or even a one person shop? Can Social Media really impact the bottom line?

Guidelines for marketing with social media aren’t all that new. In 2006 members of the digital marketing community collaborated on “New Rules for Social Media Optimization”. Recently, TopRankBlog.com revisited the 16 rules to see if they were still relevant.

No matter what the techno-buzz is called (Web 2.0, Social Media Optimization, etc) it all comes down to building relationships with your customers.

Using social media means that you need to look at technical internet tactics to promote your products and services, but still promote with conventional relationship building. There are five key points that are necessary for an effective Social Media campaign.

• Audience- Identify the specific audience you are trying to reach
• Objective- Set specific goals and objectives that can be measured
• Planning- Create strategy for reaching goals with the intended audience
• Tools- Determine which mix of Social Media will support the goals
• Metrics- Measurement the results, and make modifications as necessary

One excellent example of a small business using Social Media is Kinetic Koffee.

Kinetic Koffee is a gourmet micro roaster in Arcata, California. The owners Mark Ritz and Charlie Jordan have developed a unique niche with their roasting business. First, they are firm believers in the “Think Globally, Act Locally” philosophy. Their coffees are certified organic and governed by fair trade practices. They also contribute a percentage of their net proceeds to support worthy causes.

Mark and Charlie are former executives from the outdoor and cycling industries, and use this as their main theme with Kinetic. They originally started offering fresh roasted coffee as a fund raiser for the ‘Great Arcata to Ferndale World Championship Cross-Country Kinetic Sculpture Race’ (a 40 year Humboldt County Memorial Day weekend tradition), and have expanded to bicycle shops, outdoor retailers, restaurants and coffee shops around the country, and making private labels for other fund raisers.

The tools they use in their business start with the main website. It is an online storefront where customers can buy coffee and Kinetic Cycle Gear. It also supports a blog for posting events and customer service related issues.

Mark then set up profiles on Twitter and Facebook. As he prepares for the race, he ‘Tweets’ and ‘Walls’ his daily race preparation routine to his followers, which happen to be coffee and cyclist enthusiasts. His followers get a chance to see Mark in his personal life passions and quests. He tweets one liners about getting ready for the race, about new labels for his coffee, how he has to track down a bad check, his first time attempt at making a radio jingle for an upcoming ad, various industry magazines that commented or recommended his coffee, and so forth.

Kinetic’s marketing can be measured by the sales from the website, the ‘Retweets’ from Twitter, and by the comments left on Facebook. Each tool has a slightly different community and following, but in the overall plan, it is successful.

All in all, this is a simple and effective strategy, and is part of the normal business routine for Kinetic. And is quite feasable for any small business.