Not so long ago, large businesses dominated the world of advertisement. It was not economically feasible for a small business to consider airing a 30-second commercial or perhaps paying for an entire page on the Yellow Pages. However, social media has changed all that. Social media offers businesses, both big and small, the opportunity to advertise to large crowds.
Small businesses are employing different strategies to gain referrals and increase their market, such as "Like Competitions". This month, "Poetic Visions Photography" held a contest in which several people voluntarily emailed their photos to be posted on the company's profile for about a week, and the person with the most "Likes" on their photo received a free 30-minute photo shoot at their home. Contestants eagerly brought in hundreds of friends to "Like" their photo in hopes of winning the free photo shoot, and I am sure that the small business owner smiled as she gained numerous potential future customers from the competition.
However, when opening this treasure chest, it is important for small businesses to recognize that there are definitely several drawbacks involved. For example, unsatisfied customers are only clicks away from posting lengthy comments on how bad your service was. How should small businesses respond to this? Should they publicly answer each bad comment? Should they answer some and ignore others? Or should all of these bad comments be deleted as a means of keeping the company’s page nice and clean?
Last week, a customer posted "Worst Store Ever! Furniture Falls Apart!" on Value City Furniture's page. Within 2-3 hours, the company posted a response apologizing for the way the customer felt, reminded the customer of how long the company has been around, and sent the customer an email so that the issue could be discussed further in a private manner. I thought that was a great way to handle the issue: Letting the customer voice their concern publicly but dealing with it privately. However can you imagine the amount of time needed to respond to every customer that decides to post a detrimental comment on the company's page?
Furthermore, it is important to remember that the majority of Facebook users are not there to buy, but rather to socialize. Therefore, it is vital for small businesses to make the transition from simply sending brand messages to actually interacting with their customers. I believe that the giant Procter & Gamble does this very well. Their Facebook page highlights important accomplishments of the company, encourages interaction of their customers through company trivia questions, posts upcoming events, and teaches consumers about the company in general, including core values.
All in all, small businesses should definitely consider using social media to their advantage. According to the online competitive intelligence service Compete.com, social media growth continues to skyrocket
-The top three social networks—Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn—collectively received more than 2.5 billion visits in the month of September 2009 alone. Twitter grew by more than 600% in 2009, while Facebook grew by 210% and LinkedIn by 85%.
-In fact, if Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s fourth largest.
Is that something you want to miss out on? I don’t think so.
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I completely agree with your allusion to the consumer-company relationship. In my blog, Marketing to the World, I presented two of the greatest obstacles small businesses face in this new world of marketing to be cost and vulnerability. As you say, a company presents itself as a target the moment it presents itself as a social networking marketer. Many companies have experienced decay from episodes such as your reference to City. This is why I believe that time is such an important puzzle piece in management of the page. If the pages are consistently managed and the customer benefits from the relationship, it is much harder to hash out negative feedback. Also, when companies are vigilant about responding to customers' desires, as was City Furniture in your example, they mediate potentially horrible havoc.
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