I am a firm believer that social media is one of the best marketing tools, aside from word-of-mouth that a small, local business can utilize. Social media has turned in recent years from a networking tool to one of the most powerful tools a business can use to market their brand.
Many small businesses have an extremely small budget for marketing and promotion. Small businesses can’t afford the flashy advertising that you seen corporate businesses using on the internet and television. Of course, radio and print advertising are both affordable options, but both of those options are in their dying days and don’t have the wide reach that they once did.
The majority of small businesses rely on word-of-mouth to expand their brand. But word-of-mouth can only go so far these days. Social media, once considered to be a fad, is here to stay and is playing a valuable role in the success of many self-start and small businesses. It lets local businesses reach people that they otherwise wouldn’t in the print advertising and radio market.
The Cookie Jar & More here in Bowling Green, Ohio, started from the ground-up six years ago. The business has flourished through word-of-mouth for the most part, but recently has just started to make an online appearance through the use of social media.
I was hired on at the Cookie Jar & More in September of 2011. I took over the curation of the Cookie Jar’s social media in April of 2012. I came took the position with a few main goals that I believed would help the Cookie Jar succeed as one of the most powerful local businesses in Bowling Green.
I wanted to make sure that we were targeting the correct audience. Bowling Green being a “college town,” I knew that our target audience had to be the university and its students. With a target audience between the ages of 18 and 24, my main goal was to be extremely active on Twitter.
Why not Facebook you ask? Well although Facebook has the largest audience of all social media, it doesn’t necessarily hold the best chances of reaching our target audience. Facebook has become very “watered down” in the past few years, much of that having to due with Facebook migrating to become the world’s largest photo sharing site. Even though Facebook is great for social conversation between friends, it’s not the best tool for creating social engagement between business and consumer.
Along with just being active on Twitter, I wanted to make sure the activity was worth it. My goal was to create engagement between our brand and the customers that follow us. My plan was to treat every tweet and question just as if a customer came into the store with the same situation. No phone call can go unanswered and the same fits with social media. Every question, comment, and concern must be treated like a phone call. Being honest, open, and upfront with customers is the best way to represent the brand.
Since April when I started, the response from the Bowling Green community has been phenomenal. Our following has increased substantially from ~250 followers to over 700 in just a few months. Our social media presence has transformed into one of the most followed and active local business accounts in Bowling Green, and it can only get better in the coming years.
This is absolutely true! Every time I see the Cookie Jar & More post what the cookie of the day is and a picture along with it, I instantly crave it. I think you’re absolutely right to focus on Twitter more than Facebook. More people sit there and refresh their Twitter timeline than they do their Facebook. Twitter is essentially the new “word of mouth” and kudos to you for taking advantage of that!
I completely agree with the idea that social media is one of the most cost-effective and powerful tools available today to promote small businesses and establish relationships between them and their customers. I also think Twitter is much more effective to engage customers in a continuous conversation, while Facebook is more suited to simply post general information about a business.
I found this post interesting because I work at a small business in my hometown and its owner is having trouble attracting followers to its Twitter account. I was wondering if you had any advice for business owners looking to attract Twitter followers in a small city that isn’t a college town?
I agree as well. My sister built a small one-person business, of which the infrastructure, at least for the customer base, was built almost entirely through social media. Even prior to that business, she’s worked as a hair stylist for nearly 10 years and has had to move several times throughout her career. It was social media like Facebook that allowed her customers to easily keep in touch and determine whether the new locations were within reasonable traveling distance. The network was solidified on Facebook and continually grows.
It’s great that you included a personal example of the power of social media for businesses, and that it is a company well-known in Bowling Green to make it even more relevant.
It’s so easy to keep track of your progress with social media too, making it an even better public relations tool than other more cumbersome forms of marketing. It is good too that the owners allowed for someone younger to use your expertise at increasing the social media usage and audience. Although a lot of college students use social media, it doesn’t mean they would understand how to professionally. This is a great example of how it was done right by someone young, but experienced. And now you’ve got even more experience to show for your own public relations skills.