The Unwritten Rules of Social Networking (Entrepreneur.com)

The Unwritten Rules of Social Networking

Is your social networking strategy actually costing you customers? Use these strategies to get it right.

By Francine Kizner | December 03, 2008

URL: http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/onlinemarketing/article198998.html

Drumming up a fan base on MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter isn't as simple as sending out friend requests. To find followers, you need to create threads and promote products on social sites. To do so, there are a few unwritten rules of etiquette you should know. Master the etiquette so you can stop sending Super Pokes and start winning over your connected consumers.

Be Patient
It's hard to feel competitive when you're comparing your 50 friends to someone's 5,000, but if you take it slow as you build your social content, you'll fare better in the long run. Don't request friends blindly.

"In most cases, there is no viable mass adding strategy for companies," says Joel Postman, principal of Socialized, a social media consultancy for businesses. "To start off, follow a few people, get referrals and create a network that's useful to you as a businessperson."

Also resist the urge to ask all your contacts to join your network. Tom Lewis, vice president of marketing for imaging toolkits and applications provider Atalasoft, imported his Gmail contacts into Facebook and then asked them all to friend him, sending messages to professional contacts as well as people he didn't know very well. Big mistake. He issued a mea culpa message afterward, calling it a "definite mistake." A better idea is to announce social networks on your site, in your newsletter, or in an e-mail signature, and let contacts come to you.

Be Inclusive
Just because you shouldn't be sending out friend requests to everyone in your address book doesn't mean you should be shy about connecting with networkers that come to you. Don't take a chance on alienating potential customers.

"So long as it's not a spam request from a porn site or get-rich-quick scheme, I will friend anyone who appears to be a real person," Postman says. "For a business, you have to accept every live person because you run the risk of offending a customer."

Be on Message
Once connected, keep your connections' sensibilities in mind. One evening, Brooke Webb, marketing and PR director at Vicinity Manufacturing, started posting to Twitter after a failed client dinner and a few cocktails. She says, "I tweeted several messages that compared my clients and their cities to the adventures of Dante in The Inferno. You know, seventh-circle-of-hell references, and so on."

Even worse, her Twitter account posted to her LinkedIn so all her professional contacts could see what she had written. Webb has since learned to keep her Twittering professional, using it for her company's customer service and encouraging clients to reach out to her directly. She also posts about social media and has some much tamer personal posts.

Your online presence is a very visible part of your brand, so make sure what you say and do online reflects your company's culture. If you're comfortable joking around or sharing details about your personal life, go for it, but as a general rule, Postman says to ask yourself "How would I behave I weren't online?"

Though there's a delete button for a social slip-up, you may never be able to completely fix a misguided communiqué. Last summer, SocialMedian CEO Jason Goldberg Twittered about raising angel investment for his company, possibly running afoul of securities regulations. He tried deleting the Tweet, but in moments, it was captured, published and lambasted on TechCrunch and other blogs.

Be Transparent
When filling out your profile, don't copy and paste your white paper--a few sentences will do. Show some personality by sharing information under your interests, but if you're more comfortable keeping things strictly business, relate everything back to your core message. Also, don't add any Facebook applications your contacts need to add to see--they look unprofessional and can annoy your network. Take charge of your online persona by posting a profile image. If your account is under your name, use a headshot; if your account is your business name, opt for a logo. If you've hired a community manager to handle your accounts, give some information on your site about that person, as well. And always include two-way links, from your social site to your website and vice versa, to help people quickly find and vet you.

Be Tactful
To get some business out of your social networks, it's best not to immediately send new friends offers to download an e-book or to sign up for a newsletter. Be more subtle. Work your promotion into your everyday conversations by telling people about upcoming conferences, responding to questions in your field, or pointing out new and relevant blog posts.

As a general rule, try to match the way your contacts interact with you. Respond to a wall post with a wall post and a message with a message. Most other communication should be done via more passive Twitter or status updates. Postman says, "What works is being genuine, not being a hype machine."

Be Alert
To improve your brand standing, search for complaints or problems about your business, and respond in a helpful way, without necessarily adding the person as a contact. For example, Comcast has a ComcastCares account on Twitter that responds to complaints and provides customer service right in the platform. By empowering a community manager to listen and respond to complaints, you're taking a big step toward winning over customers.

Small Stores Find Ways to Drum Up Traffic (NYT)

Small Stores Find Ways to Drum Up Traffic

By KRISTINA SHEVORY

The owner of a futon store outside San Francisco started running comedy shows. A comic book shop in Florida held art shows. And a lingerie shop in New Mexico is planning a men’s night later this month.

Small businesses are always searching for ways to differentiate themselves. But with fewer people out buying, some of the businesses are doing whatever they think will draw in customers.

“This is a buyer’s strike,” said Eric G. Flamholtz, a professor emeritus of management at the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles. “People are holding back and not spending any money. So you have to give them a reason to come.”

Holding special events also can be far less expensive than regular advertising. And in a slowing economy, advertising and marketing budgets typically get trimmed. A recent National Small Business Association survey of its members found that 49 percent planned to start new advertising or marketing this year, down from 54 percent in 2007.

“They’re trying to market with little or no extra money,” said Molly Brogan, the association’s vice president of public affairs. “People are doing more on the Internet, any free thing they can.”

Deborah Reese, who owns a lingerie shop in Albuquerque, said she opted not to increase her advertising budget this year for the first time since she opened the shop, Seventh Goddess, four years ago. Instead, she said, she developed a new Facebook page and is encouraging employee blogs. She is also planning an array of events, like a recent “Sex and the City” pajama party in which customers sat on pillows for manicures and facials. Men’s night is coming up later this month, where employees model the store’s offerings and offer “man food.” And there will be an erotic poetry reading on Valentine’s Day.

“Events are cheap publicity,” Ms. Reese said. “People who ordinarily wouldn’t come, come. You just have to spring for the munchies and drinks.”

The parties are also good for sales. Ms. Reese sold dozens of pajamas at her “Sex and the City” event and hundreds of pairs of underwear and bras at a men’s night last December. She said she always offered discounts at the special events and a portion of her sales went to local charities.

Nor are the special events just for young businesses. Even well-established businesses, like Mary’s Futons in San Rafael, Calif., have been feeling the pinch. Fewer people are buying new futons, and more futons are being brought in for repairs. Mary Hughes, the owner, said she thought a comedy show would be the perfect thing to do because “everyone loves comedy and I wanted to meet women.” A theatrical producer was less than convinced.

“ ‘Lady, are you crazy?’ ” Lisa Geduldig, the producer of Kung Pao Kosher Comedy in San Francisco remembers telling Ms. Hughes. “ ‘I don’t do little futon stores; I do professional venues.’ ”

But after Ms. Hughes cornered her and begged her to do one show, she finally agreed. The first, “An Evening of Lie-Down Comedy,” was held in March and did so well, they added a second. When that one sold out, they added another. That, too, sold out. Proceeds from the tickets go back to the comedians and Ms. Geduldig. If more than 100 people attend, Ms. Hughes gets a small percentage of the ticket sales.

“I get the publicity and that’s worth more than the money,” Ms. Hughes said, though in a later interview she said she was taking over management of the shows.

One recent Sunday night, a hundred people milled around the futon store, nibbling on cake and catching up on gossip. A window display had been turned into a stage, 30 futons were turned to face it and salespeople were doing sound checks. Raffle tickets for a water fountain and beanbag chair were being sold at the door and a line of people snaked away from a sales counter doing service as a concession stand.

Ms. Geduldig threaded through the crowd to the stage, clambered on top and welcomed everyone to the show. “This is a futon shop,” she said. “Feel free to fall asleep.”

Everyone laughed. The show had begun.

But for every successful event, there are others that do not work out. Ms. Hughes thought she could draw 100 people to her store for a holiday sing-a-long last December. Only a few people came. At Seventh Goddess, Ms. Reese assumed a poetry writing workshop on Valentine’s Day would fill her store. Two people showed up.

Mr. Flamholtz, who is also a business consultant, said store owners should be cautious about getting into the events business. “The problem is that business owners want to diversify, but they’ll diversify into something they don’t know anything about,” he said. “They have to add products and services that make sense around their core.”

Outside events can quickly become a second business, and are rarely as simple as they appear, said Martin Lehman, a counselor and marketing director for Counselors to America’s Small Business, or Score, in New York. If a business owner wants artists to perform or exhibit their work, the business has to provide an incentive and make sure the event does not erode its brand, Mr. Lehman said. Ms. Reese noted that there were snacks to buy, bloggers to contact, community calendars to update and fliers to hand out.

Kimberly Smith-Johnson, who owned a comic book store, turned to her customers and local artists for help in putting on monthly art shows. As a former drama teacher, she turned them into her stagehands. They handed out fliers and blogged about her store.

“Events have been the best marketing tool, but they have to be genuine,” said Ms. Smith-Johnson, whose business was Comics & Classics in Jacksonville Beach, Fla. “It has to be about the artist and the event, not about bottom-line sales. People will pick up on the tone if it’s not.”

The events could not save her business, and Ms. Smith-Johnson and her husband, Percy, closed the store a few weeks ago. Even though many of their comic books were inexpensive, the Johnsons could not overcome one basic problem: they opened a new store right before the economic downturn.

“We got loved to death, but people just weren’t purchasing enough to keep us going,” said Ms. Smith-Johnson, who starts a new job as an eighth-grade teacher on Monday. “We ran out of capital. Between the banks, credit cards and people not spending, we got squeezed in the middle.”

Ms. Hughes, on the other hand, seems to have hit the right note with the comedy shows. At the September show, futons were crammed with four people each, many of them laughing. One woman yelled out, “This is the hardest I’ve laughed in a long time.”

Some said they could not believe where they were. “This is a store I’d never come into and here I am,” said Grace Flannery, from Novato, Calif. “I’m looking around at these futons and they’re a lot nicer than I thought.”

Other customers seemed to agree. After some of the shows, audience members have returned to buy the exact futon they sat on.