When Stephanie Schwab worked at a social-media marketing firm (creating blogs for big corporate clients), she often met small business owners who wanted to get a handle on Facebook advertising and other ways to connect with customers in cyberspace.
The trouble was that “they just couldn’t pay big-agency fees,” Ms. Schwab recalled.
[source: Crain’s New York Business] “So they’d ask me, ‘Can’t you just show me how?’ Or they’d say, ‘I’ll get my nephew to do it for me.’ I ended up doing a lot of one-on-one coaching just to get people started. There was a glaring lack of affordable social-media training for small companies.”
To help fill that gap, she started the Social Media School in 2010. The firm’s instructors give short courses at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center and online. In a recent conversation, Ms. Schwab talked about the best ways for small businesses to shine online.
Is there a common mistake small businesses make when they launch social-media marketing campaigns?
The biggest thing to watch out for is biting off more than you can chew. Sometimes we see entrepreneurs trying to do too much at once—a Web site, Facebook, Twitter and a blog, for instance—and then it’s just too much, and they end up neglecting everything. Instead, we recommend starting with one online platform or at most two, so you can keep up with it.
My own personal bias is that every small business should have a blog. It really drives a lot of search-engine traffic, and you own 100% of the content. And it can be fun, especially if you like to write and have lots of information and opinions that you want to get out there. The downside is that a blog is a little bit daunting, because setting one up requires more technical knowledge than, say, a Facebook page. So one thing we do [at Social Media School] is demystify blogging, to make it more accessible to people who aren’t techies or marketing experts.
Let’s say I’m an entrepreneur who already has a Web site and a blog. What else do I need to do?
LinkedIn is an underutilized resource among entrepreneurs, who tend to see it mainly as a career booster for big-company executives. But every business owner needs a great LinkedIn profile. The point is to make it easy for people to find you, so the summary paragraph at the top of your profile is really important. It should be vividly descriptive and loaded with keywords and phrases that tell what your business does in some detail. That’s what generates connections.
Then, I’ve noticed that some business owners hesitate to invite LinkedIn connections with people they don’t know. My advice is, connect with anyone and everyone who interests you. Don’t be afraid to reach out for as many connections as you can, because you never know who might be able to help your business.
A recent study from the nonprofit Center for an Urban Future says that many small firms in the city that have been operating successfully for generations are reluctant to adopt new technology. What would you say to those skeptics who are still hanging back?
Well, it’s funny you should ask that, because all of our instructors happen to be social-media experts who are over 40. None of us grew up with any of this! So entrepreneurs who find technology intimidating, or who just don’t want to bother with it—we definitely get that.
However, even if you’re a tiny neighborhood business like the local locksmith, people expect to find you online. They will Google you, so, to keep up with your competitors now, you need at least a Web site. As far as the rest of it goes, you can pick and choose among Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter—any of them will make you more visible. And what small business doesn’t want to be seen by more people?