5. Social Media Grows Up: Have you noticed that “social media” is a term that doesn’t really describe the experience that well anymore? Yes its social, and yes its media, but for business it has become so much more than that. Tapping, nay, mastering, social media is one of the hottest of all online trends:

• Everyone from Jet Blue to Comcast has turned to Twitter as a customer service tool
• Companies like Whole Foods and Popeys increasingly use it to get feedback, post company news, etc.
• Big business has discovered what many small businesses already know: Facebook is a great place to advertise. “Facebook” in fact was the most searched term in 2009 (Source: Experian Hitwise)

Hop on the social media train, Jane, because it’s headed out of the station at light speed.

4. Going Local: Consumers are increasingly looking for a local angle when looking where to spend their hard-earned dollar. Example: The explosion of farmers markets across the country. According to Entrepreneur, “there are almost 5,000 farmers markets across the country, the result of more than 5 percent annual growth for the past five years.”

Additionally, with people staying closer to home right now because of the economy, with folks focused ever more on community and family, and with the green ethos growing, home is where the heart (and dollar) is.

3. Sharing vs. Shared Experiences: According to a recent NPR podcast, we used to share national experiences. The nightly news was a shared ritual for instance. The OJ Simpson trial was a shared experience, the same with Vietnam, and so on.

But that is changing, for two reasons. The first is the fragmentation of the media. With innumerable news outlets, websites, cable channels, mobile options and the like, the opportunity to create shared experiences is diminishing. We are all not watching or experiencing the same thing nearly as much.

Secondly, with the advent of easy to generate user-created content, sharing experiences and opinions is becoming ever more prevalent. YouTube, blogs, Facebook, Yelp, email even, all contribute to both the media fragmentation as well as the sharing culture.

For the small business person, it is vital to realize that 1) people look for, and increasingly expect, the personal, and 2) small, localized, immediate user-created media are where the eyeballs are headed.

2. Mobile Mania: Maybe the only marketing trend that is hotter than social media is mobile mania. Why? Maybe because there are four-times more cell phones than PCs worldwide, or because they are the favorite product of Gen Y, or because in 2000, there were almost no texts sent but this year, 130 billion texts will be sent a month, and only 23% of those will come from my daughters.

So yes, mobile marketing is exploding. Whether it is creating the Next Big App, offering customers a real-time mobile coupon, or creating a text marketing campaign, in 2010 there will be mobile options galore for small business.

Even better maybe: The variety of ways to measure the success of your mobile campaign. According to the Mobile Marketing Association, they will include: “The number of eyeballs, shakes and finger swipes. The number of blogs, articles, tweets and diggs. The number of acquisitions, conversions, calls, responses or purchases. Total basket size, consumer recall, loyalty and recommendations. Check-ins on foursquare and check-outs on Amazon.”

It is a new world indeed.

1. The Start-Up Economy: Last year, 2009, my top trend was entitled “Economic Tumult,” and tumultuous it indeed turned out to be; the Great Recession is great in all the wrong ways.

But this year, while the state of the economy will continue to be the most significant trend effecting small business, the outlook is both brighter and calmer. It is calmer because things are slowly getting back to, if not normal, at least something recognizable. And it is brighter because out of the rubble, a new, vital, innovative startup economy is being born.

We have entered the era of small business. Whereas GM president Charles Wilson once said “What’s good for the country is good for GM, and vice versa,” it can now safely be said that what is good for small business is good for the country. Consider these statistics.

Small businesses now

• Number almost 30 million
• Employ more than half of all workers
• Constitute 99.7% of all employers
• Constitute 97% of all exporters
• Create the majority of business innovations

(Source: U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy, 2009.)

With 10% unemployment for as far as the eye can see, with the unemployed running out of benefits, and with benefits not what they once were for the employed, startups of all shapes and sizes are taking root: One person shops, home-based businesses, part-time ventures, online enterprises, high tech companies – you name it. These are the folks who, with their creative energy, drive, ingenuity, and hard work will be leading us out of this anything but great recession.

We will have to wait until next year’s list to see just how far they will take us. My hunch is that the companies born in this recession will be the stuff of legend by the end of the decade.

Journalists report those Five Ws (plus one H) of an event, then they end up reporting the full story.  Small business owners answer those questions of a new venture, and they get the full story as well.

But for months, both are still trying to explore the full potential of Twitter.  As of last week, this is how the story has developed so far, from a business perspective:

Who… is a Twanker and Twidiot? Both are people who use Twitter for impractical reasons, according to the Influential Marketing Blog – a Twanker, purely for self-promotion and a Twidiot, solely for insignificant updates, such as what they ate for breakfast.

The blog’s “10 Basic Rules of Twitter (and How to Avoid Being a Twanker)” is a good start for beginners, though this etiquette guide could also set a few veteran users straight.  For one, it recommends referring to people by their Twitter names on Twitter.

Imagine Twitter is like a play and every user is an actor. You wouldn’t call a fellow actor by their name on stage,” the rule reads, “you would use the character’s name.” Read more at the Influential Marketing Blog.

What… does Chris Brogan do with Twitter? Well, first, here’s why small business owners should care: Brogan, president of New Media Marketing Labs, works with mid to large-sized businesses to improve their online marketing and public relations communications.  But his free services are just as valuable. Throughout the day, at chrisbrogan.com, he serves as a social guru for people with any type of business.
Brogan has more than 93,000 followers because instead of answering, “What are you doing?” as Twitter prompts, he answers, “What has your attention?” And with that question in mind, he promotes products, people, services and other things he thinks are cool at a 12:1 ratio — “12 them, 1 me.” Read more at ChrisBrogan.com.

Where… is that Tweet coming from? According to recent developments, you may find out real soon. Twitter is working on adding latitudinal and longitudinal data to tweets – meaning, that the 140-character messages could also be given an exact location.

Since the location data would only be stored with a Tweet for a short period of time, marketing experts see the feature as best fit for limited-time offers.

“A small business on Twitter could potentially use the location feature to reach out to local customers, or a Twitter user hungry for pizza could search for nearby pizza joints offering specials,” said Claire Cain Miller of the New York Times. Read more at the Twitter blog.

When… is Twitter going to cater more to the needs of business owners? Sooner than some may think. Though Twitter will remain a free service, premium commercial accounts with access to detailed analysis are currently in the works, as reported by DigitalBeat.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone also hinted toward the debut of a new set of corporate-specific application programming interfaces (APIs) that would allow business users to “more effectively engage with the community, while increasing strategic visibility,” as Solis said.  “We want to build statistics or analytics that let users know – ‘How am I doing on Twitter?’” Stone said. Read more at DigitalBeat.

Why… use Twitter when my customers don’t? As founder of the first Twitter for Business consultancy and co-author of Twitter for Dummies, Laura Fitton (@pistachio) has found five major reasons why.
For one, Fitton points out that Twitter can be used as a platform to aggregate opinions built around any business or industry. Furthermore, said opinions could be gathered via widget and posted onto your business Web site – no Twitter account necessary.

“That’s a great free customer sentiment engine, way to listen  to what’s really going on,” Fitton said.
Read more at HubSpot’s Inbound Internet Marketing Blog.

How… can one drive traffic with repeat Tweets? In two rather informal experiments, Entrepreneur magazine columnist Guy Kawasaki decides to see if taking self-promotion to another level would reap even greater rewards (in this case, clickthroughs).

In his first, he reposted one Tweet four times, approximately eight hours apart: “Power tip for anyone interested in social media: sign up for this. http://om.ly/FmGG I use it every day to find stories to Tweet.” The four posts received more than 5,000 clickthroughs, and also resulted in 700 people signing up for the service he plugged, SmartBrief.

The experiments also yielded a few complaints, though Kawasaki is hardly losing sleep over them.
“I look at complaints this way: What would happen if you told Jack Bauer (“24”) that you’re going to stop watching his show because of all the Cadillac commercials?” Read more at the American Express OPEN Forum.

Readers, is tweeting now a part of your daily business routine? Explain why or why not in the comments.

Follow goWholesale on Twitter or Subscribe to goWholesale news and get these articles delivered to your inbox weekly.

Follow and un-follow
Twitter enables you to follow the postings of registered users on the site; they can opt to follow you.  Is it impolite to not follow someone who’s following you?  While many advocate for reciprocity, the reality is that following too many Tweeters can eat up time and obscure postings that would be meaningful to you.  Do follow followers who may provide helpful information, but otherwise be selective.

Know the rules
On Twitter, you are limited to 140 characters per posting.  However, it’s still wise to use real words and abbreviations; don’t use SMS-style text (SMS-style shorthand, the type used for text messaging).  Full sentences are not required and symbols, such as “@” and “=” can be acceptable when needed to meet the 140-character limit.  Definitely shorten URLs (using TinyURL or other sites) to save characters.

Continue Reading

Let’s be really honest; there are plenty of steps involved with the purchase and receipt of any online product from the release of a credit card number to final delivery – and potential customers will worry about every single one of these areas when it comes to making a purchase from a business they have not used in the past.

About Branding

There is a lot of competition in online sales out there, and some of it is from well-recognized companies that have their own names to create the kind of trust you need from your visitors.

So that is your first step to establishing that trust with customers on your site; build yourself an identity. This step is more popularly known today as branding, and it extends to everything your business does, from the site layout to slogans to a nice looking logo.

Everything you put out needs to look professional and great, or your first impression on a visitor might be the last.

Guard Your Reputation

Next, you have to make sure that you know what is being said about you. Business can be dirty business sometimes, and with the amount of online competition there is no guarantee that yours will play fair.

It is easy enough to go into consumer forums and make false posts about businesses, so make sure that you are doing your own search engine inquiries about your business to have a look at what’s being said.

If you do encounter negative feedback, defend your business honestly and don’t jump to conclusions; try to track down the source of the complaint on your end and remedy the situation, and then post that you have done so.

Social Media Concerns

In the Web 2.0 World, you also have to be very careful about the way you present yourself when on a message board, posting a video to YouTube, on Facebook, and so on.

Most of us are using social media to extend awareness of our businesses, but people can get the wrong impression according to how you conduct yourself. If they don’t like how they see you as a person, odds are that you won’t have their trust, and you even run the risk of them discouraging others from using your business.

Finally, the best way to establish trust with your online customers is to provide them with honest, prompt service and delivery. No customer should ever have to contact you about the delivery of a product.

Instead, be proactive and contact them to inquire about whether or not they have received what they bought, the condition it was in, and so on. This is a great way not only to gain repeat business but to gain testimonials, which are another important tool when it comes to gaining the trust of online customers.

Social bookmarking sites basically allow you to store and share your bookmarks online. This enables you to access your bookmarks from any computer at any time. They’re used for promoting as well, because there are a ton of people who are interested in what your favorite sites are. Some of the most popular are Digg, Stumbleupon, and Del.icio.us.

Because of the fact that you can share your bookmarks with others with the same interests (hence why it’s called "social"), social bookmarking can be an excellent marketing strategy. When you bookmark a site, like your business site, you are able to describe it with a "tag". A tag is a keyword that is used to find bookmarks on a site. By associating the right tags with each of your bookmarks, you can get a steady stream of interested visitors to your site.

There are even topic-specific social bookmarking sites that can be used to promote your business to a more targeted audience. SmallBusinessBrief.com, for example, is a site with (you guessed it) small business-related bookmarks. You can write an "article" type story that promotes your company without sounding too promotional. Then, potential customers are able to read your article and click through to your website.

Social Media Sites

Social media sites are a lot like social bookmarking sites, except you can post and share media like videos and podcasts. With social media sites, such as Myspace and Youtube, there are countless ways to promote your business as well. Here are a few examples:

Myspace allows you to create your own profile page, post interests, videos, and a wealth of other things to it, and then share it with other Myspace users. You add friends to your network, and you can use bulletins and blogs to post different things about your business. You can post discounts, sales, or even featured products and include the links to your pages. Easy, right? You can devote your entire Myspace page to your company, and include pictures and slideshows of products, or whatever you want.

Youtube is a great place to promote as well. By making a short video explaining to customers what your business is about, you can get some serious exposure. You simply submit the video to the proper category, add some keyword tags, and that’s it. With Youtube, you know that the people viewing your video are already halfway to becoming a customer because they are looking for things relevant to your company before they find your video.

With any of these places, there is a basic rule to follow. If you put a lot of hype and sales-type writing in to your articles or media, you’re likely to get shot down before you ever get started. Instead, try to convey the benefits of what your products or services do, and bookmark or post links or media that will be of genuine interest to others. It’s also important to mix in personal bookmarks with those from your own site. Don’t be deceitful and hide your identity, but blend in and be a part of the community. By showing a genuine care for your potential customers, social bookmarking and media sites can be a real goldmine for your business!

Social media is one of the truly great innovations that have come about due to the widespread nature of the Internet. The term refers to any online technology or practice that people use to share messages with one another. The message can be presented in the form of content, as video, pictures, and so on. The tools of social media include blogs, message boards, bookmarks, forums, and so on.

For most of its existence, social media has been used to allow individuals a platform on which to voice their opinion; that is, it somewhat validates everyone’s opinion by ensuring that it is heard. Of course, this also means that in most cases social media is subject to various abuses, and in most of the big social media networks you will hear about abuses either by the site managers (such as Digg) or by individual groups who have power over the medium through determination (a common practice on message boards and forums). These are probably the most poignant criticisms of the social media phenomenon.

Issues of abuse by no means eliminates the many possibilities present for a small business owner when it comes to the social media, but it is important to be aware of them before taking advantage of this powerful tool. In the next section of this article, we will take a look at how social media can work both for businesses with an online presence and those who operate offline.

Social Media For Online And Off

The main use for social media as far as both online and off line businesses is as a means of advertisement that is not seen by most members of the general public as an advertisement. A decade or so ago, the public became very aware of the ways in which traditional media could be used to promote a product or service, and the result was a general rejection of advertisements whether or not they were helpful (this is abundantly demonstrated in the rise in popularity of products such as TIVO).

Social media is a way of reaching out to an audience that has become difficult to find, in such a way that the message will not be rejected out of hand. The key is to make sure that the content you are providing that puts forth your business, whether online or off, takes shape in a way that makes it appealing to a large amount of people.

The appeal of your message is important, as social media is a user-driven tool. If word of mouth is not spread about your content, then the result will be wasted effort.

Social media is still in its infancy as far as potential, both for personal and business use. As time goes on, algorithms will develop that address the issues that have come up for virtually every social media platform. In order for businesses to keep using this important tool it will be essential to stay current on practices and information.