Is it important to have a plan before starting to use social media in your business? The textbook answer of course would be 'yes' ... but the reality for many is that it evolves in a far more organic way. Trial and error, suck it and see, whatever you want to call it.
One UK small business that has adopted an unstructured approach to social media, but is seeing a tangible return on its investment is Curved Vision, a presentation skills training firm based in the North East.
Director Simon Raybould first started embracing the world of online forums some five years ago, joining a business networking group that gave him some good contacts, although he's since moved on. Having joined Twitter in early 2008 he went through the classic stages of Twitter adoption - starting off enthusiastically, then wondering what the point of it all is. "It was really only 6 months ago I started to use Twitter regularly," he explained. "It has definitely resulted in sales, not to our immediate followers necessarily, but to their followers."
Every couple of months, Curved Vision produces a useful article or resource which it gives away for free, and enquiries come off the back of the quality of these pieces and the number of retweets. Sometimes the enquiry simply happens when one of their followers mentions them to others.
But Raybould doesn't simply use Twitter as a broadcast medium. He estimates his tweets break down into 40% social/fun/conversation/helping people, 40% tips/information and 10 - 20% (max) out-and-out promotional. This wasn't planned, but it's a balance that seems to work well.
A key part of Curved Vision's promotional activity is the company blog where they are currently taking part in a BT Tradespace initiative to post one blog post a day, every day in November. In the two years it's been going, the blog has grown into a vast source of information. Raybould reports an interesting effect: although the number of speculative enquiries has dropped, the conversion rate of those they do get is far higher than is used to be - close to 90%. In other words, the blog acts as a filter to qualify prospects, so saving the firm time on phone calls and proposals that go nowhere.
When it comes to keeping in touch with current and past clients, Raybould turns to Facebook where he has a regular profile page, not publicly viewable. All his tweets show up on there, but Facebook updates are not tweeted. "My contacts on Facebook already know me, and it's not like Twitter where anyone can follow you, so I can be a bit less guarded about what I say." The purpose of the Facebook presence is more about encouraging recommendations and keeping the brand in people's minds, not selling as such.
For those just starting to use social media for business, Raybould has some good advice: take your time to get to know the community - they're all different. It might be couple of weeks of watching and reading before you start to chip in, and when you do, make it something helpful. "It's easy to get people's backs up by asking something of them too soon or not respecting the etiquette of the place."
As for finding the time, one of the typical cries of the small business owner wondering about all this tweeting, posting and blogging...Raybould's attitude is to go for consistency rather than frequency. "Two or three tweets a day isn't a huge commitment - even if you're out of the office you can do it from a mobile phone."
