No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

I recently led a training session with some small business owners in Phoenix teaching them how to promote their business using Facebook and Twitter.

After the session, I was chatting with a small business owner who wanted to discuss the pros/cons of starting a Facebook page to promote her particular business. She looked at the platform, listened to a few of the basics and then promptly decided it wasn’t for her. In contrast, another business owner who I was chatting with looked at it and thought about all the possibilities that existed in an unfamiliar package. So the three of us stood there and talked about ideas for what types of things each might want to say on their Facebook page, should they decide to go that route. After a few minutes of brainstorming, it became clear that the platform could be a good idea for each of them for different reasons.

In the end though, it became a matter of resources. While platforms like Facebook are currently a free medium on which businesses and organizations can reach out to members and customers, it is by no means free in terms of the resources needed to manage the platform. For a small business such a thought might be prohibitive, but consider this. Can you afford not to? So here are a few suggestions for how to make “social media” less of a time suck.

1. If your time is limited (and for most of us, that is the case), then just pick a single platform to start with. Recognize that your initial efforts will take a little longer as you learn the subtleties of using a platform like Facebook.

2. Come up with a game plan for what you want to accomplish. Identify the two or three themes you want to post about. This will save you time in the long run. Since you are on top of your business, your themes are likely things you stay on top of anyway, so it should be fairly easy to find a little inspiration (maybe from an article in your industry publication, or something a customer said that got you thinking… there are many possibilities out there.)

3. Stick with it. Building a Facebook following doesn’t happen over night. It takes time and care and nurturing (and a lot of word of mouth). Think of it this way: Word of mouth is great for your business because each person that’s following you can make a personal recommendation on your behalf to someone who hasn’t yet heard of you—and that’s much more likely to turn into a sale or a new customer or, more importantly for the social media side of your efforts, A FAN!

4. Make sure you’re checking in regularly (but if you’ve got a game plan, this is most likely happening by default.) Regular check ins have another benefit, you’ll be engaging with your audience and having conversations with your customers, even when they aren’t physically at your business.

5. And last but not least, have some fun with it!