Yesterday between customers I spent a lot of time at Au Chocolat (twitter, facebook) talking with Ed about social media. Somewhere along the line, I (like Georgy) have become a bit of a proponent for businesses and individuals using social media.
Of course, with social groups it is a bit more like Facebook: what you are doing, where you are going, what interesting things you've read, etc. But I have at least 2 yarn shops (and Sundara, so 3), 2 running shops, a clothing shop and the Kobo as part of my twitter. I think they are all using social media in some pretty good ways. Now, I don't know how large these shops are, but I figure that some of them are pretty small. I also figure that with some of the shops or individuals that some of these posts are scheduled.
Ed wasn't the only person I was talking about it with. One of Ed's other employees has a business of her own (I think, I didn't get details) and she was trying to make her way through the wilderness that is Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare and other applications. I was trying to explain how you can use it to find anything from a hot new report from a government agency to what sales are on at different shops.
So, for those of you that use Facebook or Twitter, what do you consider the top things for a business person to consider?
My list was:
1. Be yourself. Show your personality, because people want to buy from people they know not faceless businesses.
2. Be excited. Show new stuff or restocks or other interesting things. It doesn't have to be about your business specifically. RoadID posts about temperatures in his area for running and exercise in general in addition to the core business of selling his stuff. TwistCollective has posted all week about this new sweater.
3. You don't have to tweet every day. The Kobo group (hey, the company is much bigger than a small chocolate shop) posts at least a couple of tweets almost every week day. RoadID has posted 5 times in the last 5-6 days, but some the shops I follow haven't tweeted at all.
4. Be open ended. A lot of the shops post every once in a while about things that invite comment: favorite sweater patterns, running routes, movie adaptions of books. It can be a huge range of topics, but it invites your customers to interact with you and effectively do the product development part for you (or at least keep your name in front of them).
5. Be findable. None of this does nearly as much good if people don't know that you are on the web, Facebook or Twitter. Have bags with your url on them. Business cards that mention you are on Twitter or Facebook.
6. Remember that it takes time and work, but it allows you to grow your business from a group of regulars and walk ins to a huge group of people who are regulars and semi-regulars and makes you the place they think to go for yarn, chocolate, a new ebook, or more. Posting 3 times on Facebook or or 10 times on Twitter isn't enough to prove if it is going to work or not.
Now that I've ruminated on social media I'm going to pull out Paper Dolls and see if I can figure out how long I'm making this sweater. I finished the decreases for the waist yesterday and put it aside, because I didn't know how long I was going to knit it before starting the increases on the other side.
