As an aside to my last post I wanted to extend some of the ideas that it inspired into something I am very familiar with- the good old “brick and mortar” store.

Here in Reno, I see a ton of businesses that jump on the bandwagon with facebook, twitter, etc. It seems to me that a lot of them jump in with both feet without a clear plan of where they are going, then fade away before it shows it’s real potential. Like any other media you need a plan of attack on how to use interactive media successfully-

• Define your customer
• Find out where they are (facebook, twitter, ning, etc..)
• Define the best delivery format- text, audio, video, etc.
• Define the best method for delivery
• Deliver the message
• Follow through on offers
• Track the results
• Rinse, refresh, repeat

And for the social media realm you can add-

• Responding quickly to interactions
• Handling customer service
• Encouraging them to share with friends to harness the biggest advantage of the media
• Creating content on a very frequent basis- sometimes daily

One of the problems with small business in this arena is that they haven’t learned how to do this with traditional media.  I can’t blame them, it is hard to get the right info.  Every salesman that walks in the door has the best media for your business, they sell it in a way that can’t be tracked, and know every rebuttal in the book when you want to cancel after a few months.  Now if traditional media is hard to do, then these newer platforms propose even bigger challenges-

• Shorter shelf life of individual messages
• A TON of outlets
• The learning curve of new sites/platforms
• Even harder to track the return, at least very different from the traditional medias
• Daily maintenance
• No “set it and forget it” (actually there are a few tricks…..)

In the end this becomes quite the task!  Trust me, I’ve been there.  In my time at Butcher Boy I ran all of our marketing efforts from 2003 on, including social media.  We managed to grab a good buzz and many of the online relationships fostered more, and better, customers.  We used all of the main forms of content in our marketing- video, pictures, text and audio.  It took a good chunk of time to manage it all, even with help from great friends and business partners.

I have spent a good deal of time pondering this topic and trying to figure out how I can contribute.  Here is what I have to offer as of now-

• Hit me up via email, twitter, facebook, linkedin or comment here with questions, comments or just to start a conversation
• I will be adding more posts here to share my thoughts as they come- subscribe now so you don’t miss ‘em!
• I am working on writing an ebook focusing on the basics of promoting brick and mortar business with social media- and it will be FREE!!!
• Check out the blogroll to the right for info on best practices and theory
• I am tossing the idea around of creating a small business forum with category leaders to provide good, useful information on a regular basis.  Stay tuned for more info on that.
• Get in touch with Johanna McClain at Media Directions.  She is working on a marketing and branding workshop geared towards small business.  Should be starting up in the next month or so.
• I would like to test out some ideas in social media with a restaurant.  If you’re interested please let me know and let’s see if we can work out a deal to get you started.

And that’s it for now.  Time to get out of the house for some face to face networking at this month’s IFSEA dinner.

Social media has become a big part of my daily life and I can’t help but notice a trend- lots of people talking about capturing your passion and monetizing it.  Now, I believe in the theory behind this 100%.  But it leaves me wondering-

• Is there any life to the business of selling people on telling them to sell their passion?
  • It is only a matter of time before the use of the platforms catch up to the laymen.  Most of us have aunts and uncles as friends on facebook that haven’t quite figured it all out yet.  As they do, the cost of entry into business makes more and more sense.  People selling this idea are capitalizing on the market now, good for them, but how long will it last?
• If a large majority of folks go to work for themselves, who will make all the widgets that we use day in and day out?
  • Now I know that not everyone will go out and get their own business going in the next year.  But what about 20 years from now?  If the swell of start ups keeps going, there may be a shortage of worker bees at some point.
• How long will it be before every passion is saturated?  How many people can make a living off of candied bacon?  Or wearing shirts?
  • Kind of hand in hand with the above point- how many can be successful in a crowded space?  Who will become the Wal-Mart of each category?  Will everyone sell off the solid businesses to google?
• Will all of the selling kill social media as a way to connect with friends?
  • The theory is that social media will only target the interested people since they can “opt-out” at any time.  But we all have friends that recommend the same businesses over and over till we accept it as part of the noise.  Maybe better filtering tools will be the answer?

I think the world will live in is changing quicker than the majority realizes and I LOVE IT.  I just wonder about what the future holds.  And I now this conversation could go on for days but I wanted to start a few of my thoughts here.

Check out some of the links in the blogroll if you’re interested in learning more from the people active in this realm, at least the ones that I find worthwhile.

A few months back a relatively unknown musician and his band made internet history with their video United Breaks Guitars telling the story of their saga with United Airlines. There are plenty of links out there for the story but I wanted to give my point of view regarding how the current internet atmosphere can affect a business.

As many have said, we live in a world where we cannot hide. This includes businesses as well as individuals. Every move you make can be recorded for eternity on the web. This is supremely important when it comes to dealing with PR in your business. Using this video as an example, within weeks hundreds of thousands of people had seen the video. Since it went viral, there are links and discussions about it all over the web which will NEVER go away. Searches for “can I fly with my guitar” bring up this video in the top three spots!

What about the Sons of Maxwell (the band that recorded the video)? I am guessing they saw an incredible increase in traffic to their site, and in turn, some great sales followed. Not a bad way to get that guitar paid for, is it?

From a business standpoint, you will never be able to control what the public says about you. But you can react to it, and I think you should try to do it in the same form. For instance, the Domino’s Pizza debacle that happened earlier this year. The short story- some employees posted videos of themselves and others doing disgusting things with food on youtube. Once corporate got a hold of the videos, they posted their response. They did a great job in answering the issue, although I wish that Patrick Doyle would have used his own voice rather than obviously reading from cue cards…..

In a world where information moves so quickly you have to reach out to your customers immediately. This can go the other way as well. Customers are out there saying good things about companies all the time and it is good business to reach out to those folks as well.

It’s not that hard to set up some google alerts, twitter searches, etc. to help monitor what folks are saying about a brand or company. Then you simply react as you would in real life to the comments. Say thanks, offer them a free sample of your product, invite them to meet you in person, etc. This will soon be the expected way to do business from the customers standpoint so businesses need to get on the bandwagon early.

Go out there and find those folks today and start up a conversation, it will only lead to great things.

I seem to always be thinking about “the next big thing”. Maybe one of these days I will find the one that works for me.

Today I was exiting the freeway on one of those nifty roundabout type exits and had a thought. Here in Reno, we must have a dozen or more of those exits, most full of weeds. Why not use that land to build a business?

There are some pros and cons for sure-

Pros-

• Everyone exiting the freeway will surely see your business
• If you could work it out with the city/county or whoever owns the land, I am guessing it would be fairly inexpensive
• You have a freeway entrance right into your driveway!!

Cons-

• You would have to deal with the city/county as a landlord, I am guessing that they need access to those areas at some point which might interfere
• Exiting your parking lot would mean a game of frogger with the passing cars
• You can only enter from one direction

Now I have seen businesses built on bridges over freeways, but never one right in the middle of the exit. I’m thinking a gas station would be a good choice.

Anyway- that’s my random thought for the day….