Social Media for businesses: 3 things to try, 3 things to avoid

When I held my workshop at the pr 2.0 conference in Munich I realised too late that I had chosen a confusing title. The workshop was supposed to be about creating social media platforms for small to medium sized businesses, how to offer them incentives to join into the discussion, and how to give them tools to stay in the loop about the crowd. But through memetic mutation I soon became "the guy who talks about social media for small businesses" and the room was filled to the last seat. I quickly refreshed the participants on crowd relationship management and skipped the case studies and rest of the workshop to focus on their questions.

Front and center of course was the question "How do I start conversations about my business?" And the answer is simple: you don't. At least not via social media.

If there is one rule I'd like to impart, it is this: You don't want to contribute to the white noise that is sweeping the social network, be it what people had for lunch or press releases disguised as news. It's a waste of your time and money. Worse, every time you post something that nobody cares about, you lose followers you worked so hard to gain. Grey pointed this out in a recent article on their german language blog here , based on a study done by ExactTarget here . The number one reason people stop following you on facebook? Because you post too often (close second: they don't care what you have to say)!

What you do want to do is contribute in a meaningful way, and this can be achieved by selling a remarkable and useful service or product. Yes, the rules haven't changed in that regard. People must want your product; that is where the conversation has to start. Or they actively dislike it and you improve it. Either way, they have to take note of you through your product. No medium is as good at ignoring you as Social Media are, even if your product is great but you choose to lie about it.

What if you're too small to be talked about at all? What if people don't take note of your product or service?

Try these strategies:

1. Face-to-face

Find potential fans, introduce them to your service or product, send them a freebie. Preferable targets are people who talk a lot on blogs and social media and who have considerable reach. Just give them your product, don't be stingy, and don't set any kind of rules. Ask them for their honest feedback, and tell them you'd not only don't want to censor them, you actually encourage talking about product. Use the feedback to improve your product. Start locally, on a person-to-person level.

2. On your website

Always start by offering something for free - free cookies, free advice, free information. You need to have enough so you can give something away for free though. If you don't, get more. You are not ready to face the market if you run out of free advice halfway through.

3. Build trust.

If you're trying to convince somebody in real life of your services, do you wander around downtown and talk to strangers in order to promote your business? Would you hire somebody (lawyer, IT guy, designer etc.) off the street? No, you build trust, usually by listening for people around you who could use your service and by offering it to them. Don't rush into anything. Make small promises and keep them.

If you do get started on social media, it is important to keep away from a few common pitfalls:

1. Don't post too often

As I mentioned earlier, you actually lose followers by bothering them too often with things that aren't relevant to them, even if they seem relevant to you. You are not your followers.

2. Handle criticism professionally

Don't get personal, even if the comments under the shroud of anonimity may seem overly polemic to you. Don't gloat when you've proven someone wrong. Always, ALWAYS be polite and professional. Thank people for their feedback, even if you personally think it's a meaningless rant. Let the community sort it out.

3. Don't be fooled by follower counts

Followers can be bought, plain and simple. There will always be plenty of spam accounts out there that will be willing to follow you if you follow them. Don't. If you must, count only those followers that you can confidently assign to one of the categories of crowd relationship management.

To summarise: Despit the insistance of one participant, Social Media offers a new way to communicate with the crowd, not a silver bullet that makes marketing easy and free. Have a great product that people actually want and be honest about it. The feedback you will get will not only help you shape your message, but even your product. The goal, as Seth Godin points out here is to be considered essential and priceless, and no marketing beats a great product.