Small business social collaboration can provide a solid marketing and long-tail selling strategy for your company.
The entire concept of social collaboration, social selling and social media is confusing, isn’t it? There’s a tsunami of social noise out there. More chaos than order?
Here are 5 small business social collaboration Power Tips to help your company dig through the social jungle and clarify your positioning.
Power Tip 1: Small business social collaboration is founded on internal collaboration. You all communicate with each other, speak real words, write real messages. If internal meetings are people seated around the table with their cell phones, texting to each other instead of looking at each other, you have some serious organizational issues to deal with.
Power Tip 2: Small business social collaboration is non-generational. Just because you hire 20-somethings doesn’t mean they know anything about sales, marketing, how to run a company or how money walks through your organization and your customers. They just may be power users of Android Apps for social platforms (see Tip 1). Do you want to leave your company brand and image up to that individual?
Power Tip 3: Small business social collaboration walks your internal communication into the social marketplace. What are your company’s values? What not-for-profit activities do you engage in? What is your leadership all about? Do you care about your customers? You are building and reinforcing brand and image with these activities. Loose social lips easily sink your small business social ship.
Power Tip 4: Small business social collaboration isn’t a job board or a sales pitch. Many CEOs on social platforms don’t handle their own social media presence: it’s outsourced to a social media manager. If someone follows you on social media, it’s not a buying signal. If your social presence simply is a job board, you aren’t telling anyone anything about your company other than you have growth or constant turnover.
Power Tip 5: Small business social collaboration is achieved by mastering one social media site at a time. Otherwise you have a Ready-Fire-Aim approach that is misaligned with potentially interested future customers. Aim for consistent delivery of messaging and information at targeted industry verticals and specific companies. Gauge the quality of their responsiveness to you, your company and your brand.
Have I created more order out of the chaos for you?
Babette N. Ten Haken, President of Sales Aerobics for Engineers®, LLC, is a management consultant and business coach. Babette develops business, technical and engineering professionals of worth. She remodels startups and small-to-medium manufacturing and service companies experiencing difficulty with unpredictable revenue streams. A recognized Top 50 Marketing & Sales Influencer, Babette’s blog won the 2014 Bronze Medal, Top Sales & Marketing Awards, Top Sales World. Her book on small business communication and collaboration strategies and tools, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com.
Leave a Reply