Value of Facebook and/or Twitter in small businesses?

Horace

If social media is rubbish why is it that Birmingham Chamber contacted me after I blogged about them because I had a bad experience with them? The problem has been resolved so I changed my blog to reflect that. If you are a forward thinking business then you need to get with the times and use social media as it is an excellent, free tool to help you make contact with potential clients and suppliers worldwide.

I know of one business that started off as doing one thing and have now changed direction and help people with their social media skills - this came about because the person started their business with zero funds and they needed to find a free way to promote themselves.

pastmybest

Wow and many thanks to those who have spent so much effort into giving very valuable replies. I have always ran my own businesses until a few years ago when I retired and in those days there were none of these options. How things have changed and how you need to keep up to date with them.

I guess it is a question of spending the right amount of time as it could be easy to spend too much time and there are always so many other things to do.

competitionscafe

Just one word of advice though - do it properly.

One local pub I was following on Twitter was just sending out the same tweets over and over - obviously cut and pasted or set up to auto tweet.

You need to engage with people and come across as a real person - not just blast out annoying ads for your company!

One good tip to get more followers on twitter is to offer a prize to your followers - for example http://twitter.com/gowercottage (brownies) does this from time to time offering free brownies and has sometimes even appeared in the trending (popular) topics on twitter as a result. Rare Tea Lady has given away free tea samples to her followers: http://twitter.com/raretealady

Oh and as a consumer twitter is great if you have a complaint about a company I guess as your tweet is in the public eye they have to respond to it and do so in a satisfactory manner. For example I had a problem with emusic and they did not reply to my email so I sent them a tweet asking why they ignored emails - they replied to my tweet and gave me an alternative contact email: result.

Article here on ten ways to advertise your business on facebook:
http://econsultancy.com/blog/6249-ten-ways-to-advertise-your-business-on-facebook

jexygirl

ok, I am in the minority, I know that. I am not a techno phobe, I have been on "the net" since 1996, played an mmorpg for 3 and a half years, have msn, skype, a ventrillo server, had an ebay account since the days when it was just people auctioning their "junk" in 2001... chat on IRC channels, and just like i havent seen lord of the rings trilogy or harry potter, I do not have a facebook or twitter account. I do not trust them, my 2nd chef can hack any given one within 15 mins (he hacked my partners to prove his point and isnt a hacker he just knows computers and the net) he could have posted anything / set up new pages / changed settings - in fact he also showed me how he could set up a page for me! fake email, fake page... too easy imho as if i there wasnt enough to put me off!.
There is bad and good media hype about both. I do not have facebook as I dont see the need to know when someone goes to the loo... it isnt my thing,( my partner does have it, and I refused to let him set a page up about the place - I leave trip advisor for people to reivew us, I dont need it to be any more personal, work is work and we also have a website), but i appreciate it is for alot of people. I also dont really want people that i knew 20 years ago, calling me up at 11.30pm out of the blue (yep happened to partner). I do see that this is probably a missed opportunity in some minds, but I dont have the time to update that its now raining, or the fire isnt going very well, or we are fully booked this evening on an hourly or even minute to minute basis, nor would I want to. Why would people come out, when they can see the goings on on a forum... for me personally and professionally in my buisness, it isn't my bag baby!

Via facebook, my partner heard of, and has offered help and free accom and food to someone who is a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend 50 times removed, that is running john o groats to lands end next year for cancer research so are offering accomodation etc. so thats a good thing about it.

guess what I am saying is by all means use it, its free, and all publicity is good publicity right..., but there are people out there that dont use it, and dont want to, and wont value it or its comments, so dont make it your only means of advertising as philistines like me wont see it!

Jex the thread killer

paulwf

Jex...you probably already know this but in case others are wondering a Facebook page for business is very different to a personal page. A business page does not have to be linked to a personal account so there isn't any personal privacy issues.

Facebook business pages don't have to be full of inane comments and you don't have to update daily. You could for example just provide updates on upcoming bands. That could give customers a nudge to visit you. As updates are automatically sent to someones feed (once they subscribe) it is easier to keep in touch with customers than them having to visit your website as very few will do this regularly.

As to fake emails and fake pages...if you don't set up an official page then you leave the door open for people to pretend to be you, in my mind as much of a risk of hacking. It would certainly be worth registering an relevant twitter names before anyone else hoovers them up.

Totally agree you have to be mindful not to use it as the only form of advertising.