Small Business Social Media Starter Kit

A friend and colleague of mine shared a complaint common to many small business. She needs a social media program for her company and at the same time she lacks the resources, time and money, to launch and sustain that needed social media program. The time restrictions are hers as CEO, and, like all small businesses, cash is precious.

I created a simple social media starter kit for her. It has the features of low-cost, low-risk, manageable requirements to execute that should generate benefits in a range of areas.

 Here it is, the Small Business Social Media Starter Kit:

RESOURCES:

Student Intern. College or high school student. The work experience for them is invaluable. Many schools encourage internships with local companies and include professional internships as a graduation requirement. Students will likely already be fluent with the social media tools needed and listed below. And oftentimes, there is no salary requirement for the intern. They work for free.

Blog. You’ll need a blog. Most hosted websites and the aps used to create them have a blog component easily attached. If not, use a service like Typepad. With a 3rd party hosted blog resource like Typepad you’ll pay no more than $15.00 a month. 

Google Alerts. Create Google Alerts for news and blogs. There’s the source of your blogging and Twitter commentary and community-building outreach.

Twitter. Create a Twitter account.

EXECUTION

Initiate: Have the intern organize these materials and resources.
Review: Review all of these steps with the intern as they are completed.

Blog:

1. Brand the blog with your corporate logo. A good designer can brand your blog, even on a 3rd party hosted resource, with your corporate logo and link it back to your company site. I did that with a company and 50% of the traffic to the corporate site came from visitors to the blog.
2. Have the intern write the drafts of your blog posts.
3. You can review them any time.
4. Once finalized you can schedule them to be published at a later date of your choice.
5. Prepare and schedule a minimum of 3 blog posts to be published weekly.

Google Alerts:

1. Create Google news and blog alerts using keywords pertinent to your company, your industry, your market, your interests.
2. These will provide the source for your blogging and Twitter posts.
3. They will also prove valuable for crowdsourcing market research.
4. Have the Google alerts sent to you, also, to start. (It's educational for you as well as a good management oversight step.)

Twitter:

1. Create a username/profile: The username should absolutely be your company name, unless you're the person tweeting. Then you have the option to Twitter under your name with the create two Twitter usernames: one for your company and one for you.
2. The bio should point to your company, including your desired URL. 
3. Subscribe, ie, follow your company's Twitter username.
   1. Again, it's a good oversight step and will educate you in a time-efficient way for the power of Twitter.
   2. That means you will have to setup a twitter account.
4. Tweet daily. Morning - Noon - Night. (Total time: 15 minutes, per day, tops)
5. Follow the 80/20 rule of Ben McConnell:
   
   1. 80% of your tweets are NOT about you.
6. Search Twitter regularly. Use search.twitter.com. Regularly means...once a week at this point. Use the same keywords, and in the same manner, as  you use with your google alerts.

BUDGET

• Intern - $0
• Blog - $15.00 per month
• Designer:  $300.00 to brand your blog with your logo and link it to your site or add the blog to your existing site.
• Twitter: zero
• Google Alerts: 0
• Your time: 10 hours the first week; 3-5 hours per week thereafter.
• Results: Priceless. Traffic, community, conversation, prospects, enhanced brand image, and possible future savings from lower advertising budgets, free organic bite-sized market research with crowdsourcing on twitter and your blog.

SUMMARY

 Let's assume you have a product or service or mission worth sharing in an open, transparent, manner. That means others will want to hear about it as it adds value to their day.  Let's assume you can learn these simple skills to manage an online conversation. I think you will: A. be delighted with the results over time; B. Find the resources to expand this beyond a starter kit (hint: hire the intern). 

Regardless, let us know how it works. Other companies need your example, your inspiration, with success. Other companies need to know what to avoid or change if this plan does not produce the desired results. At the very least, I need to learn from my failure with this plan.

Happy New Year.

Comments

[Andy Brudtkuhl]

Great post!

[Terra Andersen]

A very good starting point for any business looking to get into Social Media!