In Enterprise business technology, the world of Social Marketing is white hot. Salesforce.com has been feverishly buying up the pieces for their social marketing solutions. Their $3.5 Billion bet is that the fundamentals of how businesses interact with their customers and prospects are changing forever, driven by the new social mobile consumer.
Salesforce’s entry point is labelled “Social Listening”, employing the old axiom listen first, then act. Armed with this knowledge, they provide action-oriented tools for participation in customer marketing and lead generation through social marketing channels. But what about small business?
Breaking Through The Wall of Noise
At the core of social listening is the ability to sift through the wall of noise and find the information that directly applies to your business, and your competitor’s businesses. So when it comes to small businesses, does this present yet another threat of the big guy being positioned to outmaneuver the little guy?
On the surface, the answer might feel like a resounding yes, but we think not!
Small Businesses Can Now Listen More Closely!
Our company, aptly called Closely, has spent the last couple of years working with small business social and mobile local marketing. We came to understand the unique challenges and differences in local business marketing.
So, we built a unique product tailored to “local marketplace listening” for business owners and marketers. It’s founded on the same principle of social listening, but it’s adapted to the unique nuances of local business marketing.
With small businesses, there are 2-3 “non-social” activities that we found to be equally important to marketing success.
- Consumer Reviews – Small businesses are deeply impacted by reviews from consumers. Being aware of new activities on websites like Yelp and Google Plus is critical everyday marketing information.
- Deals and Promotions – While we all have our opinions about Daily Deals, knowing when and what your competitors are offering to consumers [and your customers!] is critical marketing intelligence.
- Pictures – Instagram has more than one billion photos. More than 300 Million pictures are uploaded to Facebook ever day. These photos are an increasingly important part of how consumers learn about your business.
- Local Events – When people are congregating nearby, how do you know? More and more, those people can be found using social media to interact with each other, which presents great new ways to “place your promotion” in their midst, and grab some of the foot traffic opportunity.
Social Listening Mobile App
Last Fall, we launched our free mobile application for small businesses, called Perch providing a birds eye view of your business neighborhood. We pull all of these sources of marketplace information together, and give it to you in one simple smartphone application.
You can create your own personal “Watchlist” to give you a live view of your business, keep close tabs on your competitors, and know when consumers post reviews, comments and photos.
Simply, we think that being in the know is the key first step in making the best use of all the new digital marketing opportunities.
So, while those big chains spend the next couple of years honing their “social listening” skills – you can operate from your personal Perch, constantly watching from the relevant social, promotion, review and event activities around you.
The Social Media Agency Angle
One of the best use cases we’ve found for Perch is for local social marketing agencies. Think about your first meeting with a new small business client. Before the meeting, ask them a simple question of who they compete, and who they watch the most closely.
Configure a watch list for them on Perch, and show them a live view of everything going on, including those businesses they most fear or admire! For post meeting follow-up, send them the download and log-in information, and you’ve done them a great favor!
It’s a great way to make a great first impression, and it gives you some great tangible evidence of why they need to step up their game! Oh, and don’t forget to add yourself and your best clients to the Watchlist, so they can continue to learn from you too 😉
Voted the #1 Mobile Business App at SXSW in 2013
To Download the Perch Mobile App, go to one of these links:
- iphone
- Android
Perry Evans
Social media platforms plays a vital role for promotion! one should have presence on all! Facebook,twitter,Pintrest ect
it is a good post with good tips for business.
thanks!
These are great tips to get more traffic for small businesses. Thanks for imparting your social media knowledge.
I like the idea of Perch as social media activity can be overwhelming. I find I use all the known methods to build communities around what I do, but I don’t actually *know* a lot about these people. I interact with them, but I’m no closer to marketing to them. Hope that makes sense!
I agree that some dangers can destroy a small business can, it’s not really stable to continue the way without problems, but I think that small business owners are learning from each other, we can find useful tips like yours and apply them to protect our small business from risks and this what makes the closed things, sharable and social.
Social media with good followers can definitely targets yoru business awarenss. Most of the buisness gone viral through these media websites within no time.
Very Nice article. Thanks for suggesting with perfect tips on how media can be more benificial towards the successfull business.
nice article social media site is very helpful for all business either big or small. social media site is best way to promote your business. also nice app. thanks for sharing with us.
Perch sounds like a really neat app and I am checking it out now. Some are saying it is similar to Foursquare, but I think it’s a great tool for local brick and mortar businesses to keep an eye on what the competition is doing.
It seems like a wonderful application for biz owners. I am going to try it out by now.
Yes ! Well the social media is so noisy it is not easy to enter as a business there and I feel end of the day you lose more time than gain customers. Thanks it is a must use app for every businessmen.
Ramit Kapoor would love you to read ..http://www.ssconline2.gov.in – SSC CHSL LDC/DEO Recruitment 2013
Targeting right people and starting from small scale is the best way to penetrate deep inside the core of any business.
Hi, I am also running a small business of Glass bowls and I also want to market this business throughout the country if not world.. What should i do to make this happen? Please help me out… I do not know much about social media marketing or online marketing..I was randomly searching for the marketing tools then came across to your post..
Well the social media is so noisy it is not easy to enter as a business there and I feel end of the day you lose more time than gain customers.
Social media is a essential thing to promote your business either its small or large. very useful thought. Thanks to share a great article
Great app, but as for me it would be even better to have one app for all major social netwoks – at least facebook, twitter and Google + – because on the smartphone or tablet it would be convenient to share new photos and video from travels from company conferences, events, etc + moniteor others activities
Victoria Mudraya would love you to read ..IT salaries 2013: Ukraine, USA, UK and Germany Compared
the social share button in social media is also very helpful to broaden the business coverage and promote the business indirectly
being social is great and fun for all. Nice article and taught me some new things. We use Facebook, Google +, Twitter and Pinterest as social channel to make the communication open and healthy.
Small, medium and local businesses are very much dependent on social medias today. It makes the marketing and advertising part cheaper, targeted, specific, actionable and measurable. This is the charm of social media or rather digital marketing. You got your data in-front of you to measure your reach, productivity and ROI.
Thank you for sharing the application with us,
I love this, following up on your competitors and finding out what they are up to is crucial for staying one step ahead and in the business!
Perch reviews are great, spying on the competitors haha,
this is awesome, thank you!
Mitch would love you to read ..How to Build A Professional-Looking Resume Or CV In 5 Minutes
That’s really true ! one can always gain alot form a small business only if the audience is well targeted and country central !
harshi would love you to read ..Zyma Hosting | The Worst Host to Choose [Review]
You can’t succeed in your business beyond a limit if you don’t use social media to promote it; every second persons is now net user so it has become so easy to communicate your business message either you are big or small business.
I prefer using social media sites for my business like facebook, twitter and pinterest. I guess it helps also for the SEO in my website.
Great post. present Social Media Sites plays very important role for our business promotion. And i totally agree with you.The post is really nice share
Interesting thought. Everyone is short of time. Finding the time for Social Media and taking small meaningful steps and creating a good impression is the way to success. Great article.
I’ve never heard an application having the capabilities of Perch before..Considering its capabilities …it is a must use app for every businessmen.
Regards,
Pramod
Very Nice article. Though these are basic things that everyone is supposed to know and follow but its these that we so often miss or neglect and that’s what, i suppose, differentiates a good blogger from a great one! Thank you for this lovely piece of information.
This is all very helpful. I always appreciate the tips that I get from Growmap that assist in progressing my company even further into social media, since that’s all that matters anymore.
Thank you for the post.
Robert Koenig would love you to read ..A Child was Killed in an Accident in East Los Angeles on Friday
Closely is a great app I am going to recommend it to all of my clients