Small businesses make up a large proportion of New Zealand businesses. But make no mistake, though these businesses may be small in the number of employees they have, they are in no way small in their business objectives and follow through.

Everyone from insightful mothers, style conscious women, to men who are sick of working for the man are turning their hand at creating and growing companies that have 1, 2 or 3 people on the books. But what may be taking some multinational companies by surprise is that these little guys are blowing them out of the water when it comes to online presence, social media and building relationships with their clients. These 3 things are creating dollars for small businesses that used to reserved for the big guns.

Case in point are Facebook Fanatics Belly Beyond and Vlogging Bag Diva Floozy. Both of these New Zealand based (and female owned businesses) are making use of the real-time web and interactive competitions to get client interest and keep it. So how is it with less than a handful of staff members these companies manage to do what some of the “bigger” brands cannot even wrap their heads around? How do they create successful social media campaigns to propel their brands to the forefront?

I originally wanted to speak to Lou at Belly Beyond at Kate at Floozy and do a little bit of a case study on each of them, but I have had little chance of doing that, and from their online activities I am sure they have been busy too…hopefully they will stop by and add their 2 cents as to what they think makes them successful social media divas

But here is my take on some of the winning ingredients of what these ladies do best as part of their social media marketing.

• On Belly Beyond’s Facebook page, you feel as if you are part of a greater community. Its not all just sell, sell, sell and promos (which are still good, but in moderation…). By adding a personal touch with discussions about baby names, wedding and baby photos, I feel as if I am part of a community of like minded mothers sharing information and having fun – you forget you are actually there to buy! The great part is that not only do they ask us to share personal tidbits, they also share behind the scenes photos and blog posts with us. Research shows that people are more willing to spend money with brands they  trust. How much more trusting can it get than buying from someone who is willing to share family photos and embarassing moments with you.
• Kate brings her collection of bags to life via video and you can’t beat seeing her love of all things bag-tastic as she pulls them apart and peeks inside. I love hearing her accent, makes me feel like I “know” her. I am also defnitely more tempted to spend after watching one of her videos.
• We talk, they listen. Its easy to get in touch with both companies as they have a presence across Twitter, Facebook and You Tube. They want to know what we want to buy. Does it make sense to stock what we actually want? They find out what we want, and stock it.
• Most importantly, they have their own company hubs online that are irregardless of any 3rd party platforms. Though they make great use of social media platforms, they are not at their mercy. Each has a solid websites, blogs and even wishlist facilities.

Once you can create that feeling that you understand your clients and what they want/need you are so much more likely to convert your fans into purchasers.

The flexibility that small business like these two have means that they are more intune to what their clients want and what is important to them. To cut through the marketing and advertising clutter, they are able to react fast and be more personal without a top heavy management team.

Its nice to get a personal shoutout from a business that you spend money with wanting to find out how your weekend was or if you’ve had your baby yet. Maybe the lack of a central social media peep makes it harder for bigger businesses to get to know their clientele. Don’t get me wrong, some big businesses are doing it right, but some could definitely learn from small businesses.

Being social media saavy isn’t just about setting up Twitter and Facebook – their are a huge number of platforms that you can use to help get your company name out through social media. But its best to choose only a few and to use them well.

Something that people also forget is the “SOCIAL” part of the equation. The key is in actually being social – creating conversation and connecting with people.

In an economy where their are at least 3 companies just like you, sometimes even just in your city -  you have to find a way to stand out above the rest.

These small businesses use social media to their advantage, what other businesses do you know of that are making good use of social media to market their business?

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The old saying is “A happy mother equals a happy family”. After all she is at the centre of keeping the family engine churning. As a marketer or PR person, if you can answer the million dollar question to keeping a mother happy with a resounding “yes!” you just may be carving out your success with the mommy-set.

Globally, mothers are an untapped market for brands. Marketers and PR people neglect to recognize them as a specific group of important purchasers (often lumped together with women). In most households the wife is considered as the chief buyer of household items, and don’t forget some of these same women are the main buyers for the companies they work for as well. Because we have so much going on in our daily lives, many of us have turned to the online world to find the time to get the interaction  so many of us crave. We still have to get the groceries done, take care of the kids and shuttle them to various activities on top of work and sometimes even forging our own enterprise, in comes the internet to insure that we still maintain our interaction with other mothers and to nurture personal relationships. If you didn’t know before, women/mothers strive on relationships and are inherently social beings. Its as if Social Media was born out of a need for brands to speak to us, work with us, and show us that they understand what we need.

If you are using social media to attract mothers, keep these points in mind:

• The more your brand can speak to and interact with mothers, the better off you’ll be
• What’s the motivation for mothers to return to your website? Are you giving them a quick way to relax in their busy day? Are you providing nutrition tips for healthy cooking for the family? Are you providing advice on how they can stretch their budget? These are just a few ideas, what motivator would work for your company?
• How can you make a mother say “Ah, they understand me!” when they are browsing your website, Facebook Page, Twitter account, etc…Do you understand a busy mama’s day? Do you understand her desire to grow a happy and healthy child? Do you get it that she needs ways to keep everyday tasks simple?
• Can you provide a venue where we as mothers can express our opinions and views on a subject? We love doing that! We have an opinion on everything! But be creative, there are a thousand and one forums and discussion boards battling for our online browsing time, how can you set yourself apart?

Mamas, do you agree? What else do you think brands need to keep in mind when trying to attract your buying dollars?

Brands that have been in the social media game for a few years understand how to best use the internet to showcase their brand and grow a fan base. But what about brands that are now scrambling to be part of the buzz and grab a share of the social marketing pie. Often they see bloggers as an easy and cost effective way to get incredible spread of information about their brand across the interwebs.

Is working with a blogger or a group of bloggers the right fit for your company, and if so, how best to engage with them? If your company follows a few simple guidelines, the rules for engagement are really not that hard.

1. Any blogger worth working with as part of your social media plan is not a hobbyist, and as such they do not want to be treated as one. Allocating enough funds and making them an integral part of your social media/marketing/PR team insures that they will put aside the time, energy and creativity to work towards your company’s success.
2. Respect bloggers. This is so easy, yet so many PR companies and marketing reps often do not. Sending out pitches to anyone and everyone that is on your mailing list hoping for a writeup is not the way to go. If you identify a blogger that you want to work with, the best respect you can show them is to get to know what they are about, get to know their voice online and then and only then send them pitches that you feel may interest them and their readers. From past experience I can tell you there is nothing worst than opening an email that is a press release with not even so much as a hello. Furthermore, the press release has absolutely nothing to do with what I write about over at Girlstoys Revue. In no other profession, do people get contacted for something that they are so unsuited for. When was the last time you heard of a doctor being contacted to complete someone’s income tax?

How can you work with Bloggers?

Product reviews are a simple first step, but don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Many bloggers are not only great communicators via written word, some use video as well as other imaginative ways to engage their readers. Respect the bloggers knowledge and insight into their readers and how best to get your message across. Armed with this information and a well thought out plan of action, you can be rest assured that you can monitor any campaign you enter into with a blogger for successful outcomes.

Bloggers have spent time creating a trusted network of readers as well as other bloggers and as such they will want to work with you to make sure they are providing quality information and resources to their readers. From my perspective, I will only work with organizations that I can stand behind – after all, it is my brand, my voice that is at stake. And for that same reason, you can expect only the most professional professional service from me and any other blogger that I put you in touch with.

If you are interested in working with one or several bloggers to launch a product/service or act as an ambassador for your company, feel free to contact me to direct your blogger outreach efforts as well as to design a campaign.

Did you know that Social Media is a great way to get a feel for what your market is thinking? You can create a specific campaign to gather information as well as monitor your brand on the interwebs. The 2 really work hand in hand – what people are saying about you can and should affect how you engage with them. Here are a few quick steps that you can follow today:

1. Listen for your brand being mentioned across the web. Services like Google Alert and Saved Searches in Seesmic for Twitter make it easy to view a running thread of what others are saying about your company name.

2. Set up something apart from your business as usual website – think blog, Facebook Fan Page – great place to ask your fans questions. Conversely, encourage them to leave feedback good, bad or ugly. Generally, as long as you deal with it timely and effectively any and all feedback, even the bad stuff doesn’t have to be detrimental to your brand.

3. Remember that people will talk honestly and openly about your products and services in open forums. Get out there and find out where these forums are. You may have to go off the beaten track – there is more than just Twitter and Facebook. Some of your raving fans (or even haters, see People of Walmart) will setup their own groups on blogs and Ning platforms- its worth doing a search there.

The proactive person will not only monitor brand mentions, etc..but will respond and engage with the community as well as refine processes where needed. Remember to be transparent at all times. If you are going to jump into a forum discussion, make sure to say who you are – don’t just get in there and gloat about what a fantastic company you have.

How are you using web 2.0 to find out what your market thinks about your brand? If you aren’t using this method yet, how could you?

I had never opted-in to a Twitter ad service…that is until Sponsored Tweets. I read up on it, cause hey, I figured if I’m gonna tweet as much as I do, wouldn’t it be great if I got paid for it? The key feature that led me to sign up is the fact that the final copy that will be tweeted is ALWAYS written directly by you the person whose account it is tweeted from.

Here is a quick overview of how the system works:

1. Login at Sponsored Tweets using your Twitter login details and fill in a short survey. This helps them figure out what demographic you most speak to when you tweet. It also helps them find ads that are authentic as possible to your voice. In my experience this has worked – I’ve tweeted ads about social media (international) and a kitchen makeover contest (geared at Canadian mothers).  Once you’ve signed up -  sit back and wait to hear from Sponsored Tweets.

2. You get a DM from Sponsored Tweets saying that you have 3 days to review an opportunity in your account.

3. You login in with your Twitter details to the site and check out the service/product you would be tweeting about, how much it pays, and the link you would be using and where it would take your followers should they click. If anything about the product, service, sales page or squeeze page is not your style, you do not have to accept the job, if it is – move onto step 4.

4. Here’s your chance to play admaker – having looked through the information, you now get to write your own compelling tweet. That’s right, you write it. The only rules are that you include the link supplied along with a method of disclosing that it is in fact an ad. This can be hashtagging the tweet #ad, adding “sponsored by” or “brought to you by” to the tweet – there are alist of disclosing methods supplied and it is up to you to chose the one you are most comfortable with. So there is no fooling your followers, I like that.

5. You submit your tweet to Sponsored Tweets for a final check, they then tweet it out for you. Their are opportunities to have your tweet go out up to 3 times (and make more money) if the first tweet was very successful – but they do not hijack your account and send out spam willy nilly. In fact once they send out the first tweet, they DM you to let you know.

If you have any questions about how it has worked for me so far, don’t hesitate to leave me a message. Have you tried Sponsored Tweets? What has been your experience?

If you do sign up though my referal link, make sure to email me at ghada at realsocialgirl dot com and let me know or leave a message here.

Happy Tweeting!

Just recently I was hoping to pitch for a small project consulting a company on their social media and online experiences as I had had dealings with them in the past on other initiatives. I was surprised to find that they were ahead of the game and had just hired an online community manager.

To my second surprise the skillsets of that individual seem to be lacking on the social media and community management side of things, but extremely well versed in the content matter of the community they are to manage. That lead me to wonder, who makes the better online community manager – the person experienced in building communities and leveraging social media, or the person who knows the community’s main point of topic inside out?

I believe that even with all the knowledge in the world, a content expert has little to no hope of making the most of social media if they are not inclined to find out more about how to use the tools at their disposal. I’ve seen it happen, where the knowledge expert creates the Twitter profile and starts up a Facebook Fan Page, but then what? And were those really the best avenues for them to use? The creativity, targeted solutions and ability to analyze and tweak campaigns is where the experience designer or social media expert comes into play.

On the other hand, I have seen content experts who have applied themselves and really engaged with their fan base, created awesome campaigns to grow their community and created added value experiences. But, be forewarned, its not everyone that can do this. Like any other part of your business, consider getting in expert help to create your strategy and help you implement it. You wouldn’t drudge along as your company accountant it if you knew you didn’t have the skills, it would negatively affect your business and take away from all the other good things that you can do in your business, would you? Same applies here. As long as the person responsible for your Social Media plan is committed to understanding and taking part in your company culture – this has the makings of a win-win relationship. You get to focus on the aspects of the business you are good at, and an expert gets to drive you business forward in an area they are good at.

Either way, as long as the experience is transparent and the audience knows who they are dealing with their can be wins if done correctly. Interested to hear your opinion – do you believe that a consultant can be your brand’s social media expert, or do you feel it is more logical to give a content expert the job even though they may not know how to use the tools?

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Send your question to ghada [at] girlstoys [dot] co [dot] nz

Todays’ question is:

I have joined up to Twitter and am really starting to enjoy the interaction with people all around the world. Problem is, I have started following so many people and have such an information overload that I’m not sure how to keep track of everything! What is your best suggestion for managing my Twitter account?

I have been asked this question time and time again and I always answer with 2 simple words DOWNLOAD SEESMIC! To me this is the ultimate Twitter management tool. Not only is it easy on my Macbook’s memory, but the team at Seesmic are continually improving the app keeping Twitter enjoyable for anyone with just a handful of followers to a few thousand.

The latest addition to Seesmic is the integration of Facebook. What this means is that you can add Facebook status updates direct from Seesmic. All you have to do is setup your Facebook account details at the same time that you setup your Twitter details. You can check status updates for Twitter and Facebook all in one place – neat, eh? But it gets better, you can also update to Facebook from Seesmic, and I don’t mean sending ALL your Twitter updates to Seesmic – cause let’s face it, that’s annoying. What you want to do is send only a selection of your Twitter updates to FAcebook, and with Selective Twitter Status* you can do just that. It is an app that will install directly to your Facebook account – all you have to do is enter your Twitter username and whammo bammo its done! Then, whenever you make a Twitter update that you want to appear in Facebook as well, you tag it with #fb at the end. See what I mean, easy and helpful!

Other great features of Seesmic include:

• Saved searches: Use the search bar in the top right hand corner to search for terms of interest (great for both business and personal use) so that you have an ongoing stream of tweets in one column whenever someone mentions the search term. This can be a great way to monitor your brand (save a search with your company name) or a topic of interest (if you have a love for all things Mac, like me! Save the search term “mac” or “apple” or “iPhone” and engage with people who show up in the stream created from this search).
• Integrated picture and link sharing (soon will also have video support)
• Ability to create userlists stacked in colums alongside tweets from all the people you follow and all your @replies. People in the same time zone, friends and family, business contacts, whatever you want. The userlist columns can be docked, so save a few and open them up when needed. Creating userlists is the best way to minimize the information overload and keep track of who is talking directly with you.

Seesmic is very easy to setup. But if you are at a lost or get stuck, you can always follow these very helpful videos from John Haydon. He has 3 separate videos to take you through the setup and how to get more out of Seesmic’s various features. I’ve embedded the first video below to take you through the setup. To view the others, just go to John’s Viddler account.

BTW, I am not a paid employee of Seesmic’s. When I like something, I like talking about it. Simple.
Hope you have learnt something from this first installment and don’t forget to keep sending your questions in. If you thought this was helpful, why not tweet about it

* Props go to @andreawong_nz for the heads up on Selective Twitter Status

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Marketeers trying to influence mothers have realized that they need to attract us in new ways that are relevant to the way we shop. Some of our shopping is now done online while we juggle bubs and running a business from home. Others of us like to research online before we get to the shops, making the shopping experience quicker – which is important when you have grizzly kids in tow.

By joining online groups we can get quick advice on what others recommend, we can get feedback on products we sell, and some of us even keep up with our kids through places like MySpace and with texting.

Alot of mums are more connected than they realize. We are definitely connected in a much more different way than our mothers were.

What’s your Social Media diet look like in 2009? Do you MySpace? are you a Facebook addict? Where do you catch up with your online friends? Do you catch up with your kids online, through texting or even Skype? I would love to hear from mothers and how you are connected online.