Leveraging Social Media for Small & Medium Size Business

Sandra Gabriel

A native from Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Sandra Gabriel is a Public Relations & Communications professional who founded Gabriel PR, a full-service Public...

A survey conducted by Regus found that Sixty percent of medium-sized Canadian companies and 34 percent of small companies won new customers through social media. So how did they do it and how can you do the same?

Measure, Monitor & Evaluate
Start a dialogue with your facebook fans and twitter followers to connect with your customers and collect feedback. Social media is also effective in monitoring the competition to see what you can do differently or better.

Share information
Blogging is the new arena to share with and learn from your customers. Share tips and best practices that will benefit them and allow them to comment. You can also use your blog to promote any sales and promotions you have going on. Cosmopawlitain Pet Boutique + Spa has a blog that features their latest sales and promotions as well as FAQ’s on how to choose food for your pets and training your cat to become accustomed to a harness or leash.

Canadabusiness.ca offers these tips on getting started with social media:

• Develop a strategy – How often do you plan to update your blog or profile? How will you share it with customers? Will you allow comments? Are you prepared to respond to comments or questions posted by the public?
• Define your target audience and offer content tailored to their interests.
• Keep your account active and update it regularly.
• Improve your content based on customer feedback.
• Familiarize yourself with privacy and computer security issues,
• Use humour, be kind and professional, and share about more than just your work to create a connection with your customers.

The most important thing to remember about social media is that it’s not always about selling, in the words of social media mastermind Brian Solis, it’s about listening, learning and sharing.