I normally try and keep my opinions to myself (which I fail to do most times) but I want to provide business owners with some relevant facts and opinion about social media.
Facts that are aimed at small businesses in New Zealand and not use billion-dollar US based companies as case studies to prove social media is where you should be.
The New Zealand based sole traders and micro-businesses we have signed up as clients in the last few months have mostly come to us after their social media strategy failed.
Why did it fail?
Easy, by believing in two key “sells” they were presented – which typically goes like this:
“Your business should be on social media because your customers and prospects are. You should be listening to them and joining the conversation.”
And the other classic…
“Your business should be using social media to provide a customer support channel so your customers can contact you on their terms. Once happy they will spread the word about you and you get more business”.
Yip – the typical cheerleader rants from social media “experts” who seem to lack any understanding of how NZ businesses work. Let me address each “sell” with my own experience dealing with New Zealand small business and social networks.
First the rant about how you and your business need to be on social media (actually social networks).
What people need to understand about any social network including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.. is that it takes a heap of work to become established and known.
Now, even when you have spent a recommended 1-hour per day within each network there is still no guarantee that you will attract more business.
What we normally find is the following pattern for most small businesses in NZ.
- Either they setup social networking profiles themselves or pay someone else to do it. Normally they do it themselves and stuff it up. Read “How to get Banned on Facebook“.
- They get real excited and start investing time chatting with people on Twitter/Facebook.
- After about 1 month they start wondering where all the new customers are. Heck! They have even made a lot of friends on Twitter and Facebook, which they chat to every day, but none buy from them and they feel bad trying to sell to their new friends. However they read another article preaching the benefits of social media and give it another push.
- After about another 4 weeks they normally slow down and only spend 1 hour per week checking their profiles. In the mean time their pipeline has not increased via this investment.
- Another 4-5 weeks goes by and they just give up in disgust.
This is the pattern we found and documented last year when we conducted a 12-month research project deep inside social networks learning how businesses can profit. It’s a common pattern and one I see everyday.
What people (and especially the “experts”) forget is that social media is “social”. That means you have to spend time chatting to people and building relationships. Now, if you are a small business in New Zealand with no desire to go “global” then what is the point of spending what little time you have to feed your pipeline chatting with someone on Twitter who will never be your customer because they live on a little Island off the coast of Africa? Okay, they may think your great and tell their friends – who also live on a little Island in Africa – but meanwhile you could have made a real sale picking up the phone and chatting to a prospect.
Here is what most of them look like within the social networks – here is the impact of their investment.
Now lets cover the other “sell” which is about customer support.
Here is my take on customer support in New Zealand…
If I have a problem or question with one of my providers I will either email or ring them up.
Is that what you do?
What some social media “experts” are saying is that you, as a small business, with all your issues (lack of $$, lack of staff, lack of skill) should setup a customer support channel in Twitter and Facebook and sit there and wait… and wait… and wait.
What is generally offered as proof that you should be doing this are case studies about how successful other businesses have been on Twitter and Facebook for customer support.
Next time have a look at their examples – they will normally be the major telcos such as TelstraClear and Telecom. They will also offer up Air New Zealand as well.
Now, what is the difference between these businesses and yours? Any guesses?
Okay, so what should a small business do if they think they should be using social networks to connect with customers and prospects?
Well what we do with our clients is the following:
- Create a “home base” such as website or blog – something that people can go to for information. A home base is also vital because people who actually want to buy something will search for it online. Most people hanging out within social networks want to have fun – they are not looking to buy.
- Once you have a “home base” leverage off another businesses established social networks. Instead of looking like the wizard in the picture above you will gain instant brand awareness accessing existing social communities. This is key for our clients and one of the core reasons they signup with us – we have a growing network spanning the most important social networks which has taken us more than a year to build and we constantly invest more time and $$ building it up even more on a daily basis.
- Then once you have some brand awareness and understand how social networks function you can pick and chose which networks you will set your own profiles.
I always come back to this analogy.
If you are new in town and you wanted to make yourself known to the local community some would try hosting a cocktail party. They would run around town investing a heap of time and effort enticing people to come to the event. How many people would turn up? Well, I suppose it would depend if there were free drinks and food!
Would it not be smarter to locate someone local with large networks and get them to host the cocktail party in your honor and invite their networks? For example this site BusinessBlogs.co.nz is part of our network and we use it to help small businesses “get found” online.
This way you can connect with a heap of people without running the risk of hosting an empty cocktail party – just you and the bunch bowl.
Anyway – please think before you stumble into social media and “don’t believe the hype!’
What you basically are saying is that Social Media will help your business as long as you have the right strategy and the right expectations. Using social media is like using any service or piece of equipment. Read the manual and determine if it is the right tool for you.
The success of any plan, whether it’s financial, operational, sales or marketing, is determined by how well it is set up and thought through at the beginning. Ask yourself: What does my company do? What does my target audience do? What does my competition do (successes and fails)?
In short: have the right plan from the get go and you will have picked the right tools, else the plan is not good. Don’t blame the tools for not working.
Hello Maarten-Jan,
Thats correct but also try and leverage off someone else's social networks to gain awareness. Its like guest posting on other peoples blogs. Most people fail at social media because they build islands where no one finds them or even worse they are found but lack any ability to be able to build a loyal following due to lack of time and resources.
Thanks Maarten-Jan Waasdorp
I am fully agreed with your comment because without proper planning its totally impossible to achieve good result according to our expectations.Thats why planning comes before implementation.If we will use Social Media Service properly then i am sure that service will help to save our business as well as helpful to increase company revenue.
Rather interesting that Social Media is being used to denounce the viability or effectiveness of the medium to engage with customers. Insinuating it’s for big business and NZ SME’s are wasting their time is plain arrogance. This negative spin is as tiresome as and more counterproductive than the Social Media Snake oil sales brigade themselves.
Social Media is a tool for which communication can be extremely effective, commercially rewarding and having a potential for a significant ROI. The one thing that seems to be lacking from any “failure” is the lack of planning, again not the fault of Social Media. Reminds me of the days when people thought that starting and e-commerce website was going to make them rich, most didn’t but a few did some of it was luck, most through hard work and good skills. Like any communications technology, use the telephone as an example, it’s only as good as the time put in, effort made, values applied and connections that are made. … And of course a viable and worthy business concept.
The point of this post is confusing, reeks of tall poppy syndrome and is a little patronising.
I do not regard myself as a Social Media expert but have enough experience and knowledge to speak with some authority on the subject. Social Media like static websites before them are not a stand-alone solutions to any business marketing, brand awareness, or customer service role but it is a huge mistake to ignore it. Better to try and fail than stick your head in the sand and ignore its potential.
Like business itself it’s going to take time, planning and a heap of hard work, get over it and get on with it. If nothing else it will be more productive than complaining and putting other people down.
Thanks for your thoughts Craig and I always value your opinion around SM.
The post is not here to tell every small business/sole trader in NZ to not try social media but more of a "think before you leap" post. Our business has "cleaned up" many "experts" advice of telling small business owners to leap into SM without first thinking.
The information in this post is based on 12 months of research looking at how NZ businesses fair in the SM space. It seems strange that we seem to be the only ones in NZ who have bothered to really investigate the potential of SM and since we are not evangelising it we get hammered by the NZ SM professional community.
I still stand by my comments that Twitter is a complete waste of time for any small business or sole trader who has limited time and/or skill and is thinking of SM to help with their pipeline.
Currently the people that seem to encourage business owners to participate in Twitter are the very ones trying to sell their SM consulting services.
I also standby my comment that you need a "home base" and to drive traffic to your "home base" from social networks. Anyone who spends time and money building up a SM profile with the constant risk of being banned or the network changing the rules for business without driving them back to their home base is risking all.
I am very tired also but of the ranks that marketers and consultants telling small business and sole traders they need to be on SM or "watch their business die". Its stupid and risky unless you have a very good plan and you go with people who have actual success stories.
I would love to give you examples of NZ businesses I have seen run straight into SM (especially Twitter) with the idea that if they "add value" and chat to everyone they will feed their pipeline. Then disappear a few months latter.
What we have learned over the last year we apply to our clients SM strategies and it seems to work well. I am very sure that next year we will see the strategies that work for small business come through that the rants of "experts" disappear.
All good and agreed. The home base is a worthy highlight. The journey and experiences are different and there is no single solution.
The greatest message and opportunity for anyone looking to use Social Media has to be to review their Communications Strategy and with it their whole of business strategy regularly. This is something that is neglected across the spectrum of the NZ business community.
Would be interesting to see from your research how many businesses have an effective plan in place, I'd suspect there is a direct correlation.
Thanks Craig. Do you have any information/articles/posts I can direct our readers to about having an effective Communications Strategy on your site? I always find your posts very informative. Your article contributions are always well read: http://businessblogs.co.nz/author/craiggarner/).