Costco Connection - June 2009

small
business
Getting the
buzz going
Modern marketing in an online world
By Eric Taub

IS YOUR FACE on MySpace or are you on You Tube? Do you Yammer or do you Twitter? Are you LinkedIn or Mixxed up? And whichever way you are, do you Digg it?

More important, do you even know what any of this means?

Costco members Catherine and Stephen Simms do. Two years ago, the Stamford, Connecticut, couple decided to use the Internet to build what was a hobby— designing unique pet feeders out of wine crates— into a real business.

Today, the business is thriving and picking up orders from around the world as people discover their company, Whiner and Diner ( www.whineranddiner.net), on Web sites and blog posts everywhere.

They got there by using sites such as Facebook and MySpace as business tools. It’s called “social networking”—visiting online destinations where people gather electronically to be a part of virtual communities.

For business owners, social networking sites are today’s virtual water coolers, giving users 24-hour access to people around the globe. It’s 21st-century marketing with a twist, because the entry price is free.

“Your own Web site is your business’s hub, but social networking sites let you create spokes to drive people back to your site,” says John Jantsch, Costco member and owner of Duct Tape Marketing ( www.ducttapemarket ing.com), a small-business marketing Web site. Jantsch authored Let’s Talk: Social Media for Small Businesses, a free electronic book available at Microsoft’s Office Live Small Business Web site ( www.smallbusiness.office live.com/socialmedia).

The key to Internet marketing is ubiq-uity: making your business’s presence known across a multitude of Web sites and discussion forums. With perseverance, you’ll be able to create some buzz, and soon people from other sites may be referring to you and sending people your way.

Here are some tools that can help you position your business to take advantage of the power of the Web.

Blogs: not just idle chatter

Blogs (from the phrase “Web log”) are online essays that you create. Jantsch recommends that once you’ve built a compelling Web site, add new blog posts to it three to five times per week to keep people coming back. Then create hyperlinks to your blog on other sites’ discussion forums.

Also, create or join a network of like-minded individuals on sites such as Facebook or MySpace. The payoff: Strangers may start recommending your thoughts and your Web site to others.

Join the conversation

With Twitter and Tumblr, members can follow someone’s activities or allow their activities to be followed by others. Post what you’re up to at any moment, whether business or personal, and others can keep tabs on you. Tumblr allows users to post pictures and videos as well.

Jive SBS and Yammer allow employees of a specific company to keep up with their colleagues’ activities and ask them questions. Orbius provides tools that help companies set up social networks.

“Your own Web site

is your business’s hub, but

social networking sites let

you create spokes to drive

people back to your site.”

—John Jantsch
What’s happening?

Social bookmarking sites, such as Digg, Delicious, Fark, Mixx, Newsvine, Reddit and StumbleUpon, allow you to nominate and bookmark Web pages (or news events) that you think are worthy of attention. You can also comment on others’ choices, while adding a plug for your own business.

This strategy worked for the Simmses. Catherine posted pictures of her products on photo Web sites. She contributed to online discussions about pets, always adding a link to her site. And she promoted her postings and her company on “social bookmarking” sites (see below) that aggregate the best of the Web.

Video: your business in action

You Tube is the de facto Web site for posting homegrown videos. Businesses are using You Tube and similar sites to post videos of product demos and information. They then link to those sites on their own Web pages.

Video watchers can also interact with a community of other users, trading thoughts and ideas about the clips they’ve seen.

Social networking heavyweights

Facebook, Friendster, MySpace and Plaxo allow users to create or join professional groups, chat with friends and post personal or business pictures and videos. With Facebook, for example, mechanics could join a group dedicated to a particular topic, such as “muscle car lovers” to exchange ideas.

Virtual worlds, such as Second Life, enable users to socialize with each other in different online environments that resemble towns. Businesses can meet up with their employees and promote their wares to other users by creating shops within these worlds that anyone can visit.

Professional online networking

LinkedIn and Ryze offer professionals a place to congregate, find “friends,” link up through the recommendations of others and search for jobs and employees.

The Simmses didn’t use all of these options, but online social networking strategies have certainly worked for them.

“Everyone is crying about the economy, but we’re doing really well,” Catherine Simms says. “While I spend several hours per week updating our Internet presence, we have not spent one dime on advertising.” C