I was riding my Citibike the other day and went to return it to a docking station but the port I tried was broken. In my haste to find another port, I forgot to press the button that notifies headquarters about the problem, locked my bike elsewhere, and walked away.
Still, I had a nagging feeling that I should tell someone about the broken port, so I decided to tweet in the case. Being on the go, it was the easiest way for me to alert someone about the situation. I felt much better about myself and the bike sharing program and went on with my day.
The point of the story is that creating open lines of communication with your prospects and customers can go a long way - even if it's just to provide them with an outlet to express themselves to you.
Creating the accounts is simple, and as a small business, being present and listening may just be enough - for now.
Twitter is quite simple. Just create a username and password and you've created a twitter handle for your business. Have an image or logo handy to upload it onto your profile. Then write a sentence or two about what your business is and where you are located. In the settings tab, you can configure your account to email you anytime someone tweets to you - this is important if you don't check twitter often. If customers are trying to reach you in the twittersphere, you will want to know, so ensure you are being sent those alerts to your email. That's it. You are now officially on twitter!
Facebook can be good too depending on your business. Set up a Facebook business page - it's a great way to keep your real friends in the loop as to what's going on with your business.
Google+ is critical to any small business who wants to be found in search. Also, there are a ton of downstream things you can do with Google+ as I will write about in future blogs, but for now, set up your page so that you can take advantage of the audience there and the search credibility you can start to gain.
It's also helpful to create YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram accounts - especially if you have a pet store, cupcake store, or sell other products that are ridiculously photogenic. Once you've done this, add icons to your signature in your emails, your website, on your receipts, or anywhere that you are interacting with customers so they know they can reach you through those media.
If you have set up email alerts, you will get notifications when someone has engaged with you. There are tons of tools out there that consolidate monitoring, etc. of these sites for you, but we can chat about them another time.
If you have already create a blog, disseminating new blogs via these channels is an easy way to connect with your followers and fans on a regular basis. Sometimes just tweeting out a picture or a quick message is enough to engage.
Overtime you will get a sense of where your customers frequent most and can figure out which channels to focus on and really build a community around. For now, having presence and seeing where you are getting most activity and responding to customer questions can be worth the effort.
Tell me how it goes in the comments section below!
Still, I had a nagging feeling that I should tell someone about the broken port, so I decided to tweet in the case. Being on the go, it was the easiest way for me to alert someone about the situation. I felt much better about myself and the bike sharing program and went on with my day.
The point of the story is that creating open lines of communication with your prospects and customers can go a long way - even if it's just to provide them with an outlet to express themselves to you.
Creating the accounts is simple, and as a small business, being present and listening may just be enough - for now.
Twitter is quite simple. Just create a username and password and you've created a twitter handle for your business. Have an image or logo handy to upload it onto your profile. Then write a sentence or two about what your business is and where you are located. In the settings tab, you can configure your account to email you anytime someone tweets to you - this is important if you don't check twitter often. If customers are trying to reach you in the twittersphere, you will want to know, so ensure you are being sent those alerts to your email. That's it. You are now officially on twitter!
Facebook can be good too depending on your business. Set up a Facebook business page - it's a great way to keep your real friends in the loop as to what's going on with your business.
Google+ is critical to any small business who wants to be found in search. Also, there are a ton of downstream things you can do with Google+ as I will write about in future blogs, but for now, set up your page so that you can take advantage of the audience there and the search credibility you can start to gain.
It's also helpful to create YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram accounts - especially if you have a pet store, cupcake store, or sell other products that are ridiculously photogenic. Once you've done this, add icons to your signature in your emails, your website, on your receipts, or anywhere that you are interacting with customers so they know they can reach you through those media.
If you have set up email alerts, you will get notifications when someone has engaged with you. There are tons of tools out there that consolidate monitoring, etc. of these sites for you, but we can chat about them another time.
If you have already create a blog, disseminating new blogs via these channels is an easy way to connect with your followers and fans on a regular basis. Sometimes just tweeting out a picture or a quick message is enough to engage.
Overtime you will get a sense of where your customers frequent most and can figure out which channels to focus on and really build a community around. For now, having presence and seeing where you are getting most activity and responding to customer questions can be worth the effort.
Tell me how it goes in the comments section below!
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