“I don’t look at social media as a primary advertising method. Tat’s my website’s job, to push traffic, to bring phone calls and people to the store. Social media is more how we humanize ourselves.”
– Mitchell Schaffer, Mobile Edge
TIPS FOR SOCIAL MEDIA:
1. Start with the biggies. Create a page for your business on Facebook and a Twitter feed. If you want to add others later, fine.
2. A Google Plus page is a lot like a Facebook page. The difference is, it helps boost your ranking on Google search results. Sure, it may not be a fair way for them to compete with Face- book, but nobody said life was fair.
3. Be consistent. Identify a style for your business and stick to it. Ideally, the same person or small group of people should make all the posts.
4. Be persistent. Post every day. Yes, it’s one more thing to do every day. Wel- come to business in the Internet age.
5. It’s not all about you. Don’t just post stuff about your shop. Post stuff about the industry as a whole. Add things you’ve gotten to know your customers will think is cool about music, the Web, pop culture.
6. Give stuff away. Pretty self-ex- planatory, but people are more likely to check in someplace on the Web more often if there are prizes.
52 Mobile Electronics May 2014
“The best part is someone else is telling the world how great they are,” Cor- nell-McGlynn said. “This is so much more believable than if a company is touting their products or services. Most of the clients I work with, 90 percent of their business is via referral. Word of mouth is very powerful and only grows with social sites and how connected our world has become. When a person sees your prod- uct or service as five stars on a site like Yelp, it only adds to their comfort level with your business before they even walk in the door. People want to know they are making a good buying decision, and these types of reviews help them feel comfort- able spending money in your store.” Cornell-McGlynn said she doesn’t think social media “is a fix all for business prob- lems and industry challenges. I think it will take rethinking how your business works from all angles.” For example, one of her current cli- ents—an alternative pet food store in the Detroit suburb of Madison Heights called The Pet Beastro—uses social media to offer one-on-one pet nutrition con- sultations. “One size diet does not fit all, and she is helping people under- stand animal nutrition from an entirely different angle,” Cornell-McGlynn said. “This increases store loyalty by show- ing Jill Tack, the owner, as an expert and providing that one-on-one attention most people crave. I believe small mobile electronic retailers need to find a way to provide that extra value and then share that value across the Web.” A presentation at the 2014 Interna- tional CES in Las Vegas showed that deals and contests are a good way to drive social media traffic. The Consumer Elec- tronics Association’s study of 1,000 U.S. adults who identified themselves as social media users found that 55 percent said they would be more likely to like a retail- er’s page if deals were offered. Another 42 percent said contests would do the trick. The study’s sample said they spent 32 hours a week on the Internet, 8.8 hours of that on social media sites. Facebook was the most popular social media platform in the survey, and communicating with friends was the top goal—only 26 percent of users said they made their comments
available to the public. Also, in the survey, consumers said that while they use social media sites to shop around, they still prefer to make their electronics pur- chases in a brick-and-mortar store. Mobile shopping and social media browsing are growing. The Austin, Texas retail consultancy Bazaar Voice says that in two years, the number of people who buy consumer goods online via mobile devices will jump 65 percent. Bazaar Voice also says mobile shoppers
who view customer content like reviews show a 133 percent higher conversion rate. The retail consultant Exact Target says small retailers can use social media to allow their employees to make product recommendations, tell their custom- ers what’s new in the store, promote upcoming events like charity fundraisers or in-store seminars, and provide cus- tomer service. (Just don’t make someone talk to a bunch of people to get a prob- lem solved. That Dimensional Research survey showed the No. 1 way to tick off a customer with a problem is to make her explain it to a whole bunch of different people, over and over, as she gets trans- ferred around a business.) Retailers can also use online tools to monitor how they’re being mentioned in social media and elsewhere online—free tools like Google Alerts or Twitter Search, or paid tools like Radian6. New research from Experian Market-
ing Services shows social media websites are playing a growing role in driving traf- fic to other websites, including those of retailers, taking market share away from search engines and portals. As of March, social media sites accounted for 7.72 per- cent of all traffic to retailer websites, up from 6.59 percent in March 2013. Also, the photo sharing site Pinterest is sup- plying the greatest percentage of all its downstream traffic to retail sites, topping Facebook and YouTube. Several studies this year have found Pinterest is the preferred site for reaching young consumers—the future of any- body’s business. It’s mentioned as a top site over Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for teens and young adults. In a recent Piper Jaffray report, “Taking Stock of Teens,” the investment bank’s survey of
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