Three little pigs decided to use social media to attract more customers for their businesses.
The first little pig, Gretchen, set up a Twitter account and a Facebook profile and a Facebook (business) page for her nail salon shop, for which she did not have a website or blog.
Gretchen tweeted several times a day about the low prices at her nail salon and she used the same information for her Facebook profile and Facebook (business) page.
But as hard as Gretchen tweeted and shared the information on Facebook, she did not get any new people coming to her nail salon.
The second little pig, Jack, set up a Twitter account and a Facebook profile and a Facebook (business) page for his dry cleaners, for which he had a website several years old. The website did not have even basic search engine optimization and Jack never added new content.
Jack tweeted several times a day about his low prices – and he often put a link to his website in the body of his tweets. He posted the same information on Facebook.
But as many times as Jack tweeted the link to his website, he did not get any new people coming to his dry cleaners.
The third little pig, Priscilla, read as many articles and took as many online courses as she could about effectively using social media. Then she had a web person set up a WordPress site/blog for her hair salon business. She made sure that the site had basic search engine optimization.
Next she set up a Twitter account and a Facebook profile and a Facebook (business) page. She used the search function on Twitter to find people who might be interested in hair care – whether or not they might be interested in her own hair salon.
Then Priscilla started sharing tweets with links to the best hair care articles she could find as well as her three-times-a-week posts on her own site.
People on Twitter and Facebook responded by asking Priscilla questions about curly hair, hair coloring, and other hair care questions. Priscilla tweeted back replies and answered these questions on Facebook.
When at first these efforts seemed to produce no new customers, Priscilla did not give up. She just kept dispensing good hair care advice on Twitter and Facebook as well as writing three informative blog posts each week.
And then one day someone called for an appointment and mentioned that he was one of her Twitter followers. Priscilla tweeted about this call.
Two days later she got another new appointment call from a follower on Twitter.
Then Priscilla tweeted that she would give her Twitter followers a 10% discount on hair care services if they sent her an appointment request via Twitter.
And that’s when Priscilla reaped the benefits of her social media efforts. She got new customers who were appreciative of the helpful advice she shared on social media as well as her responsiveness in answering individual questions.
If you’re using social media to attract more business, which little pig are you?
(c) 2010 Miller Mosaic, LLC
Phyllis Zimbler Miller (http://twitter.com/ZimblerMiller) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the social media marketing company Miller Mosaic Power Marketing.
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