While individuals have less at risk in engaging in social media by trial and error, brands can really crash and burn when they don't know what they are doing.
I don't need to remind you of the Kenneth Cole tweet that made light of the turmoil in Egypt in the early days of their revolution.
Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo -KC less than a minute ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®We're all familiar with what big brands do via social media, mostly because of their high profile mistakes like KC's - but what about smaller brands?
In a recent infographic produced by Postling, Facebook and Twitter led the way in terms of most used social media tools for smaller businesses, with 78% using Twitter and 75% using Facebook.
While Twitter generated slightly more "engagement" than Facebook (gauged via the number of comments to content), Facebook was far more successful in driving traffic to company related sites.
So the reasons for [smaller] businesses to engage via social media are clear - how the heck should they use them?
In his book Engage! author Brian Solis gives the example of "all natural, good for you pizza joint" @NakedPizza. Today, the brand has 10,655 followers, but even over a year ago was able to declare Twitter a success. According to Solis:
On April 23, 2009, the company reported that Twitter accounted for 15 percent of total sales that day. (Engage! p. 316)Solis later teamed up with @Jess3 to sketch a map of the "Twitterverse." That is, to chart peripheral sites that have popped up to help small businesses, big brands, and individuals alike, enhance their Twitterxperience.
Check out their 2011 Twitterverse Console below. The idea is that it can help you figure out what sites are best for your business. It's in CLICKABLE format here.
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