Social Media for Small Business - A Valuable Source of Exposure

If you haven't jumped on the social media bandwagon to promote your business, you are missing out.  It is an inexpensive way to gain much needed exposure.  This alternative to traditional advertising creates buzz about your product, services or your brand from family members, friends and loyal customers, which is very different from exposure through paid advertisements.

When you set up a business page on Facebook (a fan page), you can link that page to your business twitter account.  This will automatically send your facebook wall posts to your twitter page saving you from having to post the same information on both sites.  You should also click on the Suggest to Friends link on your fan page to let your friends know about your page and to get a solid fan base started. 

It is important to be conversational with your friends and followers, to stay connected with them on a more personal level, in addition to talking about new products, services and events for your company.

"As a result of developing a facebook page,  twitter page and consistant e-mail newsletters, my sales online and retail store have shown a steady increase." states Debbie Brink, owner of Pure Enchantment.  Debbie has been creating her own line of natural personal care products since 2003.  She is busy filling orders for her wholesale division as well as running a retail store.  Social networking allows her to engage with customers on a day to day basis and it is a valuable tool for getting input about product and fragrance requests.

It is important to manage the site daily.  It is often best to outsource that task as Debbie is doing.  "Running a small business on my own, I don't have the time nor the energy to manage a social media program.  iBizard has done a fabulous job of marketing me online!"

Social Media is a necessary step in the growth of a small business.  If you have created pages for your business, consistently maintain them,  if you don't have pages yet, it's never too late to start.

winning arguements

So, yes now you are all stuck reading about my two cents on Marianne Williamson’s “Relationships Workshop”.  Speaking of the title of my new favorite audio book, I do have to tell you that in a Freudian slip last week I called the book “Relationships Work”.  Well the book is actually called “Relationships Workshop” and for an entire week, or even the day I picked it up I kept seeing “Relationships Work,” and what a fitting title since the concept Marianne is trying to convey is that relationships truly can and do work.  It’s just the ones that are not meant to work, or have served a purpose and are no longer supposed to work that do not work.  So this week I want to talk about “winning arguments” and “resolving conflict”.  Now, on the surface those two concepts might seem like they are mutually exclusive.  You might say ‘winning an argument’ means someone loosing or even forcing your opinions and your stance down someone’s throat and winning over them, while ‘resolving conflict’ sounds more gentle and maybe implies more of a give and take where both parties are winning. 

Well Marianne says… (I know it’s become a Simon says deal at this point, but I just want to make sure that I am clear about when I quote her and I give credit where credit is due)… so Marianne says that the only “win” in a situation, argument, conflict is that there is no argument or conflict left in the end at all.  The only win comes when a common ground has been reached and both parties feel like their story and their side has been heard, has been taken into consideration and has been given its due diligence.  She says that “Miracles come from a place of joining, and blockage and conflict comes from a place of separation”.  She says that if an argument or conflict is entered into as two adversaries, then the tug of war will begin.  You have forgotten whose side you are on, and you now think you are your partner’s adversary, competitor and the argument has all of a sudden become a place for “winning”.  Things have become about being right and not about seeing the other person’s view, side, opening up yourself for the possibility that there are things out there that you do not know.  The reason you don’t even know that you don’t know those things, is because you just simply don’t.  So, you owe it to yourself and your partner to listen, to take in, but to listen with an open heart and an open spirit and with the vast possibility that you might learn something new and you might grow.  All the time getting closer and closer to the final goal and the bigger picture, which is really what counts, not our own personal agenda.

I have examples of this every day in my work life and in my personal life.  I am sure you all do too.  This happens to me with iBizard with Jeanette all the time.  Jeanette is the creative mind behind iBizard.  She designs, she draws, she dreams, she takes care of our customers’ needs. She creates things, it’s her gift. I on the other hand I am the tech guy.  I can make a computer get up and do your laundry and get you a cup of coffee while it’s doing your laundry.  Whenever Jeanette talks about technical stuff, I have learned to take a step back and listen. Listen because while she might not be able to write a PHP program and a javascript front end, she might be about to say something, which I do not know I don’t know.  Just recently she was talking about our Content Management System.  This is our customizable pages.  I can talk about this freely because I have already shared this with her   This was a dream of mine to develop customizable pages which would empower our customers to create and update their own web pages, and maintain their own content without needing anyone’s assistance (including mine!).  However, I thought  “that’s a project I have to set aside 6 months for”.  Well one day Jeanette was talking about our blog pages and said “You know? We already have blog pages, which allow our customers complete freedom to design, input, delete and modify content.  How is a web page with 4 different sections so different from a blog page?”.  Well at first I thought “God ignorance is bliss!”.  I thought “she thinks this is so simple,” and continued to pick up the remote to flip through channels while she was at the other end talking, completely intending on not even listening until she was through.  Well, somewhere in between Bravo, CNN and “how is a web page so different from a blog page?” I realized that she is COMPLETELY right and that there is no difference.  All I had to do was re-adjust our blog pages, and I would have my content management system.  I was done developing our custom pages over that one single weekend!  So, she knew more than me, and she saw more than me, and I would have missed out on a huge opportunity to learn technology from my “I love these colors with these fonts” partner, if I had continued NOT listening.
 
So listening is key, remembering that you are not adversaries is key.   You are on the same side, and you are working towards the same goal.  You must pull the wagon in the same direction with the same intent in order for the wagon to move.  Pull it in two different directions and you are all over the place.  Listening also must be accompanied with the willingness to get off your position.  If you are firmly stuck on your position and you are not willing to move an inch, guess what? YOU ARE STUCK.  You are not going anywhere.  Growth and learning does not happen in the “known”, it happens in the “unknown”.  Growth and learning does not happen in the “comfortable & cozy”, it happens in the “uncomfortable & not so cozy”.  You grow when you take risks, and when you embark on a journey to discover the unknown.   So listen, open yourself up to the possibility that your partner is about to say or do something that you didn’t even know was possible or existed.  Be willing to get off your position and above all make sure that your win includes their win also.  Make their win important to you, and make their win one of your goals. A one sided win is not a win at all.  As much as I hate to advocate the so-over-used, and so-annoying phrase “a win-win situation”, it really is the goal here.  It just becomes an annoying phrase when it’s used as a sales pitch and a cover up for “win-win situation for me”.  A win-win for me is not a win at all.  A win-win for the common goal and the common purpose is the true win.  A win that removes the conflict and resolves the argument and includes a win for both parties is the win that’s going to move the wagon in the right direction.
Happy 4th of July to all!