http://econsultancy.com/ca/blog/63850-how-small-businesses-can-make-the-most-of-twitter

“If there’s one thing you have if you run a small business, it’s time. If there’s one thing you probably don’t have, it is money.” written by Christopher Ratcliff.

After reading this article, I do agree the author’s point of view that using social media to open small business is low-cost and low- risk. Running a small business by using social platform, the owner plays different roles such as owner, manager, customer service assistant and marketer.

(Picture: from Google image)

Nowadays, more and more people actively use Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to get found online. Social media has become an important tool for small businesses. By using this approach, it allows small businesses to have direct communication with owners’ customers. When recommending products and services to new customers, it seems that people tend to trust their friends or families far more than any sophisticated marketing advertisements. When advertising the products of your small businesses online, don’t just pose the posters and products’ introductions online as few people will pay attention to it. The author gives three recommendations to maximize engagement when doing promotions. Firstly, owners should tease the sale in advance to raise interest. Secondly, owners should respond to followers to keep the conversation going. Last but not the least, owner should keep in tweeting during promotions. The more people start following you, the more opportunities you get for your small businesses. When implementing a small business social media strategy, organizing your content effectively is a difficult and important skill since social media is about sharing, not just about advertising.

Referring to“Nu Skin Enterprises (Continued) – Marketing Techniques” written by Paula Luo, social valuation and authority principle are the main tools that the company used to sell its products.

We are always aware that word of mouth existed, but had no idea how powerful it was. Nu Skin gained large market share by training its direct customers who brought products directly from the company and sold the products to other people. Direct customers mainly sold the products on the owned media, such as Facebook pages and Wechat, by promoting and posting information on it. I am also aware that publishing has become an increasingly important marketing sill since you cannot just randomly post the brand’s news on the owned media; instead, you have to organize information effectively and attractively to your customers. These owned media have more advantages of allowing for deep product news and personal customer service.

By using social valuation principle, people even did not come to the Nu Skin stores, whereas they brought the products from their friends’ house. How strange it was when you heard your friend brought a brand product from your friend’s house. You might share your “Nu Skin experience” to your friends saying that many people around you were using about this brand recently, and your friends might also curious about this products thinking that “Should I have one as most of my friends were using this product?”. When most of your peers doing this, it eventually becomes a social effect.

It is no longer sufficient for brand to simply build awareness, creating involvement is also crucial for marketers. Engagement is a two-way and more personal area that consumers can come in contact with brands through different ways. I think Nu Skin has created involvement for consumers to react to communications in a way.