More from C3:
Craig Donato, CEO & Founder, Oodle
Perry Evans, CEO & Founder, Closely
Brendan King, CEO, Vendasta Technologies
Seb Provencher, VP Product Mgt, Praized Media
Donato – Social is not for all SMBs. It’s for SMBs that depend on relationship marketing. Real Estate Agents are a good example. There has been massive adoption of social by realtors, but the challenge has been that most social media consultants are not very good(!)
Evans – 50% of our SMB customers outsource their promotion marketing
Provencher – SMBs being pulled into social because they see their competitors/peers setting up Facebook pages. In London 3-4x/day people tweet that they have locked themselves out of the house. This is an opportunity for a locksmith.
Donato – You can’t outsource social. You can’t outsource an authentic voice and being present.
Evans – You can give a business a “remote control” for promotions & events, but most businesses are at a stage where there is skepticism and fear to overcome to get them into the mix. SMBs don’t recognize that there is a lot of conversations happening that are relevant to their business.
Donato – The wrong thing to do is to find some young person to be your social media guy who then quits and takes the login info with him.
Provencher – SMBs still realize they need a website. If we’re managing a Twitter account for a biz that doesn’t have a website, it’s a problem because people want to see the real presence behind the account.
Evans – We are seeing a formula for new businesses launching – doing a daily deal that will stimulate demand faster and doing social marketing to create a network. This creates early demand, performance-based, early cash flow.
King – I am not sure you need a website. If your website is bad, better off having a Facebook page that does something.
Provencher – The web fragmented the entry doors to people find you. If you are ignoring the different entry doors (search, social, etc.) you are losing business.
Donato – Businesses need to pay as much attention to social as they have been to search.
Evans – Many businesses don’t have reviews. A consumer can make a quick decision about a business based on a conversation.
Provencher – Social is not just about customer care.
King – Brands are still scared of social media. You can’t buy integrity in social.
Donato – The transformational aspect of social is if you can figure out how to enlist your customers to do your marketing for you.
2 Response Comments
Great points! The only thing I would add would be for small businesses to claim their places page on Google.
Forget about Google Places. They rejected my listing with no explanation. At least they should let us know what is wrong with the list so we can correct it.