Social Media
If you intend to start a business, it would be wise to learn about digital marketing, whether you decide to do your own, employ an expert or use an agency. It’s fine and possibly preferable to use agencies for this type of work but they can be costly and if you don’t understand it, you will not be able to evaluate their work.
This blog post is about social media marketing (SMM) and more specifically, business to consumer SMM, one of the available channels of digital marketing,
I aim to be a blogger, influencer, and online coach to people approaching or in retirement with startup aspirations. I have begun with SMM because it allows me to get to know my target customers better, but I have three strikes against me. One - as a baby boomer I am the wrong generation for this, two - I’ve never been much of a networker and three - my career has mainly focused on business-to business (B2B).
Right now, it feels beyond me.
20th century cold calling in Montreal
I grew up in Montreal and after gaining a degree and travelling around Europe, I went to a recruitment agency and got a job as a sales executive. They gave me excellent training and then set me loose on Old Montreal, where my task was to go to the top of an office building and make cold calls selling recruitment services all the way down to the ground floor. Somehow, I excelled at this but got itchy feet and after two years, I left to travel. My second Montreal job was with a hardware manufacturer, where I was employed as a marketing manager with additional sales responsibilities. Again, this company gave me first-rate training in both sales and marketing.
The hard sell: ‘If you haven’t been thrown out of an office, you’re no good at sales.’
That is what I learnt in Montreal. The soft approach was so frowned upon that even customers wouldn’t respect you unless you got assertive with them.
Fast forward to the UK
As a marketing director in an FE college, and later setting up and running an IT training centre, I gained valuable experience in business to consumer (B2C) marketing. But the skills were traditional. I tracked my competitors like a hunter, and I knew how to connect with my target customers. I used a panoply of marketing tools, techniques and collateral. But since becoming a consultant in 2001, I mostly served B2B companies.
B2C seems like a strange new world
I know that my target customers are out there, but I don’t know who my competitors are. Nothing seems tangible online.
Where have I got to so far?
Twitter: I have 40 or so followers, but they are not my target customers. Until I can devise a Twitter strategy, my activity will be limited. I may never arrive at a successful Twitter strategy.
Facebook: I boosted a Facebook post, which resulted in about 160 clicks to my website, but only a handful joined my mailing list. Later, after researching how to write a Facebook ad, I ran one linked to a landing page inviting you (the visitor) to chat with me on the phone or Skype about your business idea. After one day, only three people clicked on the landing page and no one left their email address, so I stopped the ad. I have a few interviews lined up with people in my target demographic and will rerun the ad once I figure out the messages I need to communicate.
Reddit: I dabbled, but I didn’t enjoy the experience. Will try again at some point.
LinkedIn: I have about 290 followers on LinkedIn, so I post on it. My articles do not attract high numbers of readers, but a recent post has had almost 600 views. I can see that posts are better than articles for brand awareness, but it’s unlikely that LinkedIn, which is for professionals, will be an important source of website traffic.
Social media automation: I will explore this next but being on the receiving end of a barrage of automated posts feels to me like being under virtual attack.
Social needs a soft touch
So far, the best way I found to get feedback and meet people is through Facebook groups, whose administrators and members are friendly and helpful. One piece of advice worth sharing is that SMM requires the soft approach, meaning you must warm up your target audience and build relationships before you can be more direct. This takes time but makes sense.
Planning
I am not quite ready to devise a marketing plan, but I will plan my time so that I don’t waste it following interesting but valueless posts and threads. My plan will include time for online learning, social media relationship building, posting and advertising.
Why am I writing this?
We all know that learning and mastering new skills is good for the brain, persistence will be rewarded with success, and a little success now and then boosts morale. To those retired or almost retired, I highly recommend starting a small business, even a hobby business like mine*. It’s fun, gives you a sense of purpose, and will keep you young and curious.
*until it grows!
Best wishes
Viv