Alberta Business Marketing

Earlier this week I had the wonderful experience of serving my good friend Denise Deveau from the National Post and Financial Post with some information on “social media in Canadian business” for a recent article of hers which appears in the National Post and Financial Post recently.  The article “Sweeten Sales with Social Media” focused on how Canadian Small Business can use social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to improve overall sales performance.  But more importantly, the article really touched on the importance of engagement and listening.

Kim Gans from Toronto’s Sweet Flour Bake Shop was the focus on the article.  Kim shared how her business uses social media services to connect with clients and her community.  I was there as the Canadian Professional who can help other Canadian Small Businesses figure this out but the real star of the article was Kim and her business.

Kim shared in the article how her business uses social media each day to engage in the community and work with her customers.  ”For us, social media tools are incredibly useful and a huge component of our marketing. We do very, very little advertising, with the exception of a few local placements.”

Her story is just like many of the businesses we serve daily at Ulistic.  Many Canadian small business are weathering the recession OK but they have next to nothing for a marketing budget but still want to make a big splash.  Luckily for many Canadian small business owners, the barrier to entry is nice and low and the Internet is the perfect vehicle to help them succeed with their marketing.  It is almost the perfect storm for many of my peers to take advantage of the Internet to help grow their businesses.

But it takes commitment, authenticity and persistence. This is not something you can do once and say “there, I did it…business come to me now”.  It is just like business networking face-to-face, it takes work and it takes hard work to run effective online marketing campaigns.  I am sure Kim will share with you that it didn’t happen over night.  Just to repeat, it takes work and this commitment to working on the business marketing for many often dies off over time.  Just look around and you will see “stale blogs” littered all across the Internet.  When was the last time you wrote something on your blog?

Kim summed it up “We have added a lot of different mixes based on feedback. We’re not just asking people, we’re listening to what they have to say online. For example, we found out that a lot of customers wanted gluten-free choices so we added that. Our new ice cream and frozen yogurt sandwich cookies were their idea.”

It takes effort, it takes engagement and you must listen and listen all the time.  Social Media effectiveness is more listening than talking and most of us have this backwards.  We spend more time publishing than we do keeping our finger on the pulse of what is happening around us.  We really need to shift gears back into listening and engagement mode.  Just like Kim did when her customers shared with her about the ice cream and frozen yogurt sandwich.

What is your ice cream and frozen yogurt sandwich?

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Ulistic focuses on serving the needs of Canadian Small Business, REALTORS, and Information Technology firms across Canada and United States. Helping your business understand, deploy and leverage social media, search engine optimization and online communications to generate business opportunities and make an impact inside your community and industry.

My business partner David and I are business professionals first. We understand what it takes to run a successful small business.

I invite you to reach out to me personally at 403.775.2205 or email Stuart at scrawford@ulistic.com.

Tags: Business, Business Success, Business/Finance, Communication design, Denise Deveau, Facebook Inc, financial post, Kim Gans, LinkedIn Ltd, little advertising, Mass media, media services, media tools, social media, Technology/Internet, the National Post, toronto, Twitter Inc
Posted in Advertising, Communication, Marketing | | Comments Off

The Internet and social media is definitely the Wild West.  Actually it is worse than the wild west.

You know what it reminds me of?

If I reflect back around 2004/2005 when I first started to attend Harry Brelsford’s SMB Nation at the Microsoft Campus in Redmond, WA.  There was a buzz back then in the early talks about Managed IT Services that continues on today.  Should I be focused on managed services?  How do I do it?

Now for my friends outside the IT industry, managed services was a way to charge a business a flat rate for providing IT tech services instead of billing by the hour or selling a small business a retainer type of service and drawing down on that retainer.  Managed Services introduced new concepts and spun a whole new industry of companies selling products and services to those of us who provided the actually service.  Some did well, while some lost focus and actually suffered and if they just kept their original business plan instead of buying into the hype…perhaps would have done well.

The introduction of Managed Services caused a tremendous amount of chaos in the technology industry that continues today. Almost five years later there are still discussions on,  what tool do you use?  How do you do this? How do you do that?  These questions were the norm and my team at IT Matters, back in the day didn’t have everything nailed down tight (nor did we really care) with regards to managed services and we actually did a pretty poor job at it compared to others…but you know something, compared to others where it mattered the most, we were profitable and continued to inch closer to that $5M in sales number before my departure in late 2008.

Is Social Media and Internet Consulting going that way and should I take what I learned with IT Matters and apply it again?

I read a thread recently on the Social Media Today LinkedIn group that brought back the nightmares or memories of 2004/2005 SMB Nation events, depending on the way you look at things.  There is an ongoing debate on how much to charge (seen this with managed services) organizations for your services.  Discussions about tools to measure success (see them as well) and how to charge clients (been there, done that).  Plus, there are new organizations out there spinning up to sell tools, products and coach social media consultants on how to do their jobs better.

What are we doing at Ulistic?  What I have always done…focus on our clients and their needs first.

True, you can fix what you don’t measure.  But don’t we have tools already to measure success online.  I read an article by my friend Denise Deveau on Google Analytics and a flower shop in Toronto where this retail store in the GTA is using something as simple as a Google tool to measure the success of their business.  What can I share with my colleagues in the social media business…focus on the needs of your clients first (they are your oxygen mask) and then put on the mask of the person beside you (your business).  Use the tools out there but don’t get hung up on them and when you decide on one, stick with it.  The other big thing about Managed IT services is how easy people changed tools and services and dropped 50K.

Tags: Business/Finance, companies selling products, Computing, Denise Deveau, google, Google Inc., Harry Brelsford, Human-computer interaction, Hypertext, I T MATTERS, Internet Consulting going, media, media consultants, Microsoft Campus, Microsoft Corporation, Mobile Payment, redmond, retail store, social media, Social Media Ventures Inc, tech services, technology industry, Technology/Internet, toronto, USD, Washington, World Wide Web
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