Speakers Tout Social Media

For the 20 minutes Nance Rosen spent writing up a press release about the advantages familiarity with social networking can be to job seekers she received in return exposure from national print and electronic media outlets. Rosen, however, didn’t stop there with her release titled “Job Market Sweet if You Can Tweet.” Using the online social networking mentioned in the article, the cross-promotion provided a bigger reach. Such cross-promotion was just one piece of advice Rosen gave to an audience of about 30 small business owners at the “How 2 Social Media” event on Oct. 27 sponsored by the United Chambers of Commerce. “It’s a matter of knitting every possible platform together where you can appear,” said Rosen, a nationally known speaker on branding and marketing. “The Internet gives millions of people coming to see you and thousands of media outlets desperately needing good content.” As the ubiquity of social networking websites and applications like Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter expands from the personal world into the business world, owners and entrepreneurs can use these sites as another way to reach potential customers and a low-cost way to promote their product or service. To get any advantages, social networking must be done right. Business must set clear objectives of who they are trying to reach, what content they will publish and what their outcomes are, said Kayvan Mott, a co-owner of Infinite Communications, an Internet marketing and design firm. Whether one is using a blog, microblogging application Twitter, or Linkedin the important thing is that the material be relevant and fresh. At Infinite, Mott and business partner Parham Nabatian update their Facebook fan page once or twice day. “Anything you can do to engage your audience, your fans, is really the point,” Mott said. Engaging customers can also be done the low-tech way: through email. According to a study from the Direct Marketing Association, for every $1 spent on email marketing a business can realize a return on investment of $45.06. Email newsletters allow businesses to listen to their customers and to keep them close, said Kelly Flint, a regional director with email marketing firm Constant Contact. To grow an email list of customers who want to receive communications businesses should mention the list in phone calls, at events, and through in-store guest books, Flint said. Not every social networking site is right for every business. Armen Margarian, an attendee at the event who owns NexusLab, a marketing firm in Sherman Oaks, uses all the sites mentioned by Rosen and the other speakers. A site like Twitter has not been of real use to NexusLab, Margarian said. “For a restaurant it’s perfect because it’s simple,” Margarian said. “If you say ‘Free soda with a meal’ you’ll see a response.”