Are your products reaching the numbers of potential customers you want?

“Where” your company publishes and connects is just as important as what you have to say. You’re on Facebook & LinkedIn posting to groups, pages and walls…what about your niche communities?

Here’s how to find and join the communities that have the most value for your products or services.

No matter what search enging you use (Google, Bing, Firefox) therre are a few ways you can find the exact information you need. When you simply type words without any operators (ways to refine your search) it’s like walking into a bus station without knowing where you plan to go. To find  your niche, try these search tips in Google:

Use quote “Your Search Here” marks: Using quotation marks tells Google that you want results that fit your search exactly. So if you type “Beaded Jewelry message board” you will get a very narrow result, but it may just lead you to a new place to talk about your community.

Use the minus sign (-): Using the minus sign in  your search can help you get better results. Try typing Beaded Jewelry Makers -crafts. This will tell  your search engine that you don’t want to see any crafts in your results, and will give you a great list of suppliers, retailers and relevant links that may lead you to a great community to join.

Those are two powerful tools to help you find the communities your company should join, engage in and start to share your great ideas.

Is your brand recognized as the leader in your market?

Are you answering your customer concerns in ways that satisfy your customers? Are you sharing information that your market loves to get, shares with others and can’t stop talking about?

Once you find the perfect communities to join, start engaging with other members. Don’t be afraid to give away a few ideas, you’ll be appreciated and people will return to find out more, learn more and they’ll talk about what great information they got from you.

Social Network Marketing is a piece of your marketing strategy. Evaluating the common goals can help you hone yours:

• Gaining brand strength and brand recognition
• Your company as the ‘go to’ for product or information
• Strengthen your company reputation
• Increase sales for your product line or service

When you commit to a well coordinated, well planned and focused Social Network Marketing set of goals, you have some ready made ideas for outlining campaigns that will result in reaching them.

Silly as that sounds, putting Social Network Marketing into place without taking the time to answer Why you want to get involved and Where (online communities) your company will best be served, will cripple your efforts. You will soon come to think that Social Network Marketing has no place in your company.

Why do you want your company to be involved in SM? Answering this question will clear up  many of your own reservations. You’ll come up with your own answers obviously, but here are some common answers to why small businesses want to become part of this new customer engagement tool:

• Talking directly to customers and future customers gives companies an immediate edge on adjusting to emerging customer wants or needs.
• Becoming involved in niche communities allows your company to become the best source for your service or products.
• Responding to questions or concerns in real time (or very quickly) will reinforce your brand as the good guy who genuinely cares about what customers want.

Where should your company poise itself for brand recognition and effective connections? Putting in the effort to answer this will save you a lot of time because chatting about your line of custom door bells for doghouses might not go over as well as you’d like in the designer cat carrier community discussions.

How can you answer the Why and Where? on Tuesday.

Remember the Domino’s Pizza 2009 scandal where two rogue employees video taped themselves ruining a customer’s food? Domino’s of course fired them, and will likely bring felony charges against them. An interesting outcome came from this:

• Domino’s US president Patrick Doyle made a genuinely sincere (and forceful) statement about incident in a Youtube video. This was extremely effective.

Other lessons learned (or not) through Social Media’s immediacy and transparency:

Be honest about WHO you are when posting messages: A Honda product manager posted positive comments on the Crosstour Facebook page, when it was getting massive negative feedback. Other message posters raged at his attempt to post as a consumer.

Do what you promise: Adobe software has gained the reputation for poor customer service.  Although users are loyal customers (because awareness of alternatives to Adobe products is lacking maybe?), Adobe has continually  failed to provide excellence in service. There is a large volume of customer complaints, and Adobe recognizes the problem, even publicly apologizing. That was September 2009. Cutsomers are still extremely frustrated by continued lack of service, and there has been no follow up to the Lambert Walsh letter of apology stating Adobe was working around the clock to make changes.

Treat Customers like gold: Even though the customer isn’t always right, they deserve your respect. Treating your customers like gold will prove your company is the company to work with in bad and good times. Keeping an eye on your Social Networking communities and addressing any and all negative responses immediately is well worth the effort. Take into consideration the airline Ryanair’s verbal assault and insults toward a blogger who found a booking bug on their website where customers could book flights at no cost. An opportunity lost to ‘do good, save face and promote a company’; they instead took a defensive stance and ruined their own brand.

Take care to care for your brand and attend to the conversations that are already taking place online about your company. Check out NETT’s tips on how to be aware of what is being said about your company.

Engaging in a niche community; gives you the opportunity to laser focus on talking directly to the potential customers you’d like to start talking about your company. Once they do, and once they’re excited about your company, these new customers will talk about you in communities like Facebook and Twitter.

Find your niche communities. Start engaging with members. Post excellent content.

Context is extremely important in niche social communities. Your company  may sell gourmet dog treats. Facebook is a great place to be, but maybe Pugz Mugz is a better place to be.

Bazaar Voice, in their whitepaper titled ‘Participation Chains Connect Customers To Your Brand’ (you can fill out their form and get it) talks clearly about how niche communities impact business outcomes. As your company’s content grows using engagement (for example, using reviews on a community site, supporting engagement with conversational replies) your company begins creating engagement chains. Pretty brilliant.

Heather Fletcher, senior editor at Target Marketing highlights 4 keys to being effective in smaller, more targeted online communities.

1. Relevance. Providing niche specific topics will keep your strategy focused.  In Pugz Mugz case, “advertisements on the site that are about relevant products and services”.
2. Integrate Channels and Disciplines. This is a challenge for smaller companies who know that Social Networking is very important but might not have the staff or time to engage consistently.
3. Listen, then engage. Your customers may want/need specific input from you, are you aware of what that is?
4. Provide Usable Information, be sure to Accept it too. From input to articles to free tutorials; your customers will love you for it.

Communities referenced: Pugz Mugz Bazaar Voice Target Marketing

A quick post to share these articles from Social Media Daily (Media Post) with you.

“Presence on social networks is top priority for media plans“.

Why? It works.

Facebook is now the top traffic driver (do your tweets come from or go to FB?)

Is your social networking strategy tied together to get the best results?

Neiman journalism lab survey highlights the ‘hybrid’ business marketing model.

A Mix, are you in it?

The Basics. What are social networks?

Linking to other businesses online that you want to network with or may find your business services appealing gives you as a business leader the edge because with the power of social networking in your toolkit, your marketing reach is almost limitless.

all their friends with just a click of their mouse. 

Simply put; Social Networks impact the decision to purchase because people tend to value the objective opinions of others more than an ‘in your face’ company marketing pitch.

When your company uses Social Networking as part of your marketing toolkit you take the opportunity go become the information resource for your market.

Why put Social Networking in the mix? When people want to find out about a brand, company or make a purchase, 70% will visit a social media website to start their research. Is your company there for them to find? People value the recommendations from others on social media sites to the tune of 71%.

Using Social Networking consistently keeps your brand in mind when it comes time to make purchasing decisions. Being a credible resource is very important.

While planning for a great Social Marketing campaign is extremely important, here are a few simple steps you can take today to get Social Networking/Marketing off your ‘To Do’ list and make it happen; even in baby steps.

• Manageability. As a small business owner, your time is a premium commodity. Even so, there are likely one or two Social Networking site you use fairly consistently. Start there by making valuable connections and starting a few conversations. As simple as that seems, creating your company voice in this way will begin to get your brand noticed.
• Your Expertise. You know your business better than anyone. What are the topics you’re explaining most often? Use those topics when you have conversations. You’ll be impressed by how many people pay close attention when you give the answer to a pressing question they have.
• Consistency. Frankly; consistency should be one of your top priorities. When you start a Social Networking campaign only to let it drift off into internet irrelevance; you lose one of the strongest tools available: presence.

Use your expertise to manage your online reputation consistently and your first steps into the world of Social Networking will be warmly welcomed.

• More of them – The American Spirit shows that in economic downturns, small businesses grow in numbers (Nurture yours!)
• Leaner – So, as the numbers increase – staying lean and making do with what you haveis simply: smart business.
• Sniffing out opportunities – finding and identifying where the opportunities are strong, creates opportunity for your company’s growth.
• Social Marketing – SERIOUSLY. If you haven’t started, dip into the social marketing pool, the water’s fine and you’ll have a lot of company (sniff, sniff…the smell of opportunity!)
• So far, the growing focus on microbusinesses been very behind-the-scenes but look for 2009 to be the year for several microbusiness-aware lawmakers to out themselves.

From Dawn Rivers Baker, Small Business Trends