Mine Your Own Business

The Bad and the Good of Using Social Media

If you haven't heard about using social media to promote small businesses you certainly haven't been reading Mine Your Own Business much recently, at the bottom of this posting we'll even include a link to all of them. The question is whether it is an effective way to promote your business. An article in The Wall Street Journal gives a mixed review based on some surveys and actual company experiences.

First the bad. A survey of 2000 U.S. entrepreneurs of businesses with fewer than 100 employees found out that the percentage of businesses using social media had increased from 12% to 24%. The problem is that a different survey of 500 small business owners from the same sponsors reported that 22% made a profit by promoting their businesses with social media, 53% broke even, and 19% said they lost money. The final issue is that it takes away time that could be used in other areas to effectively use social media.

Now the good. The article provides some specific examples of entrepreneurs who can show they increased online sales after promoting with social media. Maybe more importantly, especially for brick and mortar only businesses, is that social media can send a lot of Web traffic to your site. It also allows businesses to communicate directly with interested consumers. So have you had any positive or negative experiences with using social media to promote your business?

Last but not least, here is the promised link to all the Mine Your Own Business postings relating to social media, and two links to postings focusing on social media: So What's all the Twitter about? and Social Media and Small Business.

Happy Employees

There was a recent article by Jay Goltz in the Small Business section of the online New York Times about The Secret to Having Happy Employees. In the article he describes how half of the secret to happy employees is to treat employees well. The second half is much more difficult for most employers, unhappy people have  to be fired. Jay goes to great length in the article to emphasize that this is a last resort, but he makes two important points. Sometimes people don't make a good fit in one company and would do very well in a different company culture, so in the long run it might be better for the employee.

The second important point is that an unhappy employee can have a negative impact on the rest of your company. Jay uses the example of the great motion picture "The Caine Mutiny", while another example might be the old adage one bad apple spoils the whole bunch (here's a link if you want to know why one bad apple really does spoil the whole bunch). The article ends with two sharp observations, it is very difficult to build a strong business with the wrong people and it is much easier to build your business with the right people. If you have time you might want to look at some of the very interesting comments on the article.

Mine Your Own Business and Bicycle Tires

So what do bicycle tires have to do with Mine Your Own Business and small businesses? A recent personal experience illustrates two things we post about frequently on Mine Your Own Business, buy local and getting more store referrals.

I recently had to replace the tires on my fairly new bicycle since some bicycle manufactures do the same thing as some automobile manufacturers, they use the cheapest tires they can to reduce their costs. I researched various tires on the Internet and since all bicyclists hate flats, I knew that in this instance it was better to spend the extra money and invest in some long wearing, flat resistant tires. After deciding what brand and model of tire I wanted I considered various purchase options. 

I found out that only two dealers in my area carried that brand of tire and called the closest stocking dealer. I could have purchased the tires at Amazon at a total cost of $83.18, but instead opted to buy them from the local dealer for $117.70 which included installation. Why did I decide to spend so much more? One reason was I believe in purchasing locally under most circumstances as we’ve frequently posted about on Mine Your Own Business. Another reason was even though I am quite capable of changing my own tires and have done so frequently in the past, from my research I had l learned that this particular tire was a little more difficult to install than most bicycle tires. The final reason was that the wheels and shifters needed adjustment anyway, so I could get everything done at the same time.

I got the bicycle back and found out from the dealer that I also had a broken spoke that I was not aware of, so I was really happy that I had decided to take it into a dealer. The dealer did a great job on the bicycle and I was quite happy with the work. I thought about something on the way home though, I had been riding the bike some all winter and it was really dirty since it had been too cold to wash it. The dealer I took the bike to could have exceeded my expectations by washing the bike while he had it in his shop and could have turned a satisfied customer into a very happy customer. I would still recommend this dealer, but I would have made sure to refer all my biking buddies to a dealer who went above and beyond what almost all bike shops do in their normal service.

Business and the CARD Act

If you haven't been following the news from Washington closely, your first question might be what is the CARD act? CARD stands for the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act (now you know why they simply refer to it as CARD), and it is new legislation designed to protect consumers from some of the practices credit card companies used in the past. The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on one problem with the new legislation. It does not apply to business cards, and may actually increase business card fees as credit card companies attempt to make up for lost personal  credit card revenue. So why not use a personal credit card for your business? The article cites numerous reasons, among them putting the corporate structure of a small business in danger.

The article then goes on to describe some other scary scenarios that credit card companies might employ, such as increasing the credit-card interchange rate. If you're not familiar with that term or would like more details, you can check out a posting we did in June of last year, New proposed legislation on interchange fees. The Wall Street Journal article concludes by describing what some small businesses are doing to attempt to fight back and that there may be some spillover from the CARD act to business cards.

Local and Social with Google

We did a posting in July of last year in Slick new Google tool how Google was improving their search by using a Google gadget to improve driving directions and improve local results. We all know that Google has never been a company to rest on one's laurels, so they have been working hard on improving search results by showing what is located closest to the searcher's neighborhood. Small Business Trends presents a very good summary on Google's new Nearby search option, as well as links that provide more detailed information. Check out the whole article on all the changes to Google to improve local search results.

Google has also been working on improving social search results so live news, tweets, and blogs post directly to the search results. The latest source to pull contents into search results is Facebook and the article describes how important it is for business owners make sure your Facebook Fan page is up to date with sales, events, and other important happenings at your business. There is a lot more information in the article on how important this is to market your business, and three excellent links near the bottom of the article on improving your Facebook Fan pages and getting people to join it.

Store Traffic Part 3

The post for today on increasing store traffic is from an article about a way to not only get more customers into your store (as the previous two postings have been), but is literally a way to make customers walk further in your store. The idea starts with creating a bargain bin in your store, but the really interesting part of the idea is to make sure you locate the bargain bin at the back of your store so people have to walk through all your high-margin items and sale items to get to the bargain bin.

So how does the bargain bin itself work? The article describes how it could be slow selling inventory or popular utility items, but the bargain bin inventory  must be full and fresh. The other important point is that you promote your bargain bin in all your promotions and advertising. If you keep your bargain bin full of well priced items that change on a regular basis, you'll not only build traffic through your store, but into your store as well. The last nice thing about the bargain bin is that it can also help reduce overstock or get rid or some items that are difficult to move at their normal price.

Store Traffic Part 2

Yesterday we did a posting on five easy ways to increase store traffic and promised everyone another take on this topic today. We ran across an article by Jeff Haefner that presents a different approach, giving out coupons to customers at the point of sale. The author makes the point that it is cheap , especially when compared to other techniques such as direct mail, newspaper ads, radio ads, etc. Coupons can also be effective because they are a reminder to the customer of your store and where to get service and any expendables your product might require.

The article then provides some different ways to generate your coupons. A good way is a small business owner could get them professionally printed at a reasonable cost, very easy and cheap. Drawbacks are employees may forget to hand them out and the same coupon will be used for all products and for some time.

A better way to generate coupons suggests the article, is to print your own coupons with a receipt printer. This allows a great deal of flexibility, such as coupons for something they just purchased.  There is also less chance that you or your employee will forget to give them the coupon. Two ways to do this is to use your Point of Sale software or a special receipt printer. There are many great links in the article to sources for the printers, Point of Sale hardware, and other resources to help you increase your store traffic with coupons.

Stay tuned for another tip on increasing store traffic later this week.

Store Traffic Part 1

We did a posting earlier this month on increasing customer referrals and we ran across a similar article that provides five tips on increasing store traffic, one being how to set up a simple system to reward current customers for referrals. Here is the whole list:

1. Create contests.
2. Partner with complimentary retailers
3. Reach out to new homeowners.
4. Hold workshops
5. Bring a friend

Some of the ideas will work better in your particular situation than others, but there should be something any small business owner can use effectively. Tomorrow we have in store another article on increasing store traffic and improving your business image at the same time.

Small Business Web Tips

There is lots of information on Internet Marketing available both in print and online, but very few focus specifically on small businesses. Here is an article that specifically targets 5 mistakes that brick and mortar small businesses make on the Web. To summarize:

1. Failing to Understand the Basics of Internet Marketing
2. Unreasonable Expectations
3. Having a Subpar Website
4. Google Centrality
5. Misunderstanding Social Media

The article provides lots of information on these five tips and provides a lot of helpful examples. The article also inspired many interesting comments and Tweets so you might want to check those out as well. If you're still interested in further information, you can check out our post from December 10th of last year, Web Site Suicide, which views this topic from a different perspective.

Recession Benefit

We've done numerous postings on the terrible toll the recession has taken on everyone and especially small businesses, now comes an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal that points out one benefit of the awful economy. It describes how for small business owners that have weathered the economic storm there has never been a better time to expand the size of your establishment. The reality is that commercial rents are down 44% from their peak in October 2007. The other great thing about the current commercial real estate market is that better locations are available, still at greatly reduced costs.

if the combination of reduced rents and better location has got you thinking of considering an expansion or move, what is the best way to take action? The article describes how some business owners have used brokers, but a lot of them have just found a new location by exploring areas they are interested in themselves. This has the advantage of watching traffic in the area and also observing the other businesses in the area. There are a lot of food examples in the article that might give you some ideas.