Posted by Chad Gardner

With more companies flocking to Web 2.0 to gain exposure, there are two developing (and constantly changing) extremes in the approach to social networking. While taking an honest, natural and authentic approach to creating a rapport with audiences seems like the sure-fire ethical solution for attracting positive exposure, many companies struggle to find a natural voice in the cluttered crowd.

Sitting, and hopefully not hiding, behind a computer screen should not affect the integrity of the message to your potential customers. Unfortunately, the ability to remain anonymous can put even the best marketer’s judgment to test.

Here are five basic concepts that may deter marketers from leaving their social media campaigns riddled with grey areas:

Listen to your audience: Before beginning your contribution to social media communities, take a step back and look at how your company and industry is perceived. Understanding your consumers’ needs and wants is the first step to providing them with useful content and support–and adapting to their language is key to developing your strategy. Knowing what kind of content is important to your audience is absolutely essential. The last thing a social media campaign wants to do is to flood communities with an irrelevant, one-directional message. In fact, you will be thrown into the lion’s pit, creating negative impressions and perpetuating existing ones.

Participate in the dialogue: Become an active member in all discussions, not only topics that will directly relate to sales or conversion. Showing your interest in all areas will instill your values, trust, and opinions across the board. An on-going presence will keep you in the forefront of users’ minds as a valuable resource. Your agenda for social networking (hopefully) is not totally self-serving, so try not to come across that way by only putting in your two-cents when it’s self-promotional.

You don’t have to be an expert: Remember, marketing (in more areas than just social media) is subjective and is an on-going learning process. Not always having an answer isn’t necessarily a bad thing. As a matter of fact, not having an answer will give your posts a human quality. Individuals, rather than corporations, are going to make a stronger connection in these communities. It is important to develop your message not in industry terms, but in laymen’s; we’ve all heard corporate speak and wondered who these drones are really trying to reach.

Create fresh content: Some may tag original, fresh content as the most important aspect of being productive with social media. Despite whether the cliché phrase “Content is King” is true, fresh content creates a community around relevant information and establishes credibility.

Be authentic: If a social media campaign isn’t genuine, authentic, or natural, prepare for an onslaught of negative feedback. Being transparent about your identity and the nature of your message will enhance all other online marketing tactics by showing your consumers the respect they deserve. Deceptive practices may be tempting, and may even show quick results, but it will hinder any opportunity to create a relationship with users. Jeremiah Owyang has compiled a list of companies and individuals that tried to take shortcuts with social media only to see their efforts backfire. The last thing you want for your campaign is to expend resources and time, only to see yourself added to this list.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Posted by Sarah Jordan

Although outsourcing is one of the first actions an enterprise-size company might take to cut costs during a recession, according to a recent study by Warrillow, it’s just the opposite for SMBs. In fact, small businesses responded that they do not prefer to outsource during an economic downturn, but rather favor a sort of “batten down the hatches” strategy to have greater control over spending.

But controlling expenses goes way beyond cutting the “nice-to-haves,” or what is considered superfluous during budget constraints. There are certain aspects of your company, which unless you’re planning on going out of business, have to be outsourced: Your payment processing.

Whether it be your bank or a third party processor, as cash payments disappear, you need a payment processor that can take your customers payments (credit card, check, or other form) and turn them into cash. Which brings up the question: What are you paying to process your customers’ payments?

Can you answer with certainty that you’re paying the lowest merchant account rates you could be? Take a look at the difference between paying 2.9% + $0.30 (PayPal’s rate for small business volume) vs. 2.28% + $0.24 (an alternative to PayPal’s pricing) on a month’s, or even year’s worth of credit card payments. It doesn’t take long for those extra few percentage points to add up.

On a more thorough basis, what are you paying for your entire invoicing and billing process, internal or outsourced? When was the last time you added up your labor costs, invoicing material costs, and payment processing costs and compared them with other options on the market—options that could integrate and automate more of your invoicing, collecting, and customer communication than you ever thought possible?

Cutting top-level expenses left and right is one way to go about recession-proofing your business, but you can also utilize this time to really take control of your business again. Do some research and take the time to resolve inefficiencies (which cause not so obvious expenses) that have been long ignored. As a result, you could discover a business that has the potential to be the well-oiled machine you always wanted it to be.
_____

You can do it too. Read how other small businesses have experienced huge success by ditching some of their “old hat” systems:

“Our return on investment has been 60 days…”
–Amanda Nichols, Director of Accounts Receivable, Peplinski Group, Inc.

“Weekly contributions have quadrupled”…
–Sue Erickson, Executive Assistant, Origins Church of New York

Popularity: 5% [?]