How social media has changed everything

Today I want to address something that's been weighing on my mind of late–how social media has changed, well,  everything, and not all for the better. It's true that the emergence of social media has given businesses a way to connect to customers, and of promoting a dialog with them, but it has also placed an additional burden on already-stretched budgets and staff. Because social media exists, there is an expectation to use it, and that takes time and manpower. Someone has to sit and think of something to tweet several times a day, or to write the blog, and to address post commenters. While this has given rise to new jobs for young grads, is it really translating into increased sales? Or is it just straining resources even further? I believe this is why Facebook and google+ are popular—it doesn't take long to post a sentence or two or pass on a pertinent article, but it might take the better part of an hour to write a blog post. Certain industries are profiting more than others through social media– photographers and authors do well. But while it may be popular, posting on Facebook may increase exposure, but not always lead to more sales.

What do you think? Has social media advanced or hampered your business?


Put our knowledge and expertise to work for your business— visit our webpage and then contact Canzani Graphics today!
All content ©2011Canzani Graphics

marketing

Now that you’ve established your business, you have to let people know you exist. There are so many venues for this- ads, mailers, postcards, trade shows, sponsorships (ie: putting your company name on the local pee wee team jerseys or a patch of highway.)

The first thing you need once you have a business is a... business card. And letterhead and envelopes. Maybe invoices and a fax form, too. You can go to your local printer and choose a color, typeface and layout from a book, and they will come back looking very nice. And ordinary. And well, plain. You can get some variety if you have a pretty good eye, but if you have competitors who are also trying to get the attention of your target customers, your corporate ID (logo, stationery) should be a little more memorable. If you sell widgets, plain and simple may be all you need— if your widgets are all the rage and made headlines in all the tech magazines. But if you don't sell the world's best widget, but you sell a service, or say, coffee, you may need a little more than ordinary and plain to stand out from the crowd. Even if you are perfectly happy with the fine stationery you got from the book, you may need an ad, or a trade show display at some point.

There is so much to making your business successful than just being very good at what you do. You also have to be good at marketing your business—letting people know what it is that you do, so they can become customers. A "Grand Opening" banner will pique the interest of passing pedestrians, but it isn't going to do the job on getting the word out unless you sell food, and even then it only works locally.

As we've already discussed, the yellow pages aren't getting much use these days; there's even talk of discontinuing them. Customers are getting all their information online, at their computers or tablets or with their smartphone.

Postcards, coupons, fliers, sell sheets, heck, eateries even need menus. If you have developed a logo, established a theme/corporate look, you will use it everywhere. It takes a little time and collaboration, but the mileage you get out of it will be well worth the upfront effort. You'll use it in all sorts of ways and people will remember it— and your company.

Not everyone needs a full-blown custom website; for some, a facebook page will do the trick. I know photographers who have been very successful via facebook, but their target audience spends lot of time on there. They are young and looking for that service and the recommendations of friends. These photographers also have websites for displaying their work, but they post teasers on fb and drive a lot of traffic to their websites that way. But most businesses are not going to be happy with just a fb page. They are great for communicating, but let's face it- if you are in B2B, your customers aren't hanging out on fb during the work day. The truth is that currently, customers aren't likely to take you too seriously if you don't have a website under your own domain name. Sites/networks like fb and LinkedIn are great to augment your efforts and point customers to your website, but as the ad says “without a website, you're invisible, you don't exist." (this is an ad promoting websites, of course, but you get the idea.)

Coming Monday— planning your website!

— Put our knowledge and expertise to work for your business— visit our webpage and then contact Canzani Graphics today! —