Ninja Web Studios

Using Facebook, Twitter and Skype to communicate with customers is essential to your business. You have to be where your customers are located, and they are on these social networks. Having a presence on these networks allows your customers to:

1. Ask you questions
2. Get help to fix their problems, right away

There really isn't a way to hide from customers. Doesn't matter if they like you, or hate you, they will talk about you on the multitude of social networks they are using, whether you have a presence on these networks or not. As a business, you have to be able to resolve issues the best way you can, having a presence on the most popular networks allows you to be able to speak directly to the problem or issue before it blows out of proportion.

According to Jon Swartz (USA TODAY) in his article, Businesses use Twitter to communicate with customers, businesses can grow from using social networks:

"Customer feedback that leads to enhanced services. Starbucks is using a blend of social media via Twitter (@Starbucks; over 230,000 followers), Facebook (3.2 million fans) and its own social-networking site (MyStarbucksIdea.com) for product ideas and feedback. Splash sticks, the company's new plastic plugs for sip holes, were created in part through feedback."

At Ninja Web Studios, we use these networks to communicate with our customers on a daily basis. Our customers question us through private messages on these social networks for help, or through instant messaging services, such as MSN Messenger. We use Skype for video calls, file transfers and screen sharing. Skype is essential to our long-distance customers on the east and west coast, Bermuda, Canada and Japan, allowing them to communicate with us through "face-to-face" meetings.

In today's world, you have to be available to your customers, to keep them satisfied, referring others and coming back for more.

Here are three ways that social media websites can help your business.

Cut Costs

First of all, social media marketing can help you by lowering your overall marketing costs. Using social media is free on many of the most popular platforms, including Facebook™, Twitter™, YouTube™, Pinterest™ and LinkedIn™. LinkedIn™ is actually a freemium service, you can use the basic features for free, but there is a pay-for-option giving you more advanced features. Pinterest™ is a fairly new social media website, as of this writing. Pinterest™ allows users to pin their interests (hence the site name) as photos to their wall, share them and allow other users to post comments. This is an excellent platform for small businesses, in particular retailers, as retailers could post images of new products, such as clothing or shoes, and let people view and comment on them. Pinterest™ is also being used as an online scrapbook sharing platform.

Merge On-line With Off-line

Secondly, social media allows you to easily merge your off-line with your on-line marketing. You can quickly share images from your local newspaper advertising, or upload your television advertisement to your YouTube™ channel, giving you access to a wide-range of potential customers. Social media marketing will also reach those local customers that don't look at off-line media, but love social networks.

Improve Customer Service

What I consider to be one of the best benefits for a small business is that social media allows you to communicate with your customers all day long, in real-time. Customers can post to your Twitter™ or Facebook™ page and you can respond to their requests or questions immediately. For this to work, I recommend an online application called Hootsuite™. Hootsuite™ is a freemium service that will give you the ability to monitor, and post to, many of the popular social networks, all within one interface.

Get Started On Your Social Presence

So, if your not on the social media marketing band wagon yet, it is never too late to get started. But, what I recommend is starting out with just one of the popular social media websites, so you can get your feet wet without feeling over-whelmed or having your time consumed with using multiple social sites. Managing a social media presence is time consuming, but what these social media websites can bring to your small business can be highly beneficial, to you and your customers.

During one of my twitter posting sessions, I came across an event called “that Conference“, which is planned for August 13-15, 2012 at the Kalahari Resort, Wisconsin Dells. I have been hoping for a big developers conference to come to the area. I was excited to have somehow stumbled across a post about that Conference.

With further digging I linked up on Twitter with one of the organizers of the event. His name is @csell5. What a great guy! We messaged back and forth for awhile, getting to know each other a little. Eventually he introduced me to a local group get together called Chippewa Valley Code Camp (CVCC), they meet up just about an hour drive from my home. This is a great opportunity for establishing connections in the developer community as I pursue my journey of growth in information technology.

I have been looking for a local development group for a few months now. Closest one I could find was 3 hours away, in Minneapolis. It took a guy that lives about seven hours from my home to help me find a nearby local development group.

“OH Google, how you have let me down, you let a Microsoft Developer show me the way!” – ME

Well all-in-all, I look forward to meeting new people in my new field of study. I signed up for the November meeting right away! I can’t wait. I will also get to meet up with @csell5 in person.

I guess Twitter is a great place to network.