How Come A Small Business Goes Over Better
If you want people to like you and do business with you, it's best to be warm and approachable. So what does that have to do with your business? Well, the more your business looks like a small local establishment and less like an impersonal corporation, the better — especially when it comes to the social media channels that are so essential for connecting with customers in today’s digital age.
This post will teach you how to make your small businse look more personal by focusing on 3 important categories: location, visuals and tone of voice.
Location
The location of your business plays a huge role in how people perceive it. If you have a nice shop in the heart of a quaint village, most people are going to think it looks local, which immediately makes it more trustworthy and friendly. On the other hand, if it's located on top of a fast food restaurant or behind the greasy spoon diner in the next block, few people are going to care how cute your place looks — they'll only care if you're offering quality goods and services at competitive prices.
Visuals
Visuals play an important role well beyond making your place look pretty. They can tell a lot about you, your values and your business philosophy. Do you have a professional looking logo? Do you have modern or vintage signs? Is your website done professionally or is it full of typos and lacking in content? The impression you make with these things will affect whether people choose to connect with your business. If they like what they see, they'll be more likely to keep coming back. If they don't, they'll shop somewhere else.
Tone of Voice
A tone of voice is the character behind the words that make up your posts, tweets and other forms of social media content. It's how "local" you sound (as opposed to corporate). It's how your content reads: is it formal, or informal? Serious, or funny? There are many things you can do to contribute to the tone of voice of your small business on social media. Have a look at these examples.
Examples
"We're just an old-fashioned corner store with a great selection of fruits and veggies." – Fresh Market
"Sometimes we like to get goofy. If you want to see more, follow us on Instagram." – TJ Maxx
The copywriters at Fresh Market have done a great job of conveying their brand's character through the voice they've adopted for their posts on Twitter. Fresh Market's Twitter page isn't merely a collection of links to their blog posts, it's an integral part of the Fresh Market brand. Their voice is friendly and fun, just like their stores. They use pictures to complement their posts and the selection of pictures is wide-ranging: from event coverage to employee shots to images related to seasonal features.
The copywriters at TJ Maxx have also done a great job of conveying the company's character through the voice they've adopted for their tweets. TJ Maxx doesn't just tweet links to blog posts on their website: they also tweet funny, quirky photographs as well as videos that enhance customer engagement, all with a dose of humor and plenty of personality. I think it's great that they intersperse links to blog posts with the playful content that TJ Maxx is known for.
Conclusion
It doesn't take a lot of time or effort to convey the character, personality and fun of your small business in your social media posts. Keep these things in mind, however, and you should be able to come up with some interesting and attention-grabbing content for your small business's social media channels. If you can make your social media channels look more personal and approachable, you'll stand out from the crowd of scrubs that don't care who they're annoying on Twitter or Facebook by blasting their customers with ads all day long.
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I just bought a new truck! Look at all the cool things I can do now:
1) Go on a road trip to the beach. 2) Go fishing. 3) Go camping! 4) Take photos of my truck in different locations, and post them on Instagram. 5) Book time in the photography studio to get those photos printed onto canvases. 6) Take the canvases home and hang them on my front wall. 7) Get more bookshelves for my books. 8) Get a second painting (you know, so I won't run out of wall space). 9) Buy a new bed. 10) Get some furniture for my bedroom. 11) Visit the furniture store... 12) Go home and start sorting through all the options. 13) Shop on Zulily 14) Shop on Overstock 15) Shop on Amazon 16)... 17... 18... 19... 20) Shop on Etsy
Now, I know what you're thinking. Who has time for all that? Not me! I have a business to run and a blog to write!
That's why I'm so excited ArtFire is hosting another meet-up with the fantastic folks from Etsy in Santa Monica next Thursday, March 21st.
We'll be talking about how to make the most of your social media channels, with plenty of time for Q&A and networking. If you want to bring some samples or swag, or want to tell us about your Etsy site and how it's growing, feel free to do so. We all love to listen to success stories!
We'll be meeting at the Adobe offices, which are on the corner of 2nd Street and Broadway in Santa Monica. The doors will be open at 5:00PM, with the event starting at 6:00PM. If you're interested in coming, just contact me via Facebook or email and I'll let you know what we need to know about parking and entry into the building.
Can't wait to see you there!
Image Credit: 1. Flickr user NewYork in the UK; 2. Etsy; 3. ArtFire Blog; 4. Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce; 5. Don Shula, nflsmith, and Michael Petrov via Creative Commons License (1, 2); 6. Etsy; 7 & 8. Madeleine Chang from LAWeekly's Artist on the Rise series, via Creative Commons License (9 & 10); 9 & 10. David Sprague from "The Handmade Marketplace" podcast, via Creative Commons License (11). 11 & 12: Carla Dippel from NYCEDC via Creative Commons License (13 & 14).
Conclusion
Are you interested in learning more about the world of small business marketing? There's lots more to come from the ArtFire team! If you're a small business owner, we'd love to hear from you. We'll be holding more meet-ups and conferences so that we can help you discover new ways of getting your products noticed by a wider audience. If you're just starting out as an Etsy shop owner, or are thinking of starting one, we can help with that too. Please feel free to contact me via Facebook or email and let me know how we can help!
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Hello again everyone! I hope everyone who is reading this is having a pleasant weekend so far.