By Rebecca Haden
A Plus Educational, Harrison, AR
Social media has hit the classroom with a bang. It makes sense; here’s a chance to use those classroom computers without any special skills or training, the kids love it, and it’s free. What’s not to like?
Retailers may not be happy. We lay in a good stock of software for back to school, since we all know that classroom technology is the coming thing, and then we hear that our teachers are spending the summer learning how to tweet, wiki, and Squidoo.
There’s an upside: now that the teachers are on Twitter, we can meet them there and let them know what exciting things are going on in our stores. Free is good, right?
Here are some of the favorite social media opportunities, and how you might like to use them for marketing to and networking with your customers:
- Facebook is a friendly place, and the most popular social media site around. Chances are, at least one of your staff is already on Facebook. You can set up a special page for your business, ask your customers to become fans, and keep in touch easily in spare moments during the day.
- Twitter is right behind Facebook in popularity. You can just drop in a couple of times a day and make a quick announcement – “I can’t believe how cute the new animal print borders are!” or “The store is quiet right now – run on in and do your shopping before the crowds hit!” Be sure to mix those things up with links to useful information, conversations with other Tweeters, and the occasional remark about the weather to keep it looking natural.
- Squidoo is more trouble, but the rewards can be greater, too. At Squidoo you can make “lenses” with ideas, links to your catalog pages, pictures, and lots more. Teachers are posting lesson plans there, so you should be there, too.
- Ning in Education is a specialized social media spot, a lot like Facebook but only for teachers. Here you can upload pictures of new products with suggestions for their use, announce upcoming events, and lots more.
- Blog. If you’ve already got a blog, set it up to announce automatically at Twitter and Facebook, set up a feed at Squidoo, and post your best stuff at Ning. It’s an easy way to spread the word.
In order to use these methods successfully to get in touch and keep in touch with your customers, you need to follow a few simple rules:
- Don’t think of it as advertising. It’s inbound marketing – that is, it gets people to come to you. If your tweets, lenses, and posts look like ads, they’ll be ignored.
- Don’t give in to the temptation to spam. Talk to other people, for sure, and even suggest a product if it’s just what they need, but don’t let every comment you make be about your business and your products. You know how popular you’d be at Chamber meetings if you did that in conversation? Same thing.
- Give it time. Take a few minutes a day, or designate someone to do it for you, and give it a while to bear fruit. This is much more effective than trying to rush it with a barrage of posts – and then giving up when it doesn’t seem to be working right away. Do it right, and over time your investment will show a good return.
