Social Media for Small Business: Mixed Results or Misperceptions?

Not surprisingly, more and more small business owners are turning to social media platforms to drive performance and to expand their networks. Indeed, roughly half of the small business respondents to a recent Manta study reported engaging more in social media than they had the previous year. Respondents offered several reasons for pursuing social media, including building customer bases, generating leads and referrals, building their company/product brands, and generating a community presence.

However, the returns on the investments in social media by small businesses have been a mixed bag of results. For some businesses, social media has been a boon. Restaurants reportedly dominate social media efforts, representing roughly one-third of share of voice traffic.

Others aren't so certain about the benefits of social media for small businesses.The same Manta study discussed above also indicated that 61% of small business owners had yet to see any positive returns on their social media investments (though few from this group indicated that they would reduce or eliminate their social media efforts). Some small business owners have chosen to remain on the sideline of social media efforts altogether.

And some are downright hostile to the idea of using social media to promote small business. Brandon Mendelson is a fine example of one of these folks, as he makes quite clear in his book, Social Media Is Bullshit. Mendelson also has his own blog where he further professes his opinion that social media is, well, nonsense. Here's a short interview with him in which he sums up his argument:

Generally, Mendelson adopts a very cynical view of the utility of social media for small businesses, arguing that it is a sort of "gold rush" that small business pursue without ever receiving returns on their investments. The real winners, he argues, are those who have figured how to pitch "social media" as a repackaging of the internet that they can profit from. To Mendelson, the internet can only be exploited by those who are already rich and established, because winners and losers are determined by those who have already won. Mendelson concedes that he has over 700,000 followers on his own Twitter account--but points out that Twitter "gave" many of them to him by placing him on a "suggested accounts" list several years ago when he and his then-wife were doing work promoting breast cancer research.

Recently, Mendelson made an appearance on the Explore Marketing Uncensored podcast broadcast produced by website Social Media Explorer. He was hosted by Jason Falls, co-author of No Bullshit Social Media, and his co-host, Jason Spooner of Studiobanks, a consulting firm of "digital thought leaders." During the audio interview/debate podcast, these social media specialists went head to head. (Note:  there is no shortage of use of the "BS" word, so if you're offended by the word or if your children are playing nearby, this may not be the podcast for you!)

The podcast reveals that the crux of the Falls book (which was the first to be published) is to show small business owners what the opportunities are for them to exploit in social media. Mendelson's book was published about a year later, arguing that social media platforms are far less important in determining the success of a business than acquiring a strong understanding of the market that the business is targeting and a sound marketing strategy for doing so. Mendelson attacks the myth of those who have risen to great heights based on social media, arguing instead that they have been the beneficiaries of good fortune and plugs from celebrities and/or media outlets. He also points out the the romanticized "viral success stories" represent the exception far more than the rule for small business social media pursuits.

In response, Falls asks whether it is fair to criticize some of the viral success stories without at least giving them some credit for their successes--even if they weren't completely transparent about the sort of "help" they may have received along the way (support from more established companies in the form of "paid exposure," plugs from celebrities, etc...). Mendelson answers that his beef is with those who do not acknowledge the help that they have received along the way, for this lack of disclosure enables the "snake oil salesmen" of social media to further pitch their products to other unsuspecting small business owners.

The takeaway from this debate? Both sides present arguments that have some merit. I would never dissuade a small business owner from pursuing social media platforms. What I would do, though, it to recommend that the business owner do his/her due diligence on researching the various platforms and truly understanding his/her market. Moreover, it is important for business owners to really think critically about what a social media campaign can do for them as opposed to quickly buying to the snake oil pitch that social media is the magic ingredient for success. Indeed, as Mendelson points out, success is all about the customer.

So, if you're a small business owner, how do you think about your market and your strategy? How do you go about employing social media to your advantage? How do you overcome your confusion about how it should work for you? Some of the answers may be found in this video:

What should be clear from the video, this discussion, and from this ongoing blog that there is no silver bullet of social media that will instantly enable a small business to increase its performance. Social media is a complex world, and there are too many variables:  what might work well for one business might not function well at all for another business. Consider that Twitter has been cited by small businesses as being one of the two least productive social media platforms as far as returns on investment are concerned. Yet, no one could possibly argue about the boon that Twitter has proved to be to the food truck industry. Moreover, it is difficult to determine just how much time and effort businesses put in to their social media investments. So how can one compare their efforts in any meaningful way?

The solutions? First, you have to be able to identify a sound strategy for employing social media for your specific business. You should figure out the resources you possess (especially money and time) and figure out how much of each resource you would want to allocate to a social media campaign. Sure, social media itself doesn't often come with a price tag, though you might have to pay an employee to monitor the platforms for the business. Time might be the more important resource to consider:  an effective social media campaign often involves becoming engaged in constant communication with others in your network. A failure to devote the requisite amount of time may doom a campaign from the start. You might find in some circumstances that the smartest choice is to not pursue social media at all. Again, it all depends on the relevant variables.

If things aren't working out for you, don't become discouraged. Instead, take a step back and evaluate things. Ask yourself whether your expectations were perhaps unreasonable given your circumstances. Consider altering your strategy by identifying areas that show more promise than others and focusing your efforts there. Think about some of the telltale signs of a successful social media campaign, and how you can better aim to achieve such results.

Also, question whether you have exerted yourself and your resources to a sufficient degree. Remember that just as marketing has a threshold effect, so too does social media (after all, social media is in part a form of marketing). A failure to reach the minimal threshold will necessarily result in a failure to achieve desirable returns on investment. And remain mindful that some of the benefits of social media campaigns, such as increases in customer goodwill and brand recognition, are intangible and not as easily recognized. Don't allow yourself to develop blind spots to these benefits.

Why Social Media? It's the Strength of Weak Ties!

Mark Granovetter

I've written much about the importance of small businesses to engage in social networking, specifically arguing that businesses should have a Facebook presence and should be active in LinkedIn. I've also written about the importance of engaging and interacting with others through Twitter. But until today, I've never really discussed the source of the true power of networking and how to unlock it. This discussion is long overdue.

During the early 1970s, a sociologist-in-training named Mark Granovetter was working on his doctoral dissertation at Harvard University. Granovetter was particularly interested in social networking:  specifically, he wanted to see how powerful the effect of a person's close interpersonal relationships, which he referred to as "strong ties," had on the person's ability to find a job.

Much to his surprise, however, Granovetter found that the effect of these strong ties was trumped by the effect of something else:  the "weak ties" that flowed from the strong ties. In other words, the subjects of the study were found to be more likely to secure employment through contact with people whom they may have never even met before than they were through their close interpersonal contacts. Granovetter published his findings in a 1973 article, The Strength of Weak Ties. To this day, the article retains its acclaim as being landmark scholarship in the field of sociology, specifically on the topic of social networking.


Never before has Granovetter's finding been more apparent than in today's world of ubiquitous social media networking. Consider the following discussion of how weak ties function in digital social networking:

This concept and its application in the digital age carry a few key takeaways. First, even though your strong ties may want to help you, they may not be in a position to. Because the number of weak ties will very likely exceed your number of strong ties (and probably by a lot!), the odds of a weak tie being more able to assist you are far greater. Second, if a strong tie is going to help you (find a job, for instance), that person necessarily has to put their own reputation on the line with a third party to do so. Contrarily, weak ties do not know you well--and they can offer that fact as a disclaimer whenever recommending you to a third party. Hence, their own reputation will never be at risk. Finally, weak ties do not require much of an investment of either time or effort. A weak tie may or may not choose to help you. But if not, very little was invested by the person reaching out to the weak tie.

Small businesses need to adopt the same approach. The "strength of weak ties" phenomenon is not limited to job searching. Rather, it is a model for reaching out to other people and organizations through existing strong relationships for the purposes of increasing sales, communicating with potential customers, establishing mutually-beneficial organizational relationships, and building valuable network capacity.

Those who pursue social media platforms for their businesses must understand that these platforms are tools of a greater strategy for driving business success as opposed to being ends in themselves. And within any such strategy, a failure to grasp the significance of weak ties will likely result in a failure to unlock the full potential of social outreach.

Status Updates, "Checking In," and the "Looking-Glass Self"

Statuses of significance?

A few weeks ago, one of my business school professors posed a question regarding why some people post "status updates" on their Facebook accounts. More specifically, the professor wanted to know the possible justifications for postings that just do not seem to be relevant or important (the example he provided was, "I just shaved my dog."). My guess is that virtually anyone who has regularly used a Facebook has encountered the postings of Facebook "friends" that carry equally questionable levels of significance.

The issue is interesting in part because there are compelling reasons for why people should not post on Facebook. Posting certain pieces of information or committing a Facebook faux pas might make you look dumb or annoying or will make your friends want to scream. And some websites warn you of all the terrible things that could happen to you if you share information on Facebook. Moreover, research by Harvard Business School professor Leslie John suggests that people generally underestimate the value of their personal information and fail to understand how it can be used against them.

What followed in class was a lively discussion among the students (who are almost exclusively in their 20s or 30s, and most of whom admittedly use Facebook) about the various reasons that people update their status.

We all acknowledged that many status updates are understandable. For instance, no one saw any problem with announcing one's engagement or one's decision to accept a job offer--such an update is a very efficient way to share relevant news with a potentially large number of friends and family members. However, we reached no consensus over any single driving force behind the sort of seemingly irrelevant posts ("I'm going out to prune the trees in my back yard now...") that some people like to post. Rather, we compiled a list of numerous potential reasons for such behavior.

The discourse revolving around this question was hardly confined to a Tuesday afternoon class at the Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School, though. Indeed, the phenomena associated with interaction on Facebook have been repeatedly studied. One project that surveyed roughly one hundred college students concluded that people who posted status updates regularly were less likely to feel lonely, regardless of whether others "liked" their status updates. Another study placed the onus on Facebook rather than the users, questioning whether the social media platform itself carried the effect of turning users into narcissists.

One possible reason that people update their statuses can be found in the concept of the "looking-glass self," introduced by sociologist Charles H. Cooley in 1902. The gist of Cooley's paradigm is that people view themselves in light of how they believe that others might perceive them. Cooley argued that we engage in a three-step process during which we first imagine how others might perceive us, then contemplate how others might judge us based on what they perceive, and finally react in some way. The reaction might take place in modifications of self-image or behavior or even both.

Of course, the Cooley model only goes so far in explaining the behavior of participants in social media platforms--and for some observed behaviors, it carries virtually no explanatory power at all. But it does tie in with one of the sources that we had been assigned to read for that class. In his article, "If you Love Something, Let it Go Mobile:  Mobile Marketing and Mobile Social Media 4 X 4," ESCP Europe Business School professor Andreas M. Kaplan discusses why individuals might "check in," or share via social media that they are at a certain location, be it an airport, a restaurant, a shopping center, etc... Kaplan notes that some social psychology literature has argued that people are generally more willing to reveal information about themselves that would allow them to be seen favorably by others. Indeed, Kaplan offers the example that an individual might be more likely to let others know that he/she is shopping at a glamorous fashion outlet than at a local grocery store, restocking for the week.

How do this theory and these tendencies tie in to small business? For one, if you're a small business owner (or an owner/manager of a business of any size, really), you need to enable your customers to check in at your location. Of course, your business will have to have a Facebook account first (which I've already argued is a no-brainer!). The good folks at Facebook will walk you through a step-by-step process to set up the check-in system. The start-up costs of doing this are minimal (just a little bit of your time), and no further maintenance is required. The benefit is that your customers will be able to let others know that they are patronizing your business.

Second, it is important to understand the social psychology of revealing personal information so that you can consider how effective the checking-in process might be for your business. If you buy in to the looking-glass self phenomenon, you might expect that Facebook check-ins might be more beneficial to you if you're selling Gucci handbags than if you're selling household cleaning products. Likewise, if you're managing a fast food restaurant, such check-ins are likely going to be less beneficial to driving revenue than if you were managing the local weekend dancing hotspot.

Having a social media presence is of paramount importance to virtually any business--though the associated returns will vary by business. But understanding the behavioral tendencies and motives of your client base is crucial to your ability to develop an effective social media strategy. The looking-glass self and the Kaplan observation offer a sound example of this need.

Tweets and Eats

A few days ago, I briefly discussed the fact that some small businesses are better suited to exploit the Twitter social media platform than others. But for some businesses, the power of Twitter is considerable--perhaps even inconceivable.

Area of Koreatown in Central Los Angeles

In a recent episode of currently-running CNN mini-series, Parts Unknown, noted chef and "life connaisseur" Anthony Bourdain examined the Koreatown area of Central Los Angeles. During the rioting in the aftermath of Los Angeles police officers beating motorist Rodney King and the subsequent acquittals in court of police officers and brass, Koreatown was under seige.

Korean-American store owners defend their livelihoods

Faced with an obvious lack of police presence, store owners of Korean descent banded together, armed themselves, and tried to defend their businesses, their homes, and their families. Some were successful in doing so, but not all. Many businesses were looted and/or set on fire by rioters. (If you're interested in exploring this further, you may wish to listen to the painful story recounted in this audio interview with Korean-American store owner Kee Whan Ha.) Mr. Ha describes the incredible frustrations associated with feeling abandoned by the Los Angeles Police Department, and then later by the failure of the Los Angeles Fire Department to respond either to their reports of buildings on fire or the death of the security guard of Mr. Ha's store.

Considering what Koreatown suffered during the riots--during which 58 people were killed--the area hardly seems that it would be a likely setting for the emergence of an enormously successful food truck business owned by a young Korean-American only two decades later. But this is exactly what has happened. During Bourdain's examination of Koreatown, he highlighted the tremendous success of Roy Choi, a food truck entrepreneur who later became a world-famous chef and multi-location restaurant owner. (Note: especially pertinent footage begins at the eight-minute mark of the segment)

And what has helped Choi to become so successful--and just as important--to maintain his success? TWITTER! As Bourdain describes Choi's Kogi truck business:  "Every lunch shift and every evening, the trucks' locations are sent out over Twitter. The locations change every day, and people flock quickly to find them, as the lines can get long--VERY long." Indeed, the video shows lines forming even before the trucks open for business, and Choi estimates that his trucks have had lines of as many as six hundred people at times. Bourdain also points out that food trucks allow talented individuals without substantial amounts of money to start food businesses and to introduce creative new products to the markets. Implicit in his message, though, is the enabling power that Twitter and other social media platforms can have in fostering the success of these entrepreneurs.


This business model of food trucks reaching out to potential customers via Twitter is hardly confined to Koreatown. Indeed, where I am based in the Baltimore metropolitan area, I can quickly find the constantly updated locations of my favorite food trucks. I can do so by one of two ways, sometimes depending on the actions of the food truck businesses themselves. First, if a vendor that I like has a Twitter account, I can simply become a follower of that business. If not, though, there are a number of Twitter accounts (such as @CHOWagons or @BaltimoreGal) set up by individuals ostensibly disconnected from the businesses themselves who use their accounts as platforms for food truck vendors to post their locations.

One of Roy Choi's trucks, open for business

What makes the operation of mobile food trucks so conducive to using Twitter as a social media platform? First, there's the undeniable fact that food has a limited life span as a product. Once it expires, so does its economic value. This fact provides incentive to food truck vendors to reach out to as many potential customers as possible as quickly as possible. Second, the disadvantage of not having a fixed location is effectively overcome by communicating to the customer base via Twitter. Historically, mobile food trucks have enjoyed the advantages of lower overhead costs (those associated with operating in a fixed location). But these advantages come at the cost of conceding the advantages of customer loyalty given the inevitable fact that customers will be less likely to know where to go to be a patron of the business. Consistent use of Twitter allows a mobile food vendor mitigate the tradeoff of "location ambiguity" while still enjoying the advantages associated with reduced overhead. Third, the medium acts as an enabling tool for mobility and spontaneity, increasing the odds of revenues being driven higher and also further perpetuating the popularity of the mobile vendor business model.

Again, Twitter is not going to offer the same potential benefits to various businesses. But clearly, mobile food vending and Twitter is a combination that was formulated somewhere along the path between the kitchen and the bank.

LinkedIn's Growth, and the Need to be "Linked In"

A sample of Pulse-shared stories

A few weeks ago, social media platform LinkedIn announced an agreement to purchase Pulse, the company that was formed by the creation of an app for smartphone browsers that is designed to better the display of news articles on handheld devices. Details of the deal include a purchase price of $90 million, of which $9 million will be in cash. The remaining compensation will consist of LinkedIn stock. The deal is expected to be consummated sometime during the second quarter of 2013.

The story of the creation of Pulse is a fascinating one. The company was founded in 2010 by two students, Ankit Gupta and Akshay Kothari, who were in their final quarter of studies in a MBA program at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. The two were taking a class called Launch Pad, which challenges students to create a new product within just ten weeks that could potentially be ready to be actively marketed (The course's slogan? "From zero to revenue in ten weeks.") Here's a brief recount of their story:

It isn't difficult to arrive at the conclusion that Gupta and Kothari were likely more successful than many of their classmates:  within several months, they had attracted some $800,000 in venture capital.

For Pulse and its employees, this transaction was perhaps the perfect unfolding of events. Indeed, while a large, publicly-traded company may invent products and other innovations, rarely is a single invention transformed into a large company. Any business plan that Gupta and Kothari may have formulated would likely have had some sort of exit strategy that discussed the sale of the company to a "bigger fish." However, they likely never envisioned a $90 million payoff just three years removed from graduate school.

Meanwhile, with over two hundred million members globally, LinkedIn is the dominant social networking platform for professionals and employers. The company was an immediate hit on Wall Street from the time of its IPO in 2011. Less than two years later, LinkedIn shares were trading at the close of business today at more than four times the initial price of $45. Given this meteoric rise and the company's cornering of the career-based social media niche, why would LinkedIn care about its members being able to view news articles on handheld devices?

The answer is that LinkedIn is actively transforming itself from a platform that simply introduces people to one another to a platform that allows its members to share information with one another. Networking for job placement necessarily limits the reach of LinkedIn. However, even those who are not actively seeking employment will be likely to engage in discourse with others if there is content of interest to be shared. If more people are sharing, then benefits of membership are increased for all, likely resulting in further growth for LinkedIn. 

While clearly shrinking in number, some small business owners may view LinkedIn as a platform that caters only to larger companies, and therefore, they dismiss its utility to small business. In fairness, such a sentiment does carry some merit:  LinkedIn's focus weighs more heavily on the accounts of individuals than it does the accounts of businesses, and it has predominantly been used by those seeking employment and companies searching for talent.

Those who adhere to their beliefs about the ineffectiveness of LinkedIn are missing the forest for the trees. LinkedIn is about networking and sharing information--something that even small businesses benefit from (consider this LinkedIn article discussing ten apps that can benefit small businesses). And now that LinkedIn has strategically positioned itself to oversee the sharing of information between its members, it is even more critical for small business owners and managers to participate in the social media platform.

LinkedIn is no longer about seeing what others have accomplished. Rather, it's becoming a tool for learning about how others have earned their successes.

To Tweet or Not to Tweet? That is the Question...

I vividly recall my initial curiosity about Twitter. A friend of mine, the publisher of a regional newspaper covering part of Maryland's Eastern Shore, had once opined to his readers that one of the things he liked was "planning to never use Twitter." Wanting to get a better understanding of just what this communications platform was all about, I ventured to the Twitter website to watch a short tutorial. I quickly dismissed Twitter as having little utility and being destined to have a short existence.

Boy, was I wrong. Twitter recently celebrated its seventh birthday, and is valued at roughly $10 billion. I suppose that rumors of its demise were greatly exaggerated. Somewhere, Mark Twain is smiling.

But my early observation about the utility of Twitter (or lack thereof) wasn't completely wrong, either. For many small businesses, Twitter is not a useful social media tool. For instance, during conversations regarding how various social media platforms might be used to promote our business and further drive sales, members of my family and I failed to see how we could employ Twitter in an effective manner. After all, our business sells products which do not expire and which do not change dramatically within short periods of time. If we were to "tweet" that we are now selling 24" x 36" inch oil paintings with white frames, is there really anything in this message that compels people to venture to one of our stores to go shopping?

Nonetheless, we have maintained what one might call a "whimsical" Twitter presence under the title @artsaleBABY since December, 2009. During this period, we have tweeted just over 400 messages. Sometimes, we tweet something meant to be funny or entertaining. Other times, we use the tweet to call the attention of our followers, directing them for instance to television or print media coverage of the business. But the returns are certainly intangible, and despite posting signs in our stores urging customers to "follow" Ocean Gallery on Twitter, we have attracted only nineteen followers in over three years.


While Twitter may not help some small businesses effectively reach out to their existing and potential customers, that's not to say that the platform doesn't help small businesses in other ways. For instance, the New York Times has created a small business Twitter page, @NYTSmallBiz, that allows small business owners to share ideas and news stories, as well as to pose questions to one another regarding small business issues. Subscribers "follow" the New York Times feed, which may prove to be a valuable source of information and guidance for some business owners.While we at Ocean Gallery do not follow the New York Times small business twitter account because we feel that much of the content is not applicable to a well-established business such as ours, we do recognize its usefulness for small business owners in general.

Of course, by no means is this an argument that Twitter can't help develop business. Consider this podcast interview with Mark Schaefer, author of The Tao of Twitter. In the interview, he explains that the key to effective usage of Twitter is found in creating an audience and expanding the network of the user. But how is this accomplished? Schaefer asserts that the true power of Twitter lies in the ability to "re-tweet" the tweets of others. Doing this has two benefits. First, you are effectively paying homage to the source of the original tweet, which puts you on the radar of the person or entity who first tweeted the material. Second, it demonstrates to your followers that you are "tied in" to a worthwhile network of valuable contributors, thereby creating more credibility for you. These two benefits simultaneously help you to build a worthwhile network.

However, Schaefer also offers caution about the use of Twitter by businesses, specifically about the expectations of a business's followers. For instance, customers who decide to tweet a concern or complaint about your business might expect to receive a reaction almost immediately. Moreover, the question of how to respond to an all-out rant by a customer via Twitter is one that is not easily answered. Much is left to the discretion of the business. Of course, a systematic failure to respond to complaints (and even rants) could prove disastrous to maintaining the loyalty of a business's followers.

There are plenty of reasons for a small business to use Twitter, and of course, there are reasons why Twitter might not be ideal for all small businesses. While I feel that the Ocean Gallery products are not especially conducive to the use of Twitter, one could mount a fair argument that our failure to further engage our customers through our tweets is to blame for our lack of success with the platform. Nevertheless, a Twitter presence can be a "winner" for a business if it understands the basics of communicating via Twitter and if it develops a proper strategy for employing the media platform.

A (Down) Under-Whelming Performance

Some folks just don't get it. In a post last week, I argued that having a Facebook presence is a must for businesses for many reasons, but especially because a basic Facebook page serves as a free advertising and networking tool. However, by no means do I limit my argument to consisting only of Facebook. There are many social media platforms--and no doubt, there will be many more to come--that can and should be exploited by businesses.

Obviously, the global use of social media outlets by businesses is going to vary by country. The determinative factors--such a nation's level of development, the public's access to the internet, and the popularity of (and even access to) various social media platforms--will vary by country.

One might predict that businesses in a developed nation such as Australia would have largely embraced the use of social media as a means of reaching out to and interacting with their existing customers--and their potential customers as well. Such a prediction, though, would be off-base:  results from a recent survey of representatives of 1,000 small and medium-sized businesses showed that only 24% of the businesses were actively using social media platforms in such fashion. Even more surprising were the results produced by a survey question that probed whether businesses felt that social media might have a negative effect on business:  12% of the respondents felt that their business efforts could be hurt by participation in social media.

The survey was conducted by an Australian business consulting company called Telstra Business, Australia's largest telecommunications company. Granted, as an internet provider, Telstra certainly has a vested interest in people and businesses accessing the internet. However, I'm not so sure though that this interest would be strong enough to cause anyone to question the validity of the survey's findings.

The survey results in Australia do indeed call for some head scratching. Many studies (including the Telstra study mentioned above) have produced estimates of the percentage of people worldwide using social media that exceed 60%. Moreover, it is intuitive to believe that the substantial upward trend in the global use of social media will only continue with time. Businesses that fail to grasp the realities associated with global internet trends and fail to seize the marketing and communications opportunities that the internet provides will do so at their own peril.

MySpace: Don't Go There...

"Don't go there? Why not?," you might ask. Because if you DO go there, the people that you're trying to reach WON'T go there.

Please raise your hand if you remember Betamax videotapes. If your hand is raised, it means that you're likely at least forty years old. It also means that you likely remember the showdown between VHS and Betamax formats.  By the late 1980s, the VHS format had emerged as the victor.

A similar battle once took place in the world of social media. Nearly a decade ago, MySpace.com was "where it was at." The website provided anyone with a platform for creating their own personalized website. It's user interface was simplistic (nothing like designing a web page in HTML code) and gave users great leeway as far as designing their pages went. For the most part, an individual's limitations of creative expression were the limits of what that individual could do in creating and maintaining his/her own "myspace." People flocked to MySpace.com to create their personal pages--especially individuals from younger generations. For a while, MySpace was the rage. In fact, Rupert Murdoch thought so highly of it that his NewsCorp Company purchased MySpace for $580 million in 2005.

Never wanting to pass up on something that is FREE, we at Ocean Gallery eventually jumped on the MySpace bandwagon to see what it could do for our business. Essentially, creating a page required a few hours of adding text and uploading photos. After that, we needed to check in once in a while to update information regarding celebrity artist appearances and other relevant news pieces.

The Ocean Gallery MySpace page as it appears today--last updated in 2009!

But it also required effort on our part to get the word out about our page. We placed signs in our stores, prompting our customers to search for "Ocean Gallery" on MySpace.com, and we repeatedly told people to "check us out" on MySpace. The problem wasn't that people didn't connect with our business through MySpace:  in fact, many people did. Instead, the problem was that once people did connect with our business through the social media platform, there was little reason for them to re-visit our page. Again, people visit websites for three primary reasons:  to gather information, to be entertained, or to purchase "things." The MySpace platform didn't provide us with the ability to directly sell our merchandise. Hence, our lures to people visiting our page were limited to entertainment and information. Given both that our company's "information" would change only minimally over time and that providing "entertainment" would be time-intensive with an unlikely promise of any suitable return on investment, we quickly began to doubt the logic of continuing to expend energy and time on maintaining our MySpace page. After all, after initially "connecting" to our page, what strong incentive would our customers effectively have to return to our page in the future? Moreover, aside from our encouragement for people to visit our page, how might people randomly find it? 

These problems were not unique to us. Nor were they unique to businesses. Indeed, the fundamental flaw of MySpace.com was--and is--that people must proactively visit a page, the existence of which they are already aware. This flaw was especially exposed by the rise of rival Facebook, a social media platform that automatically evaluates a user's social network and personal interests in order to deduce things about them. These deductions lead Facebook to be able to make "suggestions" for its users.

Hypothetically, if I had a Facebook page and "liked" (the platform's label for being connected to a non-person entity) the Ocean Gallery Facebook page, and I was also connected to a person named "John" through a "friend" connection, Facebook might send a message to John indicating that his "friend" Joey "liked" the Ocean Gallery page and suggesting that John might wish to "like" it too. The algorithms that Facebook employs allow for rapid increases in networking connections both between people and between people and businesses. This competitive advantage allowed Facebook to replace MySpace as the dominant social networking platform. Indeed, even Rupert Murdoch eventually waived the white flag:  NewsCorp eventually sold MySpace in 2011 for just $35 million.

The bottom line:  MySpace is clearly not an outlet that should be aggressively pursued by businesses looking to establish a social media presence. But there is one more thing to be mindful of:  even though VHS won the battle over Betamax (as Facebook ostensibly has over MySpace), the VHS platform eventually met its own obsolescence with the rise in digital technology.

Facebook (and business users of Facebook), beware...

Lesson One: You Gotta Have a Facebook Presence

Inevitably, we all have electrical appliances that stop functioning as they should. Those of us who can restrain ourselves from throwing the appliance off of the back deck in a fury will often consult with the owner's manual (in years past, a hard copy, but more often these days, a .pdf file produced by a quick internet search). The troubleshooting section of such manuals won't always solve the problem, but it's worth a shot.

But no matter whether it's our toaster that isn't working properly, or our television, or our refrigerator, or our vital coffee maker, our .pdf owner's manual always poses the same question first:  "Is the device plugged in?" And when we read it, we all have the same reaction:  "Well, DUH!!!!!"

Laugh it off, we do, thinking of the people who can't figure out why their blender isn't working when they haven't thought to plug it in first. But the same reaction should be given to pretty much any business owner who hasn't invested the nominal amount of time that it takes to establish a company presence on Facebook. A hypothetical conversation might go something like this:
Outsider:  "So, this is a nice little business you have here."
Business Owner:  "Well, thank you! We're trying..."
Outsider:  "Do you have a Facebook page up?"
Business Owner:  "No, we don't yet, but..."
Outsider:  "Well, DUH!!!!!"

Yeah, sure, Facebook has taken its lumps. The May 2012 IPO was a disaster, with the company's shares tanking almost immediately and subsequent shareholder-filed lawsuits. The dominant social networking company, led by twenty-something-year-old billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, seemed to suffer its first "come-uppance" in the financial world.

But no one should doubt the power of Facebook--especially its effectiveness as a social media tool for businesses of all sizes. Anyone who has fully participated in the social gathering that Facebook provides knows well the networking power that the platform offers. Even those people who have only dabbled in Facebook are likely to be aware of the software's objective of creating connections between users.

We launched the Ocean Gallery Facebook page several years ago--I'll discuss the page from time to time as I move forward with this blog series. Over time, we have posted a number of funny videos (including several of our past "crazy" advertisements, including the famous "bike jump off of the roof" video). We routinely post pictures of new artwork that becomes part of our inventory and celebrities that visit the stores. Some might ask, "Does it really help?" The more telling question might be, "How can it hurt?"

The Ocean Gallery Facebook page as of April, 2013.

There are two key reasons to establish and maintain a Facebook presence. The first reason is that it's FREE. Yes, you can spend extra $$$ to promote your business by placing advertisements along the sidebar, though the effectiveness of doing so has been questioned. But there can be no downside to having a free online presence. The second reason strikes at the heart of marketing fundamentals:  the more that you can place your company/brand/product before the eyes of potential customers, the more likely these potential customers are to think about your company/brand/product. It follows that the more likely people think about your company/brand/product, the more likely they are to consume your company's products and/or services. Ultimately, this becomes a "no-brainer."

If you're still not convinced about the utility of a Facebook presence for your business, well..... DUH!!!!!

Kicking off...

The business world (and the world at large) would be a much simpler place if conditions remained the same. Indeed, in a static environment, a business could formulate a marketing strategy, apply it to its strategic operations, fine-tune it initially as needed, and then sit back and enjoy the marketing "cruise control." How easy it would be...

Of course, such circumstances comprise a fantasy. Businesses operate in dynamic environments:  ever-changing on multiple levels. It follows then that business entities must not only adjust accordingly to changing environments, but must also try to anticipate and prepare for forthcoming changes. This need is especially pronounced in the exploding world of social media. Embracing social media as a means of advertising, promoting, and communicating with customers--both actual and potential--is a must for most, if not all, businesses. A failure to incorporate social media tools into organizational strategy represents a failure to seize an opportunity--and may render the organization susceptible to being surpassed by competitors who not make the same mistake.

So, who am I, and what makes me qualified to muse about the topic of businesses incorporating social media tools? I have spent much of my life involved in a family-owned, multi-store art retail business located in Ocean City, Maryland and Rehoboth, Delaware. I began helping my parents when I was very young--probably no more than six years old (Just ask my father about child labor laws--he'll tell you that the law is that "all children must work"). While I at times complained about what I perceived to be oppressive work conditions (ah, the overworked, underpaid child/teenager!), I was able to see years later the vast benefits that came to me from being immersed in the inner workings of a retail business.

A photo from 2006 of me with my wife, Katrina, in front of Ocean Gallery Fine Art Centers, Inc.

After years of involvement with the business, I chose to leave the operation and return to school at age thirty-nine for a change of pace and a new career/life direction. This year is my third year of a four-year, joint JD/MBA program through the University of Maryland Carey School of Law and the Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School. Admittedly, I had never envisioned being back in school at my age (especially with a wife and two young daughters in my life). But the move was the right one for me. My family had had a great run with the business for the better part of five decades. However, for the past several years, I had seen trends that spelled trouble for small-scale retail operations like my family's--and for brick-and-mortar retail operations in general.

Before leaving the business in 2010, I had pushed my parents initially to embrace the internet, and later, to incorporate social media outlets. The business had its first website in 1998--albeit a rudimentary, self-designed model. It was initially designed for entertainment and promotion more than anything else. At the time, we did not recognize what is almost universally recognized now--that people visit websites for three primary reasons:  to gather information, to be entertained, and to purchase things. While we initially offered some whimsical entertainment and some limited store information, we did not sell items on the website. A print framed with glass is not something that can be easily shipped (remember, there was a reason that Jeff Bezos started Amazon.com by selling books).

Over the years, we improved our website, eventually adding some of our products and upgrading content. Social media was the next step, and we were better prepared to seize upon the opportunities it presented than we initially had been with the proliferation of internet users. To this day, I continue to help out my family on the side (in between business case studies and legal case books), advising them as to how to make the most of social media outlets. I plan to use this blog to reflect not only on my family's personal experiences with the incorporation of social media to our business and marketing strategies, but to identify and discuss relevant trends involving social media and the internet in the business world at large. I hope that you will join in as I ramble on, and that the ride will be an enjoyable one for you.