We've heard about the social media success stories of large companies all across the news. Best Buy's Twelpforce. Zappo's amazing customer service. The millions of revenue from Dell's twitter accounts. And that's all great. But what about the thousands of small businesses hurting after the economic dip in 2009? Can social media affect their bottom line? YES, when businesses engage in social media with strategy and put real resources into the infrastructure and implementation.
To prove social media can work for small business, The Kreisler Group (TKG) performed a 10-week case study with Alegria Cocina, a local restaurant in Long Beach, California from August 30-November 7, 2009. TKG worked with Alegria's management team to first learn about the culture of the restaurant, its offerings and to refine the messaging we would be disseminating through social media in the weeks to come.
Throughout this 10-week process, social media (facebook, twitter & flickr) was the sole distributor of outgoing information for the restaurant and we worked with management to track sales and revenue. TKG was able to take the 'theory' of social media for small business and produce double-digit percent increases in revenue for Alegria and was also able to define specific roles social media can facilitate.
Sales Analysis
TKG analyzed the case study data and compared it to the same 10 week period one year earlier in 2008. After comparing the data, Alegria's sales had risen by 10.33% in comparison to the same time period in 2008. This sales increase also came during a time when consumer spending had dropped nearly a full percentage point.
Roles Social Media Can Play For Small Business
Throughout the case study TKG was also able to affirm 6 additional roles social media could play in addition to being a sales/revenue generating tool for small business.
1) Building Loyalty & Brand Recognition: Sending out promotions via social media allows the user to experience the exclusivity being a follower or fan brings. Consistently messaging with new and updated information/content allows the audience to keep the establishment top of mind and interact more frequently.
2) Word of Mouth Magnified & Communicating in Real Time: Sharing and re-tweeting have become an essential part of social media culture. Investing time and effort into creating incentivizing promotions and quality content can and will be spread from audience members. Search technology can also help businesses target consumers with specific needs in real time. People are updating and tweeting about needing your service or product right now. Are you communicating back?
3) Customer Service: Because of social media's real-time capabilities, businesses can now also react in real time to customer service inquiries. Did a customer have a great experience? Great, share that with your audience and potential new patrons. Did a customer have a negative experience? Communicate with them directly to alleviate any issue and see how the business can help resolve any conflict.
4) Public and Media Relations: With the addition of the 24 hour news cycle and the decline of print publications, news is becoming more hyper-local and online. Every metropolitan has dozens of websites dedicated to local beats and news because of the low overhead of starting a blog or website. Long Beach also saw its share of online news outlets, and all of them promoted their respective website via social networking. Thus, social media has provided a new way of pitching and sending information to journalists and publications.
5) Collaboration of Ideas & Networking: Listening to a business' audience can be just as important as disseminating information via social media. Through connections made via social media, Alegria was able to introduce successful new promotions and events through audience suggestion. Businesses can also obtain customer feedback in a number of ways including other online services such as yelp.com or foursquare.com.
6) Becoming an Expert or Pundit in Your Field: Facebook's News Feed and Twitter essentially act as mini-blogs and can elevate an individual or business as an expert in the respective field. For example, Alegria Cocina specialized in Latin American cuisine and dancing. TKG was able to communicate the knowledge of those topics to an audience that was interested in that subject matter. It helped bring credibility to the restaurant and can help bring credibility to a business.
In conclusion, TKG saw an immediate positive impact generated by the buzz of social media within sales, brand recognition, lead generation, customer service, public relations and networking for small business. To get a closer look of our strategies and tactics implemented through social media campaign, check out our full case study here.
http://www.kreislermediagroup.com/images/social_media_case_study.pdf
-Geoffrey Kutnick
New Media Specialist
The Kreisler Group
@GeoffreyKutnick