Local Social Media- Applications

Chris,
I keep being amazed at how parallel some ideas are.

I recently “discussed” the concept of creating this content as part of the local parish councils website.
It is on my todo list since I am a Local Parish Councillor for the Ward of Roffey North in North Horsham ( wow long winded ) one of my thoughts about getting the community involved as was to open them up to the idea of posting video blogs and comments about local issues and events. Phones with built in camcorders are almost defacto today. I’ll be passing this conversation onto a few more councillors. The timing of your post could not be better, thank you

Alang with the tattoo shop, I think it would be effective to ask customers to give a quick explanation of the tattoo they just received, why, what it means to them, etc. Give a more human face to the “product” in video.

I’ve been thinking more about this topic myself since the session Saturday at Podcamp on the subject

For a bar, “buy a friend a drink”: Prepay online for a drink, sending an email to the friend and setting up a gift certificate or tab at the bar. (Not really my idea — see http://www.buymeabeer.com) To make it more social, allow buyers to record or type why they’re buying to send to recipient.

For a coffeeshop, same as above but now it’s “buy a friend a coffee.”

It seems we are all on similar tracks. I agree with Michael that putting the human face to a business is the way to go.

I have been in talks with the owner of a local coffee shop about using a blog as their main web site. Incorporating podcasting (A day in the life of a barista), live stream (special events) and video (drink of the month) to give the business a more personal touch.

For me, getting folks to understand the new media possibilities for their business has been a challenge. All the who/what/why/when/how of utilizing these tools seems to stop the small business/entrepreneur from proceeding. I’d love to hear how other folks have gotten through it.

As a public official, it’s hard enough to get people to attend and comment in RL. I am a big fan of participation and encourage it with more open comments and bringing meetings into the community. The Internet and social network tools are a help, but they can also be a hinderance. When the local paper added commenting feature to all articles, the venom got so bad, that they had to add a confirmation registration (like email). That reduced the trolls, and left the remaining commenters to ‘reasonable’ people.

We are in the early stages of redesigning our board web site. We will likely include some socnet components. In all likelihood the people who interact will be same people who hit the other socnet and blogs in our community. For any new interaction, I believe you need to combine online and offline promotion and interaction to build a community. It takes effort, desire and dedication.

My question continues to be are the demographics of (our) local business owners such that they would “get” social media and be able to use it effectively, even with training. Most of the people I’ve run into who own / run local business are of an age group where they are proud to know how to boot a computer, how much will their customers really get out of incorporating blogging, twittering, etc into their website. Is it just another way for us to make money trying to get these folks to commit to using these tools or would they actually be effective in creating brand loyalty and a draw for new customers? If the payout isn’t immediately apparent, I would say most won’t go through the hassle of learning to use it and creating content.

The trick is relevance. I met some people at a conference from a Chamber of Commerce, thinking about adding a blog- an attempt to try anything to make themselves more relevant to the non-grey haired crowd. A blog might work, but a wiki for posting special events for local businesses might work better. They should want members to come to their site, but also everyday people, and use it as a hub for what’s happening, big and small. Members might be the only ones able to post events on the wiki, to encourage membership.
If there’s no value add, don’t do it. If you can do outreach, widen your appeal, and appeal to the already content insiders, you have a winner.

@Max Web- that’s why the commoncraft videos are so great- they explain all these “new media” topics in layman’s terms- even my kids get them, as well as my mom and mother in law- the 60+ set.

I just wanted to chime in and say that I absolutely *love* Cynthia’s idea about being able to buy someone a coffee/beer at a place near them. Especially if I could do it instantaneously. It would be great to be able to do this if I happen to know that they’re at a particular establishment that very moment (if they’ve told me via Twitter, for example).

Imagine Twittering that you’re at The Common Ground in Portsmouth, NH and suddenly finding out your latte’s been paid for by a friend in Wisconsin. Pretty darn cool.

Is anyone doing this?

-Jon

Okay, there’s no Common Ground in Portsmouth. Cafe Brioche, then. You get the point.

-Jon

Jon, that’s a neat addition. I also like the idea of a “CoffeeCam” that shows the line at a coffee place — then it would be easy to buy something for someone you know or wish you knew.

I’ve discussed the CoffeeCam with the owner of the local independent coffee shop (Cummings Candy & Coffee, Butler, PA), and he liked it but worried a bit about privacy issues. As it is, regulars often buy a coffee for fellow regulars they know (or think) will be arriving later in the morning. So there’s a tie-in to existing behavior.

If there were a way to do it that didn’t bother those who don’t want to be on camera, that would be cool. Bringing in Twitter might help with that.

This is great! I’m in marketing, and I sometimes have trouble coming up with ways that local businesses can go online (falling back, against my will on the old standards like Yellow Pages and magazine ads). This is expanding my thinking on the topic, and should help me come up with new ideas!

Just imagine: in a few years, social media will be ingrained in the way everyone markets their business! I can’t wait for that day.

Susan Payton
Egg Marketing & Public Relations
http://www.eggmarketingpr.com
http://www.eggmarketingblog.com

There’s a bar/restaurant in breckenridge called Downstairs at Erics that has a webcam on the bar so you can see who’s there!

I agree with Max when he points out the question continues to be the average demographics of local business owners and I add politicians. That’s why I do really belive we should work with teens and get them involved much more in community life. They’ll be the future businessmen & pol.s

What are some tools online that are easy to use for a small business to build an online community? (more functional than a blog)

Justin, we are beginning to use WordPress as a content management system for all our small business clients. You can create pages in WP just like the static pages in any website, and then have the blog for news, events, announcements, etc. You can set any page as the home page of the site, so the site doesn’t look quite so bloggy. And because WordPress open source and widely used, there’s a robust community of people to help expand and support it.

The great part with most of these social media applications are that they are free or nearly free to use. Small business owners are the closest to the ground and should be the ones that learn to use and adapt to these tools first. I would agree with the thought that these tools are scary at first and they have somewhat of a learning curve, but I have to say that they are totally worth spending time with. Building a reputation as an expert in your niche market will pay off many times over.

My 2 ideas –

* Local landscaper doing a video series on his blog/community site/YouTube showing you how to plant and landscape your garden.

* Social Media consultant to small business owners.

My Site – http://www.onehalfamazing.com focusing on e-marketing, social media and web design.

please contect me
m tech computers