small business

Orange County, California (April 18, 2011) – Brian Geary Consulting has begun a new blog series for small companies interested in using social media to promote their businesses. Titled, “Unsocial Social Media”, the blog addresses the challenge of limited time that small businesses encounter when approaching social media. The blog ideas offer a viable way for these businesses to begin building a presence on social media websites.

Conventional social media participation is based on developing online relationships. “The online, relationship building process requires more time,” explains company spokesman Brian Geary, “than most small businesses have.” Furthermore, the opportunity cost of participating in social media relationship building can be high, especially if there is no immediate or proximal benefit. The “Unsocial Social Media” blog series shares ideas on how small businesses can benefit from social media while remaining unsocial in the sense that they are not developing conventional, online relationships.

Blog posts in the series will include topics such as multi-use content, website design for social media integration, audience identification, it's not about you, content value, maker or faker, opinion or analysis, and push or pull distribution.

Geary acknowledges that social media experts may not agree with encouraging social media newbies to ignore relationship building. “It's not an issue about ignoring relationship building,” defends Geary, “but rather an issue of how to get started using this new media.” The unsocial social media members are no different from lurkers on forums and other types of message boards. “They are all part of the social media market,” notes Geary, “and their presence is integral to the success of social media.” “Presently, the early adopters that populate social media are a homogeneous group,” continues Geary, “these new participants, no matter how unsocial, are needed to provide more commercial diversity in social media.”

Many small businesses struggle trying to figure out how to use social media. Those simply creating an account and thinking customers will follow are quickly learning that cultivating connections or friends online requires an ongoing effort.

The social media consultants will tell you that to make social media work for you, you must be social and create relationships. Inviting connections and joining groups based on education, careers, employers, interests, or location are just some of the ways to make contacts. Can't find a group you like? Start your own and begin inviting others to join.

Just joining a group or creating connections, however, accomplishes very little. You, your connections and fellow group members must participate. This is where being social and building relationships becomes possible and necessary.

But increasingly, small businesses are questioning the time required to do this. Creating relationships online is not only a very time consuming activity, but also needs to be conducted by an articulate and empowered member of the business. In other words, unless you have an appropriate professional on staff it will probably be left to you. It's no wonder many companies remain unsocial in social media.

So what can an unsocial business accomplish using social media? Plenty. I'll discuss some strategies for promoting your small business without having to become a full-time social media relationship manager in my upcoming blog posts.