I know it has been a little while since my last post , but now that everything is coming together I will be able to spend a little more time connecting with you and a little less time in some sort of aimless frenzy !
The trick is definitely the ability to prioritise when you are a one woman all singing all dancing show, but as well as that, I have learned that keeping in contact with people is all-important which is why I thought I would blog about "Social Networking Sites" this time.
It's not like the old days when shops were a bit snooty and distant and customers were a fly in their ointment that needed getting rid of as painlessly as possible after parting with their cash , these days being a friendly and accessible face of the business is invaluable to it's success. I learnt some of those principles whilst working behind a bar for several years - people like to see the same friendly face, have a chat and they REALLY like it if you remember them...transfer that to a retail environment and you have yourself a regular customer.
Whilst working on LovesVintage43 I have been like a sponge, absorbing everything and it's sort of like going back to my youth because I'm more in touch with what's going on in the world than I have been in years! The first thing I did before even setting up the website was registered and set up pages with all of the Social media sites I could - I already had facebook so I set up a business page on there, but there are many others- some that have not become popular yet in the U.K. like Pinterest, tumblr and Stumble Upon. I have pages with all of them, and have posted some content on all, and do the rounds so that people know that I do exist! I have seen some Twitter accounts and tumblr pages which have had no content added in months- this gives such a bad impression to new visitors- better to remove the page than let people think you have been sucked into a black hole !
The one that has been the most successful and rewarding so far has been my facebook page because if you use it well, it can really get your name out there and connect you with many other like minded people, which is great because they know exactly what you are going through and can be very supportive and help promote your business too ! There are also special pages on facebook run by other business owners which are dedicated to helping you meet other small business owners and to get "likes" for your page . I have made new friends around the country and overseas through using these pages- if you are a business owner and you haven't yet set up a facebook page, you really must do it- do it now in fact!!- it takes 5 minutes.
It's a little overwhelming when you first set up all of these things, but once you know how they all work you can get your own little timetable running in your head as to when to link up with each one- the good thing is, some of them link together. What I'll do is close this now so I don't go on and on too long, but on my next blog I will give you some more details of what I have discovered with these invaluable tools and some handy tips and gadgets you can get to help you maximise the potential- I'm not claiming to be the Social Networking guru but I just love to pass on good ideas and I'd love it if it helped someone.
That's what I like about small business owners- they seem to care more about being a community of likeminded peeps rather than competitors and I must be an old hippie at heart because I like that a lot.
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