Media’s Role in Small and Midsized Business Success (or failure)

Media (communication) has been for the last 100 years one of the key factors of success for any business. The process seems to go as follows:

1. Big businesses figure out new uses for media – because they have time and money to hire experts to see what’s coming next, and the resources to really dive into the new media effectively
2. SMB’s don’t have the time or money to see as far ahead, since they’re too busy running their daily business
3. SMB’s see big businesses changing to adapt, then feel compelled to compete with big business on their terms, but cannot
4. SMB’s struggle, and sometimes fail

To prove my point:

1970’s – 1990’s Broadcast advertising

1. Big business figured out that they could drive demand to their local stores/franchises through national advertising campaigns with high production value and massive reach (think Wendy’s “Where’s the Beef?”)
2. SMB’s tried to do their own local advertising campaigns that were expensive, innefective, and generally were not as clever to an audience used to professional media
3. Times were tough for local burger joints

1994-2001 Web 1.0

1. Big business figured out that, by selling on the internet and by correctly configuring their supply chain, they could sell products to people at lower costs and with greater convenience than most local stores (think Amazon.com, Outpost.com, DELL, BestBuy etc)
2. SMB’s tried to move to online selling and to competing on cost
3. Times were tough for local book, computer and electronics stores

2007-present Web 2.0

1. Big business has looked ahead and realized that a) customers are increasingly connecting with people and businesses through social media, b) employees are increasingly using social media inside and outside of their jobs and c) with web 2.0 and supply chain improvements, even a big business can plop a small local version (Starbucks, Wal-Mart Neighborhood Markets, Dunkin Donuts) of a store in a local neighborhood and create community and customer loyalty (MyStarbucksIdea.com, Dunkin Donuts YouTube Channel, Dunkin Brands Serving Heroes Site, etc). They are just now trying to figure out how to use this new medium for their advantage.
2. SMB’s will have to adapt and compete again (ending to be determined)

What do you think will happen this time around? Will SMB’s be able to jump out ahead of big business?

As a way of exploring the social media space, please feel free to jump in and brainstorm some creative uses of social media at our “think-up” to finish the sentence: “The craziest/wackiest BUSINESS use of social media I can think of is..” Share your response here.

Find and Promote Social Objects to Improve Your Business

“Social Objects” are everywhere, and may be the key to the success of many products and businesses. The theory of “Social Objects”, though based in a lot of great Anthropological study from the 1900’s, and recently laid out nicely by Jyri Engestrom with respect to social media, is perhaps even more relevant today, and can be attributed to the runaway successes of businesses like YouTube.com, Flickr.com, Fantasy Sports, Apple, Starbucks and lots of others.

Since the main audience for this blog is a bit more results-oriented than semi-geeky academics like myself, i’ll quickly share the common-sense approach to the theory. Here it is, based on 2 premises:

Premise 1: Humans have a hard time relating directly to one another. Instead, we tend to relate through or around social objects. Most events where 2 or more people are involved occur around a meal, a movie, a sport, a candidate or a location. It is extremely rare that two people will just sit and talk about each other.

Premise 2: Humans like to share social objects for free. A story about a great (or a lousy) movie, meal, celebrity, product, device or service serves as the “social object” that helps people to relate to one another. It therefore does not usually require (though sometimes that can be useful) a discount, payment or other monetary benefit in order to be shared.

Here are 4 simple tips (based on Jyri Engestrom’s excellent presentation) on how to turn social objects loose in a business through online and offline channels (which should both be utilized if at all possible).

1. Be on the lookout for social objects. What are employees or customers talking with each other about in your business? Are people blogging (google your business to find out), commenting (check your suggestion board), twittering (use www.summize.com to search for your business on twitter) about your hamburgers? Your employees? Your excellent customer service? The photos on your website? A recent concert at your venue? These are all social objects, and they’re everywhere if you look hard enough.
2. Promote community around social objects. Once you’ve identified a few objects, promote community around them. Are people talking to each other about your yoga class? Find a way to allow them to continue those relationships outside of the class through a saturday yoga mini-conference, or a think-up on BigTreetop.com to get ideas for how to make the class better, or encourage them to post their photos or experiences or thoughts on your blog or through Twitter.
3. Allow people to share the object. People tend to want to share social objects. Is your fantastic hamburger a social object? Provide them with a way to tell their friends by posting an experience and a photo online, or by giving a printed card to friends inviting them to try it.
4. Turn invitations into gifts. To make the act of sharing even more fun for the sharer, give them a way to share their social object as a gift. Instead of providing a customer with a discount for telling her friends about your fantastic new coffee blend, find a way that that invite means a discount or a benefit for the friend instead.

* AP Photo above from Mike Ditka’s Restaurant in Chicago

Internet Communities Are Not Real Communities

I’ve spoken with a lot of people about the Internet over the course of the last 10 years, and heard a lot of views about its impact on just about everything – family, democracy, learning, etc etc. A particularly interesting (though frustrating to me) vein of thought, though, has to do with the business-to-consumer relationship, and it goes something like this (paraphrased):

“These new Internet communities are not real communities. They’re just a bunch of computer geeks and kids with nothing better to do. My business is based on real customers and real employees, so the Internet isn’t really a part of how we need to communicate with our community.”

Though this may surprise some folks who assume, since i am currently working on a PhD in HCI and starting an internet-based company, that i am one of those computer geeks with nothing better to do, i actually agree with the basic premise of this statement. Of course internet communities are not real communities, any more than hand-written letters from my wife are the actual person, or a cave painting of a deer hunt is the actual deer hunt.

But that first person who depicted a deer hunt on the wall of a cave discovered something important: Cave paintings were a powerful medium that helped to sustain a real community. You see, through her paintings, that first cave person was able to communicate something to other cave people that enhanced their real relationship, whether or not they were in the same place at the same time. The painting might have told others of her hunting prowess, or of the number of deer that are in the area, or about her family. Her paintings might have spurred later ideas for new hunting methods when other community members looked at it at a later time. The painting also might have served as a reminder to herself the following year of the typical herding patterns of the deer in that area. With this in mind, i would like to dispel the fairly common myth that the Internet is a new fad-like thing whose novelty undermines it actual value, when actually..

The underlying community value of the Internet is not that new. In fact, it’s much like the community value of cave painting – or of other, older forms of communication!

Through the internet, real relationships in real business communities are enhanced and extended by allowing people to communicate whether or not they are in the same place at the same time. Through online communities, businesses and customers are able to enhance their real relationships, not replace them, and those relationships, once extended beyond the time and space of a physical, “real” business relationship, can extend the reach, community awareness, and knowledge of a business community – just like that first cave painting did for the cave person.

Make Your Small Business the Next Google

Alright, so perhaps the title is a little grandiose, but small businesses and organizations can definitely learn a thing or two by using some of the methods that successful companies like Google have used to get where they are. Here are the important points:

• Google was once a small business
• Google has come up with lots of innovative new ideas
• Many of those ideas have occurred as a result of their “20 percent time” policy, which encourages its engineers to spend one day a week working on their own projects, unrelated to work – including AdSense – one of their most lucrative products, which brings in a large part of their > $1billion in quarterly revenue
• What could happen in other small businesses if they also paid employees to be creative?

Now, before small business folks get their hackles up, i am well aware that for most small businesses, allowing their employees to spend 20 percent of their time on things that don’t make immediate money is probably not a wise business decision. Joe’s Sports Bar is not Google – it’s an entirely different business model. But there are some similarities. Both have employees who have some creativity in them – even part-timers. Both organizations must innovate to thrive, and should always be looking out for competitive advantages by creating new products, services or experiences. A big similarity between Google and Joe’s is the need for real commitment to employee innovation and involvement. Here’s why:

If Google were to have merely hoped that their engineers would produce the next great new Google product nights and weekends, they probably would not have AdSense today. Similarly, if Joe’s Sports Bar merely hopes that its employees will come up with fresh new food, service or entertainment ideas on their off-shifts, they might be missing out on the next great product or service as well.

Here are some ideas for how small businesses might adapt the Google recipe of commitment to achieve breakthrough results – many of them with the help of BigTreetop.com, which is designed for the efficient generation and voting of new ideas as a community:

• Pay employees to spend 15 minutes per week logging in to BigTreetop.com to share their stories, ideas and votes with the community ($2-5 week?)
• For businesses without employee computers, put a simple used internet-enabled computer ($200) in the employee break room or office and pay employees post an experience or idea at the end of each shift
• Give a cash reward, choice of shift or day off to any employee who has their idea implemented in the business
• Give all employees a small percentage of the profit for a product that they collectively develop and implement

The obvious upsides to this sort of approach are more involved, happier employees, better products, and a more developed ability to adapt to the market - especially when using a platform like BigTreetop to vet ideas with both customers and employees. There is no downside except for a small investment in the form or employee pay or rewards.  Google seemed to think that was worth it, and it’s worked pretty well for them so far..

What do you think? Are these ideas feasible? What are some other ways a small business could achieve similar results? Are any of you using good methods now to innovate your small business?