A guest blog from Gaynor Humphrey.
When you think of social media you may not instantly think of 2 middle aged, traditionally built women. However for Best Years, run by Gaynor (thats me!) and Liz, it has rapidly become an integral part of the marketing mix.
Best Years wholesale knitted and fair trade toys. As a small business in a sector dominated by large multi nationals we have had to carve a niche out for ourselves in order to survive and prosper. Our success is based on staying close to our customers’ needs. To do this we exhibit at 5 large trade shows a year and send out regular digital newsletters. We also use our website, www.bestyears.co.uk both to attract more customers and hold data on all our products.
Best Years do not supply our toys to multiple retailers preferring to concentrate on servicing the needs of the Independent sector although you can find our toys in reputable department stores such as John Lewis and Bentalls, and organisations such as National Trust and English Heritage. We are actively trying to move our ranges to Fair Trade suppliers where ever possible and have introduced 3 new fair trade ranges in the last 12 months.
Like most small businesses we had heard a lot of talk about social media and how important it was but did not understand how it could be of any use in the real world. Isn’t Facebook an application to help you manage your social life? And Twitter is just dominated by Stephen Fry and minor celebrities. How could they help you sell more or gain more customers?
Our initial move on to Twitter was customer driven. We thought it would be a good way to talk to customers using a media which was frequented by retailers we may not see in more traditional ways such as trade shows.
What we discovered very quickly is that Twitter is the most interactive way you can have to listen to your customers. It is incredibly responsive. Twitter can sometimes feel like eves-dropping on a gaggle of loosely associated businesses. Even when you meet customers at trade fairs it is a one on one conversation. Twitter allows you to hear the opinions of hundreds of potential customers on everything from your new products to customer complaints to how they are managing in the snow. As we moved in to more eco friendly and fair trade toys we were able to gather useful feedback on what was important to retailers and their customers, and what was perceived as less relevant
So how is Twitter useful to small businesses? We use it to listen to other small businesses, we use it to push traffic to our website and we use it to ask for feedback on new plans and products
Top tips when starting Twitter
- Like all relationships the more you put in the more you get back. Feed in industry gossip and statistics and your own thoughts on relevant topics you will be rewarded by relevant followers. If you constantly just push your own company people will be bored and the un-follow button is only ever one click away
- Volume is vanity. Many people push tools to gather followers, but having loads of dis-interested followers is not useful.
- Twitter is not a sales tool. Continually pushing sales messages is like cold calling at a party and should be avoided.
- There are some excellent applications such as who is twittering in your area www.twittermap.com and www.monitter.com where you can follow particular areas of interest
You can see all Best Years ranges and read our blog on our website, www.bestyears.co.uk
We would love to hear from you by telephone on 01327 262189 or email Gaynor@bestyears.co.uk
You can also follow us on Twitter – www.twitter.com/knittedtoys
