PR 101

The key to social media success is building a community of like-minded people. If you are in business, what you want people to do is like and trust your company or your product. If you are an individual, you want the community’s members to like each other. In both cases, the key to building that community is giving people a reason to join and a reason to stay.

Let me use a non-internet example of how to build a community, how to keep it going, and how that builds a successful business. The example applies to social media. I will explain how in a bit. I am using this because it was my first experience with building a social community – although the internet was 20 years away at the time.

I grew up in a small town in upstate New York. (When I say upstate, I mean almost 200 miles north of New York City. Westchester County is not upstate). The two-century-old village of Ballston Lake had a population of about 900 people when I was there in the 1950s and 1960s. Most of the families, mine included, had lived there for generations. When I saw the play “Our Town” for the first time, I thought playwright Thornton Wilder had been spying on Ballston Lake.

This where I grew up - Ballston Lake, NY

The village had six businesses: Ketchum’s Hardware Store, Sauer’s Gas Station, a small restaurant/bar, Etchibelli’s Pizza Parlor, a barbershop and Fanning’s Market.  It is Fanning’s I want to talk about it because I worked there while I was in high school.  A retired Navy Chief Petty Officer- John Fanning – ran the store with his wife Florence. There were six other employees.

Like a lot of other communities at the time, the areas around the village were rapidly suburbanizing. General Electric operated one of the largest industrial plants in the world 10 miles down Route 50 in Schenectady. The state capital of Albany was 20 miles south on the newly constructed freeway known as the Northway because it went all way to Canada. These brought a lot of people into the area.

Following those new families were the chain grocery stores – stores seven or eight times the size of Fanning’s Market. Their prices were lower and they had a much larger selection. They advertised in the local newspapers, on radio, and on television. John Fanning didn’t do any of that.

Yet, Fanning’s Market thrived. Saturdays you could barely walk the aisles because the place was so full. It was almost as busy every other day.

So how did John Fanning beat his much larger, better-financed competition? He built a community around his store. We had hundreds of regular customers. We knew their names and their wants. Head butcher Leo Dion knew Mrs. Nelagar liked smaller lamb chops because she was a widow. I knew Mrs. Gibelius preferred three bags, even though her groceries would fit into two.

Customers loved that all our meat was cut to order. I do not remember us selling any prepackaged meat.

The store was also a place to come to find out what was going on in the community. When was the Town Board going to repave Eastside Drive? Or man, was that a big snowstorm yesterday. Dates were made there, parties arranged, and people comforted during tragedies.

John Fanning spent every day in that store talking to customers. He always knew what they liked and what they didn’t like.

He also did one other thing. He knew his market. The area I grew up in a area that is part of New York’s apple producing region. There were a number of orchards in the area that sold fruit and related items. John never tried to compete with them. He knew his community. He knew they wouldn’t like it if he tried to take on another community they cherished.

Of course, we all lived in the area, so we knew all about customers. John Fanning was a member of the Fire Department and a number of other organizations. He helped sponsor the annual Fire Department Clambake. He couldn’t get away from his customers, but then he didn’t want to. He knew the only way to keep that store successful was to know what people were saying and what they wanted.

It worked the other way. Every time a new customer came in, we would ask how they heard about us. We weren’t exactly on the main road. We were in the “downtown” of a small village. Inevitably, we heard that a neighbor had told them about how the store. John Fanning always made it a point to thank those people for coming. And to thank the neighbor who sent them. In fact, he thanked every customer who came through the double glass doors.

That, in a rather large nutshell, is social media. It is all about building community and giving that people a reason to trust you. If they trust you, they will do business with you. They will tell their friends to check your website or read your posts. You build trust by providing value and knowledge. John Fanning did that because he talked to his customers everyday. They trusted our products and service would be better than other places they could go – even though we cost more.

You can do the same in a virtual way by using social media tools. By blogging, podcasting, and posting videos on YouTube, you demonstrate value and knowledge to your readers. By reading and commenting on posts on Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media you show interest and knowledge. In addition, by reading the comments on your blog and on social media sites, you know what people are thinking. By retweeting what others say on Twitter, you show you care what they think.

By doing that, you find out what your potential customers want and need. You will give them a reason to shop your store. You have given a reason to follow you.

Some notes for my readers: I am considering giving away five half hour social media, public relations or marketing consultations. That’s right, a free 30 minute discussion about something that will help your business. Doesn’t matter where in the world you are – Skype is a wonderful thing. If you are interested, please leave a comment.

Second, the second installment of our social media book club will be broadcast Wednesday, Sept. 30 at 8 pm CDT (GMT -6) on Blog Talk Radio. We are discussing part two of Australian social media expert Simon U. Ford’s book: Social Traffic: Marketing In A New Media Scape. Simon is my social media mentor. If you are interested in joining us, let me know. I will send you Parts One and Two of the book and the url for the first show and for this weeks show.

Third, if you are interested in an in-depth, intensive social media training course, follow this link to the Social Media Boomers website. That’s a social media group to which I belong. Follow the link there to Social Traffic Inc. and check the various social media training modules. This is a course created by Simon Ford. I am a graduate of this course. It is intense and not for those who just want to dabble in social media. But if you want to have your brain expanded and really learn social media, this is the course for you. It takes 10 weeks, and it will make you an expert.