Hi there. It's Sue. And thanks for joining me for tips and talk day. These are bite-sized topics that I pull from community questions and things that I'm observing in the world of handmade small business. If you'd like to submit a topic, DME over on Instagram at gift biz unwrapped way back in 1997, this new arena called social media arrived on the digital landscape. It started with a platform called six degrees.
You may never have even heard of that before then came things like my space, LinkedIn and Twitter, with the cute little bird. And of course, Facebook, which was actually started as a site for college connections. And didn't hit the mainstream until about 2008. Since that time, social media has been a fast inactive playground with new platforms, emerging, others dying.
Remember that brief run with vine and still others growing and morphine into versions that barely look like their original selves. They rise and fall in popularity and target audiences to think of what happened with Facebook. The platform wants being for the younger generations who have now mostly abandoned ship for Instagram and still other social media platforms get outright copied like reels, which of course rivals tic-tac.
And that's not all Instagram offers new features, but only to certain accounts. Facebook changes its page layout causing confusion. That requires us to relearn the app. Privacy policies are forcing significant changes right now. And Facebook and Instagram go dark for hours and everyone panics. This has all been happening since the beginning of it's still young life. Social media is pretty much synonymous with change.
That's great for people who teach us how to use all the various platforms, but not so great when we're trying to plan for our business visibility promotional posts. And when we want to run ads, the social media terrain is Rocky. For sure. So what's the answer. Just give up abandoned social media entirely. My answer to this may surprise you. It could be, yes. Sure. You can decide you're done with social. You're fed up with the constant change and feeling like you're at their mercy.
I think one of the biggest frustrations with all these adjustments is it feels like we're never in control and it's true. We aren't, I've seen several businesses do this recently give up and close the door to social. They still have account, but either aren't actively working them or doing the bare minimum just to keep them updated, believe it or not. There are also some who never entered the social media scene at all and are doing very well with sales. Thank you.
And so yes, your answer could be to close down the social rat race, but then what do you do? Well, depending on your business, you can attract customers in other ways, of course, brick and mortar shop owners and all those who sell wholesale, get visibility. The old fashioned way with walk by and drive by traffic and neighborhood promotional events that direct local customers to the strip malls and downtown shopping districts.
There are also farmer's markets, church bizarres and small and large craft shows, which also bring large groups of people together. So you can interact with them and sell face-to-face. There's also networking, which many of snub their nose at in favor of social media, but are now rethinking their actions. I, for one have seen networking to be the easiest way to bring in sales, particularly for new business owners, there are lots of benefits to networking. Once you get past those initial fears.
As a side note, I go through how to do this. Step-by-step in one of my mini courses. If you're interested, you can check that out at gift biz, unwrapped.com, Forrest slash network ninja. There you'll find all sorts of tips, like exactly what to say in your elevator speech and what to do when you walk in a room and don't know a single soul, I'm getting a little off topic here, but there are networking groups popping up all over national groups, like the chamber of commerce, BNI, and Nabo.
And if you check your local community, you're sure to find others. Some are for women, business owners, some are for the tourism industry. It really runs the gamut. My point here is these networking groups wouldn't exist if they don't work. And they're another option for your business growth, because social is still the new and popular approach. People have forgotten about some of these other methods. There's also email communication and even direct mail marketing.
Now having said all that, and even though, yes, you could abandon social media entirely. I wouldn't advise it. Social media can play a significant role in conjunction with these other types of sales avenues that I've mentioned. And I think this is where we've spun off track by relying on social so heavily for all our business acquisition efforts. What in the beginning looked like a fast track and the free way to attract a following was too good to last
forever. Now that things are changing, many of us feel cheated when in reality, we are the ones who substituted other business practices and put so much focus on social. Of course we need to stay with the times. If all you were doing was spending ad dollars on newspaper print space, right now you'd be way off track, but that doesn't mean your local newspapers can't play some role in your visibility, getting featured or being part of a community story that gets publicity is well worth it.
If your customers are primarily local as is sponsoring banners for a high school event or participating in the July 4th parade as a small handmade product business owner, you may not have thought of your business in the same way you think of your local bakery or gift shop. Why not? Even if you're a home-based business, your customers are out there wanting to support you.
And the only way to get those sales is to tell them about you and your products and social media should be part of your strategy to do that, but how you deal with all the changes without going crazy in a second, I'm going to share with you two solutions to keep it all manageable and balanced within the full scope of your marketing plan. Understand that social media is one solution.
When you aren't relying only on social media to attract new customers, capture sales and communicate with your audience. You're not at as much risk when things change or go dark. If you've been following me for awhile, you know, about the sales channel panel, a sales strategy that puts in place multiple avenues for visibility and sales that can be adjusted as required.
If your social sites are getting restricted, think the new Facebook ad privacy policies, no problem you up your intensity of emails or in person shows. Having a sales channel panel in place is a lifeline for your business, allowing you to weather any storm. Secondly, come to expect change from all social media platforms. When that change happens, approach it from a logical versus emotional perspective. How will the adjustments affect what you have in place?
What tweaks do you now need to make to accommodate for the changes? So you can effectively move forward. Remember change. Isn't an automatic default to bad. Lots of times change is good. We just don't like it because it causes disruption, particularly when it's so frequent and completely out of left field as often happens with social. I mean, who could have thought that Zuckerberg was going to go and change the name of his entire company?
As I wind down here, let me summarize by saying social media is an important part of any small business for wide variety of reasons, but don't rely on it as your single path to link you with your prospects and customers put together a healthy sales channel panel, including face-to-face shows, networking events, email marketing, a website, backed with rich search engine optimization. So Google can do its work.
And then of course, a few social media platforms as well, social media is here to stay and I anticipate that it will get even more fast and furious in the years to come. That's okay. I've just told you how to control the seemingly uncontrollable. That's a wrap. I'm a get to the point kind of girl. And this is what you can expect from these quick midweek sessions. Now it's your turn go out and fulfill that dream of yours. Share your handmade products with us.
We want them, and they bring us both so much happiness.