4 Keys to Using Social Media for Small Business Marketing

/ Social Media /


In the book Good to Great, Jim Collins wrote about Dave Scott, the legendary six-time champion of the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon. Scott would train by riding his bike 75 miles, swimming 20,000 meters, and running 17 miles every single day (on average). He obviously didn’t have a problem with his weight. Still, he felt a low-fat, high-carb diet would help give him an edge. Thus, Dave Scott would rinse his cottage cheese to get rid of the extra fat. There’s no evidence that doing this helped him win all those Ironman Triathlons. But it was one small step that he believed made him better.

The reason I bring this up is that taking care of such minute details is what the ultra disciplined do. It’s what the elite performing companies (and individuals) do. But it is part of an evolution. There is a ton of advice for small business (much of it free) on how to create a marketing plan, use social media, or how to run a business. Some of it is good fundamental advice. Some of it is very much like rinsing cottage cheese.

As much as I would like to believe it to be true, rinsing cottage cheese isn’t going to help me win any kind of race. I would have to first put in a lot of hard work, discipline myself to follow a plan, and work hard to achieve some much less, minor goals.

If your small business is getting into the realm of social media and Internet marketing, if you’re drinking up all the Internet gurus have to say, remind yourself that it is important to take a first step. In fact, below are four key aspects that you should fully embrace as you start using social media:

  1. Start with a blog. Discipline yourself to write in it everyday.
  2. Understand the three rings of social media: publishing, sharing, networking and know when to use them.
  3. Identify which tools affect which area (or ring).
  4. Create a process that will allow you to understand why you are doing things and why it’s working (or not working).

With these fundamentals under your belt, it now becomes possible to refine your efforts, to improve on your performance, increase your ROI by another .1% and bring your organization to another level. In other words, now you can start to rinse your cottage cheese.