Blogging, Social Media, and Relationship Skills: Small Business Triple Threat

What excites me about Ann-Mary is how convinced she already is of the power of blogging and social media in today’s small business culture. Because she’s also a Public Relations professional, she knows how vital relationship skills are in driving a business’s marketing efforts. Ann-Mary is exactly the kind of woman I wrote about in “Generation and Gender Gaps: Outbound vs. Inbound Marketing” — the fact that she’s from an older generation that’s accustomed to traditional forms of marketing and advertising doesn’t hold her back from jumping into the realm of social media and blogging, because she’s already attuned to the importance of building and nurturing relationships simply by virtue of her gender (I hope this doesn’t get me branded as sexist!).

New England Multimedia uses social media and blogging to build reciprocal relationships and educate prospects

Still, even without using every tool at my disposal, and spending too much time on one thing and not enough on another, the impact blogging and social media have had on New England Multimedia has been dramatic, most notably for the relationships we’re building with people in our target market. We’re seeing relationships become leads, and leads become conversions, in ways that simply aren’t possible without these platforms.

How about you? How are you seeing relationship skills, social media and blogging change the landscape of marketing and PR?

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Michelle handles all Social Media for New England Multimedia. You can contact her by email, on our Facebook, or on our Twitter.

Take a look at two different websites, both with equal years in their respective industries, both delivering the same quality of products and services, with one crucial difference: one uses a personal video greeting from the “face behind the business” and the other uses only static images and text.

Click on the images or the company names to see the difference:

Website #1: Rhode Island Kitchen & Bath

Website #2: Ocean State Kitchen & Bath, Inc.

Were you compelled to click on the video on Rhode Island Kitchen & Bath’s landing page? If you were looking for a remodeling company, which of these two businesses would you feel most comfortable with?

Rhode Island Kitchen & Bath knows the value of using web video to enhance their image as a trusted remodeling company. Visiting a website without a personal video greeting is akin to walking into a showroom or store and finding no one there to greet you. If your visitors don’t see what they want right away, and there’s no one there to greet them and welcome them, they turn around and walk out the door.

However, when a friendly, confident business owner greets a potential customer immediately, the visitor is inclined to stick around and go deeper into the showroom — and perhaps become a customer.

On the internet, the same principle of human interaction applies. Your website is your showroom, and a polished web video greeting gives your visitor a virtual experience of interaction with you, the spokesperson for your brand. Delivering a friendly personal greeting and information about your company via a well-done web video inspires trust by putting a face to the name of your brand, and allowing you, the face of the business, to speak directly to the customer.

Watch our company’s landing page video to see how to incorporate the owner’s greeting, the right music, a customer testimonial, and text for a video greeting that delivers several confidence-building elements to website visitors:

Your eyes, your body language, your voice, and your surroundings all raise your “human factor” and give your web visitor greater confidence in you. They immediately get a sense of whether or not you’re trustworthy and confident, and by seeing the corporate image you portray, will judge whether or not you’re a person they feel comfortable doing further business with.

Even the music bed — the background music you choose — helps to set a mood and tone that can dramatically enhance the image you want to convey to those tentative first-time customers.

In addition to the human factor, studies have shown that web video keeps visitors onsite longer and inspires them to act upon what they’ve seen and heard. According to recent studies and surveys, online video dramatically increases the probability of turning a visitor into a customer.

If you’re ready to put your best face forward on your website, consider hiring a professional videographer to shoot your video. His expertise, camera, microphone, and lighting will deliver an image that portrays you in your best light, with the image your business needs to compete in your industry. A home-produced video tends to convey the image of less-than-quality products or services, and depending on your brand, won’t inspire the confidence you want your web visitors to have in doing business with you.

Talk to your web designer about embedding video into your website, or hire a multimedia company proficient and experienced at audio, video and web, to get everything you need in one place. That first impression on your website could mean the difference between a visitor choosing your company or your competition’s.

Note: Because I want your comment to stand, please read our simple comment policy before replying! Thank-you!

Michelle handles all Social Media for New England Multimedia. You can contact her by email, on our Facebook, or on our Twitter.

What was it that kept me on New England Pest Control’s website for a good ten minutes?

They made me laugh. First, they have a unique and fun landing page that seized my attention, and secondly, they’ve incorporated fun, quirky audio sound effects into their menu.

The sound I heard when the Big Blue Bug dropped into the page made me smile, and then I looked around the page for social media information.

Having Too Much Fun To Leave

Nothing there. But the menu items were quirky, with a retro style, and the next thing I knew, my mouse headed for one of them. As my cursor approached the cartoon image of a woman standing on a chair screaming, she — well, she screamed!

Now I started hovering over each link to see what sounds they had associated with them, and then I started playing games with myself, hovering over the links in different succession. Maybe I’m easily amused. But what I did next is what they hoped for:

I clicked a link.

In this case, I clicked “About Us.” Then they had me, and the wooing began. Their “About Us” was interesting enough to keep me on the site even longer, poking around until I realized I had spent too much time already and went back to work.

New England Pest Control’s web designer used Flash on their website to get the audio effects that entertained me.

Scott explains, “New England Pest Control’s website uses Flash to create a more interactive multimedia experience than just text and images can produce. Flash allows you to animate graphics and embed audio (including sounds, music, voiceover, etc.), and gives your overall brand a unique approach to design. It’s like a standard website on steroids.”

To increase conversions (visitors who become customers), there are several ways to implement audio on your website besides what New England Pest Control has done.  We’ll cover those in later blogs.

By the way — I only remember one other website from the whole stack of business cards I went through.

Good job, New England Pest Control. You made me look!

Note: Because I want your comment to stand, please read our simple comment policy before replying! Thank-you!

Michelle handles all Social Media for New England Multimedia. You can contact her by email, on our Facebook, or on our Twitter.