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A movement is brewing across the internet. The hard costs of marketing are plummeting. Money's role in marketing success, while still important, is now secondary to time, expertise and agility. To succeed, companies able to make quick decisions, share openly and create remarkable content fast will win, regardless of size.
Perception is Reality - Can Social Media make your Business Stand Taller?
Before the internet leveled the playing field for marketers, targeted marketing and advertising were the realm of large companies with big budgets. Brand and reach were the metrics that marketers cared about. Then the internet came along. Initially it was still the realm of big companies who were willing to spend a lot on flashy websites and paid banner campaigns. The advent of inbound and social media marketing have exposed new levers in the still young internet marketing industry.
In the wild of nature, many animals use spines, 
fur and feathers to create the optical illusion of size and ferocity. In the internet wild, small companies have so many new tools available to them to put a face forward that is professional and fierce. I was reminded of this during a weekend walk in my Austin neighborhood where a small colony of wild peacocks lives. An albino peacock thought I was a threat and went from petite to grandiose in a matter of seconds!
What does this have to do with social media?
That peacock brought to mind the concept of leverage and how the internet provides small businesses an amazing tool to leverage the assets they have to play with the big boys.
Truly, as a small business with limited budget, what non-monetary assets do you have?
What are the conceptual feathers you've got that can help you get more attention on the web?
- Agility and willingness to learn
- Industry specific know-how & skills
- Industry and local relationships
You'd be surprised at how much you can do with those assets.
Many big businesses just aren't fast enough to listen to and act upon what the market is telling them. Your small business should be listening to the social media mentions related to your industry to find out what pain points aren't being addressed, engage with the community and collaborate on ways to solve those problems.
You are a source of knowledge in your space where inevitably, someone is looking for answers. Be among the earliest to share your knowledge freely and develop a devoted following of potential customers who will eventually look to you for not only answers, but also products and services.
Take your existing relationships online. If your industry isn't at the forefront of internet technology, that's ok. Start small and be the one to start that innovation; you might find others looking to you for advice as an entire generation grows up online and will expect every industry there in the future.
According to social media marketing best practices research done by Marketing Sherpa you aren't too late. Across businesses of all sizes, less than 30% have a formal process around any aspect of social media marketing. Embrace your size and agility to make 2010 the year you compete with the big boys just like Orchestra LLC, a software and services company that embraced inbound marketing just last year.
Social Media Leverage in Action - Plumage in Real Life
A combination of industry knowledge, social media engagement and a bit of serendipity let Brad Windecker and the team at Orchestra LLC take advantage of this optical illusion.
The Orchestra team had been blogging, tweeting and interacting on industry specific forums where potential customers and peers congregate. One of Orchestra's tweets was re-tweeted by someone at a big software company and eventually got picked up by the editor of an influential industry newsletter. That editor reached out to Orchestra to find out if they could republish the small company's content in their newsletter. Inclusion in a newsletter that was typically full of content from big companies, this small software and services player looked like a major player.
While that's nice, the real upshot of that serendipitous newsletter inclusion is that Orchestra scored a lot of new site visitors, blog readers, and several leads that have led to the final stages of a deal that would pay for their inbound marketing efforts for months over.
Social Media & Inbound Marketing Level the Playing Field
Now, after less than a year of inbound marketing, Orchestra has amassed more than 20,000 YouTube views, 30,000 views on Ulitzer/SYSCON and 1,000+ content tweets.
That is a lot by many big company standards.
Brad, Orchestra's CEO, is getting invited to industry events and conferences to talk about his use of social media and the company's best practices in software consulting. These events help Orchestra continue to portray a larger than life image just as they grow and build the business to compete in an arena oft-dominated by big corporations. These are the types of opportunities that were reserved for an inner circle before social media and inbound marketing on the web leveled the playing field.
How can you use your knowledge and creativity to power inbound marketing initiatives that will let you compete with the big names in your space? Do you have what it takes to walk big and bold like a peacock?
Find out if how Brad and the Orchestra team made it happen during the free HubSpot Case Study Webinar: Orchestra Delivers New Sales with Social Media next Friday, April 9th at 12PM EST.