Small Brands Up Against Big Brands

Social media marketing for your small business

As a small business owner, you’re probably happy about where you currently are. You’re chugging along like a slow train, targeting mostly your family and friends and the local community, and you’re happy with the small amount of success your brand is getting. You don’t really want to make it big. You just want to relax and enjoy having a small business…

Or maybe not. As a small business owner, you probably dream about making it big. You want to be able to compete with the big brands, to become as well known as they are. Perhaps you want to become a big brand as well…

But you’re disheartened. How can you compete with the big corporations? How can your small business brand compare with these giants? They have unlimited capital, unlimited resources, and unlimited manpower. You’re practically a one-man (or woman) show, with maybe one or two employees. You’re up to the neck in debt since you borrowed money to start your small business.  Do you even have a chance of competing against these big brands?

The fact is, no matter what you do, you simply can’t compete with these big corporations on the same terms. As a small business brand, you aren’t capable of doing that because you just don’t have the means. But don’t lose hope, because there are other ways you can compete with them – it’s all about planning and strategy.

Here are some tips to help go up against the big brands:

     1. Offer value

Honestly, you can’t compete with the big guns in terms of price. You’ll just end up burying yourself, since people may think that the products and services you offer are not up to par with the big brands. Instead, always offer value – sure, your products and services may be a bit more expensive, but it’s because you’re offering something unique, worthwhile, and valuable to the consumers.

     2. Focus on what you do best

Maybe it’s customer service, maybe it’s storytelling, maybe it’s social media… but as a small business brand, you need to focus on what you do best in order to shine and be noticed. Don’t just copy what other businesses are doing. Focus on what makes you unique and the things you can best offer to people.

Providing excellent customer service is one of the best ways to reach consumers effectively. As a small business brand, you can ensure that someone always checks your email and answers your telephone line in order to address any customer’s concerns.

Storytelling on social media sites is another way you can stand out and be noticed. People love rooting for the underdog, and if you’re going up against a big brand, then you’re definitely one—so tell them the stories that will give them cause to sympathize or cheer. In short, tell them whatever will help them identify with you and wish for your success.

     3. Be more personable

As a small business owner, you can really represent your brand in a personal way that big corporations cannot. Show off your personality, put a face behind the name, go the extra mile for your customers. This really makes your small business brand stand out. Remember that people enjoy connecting and engaging with real people, not businesses. They want to know you, and become friends with you. They want to like and trust you.

People don’t just buy from anybody anymore. They’re a lot more vigilant when it comes to evaluating businesses, and they either love a brand or they hate it. When you become personable and likeable as a small business owner, you can really connect with your customers – they will definitely prefer talking to you over a big brand. After all when they contact a big brand, they usually just talk to a random, faceless,  nameless person.

     4. Utilize social media wisely

Social media is a great equalizer – it’s really changed the way people connect with brands, which is why both small and big business brands seem to have an equal chance in this regard. Sure, big brands may have the big bucks, but most social media platforms allow you to engage with your fans and followers for free – all you need to do is devote time and effort to your page.

Maintain a blog, create a Facebook and Twitter account, and don’t forget to update them regularly and interact with your audience using these platforms. Social media marketing is an excellent way to promote your small business brand, since a single update can spread like wildfire through these sites if it’s interesting enough.

Concluding Thoughts 

As you consider how to get ahead as a small business, don’t even try to compete with big corporations on their own turf… Without their money and resources, you can never win. Instead, offer value on the products and services that you sell, focus on what you do best, be more personable, and remember to use social media wisely. These are the simple ways small business brands can compete with the big guns.

Tracky and Your Brand

Managing your time wisely is absolutely a great challenge and adventure! In addition to work, you have to monitor your social media accounts, manage your teams and projects, network with other people, promote your brand, connect with your partners or employees, engage with your customers and clients, not to mention still have time to sit back, relax, and enjoy time with your friends and family.

So how do you manage it all?

Very likely, whenever you’re online, you have all these browsers, windows and tabs open, so you can check and monitor all your accounts. You have to pay attention to every single one of them, so you go back and forth, check your email and social media accounts, manage your blog, make sure to reply to your customers regarding their questions, as well as chat with employees who need your attention.

Isn’t there a better way to manage all of these?

Of course there is. There are many online management and collaboration platforms that can help you monitor and manage your different accounts as well as your team members. One of the latest and most promising tools that has entered the arena is Tracky.

Tracky is an online collaboration platform where you can do practically anything – collaborate on projects, share files, manage your calendar, assign tasks, chat with your team members, and so on. It’s an excellent way to have every one of your tasks organized in one easy-to-use platform, so you don’t have to have multiple windows and tabs open, or have to go back and forth to check and monitor different sites.

Tracky founder and CEO, David Goose, has been developing the platform with his wife Jennifer as well as their excellent team for more than 18 months now, and they have finally unveiled what they’ve come up with recently.

The thing that really makes it stand out from other online collaboration platforms out there is the fact that it offers you a way to network with other professionals within the platform. Unlike other sites where you’re closed off with your team members working and collaborating on a task, Tracky allows you to search for potential service providers you can work with.

This means that Tracky offers a lot of benefits for both personal and small business brands. For example, if you’re a wedding coordinator, you can actually look for people you can collaborate with on a wedding you’re planning within the site. Or even if you’re the one getting married, you can actually look for service providers using Tracky – you don’t have to go too far to find the perfect team for your wedding. The site has a geo-location feature, so you can find local service providers that fit well to your specifications.

And let’s not forget the excellent platform that Tracky offers. Individuals, small business owners, and large corporations can all take advantage of the site so they can organize their busy lives properly. From to-do lists and task management, to live-chat and cloud-based storage, there are so many things that Tracy offers you that will make managing your life and work so much easier – so you have more time to do the things you enjoy.

And the best part of it all is that you can easily get started managing your tasks and team members for free, up to two groups per person. If you want to have unlimited groups and users, you only have to pay $5 per user per month.

Tracky also has a mobile application, though it’s currently only available on iOS. Mobile users can take advantage of the app so they can manage and organize their time and teams wisely.

Only time will tell, however, if Tracky is going to stand out among its many different competitions. Since it’s only recently launched, there are still some bugs to its system, though the Tracky team is continuously improving the platform as they obtain feedback from its users. The site currently has 4,000 users already, and it hopes to reach 700,000 by the end of the year.

So why make it difficult for yourself to manage all of your accounts, collaborate with your team members, and look for potential partners or service providers? Try out Tracky today and see how it can help you manage your busy life so you can have more time to spend doing the things you enjoy the most.

Best Practices in Using Pinterest Contests

Pinterest is fast becoming one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. According to reports, it is now the third most popular social networking site, with Facebook and Twitter ranking as first and second. This virtual pinboard is truly making waves in the online world as more and more people have been signing up. It currently boasts 11 million registered users, and many of these people are logging onto the site everyday and creating the most beautiful pinboards.

Whether you’re a business or personal brand, you should definitely pay attention to Pinterest. It’s an excellent way to engage and interact with others as you create beautiful collections and share the things that you love and that inspire you. Through creating lovely pinboards that other people enjoy, you can create a buzz that encourages a good following and can promote brand awareness.

One of the best ways to create brand buzz in Pinterest is by hosting a contest. Most people enjoy contests as they are fun and challenging, and it’s always nice to win a prize. So if you want to promote your brand in Pinterest, creating a fun contest is a good idea.

So what are the best practices in using Pinterest contests? Here are some great ideas you should consider:

     1. Create the Best Pinboard Contest

One of the most challenging and creative contests you can host on Pinterest is one that asks people to create the best pinboards. You can require them to create pinboards that include pictures of your products, as well as other items that relate or look well with the products you’re offering. Then ask them to post it on their pinboard and tag you so that their followers can see the pinboard they’ve created. This really helps in creating buzz around your brand. You can judge the winner of the contest yourself, or you can judge the winner by the number of likes and repins the pinboard has.

     2. Most Repins and Likes Contest

With this contest, you can ask your audience to repin their favorite products from your collection and then ask them to solicit votes through repins and likes. The winner of this contest is the board with the most likes and repins.

Though this is a fun contest, it can also seem a bit like spam as the people who enter your contest solicit votes using different social networking sites. But it can be very effective in promoting brand awareness as people share their boards to their network of friends.

     3. Utilize other social media platforms

You can incorporate other social networking sites to your Pinterest contest to help promote better brand awareness. Facebook and Twitter are excellent social media platforms that you can require the contestants to use. This way, even their followers who are active in other sites will be able to learn about your brand and may even start following you as well.

Some good ideas for doing this include: asking contestants to share their pinboards that they’ve created about your brand in their Facebook wall, asking them to Tweet links to their pinboard, or asking them to blog about the pinboard they’ve created.

     4. Raffling off the winner

You can also simply ask your audience to create a pinboard of your brand, share it on their Pinterest pages, and then post the link to your wall. People can only enter once, and then you draw a random winner from the list of entries. The downside of this type of contest is that it is not very engaging, but at least it gives everyone a fair chance of winning the contest.

Pinterest contests are truly an excellent way to promote brand awareness, generate great content for your feed, and get links back to your pages and site. Remember though to review the Pinterest’s user guide to ensure that you are not violating any rules by hosting your contest.

If you want to host a contest but are not sure where to start, you can also observe some of the ongoing contests at Pinterests and learn what works and what doesn’t. Watch and observe how other brands create buzz using Pinterest contests.

Truly, there’s still a world of things you can do on Pinterest to help you promote brand awareness and create brand buzz. So why not host a Pinterest contest that lets people show off their creativity and enjoy as well? The reward you offer is just a little bit of an incentive that can help you gain a slew of new followers that can translate to potential customers and clients.