LiveBlogged: Leveraging Your Social Capital to Earn Through eCommerce #typeacon

Session name: Leveraging Your Social Capital to Earn Through eCommerce
Speakers: Lisa Lehmann, Sherry Aikens

I’m here so I can help my friend Jillian build her new business Whatchamagifts, which is all about personalized gifts and handmade cards. (She makes beautiful things!) I missed the first minute or so because I had to switch rooms, but I got caught up! (I hate missing things, because I know how many people count on me to take notes on these things!)

Know Your Target Market

Build for your market, or find a market for your passion. Lisa Lehmann creates high end jewelry for women who have money to spend. She doesn’t make low end jewelry. Teenagers can’t afford her and don’t appreciate her work. Sherry Aikens has a very different market with her superhero capes for kids.

Your brand, your logo, your colors all have to play to your target market. Look at the whole package. Sherry was adamant about not having kid writing for her logo. Think about the name, whether or not it goes well with your product. She had the name before she had the product, but she knew how she wanted her logo to feel when she made it. Even the voice you use online needs to fit with your brand.

Neither Lisa nor Sherry talk about politics or religion online for the sake of their brands. They don’t want to alienate the people in their market, even though biting their tongues can be hard.

Creating Community

Using social media tools:

• Facebook
• Flickr
• Twitter
• Blog

Make sure you are authentic. You can talk about your product and your life, your business, your struggles as an entrepreneur. On Facebook, people are choosing to “Like” you, so don’t overshare and spam your fans. Facebook is like a dinner party; Twitter is more like a cocktail party. Facebook users tend to share more and have more in-depth conversations. You want die-hard Facebook users to be your fans. Photos are the most searched things on Facebook, so post photos of your products on your page. Ask your customers to share photos on your page, too!

Feedback from customers

• recommendations
• testimonials

Make sure you let people know that there is a person behind your business. People can set too-high expectations for companies, but they tend to become more realistic when they see you as a person. They will come back and communicate with you. Encourage feedback from your customers. You’re going to get negative feedback; don’t shy away from it. It adds to your authenticity. Let your other fans so you interact with people who leave negative feedback, so they can see you making an effort to fix things.

What it’s going to cost you to fix a problem isn’t as much as it will cost you to have people who feel very negatively about you. Because they will tell their friends – you want them to tell their friends you made the effort to make them happy, not that you suck.

Make sure your product always has a tag saying you made it. Have your name on it so people can tell their friends, “Where did you get that?” Hard with something like jewelry, but that’s why you have to stay in touch with your customers so they remember who you are. Creating new business and embracing past sales – very important.

Creative Ideas for Brand Promotion

Sales Avenues

• type of shops
• Etsy, eBay, your own website

Unique positioning – bloggers

• know how to approach bloggers; do your homework and don’t waste your time
• talk to bloggers as human beings; have a conversation with them; know if they’re a good fit for you
• it can hurt you if you get matched up with the wrong blog

Lisa only does giveaways on blogs she already reads. Her product is very expensive, so she needs to be very careful about who she works with to ensure everyone is a good fit. (Because no one is going to say no to free jewelry.)

Advertising mediums

• traditional methods -  a good percentage for return on magazine ads is 5%, more often 1-2%
• you can promote yourself very well on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc when you have a small budget
• targeted Facebook ads can be run for $1 a day

Offline communities

• customer built
• personally built

Writing editorials for magazines will pay more than the dollar amount you get for your content. It will pay back so much more in the advertising you get. Write for local newspapers, do local TV news spots – get the exposure in different places.

Take Home Morsels

• Know your market, which will help create a brand.
• Create a community around your brand; speak to what they want to hear and listen
• Promote as authentic and memorable
• Relationships first
• Don’t be afraid to self-correct
• People buy, listen to, and engage with people they like, know, and trust

Do they know YOU?

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