Last spring, an advertiser with my now-defunct news site asked whether his restaurant should have a Facebook fan page. I told him yes, but my eyes burned an angry “hell yes,” and my foot ached to make contact with his ass for not already having a presence on the social-networking site. I also encouraged him to get his business on Twitter.
That’s when his eyes glazed over. “What’s Twitter?” he asked.
I tried my best to explain it: 140-character squirts of information broadcast to followers, who then might rebroadcast (or retweet) that information to their followers, and so on. My advertiser didn’t see its value; admittedly, I didn’t do a good job illustrating it to him. It just seemed like a lot of work that he didn’t really need.
He was right. Digital marketing can be a full-time job, or at least a labor-intensive one for a small, neighborhood business. Mom and Pop Shopkeeper can’t spare their first-born child to tweet daily specials or post notes on a Facebook wall. That kid needs to be at the register or on a bicycle making deliveries.
The Tribune Company stepped into this tough sell earlier this week and Gannett started in late May. But they’re onto something: Digital-marketing services are certainly a revenue stream that allows online hyperlocalists to leverage social-networking skills they already have (or at least should have).
Making this work means first educating small business owners on the value of Facebook and Twitter (I’ll toss in Foursquare while I’m at it). That can be done one-on-one during a sales call, or in a free presentation to the chamber of commerce or other local business groups. The goal is to introduce business owners to the concepts of social networking and not to instruct them on exactly how to use it. They won’t buy the cow if they can get the milk for free.
Next, it might mean scaling a digital-marketing campaign to fit a business’s needs and budget. A restaurant might have plenty of information to post on its Twitter and Facebook feeds, and such a business can use (and afford) the help of an online hyperlocalist to set up those accounts or create content.
Conversely, a corner convenience store might not have much to say, but one inexpensive “sponsored” tweet on a hyperlocalist’s Twitter feed can extend its services to an online audience.
I’ve had some success offering digital-marketing services to small businesses: I ghost-tweeted text and photos for a local crafts fair using that business’s Twitter account, and transmitted teaser tweets through my news site’s feed. I also convinced the restaurateur mentioned above to purchase tweet time on my feed, though as part of a larger display-ad package.
In the interest of transparency, each tweet appearing on my feed was labeled “sponsored.” Likewise, any mention of the crafts fair or that restaurant in the website’s content included some mention of them as sponsors or advertisers.
Digital marketing is a professional service and revenue stream that online hyperlocalists should consider, especially since Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare are well adapted to mobile devices. It’s an easy way to break into mobile monetization with existing technology.
Photos courtesy of Flickr user Jeremy Keith and Tommaso Sorchiotti.
