Social media is about conversation. You must speak out to promote your business. But many small business people feel awkward talking about their business to the world. This two-part series helps you find your voice to speak about your business. In this article, you learn the causes for your awkwardness. In the second part, you learn how to find the most powerful things you can say about your business.
- Before You Start: You have a business you want to promote through social media.
- Learning level: 1 | Social Media Basics
- Article Last Updated: Thursday, April 4, 2013
Self-Promotion Obstacles
There are a lot of reasons why promoting yourself and your business may not come naturally to you.
- You are naturally shy so you don’t like to point out even the obvious things about your business.
- You are unsure of yourself and so you don’t speak because aren’t sure what to say.
- You are confused about what other people find valuable about your services and products.
- You are reserved and you want your work to speak for you.
- You are waiting for someone else to speak for you and recommend you to the world.
But the reasons don’t really matter. What matters is that you find a way from where you are today to where you want to be. And that means overcoming these obstacles.
Self-Promotion Mistakes
Take a little time to look for examples of businesses that promote themselves well. Look carefully at what they say and how they say it. When you find something brilliant, borrow it. But while you are looking, also take note of what doesn’t work in your opinion.
Here are the two things that many businesses get wrong when promoting their services and products.
- Describe your business from the inside. Have you ever landed at a website and couldn’t figure out which of the website menu options contains the information you want? It isn’t your fault. The person who wrote the website copy wrote about the company from the company’s perspective. They didn’t think about you and what you were looking for when they designed the structure. You are not an insider. That’s why you couldn’t figure it out.
- Describe what you do with a label. Lots of people give labels instead of describing what they do. What’s the first thing that crosses your mind when someone says they are an “expert” or a “visionary” or a “thought leader?” These labels are not helpful because no one can explain what an expert or visionary or thought leader actually does or how they provide practical help for your business. David Meerman Scott talks about meaningless language to avoid in his Gobbledygook Manifesto.
Now that you’ve looked at what can go wrong, in the next article we’ll cover how to break down what you do to create a positive way to talk about your business.
Your turn: What kind of self-promotion mistakes you do see small business people making? Can you add to the list of things not to do?
Related Articles:
- Talk About Your Business (Part 2)
- How Does A Blog Help My Business?
- Social Media Communications Audit
- The Value Of Negative Reviews
- Customers With Benefits
Article categories: Articles • Blogging • Branding • Communication • Level 1
Article tags: Blogging • Branding • Communication • Conversation • David Meerman Scott • Self Promotion • Writing
Charlene Kingston is the small business person behind the Social Media DIY Workshop.
6 Responses to “Talk About Your Business (Part 1)”
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I'm Charlene Kingston.
I teach small business people how to build a thriving online business presence.
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Another proof that we tend to over complicate things… All we need to do is keep it simple.
Learning that myself using this easy trick: when talking to people I am keeping an eye on the reaction and see which words actually make their face flush with “Oooh, I got it!” expression
Of course when person understands what you do, their second thought will be “what’s in it for me?”
Smart Foxes Web Development recently posted “How to Create Custom Facebook Landing Page.”
Charlene, once again you’ve hit the nail on the head. This is so true and all of us who have been out there have experienced this first hand. I’m a marketing consultant, and I too struggle with how to position myself and my own services as effectively as I do for other businesses.
I think people do not have a good sense of their own distinctive competency. A good way to explore this is to talk with colleagues and friends and get their sense of what you bring to the table.
To add to that, I think people feel uncomfortable envisioning themselves as “successful”, so they continually play it safe, trying to blend in with others instead of celebrating what is unique about their company or capabilities.
I could go on and on, but clearly help is needed from virtually everyone on this topic. Thanks for bringing it out!!
I work as a PR now, but I love communication in general: all kinds and all manners to do it. I’m trying to help some friends with their fan pages and twitter but it is not easy. One is an English teacher and he’s completely lost, he has no idea from where to begin. I try to help talking to him and giving him some ideas but he’s like: I don’t know or I’m not sure or I don’t have time. The other experience is with an actor. He’s the opposite: because he likes social media he’s absolutely sure about what he does on his drama group fan page which is ad the play. Five times a day! I feel frustrated! :-/
The challenge is that many business people don’t know how to talk about their business in a way that others get it. The way we see our own businesses is often quite different from the way others see it.
You have found a great solution. That a-ha moment is exactly the goal!
You are so welcome, Susan. So many people wrestle with this issue. A big part of it is what I call having an insider’s view instead of an outsider’s view. A classic sign of this: websites for large companies that organize the website content (menu) by company divisions! When I land on their site, I have no idea what company division does what I need, I just know what I need! The company speaks from an insider’s view, while the visitor arrives with an outsider’s view. Websites need to anticipate the information needs of visitors, not present the company structure.
I feel your pain, Verena! It’s very common for people who don’t currently use social media to have no idea what we are talking about when we get excited about the potential use for their business. What I’ve found is that people need to catch a vision before they can start using social media. You can help them catch a vision by finding examples of people with similar businesses who are doing smart things on social media. Let your friends see these examples, and see how conversations flow around bits of shared information. Help them to dissect what that business does so they can see what they need to do.
In general, I’ve found that people who don’t have a vision for social media are not ready to begin using it. They need to spend some time getting a vision, checking it out–basically just dipping their toe into the water–before they are ready to create an account and get started.