Social Media on a Shoestring

Posted by runmark on 13/11/2009 under Blog | Read the First Comment

RunMarketing attended the Social Media 09 conference in London yesterday and came away with mixed feelings. As you’d expect, speakers with the budget to present were able to showcase big ticket social media campaigns and display PowerPoint presentations with funky YouTube video virals, professionally-generated photos for Flickr and subsequent graphs showing upturns in traffic, buzz and search engine ranking.

What was missing was a great example of how to do social media without an immense budget behind you, as is the case for small businesses. The closest we got was a slightly disappointing presentation from Tepilo, a sell-your-own-house website set up by TV presenter Sarah Beeny and her business partner.

The company explained how it used Twitter to promote its concept to the wider world, which is where, for me, it all fell down. Beeny is a celebrity with 16,000+ followers on Twitter. It’s doubtless that her influence has helped contributed to Tepilo’s 2,000+ followers. That’s not a significant number in Twitter terms, so how can small businesses and start-ups that don’t have the added benefit of a TV celebrity on hand attract a crowd?

Social media does not need to be expensive. Indeed, the only investment is often time. We’d love to hear examples of good SME social media campaigns done on a shoestring. Also, be sure to check out our social media guide for small businesses and this podcast with social agency, NixonMcInnes.