Social media... it's cheap, it's easy, it's social

Recently, we re-designed a website for a daycare facility. The owner is a very nice lady who handles everything, and I mean everything, at the school. When we met her, she was carrying a monkey wrench and had just finished doing some plumbing work.

We talked briefly about how to differentiate the school, what kind of content and graphics she wanted, and about her dogs, which accompanied her to work every day.

She was open to every suggestion we made, and was really intrigued when we discussed using Social Media in her branding efforts. No one else did that. It was a great opportunity, one that could really show potential clients how they differed from franchise daycare operations. It would give the parents the opportunity to keep up with what their kids are doing on a daily basis. And it would allow them to supply parents with any industry information they thought was important.

We set her up with a blog page, a Facebook page and a Twitter account. She would write the blog with our help. The Facebook page would be used only for photos and additional branding tool and would require very little maintenance. We can put everything on autopilot so that tweets and blog entries are automatically sent to Facebook. We suggested that her teachers and administrators should send out one tweet per day.

That's where our plan came unraveled.

She didn't want her teachers accessing computers to complete the task. Fine, I said. Have them tell the administrator on duty or the receptionist and let them take care of it. She didn't want them to have to dedicate the time to the task.

I made a prediction to my partner at lunch that when we were out of the picture the blog would never get written. He agreed, adding that they were missing a great opportunity to really make an impact with potential and existing clients. It takes 30 seconds to send out a tweet. Eight rooms, that's four minutes a day. I couldn't convince her to spend that time to promote. Writing a blog would take 15 minutes a pop, but for arguments sake, let's say 30.

In less than an hour, she could add value to a client's experience, increase traffic, more effectively brand her business and differentiate her facility from her competition. All at a cost of ZERO DOLLARS. Even if we did all of it for them, it would be $60 a week. (We're cheap.)

Social media is an opportunity to keep your customers engaged. It is mass marketing, but directed at the individual. It's cheap. Wait... it's FREE! It doesn't take much effort, but it does take some effort. It's simply an opportunity to brand a business by presenting the unique characteristics of it. Most of all, it's social. Get it? "Social" media?

Our client's website is successful. They are benefiting from an increase in traffic of more than 50% and are adding about three new clients a month. But the blog page is blank. Facebook is only used for pictures and the Twitter account is not active. They have a trickle of new business when they could have a stream.

I think our client has really missed the opportunity to more effectively promote the business. I think the next time a potential client asks about social media, I'll show them the math.