She Owns It
Portraits of women entrepreneurs.
At the most recent meeting of the She Owns It business group, the owners discussed their approaches to social media. The conversation quickly turned to Facebook.
Deirdre Lord said “it makes no sense” for her to have a Facebook page for her company, the Megawatt Hour, which is an online subscription service that helps commercial clients manage, track and predict their energy use and expenses. Ms. Lord, who does have a personal Facebook account, doesn’t think her customers — energy managers and purchasers — are looking for her business on the site. “If they use it, it’s for personal purposes,” she said.
Ms. Lord added that her company was on Twitter because it needed “to have a social media presence.” And the business has a blog, she said, because it has and must maintain “a voice.” But she said she saw both Twitter and the blog as credibility builders, not sales tools.
Julia Beardwood, who owns Beardwood & Company, a branding firm, said she wished she had become more heavily involved with social media sooner.
“What did you do, and what do you think you missed?” Ms. Lord asked.
“I’ve only in the past year become active on Twitter,” Ms. Beardwood said. She said her late start meant a missed opportunity to gain credibility because companies want to feel they are “in good hands” and that her agency is on top of things. “If you’ve got a following of 20,000 people on Twitter,” she said, “you look better than if you’ve got a following of 250. And I do think there was a time when that was easier to do than it is now.”
“Getting those 20,000, you mean?” Ms. Lord asked. Yes, Ms. Beardwood said.
She added that connecting with client prospects wasn’t the only reason to use social media. She also found it helpful for targeting prospective employees. Facebook and Instagram are effective tools for that, Ms. Beardwood said, because they let you show that your company is a good, fun, interesting place to work. The company blog is also focused on prospective employees, she added, but clients see it when they check out the company’s website. The blog, she said, shows clients “you’re paying attention to things going on in the world.”
But over all, Ms. Beardwood said, she has been most active on LinkedIn, which she finds “incredibly valuable.” She likes the way it allows her to find and get information about people who could be relevant to her business.
“LinkedIn is great,” Ms. Lord agreed.
Ms. Beardwood said Twitter had also been valuable, helping her zero in on groups she wanted to reach — decision-makers in the marketing world, for example. By replying to and “favoriting” Twitter posts, she can interact with them, she said.
“Does that ever lead to deals?” Ms. Lord asked.
Ms. Beardwood said that LinkedIn had directly led to deals by enabling her to reconnect with old contacts and remain top-of-mind. “With Twitter, I haven’t yet made a deal, but that’s because I haven’t been as active on it as I should have been,” she said. Still, she believes in its value as a marketing tool because it allows users to share their points of view and build credibility as thought leaders, both of which are very important to her clients, she said.
“My business couldn’t be more different,” said Susan Parker, co-owner of Bari Jay, a prom and bridesmaid dress manufacturer. Twitter was not effective for Bari Jay, she said. Although Bari Jay’s direct customers are the stores that sell its dresses, the company’s Facebook and Instagram accounts target the (mostly) young women who buy them.
“Facebook and Instagram are where you’re going to be able to post pictures and get the comments,” she said. “It’s all about pictures for us.”
Ms. Parker, unlike the other group members, retains an outside agency to manage her company’s social media use. “We obviously feed them pictures and ideas, and it’s very much a collaboration, but ultimately they just know better than we do,” she said. “The people that work there are about the age of our ultimate customer.”
Ms. Beardwood asked whether the outside agency had added value.
“I do believe they have,” Ms. Parker said, noting that her co-owner and sister, Erica Rosenfeld, oversees this aspect of the business. One positive indicator was that after Bari Jay turned its Facebook account over to the agency, its follower count grew significantly.
But long term, Ms. Parker said she wasn’t sure Facebook would be Bari Jay’s “best way to go.” When Facebook began offering companies the option to promote posts for a price — an option Bari Jay has not embraced — she noticed a decline in “likes” per post. Posts that are not promoted no longer appear in the feeds for all of a company’s followers. While there’s no way to determine whether “likes” become sales, Ms. Parker does know that Bari Jay’s Facebook followers are clicking through to its website.
Our next post will continue the social media discussion with Jennifer Blumin, the owner of Skylight Group. Hukkster, which was founded by Erica Bell and Katie Finnegan, went out of business in August. Ms. Bell and Ms. Finnegan withdrew from the business group, expressing concern that discussing the company’s failure might prompt litigation.
You can follow Adriana Gardella on Twitter.