Maine Businesses Doing Social Media Right

by Pat Lemieux

As long as there’s been social media, there have been people trying to make money with social media. And as long as there’s been people trying to make money with social media, there have been people trying to convince you that you need more followers.

“Sign up for my emails and I will help you attract new followers!” “Register today for my conference to learn about how to have 10X more followers!” Buy 100K followers for 10$ today!”

You know the drill and may have been persuaded to do this at one time or another. Why? Because along the way people convinced you that with social media, the more followers or likes you have means the more money you’ll make.

That simply is not true.

Social media’s very similar to your store. It doesn’t matter how much foot traffic you have if no one is buying. 50 brand advocates who love what you do and are repeat buyers is much better for your business than 5,000 who don’t actually care about you.

Contests get you lousy followers and begging people to help you get to that next tier of “likes” seems desperate. Instead, spend your time paying attention to the followers you have and connecting with them in a meaningful way.

That’s what I am going to talk about with you in this blog. I want to have a real conversation about who in Maine is doing things well (which will make some happy) and who is not (which will make some people mad at me). I don’t want to spend my time telling you about numbers, percentages or what the next big thing might be. If you want that there are some great sites out there that you should follow. Start here, here, or here.

So let’s look at what a meaningful relationship with your customers looks like and why that will help your business grow. It is a lot of common sense stuff like:

·         Go where your customers are

·         Answer questions

·         Be better than your competitors at customer service

·         Showcase your strengths

·         Be part of a community

Odds are you have heard it all before, but we will put it in some real, Maine, context that will hopefully give you a fresh view of how you can have more, happier customers.

For now here are a few Maine companies I think are doing one hell of a job on Social media. Check them out and steal all their good ideas. (or come up with your own)

·         LL Bean

·         Baxter Brewing Company

·         Giffords

·         Sunday River (particularly this)

·         Geaghan’s Restaurant and Brewpub

·         Waterfront Concerts

·         The Maine Lobster Festival

·         Live Maine

·         Knack Factory