Canadian Retailer - Winter 2013 - 24

MYSTORE SOCIAL MEDIA

SOCIAL MEDIA 101:
TIPS TO PROMOTING YOUR
SMALL BUSINESS ONLINE
BY EVE LAZARUS
MARK BRAND says that when it

comes to social media he’s a late
adopter, but he’s taken to the channels with a vengeance since he
jumped into Facebook, Twitter and
Instagram this past summer. “We
were amazed by the amount of communication and feedback that we get
from it, it’s very strong,” he says.
Brand runs Save on Meats, a restaurant, butcher shop, clothing company and social enterprise in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Brand
received national attention when
he appeared on the CBC show “The
Big Decision” last November and received a $250,000 investment from
Arlene Dickinson.

ber, the tokens were donated to the
Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre
to feed the homeless in January—a
time when they need food the most.
Devise a strategy

Brenda Dumont, a retail and social media specialist, says that social
media makes sense for any size retailer, and it puts small independents on
a level playing field with larger operators at minimal cost. “The ability to
get their communication message out
equally as well as the big guys makes
social media almost essential for any
owner/operator,” she says.
Dumont says the first thing a retailer should do is sit down and plan.

“Often people have a Facebook page, but they
don’t have a strategy behind it. It’s like a ship
out of port without any navigational tools—it’s
not going to go anywhere...”

— KRISTINA EGYED
LaLa's

Around the same time, Brand created a token that the homeless could
exchange for food at his restaurant
and promoted the idea on social
media. He thought he could sell a
thousand. In the first 10 days, he sold
more than 5,000, many to businesses wanting to make a difference.
Village&Co joined up with Brand
and took the concept one step further. They launched a campaign asking people to click on #shareameal,
and then put a Save On Meats sandwich token on their Christmas tree
for every click. At the end of Decem-

24 |

“So many do not,” she says. “They
attend a one-hour seminar on social
media and think they can go and
create a Facebook page that is compelling and engaging that will bring
them lots more business.”
When Kristina Egyed, owner of
LaLa's, a 16-year-old North Vancouver gift store went into online sales
she knew that she had to build an
international audience, and the only
way she could do that was through
social media.
The first thing she did was gather
up a group of 12 customers, past and

canadian retailer | winter 2013 | www.retailcouncil.org/cdnretailer

present employees and suppliers into
a four-hour brainstorming session.
“Often people have a Facebook page,
but they don’t have a strategy behind
it. It’s like a ship out of port without any
navigational tools—it’s not going to go
anywhere it’s just going to bump up
against stuff. I wanted to have a plan.”
Because Egyed sells beautiful
products, she chose social platforms
such as Instagram and Pinterest. She
added Facebook and Twitter, and
based on her strategy session, built
an editorial calendar around seasonal promotions and contests.
“In the short term we have to build
relations and create brand awareness online. We need to be able to
manage our reputation and maintain
trust with people online, and we need
to acquire new fans, monitor our
branding and understand analytics,”
Egyed said.
Which channels should you
choose?

There are several popular social
media channels out there—Facebook,
Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram, are
some of the more popular ones, but
you don’t have to be on all of them,
and at the start, it’s probably best to
just choose one or two.
Mark Smiciklas, a digital strategist
at Intersection Consulting works with
retail clients such as Lala’s, Urban
Barn and MEC. He says that an effective way to start is by simply asking customers what channels they use
through an in-store survey and where
they would like to hear from the store.
“Make sure you know where your

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Canadian Retailer - Winter 2013

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