What A Cupcake Van Can Teach You About Success In Social Media
The best story of social marketing delivering revenue to a business is the story of a cupcake business in Washington DC. Two former executives who escaped the pressures of corporate life run this cupcake company. They transformed their love of cupcakes into a thriving business that pays them both in excess of $100,000 a year. This success would not be possible without the use of social media.
One of the most important developments with social media is the advent of location check ins. This lets friends and family know that a person is visiting a certain shop or vendor and that the shop or vendor can be trusted. In the cupcake makers' situation, this helped to get them a following of cupcake lovers. People would check into the business using their favorite social platforms and their friends and followers would see the check in. This social proof helped the business grow quickly and proved that they were a high quality vendor.
Another important factor has been the addition of GPS into some of the social networks. This has allowed service businesses that travel around and deliver products or services to be relevant on the internet. These services can be such things such as locksmiths, food carts, and painters. Usually, these services are highly mobile and do not have an address associated with them. This means that they cannot readily use the local maps for business advertising. These businesses need something else and that's location based check ins based on GPS locations. In fact, before the advent of this technology businesses that traveled have been known to share their location via the social networks. In this case, that is exactly what the cupcake cake van did. They shared their location with their audience and the people would coordinate their breaks so that they could go get the cupcakes. This practice leads to a greater amount of sales. They also generated buzz because many departments would be emptied due to their arrival on a certain street corner or block.
Social media can be highly effective for businesses without locations as evidenced with the above paragraphs. In certain situations, social media may be the best type of advertising that any business can generate as long as the hype is not mechanically generated. Such is the case of the cupcake makers, their ability to make delicious cupcakes, in addition to the lack of supply (since they are a mobile business) lended to their business success.
What success on social media networks takes is the willingness to put a company on the networks and find out what markets exist for their content. A business can also manage their fans through the social media networks and allow them to be where ever they are by telling the audience how and when to meet them. Social media is also effective for contests where the business can leverage the lists of their "friends" or "followers." If a business can do that, then they may experience the level of success that this little cupcake van in Washington D.C. has experienced.
Scott Buendia consults for Bizbuilt.com. All the views and tactics in this article are tactics and ideas of the author; they do not necessarily represent the ideals, beliefs, or trademarks of Bizbuilt.com. Visit his card on Bizbuilt here, https://www.bizbuilt.com/socialmediaprivacy.
