Nick Lidakis wrote:
Everyone has been telling us that we *absolutely* have to be on facebook and
twitter, if not more, for our coffee house. They argue that it's free
marketing and advertising. That we need facebook to advertise events and
specials. That most people today check their facebook before their email.
That is, if they check their email at all.
This does not sit well with me. I've read the tech news concerning facebook's
privacy and "intellectual property" policies. I've recently read about
twitter's country based censorship controversy.
Being a neighborhood shop, I was hoping to avoid social media. I want to
interact with people in person. But I agree that I need a way to let people
know about events of specials. Can I do that with GNU software without
selling my soul to Zuckerberg? Do I even need software or could I be smarter
about this?
Seems to me this is purely a business decision.
You're starting a new business. You need to get the word out to new
customers, and you need to stimulate repeat business. Facebook,
Twitter, Google+, local community web sites, email lists, ...... are
simply newer compliments to traditional publicity and marketing channels
(e.g, newspapers, word-of-mouth, sandwich boards, coupons, bulletin
boards, ....). Facebook and Twitter are pretty popular, they're free
vehicles that can add to your visibility, and the investment in time is
fairly small.
One way to look at social media is as "word of mouth on steroids." More
and more, people use social media to recommend new things and places,
and to coordinate meeting up with others. (For that matter, take a
serious look at meetup.com -- one way to seriously stimulate business is
to become a popular site for meetups.)
What you really need to do is some market research. Do your potential
customers use Facebook, Twitter, etc.? If someone mentions your coffee
shop, where's the first place that people look to find comments,
reviews, a map, hours, ....
At the very least, I'd suggest having a simple web page with photos,
hours, location, event listing, quotes, .... - and then add a Facebook
page with a link to your web page. Make it really easy for people to
find you when someone says "let's meet at Nick's for coffee." If you're
going to host events (e.g., music) or offer some specials to attract new
customers, Twitter could be a very good way to get messages out quickly.
Re. "can you do it with GNU software?" (or more broadly "FOSS"
software)? That really depends on what "it" is. Can you host your own
web site, or maintain an email list using purely FOSS software? ...
sure. But that's a different question than "can I reach my market."
Facebook is an audience, not a technology - in the same sense that you
can xerox and distribute your own newsletter, but that's different than
putting an ad in the Times or the Post (though you're probably better
off buying ads in something more local like "The Heights" and local
church and school newsletters).
If you want to have a prayer of being in business a year from now, and
not losing your shirt, you need to be thinking about how to get
customers in your door, and get them to spend money. Getting religious
about what software and services you use is a serious distraction.
Miles Fidelman
--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra
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