Birgitta Stone of Local Social Media met recently with one of her clients, Mario Galeano of Milillo Farms. —Macklin Reid photo
Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn. How does someone trying to run a small business — keep the doors open and the floor staffed, meet payroll, do the ordering, the inventory, the bookkeeping, pay taxes — find time to tweet and twiddle and Google and ’gram?
Even if business owners can do social media, how do they manage the regularity needed to keep their business in people’s minds?
Where do they find the time?
They don’t. Or they don’t have to. That’s where Local Social Media, Brigitta Stone’s new Ridgefield-based business, comes in.
“We work with local businesses to update and administer their social media sites,” Ms. Stone said. “We write content. We work with them to put up content they’ve provided.”
With the burgeoning social media world, businesses need to keep up. But it’s a nagging task overworked businesspeople may be happy to offload.
“The big thing for my business is people don’t have the time to do it. Even if they like doing it, they don’t have the time to do it,” she said.
In assisting her clients, Ms. Stone draws on years of experience in sales and media, such as radio advertising.
“This is the first product I’ve sold where they don’t roll their eyes when I come into the store. They just think it’s a really good idea, because they know they don’t have time,” she said.
“It’s kind of interesting,” she said. “I find one of three things:
• “They do it, they like it, and they’re good at it — that’s really rare.
• “Or they do it, but they’re inconsistent at best — and that’s a good spot for me.
• “And also they know what it is, they’ve heard of it, but they have no idea how to do it — and that’s another good spot for me.”
It began last fall. She was updating social media sites — for another business she has, and for the Ridgefield League of Women Voters chapter, of which she’s president.
“I realized local businesses don’t have time to update and constantly maintain their social media sites,” she said. “I said, ‘I’m too busy to do all of this. Everybody else must be too busy to do all of this.’”
It just seemed to fill a need.
“I had the whole business plan written down within 10 minutes,” she said.
Her initial instinct — that there’s a niche to be filled — appears to have been sound.
“It just has taken off so well,” she said. “I have three salespeople now, I have a part-time administrative assistant, and an intern from the high school.
“And I’m hiring, if anyone’s looking. I’m looking for more salespeople. There’s so much business out there.”
Local Social Media has something over 30 clients.
“And we’re expanding our line of services,” she said.
“The second question I get after ‘I’m so glad you can do my social media’ is ‘Do you do websites?’ So then we expanded our line to include websites, website updates.”
People may create a website — or hire someone to do it — and then think, ‘Well, that’s done …’ It’s not done.
“Some people have their winter menu of 2011 still on their website,” she said.
Local Social Media also offers consulting, and integrates its social media services into the context of more traditional marketing.
“We do email marketing, we do press releases, we do consulting now,” Ms. Stone said. “We also do promotions. We do blogs, too.”
The consulting may be attractive to clients who don’t want to simply offload the whole social media effort.
“If someone likes doing it, but they’re not doing it effectively, we can consult, we can instruct them on how to do it,” Ms. Stone said.
“I’ve been doing this for a while, so I know when is a good time to post for certain shops, for restaurants. Don’t post your dinner menu at 9:30 a.m. — no one’s going to remember it.
“I wouldn’t post something at 4 a.m. in the morning, because it goes away. It goes to the bottom and then you can’t see it.”
She offers clients what she views as a bargain:
“The Facebook, Google+ and Twitter updates are $25 a week. You get three to five posts per week in each social media site,” she said.
“I don’t recommend more than that, because it’s too much. It becomes spammy and people ‘unlike’ you.”
She sees social media as part of larger media world.
“I recommend to all of them that if they’re doing other advertising they continue doing other advertising. I’m a big advertising fan,” she said.
She advocates “cross-promotion” between businesses.
“Cross-promotion, I think, is the key to saving local businesses. That’s why I kept my prices so low, at $25 a week, because then they can cross-promote each other,” she said.
Her client base is largely local, but it’s expanding — in numbers and in type.
“I work with Realtors, I work with restaurants, I work with delis,” she said.
“One of my salespeople is a professional writer, and she’s fluent in Spanish, which is something I’m looking for to expand the market and help Spanish-speaking clients as well, reach different audiences — or English-speaking clients reach Spanish-speaking audiences,” she said. “I have a couple of clients that heard that we do Spanish and English and hired us on the spot. One is a Caribbean restaurant in Danbury — half of her clientele is Spanish, so we run specials in both.
“And I also have two national accounts.”
“They get excited about it. Social media is fun, it’s quick. They can get their message out. We can post a special menu for tonight.
“It’s really fun,” she said. “It’s a fun thing to do what we’re doing right now.”
Ms. Stone’s business may be telephoned at 230-788-8252 or emailed at info@localsocialmedia.biz.
The website is www.localsocialmedia.biz.