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| The Minot CVB promises to connect you to their social media accounts, and they deliver. |
Tourism groups and small businesses both struggle with a common question: once we get online, how do we get local people to follow, like or friend us?
In 3 ways to get locals to follow you online, I mentioned putting your online connections on your business cards. Many people do this by including social media icons on lots of printed materials. But the icon alone is not enough!
The business card to the right from the Minot CVB includes icons from the social networks they use, and promises that you can find the links at their website. And they deliver! On their website, the social media icons match this card perfectly and are easy to find.
The next step in doing this the right way is to explain the benefit of following you. Why would I take the time to search for you and follow you online?
Here’s a non-local example that really sells the benefits. This sack of Purina Cat Chow (shown below) includes three reasons I might want to connect with them on Facebook. I particularly liked this line: “Dog owners have dog parks, cat owners have [our Facebook page.]”
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| Purina Cat Chow gets detailed about the benefits of joining their Facebook conversation. |
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Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.
I’ve always been kind of iffy on putting social media icons on print materials. Often time the space on a piece of print media is so precious I hate to see part of it used up on an icon that might not do much.
Have you used QR tags before? Have you noticed better results with those?
I like QR codes for specific purposes, and for specific target audiences. But if you use one, be sure to send readers to a mobile-friendly page that provides the exact info you promised.
I don’t like QR codes that are unlabeled, do not also include the URL in text form, go to non-mobile-friendly pages, or the company home page. Those are useless and frustrating for users.
That’s a good point. One more question (if you don’t mind me bugging you so much), but I’m always worried that people don’t know what a QR Tag is whenever we print it on some kind of PR material.
How do you feel about putting “scan me” or “google goggles” above QR Tags?
I think the best way to do it is to tell what it links to, like “scan this to get the mobile app.” Also include the plain text of the URL or link, like “or go to this web address.”
Here’s an example of one done wrong in my local paper:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bjmccray/6589186723/
The text “QR Code” doesn’t help anyone, and the code leads to a non-mobile friendly page, and one that is not targeted to the offer made in the ad.