I was so inspired by Amazon.com’s confirmation page that I decided to do something similar on my own website. Below is what Amazon’s confirmation page looks like (click for a closer look):

Notice on the right side Amazon encourages their customer to tell their friends on Twitter and Facebook about their recent purchase? This is a great idea! How many times have you ordered something online and felt so excited about your purchase that you wanted to brag a little about your awesome find? I know I’ve been there. This little widget makes bragging about a purchase a little easier for Amazon’s customers.

Here’s how we implemented something like this on Ex-Boyfriend’s confirmation page (click to see close up):

When our customers click the share buttons, a Facebook or Twitter pop up appears that announces what they purchased. (In instances where our customer bought more than one item, we display a drop down so the customer can select the item to share.) Click the image above to see an action shot of how it works.

How to do it:
This is the tricky part, you’re going to need some technical know how to implement this. If you’re on a site like Etsy this won’t be possible. (Though I can’t imagine why Etsy has not yet implemented this feature on their confirmation screens.) If you’re on your own site, you’ll need to be able to access the code that controls your confirmation screen and determine where it spits out the list of items your customer just purchased. You can use those variables to set up prompts for Facebook and Twitter links.

Twitter is a little easier and they have a nice easy developer tutorial here. Facebook is a little more difficult. You’ll need to create an app that uses the streamPublish function (a Facebook developer function that allows to your application to publish to the user’s wall). If your site is in PHP and you know a little PHP, this shortcut is a pretty nice time saver. If you’re not tech savvy enough to make sense of the Faceconn toolset and want to implement a feature like this on your site, a freelance PHP developer should be able to put this together for you pretty easily. You can look for a PHP freelancer on Vendor Wiz or a freelancer search site like elance.com.

As the weather gets warmer, a lot of you in Smaller Box land will be doing some outdoor vending. One thing that’s problematic about the real world is that people can’t simply click to take actions. Things are certainly moving in that direction with sophisticated wireless devices, but even those involve a little typing. To make it easy to get passersby onto your social networks, consider using SMS.

Both Facebook and Twitter allow their users to like and follow pages with a simple text message (provided their users have their mobile numbers registered with Facebook/Twitter). You can encourage them to text their way to your pages with a simple sign.

For Facebook
Ask people to text “like [page name]” to 32665
For Smaller Box the text message would be “like smallerbox”
This page will even make you a handy sign you can print and post at your booth.

For Twitter
Ask people to text “follow [twitter name]” to 40404
For Smaller Box the text message would be “follow smallerbox”

Make some signs for your upcoming event booths so people can easily connect with you online, even if they’re just passing by at a crowded show.

I have two really awesome FREE goodies for you today!

1. I just launched a totally free conversion calculator you’re gonna want to check it. It calculates the likely results of your ad campaigns! Check it out and tell all your friends.

2. I just put together a list of 49 resources I love. I am including websites, vendors, services, online apps, the works! These are resources that are either FREE or the best priced I’ve found. I’m giving you my list for (almost) FREE. All I’m asking for in return is that you spread the Smaller Box word. Click the “share to get button” below and a free copy of my resource list is yours! (If you’d rather not trade a tweet for this download, you can purchase the download for $9.99. To do that click the “Pay $9.99 to Get” button.)

OR

Crazy! Why are you doing this?
I’d like to say it’s just cuz I’m nice (which I totally am), but in addition to that…

I’m testing out the idea of social media as currency. When I hear a marketing guru say “social media is currency” my eyes glaze over because it’s one of those statements that sounds like nonsense if you don’t have examples and evidence to back it up. So I’m here saying it: “Social Media is currency.” You’re paying for access to my resources with word of mouth. You get cool resources, I get your word of mouth, which translates into opportunities for me to sell products and services. (Plus link juice for my SEO, whee!)

I think it’ll work nicely, but it’s up to you to prove me right or wrong. I’ll let you all know how it goes. If you like what I’ve done here and are going “but how would I apply this to my product-based biz?”, well you’ll need to get my resources guide. I’ve included a tip on where to get ideas about that too.

In a round up last month I posted a link that explained how to create a Facebook reveal tab. If you glossed over that tutorial, today I’m going to try to get you to take another look. It’s a really neat feature that you can use to help grow your Facebook following and reward customers who like you on Facebook. Here are a few neat things you can use a reveal tab for:

1. Coupon Codes
I use my reveal tab to offer coupons to Facebook fans only. You can see it in action here (like the page to see the image change to show the coupon code). My website has coupon codes published on the product pages (see the tab on the lower right) and I tell visitors they should check out the Facebook fan page to see more offers. This helps drive people to follow my brand on Facebook and makes coupon codes accessible between newsletter mailings.

2. Exclusive Content/Previews
If you don’t offer coupon codes, you might use your reveal tab to share exclusive content instead. You can use this tab to offer a free ebook download or let fans see an exclusive sneak preview of a line of products you’re about to release. Exclusive content is a great way to draw in fans and even keep them coming back to your Facebook page.

3. Pre-Sales/Exclusive Pricing
Another special offer to extend to Facebook followers is pre-sales and exclusive pricing. If you’re about to release a new product or collection, selling it on pre-sale (before it’s for sale to the public) at a special price to fans is a terrific way to build buzz. You can even use this pre-sale income to finance the production of a larger batch of your product.

As small business owners, we sometimes get in the habit of using our social media accounts just to broadcast news about our brands. While social media can be useful for keeping interested parties in the loop, keeping the conversation entirely one-sided means you’re missing out on other ways to interact with your target markets. So who should you be talking to on social media and how should you engage them:

1. Customers
People who might or have purchased your products are an important audience and you don’t want them to feel like all you do is sell to them. You can use social media to let customers see what goes on behind the scenes, share content both you and your customers might find interesting, engage customers in shaping your product line. Here are a few examples of how you might do some of this:

• A clothing designer shares an inspiration board from a recent product design on her blog. She then posts a note on Twitter and Facebook letting customers know about this new entry and invites them to give feedback. She also shares her inspiration board on Flickr, so Flickr users can provide feedback there.

• A jewelry designer, who focuses on bridal jewelry, blogs about an article discussing the merits of big and small weddings from an online wedding magazine, and then asks her customers which they plan to have and why.

• A skincare company is working on coming up with new fall fragrances, the company owner asks fans on Twitter to tell her what scents remind them of fall.

All of these actions invite the customers to get to know the creators behind the brands and even let the customers take part in shaping the brands.

2. Peers
Although peers are not a primary audience for your social media efforts, there can be some advantages to networking with peers via social media. You might want to engage fellow artisans or small business owners to engage in some cross-promotion or collaborations.  Here are some examples of how this could be done:

• An illustrator who knows a t-shirt maker via a message board, contacts the t-shirt maker via private message to ask if the printer would like to print some of her drawings on her t-shirts.

• A handbag designer follows and is followed by artisans that design jewelry and shoes on Twitter. She sends a message using the @ symbol to these fellow business owners to ask them if they’d like to share the cost of an ad in a magazine.

• An invitation designer who sells wedding invitations asks a wedding photographer, a florist and a jewelry designer to take part in a blogging meme about winter wedding ideas. As each company posts their articles, they link to each others’ websites.

3. Media, Sales Reps, Etc.
Another audience to consider in social media are professionals who might in some way help your business. This could be press, well-connected sales reps, a buyer for a retail chain you’d like to get a wholesale account from. Social media is a great way to get on their radar. Some examples of how this might work:

• A catnip toy designer Googles the names of some writers who work for Cat Fancy. She sees that a few of them have Twitter accounts and follows them and sends a hello saying “I liked your article in Cat Fancy. I look forward to reading about your upcoming articles.” Now they’re aware of her and will hopefully follow her back. Even if they do not, she can use Twitter to see if they mention what articles they have coming up so she can pitch them her products.

• A home decor maker meets a sales rep at a trade show. She decides to look her up on Linked In after the show and chat with her about possibly representing her line.

Today’s post is part of a series of posts on social media. For the next week and a half, fellow bloggers will be sharing secrets to using social media for small business success. You can follow along and get more details on the series here. Participating bloggers include: Blacksburg Belle, The Artists’ House, Big Thinking for Small Businesses, heartmade, Miss Malaprop, Madeline Bea, Imaginative Bloom, and Jessica Swift.

Facebook has made things a little tricky for marketers this week with the introduction of the new Like button. First of all, this button is neat. You can stick it on any page of your site and visitors just have to click to express fondness for your site. They don’t even get taken off your website, it automatically sends information to their Facebook profile. Very awesome.

Here’s where the challenge comes in: Like can do one of two things. You can either have visitors like your website (which causes your URL to be posted to their wall on Facebook) OR you can have visitors like your brand (which causes them to become a fan of your page). Which is better? I don’t know. Below is a comparison of the options.

So how will you be using the “like” button, to generate fans or generate website clicks?

One of the biggest mistakes I see smaller businesses making online is that they often don’t understand who their target market is. As a result they don’t actually market to them. Developing a successful small business means having a very clear understanding of who your target audience is. You might be saying “duh” right now but consider these questions:

Does your media list mostly contain indie blogs?

Do your Facebook statuses say “Just found a new source for fabrics on ebay.” and “Trying to figure out how to use Quickbooks for small business”?

Do you blog mainly about going to trade shows and how to put in a perfect dart?

If you’re guilty of these faux pas, you probably aren’t marketing to your target audience and you may not even understand who your target audience is. Don’t get me wrong, it’s okay to pitch indie blogs. There’s nothing wrong with giving customers a little behind the scenes peak at your day to day life. The problem is that’s all some small businesses do. Unless you sell supplies, most of your potential customers probably aren’t small business owners or artisans. They’re people who admire unique products, but can’t necessarily produce them on their own, and aren’t even terribly interested in how you do your magic. They just enjoy the end result.

So here are four places you can change your ways immediately and start marketing to potential customers instead of, well, yourself.

1. Blog
Blog about things that are interesting to your customers. If you sell dog leashes, blog about cute dog videos from Youtube. If you sell cosmetics, blog about how to achieve the perfect smokey eye.

2. Social Media
Stop spending all day on Etsy’s self-promotion forums. Stop tweeting about new Ebay seller policies, troubles with your merchant account and CPSIA all day. Start Tweeting and Facebooking about stuff your customers will find interesting, amusing or informative. If you want to socialize with fellow artisans or small business owners create TWO social media accounts, one for customers and one for peers.

3. Advertising
This is a biggie. There is a giant world of advertising to be had out there. There are niche publications for nearly everything. So stop spending all your ad dollars on publications mainly read by other artisans and business owners (again, unless you sell supplies or services for business owners or something). It’s okay to do a little marketing to that audience, but make sure the bulk of your ad dollars are being spent on publications that reach potential customers and not just your peers.

Check out sites like Blogads, explore Google Adwords and Adbrite. Think about who your target customers are and what publications they read and what websites they visit. Speaking of which…

4. Media List
Make sure your media list contains press relevant to your brand. A press list for a jewelry company should be different than a press list for a company that mainly designs housewares. Make sure you’re thinking about niche audiences that might like your products. A company that makes jewelry out of circuit boards should be pitching to geek publications. A company that makes pendants featuring different dog breeds should be pitching to pet publications.

We communicate with our customers and site visitors even more than we realize. Each of those communications is a place to invite customers to engage with us. Oftentimes we miss those opportunities, simply because the thought hasn’t occurred to us. Here are three opportunities you may not be taking to ask customers for more engagement:

1. Welcome to Our List
When a customer joins your newsletter you probably send them an email welcoming them. What does this email contain other than a standard welcome message? If you’re like most businesses, little else. Modify that welcome message to invite your customer to your Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Youtube or other social media accounts. If you have a special contest or event coming up you want them to take part in, make mention of that. Don’t overload the message with too many calls to action, but be sure take advantage of this missive to give customers an additional way to connect.

2. Thank You Page & Thank You Email
When a customer makes a purchase, they’re making a very clear statement about their interest in your brand. Use your thank you page and thank you email to ask the customer to become a Facebook fan, share a coupon for your website with a friend, or visit your blog.

3. Newsletter
Most companies use their newsletter to announce sales, share coupons or promote new products. The focus tends to be on getting a customer to make a purchase. While this is a reasonable goal, you should also make greater engagement with your audience a goal. Invite your customers to share pictures of themselves using your product, ask customers to follow you on Twitter, or ask them to write a review of your product online.

Most people don’t put out on a first date, that includes your customers. What I mean by this is that people rarely buy the first time they hear about a brand. Winning customers over is often a process, not a one shot deal. Sure, some people will happen upon your e-tail shop and buy immediately, and that’s great, but it’s probably not going to be most of your customers. That’s why it’s important to understand how the cumulative effects of your marketing efforts result in sales.

1. Price point affects time to convert
If you’re selling a more expensive product, it’s probably going to take longer to convert a customer. The more expensive the item, the more time customers need to get comfortable with your brand and decide to invest. If you’re selling a $2 item it’s probably pretty easy to get people to throw down cash for that, a $200 item or a $2,000 item is another story.

The more you expect customers to spend, the more time you’re going to need to build trust and affinity with your audience.

2. You need better analytics
Consider this scenario:
I see an ad for a jewelry shop on my favorite blog every day. Mother’s day is coming up and after seeing this same ad for a couple of months, I decide to take a gander at what they’ve got. Maybe their price point is too high for me right now, maybe it’s just not mom’s taste.

Now imagine another couple of months goes by and I realize I need to get a birthday gift for my sister. I know she likes robots and I do a search for robot gifts on Google. The same jewelry shop I saw on my favorite blog comes up in my search because they happen to have robot necklaces. I click and find just the right thing and place my order. I feel comfortable with this shop because I’ve heard of them, maybe I don’t remember where or how, but the name is familiar and they have the right thing at the right time.

To a not-so-hot analytics program, it would appear the sale came from organic search. To a more sophisticated program, you’d discover I’d been to this online shop a few times. Each visit helped familiarize me with the brand and increase my comfort level.

My point here is that building a relationship with a customer takes time. The analytics software you use should capture each exposure your customer has to your website to give you a better picture of where your sales come from, and how long it takes for customers to convert.  It’s also important to keep in mind that even that analytics software can’t account for the number of times your customer saw an ad for your brand or an editorial mention about your brand. The customer may also have been to your website from both work and home computers, thus appearing to be two different visitors. All of these different touch points contribute to a customer ultimately making a purchase.  Even if you can’t track every single one, it’s still a good idea to gather as much information as possible.

3. You need to build a relationship
So, we’ve just talked about how customers probably aren’t going to buy the first time they hear about your business, they might not even visit the first time they hear about you. When they ultimately do pay a visit, they still may not buy right away. What can you do about this? Going back to our first date analogy, you can pretty much ask the customer if they’d like to see you again (ask ‘em on a second date).  You can do this with a number of tools. Some examples include:

• Invite your website visitors to join your email list.
  Make this process as easy as possible. Have a field on EVERY page of your website in a prominent position that the customer can use to enter their email address to get on your mailing list. Don’t ask for name and birthday and all that other stuff. You’re being too forward and making it too difficult to connect, make the email list sign up as easy as possible for the customer.

• Invite your customer to your social media hang outs.
  Make sure it’s easy to find you on Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Flickr, Youtube — whatever social media sites you hang out on, make sure the customer can connect with you there. Add links to all your social media pages throughout your website so customers who prefer to connect on social sites can do so.

• Make your website stickier.
  A sticky website is a site that keeps people coming back. You can make your website sticky with a variety of tools including a good entertaining blog, a game, a useful widget, a message board. Pick something that’s most suitable for your brand and test different features to see what your site visitors seem to like.

Bottom line: Don’t expect instant results from every marketing effort and don’t expect a sale with every website visit.  Do be visible through multiple channels (editorial mentions, search engines, ads, etc) and do aim for that second date, a chance to win the customer over in time, everything else is gravy.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last few years, you know that social media is all the rage. It’s a delicious nexus of fun and business because you can engage with your customers and market to them all in one platform. With this new social and marketing platform come some rules for success and frankly some basic etiquette. Ignore them at your peril, respect them and watch your social media presence thrive and your brand grow stronger…

Read the tips over at Indie Fixx, where I posted this article as a guest contributor >>