I was at Disruptive Media’s Really Realtime Conference in Stockholm yesterday, organised and hosted by the ever-dynamic Annika Lidne. One of the standout talks was by Bemz CEO and founder Lesley Pennington.
Bemz help give your Ikea sofa new life, providing replacement covers.
A Twittering CEO
Pennington is one of the few CEO’s I’ve come across who seems to have been prepared to muck in and learn as much as possible about how to utilise Facebook, Twitter and blogs instead of handing over the work to the marketing department.
This may well be because they’re a relatively small firm; nevertheless, if businesses are to succeed with social media employees across the board need to get how these communications channels work and not just the ad executives, PR staff or early adopters that you find in larger corporations.
From what Pennington said, Bemz’s marketing strategy was to invest solely in search engine optimization, build a blog and then connect with their target audience on Twitter and Facebook.
Speaking to a packed audience, most of whom were twittering away throughout the day, Pennington said:
“Social media allowed us to give Bemz a personal face which we couldn’t do on our website…We put our money where our mouth and wanted to get feedback on how to get feedback on how to build our products and our company.”
Talking about Facebook, Pennington noted that “you start with exactly zero followers so you can make mistakes and learn as you go and grow.”
Dedicating a weekend to research early in the process, Pennington claimed her strategy was to look for influencers on social media sites like Twitter, follow them and then start conversations.
“We discovered that our Facebook Fan Page was incredibly interactive,” Pennington said, and advised conference delegates to just “get out there and start doing it,” emphasising that you shouldn’t expect followers to look for you.
“Companies have to create interest for new users,” she said.
Study the Strategy
It’s evident that small companies can build effective relationships with customers through social media. Bemz’s Facebook Fan Page is an excellent example of how a company can interact and engage with customers. The likely knock on effect is that some will be converted to active online brand ambassadors who then go out there and publicise and promote the company.
If you’re a small business looking to learn about social media marketing, I recommend you look at how Bemz are operating online.
Image: Paula Märttila
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