Small businesses rely on local clientele, word-of-mouth and small scale partnerships. Although not every small business wishes to become a conglomerate, SMM offers the chance to become more a ‘self-aware’ enterprise engaging with a larger audience and thus ensuring its survival in economic down-turn.
A ‘self-aware’ business pin points its USP and target audience. For the local building society this could be its quality of care. The problem faced by smaller companies is the shifting nature of its consumers; online window-shopping is bigger and better than ever.
By utilising SMM smaller businesses can ‘self-brand’ themselves at a low-cost to an international audience and research competition to form further creative partnerships. Social media creates an equal platform where a user’s commentary and following generate their online ‘value’. A theatre promotes events to 566 followers and a hairdresser re-tweets articles on aesthetics. This gives each business a personal touch and sparks intellectual discourse. Should the pub host a Jazz night? Each comment is directed to the client and is open to response.
Small businesses no longer have to rely on recommendation amongst locals because their USP does this for them. Small businesses are thinking beyond their local counterparts to connect with a larger demographic. The library is organising a book sale and is easily accessible by tube, for more details visit the website (and said sucinctly in 88 character). Often their USP is their ‘local value’ which is never compromised. Social media can be used casually or pro-actively to secure business.
anglicanka 
“Small businesses no longer have to rely on recommendation amongst locals because their USP does this for them.”
I think it still plays a pretty big role, at least in my experience. Today I saw a tweet from a local deli about a wine tasting – but I only followed the account because I was recommended it by a local. (Although it was a local blogger who I follow and read, but have never met!).
It has taken a long time, perseverance and reading a lot of crap tweets to really uncover the Bristol twitterers’ community’s breadth and depth. I’ve been on Twitter for a good couple of years now, possibly, and I’m only now starting to really value it for local recommendations. And I’ve come to realise good recommendations require good locals recommending! It’s finding the business online initially that’s the most important bit – even if you really like a restaurant, you don’t tend to think, ‘hey, I’ll search for it on Twitter!’ unless they actively push you to do it while you’re there. I think that to be most successful with social media marketing you need to be good enough to not do very much of the work yourself – your customers will do it for you, as a real recommendation from a person is more meaningful than a poster in a shop window saying ‘we tweet’.
http://twitter.com/#!/katchabilek/status/85845998655647746
http://twitter.com/#!/ewinkler/status/84275292419538944
This is the main blog I read, and he tweets as well:
http://bristolculture.wordpress.com
@bristol_culture
I’m trying to use Twitter at work, too, which is hard. It’s not huge with scientists yet, though I’m hoping they’ll get into it soon. Although there’s always someone in every physics department who refuses to use any technology whatsoever.
I think (in relation to this discussion) the ‘locals’ are more household-name science people like Brian Cox and Simon Singh who probably aren’t really up for tweeting more commercial-ly type things. At the moment I’m basically shouting ‘get your free papers here!’ into a void of spambots.
If someone is referred to a place then naturally they’re more inclined to go but there’s a lot to be said for finding something niche by yourself, like Wilton’s Music Hall (which to me is amazing and really close but Josh found out about it online). It’s also about those places thinking about how they can attract more custom by personalising themselves rather than depending on regulars (like local clubs outside of urban areas).
I often look for twitter accounts of places I like bc I use twitter as a personal news feed, mostly for Russian news but it’s great for discovering interesting people like Victoria Coren – I really enjoy her tweets but I’d only seen her on a comedy panel once up until then but I think her writing is great.