April 20, 2011
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With April 18 barely behind us, your feelings about the Federal government are probably tainted. But did you know that there is a government agency, probably with offices near you, that offers close personal attention in social media to small business owners, and unlike the tax office, they provide valuable social media consulting services for free.
I was surprised to learn about it last week. Let me tell you about one person and how he was helped.
Jonathan Celis, owner of Los Angeles-based Absolutraining, a personal training consultancy that uses unconventional methods to reduce body fat. Celis knows tons about health and fitness. He knows a lot less about social media and marketing.
To get the help he needed, he turned to the Los Angeles Regional Small Business Development Network(SBDC LA), which has seven offices covering Ventura, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles counties.
SBDC LA is just one of 63 regional offices nationwide, all under the Small Business Administration (SBA). SBA, best known for helping small businesses raise capital, also provides a plethora of free services.
Want to read more about small business and social media? Check these out:
In the LA region, an average of 10,000 small business people take advantage of these consulting and training services each year. Last year, one in five of them were trained or consulted in social media.
The help comes in two forms. First, there are small workshops attended by eight or 10 people. Then there is one-on-one consulting, which is private allowing the business person to address specific needs and discuss budget privately.
In 2010, Celis was one of the 2,000 people to turn to SBDC LA for social media help.
The process started with a sit-down for coffee and conversation with a staff member who gave him useful tips on simplifying language and graphics on his web site. But that was just the start. Soon Celis was enrolled in workshops where he got help in the specific areas he wanted to learn about.
“My main website didn’t draw any traffic or buzz and my Facebook promotions were flat and never generated feedback,” Celis recalled.
It turned out the program works a lot like the ones he designs for his fat-reducing clients.
In his work, Celis trains people in one-on-one bootcamps. SBDC training sessions often have less than 10 participants and much time is spent in one-on-one, in “how-to” demonstrations and discussions. Each of Celis clients sets his or her own goals and so do SBDC participants.
Celis had clear goals when he started. He asked for and received specific help in understanding and using Facebook and Yelp. As he improved the way he used the two platforms, his Google ranking started rising. That spike started getting him more inquiries and clients.
As he became more comfortable and adept in social media, he started using more social tools. He started a blog and then a YouTube account, discovering he was pretty good at video, where he posts customer testimonials and workout regimens.
He also discovered how the tools compliment each other. He’ll post a video on YouTube, and then fold it into a blog post that explains the video. Then he uses Facebook to point to the blog.
All of this keeps elevating him in Google rankings. Not only that, but past clients join his online conversations. They may have follow up questions or they may sometime jump into a prospect’s inquiry an testify to Celis abilities.
“The more I use social media the more people contact me and learn my training philosophy,” he concluded.
I found out about Celis through Jesse Luna, an old Twitter friend, who is a marketing and social media advisor at the Ventura office of SBDC LA.
According to James Alva, regional director for the Los Angeles SBDC network, social media training started in 2008 and has increased in popularity. Today, one in five small business people who turn to them for training want social media help.
That translates to 6,000 people so far in the three county area. Nationwide that would be tens of thousands of small business people have learned how to use social media for their business through this program.
I asked Alva why an organization known for loan assistance was so active in social media training. Alva made clear that SBDC has always been about training people with tools they need in small business.
“Realizing that social media had progressed from being more than a personal/social tool into a more business-friendly application, we started hiring business advisors—like Jesse—who had a background in social media to advise and train small business owners.
This meant that SBDC itself had to become more social.
Said Alva, “We had to walk the walk” of what we were advocating to our clients.” So, a couple of years back, they began using social platforms themselves. Today they are active on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, and YouTube.
This approach is what drew Luna in, “I thought it was interesting that each center leverages social media know-how to help businesses thrive and grow.”
We live in a time when most people are disappointed with government and how they spend money. It is more than a little refreshing to see, one of its many agencies doing something at the grassroots that empowers small business people with modern tools of commerce. Maybe other government agencies might learn something by taking a look.
Check your balance, review recent transactions and pay your bill on the go.
BCseo Tweets 8 months ago
What a fantastic program, now that is money well spent to get this country back on its feet.Its the small business that spurs America to greatness and self sufficiency.Thank you so much for bring this to my attention I am always looking to sign up for any extra training and help with evolving medias.Maybe they need to extend this program to other business training for small business.Scott Khttp://www.bcseo.com