“Done is better than perfect.” This is the writing on the wall—the physical wall—at Facebook. It’s among the many phrases, greetings and signatures written by various employees and visitors to the social media giant’s offices in Palo Alto. It’s a great catchphrase not only for their growing company, but also for the five winners from American Express OPEN’s Facebook Big Break contest who recently met with Facebook and OPEN in Palo Alto.
The five winners were selected from 11,000 business owners who entered the contest. Applications were judged by social media experts such as Guy Kawsaki and John Battelle, and finalists then were featured in videos that were opened to popular voting. The winners were Big Daddy’s BBQ, Distinctive Gardens, Fat Brain Toys, HOPELights Media and Spoonflower. (You can view the Top 5 videos at facebook.com/open.)
One might think that the winners were all social media experts, with thousands of fans and followers to help boost voting in their favor, but that’s not necessarily the case. As Lisa LeFevre of Distinctive Gardens said, “Most of us got into this by falling into the pool backwards.” She doesn’t use Twitter, others have never tried Foursquare, and some had fewer fans at the beginning of the contest than an average college graduate. But where they lacked in expertise, they had what social media offers small businesses in terms of competitive advantage: the opportunity to build personal connections with their customers.
Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg spoke with the winners during the two-day program, and told them that her team sees Facebook as “the combination of what’s old with what’s new”: a way of bringing back the sense of community. And drawing on their communities is what helped these businesses win their Big Break.
For Fat Brain, it’s connecting with customers, people interested in the types of unique, educational toys that they offer. For HOPELights, it’s connecting with parents of children with special needs, like those who subscribe to their personalized educational publications. And Spoonflower uses Facebook to connect with a growing community of designers looking to print their own fabric and showcase their work.
For Big Daddy’s BBQ, it’s been about bringing their physical community online, printing “like us on Facebook” on their receipts and handing out promotional cards outside churches and salons. Online, they ask their fans to repost their messages and even found industry support from other BBQers. And, in the end, it still ties back to the personal connection. Big Daddy’s owner Gordon Biffle says he hopes to meet and personally thank the fellow BBQers who voted for him, “Whenever I get out there way, I’m going to stop in and meet them.”
Likewise, for Bud and Lisa LeFevre, Facebook has allowed them to connect with a virtual community of other gardeners—even driving new business from customers who travel from other states to visit their gardening center. But the couple has also found they’ve been able to build a stronger community within their town, where they co-host annual festivals like “Gardenstock”. “Our town of Dixon was the smallest community of the contestants—only 16,000. But our small community came out for us in a big way.“ One of their fans posted the link to vote for them on every one of his friends’ walls. And more than 200 local fans turned out for an impromptu party to celebrate their Big Break win.
But the Big Break winners recognize that as their communities grow, there’s a challenge in maintaining those personal connections. “We’re now getting fans from all over the world, people who have very different backgrounds and views,” says Darquia Biffle of Big Daddy’s. “So that’s been new for us.” And another challenge is time: “Responding has become almost a full-time job, but we’ve made it a priority. We could hire someone else, but I’d still want to be very involved.”
The small business owners also recognize that building those communities will help them succeed. “We’re competing with the Mattels and other manufacturers and retailers, and we don’t have their marketing budgets,” says Mark Carson of Fat Brain Toys. “Whereas e-commerce was the first great equalizer for small business, social media is the next. If we use it right, we can connect with customers in a way that big retailers can’t.”
And, perhaps most importantly, they’ve discovered each other. When asked how they learned to use Facebook tools like Sponsored Stories or targeted Facebook Ads, most referred to what they saw other contestants using. Dawn Grosvenor of HOPELights said, “I ‘liked’ Distinctive Gardens’ page and then saw their ad pop up on the right side of my page. Then I saw how Fat Brain used video on their homepage and wanted to do something similar.” So they tested, tried, and, occasionally, got things wrong. But they continued to learn, improve and, eventually, win their Big Break.
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