I started this thread on Flyingsolo.com.au last weekend after pondering on a conversation I had at work with a colleague. Twitter is full of why you should be using twitter. So many of the blogs and magazine sites that I read are also full of stories as to why social media can make such a difference to your business.
The reality however is that most people just aren’t convinced that social media can be used to generate leads let alone actually make sales. I can see why and if you read through the 50+ comments that the thread has generated in a week (outweighing every other thread in the technology section and probably every section for that matter) there are plenty of small businesses out there that just aren’t convinced that social media can help them. Given the lack of resources and money that most small businesses are faced with, they stick to what they know works (or worked).
Face to face networking was the call in the first 15 – 20 replies that the thread produced (I haven’t had a chance to read them all). Many called this the most effective way to market their services, however I wonder how many of them actually did this regularly like even once a week.
I have invested over two years and 4000 tweets into Twitter and can honestly say that it has benefited Carbonite in the following ways:
- generated awareness
- developed new customers
- developed vocal advocates
- given the product a voice and a community through which to discuss backup and small business needs
- generated a channel of communication that is almost 24/7 with customers and resellers of the product
Whilst no one’s time is free, in order to achieve these benefits using common media efforts, it would have cost us significantly. Money we really don’t have.
Speaking to friend who is also the Marketing Manager for a large fleet operating business in Australia, her feelings regarding Twitter and Facebook where very much in line with “Twitter is full of people talking about what they are eating for breakfast” Julie couldn’t comprehend what there was to talk about and who would be listening.
The simplest way I could explain Twitter to her was that it was like visiting a networking event and not knowing anyone. At first you stand alone and listen to what is going on. Gradually you gravitate to a group of people and try to join the conversation by adding small remarks. Once established in the group you exchange views confidently. Over the course of the evening you have moved around and conversed with lots of groups. The conversation isn’t however always business. You have to talk about the food, weather, sport, listen to stupid jokes and comments. It is all part of making conversation.
Twitter for me is exactly the same. I also explained to Julie that my conversations on Twitter where not about self promotion. Yes 10% was but the other 90% was about Backup issues, small business issues, website issues, technology plus some general chit chat.
Whist my friend might still be looking to hand out business cards to people she meets, I can only recommend that she explore all forms of networking, not just the types that the text books from last decade talked about.
With the working week over and everyone’s backup issues taken care off, I settled in for some light tweeting and preparing for my weekly backup blog post.
On Thursday however, I caught site of a tweet from one of our twitter followers and recent subscribers to Carbonite having a few problems with their PC. It read something like this:
that would be the sound of a completely corrupted hard drive – fortunately I took out a subscription with @CarboniteAU about a month ago
I kept an eye out for progress and it seemed a few people where interested in what the result of the hard drive crash was.
See this tweet:
Have you been happy with @CarboniteAU? Looking to switch from external HD to Cloud.
The exchange continued
let me see how well my data on @CarboniteAU restores to my system – I have not started that process yet
This was all happening yesterday (Friday) in the afternoon. I contacted the person who was following the events to offer assistance to them should they wish to also trial Carbonite. They were happy to look at it in a week or so.
The day’s events took over and I didn’t hear or see anymore on what was going on with our restore process. However at about 7.50pm it started to get a little tense. The restore had started but being what the internet is in Australia, it wasn’t exactly going full steam ahead (which is what most people expect)
Here is a transcript of what was happening:
Is the @CarboniteAU @Carbonite server down at the moment?
I have reinstalled the @CarboniteAU software – now to try and reinstall my lost file #harddrivecrashedlosteverything
So @CarboniteAU back up has supposedly started – but I can see no evidence of it – gets confusing because flips between AU & US site
OK I found the information about @CarboniteAU restore process 45 535 files to be restored – 4 files restored – things are starting to move
What is fascinating about this is that it is so real and during the day I had tweeted about keeping your backup simple so that you can understand it and then restore it confidently. Our Carbonite customer was confident on the PC and so I was confident that they would work Carbonite out. However you could sense some insecurity.
Then the comments regarding AntiVirus software popped up. The transcript goes like this:
Does AVG cause a problem when restoring ?
At one stage the files restored with updating regularly and now again they seem frozen?
Would guess AVG & any AV sware would scan new files & slow.
Thanks Sonia I think I have managed to turn off AVG but may only be for 15 minutes
AVG Disabled! Thanks
Carbonite has never had any conflicts with AVG anti-virus software. There are some that at the point of installation we do have problems with but not AVG. However removing the need to scan files as they were being restored would have relieved some pressure on the PC. Glad this was resolved.
Now whilst all of this was going on, I was advised (via twitter) of a conversation regarding Carbonite was going on via Whirlpool. You can see parts of it here.
Had to place 3 posts there to ensure untruths where not being said about the product. Carbonite is not for everyone, particularly those with big data requirements (and especially video).
I do my best to never promote via Whirlpool, they think everything is spam for some reason. Anyway, whilst keeping an eye out on what was going on via Twitter I applied myself to whirlpool.
Now that status at 9.34 from out Restore was as follows:
@CarboniteAU 172 files since 8:08pm seems slow moving when I have 45363 files to restore
It seems we might have been keeping a few people entertained.
LOL we are AMISH tonight! only thing happening here on my superfast internet is @Carbonite @CarboniteAU RESTORE
Ok the next check was a little later (11ish),
All is good! The older version of the file I needed for tomorrow has been restored awesome work @CarboniteAU
So we did the important part of our job, which was to get people back to work.
@CarboniteAU no status is unchanged – the restore status says 45 539 files pending restore – but in fact many have been restored
That was enough for the night (11.30ish). In the morning I received this:
Overnight 7500++ files were restored thanks to @CarboniteAU a quarter of the way there!!
And then 10 minutes ago (3.30pm on the Saturday) I received this:
Must say @CarboniteAU back-up has worked very well – highly encourage you to invest $70 per year into this online back-up service
So a happy ending. We expect nothing less. We say it will save you and we expect that it will, over and over. I read an interesting quote about hard drives this week. There are two types of hard drives, those that have failed and those that are about to. Get yourself protected so that you can be up and running in no time.
Carbonite went in the direction of social media pretty much from the day we started our website. As we started to design and develop it a key part of it was going to be the blog/news section.
At the beginning I used to update it every couple of weeks. However what I started to discover was that targeting particular topics or industries began to deliver traffic. It didn’t mean sales but it did mean awareness, which at the time was our biggest challenge.
You can read the whole story at the Smart Business Solutions website.
You can now follow us on @CarboniteAU
Find out about the latest services that Carbonite is offering, what others are experiencing using Carbonite and ask us any questions that you may have.
