BIG Social Media Meets small Business: American Express

This post about American Express is the first in a planned series to profile how big companies are  engaging small businesses via social media. (Please comment below if you have suggestions on future companies to highlight.)

Big Social Media Meets small Business will look at the opportunities created, programs, initiatives and strategies undertaken, and lessons learned by big business. It’s a resource for big companies, but it will also explore ways small business can learn from big companies to use social media more effectively.

In today’s media landscape, using social media to reach small business seems like a no brainer. Yet it was only a few years ago that many corporations were hesitant to embrace social media in any form.

And when it comes to lessons learned, maybe the reverse is true.  As I previously have written, there’s an argument to be made that it’s small businesses that can teach corporate America a thing or two given their size, flexibility and organizational structure. But with plenty of resources at their disposal to either succeed or fail, big business’s experiences can prove enlightening for a small business grappling with social media.

Profile #1: American Express – Making Social Media More “Open”

So today we start with American Express and an interview with Scott Roen, VP of OPEN Forum and New Product & Capabilities Development. Scott manages a team charged with the development of new card products, reward platforms, and OPEN Forum.

Launched in 2007, OPEN Forum is an online resource and social networking hub for small-business owners and entrepreneurs searching for practical information and tips for industry experts.

Q: How are efforts like Small Business Saturday, the Facebook Makeover effort and of course the OPEN Forum helping build stronger relationships with small businesses?

“At OPEN Forum, it’s our mission to help entrepreneurs succeed. Each of these initiatives is designed to do that by solving a pressing need affecting their business.

“We strive to achieve two primary objectives: provide practical, actionable information and content, and help forge meaningful business connections. By doing this, we’re creating a thriving ecosystem that entrepreneurs can use to their advantage in their day-to-day business.

“Take Small Business Saturday for example that was held that Saturday after Thanksgiving. Throughout the economic downturn, small businesses voiced their concerns and told us that their path to recovery depended on new customers. We saw this as an opportunity to carve out a day, on the busiest shopping holiday weekend of the year, to raise awareness for the importance of local, independent businesses and drive foot traffic into their stores.

“This past November, we partnered with General Assembly, a campus for technology, design and entrepreneurship, brought together some of the best and brightest minds in the tech scene for a two-day hackathon to solve issues plaguing small business owners. At the top of list was how to find and engage local customers. More than one hundred developers created more than 20 hacks, each aimed at getting customers shopping at small businesses.”

Q: For better and worse, how is social media specifically changing the way you communicate and work with small businesses?

“Social media gives us the opportunity to reach small businesses directly in a way we couldn’t before. It enables us to solicit feedback and provide a better product. Whether it’s OPEN Forum, Facebook or Twitter, the level of engagement in our content and the business interaction among the community members is the best indicator of our success.

“The OPEN Forum mobile experience is a great example of how feedback has resulted in action. We found that many small business owners were connecting to us via a variety of devices – desktop browser, smartphones, iPads, and so on. With a large percentage of our mobile viewers using the iPhone, we knew that by developing a free app we could help them access the information they were already consuming. We have since launched both an iPhone and Android app.

“We also know that social media usage is on the rise among savvy entrepreneurs. According to the American Express Small Business Monitor Fall 2011, of the businesses that identified themselves as ‘riding high’ – those that have grown despite the effect of the economy – 58 percent say they will use social media to attract new customers. Furthermore, more than one-in-four business owners (28%) say social media has helped their business survive in a challenging economy.”

Q: Describe how American Express is 1) helping small businesses with their social media strategies and 2) using social media to reach them.

“Small business owners are experts at customer engagement, but they sometimes lack the understanding of today’s social media tools and techniques. On OPEN Forum, we’ve worked with more than 200 industry experts to create a hub for resources and “How-to’s” to help business owners build and execute social strategies.

“Some recent articles include, ‘How B2B Marketers Can Use Social Media To Generate More Customers‘ and ‘How To Improve Your Facebook Marketing For The Holidays.’

“Earlier this year, we partnered with Facebook to launch “Facebook Big Break for Small Business,” a national contest to help transform the way small businesses use Facebook to connect and engage with customers. We had more than 11,000 entrants. Over the summer, five winners were flown to Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto for a two-day business makeover where they met with experts on integrating the social network into their business. We were able to capture their experiences and share them on OPEN Forum so other businesses could learn from them.

Q: What lessons about social media can small businesses learn from American Express which has many more resources at its disposal to test ideas and reach customers?

“The beauty of social media is the low barrier of entry. It costs nothing other than time to set-up and run social media campaigns. The key is to ‘test and learn,’ not set and forget.

“Social media has allowed us to reach a highly targeted audience. What we’ve learned has helped us improve existing products, refine new product ideas and fine-tune marketing and sales strategies.

“These are outcomes that can be achieved by any business – large or small. What is important is to outline a strategy that will make the most of the investment. Here are a few tips that any business can adhere to if they plan to make the jump into social:

• Identify Your Social Media Outposts: Once you decide the key places where you plan to establish and maintain a presence, observe those communities
• Assign Team Responsibilities: Social media, like any function, needs to be “owned.”
• Create Your Update Schedule: An “editorial calendar” or a “social media calendar” specifying when you will update various social sites.
• Be Prepared for Follow-up: A large part of being effective with social media is “listening” and “conversing,” rather than broadcasting one-way.
• Collect Data and Analyze: Jot down anecdotes and keep track of examples you’ve seen of others using social media inventively.”

Q: What are some of your biggest takeaways from working with small businesses as part of your social media efforts? Are they different from working with big business customers?

“Entrepreneurs are a unique breed. They are resourceful, resilient and express an uncanny sense of ingenuity. By connecting with them through social media we’ve been able to listen and learn more about how they do business and what they need to business better.

“We also learned that many of them had a lot to share – information that could be beneficial to the OPEN Forum community. We ran with it and launched Cardmember contributed articles earlier this year. Each month, hundreds of thousands of visitors can read through entries chock-full of anecdotes and expertise straight from entrepreneurs, each designed as tips and best practices to educate their peers.”

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Give me your feedback. What would you like to learn from big businesses to help your efforts?