Small is Beautiful

Small numbers are important. Online Marketing…Emerging Media…Social Network Marketing…has for too long been focused on the “top of the funnel”, or the big numbers.

I don’t care about the big numbers…and if you have a business … and if you have decided that emerging media is important…and if you are looking for a metric to measure… and if you need more people to to know who you are…neither should you.

You should care about the small numbers.

This is not mass media…this is small media.

For my Topeka Subways client…I need to try to get a regular customer to come back in to a place they already know and love two more times per month. And while we WANT every customer to do this…to show growth I need a relatively small number of people to do so. This is why it is significant that in the last 30 days they have added more than 20 Foursquare friends (Topeka Foursquare)…this is why it is huge that they have 180 Facebook fans (Topeka Subways) that are beginning to interact more…this is why it is noteworthy that they have 151 Twitter followers (@Topekasubway)… and important that we have around 650 people on our email list who receive an email every couple of months.

These are not big numbers…once upon a time I would have never shared these! The key is…these are the right people. These are people who want to hear from us…who eat the food…who are already customers AND who happen to also use one or two of the online tools that we do.

Developing the power of small numbers is community management…it is one on one interaction…it is knowing who you need to talk to and how many people you need to buy from you.

Is there a small number that is beautiful for you?