Social networking, often seen simply as a way for friends to keep in touch, has been pounced upon by big corporations and institutions, who understand the value of being seen as “your friendly motor manufacturer”, or something to that effect. A sector where this can be even more valuable is the small independent retailer, including the very small “Mom and Pop” shops.

Twitter, Facebook and YouTube come to mind as easy ways for these small shops to make themselves known, especially in their local areas. The ease with which a business can set up an account with each of these networks makes it a very attractive proposition.

Take, for example, a Toy Store run by a husband and wife in a small town. They sell traditional wooden toys, educational toys and teddy bears, all from well-known manufacturers. They have a website, but don’t do an awful lot of business through it because of the problems of stock control.
They don’t have many standard lines that they keep in large quantities, so if they sell out of an item in the shop, that someone orders online, then they are embarrassed to have to give a refund to the online customer, if they can’t replenish quickly from the supplier. Even one or two out-of-stock items from a large order can give rise to a bad reputation following customer feedback.This is where Twitter can help. If they sign up for one, or perhaps several accounts, they can build up relationships with all sorts of groups, both local and national. Suppose they suddenly receive a surprise shipment of sought-after teddy bears, they could send a quick tweet to their local teddy fans who would hot-foot it round to the shop. Everyone’s happy.

With Facebook they could start a fan pagewhere they could keep their followers either locally, nationally or globally, in touch with their special offers. That way, they could carry a relatively small range of standard products on their website, that they could guarantee to keep well stocked, to service their online customers’ needs.

There are plentiful opportunities to get well known on YouTube. A toyshop could make short video clips of “talking” toys or animations with, say, dancing princes, knights, horses – the possibilities are endless for potential viral clips. These videos would have links back to the shop’s website, where the products could be ordered.
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The social networks would help the name and the reputation of the shop to spread, particularly through such uses as tweeting followers in groups like NetMums or Steiff Collectables. They could establish themselves as the “go to” Facebook page for toy safety advice or become the experts to search for on YouTube, or the people to tweet with urgent toy related questions.