Social Media & small businesses - Case study
As more and more businesses jump into social media, case studies and success stories are becoming more prevalent. Yet despite the fact that small businesses are often just as entrenched as big business, the little guys are significantly under represented when it comes to case studies. Today I will fix that. I connected with Sue Tafeni of Chenai Chic earlier this month, I was immediately fascinated with how a niche businesses such as hers was using social media. It gives a fascinating insight into why and how a small business uses social media.
Firstly, what is Chenai Chic?
Chenai Chic is a bespoke online tailoring business, specialising in Southern African traditional wear. There is a designer in everyone, so my inspiration comes from everyday life and what I see people wearing. The richness and diversity of materials sets off my creativity. The company was started 3 years ago. After some extensive background research it became apparent to me that South African traditional wear was a fairly 'untapped' market and a strong demand existed for young to middle aged women who originate from that region of the world. People from West and Central Africa have for many years now, established fashion markets in the western world, retailing their traditional wear often worn to occasions such as weddings, dinner parties, graduation ceremonies etc. Many Southern African women interviewed stated that they found themselves 'having' to wear outfits from these regions just to be identified as an African! But not necessarily identifying with the style or even fabric of the garments.
My business plan followed thereafter and continues to grow......Why did you decide social media was appropriate for your business?
As the business is purely online at present, we decided that the rapidly growing social media network was our best form of marketing and given that the vast majority of Chenai Chic’s customers and fans are women and given women’s use of social media, it becomes clear why social media is something we see as important! In June the “2009 Social Media Study” a US study from BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners found women are turning to social media for fun, entertainment and connection.
· Fifty- three per cent of the US female Internet population of 79 million actively participated in some type of social media at least weekly.
· Of the female social media participants, 75% took part in social networking and 55% used blogs.
· Twelve million posted to blogs and 8 million published them.
This is an impressive use of social media. Granted the findings are for the US market but it would not be presumptuous to assume that African women’s use of social media is on par with their US counterparts.
How do you use social media for your business?
We view it as a medium to deepen our connection with our customers and supporters, be it a customer actually buying from us, a window shopper or a business seeking to connect with us.
The social media platforms – Twitter and Facebook – we use tend to complement each other. Ideally it would be great to engage equally in every social media platform that exists but reality and resources dictate that decisions have to be made about where to invest time and energy. We regularly tweet and facebook update on our latest designs, events and general fashion news.
As they say in marketing, “You can’t buy attention anymore. Having a huge budget doesn’t mean anything in social media…. you’ve got to be willing to play…”
(Couldn’t have said it better myself.)
What considerations should small businesses make before jumping in head first?
There is the aspect of how companies manage the expectations of fans/followers and communicate with them. When people follow you on Twitter or become a fan of your Fanpage on Facebook, I think there is an expectation by many people that they can engage in some dialogue with the company or at the very least the employee of the company.
The danger is when companies and even ‘celebrities’ create a profile, people follow and try to engage with the company or celebrity and there is a deafening silence. No re-follow, no response to messages. It’s as if this ‘celebrity’ or company is saying to their follower “Nothing you say is or ever can be of interest to me”. The dilemma for companies is that if they have a lot of followers replying to every single message, it ends up being time consuming and costly. It will be interesting to see how companies respond to this challenge of balancing followers and fan expectations with communication versus the cold hard fact of resources and allocation of time.
What other practical applications are there for small businesses?
Firstly, LinkedIn, Facebook and Social Media are gradually taking over the role of traditional marketing platforms. Only three years ago if you were looking for work either as a freelancer or consultant or even as a paid employee you would check the main job boards, your contacts of course and recruitment consultants. Now if you are looking to pick up some work or extra projects you tweet your availability. Within minutes you can have followers retweeting your availability and suddenly your whole networked has expanded. Smart recruitment consultants are leveraging this. Same applies to the fashion industry, global fashion shows like New York and London, have a lot to thank the social media platform for as it allows for real time marketing, communication and even flow for some of these events. Now you get real time uploads of the latest designs onto social media not having to wait for some publications or televisions for that.
Secondly, there is sourcing information and referrals. Twitter has become a de-facto search engine and with the recent announcement by Google that its results will now integrate Twitter data, the reach has rapidly increased. People using social media to put out good quality, relevant and informative messages have more likelihood of visibility in search results for relevant keywords. And for companies, and even independent bloggers looking to build or expand their brand, this can only be a good thing.
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Sue Tafeni is the founder of Chenai Chic, an online Afro-wear boutique. She has in the past been the Afro-wear sponsor for Miss Zim UK, Miss Southern Africa, Miss Yorkshire Africa and has exhibited at festivals like Zimfest. You can view her collection at www.chenai-chic.co.uk. You can join her page on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chenai-Chic/165218548867?v=wall. You can follow Sue on Twitter on http://twitter.com/ChenaiChic.
For more information about this topic please don’t hesitate to contact me on info@quartzmarketing.co.uk.


