Hello Again Everyone,

After the historic week we have all had electing our 44th President, how is everyone doing?  I know, I know, I had said last week that I was going to be happy for the election to be over with, as I was tired of all the media attention and focus on this TWO YEAR campaign trail; but I had to write one last post regarding this because I read an extremely interesting article this morning on how Barak Obama used the power of social networks to win! 

I saw many similarities between what he did and what independent retailers can do to win victory over the big boxes.   The article came from the New York Times and you can read the full story here, although I will be quoting quite a bit of it below, (there were just so many good quotes!).

The article notes how back in early 2007 Obama approached one of the innovators of Facebook (the social networking giant!) and started from there to build his campaign from the ground up.  He built his brand and overpowered his opponents who had much more brand equity than him to start.

"When you think about it, a campaign is a start-up business...Other than his speech in 2004 at the convention and his two books, Mr. Obama had very little in terms of brand to begin with, and he was up against Senator Clinton, who had all the traditional sources of power, and then Senator McCain. But he had the right people and the right idea to take them on. When you think about it, it was like he was going up against Google and Yahoo. And he won."

I found this to be very powerful and true.  A few years ago no one had any idea who this person was, but we all knew who John McCain and Hillary Clinton were.  Yet in the end, he came out on top!  So when you think, how can I go up against the Amazon.com's and Wal-mart's of the retail world; just think of the possibilities you have if you utilize the internet and all that social networks and e-commerce can do for you! 

You can touch your existing customer base, making them soldiers for your store or your "cause".  Empower them and they will use the social media and internet tools as well, such as forwarding your emails to friends, sharing online coupon codes, becoming a fan of your store on Facebook or joining your group, blogging and commenting about their experience in your store on yelp.com, etc.  

The ways you and your customers can use the social networking capabilities on the internet are endless, and they can make or break your store!  One of my favorite quotes from the article: "That's the thing about pipes today: they run both ways."

"The founders of America wanted a government that reflected its citizens, but would be at remove from the baser impulses of the mob The mob, flush with victory, is at hand, but instead of pitchforks and lanterns, they have broadband and YouTube."

So make sure you have a presence on the web, make sure you are googling your store's name and even if you don't have much of a presence set up for yourself on social networks, you can at the very least see what customers are saying about you!  And use the communication tools of the internet to comment back to support or defend yourself.  Remember, the pipes go both ways now!

But, if you're really savvy, you know that now is the time to take advantage of the internet tools and do everything in your power to use the free resources to build your brand. 

"Thomas Jefferson used newspapers to win the presidency, F.D.R. used radio to change the way he governed, J.F.K. was the first president to understand television... "But Senator Barack Obama understood that you could use the Web to lower the cost of building a political brand, create a sense of connection and engagement, and dispense with the command and control method of governing to allow people to self-organize to do the work."

Don't you want to be a leader in the independent retail world?  Well, for starters, you probably already are if you are on this site and reading this blog post.  So good job, step one is complete!  Now, take your social networking and ecommerce skills to the next level, check out our blogs on internet marketing, enter our contest this month for a chance to win a professional web site review and marketing road map, use the tools here and elsewhere on the web to claim victory over the big box stores!

Until Next Time...

Happy Blogging!

Jessica