It’s true! Social media can and will lead to sales for independent pet stores committed to engaging with their current customers, as well as prospective customers online. Simply put, you must first connect on a personal level before you become a trusted resource for their pet needs.
 
Social media is actually a perfect tool for retailers because it’s all about engaging and networking directly with your target audience. Customer service and pet care knowledge are the biggest competitive strengths of the independent pet store, and social media allows you to demonstrate that in an affordable, instantaneous way.
 
This article will be the first in a series of four about how to set up and use social media to make your register ring. If you follow along each month, by October, you’ll have your key social media accounts set up and all of them connected. Most importantly, you’ll have a simple, easy to follow strategy that will engage new and existing customers just in time for the holiday season!

 
Drink the Kool-Aid
First, I want to make the case for participating in social media. After all, everyone has limited time and marketing budget, so whatever we choose to invest in must ultimately increase our bottom line.
 
Consider this: Seventy-nine percent of American adults, age 18 and older, used the Internet in 2009. Forty-six percent of those individuals used a social networking site like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn on a regular basis, according to the Pew Research Center.
 
Pet owner demographics would suggest that 60-70 percent of those users have at least one pet, so a large percentage of your potential and existing customers are using social media on a daily or weekly basis.
 
Despite the tell-all stats, many retailers still think social media is a waste of time. This conclusion might be the result of social media hearsay or through personal social media experimentation that didn’t produce the desired result (sales).
 

Social Success
Most businesses lack a true strategy for how they will engage and build trust with pet owners. Another common mistake is in the wording, tone or structure of the posts or tweets themselves. Perhaps the following analogy will help to demonstrate what your mindset should be when socializing online:
 
Think of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as cocktail parties you are attending. Each online ‘party’ has a unique audience, and, if you’ve recruited fans and followers wisely (don’t worry, I’ll help you with this next month), most of them are pet owners within reasonable driving distance to your store(s).
 
Your posts should resemble things you would say or share with potential customers at a real-life networking event or mixer. For example, you wouldn’t go up to a prospective customer and say “new organic dog toys just arrived and I’m selling them for $8-20”. That introduction would likely be met with a negative response because it’s simply too much of a sales pitch for a cocktail party!
 
Online, your posts should be more inquisitive to garner feedback, like “Dog lovers, what kind of toys do your dogs prefer?” Pet owners would be more comfortable responding to a comment like that than a sales pitch. You might even give pet parents a reason to proactively engage with your posts by writing something like, “Have your cat comment on his or her favorite toys and we’ll give you a treat—10 percent off your next purchase!”
 
Be sure to post relevant pet care information and suggest valuable resources for pet owners to establish your store as a go-to for all things pet. Post about your support of shelters or breed rescues in your community. Like-minded individuals will instantly feel a connection with your store.
 
Remember, when posting, think, “how can I help them,” not “how can I sell them.”
 
The tail-end of my case to convince you to network online is this: social networks empower people to decide who they want to interact with and also who and what they want to ignore. So your need to be where your customers are and your conversations should lure them to interact with you. Interaction leads to trust, and trust leads to sales.
 
Hopefully, I’ve convinced you to join the online conversation with pet owners! If so, here is your homework for July:
 
Visit [edu.fetchingcommunications.com/signup/petbusinessmagazine] for a special treat only for Pet Business readers—a step-by-step guide to setting up your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, courtesy of Fetching University, which provides social media education for pet businesses.
 
Over the next three months on PetBusiness.com, I’ll tell you how to connect your accounts, work with different social media applications and create events for your business using social media.
 
Not yet convinced? Remember these prophetic words of Erik Qualman, social media expert, “We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it.”
 

About the author:
Kristen Levine’s passion for pets started at a young age and quickly led to a fifteen-year career as the Public Relations Director of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Tampa Bay, where she played a critical role in promoting pet adoption and pet lifestyle education. Her knowledge of the pet industry and lifestyle concerns led Kristen to found Fetching Communications in 2003—the world’s first marketing agency exclusively dedicated to the pet marketplace. Today, Kristen is a popular columnist for NBC Universals Petside.com, The Tampa Tribune and FIDO Friendly magazine.  She’s also Bissell Homecare’s official pet spokesperson and appears regularly on Daytime, a nationally syndicated morning show. Kristen and her husband Paul live in Florida with their dog, three goats and a pair of miniature donkeys. For more information, visit www.KristenLevine.com.