Social Media has been the topic of conversation for the better part of the last two years but everyone wants to know - can you drive business?

CHICAGO, Aug. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Leyla Arsan, Partner at Lotus Marketing Services, interviewed four small to mid-sized businesses for her blog Sunday Morning Soliloquy to get their take on how they have utilized Social Media to build relationships with customers, strengthen their brand and, ultimately, drive business.

Arsan spoke with both online and brick and mortar businesses, from varying sectors, each with different business models, and discussed how each business got involved with Social Media. Each business shared their strategy and tactics in regards to how they built relationships with existing and new customers and whether or not they have seen a bump in sales as a direct, or indirect, result of their efforts in the Social Media space.

Each one of the businesses interviewed for the interactive Question & Answer session were selected because Arsan met the owners or senior executives on a Social Media platform and believed they had a strong grasp of the Social Media space. The selected businesses do not have a large advertising budget, they do have a strong grass-roots initiative and the senior leadership understands how to utilize Social Media.

The selected businesses are as follows:

• Tiffany Kim Institute - A Medical Spa with two brick and mortar locations in Chicago
• TSS-Radio - An online retailer of satellite radio hardware and accessories
• Foiled Cupcakes - An online cupcake delivery business that launched in July of '09
• Gigantic(TM) - A digital marketing agency with a small brick and mortar presence and a large virtual footprint
  

Arsan asked each business what attracted them to the Social Media space and which platforms they used for business & which platforms they used for personal socialization online. The focus of the interview was to highlight Social Media tactics and strategies that have worked so that others may be able to draw upon their successes and failures.

Leyla Arsan is a Partner at Lotus Marketing Services and has been blogging since 2004. She currently writes a personal blog, www.sundaymorningsoliloquy.com, a lifestyle blog where she details life as a marketer. She also writes a travel blog www.artuntravel.com/blog and she is a contributor to www.thechiguide.com, an online guide to Dining and Entertainment in Chicago.

For more on this post see: Sunday Morning Soliloquy

http://www.sundaymorningsoliloquy.com/2009/08/small-businesses-utilizing-social-media.html

SOURCE Sunday Morning Soliloquy

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