This document discusses how small and medium businesses can use various technologies and social media platforms as marketing tools to engage customers. It provides examples of SMBs using YouTube, Facebook, webcams, Second Life, podcasts, blogs, and MySpace to share information and promote their business in a cost-effective way. While traditional advertising is expensive, these tools allow SMBs to reach large audiences with little time and effort. The document encourages both SMBs and larger companies to experiment with social media to understand how staff and customers use these platforms.

1. pg 4 www.foxgroup.ca Telecom Journal
Editors note: for those of you that are primarily focused or
work within large organizations, we apologize for using the
term SMB. This stands for Small and Medium Business.
We assumed that everyone knew what the acronym stood for,
silly us.
by Susan Dineen
It is no longer enough to put up a website and hope
that it will attract the right audience. Small and
medium businesses (SMBs) have to be creative to
appeal to tech savvy consumers. These digital natives
have grown up with technology in the home, school and
business and spend a lot of time online. When it comes
to cool trends that will benefit small and medium
businesses here are a few of our favourites:
YouTubeTM With just a camera
phone or video recorder, SMBs are
creating their own video channels on
YouTube, sharing the unique features
about their business and extending
their marketing dollars. Let’s start by
looking at what Ottawa based 3D
scanning experts XYZ RGB
(www.xyzrgb.com) are doing to
showcase their ability to capture the
human body. http://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=06z4nvcwYWo. This
creative SMB is targeting the special
effects and gaming industry with great
success.
For SMBs who really want to learn how
to utilize YouTube for their SMB
marketing initiatives there is a video
available entitled “How to Use Internet
Marketing to Get Massive Exposure”
http://www.you tube.com/watch?v=
PxU64g_DL2I. If the SMB issue is learning how to
improve internal and external productivity Google offers
a YouTube video on their ‘Google App’s products for
small businesses. In this video small business owners talk
about how they use Google Apps to communicate and
collaborate better. http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=wwhy9Ib9qy8.
Facebook™ Founded in February 2004, Facebook
describes itself as a ‘social utility’ that helps people
communicate more efficiently with their friends, family
and coworkers. Anyone can sign up for Facebook and
interact with the people they know in a trusted
environment.
You knew that, but did you know that Facebook has a
full range of applications for businesses and many SMBs
are taking full advantage of this creative way to
communicate together. http://www.facebook.com
/business/. Facebook is also popular with museums that
have limited budgets but are looking at how to engage
younger audiences.
A great example is the Brooklyn Museum of Art where
they have built an application in Facebook called
ArtShare that allow people to share images of the
museums art works that they enjoyed on a gallery walk.
They recently won the Gold MUSE Award at the
American Association of Museums Conference. You can
read more about it on their blog at http://www.
brooklynmuseum.org/ community/blogosphere/
bloggers/2007/11/08/artshare-on-facebook/
or go to www.facebook.com and after
signing in search under Brooklyn
Museum.
Webcam A simple and inexpensive
way to engage customers is to install a
webcam. The webcam can be set-up to
give current and future customers an
‘inside look’ at the business. A great
example of how a webcam can add to
the value proposition for a SMB is at hip
dog daycare provider Doggie Central in
Mississauga. Here pet owners can watch
their dogs play from the comfort of their
office chair between 10 and 2 PM each
day. You can check it out at
www.doggiecentral.ca.
At the Royal Ontario Museum in
Toronto, visitors have been able to watch
the transformation of the Michael Lee
Chin Crystal addition from a hole in the
ground to the now completed new ‘wonder of the world’
through the webcam they set-up across from the
construction site. http://www.rom.on.ca/visit/ webcam.php.
In addition, a webcam can be used as a tool to
communicate with customers as well as enable employees
in different cities to participate in meetings.
Second Life™ Second Life is a 3D virtual world
created by Residents www.secondlife.com. It is further a
global community where people work together to build a
new online space for creativity, collaboration, commerce
and entertainment. It was created in 2003 and now has
millions of Residents around the world.
Cool
Technology for SMB’sIt’s All about Engagement

2. Telecom Journal www.foxgroup.ca pg 5
By purchasing land an SMB can reach an entirely new
audience and more! The platform enables organizations
to create a public or private space using the 3D online
virtual world technology behind Second Life ™. SMBs
can hold virtual meetings, construct product simulations
enabling customers from all over the world to test out
new designs and concepts, provide employee training,
meet with partners at your virtual headquarters, receive
product feedback and build a community around their
brand www.secondlifegrid.com.
What type of businesses are using Second Life?
Large organizations such as NASA, Phillips, Sears and
Starwood www.secondlifegrid.net/how are developing
innovative applications that help them to connect with
their customers in new ways. SMBs such as architects,
authors, engineers, designers, event planners and
communicators and publishers are also coming up with
unique new applications.
A good example is publisher, John Wiley & Sons Canada
who has been using Second Life from both a
promotional and sales perspective. They have their own
Wiley store in Second Life and they have hosted book
launches and author signings targeted at Second Life
residents. According to Therese Garnett, Vice President
Sales and Marketing, because of the demand for
information on Second life, Wiley has responded with an
in-depth series of Second Life books including the
Official Guide to Second Life and those that focus on
scripting, building your avatar, creating your own world
and how to make money in this exciting new
environment. www.wiley.ca.
While not an SMB, the Canadian government has been
researching how to improve their image. An April 30th
article in the Toronto Star by Alan Woods http://www.the
star.com/ article/419845 describes how the government
has invested $200,000 in a study commissioned to look
at how to better transmit federal policy to Canadians,
particularly the young ones, and to gather feedback
quickly and at limited cost. They included FaceBook,
YouTube, Blogs and other social networking options in
the mix. Imagine a 3D virtual embassy in Second Life
which would enable a broad international demographic
to access information on Canada. It could include
pictures of Canada, fact sheets, podcast radio news and
more. But Canada would not be the first to try and
connect this way.
The Swedish government is already doing something
similar. Check it out at: http://secondlifegrid.net/how/events
PodCasts Podcasting is a term used to describe a
collection of technologies for automatically distributing
audio and video programs over the internet. Any digital
audio player or computer with audio-playing software
can play podcasts. You subscribe to podcasts much like
you subscribe to blogs. In fact often podcasts are
distributed through a blog. Innovative SMBs are using
podcasts to create self-published, syndicated "radio
shows”. SMBs that create podcasts can instruct their
readers to download new podcasts whenever they
become available or manually choose which podcasts you
want to download by clicking a link to the audio file.
These files can then be listened to on your computer or
you can transfer them to your portable player to listen to
later. Podcast Alley www.podcastalley.com is a site that
consolidates podcasts into a searchable database. Toronto
based Gardiner Museum has done an excellent job of
sharing information about their podcasts by placing a tab
on their home page at www.gardinermuseum.on.ca.
Teleforums Teleforums are interactive conference calls
that focus on specific topics. They can be accessed from
anywhere and they are usually free. Toronto based
Executive Recruiting firm Brightlights www.brightlights
inc.com has perfected the use of the teleforum.
Brightlights specializes in sourcing talent for small and
mid-sized software and device companies. The
teleforums help them to show leadership and establish
their expertise in this competitive field. Their specific
goal is to help their current and future clients understand
topical issues such as their next teleforum entitled: "Ten
Ways That Your Organization Can Take Advantage of
Web 2.0 and Social Networking."
According to Brightlights President Mike Fox..."
Business people are busy, yet still want to be learning.
These teleforums have been useful in bringing small to
mid-sized businesses new ideas from thought leaders in
the industry. At the same time, they've been an excellent
tool for Brightlights in helping raise our profile and
differentiating us in the marketplace."
Blogs A blog is a website usually maintained by an
individual, with regular entries of commentary,
descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics
or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse
chronological order. A typical blog combines text,
images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other
media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave
comments in an interactive format is an important part
of many blogs. Technorati is an internet search engine
that specializes in finding blogs. To date it has indexed
over 112 million blogs! SMBs are using blogs to share
their expertise and to promote products and services. If
your blog is popular you can even generate advertising
revenue!
The bottom-line however is that this is yet another way
to promote your products and services to a worldwide
audience.
…continued on pg 8
According to Therese Garnett, Vice
President Sales and Marketing, because
of the demand for how-to information,
Wiley has responded with an in-depth
series of books on Second Life

3. pg 8 www.foxgroup.ca Telecom Journal
A good example of a small organization that is using all
of the tools available to market their conferences is the
Computers, Freedom & Privacy group http://cfp2008.org
COMPUTERS, FREEDOM, AND PRIVACY: TECHNOLOGY POLICY '08
http://cfp2008.org/ 18th Annual CFP conference May 20-23, 2008 Omni Hotel New
Haven, CT
Conference Blog: http://cfp08.blogspot.com/
Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/groups.php?id=683858084
Conference Wiki: http://cfp.wikia.com/wiki/CFP08
LinkedIn Group: http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/61857/7885844E0F9D
MySpace™ On MySpace™ visitors can post and share
videos as well as join a MySpace™ community
(www.myspace.ca). From the SMB perspective MySpace
offers an opportunity to network with individuals in
similar businesses or professions around the world. The
name of the group is listed along with the number of
members that have joined. Some of the groups show
some impressive membership numbers.
http://searchresults.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=group
s.ListGroups&categoryID=3. The site can also be used to
post video about the product and/or services that the
business is offering.
Small and Medium Businesses need to realize that being
small is only an interim step on the way to becoming a
larger enterprises. How SMBs can grow is to leverage
innovation opportunities to transition to that next stage.
Many of the social networking tools that are available to
small and medium businesses are not expensive. They
do require a knowledge and comfort in working in the
digital world and a dedication to keeping materials
current. Importantly, they offer SMBs a way to create a
level playing field and be as creative as companies with
much larger budgets when trying to engage their current
and future customers.
For companies in the telecom space this trend should be
music to the ear! SMBs are not only using telecom
services; they are using them in sophisticated ways.
When creating your customer profiles in addition to size
and number of employees don’t forget to include tech
sophistication! The SMB of tomorrow will be heavily
dependent on technology to support and run their
business. They need solutions that take their level of
technology dependence and sophistication into account.
Vendors who understand that it is not just about the size
of the telephone switch will be the ultimate winners in
this space.
Small and medium businesses have the benefit and
opportunity to leverage this phenomenon to thier benefit
by being able to reach and communicate with millions of
potential customers will very little time and effort
compared to traditional media. We are also more nimble
and able to more quickly change and adapt how we use
and leverage technology investments in this new digital
world.
We encourage all end user organizations, if not already
doing so, to investigate and experiment with some of the
social networking applications to understand how your
staff is using them, how you can apply them to your own
organization to educate, inform and influence both
current and next generation staff and customers.
We welcome the opportunity to hear your feedback on
how many of you ‘traditional telecom’ folks have
experimented or used any of these applications. We will
gladly share your comments in upcoming issues.
Editor in Chief comments...
Speaking as SMB, and trusted advisor to the technology and
telecom industries, we believe that many of the new social
networking technologies that Susan writes about will have
dramatic and unknown effects on both large corporate
enterprises and telecom vendors.
We also believe that they are transforming how the advertising/
media industry has been evolving, in good and bad ways.
Some of the media players have evolved their offers to leverage
social networking to evolve over to corporate Canada, while
others seem to have their ‘head in the sand’.
INTERESTING CANADIAN SMB
FACTOIDS FROM INDUSTRY
CANADA (July 2002)
• Over 2/3 of the total Canadian workforce is
employed by small businesses
• Of the one million employers, less than 3000 or
0.3% have more than 500 employees
• 98% have fewer than 100 employees
• Small and medium businesses employ close to 6.4
million or 62% of all employees in the private sector.
Susan Dineen is Executive Director of
FOX GROUP, as well as General Manager of
Arius3d, a high tech laser scanning company.
Small and medium businesses can
use technology as a competitive
advantage against large enterprises.
Cool Technology for SMBs
…continued from pg 5