Don't think too hard about a formal social-media strategy for your business, says Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of micro-blogging site Twitter.
"When you start saying words like ‘social media,' or phrases like ‘social media,' it becomes this big, abstract thing that of course it is hard to understand," says Dorsey, who will be joining Small Business Administration chief Karen Mills in a panel discussion on small-business best practices tonight in honor of National Small Business Week.
Dorsey's presence in Washington, D.C., will add some oomph to what has historically been a pretty sleepy week celebrating small-businesses.
Related: SBA Roadshow for Small Business Week's 50-Year Anniversary
Think about social media in a very personal way, says Dorsey. "Be authentic, be genuine, talk about what you are doing every day to highlight your business," he says. Hearing updates on what you, the entrepreneur, are doing to turn the wheels and make your business operate is going to get your customers excited and bring them in your door, he says.
Reflect on what inspired you to launch your business in the first place, he says. "It comes down to the very simple things of talking about what you are doing, talking about your passion, talking about your love," Dorsey says. "I wouldn't focus on the right way to ‘do' social media. Just talk about what you love."
If that's the way Dorsey himself tweets, then it seems the Silicon Valley tech giant is a man very much tickled by the arts. His recent tweets highlight a new exhibit at the Museum in Modern Art in New York of the work of the Swiss-born architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret and the excerpt of an essay in which Virginia Woolf critics the work of Ernest Hemingway.
