The other evening I attended my first Social Media Club Melbourne meetup to listen to 3 local entrepreneurs chat about how they’re using social media effectively to build their businesses and their brands. The three blokes in the spotlight were:

• Scott Kilmartin from Haul
• Steve Sammartino from Rentoid.com and
• Sahil Merchant from MagNation

I’d had the pleasure of interviewing Scott Kilmartin on the Small Business Big Marketing podcast and Steve and Sahil were certainly of the same caliber; intelligent and inspiring. Trevor Young also did a great job hosting the evening.

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There’s something I didn’t understand though. There were probably 40 or 50 attendees there to learn about Social Media Marketing from 3 guys who are using it to build buzz around their brand. And doing it very well I might add. Essentially, people were there to hear about others’ techniques for marketing their businesses.

Yet, I was the only one in the room employing an age old, simple, cheap, guerrilla marketing technique. I’ll share the secret with you – it’s a branded t-shirt.

I just don’t get it. Is is perhaps bad etiquette to brand yourself at these events? Did I commit some sort of faux pas by wearing a branded t-shirt to a networking event? If I did then there’s surely some irony in it.

It’s funny how people will use something as relatively sophisticated as social media marketing yet not do the basics. This T-shirt cost all of about $20, yet every time I wear it in public – at a networking event or just walking down the street, it’s generating brand awareness.

Apart form being a branding tool, it’s also a good icebreaker. People who are familiar with the brand come up and say g’day – and people who aren’t ask what the business does. I might have handed out a couple of business cards that evening, but almost every person in the room laid eyes on the brand.

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While purchasing some Christmas pressies online, it struck me that many e-commerce checkout Thank You pages don’t help market the merchant. And why should they? The customer’s already purchased, he or she’s done what you wanted them to do right? Transaction complete, thanks for coming.

Payment Complete Thanks You pages often have a lot of boring, but essential, information such as a payment receipt, shipping info and support contact details. But what a perfect time to make the most of that just purchased rush, that shopping high. It’s a great opportunity to leverage the shoppers sentiment and use it to help promote your business.

Referral business is often the best kind – when a friend, family member, or even social media contact, recommends someone or something, you’re often more likely to take heed compared to other marketing medium. That’s why social media is such a strong medium.

In this vein, a great way to make your shopping cart Thank You page work harder for you is to add a “Tweet This” or “Add to Facebook” style button. The button automatically posts an update saying something like “I just bought a/some Widget(s) from Widget’s Are Us: http://www.website.com”. Make it easy for your customers to recommend your products to others in their network.