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It’s Valentine’s Day. Has Your Business Been Showing The Love?

It is February 14th – that means love is in the air. This time of year is about love and generosity. Make sure that that love extends to your online network. Use this Valentine’s Day as a reminder as to the real reason you are on social media in the first place.

When it comes to managing your social media, remember that you are in this for a long-term relationship – not just some fling. Companies and brands are at a point where they are trying to figure out the “keys” to social media. In doing so, tracking metrics has become a measure of success. Although they are important tools, social media is not just all about numbers. It is great to follow users, add friends and get “Liked.” But more than that it is about following through, having meaningful conversations, and building real communities. Make sure that while you are keeping track of data, you are still keeping track of conversation. If your content is not getting reposted, don’t fret. Instead acknowledge the people that did respond. Reply to their comments and continue the conversation by asking another question. The people that comment on your content are users that are actually engaging with your brand – they may be interacting with you for more than just a discount deal or coupon code.

February 14th usually has people evaluating the relationships that are important to them. Use Valentine’s Day as a way to show your users that you care and that they are important to you and your company. Share content that would be helpful to somebody today.  Share a romantic idea, a funny love story, singles inspiration – get creative. Let your followers and social media friends in on the love that is in your company. How did your company start? Probably with a passion or love for your product or service – share that.

Nurture the social media connections you already have. Whether your users are married, in a committed relationship, have a crush or are celebrating love with family and friends – Valentine’s Day will is sure to be on their minds.

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Don’t Be Dull On Facebook.

Who can make a Facebook page? If you immediately thought “anyone”  you are absolutely right.  This is exactly why as a company it is incredibly important to make your page exciting. Getting those “Likes” does not mean all that much if you do not interact with your fans beyond that. One of the best ways to bring excitement to your page is to use Facebook apps.  Keep in mind that some of the ideas below are complex – they are often developed by a third party and then can be run on Facebook.

Create interactive quizzes. The truth is, as ridiculous as it may seem, people love taking quizzes about themselves. So whatever quiz you decide to create, make sure that the quiz is all about your customers. For example, if you are a frozen yogurt company the quiz could ask, “What frozen yogurt fall treat are you?” The bottom line is to make sure the quizzes ask personal questions. Keep it relevant to your business and all about your fan. To get it started, you could offer discounts to the first 100 people that take the quiz.

Use personal Facebook information to create a story about the user. People love interactive apps like this. Typically, apps such as these use the Facebook user’s photos, name, and hometown to fill in the story gaps. This usually gets a good laugh, which is great because it is likely to be shared. If you are a tax company, use the information to narrate a scary tax scandal

Make your apps about your fans. This option is not as complex as the two above.  Ask fans questions and encourage them to reply. Then, each month your company can highlight the fan that had the best response to your question. If you work for a beauty company, ask a question about the meaning of beauty. Offer a coupon or a free product to the participant with the best or most creative answer.

The Takeaways:

1. Make sure you are staying relevant to your business.

2. Be creative. Surprise your customers.

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3 Ways to Use Apps on Facebook

Anyone can make a Facebook page. This is why it is so important to incorporate ways to engage your friends on Facebook. Getting those “Likes” does not mean too much if you do not interact with your fans beyond that. One of the best ways to bring excitement to your page is to use Facebook apps.  Keep in mind that some of the ideas below are complex – they are often developed by a third party and then can be run on Facebook.

  1. Create interactive quizzes. The truth is, as ridiculous as it may seem, people love taking quizzes about themselves. So whatever quiz you decide to create, make sure that the quiz is all about your customers. For example, if you are a frozen yogurt company the quiz could ask, “What frozen yogurt fall treat are you?” The bottom line is to make sure the quizzes ask personal questions. Keep it relevant to your business and all about your fan. To get it started, you could offer discounts to the first 100 people that take the quiz.
  2. Use personal Facebook information to create a story about the user. People love interactive apps like this. Typically, apps such as these use the Facebook user’s photos, name, and hometown to fill in the story gaps. This usually gets a good laugh, which is great because it is likely to be shared. If you are a tax company, use the information to narrate a scary tax scandal.
  3. Make your apps about your fans. This option is not as complex as the two above.  Ask fans questions and encourage them to reply. Then, each month your company can highlight the fan that had the best response to your question. If you work for a beauty company, ask a question about the meaning of beauty. Offer a coupon or a free product to the participant with the best or most creative answer.

The takeaways: be creative and stay relevant to your business.

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Be The Small Business That Does Social Media Right

So you’re a small business. That means you probably don’t have the budget to run with the big dogs of social media. AKA – stop trying to keep up with Starbucks. If you do not have the budget to giveaway the latest IPad – don’t do it. Offer a prize your company can handle such as a service, discount, or small product.  This also means that the participants in your giveaway are likely to be interested in your company, and not just in it for the free Ipad.

You have probably already picked up on the fact that there is no physical cost to join social media.  As a small business, marketing without fees probably sounds like the best kind.  But don’t be fooled – social media marketing is anything but free. Doing it right requires serious man-hours. The commitment to social media is unrelenting and endless. Engaging with followers and sharing valuable content is a full time job.

Most small businesses feel a sense of urgency to get onto social media because of the tidal wave big brands have made on all social media platforms. Focus on your social media goals. Whatever they are, the bottom line should be to build relationships and grow customer trust. That means that social media is not the place to display your promotional copy. Get rid of anything remotely resembling a “BUY ME” button. Social media is about social engagement. Think of yourself in a social situation – do you spend the entire time talking about yourself? Hopefully the answer is no. This type of etiquette applies to social media as well. Just as you would in a social environment, strive to be interesting on social media. Post content that gives your followers or friends something to react too. If someone were to walk up to you and give you a compliment or ask you a question, you would never just ignore it. You would acknowledge it with a “thank you” or a reply. The same thing should be done on your social media platforms.

As a small business, you do not need to be present on every social media account. If you use Facebook over Google +, it does not mean you are a social media failure. The biggest error you could make is to have a Google + account that is completely neglected and shows inconsistent activity. It is better to have one or two active and up to date social media accounts than have five accounts that are not receiving adequate time and management.

Avoiding these social media mistakes small businesses tend to make is crucial to your success. Be the small business that gets social media right!

 

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Top 11 Reasons to Use Social Media in Business

Over the past few years, to say social media has exploded would be an understatement. Members of social media sites have discovered it’s the easiest way to find, learn about, and share information that directly influences their purchasing decisions. It is this reason alone that every business should be on multiple social media sites in an effort to reach as many people as possible.

Below are the top 11 reasons to use social media in business:

1. Build relationships – personal and professional; connect with all types of people – past and present coworkers, current clients, prospects, vendors, competitors, and marketing professionals to build your network

2. Share information – share your blog posts; share interesting and useful articles, other blogs, webinars, podcasts, presentations, and poll/survey results with your fan base

3.Gather valuable information – research similar products/services, competitors, prospects, marketing tips, blog ideas, create your own poll/survey – the amount of information available is endless

4. Join a social network of like-minded individuals or start a new interest group where you can further brand your product/service, build relationships, and share ideas and information

5. Stay current with the latest trends – write a blog or join a discussion on a trending topic; become aware of new social media sites that might fit the needs of your business

6. Land a great new job – using your new connections on various social media sites, you can get the inside scoop on companies that are hiring, as well as resume and interview tips

7.Discover a new passion in life, become a volunteer, or start a fundraising event

8. Get found by prospects by using inbound marketing tactics – spread the word about your product/service through social media sites; to form a complete marketing plan, combine this with outbound techniques (interruptive marketing)

9. Build business reputation and brand – constantly add value to all your posts and become a trustworthy leader in your industry; to quote Bob Burg, “All things being equal, people will do business with and refer business to those people they know, like, and trust.”

10. Build a marketing department inexpensively – for start-ups, employing inbound marketing tactics is a cheap way to start marketing your product/service; most social media sites are free to join, while others have a minimal monthly or yearly fee

11. Help increase conversion rates – use social media and inbound marketing to steer more organic traffic to your website and convert more leads into sales; the average

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7108746

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Using Social Media to Improve Your Business

Most of us have used social media at one time or another. Not only is it a good place to find old friends from school, but it can be used for online marketing strategy. You probably have heard of Facebook©, Twitter©, and LinkedIn©, with the latter being geared more towards business people in general. I am going to show you how to use these networks to benefit your business.

Here are some amazing statistics about Facebook© alone.

  • In 2010 a 207% over 2009 in searches.
  • It was the most searched term in 2010.
  • A record-breaking 750 million photos were uploaded over New Years weekend.
  • 71.2% of all U.S. internet users are on Facebook©.
  • Ad revenue for Facebook will top $2.2 billion in 2011.
  • 700 million active users on Facebook©.
  • 175 million users on Twitter©.

 

Using social media can be very advantageous for businesses worldwide. I know myself I use all of the above mentioned social media companies for my business. Your contacts that you acquire by finding someone you know or who might join your network can become a social media tool for you. What I do occasionally on my own Facebook© page is drop a link to one of my websites. I will either have someone give me a comment about the link which opens me up to extend conversation with that person more on a personal basis. Below I have listed what I consider the best free ways to use social media to improve your business.

  • Be your self– What I mean by this is to engage in conversations online like you would in person. Tell the person a little about yourself and what your goals are. Build a relationship and later they could become your customer because you have gained their trust.
  • Place a link to your website on social networks– My placing an occasional link to your website or an offer you may have that would benefit someone you can also receive comments back from people and tell them more about your business. Sites like Facebook© and Twitter© permit links as long as you keep from spamming. Do everything in moderation and you can be rewarded.
  • Create a page for your business– Another free way to gain exposure for your business is to create a page on Facebook©. By creating your own business page you can reach thousands of people.

 

We just covered a few free ways to get your business seen using social media, now let us look at paid advertising on these networks. As I told you currently 700 million people use Facebook© alone and another 175 million use Twitter©. It only makes sense to target your advertising campaigns on these social media networks. Using social media advertising you can target your audience my age, income, and demographics. Pin-pointing your advertising is more cost-effective and will give you a bigger piece of the pie.

My advice to you is not to overlook the power of social media. Indulge frequently with your contacts and reap the rewards of trust.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6578589

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How to Manage Social Media

Social Media can be a little overwhelming sometimes and time consuming. When you started your business or got into the industry you are in, did you start it to do Social Media? Probably not! Social Media has become so popular over the past couple years that every type of business is doing it. Now, there are companies like mine you can outsource your Social Media campaign to, but not everyone has the budget to do that yet.

Today I am going to share with you a couple tools you can use to make your life much simpler. With Social Media you need to have a plan behind your efforts or you WILL be sucked into the black hole of Facebook, you know what I’m talking about.

Here is a schedule you can go by:
Monday– Schedule your posts (using Hootsuite and Onlywire, read further down in blog for link)
Tuesday – Follow 50 people on Twitter using www.Twellow.com and add 10 new friends on Facebook (add them to your business list to suggest your business page to them)
Wednesday – Follow 50 people on Twitter using www.Twellow.com and add 20 connections on LinkedIn
Thursday – Follow 50 people on Twitter using www.Twellow.com and add 10 10 new friends on Facebook (add them to your business list to suggest your business page to them)
Friday – Add 20 connections and LinkedIn and 10 new friends on Facebook (add them to your business list to suggest your business page to them) Suggest your business page to your new friends

There are two tools I like to use that allows me to schedule my posts out to my networks weeks in advance and one that allows you to post to 40 different profiles.
The first one is called Hootsuite http://hootsuite.com/p_1748 this is a FREE service and an amazing tool. You can add you Twitter, Facebook, Business Page, LinkedIn, FourSquare, Mixi, and WordPress to this service. Once you have all your profiles set up you can schedule your messages to go out.

The second one I like to use is OnlyWire http://www.OnlyWire.com now with this account you don’t need to post to Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn but you can post to Delicious, StumbleUpon, Reddit, FriendFeed, and much more. This is a great tool to reach out to all of those other Social Media profiles that Hootsuite does not post to.

I hope these are helpful tips, if you need help on how to use these tools please check out my YouTube videos http://www.YouTube.com/YourMarketingVoice

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Why You Should Outsource Your Social Media Marketing

Huge Disclaimer, it is no wonder that I say you SHOULD outsource your social media, I have a social media marketing company!

 What Is A Social Media Marketing Expert

A true social media marketing expert is actually a marketing expert who is using social media as ONE of the tools in their marketing arsenal. Every bit of marketing touches the social media platform including branding, sending a cohesive message, targeting the correct prospect, lead follow-up and more, all the way through the sales cycle and onto a sale. Okay, so a social media guru is actually an expert marketer. I get asked the question a lot which social media outlet do you like the most and if you could choose only one to use what would it be? Well each of them have a unique way of helping to grow your business. Such as Facebook builds an online community and is an easy way to reach out to people, Twitter is a huge traffic driver to your website, LinkedIn a wonderful online resume tool and a way for people to see what your experience has been also to connect to ideal clients, YouTube is such a popular tool people use and allows people to see your personality, also allowing them to learn from you while driving traffic to your site, Blogging is great because you are staying in front of Google and you show people why you are an expert in what you do.

Who Is NOT A Social Media Marketing Expert?

I am on A LOT of mailing lists and get all kinds of come-ons from people wanting to sell me get rich quick schemes. One of the biggies right now is to sell either social media marketing or local marketing and start raking in the dough. An expert has NOT taken a class called anything like this:

  • New Webinar! Become a Local Marketing Expert
  • 10-no-4 Days to Become a Social Media Expert
  • Make money as a social media strategist
  • How to become an internet marketing expert in a short time…
  • This came in when I was writing this post, “The real kicker is that: most of your revenue is pure profit! Stuff we consider “basic” is mind blowing to most, if not all, local business owners.”

Should You Outsource Your Social Media Marketing Or Keep In In House?

So now we have established what a social media marketing expert is, the next question is should you outsource it to an agency or company or keep it in-house?

  • If you are not looking at hiring someone who has just left college, the kid who types really fast or a 10-to-4 day “expert”, you are looking at paying that person between 60K and 80K a year. We have some great horror stories from the trenches about how “the kid” set up the whole business network under his own name, left the company and reeked havoc for the next few months. Hiring a reputable company to do your social media eliminates this problem.
  • You are going to have to provide benefits and taxes for that employee which would not be necessary if you outsource.
  • If you are hiring a marketing guru, you are still probably going to have to get them some admin help. I can tell you this from experience, the person who is creative and has a brilliant marketing mind does not always have the best admin skills like the everyday tasks that go on in a business. We hire people  who implement the marketing plans that we work out with our customers and make sure the daily tasks get done for your business needs.
  • There are economies of scale for a business to buy the latest software and attend the high level trainings needed to stay up-to-date. When you are spreading the cost of these items over multiple clients, it makes sense to keep to the cutting edge! We are always keeping up to date with the new software, tips & tricks. Remember that is what we do for a living!
  • We have programmers and others resources to help when the Social Networks change what we need to do. The easiest example of this is Facebook eliminating the FBML capabilities that we used to use to make pages. I got our programmer on it and he sent over the two page document on how we should do it now!

Okay, Why SHOULD You Keep Your Social Media Marketing In House?

It comes down to CONTROL you want to have control over what that person is doing and how they are spending your money and time! That is a valid point and will have to be taken into consideration. I CAN tell you that with frequent communication with your marketing company, you can stay on top of this easily. There will always still be a personal responsibility you will have in your marketing.

No one loves my company like I do – If you are a small company or a start-up, the owner or manager can probably do a bit of social media marketing. My question to you is, I KNOW you love your company, but do you love marketing? Having the best intentions in the world doesn’t help if you do not have the technical and education chops to back them up.

I can get an intern to do it for free – I have tried interns, you teach them, they work for a bit and then leave. Walking back the cat to figure out what they did can take your next marketing person hours or days to figure out! Additionally, you get what you pay for and when you are paying nothing it is hard to expect the kind of dedication that you can get from a real business. Remember they can probably take care of some easy daily social media tasks but they probably do not understand the marketing side of social media and internet marketing in order to get you a ROI. (Return on Investment)

What Types Of Business Should Outsource Their Social Media Marketing?

  • Business to consumer businesses do well on Social Media as they have a product that people would be interested when they are just surfing around having fun on Facebook or Twitter. Additionally there are neat ways to bring items to market that consumers look on favorably if done right.
  • Business to business marketing is trickier, as you need to position yourself correctly to find comparable areas to market in and be very careful to make sure that your offerings are social, not salesy. I see this done wrong all the time!
  • Local companies are uniquely positioned to take advantage of the power of social media because of the ability to target geographic regions in friending and following. These types of businesses fair VERY well in the social media realm.
  • Businesses with lots of “stuff” are great to promote. If you hold meetings with different topics, sell a million kinds of shoes or have a ton of different product offerings (like pawn shops and ebayers, social media can be a great way to get the word out!
  • Highly regulated industries. Okay I know that I am going to take heat on this one, BUT I have to say that a financial services guy who positions himself correctly would have a very bare playing field to compete on. This takes finesse and should work within the bounds of your state or federal licensing.
  • Restaurants and bars have fun people doing fun things. We have a couple of restaurants that we work with and they are the neatest peeps because of the activity and the fact that they are inherently social anyways!

There you have it, multiple reasons to outsource your social media marketing. If you are interested in finding out more about social media marketing, give us a call 720-338-6996 or email us with questions YourMarketingVoice@yahoo.com

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How to get “Likes” on Facebook

Are you finding it difficult to get people to like you on your Facebook page?
There’s a way you can increase your following quickly . . . if you do it the right way. Yes, there is a right way to get people to like you and it is very much the same as making friends. This right way is where so many people go wrong because they treat it differently than they do when they make a friend in the “real world.”

Guess what? The Internet is the “real world” because it consists of the same people. Are you treating them differently? 

Get Likes on Facebook: Give People a Reason to “Like” You
People aren’t just going to randomly “like” your page.

First, you need to know who your ideal market is, you can do this by knowing their interests, likes, professional where they live and more. Introduce yourself. The best way to do that is to “like” them first and tell them you look forward to connecting with them or to seeing more from them.

Also, compliments go a long way. Show them you are paying attention to what they have to say and it is a two-way street.

Interact with the people who have “liked” the same page. An excellent way to say, “Hey, notice me” is to pay attention to the comments on the posts of the page you have liked and “like” their comment. This will show up in their notifications and it’s a way of introducing yourself to people outside of “pages.” It’s a way to expand your exposure to your target market.

It’s Not All About You (Hard to believe huh?)
The best way to get likes on Facebook is to realize that it is not all about you and what you can do for them or what you have done. It’s about giving to others first and helping others succeed. If you do that, people will have no option but to stop an notice you, and like your page!

Others that share the same niche are not necessarily your competition. In fact they may actually be your future business partners, cross promotion opportunities, or collaboration partners. The key here is to identify some excellent people, teams, or businesses that stand out to you and you truly believe are doing an excellent job. Remember everybody has a different niche or specialty.

Interact with these people, promote their relevant products or services. Promote them without any expectation of anything in return. Do it because you are establishing relationships with other people you respect in your area of expertise. You’re providing value to your readers and you’ll give yourself the opportunity to learn from other experts.

Get Likes on Facebook by Being Likable
A way to get likes on Facebook is to be yourself. People will sense it if you’re not being yourself and they’ll probably run in the opposite direction as fast as they possibly can. Be authentic and creative. Show your personality.

Allow for people to actually get to know YOU, not your business necessarily. People want to do business with people they know, like, and trust. If you are not well liked, it doesn’t matter if you have the best deal in the world. People will hide when they see you coming to avoid you and they’ll find what you offer from someone they like.

Ask yourself, “Would you do business with someone that introduced themself with a sales pitch? Facebook is NOT a place to sell, it truly is a place to build relationships and find people all over the world! Your reputation is created by the way you present yourself. You can present yourself as likable or as that person who keeps trying to sell something to somebody blatantly. Remember what goes up on Facebook represent who you are as a person, so if there are inappropriate pictures on your personal page, people can find them and may not want to do business with you or like your page. Regardless if you own your own business or work for a fortune 500 company, your reputation is all you have.

You will be amazed at how you’ll get likes on Facebook because of your personality and the way you present yourself. And if you can master that, you will then be able to introduce your business.

What’s your experience? Do you get likes on Facebook?

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Video Marketing – Top 7 Benefits

Have you been holding off including videos in your marketing mix?

If you want to generate more visitors to your web site don’t just rely on written content. Not all people like to read content online. Many are attracted by learning visually. This is why video marketing is so powerful. You now see Google video ads, video newsletters, video sales letters and so on.

Top 7 benefits of video marketing

1. Attract a large audience

Video enables you to capture people who like to watch rather than read. This extends the reach of your content because you can appeal to visual learners.

2. Engages the senses

If a picture is worth a 1000 words, then video does even more because you can create live movies with sound. This engages more senses than written text which only uses one medium.

3. Access at any time

You can view videos with all kinds of devices these days eg ipods, cell phones, laptops, etc. allowing you to access video content anywhere at any time.

4. Achieve top rankings in the search engines

Google recently introduced Universal Search. This means videos now appear in the search results pages. For example if you Google “Mustang” you’ll see video listings of mustang cars on the first page of Google.

5. Become known as an expert in your field

If you consistently create high quality video content that your visitors want and need you will soon become recognized as the expert in your niche.

6. Repurpose content

Convert your written content to video by talking about it in a video clip or creating a slide show then upload it to video sharing sites like YouTube. The beauty of this method is that you don’t have to create fresh content and there’s no need to worry about duplicate written content.

7. Easy to create and publish

All you need is a video camera (or just use a digital camera), windows movie maker software (already on all windows’ computers) and a YouTube account.

Now you have no excuse for not creating your first video then marketing it on YouTube and other video sharing sites. It will take some time to get it right the first time, but with practice you’ll soon be generating more traffic to your web site.

http://www.drostdesigns.com/video-marketing-top-7-benefits/

I can help you with creating videos also, if you do not have a good camera. I do 4 videos for $125, email me if  you are interested yourmarketingvoice@yahoo.com

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