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Knowledge is Power

You’ve got questions, and we’ve got answers! “Knowledge is Power,” and every week on Social Speak Network, we’re going to offer powerful resources to keep your brand fresh, on track and help you ramp up your social media marketing so you stand out from your competitors!

Branding

So what the heck is brand identity?  Hmmmmm…..scratching your head?  Well, you are NOT alone. Branding your business is imperative. There are a lot of informative websites, blogs and beyond that are chock full of information. Here is a GREAT resource to take a peek at:

https://99designs.com/blog/tips/brand-identity/

Pinterest

Neil Patel is a New York Times best selling author.  The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web! You’ll want to read his blog post: How to Generate 67% More Customers With These 3 Pinterest Hacks!

https://neilpatel.com/blog/pinterest-customer-acquisition-hacks/

Twitter

Looking to find the BEST Twitter hashtags that will help you increase your social reach and brand awareness?  Check out this link to find out 9 tools that you can use!

https://sproutsocial.com/insights/twitter-hashtags/

Facebook

If you have not been utilizing the power of Facebook Insights, now’s the time to dive in and learn who your audience is!  Insights is an awesome analytical tool that will help you understand your audience and how to steer your marketing efforts in the right direction!  

https://www.facebook.com/business/a/page/page-insights

Video

Gary Vaynerchuk is founder and CEO of VaynerMedia, and one of the world’s leading marketing experts. As Gary says, “The single most important strategy in content marketing today is video. Whether it’s video on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat or Youtube, the content you need to be thinking about creating and marketing on social for your business is video. Period.

Learn how to take your video marketing to the next level!

https://animoto.com/blog/business/video-marketing-for-business/

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Picking out your brand colors

Picking your brand colors

Do colors really mean anything for your brand? I mean it’s just colors, right?

WRONG! There is a whole lot of research done behind the meaning of colors!

When you think of your ‘Brand Identity’ what does that mean to you?

Personality is the emotional, and human, association to a brand. Identity is the image created and used by a company to relate to consumers. An identity can include all forms of communication and visuals such as logos, colors or fonts. But the two are symbiotic. A brand’s identity should be part of its personality.

This is one of our favorite color meaning charts: Attribution http://blog.visme.co/color-psychology-in-marketing-and-brand-identity-part-2/  

When you talk about creating a brand it all starts with the colors, fonts,  and styles.

Here are a few steps to get you started

  1. Mood Board Inspiration
    *Types of things that inspire you: Colors, Styles, Textures, Images, Fonts. Pinterest is a great free resource to look at types of brands you like.
  2. Color Palette & Fonts
     – What color makes you happy? What’s your favorite color?
    – Which colors and fonts are you naturally drawn towards?
    – Are there certain colors that can represent your design niche the best?– Which colors would you prefer to avoid?
    -Are there certain colors that can represent your design niche the best?
    -What do I want the identity of your business to say to my clients?
  3. Primary Logo
    Primary Logo is: Do you have one? Do you have a stacked logo for social media?
  4. Social Media & Marketing Graphics
    What social media platforms do you have, that you need to make sure your graphics are correct?
  5. Website & Consistency – Keep your brand’s tone and personality consistent across channels

Is your brand identity unique?
Does it have passion behind it?
Is it consistent?

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Do colors really mean anything for your brand? I mean it’s just colors, right?

What are brand colors

WRONG! There’s a whole lot of research done behind the meaning of colors!

When you think of your ‘Brand Identity’ what does that mean to you?

Personality is the emotional, and human, association to a brand. Identity is the image created and used by a company to relate to consumers. An identity can include all forms of communication and visuals such as logos, colors or fonts. But the two are symbiotic. A brand’s identity should be part of its personality.

This is one of our favorite color meaning charts: Attribution http://blog.visme.co/color-psychology-in-marketing-and-brand-identity-part-2/  

When you talk about creating a brand it all starts with the colors, fonts,  and styles.

Here are a few steps to get you started:

1. Mood Board Inspiration


What’s a mood board?

It’s a collection of different items that can help you get a feel of what your brand is all about. It can contain images, textures, patterns, typefaces, and other design elements. You may even put together a mood board with logos, website, images that you like the feel of to maybe replicate.

How to make an effective mood board:

Don’t set limits.

The moment you start making a mood board, understand that this is not a place for you to hold back. Put as many elements into it as possible. Remember that it’s always easier for you to take out elements that do not work out in the end. But if you hold back, you might miss out on things that you could have added, but thought twice about

Be detailed and specific.

Sometimes, you would add an image that struck you because of a specific element. A screenshot of a webpage perhaps, or a poster you found online. You may like the font used, or the color scheme applied. In these cases, make sure you add notes that specify what you liked about the image. This way, you can remember which element you should be zooming in on when you encounter the image in your board.

2. Color Palette & Fonts

Your brand identity is not just a logo of your business, but a reflection of your personality. When it comes to creating your brand, color plays a vital role in the process. People choose brands, make buying decisions, change their actions, choose what stores to go into, all because of COLOR, and they may not know they even do it!  

Think of a stop light, you always know Red means stop, Green means Go and Yellow means caution or slow down, right? This changes the way we think about colors and what they mean to us as individuals. At the end of the day, Color is EVERYTHING! These colors will be in your logo, website, social media, print materials, publications, promotional items and so much more, it’s important you take your time and really think about this.

– What color makes you happy? What’s your favorite color?
– Which colors and fonts are you naturally drawn towards?
– Are there certain colors that can represent your design niche the best?– Which colors would you prefer to avoid?

-Are there certain colors that can represent your design niche the best?

-What do I want the identity of your business to say to my clients?

3. Logos

  • Primary Logo—Size and Scaling The logos are all saved to paths—which means they are rendered as vector art and can be continuously scaled. When changing the size it is important to do this proportionally and not stretch the art or change the original proportions. The logo shall not be used below the minimum size shown below
  • Primary Logo—Color Usage The primary logo may be used in four different color combinations as shown below. The logo should never be used in any other color combinations other than those specified below.
  • Secondary Logo The secondary logo was created for situations where Highline is more of an endorsement or equal party. It can be used in situations where there is limited space or where the full name is not necessary. It may also be interchanged with the main logo if the name Highline Community College is stated elsewhere.
  • Secondary Logo—Size and Scaling Like the primary logo, the secondary logo is saved to paths—which means they are rendered as vector art and can be continuously scaled. When changing the size it is important to do this proportionally and not stretch the art or change the original proportions. 

Do you have one? Do you have a stacked logo for social media?

4. Social Media & Marketing Graphics

When you are creating all these graphics, it’s so important to make sure you have the right size for each social media platform, cheat sheet here http://www.visualistan.com/2016/12/the-2017-social-media-image-sizes-cheat.html


What social media platforms do you have, that you need to make sure your graphics are correct?

5. Website & Consistency 

When communicating as the brand offline or via your website, social media profiles, or other online channels, it’s important to keep a consistent tone and personality. If your brand is fun and friendly on Twitter, it should have a similar flavor on Facebook and LinkedIn. Your messaging on LinkedIn may be less casual or more professional, but it shouldn’t sound like it’s coming from a different brand altogether. Think about it this way: there is the “at work” you and the “at home or with friends” you. Your personality is the same, but your mannerisms adjust to the context. The same goes for your brand personality and selected communication channels.

Is your brand identity unique?
Does it have passion behind it?
Is it consistent?

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You created your social media accounts, now what?

You created your social media accounts, now what-

A lot of people are so excited to get started on social media, they set up their social media accounts and this just sit back and wait for the magic to happen. Well, I hate to tell you that is not really how social media works, all networks won’t work for every business, so it’s important to do your homework first! In this blog we will help you put together that strategy for a good social media marketing outcome!

First, you need to define your goals to accurately understand what “work” means for you.  

We start this off with what we call a Social Media Audit:

  • Set Your Goals – SMART
  • Understand your Customers and Competitors
  • How Utilize Social Media
  • Where is your audience active at

Where is my audience active & where are they searching:

Every minute, people are conducting millions of queries on Google, Twitter, and Facebook. If you are active on these social media platforms, then you have a chance at appearing in social media search results.

Any Niche sites? Just because 1 business gets leads from a site, doesn’t mean you will.

4 Questions to ask Yourself:

1.Where is my audience?

2.Where is my audience active?

3.Where is my audience searching?

4.What niche social media sites are right for me?

Second, we will look at the profiles you have had for awhile or the ones you have just set up. This will help determine where you need to spend your time, remember not every social media platform works the same for each business.

Examine your social media profiles

  • Locate and document all your social media profiles, official and unofficial
  • “Why are we using this social account?”
  • “Why do we want to use it?”
  • “What are our goals for this social media platform?”
  • “Are our target markets using it?”
  • If you no longer have a good reason to use the account or you find that your target market is elsewhere, don’t hesitate to cut ties and focus your effort where it is better spent.
  • Check for completion of all details on these profiles and for consistency in imagery and message

Third, now that you have your social media audit done and you have examined your own social media platforms, now we get to take a look at your competition and see what they are doing. In this case, we don’t look at them as competition, but more of industry leaders.

Examine those who do it well

Find 4 to 8 niche influencers and examine how they manage their brand on social media Observe imagery and branding on each of their profiles. 

Measure key metrics like followers and engagement:

  • Branding: How does their overall look promote the brand? Can visitors get an accurate sense of their personality or culture? How have they chosen to use images in header and avatar?
  • Popularity: How many followers/likes does the page have?
  • Frequency: How often do they post? What do they do on weekends?
  • Engagement: What is the number of people talking about the brand compared to the number of fans?
  • Types of posts: What topics do they frequently discuss? What types of posts do they use: photos, questions, videos, chats, text? What is engagement like for each of these post types?

Make an action plan for improvements and goals for your profiles

Fourth, now we will need to put in place the correct tools to measure your ROI (Return on investment). This can be a little tricky with social media, and is one of the more frequently asked questions that we get!

When measuring your ROI there are a few things to think of that mean social media are working for you:

  • Monitoring the insights that the social media platforms give you
  • Have custom coupon codes for social media platforms
  • Increasing repeat customers
  • Create a custom phone number through Facebook to monitor how many people are calling you through Facebook
  • General branding or exposure – are your brand follower numbers increasing? Facebook likes, Twitter and Instagram followers?
  • Increased organic traffic (SEO) – Monitoring Google Analytics, are you getting more people to your site from social media?

Some tips about the Social Media Platforms:

Facebook

  • One of the largest social media networks
  • Nearly ½ of all users are active each day & connected to 80 pages, groups, or events.
  • Don’t expect sales right away
  • Sponsored ads actually work
  • Share content from other pages

Twitter

  • 85% of Twitter users “feel more connected” to a business after they follow them
  • Not necessarily a lead generation platform
  • Post Often (as in multiple times per day)
  • Use # (Hashtags) and @ (Mentions)
  • Follow the Followers of like-minded companies

Pinterest

  • More popular content-sharing platform than email
  • Highest revenue per click than any other social sharing network
  • Post pins your target market with enjoy
  • Add custom images to your blogs
  • Join as a business & use Rich Pins

LinkedIn

  • User base of professionals
  • Typically most suited for B2B marketing
  • Complete Your Profile and Your Company Profile
  • Build your connections
  • Participate in posting to your profile, company page and groups

Instagram

  • All photos and videos
  • Powerful for promoting both one’s personal brand and a business
  • Post Often and give value
  • Comment and engage on others pages
  • Use Hashtags and Mentions

Google Plus

  • Integrated with Google Search results, the world’s dominant search engine.
  • Complete business brand profile
  • Link to YouTube and add your other social media links
  • Solicit Reviews

YouTube

  • The second largest search engine in the world and reaches more U.S. adults than ANY cable network
  • Create both instructional and fun videos
  • Have clean videos that look professional and authentic
  • Consider Overlay-Ads on videos

Tools (FREE!)

Buffer.com

Hootsuite.com

Feedly.com

Canva.com

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What should every entrepreneur have in their business?

What should every entrepreneur have in their business-

We are so excited to have had Russ Barnes on our radio show August 12th, 2017. He is such a remarkable person! Here are just a few topics we covered:

1) Customer, customer, customer – without the customer you are out of business.  Listening to the customer will help you improve your product or service.
2) Message, message, message – in order for customers to find you, they must believe that you can solve their problem in such a way that they are willing to pay for the solution.
3) Value, value, value – the more value you can deliver, the less resistance you will experience when acquiring customers.
4) Target market – be a big fish in a small pond. The idea that EVERYONE can use your product or service positions you as a tiny fish in a huge ocean.  When you try to appeal to everyone, you appeal to no one.
5) Decision making – successful business is certainly what you do, but it is more effectively achieved by how you think about what you do. Resource management is critical.
6) Progression – understand what it takes to get from where you are to where you want to be.  This is your growth strategy.
7) Advisors – build your team of advisors carefully.  No one develops a successful business alone. Cooperate and collaborate, but compensate. No one wants to work for free.
8) Earn money to hire experts. Focus on what you do to make money and then pay experts to do what they do best to help you maximize your time and rapidly achieve outcomes.  Know the calculation that will tell you whether you can hire an expert and when you can hire the expert.
9) Don’t get complacent. Never stop learning.  Perhaps we can talk about books, magazines, webinars, libraries, incubators, or other educational resources that business owners can access for little to no money.
10) Love, love, love what you do or find a way to transition into something that you do love.

Here is a little bit more about who Russ Barnes is:

Russ Barnes, USAF Colonel (retired), MBA, MS

Colonel Russ Barnes is the CEO and Senior Business Advisor to Entrepreneurs and Executives at Systro Consulting, an organization design firm specializing in small business development.  He has more than 30 years of experience in organization development drawn from military service, franchise ownership, academic programs, and strategy consulting, specifically with small businesses.

As an aviator, Russ flew combat missions during Desert Storm and later held senior leadership positions in several higher headquarters staff organizations which include Air Combat Command Headquarters, the Pentagon, Strategic Command Headquarters, European Command Headquarters, and Central Command Headquarters.   He has received the Legion of Merit, Air Medal, Defense Meritorious Service Medal and more than 20 other peacetime and wartime decorations.

After retirement from the military, Russ grew his franchise territory from zero to profitability in less than three years.  His growth was based on a clear vision, building an effective network, consistently delivering a quality product and maintaining a relentless focus on customer service.

Russ is a graduate of the Referral Institute Certified Networker program where he received extensive training in referral marketing. He received his Bachelor’s Degree from Manhattan College (NY), his MBA from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and his Master of Science degree in Strategic Studies from Air University.  He is currently pursuing a PhD in Organization Development at Benedictine University.

Contact Info:
Email: Russ@systro.org
Website: www.systro.org
Social media: www.linkedin.com/in/rcbarnes
Phone number: 813 520-5770

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3 Types of Social Media Content to Help Increase Engagement

#1 VIDEO: 

A study by Animoto asked 1,000 consumers what they want to see with regard to social video. It also surveyed 500 marketers to determine whether they are fulfilling those expectations.

Highlights from the study were compiled into an infographic, which includes the following findings:

  • 39% of consumers are more likely to finish videos that have subtitles. (The infographic reports that, according to Digiday, 85% of Facebook video is watched without sound.)
  • Preference between pre-recorded video and Facebook Live was split nearly down the middle, with pre-recorded video having just a slight edge (52% vs. 48%).
  • 81% of marketers optimize their social videos for mobile.

#2 GIFS:

GIFs are the newest, coolest trend on social media and getting a lot of attention because not only are they easy to view, they also usually offer a call to action. Fun Fact – We may think that GIFs are a recent phenomenon in the world of digital marketing, BUT animated GIFs have been around for more than two decades!

Here are just a few ways how to incorporate GIFs into your digital marketing strategy:

  • The attention span of your audience is very low. GIFs are a smart way of reaching your target audience with a living picture of your message.
  • GIFs are an easy way to get engagement from your target audience and show them how something works.
  • Another way to use GIFs is through your email marketing, blogging, and other digital materials. It has been reported to raise the click through rate as well! GIFs are fun to watch, easy to find and easy to upload.
  • GIFs can be about a new process you have, new products, telling a story, explaining a situation, tell a joke etc.
  • GIF format can be done through Boomerang, GIF Keyboard, and GIPHY. There are tons of options out there for you!

#3 Infographics:

Remember last week we talked about ‘Stopping the SCROLL’? Great article by B2C:

6 Step Process to Amazing Infographic Design

Step 1: Choose your topic and research your audience.
Step 2: Take a look at your data and consolidate it.
Step 3: Craft the copy.
Step 4: Design!
Step 5: Review, review, review.
Step 6: Publish and promote.

Read more at http://www.business2community.com/infographics/6-step-process-amazing-infographic-design-01889770#WTg5RyjuR7dUWWoI.99

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How do you incorporate your offline and online marketing?

on and offline marketing

 

Here are 3 social media tips to help your business:

  • How should your online and offline marketing efforts work together?

It is important to have the same branding online and offline. For instance, your website, social media and even email signature should have your logo; same colors, and even your slogan should be the same as your print media. What people see on your marketing materials, ads etc., should look and feel the same.

If you use different logos or colors in your email signature, website, brochures and business cards, people won’t recognize your brand. You may start to lose customers. It’s all about the brand message and being consistent!

  • Marketing Materials – What should you have on them??

Your marketing materials are all about the first impressions, right?  You want to make sure your marketing materials are simple and, yet, effective.  So, let’s talk about what makes your marketing materials effective.

The purpose behind your Marketing Materials:

  • Inform customers and potential customers about your business
  • Attract more customers
  • Maybe get the word out there about an upcoming event, conference, workshop you are hosting
  • The BIG thing is to create a positive customer experience

What needs to be on all your online marketing and offline marketing materials:

  • Business Name
  • Business Logo and Slogan
  • Business Phone Number (Is it ok to text?)
  • Business Email Address
  • Business Address – if you have a physical location
  • Business Website URL
  • Social Media links to Facebook, Twitter, instagram, LinkedIn, etc. Wherever you are consistently posting is what you want to promote

Here is a great resource we will add to our website that talks in more detail about how to create effective marketing materials: http://inkbotdesign.com/effective-marketing-materials/

  • Monitoring your metrics – how do you know what is working?

As a business owner, it is important to know that your efforts are paying off! In the social media world, we would love to be able to say, if you post 3 times a week with these types of posts you will make this much money . . . BUT it doesn’t happen like that, unfortunately! SO, social media works different for each business.

A few resources that you can monitor to see what is working for you would be:

*Google Analytics – This is a tool that is embedded into the backend of your website and monitors all traffic that comes to your site; where they are coming from, such as country, state, social media platform, email links, and so much more. Google Analytics also tells you how long people are staying on your website, what pages they are looking at, and your bounce rate; are they getting what they want from your site? This is a great big picture tool to monitor!

*Facebook Insights – It is important to look at your Facebook Insights on your business page on a monthly or even weekly basis, just to see what posts are getting the most engagement, what time did you post it, what did you post, etc. This will help you figure out what types of posts you should be posting and what times, so you are reaching your audience when it’s the best time for them!

* Buffer and Hootsuite – These are two FREE resources as well that help give more of an overview of all your social media metrics, like Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook, Pinterest, so you can see everything in one area – what is working best for you, from a social media standpoint; then you can see what the numbers look like and if you should continue with each platform.  You might want to consider letting one go or spend less time on one.  Remember, you always want to focus on where YOUR target audience is.

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3 Social Media Trends To Pay Attention To

3 Social Media Trends To Pay Attention To

Here are the 3 social media trends we covered on our radio show this past Saturday. Each week we will bring you new social media trends to help grow your business and your social media strategy!

Brand Loyalty:

Celebrate your fans and followers and build loyal brand followers on Facebook.  Post special % off discounts only available on Facebook. Also use Facebook ads to help grow your brand awareness and brand loyalty. Grow your following and your brand by offering unique content on a regular basis. Stand out and be leader in your niche.

Online Reviews What to do??

Check online reviews constantly and respond to the good and the bad. A bad review is the opportunity to start a conversation and turn it into a positive. When responding to a bad review, handle it off line and in a private forum. Where to check your reviews?? Google, Facebook, Yelp

Building your followers organically or paid??

There are a couple of reasons why this is not a good idea.

  1. Low engagement. Purchased likes and followers are not your ideal customer. You will never be able to engage with them or have a successful purchase history with them.
  2. Think about your brand reputation before even considering buying likes or followers. It looks spammy and suspicious when you jump from a few likes to thousands in a short time.
  3. Algorithms. Social media channel algorithms are smart. If they record a suspicious jump in likes and followers, your organic reach may be compromised.
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5 Social Media Trends to Follow

5 Social Media Trends to Follow

Here are 5 social media trends we spoke about on our radio show that are important to pay attention to while putting together your social media strategy.

1) Content

How to use video and images to stop the scroll, text to image ratio, A video on Facebook receives 135% more organic reach (non-paid advertising) Thank a single photo posted on Facebook. Stop the scroll!  Make sure your posts are interesting enough for people to want to stop and view, watch, listen and read your content.

2) Apps 

There a hundreds of different apps you can use, there are just a few of our favorite. Best apps to use to create compelling images and posts are WordSwag, Ripl, Flipagram, Typorama

3) Brand Message

Did you know that people like Facebook for online shoppers – is it clear and add shop button to FB page, 42% of people who like a business page on Facebook do so to receive coupons and special offers. What have you offered in your business page lately? Adding an offer to your business page is a great way to track marketing efforts!

Roughly 93% of online shoppers consult social media before buying. Online shoppers read social media reviews, monitor brand engagement and get to know the brand before making a commitment to buy. What message is your brand sending on social media?

4) Emojis

Emojis can help you show emotion through content with your social media posts, texts and even blogs. You may experience a 33% increase in comments and engagement when you do!

5) Content Calendar

Keep posts simple! Did you know? Posts with less than 150 characters get up to 60% MORE engagement! Create an editorial calendar. By doing some planning up front, it will really save you time on being consistent in your message on social media. When planning your editorial calendar of content, don’t forget to plan in content that works well with annual holidays and the seasons of your business. Remember to be flexible with your calendar so it allows you to pivot and make room for trending topics that may impact your business. Make sure your team has a copy of the editorial calendar so they can stay focused on what your business’ message is month to month.

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The Numbers Say “Embrace Social Media”

If the social media numbers and statistics that we are seeing already for 2016 are a glimpse into the future for 2017, you are going to want to get in the game!  It’s time to take the Social Media landscape seriously and apply it to your business for maximum growth and exposure.

Check out these numbers from SmallBizTrends.com

General Social Media Use

  • 97% of online adults aged 16-64 say they have visited or used a social network within the last month.
  • Internet users have average of 7 social media accounts.  This is a HUGE jump from 2012 where most people reported having only 3 social media accounts.
  • 8 out of 10 internet users visit and/or use social media from their mobile devices.
  • Users spend a minimum of an hour on social media per day (I think this number is too low!)

These numbers tell us that Social Media is not only increasing in popularity but it also tells us users are finding tremendous value in it.  What does this mean for businesses of any size?  It means we need to embrace social media and start using it effectively.

Which Social Media Platform Should Businesses Concentrate On

create-865017_960_720Many industry professionals will tell you two things when it comes to where you should be spending your time as a business when it comes to Social Media.  They will tell you:

  • Go where your target customer spends their time
  • Focus on 1 Social Media platform and get comfortable with it before you add more

While I agree with what other industry professionals advise, I also believe this is one Social Media powerhouse we cannot ignore.  Facebook.  Have you noticed, slowly but surely Facebook is adding all the most popular features each of the major Social Media players.  Here is what I mean:

  • Live video was huge when Periscope came on the scene.  Facebook saw the value and created Facebook Live for its users.
  • Simple, to the point text is what Twitter is all about.  Facebook now amplifies short text with a larger font size so it stands out in your news feed.
  • Instagram is wildly popular with its highly visual platform.  Facebook purchased Instagram.  Now Facebook advertisers can promote posts from Facebook to Instagram without even having an Instagram account!
  • SnapChat is highly popular with its disappearing posts.  Instagram (owned by Facebook) has embraced the same technology through Instagram Stories

Plan Of Action

computer-768696__180Over the last 2 years or so, Facebook has added an incredible amount of features and nuances to its platform.  For most, it is hard to keep up with all the changes.  It seems once you have it down, Facebook amps up its game, forcing you to learn more.  Many times, your focus is taken off your business and craft to learn the next Facebook marketing technique.  Learning the new features of Facebook is a necessary evil if you are the person in charge of maintaining the social media footprint of your business.  While being in charge of executing your business’s social media content seems like a good plan, it can backfire.  More often than not, businesses who manage their own social media accounts are:

  • Inconsistent with their presence and message
  • Tend to be overly pitchy or “sales-y”
  • Misuse the functions of the social media platform
  • Often post just for the sake of posting in order to have some sort of presence

The best defense to social media marketing is to spend the time to craft an annual social media plan complete with a budget and measurable goals.  Once you have the plan designed, outsource the work.  The people you outsource your social media plan to can generally do it faster and with better results, freeing you up to do what you originally got into business to do in the first place!

So You Think You Can Get Along In Business Without Social Media

office-620817_640Think again!  Before social media hit the scene, to gain credibility in the marketplace, you had to have a website.  Today, it is extremely important to have a website PLUS have presence on social media.  Here’s why:

  • Studies show consumers check out social media first before even going to a company website. 
  • Consumers engage in “social listening” watching and reading how people react to a company or product
  • Social Media gives consumers the opportunity to quickly engage and build a relationship with their favorite brand or product
  • Potential customers can get real time, personalized responses from companies through social media

What will your social media plan look like in 2017.  It is not too late to start thinking about it now.

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