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Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’

You are a business owner. A struggling economy may not be the optimal market you’d like to operate in, but, we can’t do much to change where we are… or can we? History shows that companies that continue to market and even increase their marketing effort in a down economy grow their business even more when the recession rebounds. And, with social media marketing on the rise, there is no better time to take advantage of your time resources and “spend time” utilizing social media marketing to promote your business!

In a study by the American Association of Advertising Agencies, companies with even modest increases in marketing and advertising spending during the last recession saw gains in market share. Here’s a few ways you can give your business the best chance possible for riding out and rising above this troubled economy.

• Be Innovative!
  Using your Blog, Twitter and Facebook sites, launch a poll or survey using a free service like SurveyMonkey.com, to find out what new products or services your customers want to see. Social media is a great place to get real time results and listen to what people want. Needs are out there, now’s your time to shine by finding out what people want and creating a product or service to fit that need. Awareness and focus grows from economic downturn, so, instead of pulling back, get out there and find out what your market needs and why. Be the solution to their problem.
• Listen to Your Customers
  Strengthen your customer service arm by adding support through Twitter. Be there for your customers. Listen to their needs and strengthen the relationship by going above and beyond their expectations. This is the time to secure their loyalty and keep them connected to you through Facebook with positive, uplifting, informative messages posted daily. Be a thought leader and inspire them with your knowledge about your industry. Make the content so great they will want to “share” or “RT (retweet)” it.
• Keep Your Prices Steady
  Rather than reduce prices, increase the value of your offering. Your product or service has the same value it always did and people will spend money on things they want and need. To help make the sale on your product or service, try a limited time offer with an additional bonus ie.) “Order your lipstick before Sept 15th and receive a free purse mirror as an extra bonus.”
• Stay in Front of Your Customers
  Don’t cut the marketing and advertising budget. Keep top of mind to your customers by staying in front of them with mail, email, phone calls and social media. This is a great time to pre-schedule daily tweets to twitter, posts to Facebook and start writing one blog per day. Because many other companies are cutting back, your message will more likely be heard and reach your customer more easily because there will be less clutter. Social media by nature is permission-based marketing. When someone “follows” you in Twitter or “likes” you as a Fan in Facebook, or subscribes to your blog via RSS, they are giving you permission to speak to them, so make it good.

Be the smart company in this economy who rides out this storm and rises above the rest. Keep marketing in a down economy and when it turns around, you’ll be the one who has their loyalty, trust and a customer for life.

YouTube is now the second largest search engine, next to Google. Four times as many small biz owners now have video on their websites as they did one year ago making video not only the present but also the future of social media marketing. If you are not taking advantage of video in your social media campaigns, you need to be.

YouTube is another great social media site that is free to use, all it takes is your time. I recommend to all my clients that they set up their own keyword rich YouTube channel and post with frequency to their Facebook page and embed video in their own blog posts.

On websites that have video, the average viewer stays 6 minutes. On websites without video, the average viewer stays 57 seconds. Video is great for engaging your prospective customer for LONGER, which can boost your conversion rate.

It’s important to not only have a professional video created, but, also to get a flip cam and create your own quick messages on the spot. Both are effective and achieve the goal of allowing your potential customer a way to learn more about you and become pre-sold on your products or services.

Plus, video can help you make that all important PERSONAL connection with your prospective clients and in this day and age of social media, building relationships is what it’s all about.

Visit my friend at http://jilladdison.com to learn more and get a top quality, professional video created at a reasonable price.

Contact me today for a FREE Social Media Marketing Report!

• Do you know how to use Social Media to get new customers?
• Are you looking for better and easier ways to market your business online?
• Were you aware that Facebook, Twitter and a Blog can help your business be found in Google search when you use your “keywords”?
• Did you know that Social Media is new newest way to network online?

Don’t miss your opportunity to get new customers and get the word out about your business, products, services or fund raising efforts using social media.

If you are in business you need to be using online marketing. If you are not yet using social media marketing or you have created social media accounts in Twitter and Facebook and are saying to yourself… “Now What?”, please email me to receive my FREE Social Media Marketing Report: “Top 5 Reasons Businesses Should Use Social Media Marketing”.

“I don’t have time”… “I don’t know how”…

If you know you need to start using social media but “don’t have time” or “don’t know how” to use these tools, I am here to help with training, consulting or implementation of your social media marketing campaign. I have over 15 years of experience in corporate Direct Marketing and I am trained in social media. I am dedicated to helping businesses add social media marketing to their traditional marketing plan for increased results.

Call or email me today for your FREE report.

And, if you don’t have time to read my free report, call me for a free 1/2 hour consultation via phone or in person (if you live in San Diego, CA) and I’ll tell you why your business MUST be using social media marketing!

Contact Joann Whetstine
Social Media Marketing Consultant
#858-212-8185

joann@howdoimarketmybiz.com

http://www.HowDoIMarketMyBiz.com

twitter.com/howdoimarketbiz
facebook.com/howdoimarketmybiz
linkedin.com/in/joannwhetstine

Here’s my last installment of notes from the Social Media Success Summit webinar. These are great social media marketing tips from two top bloggers. Blogging is so important to getting your keywords found online and having a social media marketing strategy in place BEFORE you begin your social media efforts in Facebook, Twitter and your blog will help you achieve your business goals.

“Making Your Blog a Social Media Destination”
There are 1.8 billion people online which equals 26% of the world population. You’ve got to be found online and dominate search results for your keywords. So, what can a blog do for you? Technorati’s “State of the Blogosphere” reports these numbers about blogging:
71% = Blogging provides greater visibility for your company
63% = It gets clients to purchase
56% = Helps you be regarded as a thought leader
40% = Makes you more visible so you are asked to speak at conferences on your product/service

If that’s not enough, here are more reasons why you should blog: Enhances reputation, Establishes your brand, Builds credibility, Helps you get traffic (SEO), Helps you build your list and most importantly, it Brings you more business! Be sure to create great content, use your keywords, and tap into what your readers want. Via @denisewakeman

“Easily Integrate Social Media Into Your Marketing Mix”

Some people are just broadcasting in social media spaces and not responsive to customer service and replying to people. Don’t create a social media account unless you have a strategy in place to support it. Social media is about the pre-sale and relationship building. Once they love you, they will refer. Find out what your audience is interested in and give it to them in the way they want it. Talk to people about their problems then direct them to your articles that solve that problem. Network with those people who influence your audience for a bigger reach. Via @chrisgarrett

I love learning more and more about the dynamic, ever changing landscape of social media marketing. As it is still a relatively new industry, keeping current on what other companies are doing is essential to building your own strategy. Here’s some additional notes I’ve complied from the recent Social Media Success Summit #SMSS10 webinar series that can help you with your social media marketing efforts.

“Facebook Engagement – Building a Loyal Fan Base”
You have 420 characters to add compelling content to your Facebook page that adds value to your readers. Mix up the media of your content by using: blogs, articles, podcasts, videos, photos, interviews or slide shows. Post tips, questions, How-To Tutorials, polls, quotes and info on events. You can even post other people’s content. Make use of the FBML app and add a custom Welcome Page to your site. You could see a 45% improvement in conversion! The new “Like” app adds the element of social proof and when someone clicks it, it pushes out into their news feed. Very powerful marketing! Via @marismith

“Using Social News Sites to Grow Your Audience and SEO”
Using social bookmarking sites, such as the largest one, Digg.com with 350 million users, can support your SEO efforts when you publish content that gets shared. The top 50 users there provide 41% of the content. To participate in this space, you need to research the community you are interested in and become part of the subculture. Your headline should include a number, an adjective and a keyword for the best success. You should plan to build a relationship with a top user in Digg to have them post your content. Do your homework. Approach them with what they are interested in. Via @msaleem

“Twitter Power Panel”
@problogger @copyblogger @chrisbrogan Shared their strategies for using Twitter. Great stat: 44% of twitter users are the 1st to buy or try a new product before others. Build relationships before asking for the sale: send @ messages to people, get involved in the conversation. Twitter is a great tool for: promotion, info sourcing, conducting search, listening, promoting others, finding business opportunities, building your brand, building trust and authority, driving traffic! Make your posts useful, personal, relational and regular.

The Social Media Success Summit #SMSS10 continues to deliver powerful information on how you can utilize social media marketing in your business.

“8 Steps to Creating a Winning Social Media Strategy”
@JayBaer wants us to remember that tools change, so, start with a strong strategic plan for your social media efforts. Make sure you have a team at your office to support it. Decide who your audience is and don’t forget to listen to them. The best way to break through is make the company human. Tell stories or your customer’s stories (remember Jared from Subway?). Get beyond the features and benefits and make people feel your passion.

“How Mobile Marketing Can Improve Social Media”
@kimdushinkski wants you to know that even if you don’t think you are mobile, if you are sending email and someone checks it from their phone you are! You should even consider having a web page to your main site that is optimized for mobile so people can easily see how to contact you on their 2 inch phone screen. If you are ready to dip your toe into the mobile marketing waters, both Twitter and Facebook offer SMS test message feeds your fans and followers can subscribe to.

“The Future of Social Media”
@steverubel says that trends develop slowly but are timeless. Remember that people need to hear your message 3 to 5 times from 3 to 5 different sources for it to sink in. Tap into free tools online and become a data junkie to figure out what unmet needs are on the rise that you can provide the solution for and create content that will be passed around. All roads to content lead through Google, so, make friends with Google Insights. You could rise to the top of a search category if you are digitally visible in enough places. Klout.com is a great place to find out “who the world is listening to”.

As the Social Media Success Summit #SMSS10 webinar series continues, I wanted to share with you some tips and ideas to consider for your social media strategy.

“5 Social Media Case Studies”

@marketingprofs Ann Handley spoke about companies using social media and what they were doing well. Her main point was that your social media efforts should be Friendly, Focused and Fertile. Make sure you reach people on a lifestyle level, not just focusing on your products and services. Find out what people care about and create your social media campaign around that. A great example was a Fan Page from FiberOne called “Coping with Disbelief Clinic”: the disbelief is that the product is “high in fiber, but still tastes great”. They use videos and the branding for the product is low key, but, it’s very creative and 22,000 people are participating and creating characters to interact at the “clinic”.

“How to Bring Raving Customers to Your Local Business”

Groupon’s @andrewmason and Four Square’s @tristanwalker were on the panel for this discussion. Groupon harnesses the power of group buying with a daily offer to their subscriber list of 5 million people, in 60 cities. This service is great for a business because Groupon only gets paid if the deal goes live, which is set by the response rate. So, it’s a great alternative to newspaper ads. Something to look into if you are a brick and mortar.

Four Square is a mobile social application which “makes cities easier to use”. You are incentivized to explore your city and “check in” where you are. Consumers get points and businesses offer special offers to the “mayors” or, those who visit most frequently. Starbucks saw a 15 – 20% increase in check-ins when they launched a Four Square campaign offering free coffee.

“Creating Buzz With Social Media Contests”

@mike_stelzner spoke about why to hold social media contests. They: drive traffic, sell products, excite customers, increase exposure, provide goodwill, engage customers and are fun and memorable! Bottom line is that it should offer a compelling reward and make them very easy to participate in. To see big results, you need partners and those with a large following to help spread the word.

Wednesday May 5th was the first full day of webinars for the Social Media Success Summit 2010 #SMSS10. Here’s a quick recap of some the great social media marketing takeaways from the three webinars:

Optimizing Your Facebook Fan Page
@MariSmith gave a great class on “Optimizing Your Facebook Fan Page”. What I loved the most was seeing all the great examples of Facebook welcome pages. Did you know that your Facebook Fan page does not have to be just your wall of posts? You can have fans land on any page you like and if you have access to a great graphic designer, make use of Faceboook Markup Language (the FBML app) and create something that meets your business objectives like one of these:

1. This one makes you click “like” button to see it interact with you: facebook.com/CarrotCreative
2. This one uses video to engage you: facebook.com/stevespangler
3. This one lands you right on a product page to purchase and has the “like” widget next to each item: facebook.com/threadless
4. More video and a great example for a company that is not product oriented: facebook.com/EZINEARTICLES

The main goal of your Fan page should be to create a call to action. What do you want someone to do when they visit you? Become a fan? (or, now, show they “like” you?) Collect their email address? Order product? Use your Fan page to meet your business objectives. Plus, you can split test welcome pages, as each one has a unique URL. See which one works best for you!

5 Ways to Measure Social Media
@JasonFalls spoke about “5 Ways to Measure Social Media”.
I liked these 3 points regarding how to measure social media success (besides just strictly sales and google analytics):

1. Community: Fiskars has a great example of how they created a “community” of ambassadors for their product at: http://www.fiskateers.com/ Always good to keep people singing your praises!
2. Customer Service: You can measure effectiveness of social media if your customers are using it to get answers so you get less contacts to customer service, or your call center. Plus, the more ways a customer can contact you = happy customers. Compare survey results for more concrete results.
3. R&D: Use social media to help you come up with new or improved product/service ideas. No cost way to generate market research. Ie.) Dell “Idea Storm” http://www.ideastorm.com/ has received 13,000 comments. 415 ideas were used and many were revenue generating. Also, Joffrey’s Coffee http://www.joffreys.com/ reached out to bloggers and said “what coffee flavor do you like?” and created a new one based on their input called “coffee 2.0” which was then in turn blogged by them out to their followers.

Creating Ravings Fans with Social Media
And, finally, @Ramon_Deleon the Chicago Dominos Pizza owner who uses social media to WOW his customers daily talked about “Creating Ravings Fans with Social Media”:
Ramon has a huge audience of college kids on twitter and Facebook and as these kids move into corporate life, he keeps in touch with them regularly. He’s built a strong brand for himself and really keeps customers engaged in his social media spaces. I like these tips he shared:

1. Think about how you can help the customer and give them positive reasons to talk about you.
2. Promote them so they will tweet about you and share.

For example, he prints up a flyer that he puts on his pizza boxes with his favorite customers twitter handles on it, it has big impact. This is a case of doing someone a favor before they ask, so, you are on their good side when you need something. He also volunteers at many events in Chicago and always has a big Dominos sign along to get lots of photos taken to share in Facebook. He’s also great at quick videos to thank customers and even apologize for errors if needed. All these techniques using social media keep him top of mind to the customer and when someone thinks of pizza in Chicago, they think of him first.

Social Media Success Summit 2010

Ready to get on the social media marketing train but don’t know where to start? There is an awesome online conference you must know about! Social Media Success Summit 2010 is the web’s largest live virtual marketing conference that will empower you to use social media to gain more exposure, better engage customers and grow your business.

Attend webinars from 24 of the world’s leading social media gurus, such as: Guy Kawasaki (author, Art of the Start), Chris Brogan (author, Social Media 101), Darren Rowse (author, ProBlogger), Mari Smith (author, Facebook Marketing), Greg Jarboe (author, YouTube and Video Marketing), Kim Dushinski (author, Mobile Marketing Handbook); experts from Best Buy, Home Depot, Whole Foods, Foursquare and Groupon; Steve Rubel (Edelman), Ann Handley (MarketingProfs), Brian Clark (Copyblogger), Jason Falls (Social Media Explorer), Jay Baer (Convince & Convert) and Ramon De Leon (Chicago Domino’s Pizza)—just to mention a few!

This is the place where the social media thought leaders come together to talk about what’s happening in social media marketing and considering the online world is so dynamic and changes so quickly, you’ll want to know what other business have learned and are doing so you can put your social media marketing strategy in place.

TODAY IS THE LAST DAY TO SAVE 50% (Expires at Midnight Pacific on Thursday April 15th)

This virtual, online summit starts Tuesday, May 4 and runs through May 25. It will be spread over many weeks (and recorded for later playback) so, even if you have a schedule conflict, you can still play back any of the webinars at a later date.

“Consider this: 97% of last year’s attendees said they’d recommend the summit to a friend and attend again,” says Michael A. Stelzner, #SMSS10 Event founder. “Studies show that consumers prefer to work with businesses that have a strong social media presence. It’s not too late to get your business engaged with customers via social media. But if you wait, you’ll be giving your competitors a significant advantage that’ll be hard to overcome.”

I attended last year and I can’t wait to find out what this amazing group has to share with us this year! This event is THE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING EVENT for any business who wants to be successful using social media to generate leads and build strong business partnerships.

Think there’s no power in Social Media Marketing? Think again! The blog “5 Minutes for Mom” is in their fourth year of hosting the Ultimate Blog Party UBP#10 and do they know how to drive traffic. Their “party” started last Friday April 9th and runs for 1 week until April 16th. As of today, they are reporting that the hashtag #UBP10 stream has had 15,704 tweets from 1,204 attendees, with combined reach 1,159,469 followers, and 29,397,282 unique messages! That’s some powerful stuff!

What’s an online blog party?
For @5minutesformom, hosted by @susancarraretto and @janicecroze, it’s a way to drive traffic to your blog, and the best part is that it’s for FREE. There are two ways to participate in #UBP10.

1. Give away a prize on their site.
2. Giveaway a prize on your own blog.

And, of course you can do both! It’s simple to fill out their online form with the prize you are offering (which had to be completed before the launch date) and once you have posted your “party” on your own blog, you just visit their McLinky page where you add your blog party URL (and your Facebook Fan page and Twitter URL as well if you like) and you have the ability from there to get tons of free exposure to your site.

The latest stats show they have over 2000 bloggers participating, and this is just half way through the party week! How’s that for activity on a free online marketing promotion?

What does this mean to you?
Social media is hot, it’s viral and it’s spreading like wildfire. If you’re not using twitter, facebook and a blog to drive traffic to your web site, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to not only generate new leads, but also make strong business partnerships that can further your reach into your target market.

My Party Blog Giveaway
If you are visiting me from 5 Minutes for Mom, thanks for coming to my party! I hope you’ll take a few minutes to explore my web site and blog and leave me a comment below telling me what you LOVE about social media. I will be giving away 1 FREE Hour of Social Media Training.

Want extra entries into the contest? Do one or all of the following!

• Follow me on Twitter and send me an @howdoimarketbiz message there telling me what you love about Twitter.
• Become a Facebook Fan and post on my wall what your favorite thing is about Facebook.

Make sure I have a way to reach you, by either enabling your email through wordpress, or leaving your email in the comment. One winner will be chosen at random by using random.org. The contest ends April 16th at 11:59 Pacific Time. I will announce the winner Monday April 19th. The winner has 72 hours to contact me, or another winner will be chosen.

And, don’t forget to head over to the Ultimate Blog Party (#UBP10) on the 5 Minutes for Mom web site! Besides having links to lots of great blogs, they are also having giveaways. If I were to win, my top three picks would be:

1. Tupperware Prize Pack – the winner will receive a box filled with fun Tupperware goodies.
   Provided by: Heather @ Marine Corps Nomads
2. 1 Month Subscription to Netflix. 2 DVDs out at a time and instant viewing to your computer.
   Provided by: 1stopmom
3. A $25 e-gift certificate to the Disney Store.
   Provided by: Kristin @ Couponing to Disney

Prizes 95, 83 and 71 would also be great! Enjoy the party!