Small Business Marketing Blog

How to start Social Media Marketing in 1 hour a day

Recently I was asked on a Linked Group: “Where would you recommend someone start? How much time do you recommend spending working the social media?”

This is a very good question, thanks for asking Bryan. And a question, Im sure, many business owners would like an answer to.  Unfortunately it’s not that easy, however, I will attempt to give you some answers.

The key thing to remember is to align social media marketing with your business objectives.  No doubt your goal is to increase your bottom line.  Increase revenue and decrease expenses. There are many ways this can be achieved:  brand and company awareness, improved systems, better understanding of your customers’ needs, competitor knowledge, reputation, customer feedback, market research and referrals. Each one of these is important to building a successful and sustainable business, however their importance to your business depends on whether you’re a B2B, B2C, where your business is located, your industry, trends and many other factors. 

Social media can provide solutions for all of these. So the answer is in the questions:

1. What’s the most important element to your business right now?
2. What do you want to use social media for?
3. How are they aligned with your business objectives?

I would recommend focusing on the three main sites: Linked In, Facebook and Twitter. Use them to:

• Build your network and reach
• Build your authority and awareness
• Promote (not sell) your expertise: blogs, webinars, presentations, ebooks
• Promote events – that are relevant to your audience

Have a long term plan to build relationships and friendships with the right people. It’s no different to building relationships face to face. The first thing you’re going to do is introduce yourself, get to know your connections and let your connections get to know you. It’s a lot easier to sell something to a friend or someone you know who respects you, rather than a stranger.

Knowing that business owners are very time poor,  I recommend finding 1 hour day – maybe in the evenings whilst you catch up on the news or watch TV.

1 hour each day to monitor Google Alerts, Read Blogs and review Twitter
• If you set up Hootsuite – that is an easy way to monitor all your social media accounts, and post links and status updates to all of them at once.
• Use Google Alerts to stay up to date with conversations that are happening on the web about your industry, company, brand and competitors. This is great way to connect with bloggers who have a following that represents your target audience.
• Set up RSS on iGoogle: I don’t like to have my email filled with blogs and alerts. What I find works well is to have it all syndicated through RSS to my iGoogle home page. Each night I scan through all the blog articles, read the ones that interest me, comment if appropriate and scan the Google Alerts for what’s happening in my industry. This keeps me up to date with my industry and competition.

Spend 2 hours a week (1 hour x 2 days per week)
• Finding groups to join on Linked In
• Search for people to connect with on Facebook, Twitter and Linked In.
• Set up and run your own group on Linked In and Facebook
• Answer questions on Linked In– search through your groups and Answers for topics you know.
• Connect with everyone you come in contact with
• If you have something that is of value and interest to your groups like a great blog or webinar – let them know about it.

This is a great lead generation strategy that can prequalify your prospects before you start selling.

Does this help?  Let me know what you think.

 

Social Media Marketing: Tell Me The Facts!

I recently discovered the Social Media Marketing Industry Report by Michael A Stelzer. 880 business owners, employees and sole proprietors were surveyed in an attempt to uncover the who, what, where, when and why of Social Media Marketing. There are a lot of interesting findings in this report, however, I've pulled out just a few results that I believe would be the most valuable to SMBs. If you're interested in reading the entire report you can download it for FREE at: Social Media Marketing Industry Report.

Is your competition using Social Media Marketing?

• Business owners were more likely to use social media marketing than employees working for a business.
• The largest group just getting underway with social media marketing was sole proprietors.
• Small business owners were the most experienced, 29.3% reporting doing social media marketing for years.

What are the benefits to using social media marketing?

The top three benefits are:

1. Exposure of business
2. Increasing traffic
3. Building new business partnerships

An unexpected benefit was a rise in search engine rankings reported by more than half of participants. About one in two marketers found social media marketing generated qualified leads.

How does time invested influence results?

• 62% of marketers who have been using social media for years report it has helped them close business.
• Nearly all marketers spending 6+ hours a week on social media marketing found exceptionally positive results.
• At least 2 in 3 participants found that increased traffic occurred with as little as 6 hours a week invested in social media marketing. And those who have been doing it for years reported even better results.
• 62% of people who have only invested a few months in their social media marketing report new partnerships were gained.
• Owners of small business were more likely than others to report benefits.

What are the top social media tools?

The most common social media tools in order are:

1. Twitter
2. Blogs
3. LinkedIn
4. Facebook

If you're looking to get started with any of these here's some quick tips for social media marketing.

So what can we learn from this?

The takeway here is that your competition is using social media marketing and they're getting results. With as little as 6 hours a week you can expect to see an increase in traffic to your site, and in just a few months develop new business relationships. The longer you've been implementing social media marketing the greater the results, so the sooner you start the better.

What are your questions regarding social media marketing?

 

 

Your Social Media Marketing Efforts Are Key To Your Future Success

The business results you have today are based on what you did in the past. Consequently, what you do today to market your business, will impact your business tomorrow. So the question is... 

Are your marketing efforts today setting you up for future success?

The best way to build a viable business for the future is to start implementing referral based marketing strategies today.  A lead generated from a happy customer is ‘hot', and the easiest of all leads to qualify and close.

How does social media marketing help to build a referral based business?

It takes time to build a network on the internet, fans on Facebook, members on LinkedIn, followers on Twitter.  Your market reach is their market reach.

Let's say you had 100 connections spread between the three major social media sites, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and each one of your connections had 100 connections (which is conservative) you now have a reach of 10,000 people.  Think about traditional marketing methods and how much time and money it would take to reach 10,000 people via referral methods.

To market today for tomorrow's success, start building a quality network of fans, members and followers that represent your target audience, engage and add value on a regular basis. Who knows how many connections you'll have in your network within 12 months.

Six obvious (that often get forgotten) tips to a happy customer:

1. Provide outstanding service from the very beginning, from the first point of contact with your company.

2. Make it clear what you are providing and what they can expect from your product or service.

3. Make sure you deliver on what you say you will.

4. Under promise and over deliver.

5. Follow up and make sure they are happy. Do they have any post purchase issues or problems.

6. Maintain regular contact with your current customers and make sure you're adding value every time you connect with them.

How to use Social Media Marketing to empower your happy customers to spread the word:

Facebook and LinkedIn:

1. Create a forum on these sites for your customers to interact with each other.

2. Encourage fans and members to post questions for you to answer.

3. Provide added value, extra tips and advice on discussion boards.

4. Provide links to these groups from your website, blog and other content so prospects can interact with current customers.

Twitter:

5. Personally interact with your customers and build rapport.

6. Post special offers and discounts.

7. Post links to informative and interesting articles or content that would be valuable to your customers.

If you would like FREE advice on how to market your business in web2.0 world subscribe to my blog Inbound Marketing Solutions for Small Business.

How do you use social media to interact with your customers/prospects? What are the results?

How To Do Inbound Marketing On A Tight Budget

This is a quick guide to help small businesses, with little to no marketing budget, market their business on the internet. 

Understand Your Market:

• Understand the persona of who IS buying your product or service and who is visiting your website, but NOT converting.
• More than just demographics, understand some of their social and internet habits.
• What are their needs, problems and how do you help?
• When you communicate with your audience don't promote your product, company or brand.
• Communicate the benefits of your product or service and you how solve a problem and meet their needs and desires.

Keyword Phrases:

• Choose keyword phrases that your audience is using on the internet.
• Use these keywords in your page titles, headings and content on your website.
• Use these keywords in your blogs and other online content.
• Include hyperlinks from keywords to relevant pages on your website.

Website:

• Communicate in the value system of your audience and provide them with relevant information that is of value to them.
• Keep your website clear and easy to understand as well as easy to navigate.
• Make sure your visitor knows what to do next if they want more information or to make a transaction.
• Have a call to action on every page.

Twitter:

• Set up a Twitter account.
• Search for topics and words that are relevant to your industry and start following these people.
• Add value to your followers by tweeting links to interesting articles.
• Retweet other tweets that would be of benefit to your followers.
• Register your Twitter account under relevant topics on the Twitter directory twitr.org.

Facebook and LinkedIn:

• Search for industry groups and business pages that represent your target audience and network.
• Start engaging with them by adding valuable comments to their posts, discussions and comments.

Promote:

• The best way to promote your product or service online is to offer something for FREE that is of value to your audience. Free ebook, trial, tool, webinar all work well.
• Communicate with your network and audience by adding value, providing information and advice.
• Post on your Facebook and LinkedIn status or Tweet, a creative promotional message that communicates how your product or service may help and include a link to a Landing Page on your website.

Landing Page:

• Landing pages are designed to generate leads. The objective here is to offer the visitor something of value in return for their contact information. Depending on what you're offering depends on the amount of contact information you can expect to get in return. Ask for the minimum amount of information required so you don't lose the prospect.

Analyzing:

• Analyze your results. The important metrics are conversions. How many visitors are converting to leads and how many leads are converting to sales.
• Monitor your marketing activities daily (at a minimum) to stay up to date with what's driving conversions.
• Try new things, test and measure and see what yields better results.
• Repeat what works.

The important rule of thumb with the internet is to add value, it's about giving first. It may take some time until you start to see results but it's worth the time and dedication.

If you're a small business owner I would like to know if this helped you with knowing where to start and how to market your business on the internet?

How Small Business Can Benefit From Social Media Marketing

As a small business owner I get excited about the opportunity Social Media provides as marketing tool to better understand my audience.  I am surprised when I talk to other business owners who are reluctant to learn more about the benefits of social media for their business. One stand out benefit is the low to no cost of social media, giving small business the chance to compete on a level playing field with larger companies with deeper pockets.  My goal in writing this blog is to help small business owners understand the benefit social media can bring to their business and how to get value out of your online communities.

Thanks to Hubspot I was fortunate enough to sit in on some of the classes being taught at the FREE online course for Inbound Marketing by Inbound Marketing University #IMU.  The session on Social Media and Building Communities by Chris Brogan at New Marketing Labs was extremely valuable as he shared his insights on how to succeed with social media.

The takeaway for me was the benefit of social media marketing for small business: Social media provides a FREE platform for small business owners to get to know their audience at a personal level and better understand their needs and values. Previously, this level of consumer insight, for many small business owners was not possible due to the high cost of market research. Today there is a level playing field giving small business owners the same level of consumer knowledge as large corporations.  Another benefit to small business is the ability to build a high level of trust and rapport with their audience and compete with reputable consumer and corporate brand names that have been around for decades.

The key to achieving the most value out of social media for your business is how you interact with your audience.

Chris Brogan brought up a very important value to remember when building online communities, it's all about your audience!  Think about your audience and what their needs are and don't promote your product. To most marketers this is nothing new, however for many small business owners when it comes to marketing your own business this very important lesson is lost.  This may be because your business is a lot more personal, it is you, compared to being an employee working for a larger firm. However, nothing changes with your audience and so the mindset of a marketer whether it's for a product or service, small or large firm, is to communicate with your audience in their value system.

A great way to get started is to join groups on Facebook and LinkedIn that represent your target audience. If you have enough contacts of your own, you may like to start your own Facebook business page, group or LinkedIn group.  Whether you decide to create your own group or join one, here are some valuable insights I got from Chris Brogan's session that should help you with building successful online relationships with your audience.

1. Location: Take the time to find out where your audience is and join them there.

2. It's all about them: They're not interested in your company or your goals, people will connect with people they get value from. So take the time to get to know your audience online. Ask questions, engage, interact and find out what their goals are.

3. Be humble: Be grateful for your connections and followers and take the time to communicate with them without pushing your own agenda. Think of yourself as a participant not the owner.

4. Listen and acknowledge: Listening is a key point but the second step to this, which is just as important, is taking action. Let your audience know you hear them, even if you don't agree.

5. Give! Give! Give!: Encourage your audience to succeed by giving them what they need or desire. Not what you want to give them. Answer questions and offer free advice.

6. ROI of Social Media: Taking the time to build strong relationships and networks helps with; referrals, credibility, reputation, awareness, lead generation, customer awareness, research and development.

Did this bog post help you understand the value social media can bring to your small business? Does it help with understanding how to approach social media and what your goals should be? Welcome your feedback and comments.

10 Inbound Marketing Tips To Help You Blog Effectively

The Inbound Marketing University #IMU kicked off today with a great session on Blogging for Business: What you need to know to get started. Presented by: MarketingProfs' Anne Handley and Mack Collier.

Blogging is a key component of SEO and Social Media Marketing to that should be implemented in every inbound marketing plan. Below are my quick takeaways from today's session that may help other small business owners to write effective blogs for their business.

1. Write for your reader: They could be your customers, prospects, vendors or suppliers. Know who they are and what information is of interest and value to them. They're not interested in reading about your product or company.

2. Have a clean layout that is easy to navigate: Most popular is a two column with the side bar on the right and the main content section on the left.

3. Offer value: Side bars are great for offering additional information that is of value to the reader:

a. Have a link to an internal page on your website that offers more information.

b. Links to product pictures or videos.

c. Information about the blogger(s) so the readers know who they're connecting with, this gives the blog a personal feel.

d. Add links to other social media sites that you're involved with: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube etc.

e. Option to subscribe to your blog, email and RSS.

f. Extra resource: links to other blogs or websites you find of value.

4. Encourage involvement: Empower your readers to comment by posting a question at the end of your blog post. A blog post with comments is more interesting

5. Reply to comments by personally addressing the author of the comment.

6. Include a navigation/menu bar at the top that provides the reader with the option to learn more about your company or products.

7. Blogging is a regular commitment: Before you start think about whether you have the time and the people to commit to a regular blog. There is no value writing a blog once. Creating a blog team is a great idea to share the workload.

8. Outsource blog writers if you need to. Look for bloggers who are already passionate about your company or product.

9. Choose your bloggers carefully. They must be able to write and be passionate about the topic.

10. It takes time to build up a decent subscriber list and can take some time before you start receiving comments. This can be demoralizing to a writer who isn't passionate about their topic. Blogging is a long term marketing strategy, perseverance is key.

There really is so much information that could be included in this topic. I hope though, this is enough to get you thinking about your blog and what it can do for your business. 

I'd like to know your thoughts on blogging for small business. Have you started? What are the results? Still unsure about its value to your business or how to get started?

Is Your SEO Aligned With Inbound Marketing Goals?

Take the time to evaluate your business goals before jumping into search engine optimization (SEO) for your business.

A friend of mine sent me an email that she had received from an SEO firm seeking her business, several months ago. The email started with something like, "we tried to search for your business on line and couldn't find it, which means your prospects can't find you either."  It went on to say that they could guarantee top search rankings (for a monthly fee). It was quite a lengthy sales pitch but basically what they were promising was top search rankings for my friend's company, for what they (the SEO firm) perceived where the relevant keywords.  My friend thought this sounded great, so she presented it to her management team. After all isn't that what we all want, to be at the top of the search results and drive more traffic to our site?

This concerned me, because there was no reference to aligning SEO or top search results with the business and marketing goals. How do you know the best SEO tactics to implement if you don't understand the client's business and their goals? Before employing a firm or individual to implement SEO ensure what they recommend is in line with your business goals, and not their business goals.  SEO is more than just top search engine results. What is the purpose of the website? Who is your target audience? What are the best keywords and phrases to drive qualified leads to your website? Have you set up landing pages for the relevant keywords and phrases?

Let's assume it works.  You're top of the search rankings for your keywords and this is driving qualified leads to your site. What is happening to these leads once they're on your website?  What is your sales funnel? Are you offering them the information they are looking for? How are you capturing these leads? Do you have a call to action? How are you converting these leads?  Do they know what they need to do?  

This is why implementing SEO must be aligned with your business goals. Your goal isn't about being at the top of the search rankings, or driving lots of traffic to your site. Your goal is to convert! It's all about the bottom line!

Before you decide to employ a firm or individual to handle your Inbound Marketing make sure they understand your business goals, your website goals and your audience.

Did you find this information useful? If so please, share it with others by clicking on your preferred social media links above or make a comment.

Thank you.

How Social Media Marketing Will Help You Survive The Recession

The business world is no different from the wild, in the wild it's all about survival! Those that survive are strong, fit or clever. The clever species adapt (evolve, change) to their surroundings to survive.  In order for small business to survive the recession they must be clever. They must be prepared to adapt and evolve to their surroundings, the change in market conditions and the changing consumer.

This may include a change in your business model, marketing, product or service.

The utilization of social media marketing is one of the key strategies that will be the difference in determining which small businesses survive and which ones don't.  Below are some of my reasons why:

1. The use of social media is growing every day, this is where your audience will be in the future.

2. It allows you to listen to your customers and prospects, to know what they are saying about your company, brand, industry or competitors.

3. It allows you to engage with your customers and prospects to build rapport and reputation.

4. It will give you insight, reputation and confidence to adapt your product/service to meet your changing customer's needs.

5. Discover a new audience that you weren't marketing to and expand your market.

6. Educate yourself and stay up to date with the latest developments and trends for your industry.

7. It is a cost effective marketing tool that does everything from market research to promotion.

Before you start using social media, it is important to review your business goals and choose the relevant social media sites that are best suited to your business.

If you would like to learn more about the benefits of social media for small business visit the social media marketing page or review how our Inbound Marketing Services to get you started with an effective social media plan.