Social Media Maintenance…Are You Maintaining?

18Apr

Life changes drastically, even more so when you run a business. Policies, employees, branding, and pricing can change so quickly, it can hard to keep up. Sometimes, some marketing becomes a little outdated. Unfortunately, the internet is pretty unforgiving when it comes to obsolete or old information, and the social media landscape could be the worse. Small Business Trends has a great list that can help people and companies alike keep their accounts tidy and efficient:

Go through your profiles and make sure that every piece of information is up to date. LinkedIn is one of the more important websites to keep recent, seeing as how portfolios, resumes, and employee information is prevalent. You don’t want an employee who left three years ago to still be one of the forefronts of your social media profiles. This also is applicable to photo albums. Make sure what is in the photo, whether it be products or pictures of employees, is an accurate depiction of today.

While you want as many followers as possible, dead profiles are not exactly the best thing and neither is spam, which can fill your news feed with irrelevant advertisements. Make sure that the people you interact with are active and beneficial.

As a business, it’s important to see what people perceive your brand as. The online frontier is not a place for bashfulness and if people have a problem with your company, there’s a good chance they’re making it known. Google yourself, or search for your brand to see what people are saying or what they’re connecting your brand with. Sometimes you’ll be happily surprised, other times you’ll be a bit upset, especially is an unsatisfied customer made their way to a keyboard. There’s only so much you can do about negative talk online, unless its really offensive or harmful, but you can try you best to get customers to have positive reviews to outweigh the bad.

Of course, security is always important. Make sure you change your passwords often. Make sure they’re different from one another, and make sure they’re unique. A helpful tool some tech gurus use is to replace numbers for similar letters, like 3’s for E’s or 1’s for I’s. It might seem unnecessary, but it can help significantly strengthen your password. Be sure to keep track of all your different passwords. There are tons of various ways to do this, from simply keeping a password-protected PDF on your desktop, to using a nifty app. Just make sure you don’t lose the list!

As important social media can be to your enterprise, it’s just as important to perform so regular maintenance on your profiles. It will keep things fresh, current, and perhaps most importantly, secure.

Small Business Trends sheds more light on some great social media tips here: http://ow.ly/10AvmS

What do you think?

Your Website’s Relationship with Social Media

By Christopher Tompkins

18Apr

Social Media, Uncategorized

When running a business, it’s essential to have both a website and social media accounts so you can maximize your reachability. One cannot simply replace the other. In fact, the way social media has expanded, they can now compliment and promote each other!

For your website, it is important to have all your social media links proudly visible. If you’re not the one running your website, your designer should have this already in place. If not, from a webmaster’s side of things, it’s not hard to have ready. Facebook, Twitter, and the rest of the big boys also offer free image files of their websites so you can utilize it on your website and on other marketing material as well. By going to the source, you’ll have the most recent design of their logos, and you can be sure of the image file’s quality. Be careful though, those suckers can be huge files.

Promote your social media through the content you have posted on your website. Again, don’t forget to have those links in the reader’s line of sight as much as possible, but don’t make your website like a giant pop-up ad.

In addition to the direct links to your social media accounts, you should also have the ability to “Like”, share, “Tweet”, etc. straight from the article or page. This way they don’t have to leave your website, and the customer will now double as a sounding board, proclaiming how awesome your website is. There you go, now your customer is a member of your marketing department.

One of the more popular ways of integrating your social media accounts and your website is to allow them to login via their already existing social media accounts. You might’ve already seen this in place on a lot of retail websites. It allows the customer to bypass filling out forms, and will put them on a one way ticket to that payment screen.

You can also have YouTube videos and social media reviews imbedded right on your page. YouTube can double as another way to push your content and allow the reader or customer to promote for you.

On your social media accounts, always be sure to fill out every applicable field. Most websites will allow you to add URLs to your website, oftentimes to various pages. This way the customer doesn’t have to waste time trying to search for your website on a search engine website. You are in control of where they go to get more information.

Of course, one of the most important parts of social media is posting. When you’re making your updates, and you should be making a lot of them, make sure a good amount of them have a shortened URL that will take them to your website. A post can showcase what you have on your website. You can get some of you more unpopular pages some extra clicks by just showing it off on one of your social media accounts.

As you can see, its more a symbiotic relationship, rather than one replacing the other. They both can help each other, and in the same respect increase your views all around.
For even more interesting ways to integrate your website and social media accounts, check out this great article from Memeburn: http://ow.ly/10AkQi

What are your thoughts? Comment and discuss below!

What Not To Do On Social Media

By Christopher Tompkins

18Apr

Uncategorized

Social media is one of those movements that really only work if the user is, well, using it correctly. It might seem overly simple, but there are certain unspoken rules and etiquette that should be abided by in order to have success. And, like the people that use it, the internet landscape, specifically social media, can be a tad fickle. Here are some good rules to abide by when presenting yourself to the world wide web and the many eyes that are watching you. Michael Morelli of Morellifit and Instagram giant (5 million followers going strong) has some suggestions on what to steer clear from.

Make sure you come off honest, true, and not like a scam artist. Nobody wants to question if you are who you say you are. There’s already enough of that on the internet. It’s important to show that you know that you’re a credible source of information for your field of specialty. Make sure the facts are actually true and that you’re posting credible information. If it’s your opinion, make sure you don’t push it too much, nor do you want to present it as fact.
Once you’ve built a decent following, they’re going to expect a consistent flow of new content and posts. Congrats, on your quest to reach out, you’ve become somewhat of an entertainer and news source, which you’ll have to keep up with. Be aware that internet silence can be deadly. You don’t want to be one of the mute screen names that eventually get deleted.
Do not push the sales side of your social media campaigns too much. This one is important because if you seem too much like a used-car salesmen (no offense to the automotive industry) you’re going to lose followers, and fast. Be sure to water down your pitchy posts with interesting news articles, contests, questionnaires, quizzes, whatever is engaging and relatable to your field.

It’s important to understand that, when using social media, you’re not speaking to an empty room. There is audience, and they’re expecting quality posts. Make sure you can deliver while still trying to push your brand in a subtle but effective way.

For more info about these helpful steps, Michael Morelli’s insightful article: http://ow.ly/10A9Up

Comment your thoughts below!

The Permanence of Social Media

By Christopher Tompkins

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18Apr

Social Media, Uncategorized

Let’s face it. The internet has not only reshaped how we conduct pretty much everything in life, it’s defined this age. With something so significant, people are sure to question its legitimacy and if its going to stick around. Especially with one of the internet’s biggest strengths, the way to communicate with one another. This is where social media comes in. How strong is it? Will we look back at social media with a nostalgic sense and think about it the same time we think about VHS tapes and Beanie Babies?

Anurag Harsh, writer for The Huffington Post, tries to answer this question in an article which tests our memory of one of 2015’s biggest hashtags, #TheDress. Do you remember when this odd piece of clothing was such a sensation? Some people swore that it was black and blue, while others proclaimed it was white and gold. Eventually, it turned into more of a social statement for spousal abuse awareness. Regardless of how much you remember the story, Harsh bets you at least are familiar with it thanks to the firepower of social media. He states that this is a prime example of why we wont be thinking about social media on Throwback Thursdays ten, twenty, or thirty years from now. This thing is here to stay.

Of course, many people love to say that about something they have a stake in, which Harsh definitely does. But even an objective pair of eyes can reason that social media has made a strong enough impact to exist perpetually, in some form or another. This doesn’t mean that social media as we see it now will always be around. For all we know, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram will join the ranks of abandoned websites, leaving their homepage as empty as Chernobyl. But you can be sure something will pop up in their places.

One thing that makes social media seemingly timeless is the fact that it has risen above a message board for selfies and pictures of what you’ve had for dinner (although there’s still plenty of that around). Instead, its made room for the serious side of communication, becoming innovative outlets for news, business solutions, and a way to get one’s message out, whether it be a political movement, or a hashtag representing something they truly believe in. It’s become our generation’s version of the newspaper, and with it, were reaching new heights that were once thought impossible.

For more information, check out Anurag Harsh’s Huff Post article here: http://ow.ly/10zAjt

Where do you think social media will be in ten years? Comment Below!

When it Comes to Social Media Marketing – It is All About Making the Right Choice

By Christopher Tompkins

23Feb

Social Media, Uncategorized

When choosing social media platforms for your marketing strategy, it is necessary to dig deep to see which ones are going to be the best starting point to complement your cohesive and strategic social media marketing strategy. You need to look at a social media site and ask yourself, “What can you do for me and my business?” Social media should bring value to you by creating your own unique community and promotional hub.

Look through your current (or competitor’s profiles), compare and contrast, and answer the following questions:

• Which sites do you market on currently?

• Looking at your Buyer Profiles, which site has the most active members of your target market?

• Which site has groups for your company’s niche when you search using your keyword list?

• What sites do your competitors use the most or least?

• Which site’s tone aligns most with your brand voice?

• Which site is easiest to understand and use? Use the “Help” section of each site to learn more about its capabilities and security.

• Which site overall feels like the most natural fit for your business and marketing objectives?

Please take your time on these questions, and go through each one carefully, keeping in mind your needs and the pros and cons of each. Think about how much time you have, and who will be managing these sites. Also, based on the content in the past three chapters, which ones did you really identify with?

Now, once you have made your decision, you need to decide your starting point and note it on your pad.

• In Month One, I will market the business on: [Name of site(s)]

• In Month Two, I will market the business on: [Name of site(s)]

• In Month Three, I will market the business on: [Name of site(s)]

By setting a three-month plan, you will have time to get your feet wet and find your footing. After that, you can look back at your strategy to see what needs to be changed and updated.

Remember, when it comes to social media all plans are organic: they will grow and change over time. This is a wonderful advantage for your company as you can easily and cost-effectively change a marketing strategy on a dime if necessary.

If Trust is King….is SEO Queen?

By Christopher Tompkins

23Feb

Social Media, Uncategorized

Content is king. And if you are interested in marketing your business using social media, it is important to generate original content. Writing original content will not only help you get more traffic from social media sites and search engines, but also help you engage with your target audience and create a power of influence.

I want to give you a proven tactic that will help you get your content rolling BEFORE you even put pen to paper to formulate your first blog or social media update.

Building keyword lists.

With all of the fervor over the power of content marketing, one aspect of it that I don’t think is stressed enough is the use of keywords when developing your content. Those who know search engine optimization (SEO) tactics know how important keywords are to online success. Keywords are how the right people will be able to find you, your company, your services, and your products online when searching for you—plain and simple.

If you currently have an active SEO campaign, whoever is managing this activity should be able to supply you with a list of keywords. Another key person who could help you is your website designer or manager. Even if your website is 10 years old, your keywords should be present throughout.

If you do not have these resources, I have a simple two-step process to help you formulate your first keyword list.

1. Pull out a list of your target market

2. Pull out a list of your products/services

By looking at these documents, you will be able to consider who is searching for you online and what words they are they using to find you. Go above and beyond what you think the term “keyword” means, and really think about how your target market would look for you on search engines like Google. Come up with a list of words and short phrases that you think your target market would use to find you online. I would first write this down on a pad, but then transfer to an online document for future tweaking.

Need some more help coming up with keywords and phrases? The Google Keyword Planner can provide some good outside-the-box ideas. Also, this tool will help you discover competitive keywords and phrases that have high searchability but low competition with others in your market.

The point of this exercise is to come up with a solid keyword list that you can begin to use when formulating and executing your content strategy for social media and other content. The more relevant keywords that you pack into your social media updates, blogs, and website, the better chance you have of showing up in Google searches and social media searches for your topic.

Once you start to incorporate your keywords into your content, a great tool to see how your keywords are working for you is Google Analytics. If you are not using this wonderful tool to monitor your website, I would suggest that you install it now. It is free, and it helps you determine where your traffic is coming from and what words potential customers are using to find you. Just ask the person who manages your website if this tool is installed and, if not, get it installed today. Above and beyond keywords, Google Analytics gives you real-time data about on the effectiveness of your website on many different levels.

Keep in mind that your keyword list will continue to evolve and grow as your business does. I would suggest taking a look at your list every month to see if it needs tweaking.

While building and maintaining a keyword list can be taxing, in the end it will truly help your content strategy get off and running with a bang!

Is the Goal of Social Media to Turn Customers into Your Personal Evangelists?

By Christopher Tompkins

23Feb

Social Media, Uncategorized

Company evangelists. I love this topic because I believe it is one of the most underutilized social media secret weapons.

I am not referring to evangelists in the religious way, but rather fervent supporters of your company and products/services. If they have big mouths, even better!

Open up the mailing list spreadsheet you just completed in the last chapter, and focus in on your past/current client sheets, as these folks are used to your products or services and are familiar with you and your company.

Looking at this list, highlight by bolding anyone who has:

• Frequently expressed their happiness and satisfaction vocally

• Provided valuable feedback that you have used to enhance your processes

• Referred business to you based on their confidence in your service

• Provided a testimonial in writing or online

• Continued to be a loyal client

These are the first batch of potential evangelists, so take your time going through the list and highlight everyone who fits the criteria mentioned above. Don’t be shy. The more the merrier!

Also, you want to think about those who might not be on your spreadsheet as a prospect, client, or past client. It is time to wrack your brain, and add any people to the spreadsheet who might fit these criteria:

• People who would spread the word on a new initiative with little to no prodding

• People who have never worked with you, but are familiar with you and confident in supporting your business

• Business partners who would benefit from your business success

• Event organizers where you served as a speaker or advertiser

• Experts or opinion leaders whose endorsement would be beneficial

• Family members who move in circles where your target market exists

• Personal and professional friends who are always happy to help

• Clients with whom you have had a long and successful relationship

This list is just as important as, if not more important than, the ones in your spreadsheet already, as you will not have much trouble getting them to help you spread the word or endorse you and your business.

I’m sure you are asking, “Why am I doing this?” Well, once you begin to roll out your social media marketing campaign, these company evangelists play an extremely crucial role in ensuring your level of initial and long-term success.

Company evangelists will help you:

• Enhance your credibility

• Generate leads and referrals

• Gain testimonials for your website and social media

• Spread your message virally via social media

• Provide guidance and support when you first venture out into social media

• Provide the crucial first numbers in connections and followers in social media

• Provide protection during your first month or two out of the gate by creating goodwill

Now – get to work!

Video Marketing: Yes, You Can!

By Christopher Tompkins

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12Jan

Uncategorized, Video, YouTube

On a weekly basis, I sit down and consult with businesses who need help creating effective marketing strategies. I relish these face-to-face meetings as they focus on two of my most favorite topics: marketing and strategy. Something that I have noticed lately is the companies that I encounter have a growing interested in video, which excites me. Online influencers, including myself, have always touted the power of video in promoting your brand online. Your target market engages more with visuals than the written word, so it is an important aspect of the online marketing mix.

The scary part of this ride is not knowing how exactly to create the video without hiring a specialist. If you are fortunate enough to be a business with a large marketing budget, then I suggest hiring a professional. This will save you time, a very expensive asset in your day-to-day live.

But, not many companies have an endless marketing budget that provides enough capital to produce a professional video. So the answer is the create the video in-house, with your own team putting all the pieces together. But how will busy marketers find the time to create a cutting-edge promotional video?

The answer is to take it step-by-step, not all at once. Creating a video is a fluid process that you can take at your own speed. To help you do this, I want to share my own step-by-step process on how you can complete your first video!

Let’s get started:

*Invest in an inexpensive video camera that can controlled by remote control. Go Pro’s are great (albeit a little pricey) and have lots of easy applications and settings. But just a thought.
*Print a blog that you have written, or some marketing collateral with a good chunk of copy in it. Setup your camera and record yourself reading the copy directly to camera. Then review the video and check the following aspects:
*Lighting: is it too dark, too light, too grainy?
*Setting: is it appropriate, too busy as a background, too cavernous?
*Sound: can you understand what you are saying, is there a lot of ambient noise?
*Frame: do you like how the camera is situated in the shot, are you cutting off anything important, or leaving in too much?
*Once you have done this, do a few more practice runs, making adjustments to the A-D elements above.
*Now you should be at a point where you can create a script/outline for your video. The first video that you create should be an ABOUT video explaining your business.
*Once you create the script, read it aloud and ensure that it does not clock longer than 3 minutes. Remember your audience is exposed to LOTS of information and visuals, so keep it concise and engaging.
*Decide who will be featured in the video. Usually go with a highly visible and credible person in your organization (which sometimes is not the CEO).
*Use the guidelines that you created in #3 and do a few dry runs taping the person.
*Review these and make any further adjustments.
*Do the final taping.

Now that you have the raw video, you can use a program such as iMovie (which is an Apple program) or a Windows Movie Maker (for PCs) to format the video. The main formatting items that I would suggest that you add to your promotional video are:

*Titles at the beginning: possibly company logo and slogan

*Titles at the bottom to introduce the speaker (or speakers)

*Call to action at the end with contact numbers and logo again

What is great about the video editing programs is that you can learn them easily (believe it or not) and you can create a wonderful video in no time. Also, to make you feel a little less overwhelmed, there are templates in these programs that you can apply to your video, thus enabling you to brand and edit it much easier.

My top tip here? Relax! This is your first trial, so it is going to take the most time. Once you nail the format, just imagine how easy it will be to create ones in the future. Generally I find that once I teach someone how to do this process, the first one takes a bit of time, but the second video takes about 60% less time.

Want to Make a Splash on Social Media? Here’s Where You Start!

By Christopher Tompkins

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12Jan

Social Media, Uncategorized

As someone who specializes in the online marketing arena, I meet and chat with people everyday who are interested in using social media to market their business. Not a big surprise right? But what you might be surprised to learn, is many of these medium-to-large firms have a major problem: they don’t know how to start.

While social media marketing advice can be found on every corner of the internet, most of it doesn’t address this problem or offer ways to enhance or “reinvigorate” an existing campaign.

So in this blog I want to push aside the “Go Get ‘Em Tiger”s and technical mumbo jumbo and provide you with a fool proof step-by-step 101 list to get your social media marketing campaign underway in no time flat!

Let’s dive right in:

Step 1: Write Down Your Objectives

The first thing you’ll want to do is really identify what you are trying to achieve through using social media to market your company. Keep in mind that more leads is not your only goal. Think about possible objectives such as; engaging your current customers/clients, offering better customer service, building brand recognition, getting more local exposure….these are the types of objectives that you should be looking at.

Step 2: Know Who Your Target Market Is

A social media marketing campaign that is laser focused has the ability to reap better results than a broad shoot campaign. You don’t want to waste time here wading through unqualified leads….you want the real deal. Make a list of 5-10 target markets that you want to hit and keep it handy throughout your campaign. Having this list will help you keep your “eye on the prize”.

Step 3: Look at What Your Competition is Doing on Social Media

Many of us do a competitive analysis when we put together our marketing plan….so why don’t we do one when we are developing our social media marketing strategy? Usually the easiest way to begin this exercise is to go to their website and follow their social media links from there. If you can’t find the links there, login to sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and search for their company name. When you find them, see what they are doing and if it is successful. Are they getting lots of comments? Do they use lots of graphics and design elements? Are they posting often? Taking a look at these items can even give you good solid ideas of what you need to do…and what you don’t need to.

Step 4: What Are You Going to Say?

This is one of the trickiest things to come by as many organizations don’t have a wealth of available info to share. If your company does – the battle is nearly over! If not, it has just begun. Make sure that you are able to come up with content that is timely, engaging, entertaining, thought provoking and educational…or one of those 5. Also, think out of the box! If I was a healthcare organization, I would go to the website for the medical association that is within my niche and share some of their updates and tips, as they would be relevant and interesting to my audience. Sharing is caring….not stealing! But content is king folks.

Step 5: Choose Your Sites

Once Steps 1 thru 5 are complete, it is time to choose the social media sites you want to start using in your marketing campaign. Every business is different and some will find success quicker on one site than the next. There isn’t a hard/fast rule on this (while many say there is). All of the sites are constantly evolving and making it easier for businesses to get involved everyday. The playing field has changed greatly over the past years (and even months!) and there is a spot for everyone on all of the social media sites out there.

Step 6: Find a Good Support Site

Search and find a site to help you manage your accounts. There are free sites out there such as HootSuite, TweetDeck, SocialOomph and others that allow you to track, search and even schedule profile updates on the fly. When you create your plan, these sites will make it a little easier for you to manage your overall campaign.

Step 7: Create a Daily Plan to Ensure Consistency

Plans save time and money and ensure consistency, which is key in a successful social media marketing campaign. Your daily plan should contain a combination of Steps 1-6 and have daily time constraints attached. Also make sure that you identify who will be the touchpoint for the communications that you get as a result of the campaign. For example if you have a marketing team of 5, decide beforehand who will be in charge of delegation and qualification of the leads, information requests, comments, etc.

Step 8: Create a Form of Measurement

This is tricky, so I would suggest waiting until after your first month of social media marketing. At this point you will be able to see what sorts of results come in: website hits, likes, comments, messages, leads, etc. Once you get a handle on this, you will begin to understand what gives you the best results. Create a quick spreadsheet and track these measures on a weekly basis. As all of the sites have wonderful archives, it makes it a cinch to go back through the week’s activity to find what you need. If you are going to use your website to track effectiveness, make sure that you have an analytics program installed that can monitor where your traffic comes from. If you don’t, Google Analytics is a free and easy option to use (and the results are tracked wonderfully).

And you are on your way! The best part about social media marketing is that it is an organic process that can change from time to time. Don’t forget to audit your campaign monthly to see if any of your measures or activities need changing or updating. Staying consistent, organized and informed will help you not only launch effectively, but promote your brand successfully.
“I Just Don’t Have Time!” Yes You Do – Try This….

There is nothing worse than getting into the office and immediately feeling two days behind. Go on, admit it…you have felt like this more often than not.

Is it because you are ineffective at your job? Nope.

Is it because you have no time to get anything done? Nope.

Is it because you don’t have a daily marketing plan? Bingo!

Whenever I speak about marketing plans (either online, to potential clients, or while speaking at events) eyes begin to glaze over. So please stick with me on this. I’m not going to talk to you about building the perfect marketing plan – I’m going to talk about how to build your perfect daily attack plan.

I’m going to assume here that you are currently using various marketing tools, and that your goals are crystal clear as to what your company’s goals are.

So, let’s move on to the plan.

First, grab a piece of paper and write down the days of the week that you work (if you are closed/don’t work Sat/Sun, leave these out). We want to focus on the “active” days of your week.

On another sheet of paper, write down everything that you are currently doing to market your business. For example, your list could look like this:

Facebook Marketing

Twitter Marketing

LinkedIn Marketing

Email Blasts

Trade Advertising

Google AdWords

Link Building

Blog Writing

Press Release Writing

Now, we step it up. Decide which needs to happen for each of these activities on a daily or weekly basis. If you are doing link building, this is something that happens everyday. So it needs to be listed every day of the week – but also with the EXACT actions that you need to take. Maybe your link building strategy is 100% built around blog comments. If so, then your daily activity would be “Link Building: comment on 5 relevant industry blogs”. Simple as that!

Then add the rest. If you are on Facebook, maybe you have to post an update, reply to comments, and engage with 3 new pages. Add this to the list. And so on.

My top tip is to pin point exactly what you want to do for each item that you have listed – per day or per week. This will help you get through these tasks quickly without having to constantly remember what you have to get done on a given day. This way, if your day goes south as soon as you turn on your computer, you can motor through this list later in the day when you finish putting out fires.

And it works! I have instituted this for my staff (as well as myself) and it does save lots of time AND it can grow organically. For example, Pinterest is a new site that just popped up and now it has been added to our daily marketing schedule with tasks associated with it each day.

I say give it a try! There is no risk when it comes to getting organized and saving precious time.

Tag : online marketing