My 6 Steps to Social Media Success

February 28, 2010 By 2 Comments

These six steps were born out of common frustrations I hear from people about understanding how to market online.

Does this sound familiar? “I know I need to figure out all of this social media stuff, but it’s all piecemeal now and I just don’t know where to start!”

You may have noticed how some small business owners seem to attract clients and customers online almost effortlessly—while others struggle to keep their business afloat. The reason is that they are following a proven business model to market their business.

The six steps outlined here not only incorporate that proven model, but show you how you can supercharge it by adding social media tools and techniques—leading to more clients, customers and sales.

Without further ado…

Step 1: Understand what social media is and the benefits of using it.

It was important to me to make this first step the foundation of the entire system. Social media marketing is not “hard selling.” It’s businesses having conversations in the online communities where their prospective clients and customers hang out. Why is this so beneficial? In a nutshell, it’s a no-cost way to connect with your customer or client base, establish expertise, drive traffic to your website, and communicate your value.

Step 2: Get a blog.

Think of your blog as your social home base. You can be out utilizing all of the social media platforms in the world, but if you don’t have anywhere to send your friends and followers to outside of those platforms, your efforts will be in vain. Blogs are ideal because they tend to rank higher in the search engines and help foster a sense of community around your business.

Step 3: Build your social media profiles.

You don’t need to have a presence on every social site under the sun! There are only a few sites that I encourage most business owners to have a presence on: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. You may find that some of these are not a good fit for you while others are. That’s ok! Know that if it is working for you, then you should continue using it. These sites are simply the ones that my clients and I have had the most success with and the ones I feel are a good representation of the social media landscape.

Step 4: Make your blog social-media friendly.

Having a blog is a great step in the right direction if you are looking for ways to dive into social media. However, there is a lot more that you can do once you’ve got your blog up and running. You can think of your blog as a hub connecting all of your social media activities—and you’ll want to encourage visitors to interact with you socially in as many ways as possible. Some of the ways you can do that include badges, buttons, widgets, an RSS icon, commenting tools such as Disqus, and of course—good, share-friendly content.

Step 5: Build relationships with your target market.

Ok, you have at least one or two social media profiles set up and you’re ready to rock—but what now? The next step is to start using social media as a way to facilitate relationships with people who might potentially become your clients or customers or your strategic alliances. It’s easy to get caught up in all of the technical details involved in social media, but you want to remember that at its heart, it’s really all about people.

Step 6: Show me the money: turning friends and followers into clients and customers.

Twitter and Facebook are not the only game in town. To achieve the best results, you will want to have a varied mix of marketing tools in play all at once. Online, much of your job centers on driving traffic to your site so that prospective clients or customers can find out more. One of the best ways to increase the chances that someone will eventually buy from you is to build an email list. Essentially, you want to have a way to capture a person’s email address and name so that you may keep in touch with them, build trust, and make offers in the future.

Social media is only one way to drive traffic and build your list. The idea is to be a “well-rounded” marketer. Using sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube along with the other online marketing strategies will maximize your results—and more traffic, more subscribers, more clients, more sales and more money will certainly follow.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , ,

10 Ways to Publicize Your Event Using Social Media

February 25, 2010 By 5 Comments

Social Media is a terrific channel to use for spreading the word about an upcoming event.  However, I find that small business owners are often hesitant to do so for fear of appearing too promotional or “spammy.”

There is definitely a bit of an art to it, and as a general rule you want to keep about 90% of what you share in social media non-promotional.  But that leaves a full 10% where you can let your friends, followers and contacts know about that chock-full-of-benefits product, teleseminar, workshop or sale you’ve got cookin’. :)

Here are some of the specific ways you can do that.

1. Update your personal Facebook status. If you prefer not to use your personal Facebook profile for anything business-related then this might not apply to you, but it’s worth thinking about all the people your friends and family might know and could refer to you. The real power of status updates is the fact that they go out into the News Feed, which means all of your friends can see it there as well.

2. Send a message to Facebook friends you think would be interested. Proceed with caution with this one.  Blanketing all of your friends with an invite or message isn’t always appropriate.  Stick to those you think might have a genuine interest in what you are offering.

3. Blog about it. Once in a while it’s a good idea to let your blog readers know about your upcoming events.  You could also then link to the blog post and share it with your social media contacts so they can visit and find out more.

4. Update your LinkedIn status. Just like Facebook, LinkedIn lets you add status updates to your profile.  They have also recently introduced the ability to send your status updates to Twitter simultaneously.

5. Create an Event on your Facebook personal profile or Page. The Events application comes in handy because you can use it to fill in all the details about your event, post it to your profile and even send the event invitation to your friends or those who Like your Page.

6. Update your Facebook Page status. Don’t be shy about letting the people who Like your Page know about what you have going on—after all, they are there to support your business and they want to know all the ways you can help them.  This includes your offerings.

7. Tweet. Don’t forget to use Twitter to let your followers know about your latest offerings.  If some of them re-tweet the message about it for you, all the better.

8. Send an update to your Facebook “Likers.” One of the benefits of having a Page is the ability for you to update all of your supporters at once.  Take advantage of this and use it to keep them in the loop.

9. Create a LinkedIn Event and send an invite to your contacts. LinkedIn has Events just like Facebook, and you can send the information about them directly to multiple LinkedIn contacts at once with the click of a button.

10. Upload a short video to YouTube about it. You can make your video as short as 30 seconds, and include a call to action regarding what you are publicizing.  Tell viewers where they can get more info and be sure to include keywords about the event in the video’s description.

Don’t leave your event a best-kept secret!  Start using a few of these methods today to get the word out on the social web.

Any methods you use and would like to add?

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , , , ,

Private Coaching Program

February 20, 2010 By 1 Comment

Over the past couple of years I’ve learned how to use social media and the Internet step-by-step to build my business online and grow it exponentially—without ME having to do all the work—the Internet and systems I have in place do it for me.

Because I’ve been getting a lot of questions about exactly HOW it is I have done this, I’ve decided to put together a private program for a few select people to work with me one on one. I’m only going to be opening up 4 spots and I’m not quite ready to release all the details yet, but if you’re at all interested, send an email to christine at communicatevalue dot com and I will send you the details when they are ready.

What kind of person might be a good fit for what I am putting together?

  • You’re tired of leaving money on the table because you don’t have a real, cohesive online presence
  • You’re ready for a roadmap to get you on the right path in your business and are committed to following it
  • You want step-by-step help from someone who has used and continues to use marketing techniques that bring them consistent clients, customers and cash flow
  • You are willing to do what is required in order to get to the next level in your business

I myself have my own coach and have had coaches in my life for years, so I know how crucial they are to one’s success.  I’m excited to be developing this new program for those of you who are finally ready to step up into a higher-level coaching program.

Over my time working with clients I’ve seen that the ones who are most successful have a consistent marketing system in place, AND they have someone who is holding them accountable.  If this sounds like something you might be ready for, shoot me an email and I will get you all the information when it is ready.

Photo credit: Gregory Szarkiewicz
Filed Under: Mentoring and Coaching Tagged With: , , ,

What’s the Buzz About Google Buzz?

February 18, 2010 By 7 Comments

We all know that the Internet today is a lot more than just chat rooms and email. People are sharing news, photos, videos and more in real-time. However, as revolutionary as social media is, there is more information bombarding us than ever—and from many different directions.

What is Buzz?

Recently Google introduced “Buzz,” a social sharing tool that’s built right into Gmail. Buzz allows you to share updates, links, photos and videos with either the world or privately to a select group of friends. In its first 48 hours, Google reported that tens of millions of people had already tried the service.

One of the reasons it’s received so much attention is not because it’s just another Facebook or Twitter, but because it can be accessed right inside of Gmail, an email service already used several times a day, every day by over 150 million people. Talk about bringing something to an already existing user base!

Buzz also allows you to integrate other sites like Twitter, Flickr and Google Reader so others can see what you are doing on the web in one place. If you have ever heard of FriendFeed, which was acquired by Facebook in 2009, Buzz is built on a similar idea. It acts as sort of a social media “aggregator.”

How Does it Work?

To access Buzz, you will see a link for it underneath “inbox” when you are logged into Gmail. The first time you access it, you will see suggestions of users you may want to follow based on your most frequent email and chat contacts. Whenever you receive a response to something you have posted, that response will be sent right to your inbox.

Buzz also uses a sort of ranking system, where it collapses short, uninteresting status messages and inactive posts. Google says this is a work in progress and that the goal is to show you only the information most relevant to you.

Buzz also has a mobile version, and one of the most fascinating aspects of that is the “nearby” feature. Through GPS, you can see Buzz updates from people around you locally.

Google Buzz Privacy Concerns

Almost immediately after its launch, there was an outcry from some regarding privacy. In quick response to this, Google decided to change one of the features that had received the most criticism: the auto-following of people based on their most frequent chat and email contacts. Now, new contacts are merely suggested.

Another change made in response to privacy concerns is that you will no longer be set up to share your Google Reader items and Picasa photo albums automatically. Plus, you can choose to hide Buzz or disable it completely from your Settings or the very bottom of your Gmail account.

Apparently, there are still Gmail users that are not satisfied with these changes, as there have been news items regarding lawsuits being filed over the original automatic opt-in feature. For anyone wary of Buzz, I’d suggest simply disabling it if you are not interested in using it.

Buzz for Business?

As mentioned, Buzz is somewhat unique in that it filters the content from the people you are following, which means that only the best or most popular content rises to the top. Buzz also shows users recommended Buzz from people that they don’t follow based on how popular it is. If your content is popular, the idea is that it will go “viral” by spreading faster and wider.

Buzz is also important in the sense that you are able to send your marketing message from many different social sites to one place, as well as make it easy for others to view it from a convenient place they already view several times a day—their email inbox.

Instead of seeing it as just another time-sucking social network, Buzz should be embraced by business owners who understand its powerful potential as a channel for getting their marketing in front of millions of more people.

Photo credits: topgold and andinarvaez

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With:

Using LinkedIn Groups For Connections and Visibility

February 13, 2010 By 2 Comments

By now you know that we can all benefit from networking online with experienced business professionals, just as we can offline. LinkedIn is one of the best places to do this, and it currently has over 53 million members [Update: January 2011--over 90 million] in over 200 countries—and grows at a rate of one new member every second.

Your visibility on LinkedIn is determined by your connections. For those of us in business, it’s to our benefit to be connected to more people rather than less. Fortunately, once you take a few minutes to search LinkedIn, you’re bound to find lots of contacts from your current and prior companies or employers, clients, vendors, and schools. All of those contacts have the potential to help you grow your business or connect you to potential clients or customers.

LinkedIn is known for having a large number of groups, many of which are very active. Groups are great for connecting with people who share similar expertise, educational backgrounds, interests, professions and more—so you will want to think about the types of people you want to connect with when deciding which terms to search on.

For example, when I type “massage therapy” into the Groups search box, it returns 113 results in order of number of group members. Some of the groups returned include “Associated Bodywork & Massage Professionals (ABMP),” “American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA)” and “Massage Instructors” to name a few.

LinkedIn limits your membership to 50 groups and generally, the more you join the better, but keep in mind that you only really benefit if you actively use them on a regular basis.

So what can you do to get the most out of Groups? Your best bet is to use Groups to:

*Start and engage in discussions
*Submit news items
*Demonstrate your expertise (the discussions you participate in show up on the other group members’ home pages)
*Research people in your field

You can also create your own group by clicking on “Create a Group” from the Groups drop-down menu in the top menu bar. Once you do so, you can then send invitations to your LinkedIn connections, invite people via email or pre-approve people who will automatically become confirmed members when they request (or accept an invitation) to join your group.

You can start and view discussions, add news articles, manage your group (including requests to join and sending an announcement to all of the members) and more. Here are some ways you can take advantage of your own group:

*Create a group to attract members of your target market. For example, I might create a group entitled “Social Media Help for Small Business Owners;” a virtual assistant might create one called “Virtual Assistance Resources for Entrepreneurs.”
*Perform research about what your market wants and needs help with by regularly asking them questions (for example, “what is currently your biggest challenge in your business when it comes to X?”)
*Send an announcement letting members know about any events you have coming up with a link to the sign-up page
*Encourage members to connect with you on other social media sites, visit your blog or website and sign up for your newsletter list

One of the best things about LinkedIn is that it is a very “target-rich” environment. What this means is that most of the people there have disclosed what they do, where they work now, where they’ve worked in the past and what types of connections and opportunities they are looking for. I encourage my clients to have a presence there in order to take advantage of being connected to this vast professional network, and to use Groups to help find new connections, boost their visibility and drive traffic back to their site.

Do you use LinkedIn?  What questions do you have about it?  If you’d like to connect there, you can find my profile here.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: ,

Leverage Your Time by “Linking” Your Social Media Sites Together

February 11, 2010 By 18 Comments

I find that one of the biggest sources of stress for my clients and students when we first begin working together is the belief that you need to be omnipresent.

Fortunately, this is not true—in fact, you could really sabotage your efforts if you started focusing on building a presence on every social site and platform!  Talk about exhausting!

Let me let you in on a little secret: the most successful people in social media, the ones that appear to be everywhere—and connecting all of these “everywheres” seamlessly, to boot—are doing so by way of a few specific, focused strategies.  You could call it “social leverage,” and I am going to share with you exactly how you can do this too (and no, it won’t take up all of your time either!)

Here are a few specific methods from my own 6 Simple Steps to Kick Start Your Social Media Success System™ to “cross-link” like a pro:

To send your blog posts to Twitter:
Twitter Tools plugin for WordPress at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-tools
Import your blog’s RSS feed into Hootsuite at http://hootsuite.com

To display your latest tweets on your blog:
Twitter Tools plugin for WordPress
Twitter’s own widget at http://twitter.com/goodies/widgets

To send your blog posts to Facebook (personal and/or Fan Page):
Facebook’s Notes application
Facebook’s NetworkedBlogs application at http://www.facebook.com/networkedblogs

To send your blog posts to LinkedIn:
LinkedIn’s own BlogLink application or WordPress application

To send your LinkedIn status updates to Twitter:
LinkedIn’s own Tweets application

To send your tweets to Facebook selectively:
Facebook’s Selective Tweets application at http://apps.facebook.com/selectivetwitter

To send your Facebook Fan Page status updates to Twitter:
Facebook’s own Facebook to Twitter application at http://facebook.com/Twitter

To share YouTube videos to Facebook:
YouTube’s own Share button beneath each video
Options–>Settings on your Facebook personal profile’s wall

To share YouTube videos to Twitter:
YouTube’s own Share button beneath each video

To share YouTube videos on your blog:
YouTube’s URL or embed code shown to the right of each video

To update Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and more at the same time:
http://Hootsuite.com, http://ping.fm, or http://hellotxt.com

Finally, to see all of your or others’ activity from around the social web in one place: http://friendfeed.com

Now, you don’t have to set up every one of these tools all at once, but try out a few and see how much your own productivity soars.  As always, be careful not to automate or delegate too much—social media is still primarily about “live” interaction with others.  But by implementing a couple of these strategies you can look forward to making a bigger impact in much less time.

Do you have any tips or tools to add to this list?

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You Can’t Serve Everyone: Clarifying Your Niche for Better Marketing Results

February 7, 2010 By 14 Comments

Before you even start implementing any marketing strategies, it’s important to be crystal clear about whom it is you are trying to reach.

Some of the questions you should be able to answer around this include: What is your niche?  Who is your target market and what is it that they want?  What is your message to them?

Often, small business owners are afraid to narrow down their target market for fear that this will limit them. Countless times I have heard people say “my target market is small business owners” or “my niche is really anyone who needs what I offer.”

The truth is, you can’t be everything to everyone, and it is actually easier to market and attract prospects when you focus on a particular group of people. It is also easier for others to refer people to you when they see you as someone who works with a specific group.

To further illustrate, here is a simple example: Instead of “I’m a financial planner,” you could clarify it to say “I’m a financial planner who specializes in families with special needs children.”

Or, instead of “I’m a marketing consultant,” a more descriptive way to say it would be “I’m an online marketing consultant who specializes in social media strategies for coaches.”

Many times, figuring out who it is you want to serve the most involves digging into who it is you are.  Particularly online, in order to create the type of presence that draws people to you, you will need to clearly communicate who you are, what you are about, and why people should take notice.

To figure this out, some of the questions you could ask yourself might be:

  • How would I describe the essence of who I am in a single word?
  • What are my top three passions related to my work and three that are unrelated to my work?
  • What would be three adjectives used to describe my business?
  • Who are my best clients or the people who are most likely to benefit from my work?

Those are just some of the questions you can ask to really get clear on who you are professionally, as well as who you are personally.  Try this out and just begin noticing who shows up for you.

Clarifying your niche is a point of “stuckness” for many business owners and it does take a bit work to discover if you aren’t clear on it yet.  But once you have that specific niche narrowed down, reaching them with your marketing becomes a whole lot easier.

What has your experience been in focusing in on a target market?  Is this something that has challenged you in your business?  Let me know in the comments.

Filed Under: Small Business Marketing Tagged With: ,

Managing Your Connections with Twitter Lists

February 4, 2010 By 4 Comments

Lists are one of the newer features that have been added by Twitter. They are also one of the best ways to leverage strategic connections with your followers. Lists are important because they allow you to closely track and respond to specific people—which starts to become imperative once you are following more than a couple hundred “tweeps.”

I like using lists to leverage my time and energy in order to make influential connections across different groups. For example, I created my own list of entrepreneurs that I admire so I could see all of their tweets in one place if I want to—and filter out the noise of the others I am following. I also follow a couple of lists created by others because they contain people I am interested in keeping up with. I recommend you make similar lists that target colleagues, potential clients, influential people in your niche, and perhaps key industries that are in alignment with your own.

Creating and Adding People to a List

To create a new Twitter list, go to your Twitter home page and on the right-hand side click “new list.” Give it a name, short description and privacy setting and then click the “create list” button. You will then be able to search for a username, first or last name, or business or brand to add to your list. Click the “search” button. When you see the person’s profile that you want to add, click on the list button to the right and check off which list you want to add them to. If at a later time you want to add someone new to one of your lists, visit their profile page and click on the list button below their picture and to the right. You can then check off which list to add them to.

Editing a List and Privacy Settings

To edit a list you’ve created, go to your Twitter home page and go to the right-hand side and click on an existing list’s name. Click the “view list page” link at the top of the Twitter stream. In the top right corner, under “You created this list” you will be able to edit or delete it.

You have the option to make your Twitter lists public or private—and it may make sense for you to create certain lists that are only visible to you. However, it is good to be included in others’ public lists—this can lead to greater visibility, credibility, and influence for you depending upon what kind of list you are on. Another benefit of you creating your own public lists is that it can be seen as being very helpful to others. If someone else thinks one of your lists is high quality and begins following it, you’ve just saved them the time involved in creating it themselves. So as you identify quality people in your industry, add them to a list—and others interested in the same topic may choose to follow the list you have put together.

Want to really get the most out of Twitter lists? Use a tool like Hootsuite to import the lists you’ve created, which can then be saved as their own column. This way, you can easily keep a close eye on those key people you want to hear from—and make your Twitter experience more streamlined, organized and fun.

Photo Credit: 7son75

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