We have had the opportunity to work with a team of people who wrote a book called The Art Of The Nudge. Their leadership communication framework, TATN, is used in a variety of ways to help inspire business executives and their business associates to actions that deliver results in a variety of ways. While working with them, I have seen a difference in my own business by making small changes or better described as nudges.
When Paul Fair, with Paul Fair Associates LLC, met with me the first time, he had an adequate website but it wasn’t producing the traffic he was looking to reach. He also had an email engagement in place but was lacking in the engagement part of it. His social media presence was nonexistent.
With out a doubt, every time I teach a class, there is always someone in the class who asks me, “What is a hashtag?” I then explain what it is and does to fine tune searches for your specific event, product, phrase, or business. Let's look at how it works.
We’ve all visited eCommerce sites. But what are scommerce sites? Believe it or not, some of the largest scommerce sites are Amazon and Groupon. Now, all sizes of companies can sell through these means, but if you've ever worked with them you know there is a very small margin of profitability.
What if a business wants to take their own ecommerce site and control their own scommerce on the Internet, and not lose a piece of their profit margin to the goliaths like Amazon and Groupon?
We have a client who has been on YouTube for more than two years with a YouTube channel complete with playlists. Along with his monthly market updates, he uses it to share news about other local businesses.
The interest to visiting his channel has been, well, pathetic. Oh, we've received views by sharing links from Facebook to YouTube, but certainly not what we hope to have.
Most people would think a person who teaches Social Media Mastery and provides businesses with daily posting to their business page would be on social networks all day. That is not the case at all. If all my clients were located in other states, yes, then you would find me online for hours at a time but that, too, is not the case.
Having experienced a cold harsh winter like we just experienced, I welcome spring and the opportunity to work in my garden and dig in the dirt. I find it amazing to think what you can yield from one, single seed. With the proper planning, planting, watering, and harvesting, one seedling from a green bean can provide a meal, maybe two, for a family of four. Plant a whole row of seeds and you'll be canning and freezing beans to eat well into 2016.
If video is the wave of the future on Social Networks, how do you go about creating a quality video with your smartphone? Well, first and foremost, there is no replacement to working with a professional videographer to create a quality profile for your company. Yet, there will be those times when you are in a setting where you need to react in the moment and want to take advantage of the opportunity to create a brief video to upload on YouTube, Vimeo or directly to Facebook.
As I was preparing for this month's column, I thought it would be a great idea to share what is being said by other Social Media Experts throughout the cybersphere.
When teaching Social Media Mastery to my classes, I have a few rules I share with them that have been my practice in building and maintaining LinkedIn. It's also important to note, if your clients are businesses and not consumers, you want to concentrate on LinkedIn as your social network of choice. With that said, these are four rules to build and manage a successful LinkedIn network.
As an authorized local expert for Constant Contact, I often teach the benefits of email marketing as a lead generating tool. Combining email marketing with your favorite social media channel can be even more powerful. Recently, we put together a few campaigns with business owners and organizations to do just that.
So often when I'm training business owners about social media I ask, “What is it that keeps you from getting involved with social media?” They answer, I don't know what to write or share.
First, we will discuss what types of posts are working well on social media channels. No longer is Twitter just 140 characters of text. You can add photos and videos, too. For Facebook, you can use live videos, videos, photos, and text. If LinkedIn is where you are, it's videos, photos, long posts, and short posts. As far as what works best, it's videos, next is photos, and last is text.
So often I hear business owners say, “I really need to get involved on Facebook but have no idea where to begin.” What we say to business owners is the first step is to face your fears. If your fear is that you’re afraid of making a mistake or post the wrong thing, know that on Facebook you have the ability to put your posts into draft for someone to look at before you publish them. Even if you happen to post something, but you’ve made a mistake, you can delete the post.
Gathering the results for traditional marketing usually comes in the form of phone calls, feet in the door, coupons, and increased revenue. But how do you know what's happening with your social media marketing? This month's column will be all about tools to track your social media marketing results. There should never be any money or time spent on promoting your business with social media without measuring the results.
The expression "Use a picture. It's worth a thousand words." appeared in a 1911 newspaper article quoting newspaper editor Tess Flanders discussing journalism and publicity. With the ability to add text to that perfect photo, we can now say it’s worth more than a thousand words.
Why visuals?
In 2015, both Facebook and Twitter introduced video to their platforms and for good reason. Studies have shown that users are 44 percent more likely to engage with content that contains pictures and video falls into that category.
As I was preparing for my Social Media Class at Reading Area Community College, I had the most interesting experience happen to me. A week before the class a friend asked me to help him learn how to use Facebook. Me, being the helpful person I am, said, “Yes.” We sat down for what I thought would be a mundane experience for me which turned into a great lesson to share with my class and also you.
In a conversation at a Youth Leadership event with the local chamber, we were discussing social media and one of the comments shared was when posting on the internet, we should ask ourselves the question, "would you wear what we have said on a t-shirt?" What a great way to look at each message you are sharing online with that lense.
This month's column is focused on the content you are sharing on social media: how to monitor; what tools to use, and systems to follow in writing content.
I’ve discovered a new favorite Social Network… Periscope.
First of all, what is Periscope? Here’s the official description direct from trafficgenerationcafe.com. Periscope.tv is a life-streaming app owned by Twitter, which allows you to share, watch and engage with comments to live video broadcasts. With only 10 Million users since its launch in March, it’s really a baby in the world of social networks, but a baby who could quickly grow.
Each year, I like to research what's being projected to happen in social media marketing for the upcoming year. It's a great way to make adjustments of what we are doing and find out what's being planned for growth and changes. Last year it was all about Facebook and Twitter adding videos to their social media platforms. This year, my review includes projections from Huffington Post, SproutSocial, AllInOneSocial, to mention just a few, and it seems we're still looking at video as a focus, but with a twist.
Ok. You haven’t seen much from me in the way of promoting Facebook boosts in my column. Maybe it’s because of my allegiance to print advertising where I know how many real, live people are receiving the papers. No bots there! I cringe when people say to me I spent only $20 for 1,500 people on my boost to become fans. Really? Only 1,500 people when you could have taken the very same amount of money and advertised to 30,000 real, live people. Well, enough of comparing notes on print verses online. I don’t even have to defend that fact.
