by Christi on April 23, 2012
Recently, we have run into business people who have attended conferences where they were told they had to be on Facebook or Pinterest or Twitter, etc. or they would soon be going out of business. The response to this type of claim is pretty predictable. When faced with get on or go out of business, many business owners panic. What do they do and what should they do?
Some, jump in on their own, creating profiles for every social media channel and working to get their name out. Others hire “social media experts”. Unfortunately, many times the expertise that is claimed tends to be rooted in the amount of time the “expert” has spent on social media rather than any real expertise.
Is doing something better than doing nothing? In many cases when you are doing the wrong something, you would have been better off doing nothing. What should a business owner do?
- Focus on your goals! Don’t get caught up in fear. Your goal may be centered on not going out of business at the moment, but think further. How many new customers do you need to add to your business? How much money will you make from each new customer? Remember, you have to consider the cost of customer acquisition. If you are spending $1,000 per month to add 4 customers that add $100 each to your top line, you are not doing it right!
- Focus on your customers. Think about the different social media platforms and determine which may be best for your business. Where are your customers? Do you really need to be on all of the social media platforms? The main demograpic for Pinterest is women who are between the ages of 25 – 54. Does that fit your target market? The point of using social media for marketing is to be where your customers are, engaging with them and gaining their trust.
- Focus on your strategy. What strategies are appropriate for reaching and engaging with your customers. Social media is a great way to add customers, but remember it is “social.” This is not the place to use old style marketing techniques like reaching out and grabbing your potential customers and bombarding them with advertising messages. Social media is a place to interact and engage. What strategy might be appropriate to attract potential customers to a call to action? What might entice a social media contact to take a step towards becoming a customer?
- Focus on what works! How will you know what works? Measure it! Get your analytics in place and keep track. How many visitors do you actually get to your site from social media? How many of those visitors convert into leads and customers for your business? How much time, effort and money was expended to get those visitors to your site? Is it cost effective? Could it be more cost effective?
Just having a social media presence is not enough. As you can see, if you aren’t doing it right, you could end up wasting a lot of time and money.
Share on Facebook
by Joe B on March 8, 2012
Your Facebook page should strengthen existing relationships, and also forge new ones. You will need to closely monitor your Facebook page to understand what you fans want.
Things to Consider:
- The most frequently used activity for young Facebook users is wall posts.
- The older Facebook demographic is more interested in using Facebook for themselves.
- Share original content:
- 60% of links shared on Facebook are published content.
- Additional 36% of shares were embedded content.
- Put like or recommend buttons at the top of the blog article.
- Community will build up a reputation for the article by “liking” the content.
- Post articles on the weekend.
- 51% of American companies block Facebook at work.
Source: HubSpot, The Science of Facebook, 2011
Your Facebook page should be the launching point to your home website, blog, and conversion offers. By encouraging discussions on your Facebook wall, you will be fostering a community in which your newest visitors interact with your most dedicated and loyal customers. In doing so, your existing customers’ excitement to share and interact with your material and page could impact your more casual fans’ decision to purchase your product.
Share on Facebook
by Christi on March 7, 2012
Setting up your Facebook page is just the first step when you are using Facebook for business. It is essential for you to distribute remarkable content that your fans will want to share so your fans can attract more visitors to you Facebook page.
Action Items:
- To increase your Facebook exposure, you need to design offers and content that will motivate people to “like” or share your page. 90% of consumers trust peer recommendations.
- Posts with the word “video” in them are shared 30% more on Facebook than posts that do not.
- Posts that use buzzwords or business jargon like “optimize” significantly decrease the number of fans for a Facebook page. These pages have 100 fans, as opposed to the average page with 624 fans.
- Posts with digits in the title tend to be shared more often.
- Lists using words like “top” make tremendously successful Facebook posts.
For your customers and prospects to find your Facebook page engaging, they will need enticing materials and regular posts.
Find out how to really rock it with your social media presence to attract more visitors and convert them into customers with the Social Media Tune-Up Guide.
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by Christi on March 6, 2012
Although Facebook has made it easier than ever to set up a business page, there are some steps that you may have overlooked. When you are setting up you Facebook page, keep this in mind:
- People have profiles; businesses/brands have pages.
- Create and treat your welcome page like a landing page. Add calls to action; don’t miss the opportunity to generate some leads.
- Set up Custom Tabs for resources using the FBML application.
- If you are a single location business, set up a “places” page.
- Add useful applications such as Discussions Boards and YouTube Video Box.
Facebook pages must be as inviting as possible. The format of your page should first be focused on creating an engaging environment for your fans, which when executed properly, will result in generating and collecting more information about your leads.
Be as creative as possible, and determine which activities or apps would best supplement your company’s brand.
Share on Facebook
by Christi on March 5, 2012
Think social media is just a place for social interactions and “fun?” Think again! Social media can be a powerful inbound marketing tool for your business. It can have an impact on your traffic, leads and inevitably, sales. Consider this:
- US Internet users spend 3x more minutes on blogs and social networks than on email.
- 93% of US adult Internet users are on Facebook.
- 1 out of every 8 minutes online is spent on Facebook.
- 49% of people use Facebook to share content.
- More than ½ of active Twitter users follow companies, brands or products on social networks.
- 79% of US Twitter users are more likely to recommend brands they follow.
- 67% of US Twitter users are more likely to buy brand they follow.
- Pinterest is the fastest growing website – EVER!
Social media amplifies your content, your website and your brand. It allows for you to establish and foster a more personal relationship with your potential customers, and when done correctly, can generate website traffic, inbound links, and leads for you.
Social media has become a major part of consumer culture, and it is time for you to capitalize on it. Get started with our Social Media Tune-Up Guide!
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by Christi on February 20, 2012
A good social media marketing plan takes into account where your customers are. What types of social media is your target market using? Are they more involved in Twitter or Facebook? Maybe, for your brand, Pinterest is the popular place.
We’ve been enjoying the parades here in New Orleans leading up to Mardi Gras. The crowds are huge and a large majority of them are using mobile for a variety of reasons. Some are checking out what the upcoming parades are on the local parade apps. Some are texting friends to try to meet up somewhere. Many are posting updates and pictures of their adventures to their favorite social media sites.
Now, if you are a bar or restaurant along the parade route in New Orleans, you probably have all the business you can handle right now (if you don’t, there is something seriously wrong). However, how about businesses outside the parade route, or even outside of New Orleans. Lots of people, all over the country are watching the New Orleans parades online and getting updates through Twitter. If you have a business that could benefit from some of the Mardi Gras excitement, maybe you should start taking part in that conversation, if that is where your customers are spending their time.
This is just one example of how your business can benefit by finding out where your customers are spending their time online and joining the conversation. Get some tips on how to kick up your internet marketing strategy by downloading the free ebook: Essential Guide to Internet Marketing today!
Happy Lundi Gras!
Share on Facebook
by Christi on February 10, 2012
Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google + and LinkedIn are a great place to promote your content and interact with your customers and potential customers.
It is important to create a social media strategy before you begin using it for your business. Your social media presence is not something you want to trust you your high school and college age relatives. Your strategy for social media should include:
- A plan for posting remarkable content. To increase interactions with your target market, you should be posting content that they are looking for. You are an expert in your field, right? So share your expertise and help your customers with great information that they can use.
- A plan for interaction. Once you set up your social media presence, it is imperative that you keep it active. Nothing puts people off more than seeing someone post a question or comment on, for instance, your Facebook page and having ignored. According to a recent article, “a whopping 88 percent say if they see that their or other customers’ complaints on social media are ignored, they’d be less likely to buy from those companies in the future.”
- A plan for monitoring. You can set up Google alerts to see what is being said by others about your industry and your company. This is a great way to stay up to date about what is going on in your industry and will also help you monitor your company’s online reputation.
- A plan for measuring your progress. You won’t know how effective your social media strategy is if you are not measuring the results. When measuring, it is important to keep your goals in mind. Social media can be fun and it can be easy to lose your focus if you are not measuring and keeping your eyes on the goal.
Be sure to download the Essential Guide to Internet Marketing to get more tips on creating a social media strategy as well as how to use internet marketing more effectively.
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by Joe B on January 10, 2012
by Christi on November 21, 2011
Our friend Herb Lawrence, the center director for the Arkansas Small Business Development Center at Arkansas State University, recently wrote a great article about leveraging social media and online resources to help your business get found this Holiday season. Thank you Herb for a great article and for letting us share it with our readers!
Santa Will Leverage Social Media this Year -
Can He Find Your Retail Store?
Holiday season is gearing up! Challenging economy or not, shoppers will be out On and Offline this year in growing numbers. This year online marketing and social media marketing will be critical for small business Holiday success and here’s why!
Independent retailers will find that their customers are moving online in droves to get ready for the holiday shopping season. The questions are:
- Can they find you? If not they will find your competitor
- Do you know what they are looking for?
- How can you leverage online and especially social media to get your share of holiday dollars?
- Why should you care?
In a recent article from Hubspot 60 Inspirational Holiday Marketing Statistics there
can be no question that holiday shopping will be dominated by the Internet and especially social media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The good news…It is not too late for your small rural retail business to get on the bandwagon!
Need some convincing? Here are some statistics YOU need to know about Holiday Shopping Online this year:
- In August 2011 75% of consumers started researching holiday gift purchase.s 89% of them started their shopping online
- 47% of shoppers (nearly half) will buy online this year up from 43% in 2010
- 32% will be doing comparative shopping online more often
- Online consumers spend an average of $857 online that is nearly 22% MORE than the average consumer
- 42% of online holiday buyers said SALE and Price Discounts as most important factors to shop with you this holiday season
So How about Social Media?
- 39% of consumers plan to look to social networks and online discount sites like Groupon and LivingSocial BEFORE purchasing
- in 2010 21% of Cyber Monday shoppers said they heard about promotions from someone else through social media networks
- BIGGIE! 36% of retailers plan to spend MOST of their holiday marketing budget on social media platforms during the 2011 holiday season that is up from 27% in 2010.
MOBILE COUNTS: Nealy 40% of consumers own a smart phone AND 53% say they will use it to help them shop this season- 31% of smartphone users will use their phone to RESEARCH or COMPARE holiday prices.
- 25% of smartphone users will use their phone to look YOU up and information about your store
- 70% of consumers who own tablet computers like iPads say they will research holiday products and locations with their tablet.
No question about it Santa and his elves are online this year… looking for gifts, deals, discounts, coupons AND information about your business. Are you ready to meet them?
The good news is it isn’t too late to get your online holiday marketing tools in place.
How the ASU Small Business Center can Help Your Retail Business This Holiday Season
The ASU Small Business and Technology Development Center’s consultants can help! The consultants at Arkansas State University, Laura Miller and Robert Bahn provide free, confidential consulting assistance to start-up and existing businesses throughout Northeast and North-Central Arkansas including assistance with marketing plans and marketing strategy implementation. Call (870) 972-3517 or email us at asusbtdc@astate.edu and find out how the ASU Small Business and Technology Development Center can make your retail Holiday Season a happier AND more profitable one!
Learn more about the ASU SBTDC Consulting Services here or visit our website and connect!
Not in Northeast or North-West Arkansas? Not a problem see the Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center network website to find a center in Arkansas near you. Not in Arkansas? See our ASBDC website to find an SBDC office in your state.
Share on Facebook
by Christi on October 11, 2011
Facebook marketing can be a challenge. Facebook makes changes, and we all have to adjust. The same thing is true with other social media; it does, however, seem that Facebook is in the lead of making huge changes that can really upset their users. It is important to keep in mind that, at the end of the day, Facebook marketing and any social media marketing is about relationships.
I recently had a business owner who created a group for her business. She added me to her group and then proceeded to start posting a lot of status updates. Those updates came to my email and also to my Facebook notifications until I turned them off (which I did in short order). Needless to say, this was not a great way to start a relationship.
As with any relationship, you can’t rush things. You have to be sensitive and polite. In other words, you have to be human and you have to do it right. If the business owner that added me to her group had instead asked me to like her page, I more than likely would have done that and we could have had a much better start to a relationship.
I think this relationship building aspect of social media is one of the biggest frustrations of business owners. It really does take time and effort to build relationships that can pay off in sales for your business. It is tempting for business owners to push and rush when they see so many people who fit their target market on a social media platform like Facebook. It seems like there ought to be some way to just reach out and grab them, right? Well, maybe not.
Today’s marketing is not about grabbing attention and hard sales. It is about permission marketing. It is about being found when people are looking for you. It is about providing good information and building relationships that help your prospective client solve a problem.
When you are using a social media platform like Facebook, think about your connections. Think about how you can help them. Take the time to get to know them. Take the time to build relationships. It can pay off, if you do it right. You can never get closer to your goal if you don’t start.
How are you building relationships on Facebook? What problem do you solve and what value do you offer? Would love to hear your thoughts.
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