The use of smart phones is still on the rise. From eMarketer:
Many of the people that use smart phones, use them to access social media:
So what does that mean for your business? Most people who are accessing business information through social media are either looking for their location or they are looking for deals. That means that location based social media is an important factor to consider. Some key points to keep in mind before you get involved in location based social media are:
Start with a plan. You want to encourage check-ins and build loyalty. You can do this with deals and rewards, however, you have to do it in a way that doesn’t give away the store.
Consider incorporating non-monetary rewards along with your deals such as special recognition. For instance, you could offer a special parking place or a special table.
Make sure your entire team is informed and involved. Nothing can spoil a social media location promotion more than an uninformed team. Get everyone involved in making the process successful!
Encourage competition. This can help build loyalty, and it is also fun.
Measure the value that location based media adds to your brand and adjust accordingly.
Location based social media can be fun and rewarding for your business. Just make sure that you have a clear plan of action that includes goals and measures results. Is your business using location based social media? How is it working for you? What changes have you made that have been successful?
That is what we all want, isn’t it? To be an overnight success. It is true of most businesses, but unfortunately, it is not very realistic. I’ve seen it happen over and over. Someone comes to a seminar or class and learns about how to use social media or how to use a blog to grow their online business. When they leave, they are very enthusiastic. They get started and do okay for a while, and then they just kind of let it go. They don’t stick to it long enough to get enough momentum to take them to the next level. They give up.
Remember, that every blog article you write, every post on your Facebook page, every tweet is out there, getting picked up by search engines and giving you that many more chances to be found by people who are looking for you. Consistency and commitment are key. It can be compared to working out your body. It takes a little time to build muscle and endurance. It won’t happen if you don’t stick with it. And the good results can be lost when you give up. There is just no easy way around it. In order to succeed, you have to put in the work.
However, unlike working out your body, you can actually pay someone to do your inbound marketing. You can pay someone to write blog articles and engage on social media. Either way you do it, someone has to be making the effort on your behalf in a consistent, regular way.
If you have gotten started with blogging and social media, don’t give up! It takes time, but it can reap great results when done right. If you need help, contact me at [email protected]. I would love to discuss how we can work together to grow your business!
We’ve been asked this question a thousand times in the last month. And I believe the simple answer is “no”. The reason being is that I don’t think that they are competing in the same space.
Google+ is information oriented, while Facebook is relationship oriented. Nothing happens on the “Profile” side of Facebook until two people agree to have a relationship (i.e. friend each other). Now the “Pages” side of Facebook is different, but the heart of
Facebook is the Profile. Google+ is more like Twitter where you can “follow” someone without their permission. But Google+ doesn’t have many of the restrictions that Twitter has (e.g. number of characters, rich media, etc.).
Because of its informational nature, Google+ may be more effective for businesses, especially SEO purposes. But its ultimate success will, of course, depend upon how many users it gets. The latest estimates are between 10 and 18 million users.
Do you use Google+? If so, what do you like or not like about it?
Facebook recently made it easier for Page Administrators to promote their Pages. Page Admins can now send their friends invites to Like their Page that appear as notifications, and not in the Recommended Pages sidebar module. This should result in a higher conversion rate since these invites generate both Facebook and email notifications, making them much more noticeable than appearing in the Recommended Pages sidebar.
Page Admins will now see an Invite Friends link in the right-hand admin panel when viewing their Page. When that link is clicked, they will see a multi-friend selector that will allow them to search for and select friends for invites. Selected friends will receive notifications on Facebook that display the name and photo of the friend who sent the invite. Selected friends, whose account notification setting permit, will receive email notifications. The selected friends are then required to click through to the Page where they can then decide whether to Like it.
One idea to help increase your Page’s number of Fans is to have several Admins with diverse friend lists send out invites.
Facebook seems to change the way they allow us to promote our Pages about every 6 to 12 months. So who knows if this is the last iteration they will come up with. My suggestion is to take full advantage of it while we can.
I saw a story on Mashable this morning about a man in Israel who attached a QR code to his mother’s tombstone. The QR code contains a URL for a memorial site set up for his mother. He said, “I was most concerned about 20 or 40 years from now, how will she be remembered … [I wanted to put] what’s in our memory into a place that doesn’t forget.” What an interesting idea. I’ll definitely have to bring that up when I speak to the Mid America Monument Builders Association convention tomorrow.
I wonder how it will work. Will there now be perpetual care memorial websites for our loved ones? Someone will have to continually pay for hosting and domain names for the memorial sites. Will we still be using QR codes 20 to 40 years from now? Will QR code readers still be available?
I hear from the monument builders that I have talked to that there are headstones with built in video or audio components where you can hear your loved ones voice or see a video. Technology has now affected how we remember our loved ones after they die.
Facebook let’s you keep your loved one’s profile active as a memorial after they die. This seems like a great way for friends and family to keep the memories alive. Maybe, the same QR code that is on the tombstone could be added to the Facebook page for those that can’t make it to the cemetery. Will Facebook still be around 20 to 40 years from now? If not, what will take its place?
Genealogists spend a lot of time taking pictures of tombstones and doing research. How much easier will it be for genealogists of the future to research my generation? I’m not sure. It is interesting to think about what will last and what won’t, and how things may be 20 40 years from now. What do you think?
I am speaking to the Mid America Monument Builders Association Convention this weekend about social media marketing. I’m told by the association’s president that they are slow adopters of social media. A couple of points that they might find interesting are included in a video that I will be using at the beginning of the first presentation:
The ROI of social media is that your business will still exist in 5 years!
34% of bloggers post opinions about products and brands and those opinions show up in search results.
People care more about how their social graph (their Facebook friends, Twitter followers/followees, etc.) ranks products than how Google ranks them.
78% of consumers trust peer recommendations, while only 14% trust advertisements.
98% of people skip TV ads.
We no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
We will no longer search for products and services, they will find us via social media!
Typically, in the morning, I open e-mail, read local and national news online and then get the other news that I may have missed from my friends on Facebook. It is a great source for local news and then I get to see what my friends think about the news as well. I have learned about new products, new businesses. I have asked local friends on Facebook if they know where I can find a product locally.
How about you? Are you part of the revolution? Here is the video that I will be using. What do you think?
Mashable recently posted a very interesting infographic about LinkedIn. I thought it was interesting that most people were using LinkedIn to connect with people in their industry and they are not spending a great deal of time promoting their business. That means that people are more interested in adding value than self promotion (which actually does promote themselves, but in a different way).
One of the most valuable aspects of LinkedIn to me is the interaction in the groups that I have joined. Not all are that active, but some are very active and very valuable. I think learning what others are thinking and saying is very valuable to my business. What about your business? Have you found LinkedIn to be a valuable resource?
The old saying goes that 90% of life is showing up. I believe that saying was coined before the age of the internet but it is very appropriate for businesses today. The thing is, we have so many more opportunities for “showing up” than ever before. We have social media, blogs, forums and the list goes on. The biggest mistake a business owner can make is to not show up.
I recently read an article on HubSpot that cited a study that says53% of executives believe they must adopt social media marketing or risk falling behind. I talk with business owners all the time who would agree. Social media and content marketing are here to stay. Of course, as always, business owners have to make the choice of finding the time to invest or finding money to invest to have someone do it for them. Either way, it is a commitment.
I think that, as business owners, we have to think of social media marketing as part of our daily plan, just as you have to take time to keep your bookkeeping up to date or keep track of your inventory, you need to make the time for social media. Sometimes, that means thinking ahead and scheduling the necessary time.
As I am writing this, it is around 6:30 in the morning. Between 5:30 and 7:00 is my usual time for blogging. I like to get blogging and social media done first so I can then concentrate on the rest of what I have to do during the day without the guilt of thinking that I still need to get this done.
I know some people who will sit down and write several blogs at once and then schedule them for publishing in advance. They do the same thing with social media conversations with tools like Hootesuite. That is another great way to make time for social media.
Yesterday, Joe B. wrote about “The Dip” and pushing through when you are discouraged about blogging. This is sometimes difficult to do. Social media marketing and blogging are great tools, but the results are not achieved quickly. Many times, people become discouraged and quit before they have given their efforts enough time to yield any results.
In a time when many small businesses are struggling, it is difficult to urge patience, but I so urge patience and commitment to a strategy. What are your frustrations? What do you do to overcome them?
Ever heard someone say they don’t like social media- Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter? Have you heard them say, “I don’t know enough people to be a part of those groups” or “I don’t know what to talk about”? Well, what they don’t understand about social media is that it’s like a big networking party 24/7. You start with one or two connections and go from there.
You’ve heard the saying that it’s not what you know, but whom you know, or whom you know who knows whom. And that’s what networking is all about- getting to know people and getting introduced to the people they know. People don’t do business with businesses, they do business with people. And they like doing business with people they have something in common with such as a friend or business associate.
When you are in need of a new product or service, isn’t the first thing you do is try to think of someone you know who can provide you with that product or service? And if you mention to a friend that you are looking for that product/service and they suggest someone who can provide it, aren’t you likely to at least contact that someone to see if they can provide what you need? That’s what social networking through social media is all about.
We have gotten numerous opportunities for our business from social media. People have contacted us because:
they were friends or connections on Facebook or LinkedIn,
they were a friend of a friend or a connection of a connection on Facebook or LinkedIn,
they saw that they went to the same high school/college as we did,
they grew up in the same city as we did.
In other words, we were somehow connected. And while not all of these opportunities came to fruition, many did; and we did get an opportunity that we probably would not have gotten without social media.
So the next time you think all of this social media talk is just hype, remember there are people using it to get business. But it does require effort on your part. Just like any networking meeting, if you stand in the corner by yourself and don’t engage, you won’t make any connections. After all, the first word in “social media” is social.
Let us know how social media has benefited your business.
That is what we all want, isn’t it? To be an overnight success. It is true of most businesses, but unfortunately, it is not very realistic. I’ve seen it happen over and over. Someone comes to a seminar or class and learns about how to use social media or how to use a blog to grow their online business. When they leave, they are very enthusiastic. They get started and do okay for a while, and then they just kind of let it go. They don’t stick to it long enough to get enough momentum to take them to the next level. They give up.
We’ve been asked this question a thousand times in the last month. And I believe the simple answer is “no”. The reason being is that I don’t think that they are competing in the same space.
I saw a story on 
I am speaking to the Mid America Monument Builders Association Convention this weekend about social media marketing. I’m told by the association’s president that they are slow adopters of social media. A couple of points that they might find interesting are included in a video that I will be using at the beginning of the first presentation:
The old saying goes that 90% of life is showing up. I believe that saying was coined before the age of the internet but it is very appropriate for businesses today. The thing is, we have so many more opportunities for “showing up” than ever before. We have social media, blogs, forums and the list goes on. The biggest mistake a business owner can make is to not show up.
I recently read an article on HubSpot that cited a study that says
Ever heard someone say they don’t like social media- Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter? Have you heard them say, “I don’t know enough people to be a part of those groups” or “I don’t know what to talk about”? Well, what they don’t understand about social media is that it’s like a big networking party 24/7. You start with one or two connections and go from there.