Category: Social Marketing

Twitter is an excellent way to keep with people in your industry. It’s also a way to chat casually with people. It possesses the photo-sharing features of Pinterest, but invites more conversation. It also mimics some of the conversational aspects of Facebook, but keeps the chat short, making it easy to chat on a lunch break. If you’ve not really used your Twitter account to its fullest, you’ll want to try these five suggestions to get yourself up to speed on the chat.

1. The Right Bio

As a business owner, your bio should be more than a bio. It should be a 160-character explanation of what your business can do for others. The Xyngular bio provides a good example of this elevator-pitch bio. From this short piece, you know the company is into a holistic approach to health that will quickly get its customers the results they want.

When you’re writing up your bio, make sure that you tell would-be clients exactly what your product or service can do for them. Use actionable verbs. Write and rewrite it until it encapsulates your business philosophy in a nutshell.

2. Use Your Header Graphic

Your Twitter account’s header should be like a billboard of sorts. The Social Media Examiner suggests using this space to tell your story. To do this, you can either repeat your bio or add information.

This is actually a helpful step and maybe not for the reasons you think. Many business owners make the mistake of asking people to buy their product in every tweet. Instead of doing this, carry on conversations with people. Let them see what you do and follow up. The 80/20 rule is good to follow. Eighty percent of your tweets should be helpful and conversational. Twenty percent should be promotional.

3. Join a Twitter Chat

Twitter chats are an underutilized tool. If you’ve never joined a Twitter chat, make a point of doing so. They’re simple in concept. Basically, a person or organization organizes an open conversation on Twitter. Followers of the chat follow a special hashtag (the pound # symbol) that allows them to keep track of the conversation.

For example, if you’re a restaurant owner, you may want to participate in the #foodiechat on Mondays. This chat is organized around the topic of food and often, food-related travel. Foodies from all over the world show up, post pictures of their favorite dishes, and get to know one another. Of course, food-industry people use this time to interact and get new clients, too.

The good news is you don’t have to be a foodie to do a chat. You can search Twitter for chats in your industry, using keywords plus the word “chat.” You can also do a Google search for Twitter chats. There are quite a few websites that list known chats. Find some in your industry or organize your own.

4. Follow the Right People

This is a corollary to the above suggestion. Who you follow on your Twitter account determines the quality of your Twitter wall. It also shows you at a glance who you might want to tag when you’re having a Twitter chat. It additionally allows you to keep track of your customers, your suppliers, industry experts, and other opinion leaders.

5. Link to Your Website/ Blog

You’re given a couple of opportunities to link to your blog or your website. In the bio section of your Twitter account, there is a place for a link. You also have the option of putting your blog’s URL in a tweet. (Be sure to use a URL shortener like Bit.ly or Goo.gl. You only have 140 characters to work with. A long URL will take up most of the tweet.)

It goes without saying that you’ll put your link in promotional tweets, but not all tweets have to be promotional. If you’re participating in, say, #MondayBlogs, put a link back to your blog on that tweet in a non-promotional way. Anytime you can legitimately link to your site because you have helpful information that’s not promotional, you should do it.

Twitter can be a great business asset if you know how to use it. If you haven’t been using it to promote your business, you’ll want to set up an account and start tweeting. Although this list gives you a good starting point, you should invest some time into learning how to use this tool. Your business will benefit in the long run.

Article Contributed by Kara Masterson

Almost every American has a smartphone that they use to find a business, making online presence of the utmost importance. The problem is that nearly half of US small businesses do not have an online presence, which is problematic. The following tips will help you build your online portfolio and make a splash online.

Blogging

Online users want helpful information to the questions or issues they have. This is the reason blogs work in your favor. What you want to do is create quality content that is easy to read and helpful to potential customers. This valuable information will help keep your business in the minds of your visitors.

Many small businesses get most of their traffic from blog posts. Make sure that these are SEO-friendly, which ensures that they are placed highly in search engines. It is also important to post at least once a week to gather the attention of online users.

Use Online Ads

There are several examples of good online ads. For example, you can reach out to slightly larger companies online that sell something related to your business. Of course, a direct competitor will not work, but a business that sells work boots might be okay with you advertising hardware on their site. This would be mutually beneficial if an arrangement can be reached.

You can also use online search engine ads. These ads are displayed in various places online and on different pages. Most search engine ads do not charge you unless online users click on your ad. This is a good and quick way to gather recognition online.

Social Media

Online users love when the businesses they trust (or businesses they might use) have active social media accounts. There are several types of accounts that you should consider like Facebook or Pinterest, just to name a few. Online users tend to trust companies that have these accounts more than those that don’t. It is important to engage your followers, and answer their questions whenever possible. Some companies, like ACN Inc, even take the time to set-up and manage Pinterest and Tumblr accounts.

Setting up your accounts and keeping up with them might be possible with a small team at first, but this does get a little time-consuming after a while, so you may need to hire a larger team, or hire a social media manager. Still, this is an effective way to build your online portfolio.

Be Vocal

You should try to be vocal online, and there are a number of ways that you can do that. For one, you can visit forums where you can answer questions regarding your field and gently plug in your business. You can also participate in podcasts should the subject matter relate to your business. You should even consider writing guest blogs or posts on other company’s websites. This should open up your business to an audience that might not have been exposed to your business before. Be sure that when you provide answers, interviews, or posts that you do your best to provide high quality content that can be easily understood to ensure that listeners or readers take notice of what you are saying.

These are just a few suggestions that may help you find your voice and find your place online. It is important that you do this as soon as possible since the online world is becoming more and more popular. Make sure that your site is up to date because online users do not like seeing sites that look outdated or are not mobile-friendly. Hopefully, these suggestions put you on the right path and help you develop the online presence you should have.

Article Contributed by Hannah Whittenly

The website that you create for your business is the first impression that viewers will have of the products and services that you offer. Many websites are simple in design while still offering beauty, insight to the company and images that are strategically placed and stunning in design. However, if you want your site to stand out from others that are online, consider adding a video or two that will capture the attention of those who are watching.

Story Telling

Don’t ramble in the video. Write out a few ideas that you want to use, but overall, the video should tell a brief story about who you are and about how the company was founded. You can talk about the people who work for the business, the hours of operation and any goals for the future. A call to action should be included at the end of the video to get more customers in the door.

Professional Help

When you look on social media, you probably see videos that people post about their daily lives. While this is sufficient if you want to connect on a fun and personable level with the customer, you want to upgrade a bit to a professional approach. Use the best cameras possible along with color grading techniques, such as those you can do with Color Grading Central, when applicable. There are companies that can help with tutoring you about how to hold the camera and colors that work well in videos so that you offer the best presentation possible.

Multiple Channels

Many people who make videos post them to YouTube. It’s an easy way to get your name in the public eye. If you want to grow your business, you need to make sure the videos that you make are posted on multiple channels instead of just one or two. There are codes that you might need to include, which is where professional help can come into play, along with ways to track the number of people who view your videos to determine where you need to put more effort in placing them.

In the Effects

Sound and visual effects are good to use, but you don’t want to go overboard with what’s included. Background music that blends with the story that you tell and a few props that are placed in the background that are from the company or that give an idea about what the company offers can be used in the video. Consider effects like swiping from one screen to another to keep the attention of the viewer.

A video on your website is an effective way to gain more customers if it’s done in the right way. Create a plan before filming. Go through a rough draft before putting the video on the site so that you can see what it will look like and what needs to be adjusted.

About the Author

Hannah Whittenly is a freelance writer and mother of two from Sacramento, CA. She enjoys kayaking and reading books by the lake. For your video editing needs, Hannah recommends Color Grading Central.

Article Contributed by Abhishek Talreja

Embracing technology is inevitable for every business. Using social technologies can terrifically improve business productivity.

“By using social technologies, companies can raise the productivity of knowledge workers by 20 to 25 percent” (Source)

Building interactive communities that share information and collaborate is a need of the hour for businesses of today. A community of employees and partners that is engaged and motivated will surely steer ahead faster.

Social enterprise technologies can be integrated with mobile, giving employees the freedom and the flexibility to execute tasks from anytime and anywhere. Data analytics further ensures that each employee can work on a set of tasks that are most important for the business at a particular time.

Social media is already prevalent in the day-to-day lives of customers as well as employees. Businesses now have an opportunity to leverage this behavior to connect with both these types of audiences for a better outcome.

Social technologies take collaboration to the next level, helping teams to share knowledge and ideas quickly and more efficiently.

With an active enterprise social network, a business can align its employees and business processes with its organizational culture.

Here are some of the benefits of an enterprise social network:

Improved Employee Motivation

Employee motivation is directly correlated with their happiness and their ability to work in a harmonized environment. An active social network gives employees a platform to interact with each other and work towards a common goal. It helps in improving the productivity level of the teams along with their retention rate.

Ease of Internal Communication

An enterprise social network helps organizations to do away with email communication. It helps in sending out relevant information and knowledge to all the employees, quickly and efficiently. It also helps in reducing meeting times by simplifying team communication.

Brings Global Teams Together

Large enterprises usually have teams that are spread across the globe. A social network helps in simplifying communication and collaboration among such teams.  The system ensures that communication flows freely across geographical boundaries as well as departments.

Here are some of the key strategic steps for implementing an enterprise social network for your business:

Have a Vision

Before implementing an enterprise social network in your organization, you need to have a clear cut vision that drives it. It is essential to know what exactly the platform will do to improve individual process productivity and employee motivation. The role of the leadership team is important in understanding how knowledge and information will be shared on the platform. You need to ensure that there is genuine engagement and collaboration on the platform to get real benefits from it.  You should also figure out the requirements of the teams and their expectations from the system. You can use a survey like this to gather some key insights.

Get the Teams to Use the Network

The key challenge that any business would face would be to get the teams to use the social network on a regular basis. For this you need to get your Human Resource team to motivate the rest of the employees by communicating the program benefits. Employee orientation and training are some of the essentials for getting commitment from teams to be a part of the community. You need to communicate about the advantages that the system would bring to the employees, in terms of professional growth, improvement in productivity and more work engagement etc. Initially, you can get your leadership team to actively use the network. The strategy would give the network a user-base that will keep it active.

Cater to Each Department

The network must help each department in the organization. An employee from the finance department must be as happy as somebody from the marketing team or any other team, in using the platform. Building a community across the organization is important to get more acceptance.  Make sure that the system is user-friendly and similar to the popularly used social networks. You need to create a project team with representatives from each of the departments in the company. The project team members know the processes of their respective departments and they can raise their concerns, during the implementation of the project, if any.

Identify Active Users

You need to build a team of influencers for getting everyone in the organization to use the system actively. These are those users who are enthusiastic about it. You have to train your influencers to understand the benefits of the system and how to use it effectively. This will enable you to spread the word to the rest of the employees relatively quickly and easily.

Process Analysis

While implementing an enterprise social network, you need to identify all the business processes that will benefit from it. Develop case studies for on how each of the processes would get streamlined with the help of the implemented system. Present these studies to the respective departments while launching it. The more comprehensive you make your presentation; the higher will be its usage rate.

Internal Promotions

You need to promote the enterprise social network within your organization. Put it on your company website and run email campaigns, highlighting its benefits. You can also put up posters in your office premises. Be persistent with your marketing efforts, after you have successfully implemented and tested it. This will help you to ensure that the teams do not go back to the older ways of doing their tasks.

Measure and Analyze

You must have a predefined set of goals. The goals should be related to the overall productivity of employees and their level of motivation. Another important metric that you need to track is the employee retention rate. Understanding the return you are getting from your investment is crucial although it may not be simple to measure it in the beginning.

There are quite few enterprise social network platforms that you can try out as well. These include the likes of Tibbr, Jive, Yammer, SocialCast, Convo, Kaltura, Chatter, Zyncro, Socialtext and Workplace by Facebook. You can choose from these according to your business requirements. You can also opt for a customised solution business to fulfill specific business needs.  Have a plan and vision for your ESN implementation to get the precise outcome. Get your teams to get involved and it will be surely be a success.

Author Bio 

Abhishek Talreja is working as a Digital Marketing Manager with Enterprise Monkey. He has a keen interest in technology, and small business productivity.  Enterprise Monkey helps Small to Medium Enterprises and Not-For-Profits save time & money and increase revenue through automation, optimization & intelligence.

LinkedIn, with its popularity only increasing, is proving to be an excellent platform for professionals. Although at first, it started out as a mere networking tool it has grown into so much more than that. LinkedIn is now used for business development, marketing, recruitments, sales and more.

LinkedIn and other social media tools are especially great for startups because it gives these small companies an opportunity to make helpful connections and meet new people who can support their journey.

Despite the professional environment present on LinkedIn, it is all-too-easy for us to make some very unprofessional blunders and for startups, this can cost dearly. Here are some such mistakes to avoid:

1. Overdoing the profile optimization

It is definitely a good idea to optimize your LinkedIn profile with keywords. But if you take to an extreme and over-optimize, it will just backfire on you and may even lead to people blocking you or reporting you.

Optimizing is nothing but using specific words that a potential client might use to search for companies like yours, so that your startup’s name may pop-up in the search results.

For instance, let’s say you are text-expansion tool startup when creating your profile you want to use words like ‘Text expansion’, ‘productivity’ etc., words relevant to the service that your startup is aiming to provide.

The problem is when you decide that more is better and you start dumping keywords all over your profile about a dozen times.

People also make the mistake of making multiple entries for the same position hoping to be discovered better by the prospects. These below-the-knee tactics just make you look very unprofessional and untrustworthy.

A better way is to identify a set of keywords and find ways to naturally and contextually include them in your profile.

2. Pitching sales proposals to your new connections

Every time you make a new connection, don’t make the mistake of getting ahead of yourself. That is absolutely the fastest way to get yourself removed from their connections list.

LinkedIn, before anything, is a professional networking platform. Yes, it is possible to find new business opportunities and many people have, but that is only secondary.

Imagine a complete stranger sending a business proposal to you, right after you accept their connection request. Not only will this not fetch you results, but it might build a bad reputation around your startup.

A smarter way is to send a personalized message to the person and show a keen interest in getting to know them. In fact, take a step further and observe their online behavior, the articles they are sharing etc. to understand what they like and start a conversation on that.

After you build a relationship with them, if you see a business opportunity that can benefit you both, then pitch it subtly.

When you first reach out to them, also include a link to your website and your contact details, so that they can confirm if you are a trustworthy person, before responding.

3. Thinking that your LinkedIn network is an email opt-in list

Here’s the rule of thumb – LinkedIn is not a platform where you can send promotional messages every week to all of your connections; that is completely inappropriate.

Too many marketers think of LinkedIn connections as an email opt-in list to send their promotional messages to. Indeed as a startup, you are looking for ways to boost yourself, but don’t do it at the cost of basic manners and trust me, it won’t fetch any results.

In fact, some people go as far as adding the email contacts of their connections to their blog’s subscriber list and start sending them weekly newsletters etc. This is a great way to spoil any chance of building a relationship with your connections and you may even get removed from their list.

When experimenting with this for my own startup Hiver, here’s what worked for me – send them a personalized message after or when you connect and place a link to your website and direct them there by asking for their opinion on your product/website/service. After checking out your website, if they are interested then they will opt-in for the emails themselves.

Additionally, it is not smart to force uninterested people onto your email list. It probably won’t lead to any conversions anyway.

4. Not sending personalized connection requests

LinkedIn is a great place to connect with people for the first time. People are usually open to connecting with strangers on this platform.

But you could go terribly wrong if you start sending generic messages to get into people’s contact lists. It gives the impression that you haven’t taken the time to view the other person’s profile and that you don’t really care about getting to know them, but just about growing your connections number.

A smart thing to do is to take the time to see who the other person is, discover some common points between both of you and then compose a personalized message touching these points.

When trying to network on LinkedIn focus on quality over quantity. Quantity is going to fetch you nothing, but quality can help you make great connections.

5. Not having a great company page

As the founder, it sure is important to have a well-crafted profile of your own on LinkedIn, but it is also important to have a great company page for your startup.

This is important because it is one easy way for people to understand who you are and verify your credibility. For example, when you reach out to a new person, by giving them a chance to get to know what you via the company page, you are helping them make a more informed decision.

Also, people will readily connect with you when you have a legitimate company page, rather than with a lone guy who claims to be the founder of some non-existent company.

Wrapping up

Many of us are very eager to use LinkedIn as a business development tool and by avoiding unprofessional blunders we can find excellent business opportunities and make great connections via this platform.