One of the benefits of operating a small business in a rural community is the increased opportunity to personally connect with your customers. When you are seeing the same people week after week, or when you are the only business in town offering a certain service or product, it is easy to take customer loyalty for granted. Bear in mind, however, that the dissatisfied customer is extremely likely to jump ship as soon as a new option is available. For this reason, it is important not to take your current customers for granted, no matter how limited a rural location may make their options. A great way to increase customer loyalty is through social media marketing tips designed to increase customer satisfaction and appreciation. [Read more...]
16
Dec 2009
Managing Fan Pages on Facebook Just Got Easier
We’ve all done it. We’ve opened our Facebook emails, read an emailed comment from our Fan Page that ignited our creative juices, and hit reply only to realize that Facebook doesn’t allow you to reply this way. Not anymore!
Facebook recently launched the capabilities of replying to comments via email. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a message from Facebook in each of the emails that reads, “New Feature: Reply to this email to comment on this post.” This is a fantastic feature for anyone who manages a fan page. Manage multiple fan pages as I do, and it is a gift. Today, I’m referring to it as my special holiday gift from Facebook.
I’ve always monitored comments via email. My email feeds into my Blackberry. Now, I can reply faster and easier to keep discussions going and without logging into Facebook. This saves me a ton of steps, not to mention a whole lot of time. Thanks Facebook!
*Hint: Don’t try to reply to emailed messages from last week. The feature wasn’t implemented and is likely not to work on older messages.
17
Nov 2009
The Three Pitfalls of Business on Facebook
Setting up a fan page on Facebook is a great way to reach people who are passionate about what your business or organization does. However, the choices you make when setting up your page dictate the success and effectiveness of your fan page later. [Read more...]
17
Aug 2009
You know the look…
You know the look. That blank stare you get when you mention something the other person hasn’t the slightest idea what it is. Mention Facebook and people warm up immediately. Mention Twitter and they freeze. Why is it that Twitter is so hard for people to get? Well, there is good reason why people don’t openly embrace Twitter, and I believe it has to do with a sense of “lack of control”. We live in a country where we try to be in control of almost everything from our careers to the people we marry (both of which are predetermined for millions of people elsewhere in the world).
28
Jun 2009
I spend an average of three hours per day networking with people online. Granted some of this time is answering emails and reading blog posts, but much of my time is spent networking with people to learn valuable information, techniques, and new tools to pass along to other small business owners and people interested in learning social media. Therefore, it should come to no surprise that I have accumulated a list of things that make it difficult to quickly and effectively communicate with people. [Read more...]
16
Apr 2009
How Much Time Should You Spend on Social Media Each Week
I am often asked how many hours I spend on my social media sites every day. On average, I spend about 3 hours a day creating educational content for my clients and building stronger relationships with current and potential clients.
Something happens when you get involved with social media. You change. You realize that the more you give – the better you feel – and the more you get back. I am motivated to be even more active!
By the end of the week, I have created some terrific marketing materials that are customer focused. I have also created a bunch of ineffective materials that will not work, but here’s the thing – my social community helps me determine what is good or bad based on the comments I receive, the number of times an article is retweeted, or the emails that I receive with questions on the articles or tweets.
So – 15 hours per week [Read more...]
05
Mar 2009
Facebook Advertising is for Everyone
Today we are going to cover advertising in Facebook. This is the third and final lesson on Facebook that we are going to cover during this 30 day journey.
Advertising is really quite fascinating when you use Facebook. Let me ask you a question. Does traditional media, such as newspaper or radio, only charge you to advertise to those people that are interested in your product or service and are in your geographic area? No, when you advertise in traditional mediums, you pay to advertise to the entire circulation – hoping to those that fit your targeted demographic will see you ad.
But what if [Read more...]
04
Mar 2009
Day 4: Facebook-Business
You can use Facebook to promote your business, start conversations with customers, build brand recognition, and solicit user feedback. It is a growing trend. WOW! Facebook is incredible!
In order to proceed, you must have a personal Facebook page, and we strongly recommend that you are familiar with some of the basic features of the application. That was the purpose of yesterday. Now, let’s get started with a business page. We want to make this effort as easy and effective as possible.
You have two free options on Facebook. You can create a Group or a Page for your business. We recommend building a Page, and here’s why. Pages were designed to accommodate viral marketing. Viral marketing is a method of spreading word of your product or service rapidly from one person to another. For business, this is a good thing.
Pages slowly (or quickly in some cases) acquire Fans. Aretha Franklins’ Hat page acquired [Read more...]
03
Mar 2009
Face It: Why You Need To Know About Facebook
Facebook gives people the power to share and makes the world more open and connected. Millions of people use Facebook everyday to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.
Why be on Facebook?
Facebook is the 4th most popular website in the United States. As a business owner, you need to understand it. There are more than 175 million active users on Facebook – and it is not just for kids anymore. In fact more than 1/2 of Facebooks users are outside of college, with the fastest growing demographic being those over 30 years of age. What do those big numbers mean? [Read more...]
02
Mar 2009
Putting a Face on Social Media – Gravatars: Day 2
Ever visit a blog or forum and wonder how the other people have their picture showing up along side their post? Today’s suggestion is one of the fastest social networking tools you can use, called Gravatars, and it’s FREE. This is a simple tool designed to automatically combine your picture with your email on any site, world-wide, that has Gravatar enabled. It is becoming common practice on blogs, forums, or any place that you use your email to post comments. Yahoo groups have been using Avatar for a long time, and Gravatar is a Globally Recognized version!
Why is this important? Anyone in business knows it’s important to [Read more...]
I am President and Chief Evangelist for Vivid Image - a web design and social marketing firm located outside of Minneapolis, MN. 
