Marketing with Social Media Tip 1:

Keep in mind that you should not be focused solely on selling yourself. Social media networks are largely about building relationships. In a rural area, it is likely that most of your targeted market knows of you, so take advantage of social media to let them know who you really are.

Marketing with Social Media Tip 2:

Find your angle. Some people use social media to link useful tools, apps or stories to their followers. Others use social book marking sites to promote niche topics. Some use social media mainly as a conversational tool. Once you choose your angle or style, be sure to stick with it. It is essential to your brand to have not only a consistent message, but a consistent presentation as well.

Marketing with Social Media Tip 3:

Remember how big the Internet is. No matter how small your local community is, remember that any social media messages you post or sites you promote, targeted customers in your small local area are not the only ones that will be able to see them. It is important to not get too casual or veer into unprofessional, which can be tricky with the free flowing, instantaneous nature of marketing with social media.

Marketing with social media is constantly growing in popularity. With no sign of waning, it is safe to assume that sooner or later, your small business is going to have to get involved with social media. Keeping in mind these three tips for marketing with social media is a good start, with many more resources available for your perusal as you get more comfortable with your social media presence.

Why make things more complicated when you start?

One hour a day. It doesn’t even have to be a continuous hour.
Ten minutes here, twenty minutes there – whenever you can find the time to spare, all you need to do is engage in social media marketing an hour a day. So, what can you do in that hour? Here are seven things you can do, all in under an hour.

1. Do a Twitter search on your company name to see what people are saying. Respond to a couple.
2. Add a picture or two of new products to your company Facebook page.
3. Film a quick 5 minute video about recent news relating to your industry or company.
4. Write a blog post about your top 5 best selling products or services.
5. Create a quick coupon and link to it from your Twitter account.
6. Do a quick Twitter search for your town and add ten new friends from the local area.
7. Spend a couple of minutes personally responding to blog comments and visiting the blogs of commenters.

Give it a try

Not only can each of those social media marketing techniques be done in under an hour, all seven tips can be accomplished in under an hour. Participating in social media marketing an hour a day may not seem like enough to be effective. However, pick one, two or even all of the tips listed above and try them out for a couple of weeks. Don’t spend more than an hour a day on social media marketing, and see what kind of connections and results you come up with. After your initial two weeks, take what you’ve learned about what works and what doesn’t and tailor the tips to your business’s needs. Don’t wait for the big budget and big staff of a big city business to start your social media marketing efforts. If you can spare an hour a day, your small business can have a legitimate presence on social media as well.

Your thoughts?

Can you spare one hour to focus on building relationships online, enhancing communiation, learning what your customers are really thinking? I would love to hear your thoughts.

BTW – the photo above is from one of my favorite local potters.  You can learn more at www.claycoyoteblog.com.

For each hour I spend researching, writing curriculum, driving, and delivering speeches, I bet I get back tri-fold from the experience. Each person I meet has amazing ideas, insights into their industry, questions that challenge me to think, and humor to round off my day. Driving to each destination allows me time to take in the countryside, discover where businesses are located that I had heard about, and get a feel for each unique rural community. Yes, each one is very unique.

Inevitably, I return from every teaching experience with a very long list of ideas, things to do, topics to write about, information to research, people to get back to, and the list goes on and on. I learn so much while teaching others that I get inspired to schedule the next class before I even return home.

Can I offer an tips to keep inspired while working on the road? Yes! I always make sure I have paper with me to take notes while I’m thinking of things. I also try to pull into one or more local establishments to visit with people and experience the local culture and business. I keep track of people I meet who want to connect later online via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc and do what I can to keep those relationships growing. Lastly, a positive attitude goes a long way. If you are doing something you love, it will show.

Here’s a special shout-out to the people in Worthington, Redwood Falls, and Kerkhoven, MN whom I met this past week. Thank you for an enjoyable few days, and may you be inspired to try new ideas and keep the discussions going!

What about you? What do you take from your work? If you teach or help others, what do you learn?

Creative Commons License photo credit: alexliivet

The best social media marketing tips help establish lasting relationships between your business and your targeted market. There are two ways to use social media marketing to increase customer loyalty and ensure your business a customer for life: engagement and appreciation.

Making a habit of engaging with your customers and targeted market on sites such as Twitter or Facebook personalizes your business and gives your company a more relatable feel. When a current or potential customer knows they can reach out to you and receive a human response, a feeling of investment in the relationship is created. Rather than stewing about problems they may have had, a customer you interact with through social media is likely to comment on your company blog or direct message you on Twitter to make you aware of the issue, giving you an opportunity to really shine in offering a solution.

Once you have made a habit of engaging with your customers and clients, take advantage of the easy connection offered by social media marketing to offer targeted sales, products and special deals to your social media communities. You can select five random followers a month to receive a special coupon code, or offer “secret” sales just for Twitter followers. A customer who is invested in their relationship with your company, as well as one with a feeling that their business is truly appreciated, is likely to be a customer for life, no matter what competition moves into the neighborhood.

If you are like many businesses, there is one thing that is working very well.  Word of Mouth.  Recommendations from other people…

Traditional way people get information

Traditionally, information comes from the company and is delivered to potential clients in the form of advertising.  You may spend thousands of dollars to advertise your business and control your brand and message.  Unfortunately, you may also find that no one is listening to your message.    Everyday, your customers are bombarded with marketing messages.  So many messages, they they get really good at ignoring all marketing.  Yes, even yours…

Only 14% of people trust advertising messages

Sales and Marketing Today

Customers educate themselves much differently than they did just a few years ago.  Today, many customers are educated on your products and services before they even call you.  They look toward the Internet and read a review of your business on Google Local.  They ask their friends.  They have discussions about your products or services on Facebook or Twitter.

78% of people trust recommendations from others

Stop the Chaos

Your customers are already talking about you and your industry.  Do you know what they are saying?  Do you want to know?

We can hide in a cave with our blanket and nightlight hoping that things will change or we step out into the light and feel the rays of possibilities in this amazing opportunity.  The sales process has changed dramatically and it is better for both consumers and businesses.

PRESENTER’S DIRECTIONS

Amount of time needed:  20 – 30 minutes

Divide participants into 3-5 small groups.

Give each small group a scenario page and a pack of “tool/activity” cards. Each card has an amount of points labeled at the bottom; this signifies how much needs to be invested (time, money, etc.) in the tool/activity (the maximum amount of points they can use is 10).

Each small group should complete the scenario page and be prepared to report back to the large group. Give them 5 minutes to discuss, fill out the scenario page and prepare to report back.

Have each group report back.   Set a 2-minute time limit for each group.

Once all the groups have reported back ask a number of the following discussion questions to the entire group – as time permits.

1. How did your small group discussions go?
2. How hard or easy was it to decide on which tools/activities to use? Why?
3. What did you think of the choices or rational of any of the groups?
4. What did you learn from this activity?

Various Scenarios

• Raising Awareness
• Fundraising
• Event Promotion
• Advocacy
• Thought Leadership

Social Media Card Deck

• Social Media Card Deck

Additional material from the Convening can be found on the Resilient Organizations Fund website.

• Home Page:  http://www.resilientnonprofits.org/
• Materials:  http://www.resilientnonprofits.org/materials/
• About the Convening:  http://www.resilientnonprofits.org/convenings/

Why the Frustration?

I receive about 150 emails a day on my main email account plus about 100 on other email accounts.  In the spam filter, I have well over 250 emails a day.  That is a lot of emails.  Out of the 500 daily emails, there are maybe 20 that are important to me.

Maybe I expect too much.

I have had my primary email account for about 15 years, and it has been posted on several websites.  Naturally, just about every spammer has my email address in their database.

So here are three tips I am implementing to help me manage my inbox and never miss an important email again.

Tip #1

Have a separate, private email address for your most important clients.  Don’t publish this email address on your website or on any marketing material.  You will want to set any spam rules to the lowest possible settings for this account.

Tip #2

Use a separate account, like Gmail or Hotmail, for news and other email subscriptions.  I get a lot of new emailed newsletters each day.  Quite often I just don’t have time to read through everything; so instead of cluttering my primary email box where client emails come in, I put them in a separate account.

Better yet, stop all of your email newsletters and look for an RSS feed from your favorite news sites. If you don;t know what RSS is, read this post:  “What is RSS and Why Do I Care”

Tip #3

Even 150 emails is a lot to sort through, and it can be easy to accidentally delete an important email.  Because of this, I am using the ‘rules wizard’ a lot more in my email program.  When a new message gets delivered to my inbox, I have it go to a predefined folder automatically.  For instance:  when an email comes from a staff member, I have it go directly to my staff folder.  Setup as many of these rules as you can, and before long you are managing your emails like a pro.

Bonus Tip

Don’t create a ‘catch all’ email account.  A catch all email account is one that catches any emails set to your domain name.  One of my clients had a catch all created for their domain name.  After one week, they had 16 million emails!  And you think you have email problems

Photo Credit:  Kevin Lawver

One of the main secrets of social media marketing is how social media marketing is not strictly limited to advertising, but also to establishing meaningful relationships with other people in your industry, as well as current and targeted clients and customers.  When building a presence for your small business on various social media networks and book marking sites, you have the chance to give your brand name its own personality and presence for interactions with the various types of people you will meet on these networks.

Create Your Persona

Whether you choose to create an extremely professional personality focused on customer service, a helpful persona with the best links and news to share, or even a funny, quirky attitude to give your small business a distinctive edge, a small, self-owned small business has an incredible range of freedom in this area.  Rather than being forced to stick to the company standard, social media marketing gives small business the opportunity to really get creative and unique in the way that they connect with customers and even colleagues in the same field.

Be Unique

Big companies have had years of exposure to a national market to create the feelings and responses related to their brand. A small business new to social media may be tempted to imitate what has worked for the big businesses that have come before, but doing so would be missing the best benefit that social media marketing can offer to small businesses. Creating a unique social media personality designed to elicit exactly the kinds of thoughts and feelings you’d like to associate with your brand is a fun, creative exercise and an experience that will benefit your small business hugely. A unique personality for your brand makes your small business more recognizable, as well as more likely to be recommended to friends and family of those you interact with through your social media marketing endeavors.

Is Anyone Listening?

76% of customers don’t believe companies tell the truth in advertising.  (Keller Fay Group)

54% of people say they would avoid buying products that overwhelm them with advertising and marketing.

69% said they are interesting in products and services that would help them SKIP or BLOCK advertising.

Mind share is a different mind set.

Increasing mind share is the process of increasing desire and demand.  It is engaging the customer in an experience they find compelling. This process is characterized by cooperation, openness and collaboration.

78% of customers rate the credibility of word of mouth as 7 or higher on a 10  point scale.  (Keller Fay Group)

Is it a Sprint or a Long Distance Race

If all of your sales and marketing initiatives revolve around increasing your market share, someone is going to lose.  Maybe not right now, but in the long run, the future belongs to those that are investing in mind share.

Investing in mind share is investing in the long run.  It is getting your customers and partners involved in your business.  It is being open and honest.  Creating a ‘circle of trust.’

Trust

Trust requires knowing each other.  With no trust, it takes more time and money for both the consumer and the company.

Over 80% of people stop buying products from companies when their trustworthiness comes into question.  Over 33% who lose trust in a company openly campaign against that company on the Internet.  (Edelman Trust Barometer)

Consumers  in the US and Europe are 86% less trusting of companies than they were five years ago (Bain and Co)

Opportunities are All Around You

Stop trying to sell.  Stop pushing your messages at your clients when they don’t want to listen.  Engage in a solid social media strategy to become a partner with your client and help them buy.  People still love to buy.  How can you help your clients buy?

Avatar

One of the first steps any guide to social media marketing will give has to do with the avatar. The avatar is a picture or symbol that represents you or your business on various social media networks. Instead of developing a new logo, however, think about what local people see when they drive past your business. A distinctive building? A prominent sign? Whatever it is, making it your social media avatar will trigger instant recognition with locals on social media networks.

Engage in Conversations

Secondly, a guide to social media marketing will instruct you to engage in conversations around your niche or area of interest. Instead, do searches to find those who are talking about your local area. Instead of focusing your participation on the industry at large, focus your attention on those who are talking about the area around you. Establish yourself as a local contributor with an investment in the community, not just your commercial industry.

Build a Community

A third popular tip is to build a community of leaders in your niche. Don’t forget about your niche, but don’t worry about finding the right community – you already have one! Create your fans, friends and followers community from those you see every day, in your store or office. Rather than catching the attention of the big players, catch the attention of those who are likely to walk in the door.

Take Your Time – but Keep Moving Forward

A guide to social media marketing main contain tips that seem like they’re for a bigger business, a larger city or popular niche. However, take your time reading these guides and you’ll see several ways these broad tips can be tailored down to a local level for your small business.

Do you have a guide that you love?  Let us know about it by leaving a comment below. If you would like to follow a 30 Day plan to understanding social media, take a look at my recent blog post:  Your Personal Guide to 30 Days of Social Media – a Special Summary for You.