Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category

The amount of information that is now available at our fingertips is overwhelming. For small business owners, this boon is a great thing. At the same time, it can cause problems.

Improved Access

Almost anything you do as a small business owner can be done faster, better, and cheaper today. This includes all areas of running your business, things like scheduling, sales, paying bills, getting paid, marketing, and accounting. When you need to find a new market, research a product, or cut costs, there are answers available all over the internet.

One of the biggest, and fastest growing, areas of information is data about your customers. Thanks to social media, web sites, blogs, and more, you can gain a vast amount of intel on current and prospective customers. All of that information can help you better serve your customers and book more sales.

Staying On Top of Information

All of this is good, but what if you are already struggling to stay afloat? Chances are, you have a hard time keeping your email inbox clear and responding to phone calls. What business do you have wading into the sea of information on sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn?

The thing is, you almost have to. Not because its cool or anything. Communication simply must follow the customer. And if you have customers using online tools to communicate, you better be right there with them engaging with them in conversation.

Two Tools that Help

The problem is simply overload. What small business owners need is a way to sort information and stay on top of it. I am not sure if there is already a great solution for this. Two companies come to mind who are making it easier. The first is Batchbook, which is the company I use for CRM. It is possible to keep track of things like Twitter and Facebook feeds right within the contact window on Batchbook. They need to make it a little easier, but they have a great start.

The other company is Gist. Gist lets you search for your contact’s online feeds and activities. It can automatically collect some information on a contact, such as their Twitter account, and then feed it into a communication page for that person. What Gist lacks is a robust contact management system.

More Features

If Gist and Batchbook got married, it might be the perfect answer for all of our information channeling needs. I would add some more key features, such as being able to search your contact feeds for certain keywords and then highlighting that information in a dashboard. That way, when a customer or contact is talking about a need you can fulfill, you can reach out to them. Another ideal feature would be a conversation scheduler. Say you wanted to reach out to a certain customer once a month. You could receive a reminder along with a recap of what they have been saying on social networks, along with news about them or their company. You might also receive links to blogs or news stories that relate in some way to what they have been talking about. In this way, you could reach out very personally to your contacts.

The point here is simple. We, as small business owners, need better ways to manage all of this information. The company that gets information management right will win in the end. That means understanding how relationships work. All of these new apps and networks are great, but for us business owners, its all about the sorting and staying on top of the relationships.

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Hello, I’m Bradford Shimp. I spend a lot of time thinking, studying, and living small business. You can hire me for youronline marketing needs at www.BroadRiverCreative.com. Be sure to check out the podcast here at All Business Answers.

photo credit: Blyzz

What are social networks? They are, in their simplest form, places where people keep contact information and then communicate with those contacts. They are communication platforms.

While social networks like Facebook and Twitter make communication easy, they don’t make you good at it. If you want to grow your contacts and get business via social networks, you need to learn how to effectively use them to communicate.

Make it Past the Threshold

Before you can become the Cicero of social media, you first need to learn the tools. Each new social network has a learning curve. Some, like Twitter, have easy entry but still take lots of use to master. Others, such as LinkedIn, are a little more difficult to get going on.

It is essential that you learn how to use your social network(s) of choice. Without knowledge of how the tool works, you won’t be able to use it properly. A tool misused can cause more damage than good. So, before you try to use social networks to get sales, use them for fun. Play around in the sandbox until you have the feel of things.

Remember, each social network is a little different. What is appropriate on one may not be appropriate on another. As communicator, it is up to you to figure out what is accepted where. If you are talking in a crowded bar, it is perfectly fine to raise your voice and even shout. In fact, this is probably necessary just so the person next to you can hear you. But you wouldn’t use that same voice in the library. Social networks are different venues with different rules as well. The best way to learn them is to get active on the network, primarily as a listener at first.

Get a Focus

Once you find a social network of choice and get a feel for how it works, you can start using it to communicate with potential customers. In order to cultivate a group of appropriate listeners, you need to gain a focus.

There are two main things to focus on. The first is what you are going to talk about. If you want to sell washing machines, you should spend the larger percentage of your time talking about washing machines. This will attract people who are also interested in washing machines, and you can start to build a focused audience.

The second area of focus is who you are going to talk to. When you first get started, you will probably be happy add anyone to your network. But as you start to think about how to communicate effectively, you’ll realize that you need a group of active listeners. These are the people who will be interested in what you have to say.

You can attract some of these listeners just by talking about your focus subject. Others, you will have to go out and find. Use tools likes Search.Twitter.com and Twellow.com to find people on Twitter who are interested in your topic. On other social networks, you can join groups and forums to find people with an interest in your topic.

Once you start to develop a group, you need to learn to focus on them. Its not just having them that is important. You need to talk to them.

Engage the Audience

Social communication is two-way communication. If you think its just about pushing out your message and hoping it will be heard, you didn’t spend enough time learning the platform. The beauty of social networks are that they make personal communication possible on a large scale.

If you want to communicate effectively on social networks, you need to learn the importance of listening and responding. In fact, you should spend as much time responding as you do starting conversations. You can do this whether or not you have people asking you direct questions. On LinkedIn, for example, there is a whole section devoted to questions and answers. On a feed oriented network, like Facebook and Twitter, just pay attention to what people are saying and asking, and then respond.

When you do put out content, try to word it in such a way that it will start conversations. For instance, I see a lot of quotes on Twitter. Why not add a “what do you think about that?” type of question at the end of the quote. The goal when you push content is to get people to respond in some way. Sometimes, you’ll want them to visit your site and buy your product. Other times, you’ll just want to start conversations by asking questions.

Conversations

The beauty of social networks is that they make conversations easy. Conversations can lead to many things. You can have a conversation with a customer in which you solve an issue they are having. They can then have a conversation with a friend about how helpful you were. That friend could have a conversation with her spouse about how they should hire you. And then it comes back to you in the form of a sale and a new relationship.

The power of social networks is that these conversations are happening on an expansive scale. Its not one on one anymore. Instead, many people can listen in and hear what a good job you did. You can engage with a large number of customers and future customers all at once. The word can spread faster and farther than ever. Don’t doubt the power of conversation in helping you get and keep customers.

It all starts with you learning how to effectively communicate on social networks. Have any questions?

Some small businesses have blogs because they think they should. They toy around with one, post occasionally, and see little benefit. The problem is, they produce a boring blog, all about the business in most cases. The blog is just another sales page. Even more small business owners never start a blog because they can’t think of anything interesting to say on a regular basis.

The thing is, producing an interesting blog that people will actually pay attention to is not that hard. Here are some ideas on how to do just that.

Cut the Sales Talk

You can give all of your sales information on the static pages of your web site and in your hand out materials. Use your blog to build trust. For instance, instead of talking about how great your widget is on the blog, do an in depth interview with one of your customers about how they are using your widget with great success. This still puts your business in a positive light, but with a human story.

Also, its okay to talk about things on your blog that aren’t directly related to your product or service. A blog is a place to have conversations with customers and prospects. You will want to cover a range of topics that is interesting and useful to your target audience.

Give Advice

One great thing to do on your blog is to give advice. People are searching for answers all of the time on the web. If your blog can provide good answers to specific questions, it will attract an audience. So think about the advice your customer base will most benefit from, and then provide content on your blog that gives that advice.

This works well for every type of business. A mechanic can give advice for basic car maintenance and upkeep. A marketer can give advice on how to set up a marketing plan. Don’t worry about putting yourself out of a job. Remember, you are a specialist. If you are a baker, you could give instructions on how to bake a perfect cake and still attract buyers for the cakes you make. The fact is, you will always be able to do it better, and people will come to you for your expertise.

Spice it Up With Other Content

You don’t have to write every article on your blog. You can find other content to include that will be useful to your target customers.

One way to do this is to pull articles off article marketing sites, such at EzineArticles.com or ArticleBase.com. Sites like these allow you to repost content. Simply search for your topic and follow the instructions to post the content on your blog.

You could also find guest authors to write unique content for your site. Blogger Link Up is a good resource for this. You can also find experts using Help a Reporter Out. Both of these resources allow you to reach out to a list of people who want to write content or be interviewed.

Share the News

If you are a local business, sharing local news can be a great move for your blog. You will attract local visitors who will then be introduced to or reminded about your business. Add your own take on the news or break stories, and you will have even more visitors.

You can share news by providing a brief overview and then the link to stories on other web sites. Link to other sources generously. If you start sending a decent amount of traffic to a news site, they are bound to notice your blog and your business. At the same time, do add some personal touch to the news you share. You can also treat your own company news as legitimate news stories.

Interview Your Customers

Putting up interviews can work very well for some businesses. This is especially true if the interview can help other customers. I work with a business that sells to volunteer organizations. These organizations can benefit from learning about how other volunteer organizations are succeeding.

Interviews also give you a chance to get to know your customers a lot better. This has huge benefits as you figure out how to better communicate with and sell to your customer base.

Finally, interviews are almost a guaranteed way to get visitors to your blog, as your subject will visit and share the link with others.

Be Personal

Your blog is a place where you can truly connect with customers. Its okay to add your personality to your posts. By being real on your blog, you are building trust. If customers feel they know you, even before they buy, then you are succeeding.

I don’t suggest making your business blog a personal journal. Customers don’t need to know about the movies you see, the parties you go to, or about your latest hobby. Instead, sprinkle personality into your business posts. Use your real voice. Write and record as if you were having a normal conversation. And if you want, slip some personal information inside the business posts.

Keep Talking

Here is an important key to writing an interesting blog. Do it regularly. This is counterintuitive to many business owners, who think that by writing too often they will drive people away. The fact is, the more often you blog, the more people will visit.

Its not just about the visitors. By blogging often, you will be able to develop a rhythm and a voice. You’ll find your groove, basically.

If you blog only once in awhile, your blog will attract cob webs and the posts you do put up will likely be stilted and boring. Commit to a regular schedule, and your blog will be dynamic, on point, and conversational.

By blogging regularly, something unexpected will begin to happen. You will begin to understand and relate to customers like you never have before. You will unleash new ideas for your business and see new opportunities. Blogging regularly gets you to think, not just about the next sale, but about the greater story that you are involved in with your business. I would argue that blogging makes your a better business, and a better person.

If you still need help getting your blog off the ground, please feel free to email me at bradford@allbizanswers.com.

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Bradford Shimp helps small businesses develop their web presence at BroadRiverCreative.com.

I hear this question a lot. When a small business starts getting involved in social networks, such as Twitter, the owner wants to know if they should allow any personality to show or not. The question is a valid one, and my opinion comes down pretty heavily on one side. However, before I give that to you, I want to walk through the process that a small business goes through when its first dipping its foot into social media.

Why Do You Get Involved?

As a small business owner, there is really only one reason to get involved in social media. You want to get sales. If you are moving into social media for this, congratulations, you are still ahead of the curve.

Its possible that you were involved in social media on a personal level before you decided to bring your business into the mix. Most of us have Facebook pages and LinkedIn accounts. However, you probably didn’t spend that much of your personal time on these sites. As a small business owner, you simply don’t have all that much personal time.

So when you decided to bring your business into social networks, you probably didn’t already have a huge personal presence. You have to build something from scratch for your business. You think, and rightly so, that social networking can drive sales to your business. But you may be mistaken in how you think that will happen. Lets look at where most small businesses are coming from in terms of marketing driven sales.

Where Are You Coming From?

As a small business, the truth is, you probably don’t do a whole lot of marketing. You are probably considering social media because you have heard its effective and, just as importantly, its free. There is no shame in this. Free marketing can be just as effective as paid.

When a small business does market in the offline world, it is usually in the form of newspaper ads, yellow pages, and post cards. And because all of these things get expensive, you probably don’t do these as consistently as you would like. With social networks, you will be able to be very consistent. In fact, it is a necessity.

When you market now, you probably spend a fair amount of time talking about your business and hoping your message will reach people who are ready to buy. This traditional form of marketing could also be called interruption marketing.

So, it would make sense if you tried the same tactics on social media. You may think that the best thing you can do on Twitter and in your newsletter is to provide deals and advertisements for your business. When you first start out, you will likely want to talk about your business all of the time. That is what you are used to doing. You get sales by telling people what you do.

Let me intervene right here. If there was a television station that was all commercials, all of the time, would you watch it? No, you would not. Likewise, people will not pay attention to you online if you are a 24/7 commercial. Its okay to make some mistakes when you get started. But in order to make social media worthwhile for your business, you need to get a feel for what it is all about.

How Long Does it Take to Get Comfortable?

Getting comfortable with social media tools is an important aspect of your success. If you don’t “get it”, you will never make a dime and will be wasting your time.

“Getting it” involves more than learning the technology. You also need to learn the people. Your prospective customers don’t log in to Facebook with the hopes that they will see a promotion from your business. People aren’t interacting looking to buy. Instead, they are looking for entertainment, education, and answers to their problems.

What you need to do is take enough time building relationships so that you can get a feel for your prospects and how they use social media. Then you can position yourself to be an entertainer, and educator, or a problem-solver.

This takes buying in to the power of online relationships. If you think its all a gimmick, please feel free to stay away. If you don’t spend time on social networks yourself, you aren’t going to be able to find the perfect voice for your business. If you learn how to interact, on the other hand, you will be turning up all kinds of new opportunities for your business.

Should You Be Yourself or Not?

Making the decision about whether you should let your personality shine through on social networks needs to be informed by your own usage of these tools. The  question is whether  your business is interesting without your personality. Also, you need to recognize how important you are to your business’s brand.

Think about this. The most popular people on Twitter are, well, people.  Businesses get follows, but there is less of a personal connection. If you are going to be interacting and building relationships on social networks, it is much easier to do it as a person. And as a person, you can build trust and point people back to your business.

My answer to whether you should be yourself on social networks is a resounding yes. It starts with you taking a different view of social media than you take with your traditional marketing. In a way, social media is more about sales than marketing. This is because its about personal connections. When you are on Twitter or Facebook, your big goal should be to build a network. It is only later that you can tap that network to drive sales. And when you are ready to, you will already have a good understanding of what your prospects will respond to.

In the end, it does all come down to sales. But its not a numbers game. Social media allows you to build a group of qualified prospects that respect you first, and then buy from you second. It is hard to build this kind of network as a faceless business.

Don’t be afraid to be a person. You are a person when you make a sales call, or when you talk to a customer on the phone. Be the same person online. Join social networks as yourself and contribute to the conversations. You will have plenty of opportunities to talk about your business. And if you do decide to send out a special offer, at least there will be people listening.

photo credit: We-Present: Travel-UggBoy-The-Photographer!

Have a Small Business Question? Ask me and I will answer it here – email me with your question now.

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Bradford Shimp is the publisher of All Biz Answers. He is also the co-creator of Idea Anglers, a place to see your ideas come to life through collaboration. Follow on Twitter @bradfordshimp. Let Bradford help you with your business – visit BroadRiverCreative.com

To reach the widest audience possible on Twitter, you should be updating all day (and night). Of course, you can’t sit in front of the computer all of the time. So instead, you can schedule Tweets to go out automatically.

Don’t Let a Computer Take Over

Before we get any farther, let me add a pretty big warning. You don’t want a computer to be put in charge of what you do on Twitter. It is frowned upon to do auto-DMs when someone follows you, for instance. While it may bring in some clicks for your newsletter, it is far more advantageous to connect personally on Twitter. Twitter, after all, helps to make the internet personal again.

You also want to avoid pushing tweets all day long that are either the same, or obviously generated by a computer. No one wants the same tweet to show up ten times that says, “Hey, check out my awesome site!” You should commit to keeping Twitter personal.

Scheduled but Personal

That being said, you can be personal and use scheduled updates at the same time. Here’s how. Use a tweet scheduling tool like Hootsuite to write personal and interesting tweets for the day. Then just schedule them to go out at various times.

You should plan on spending some personal time on Twitter throughout the day to reply, retweet, and engage in conversation. If you never do this and always schedule your updates, you will be missing out on the most important part of Twitter, which is interaction.

The Tweet Schedule Formula

So, how should you tweet schedule look? Lets say that you blog for your business every day. You also have an offer that you want to extend to your followers, lets say a free ebook for signing up for your newsletter. Here is how you should consider scheduling your tweets for the day:

40%- Tweets about your new blog post, with a different message in each one. Make the message itself interesting and useful, whether or not the reader has time to click on the link.

10%- Tweets about your offer.

25%- Tweets that point to another blog post you have read that you think your readers will find interesting. Again, make the message itself interesting and useful, as long as it has something to do with the post.

25%- General message tweets without a link. Could be quotes, inspirational messages, or personal updates. Or just about anything else.

You can play with these numbers to find a formula that works for you. The idea is to include more than just your self-serving links. Not that its bad to share them, as long as they have true benefit for your followers.

If you use Hootsuite, you can track your click throughs. This is helpful because you will be able to fine tune what time of day is best for posting your linked updates.

photo credit: Yandle

Have a Small Business Question? Ask me and I will answer it here – email me with your question now.

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Bradford Shimp is the publisher of All Biz Answers. He is also the co-creator of Idea Anglers, a place to see your ideas come to life through collaboration. Follow on Twitter @bradfordshimp. Let Bradford help you with your business – visit BroadRiverCreative.com