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Social Media Marketing – Should You Join Little Social Networks

Tara Jacobsen — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:10:32 +0000

Social media marketing, is not having friends or connecting with old acquaintances, but actual marketing that is about brand building, getting new opportunities and when possible, generating leads for your business.

Social networks (like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+) are places where people gather to communicate, share pictures of their doggies, quotes, and just random bits of their life. If you had asked someone even a few years ago if having an omelet for breakfast would be worth telling the world about, they would have looked at you like you had a brain problem, but many of us now share A LOT of the minutia of everyday life online through these media.

Right now, there are some main social networks where people share their info and which communicate with each other pretty well:

Facebook (first really big one)
Twitter (great for searching, computers and getting to people you never thought you could reach!)
LinkedIn (more for industry, not just a job board anymore but not as SOCIAL unless you can devote a LOT of time and attention)
Google+ (a late-comer but owned by google so fast out of the gate and one of my favorites!)
Foursquare (good for local businesses)

Time

So how do you decide how many social networks you should join? I go by which ones have the most people that I am going to get opportunities from. What kinds of opportunities do you ask? People to sign up for my mailing lists, opportunities to speak on webinars or in person, leads for our social media marketing company, potential coaching clients, basically the same leads I am trying to get by writing targeted blog posts every day or so.

Notice I did not say sales. In service industries or big ticket training programs or expensive products, the chance that I will post something and someone will buy it on the spot are pretty slim. NOPE, social media marketing is about kissing the girl, not getting to third base on the first try! (thanks to that nice @garyvee for the Paradise By The Dashboard Light analogy)

Okay, most small biz owners are overwhelmed, disgusted or confused by social media. What is it, why do they need it and how should they fit it into their already busy schedule?

We work with small biz owners to help implement a social media marketing plan that will work for their company! Find out more about our social media marketing services or call today to talk with real live human being! 727-415-9165

How Do They Make Money?

The next thing I check is how do they make money. Google makes money from selling advertising, Twitter has a less clear profit model, but they are working on it. Facebook sells ads and LinkedIn sells premium memberships with enhanced communication capabilities.

Little social networks that want to grow up to make lots of money need people. They will make VERY little on the front end and OOODLES when they have millions of users. Unfortunately, with the exception of the big 4, I have not found other social networks with lots of people yet. Not to say someone won’t come along BUT it doesn’t make sense for me TIMEWISE to join 100 little networks, hoping that they will grow.

I will give you a perfect example…Plaxo. Plaxo came along early and was very proactive about connecting with Facebook, in fact, you could have all your FB posts go over to Plaxo. Huh, not as many people, same stuff over there as is on Facebook….why not just use Facebook?

But Someone Asked Me To Join A Little Social Network and I Don’t Want To Disappoint Them!

Because I have big networks across multitudes of platforms, I get “invited” by other people to join other networks that they belong to. Little networks with nothing particular to set them apart from the big networks I have. Some warning signs of little networks that are not wise to spend your time on:

it is a “craigs list” style website – why not just use craigs list?
like facebook, with a little linkedin and some twitter thrown in – seriously? first off, having that many interfaces would be a nightmare to use and again – why not use the ACTUAL Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter?
NOT like Facebook, we focus on creating relationships with our members – Facebook COULD be about relationships if you choose to use it that way, so could Twitter and LinkedIn

So Do You HATE All Little Social Networks?

I do NOT hate little social networks with a purpose other than copying big social networks.

I have a client who started a social network for lightworkers and metaphysical people (who I believe are an underserved market) and is busting her ass to get members and grow her business. I belong to this and contribute to her offerings when I can BECAUSE her client base are people who fit well into the consultation and coaching part of my business.

There are some up and coming social networks I like a lot (some are tools for using with social networks but they have a social factor too!)

Pintrest – a visual kind of bulletin board where you share social stuff
Instagram – Mobile picture sharing site that works with Facebook
Spotify – for music sharing
Tumblr – a micro posting site (this one is a dark horse, have it on here because there are socially connected people pushing for it!)
Klout – tracking your social capitol and can share with others (I am writing a whole post about this one – keep your peepers open for it!)

So how did I pick this list? They are ones that come on my radar because friends use them or they get press or I just find them cool. That does NOT mean that I should spend all of my time growing friends and followers on them, but it does mean I will make an account and see how it goes, using them when I have time.

So let’s cut to the chase, if you are doing social media marketing and are focused on it as an aspect of brand building, networking and promoting your business, joining a million little social network wanna-bees does not make sense. What does make sense is to focus on the big 4 and have a smaller presence on a few smaller networks that make sense to you personally!

If you have a network that you ADORE and want to share here, please leave a comment and I will review it…we all may find a great new “place”! If you are just a spammer, I read all comments before publishing so don’t waste your time!!!

Social Media Marketing Mistakes – Not A Good Start

Tara Jacobsen — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 15:40:06 +0000

Social media marketing mistakes come in all shapes and sizes but one the major pitfalls is have a (REALLY) bad start! This paired with having your security settings dialed so far back that no one can see anything will really hurt your social media marketing efforts!

Social Media Marketing Mistakes – No Photo

When you first set up your accounts, they want you to use a photo of yourself, an avatar that you use frequently (like I do) or even in a pinch your company logo.

If you have no photo uploaded on your profile, you will show the default for that website (this picture is of my FourSquare account and the people who want to be my friends). If you were looking at this, what would your impressions be? I connected with the happy gentleman, Robert B. and did NOT connect with the one that was blatantly marketing their logo (badly) or the two people who didn’t bother to have a photo or even a bad logo.

Facebook and photos. Okay, we have LOTS of clients and many of them do not want to use their own photo on Facebook. They use a picture of their dog (strange), a picture of their child (creepy to be friending a 5 year old), a quote or other things that give no indication of who they are. BELIEVE ME, I hate every photo ever taken of me so years ago I started using an avatar of me for everything. Not the best answer, but at least branding-wise I am consistent and there is a human face for people to gravitate towards.

As you see in this picture, the two top people did not have a photo so I did NOT “friend” them.

Okay, most small biz owners are overwhelmed, disgusted or confused by social media. What is it, why do they need it and how should they fit it into their already busy schedule?

People who are approving your friend requests make these types of decisions in a split second, one at a time so Step 1 – make sure your social media profile has a photo, preferably of a person.

Starting Your Social Media With No Info

Okay, this one really hit a nerve with me for the blatant problems I see. While his identity has been hidden to protect him, I do not consider him innocent of the crime of bad social media!

First off, he looks like serial killer! The picture taken from his computer with the light behind him is TERRIBLE and threatening!
Secondly, he hasn’t added any posts before circling me so there is no reason for me to add him to my circles (a real missed opportuntity)
Finally, I checked his about us page and there was nothing on there except his home town – fail

Okay people, I have been doing this internetty thing for a while now and was fortunate to start early when it didn’t matter if you posted good stuff or had good pictures or even that you were interesting, but times have changed and you have to put at least a little effort to get any results.

Social Media Marketing Mistakes – Bad Privacy Settings

I KNOW you have heard all the “stranger danger” talk on the Facebook about how if you don’t have all of your privacy settings dialed back to the nth degree murderers and thieves will be able to steal your identity, plunder your home and ravish your wife.

Okay, a little dramatic but seriously, the other day someone sent out a “DANGER, DANGER” message that people could see your phone number on Facebook if you didn’t set your privacy right. Okay…my phone number is on my website, my business cards and my marketing materials. Having some Facebook people see it too is not that big a deal. (in fact I wrote a whole post about this you might want to read Small Business Marketing and Facebook Privacy Settings if you would like to find out more)

Seriously, does this lady think that I will just approve her friend request with knowing anything about her. No hometown, no interests, no work, no nothing? NOT!

So in conclusion, don’t be “that guy” and make these social media marketing mistakes. If you are using social media for your small business, make sure you take a little time, look over your stuff and see if you need to make some tweeks to increase your effectiveness!

What To Say On Your Facebook Profile For Business – Social Media Marketing

Tara Jacobsen — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 16:26:26 +0000

What to say on your Facebook profile for your business? This is a big one for many small business owners. While you do want to jump into the conversation or post witty remarks, you also don’t want to be the schmoe who does a mis-step or ruins your company with a badly worded post. So what SHOULD you say on Facebook?

Posting as a human

Let’s start with who you are posting as. First off, you post as a human on your profile page. These posts can be fun and humorous, related to your favorite causes or charities, about your pets, kids, travels, etc.

What they should ALSO be is about your business. If you meet me for cocktails at happy hour, you will notice that I talk about marketing A LOT. It is my business but also my passion. With this in mind, I post marketing things on my Facebook wall often and the people who know me in real life know that this is what is like to be around me. That having been said, I DO NOT often post “sell me” messages on there. For instance:

I WOULD say, “getting ready for my class on social media marketing on Tuesday, the handout is going to be AMAZING”
I WOULD NOT say, “sign up for my class on social media marketing, the price is $49″

Overt selling should be done on your business page which you can share (infrequently) on your profile. Now, I do have one friend who has been VERY successful selling HARD on her profile, BUT she has grown a following two or three times over as her human keeps getting banned from Facebook for violating the terms of service. Here at Marketing Artfully, we focus on growing sustainable, long term internet properties so I do not recommend that, BUT it is one way of doing things.

Don’t forget, posting (putting up your own content) is only half of the equation. Commenting on other people’s posts is also a way to get engaged. In this post, I shared a bit about myself, mentioning my father-in-law and commenting on this post. The author (a person who is not a friend friend, commented back, strengthening our online friendship.

I KNOW, Facebook friends are not “real”, EXCEPT that I had a Christmas party at my home and two of the 30 or so people there were ONLY Facebook friends who I had never met in real life before. SO happy to get some new peeps and have a great story to tell here!!!

This post is by a real life friend, but is one of my favorite quotes of all time. It is empowering and uplifting and would in no way embarrass any business owner who posted it.

So great quotes, uplifting pictures, info about a charity or event that helps others is ALWAYS acceptable!

What NOT To Post On Your Facebook Profile For Business

This one is SO going to get me in trouble but I have to say it…STOP posting information about politics, religion and sex if you are using your Facebook for business. If you are only using it for personal use, talk about whatever you like!

If you are posting about politics, religion or sex, it may seem like you have finally found an outlet for your passions. There is a platform where you can find like minded people who will commiserate and agree with your point of view (or argue with you if you like that kind of thing). That having been said, it comes across as being angry… angry at the government, angry at the people who don’t share your religious viewpoints, angry at people who do not share your opinions on same sex marriage, abortion, gun ownership, the death penalty or any of the other polarizing issues that face us every day.

As a small business owner, let’s just look at politics. Our country is almost equally divided between Democrats and Republicans. Can you truly afford to alienate HALF of your potential customers by airing your political opinions on a platform that just keeps getting bigger and bigger each day? That is a really big line in the sand to draw when it comes to making a living.

What To Talk About For Business On Your Profile

Here are just some of the things that are great to post:

Links to articles or videos about your industry that you or someone else has posted
Gentle sales messages about your products or services (one example is to put a picture about the new item you added to your shop and how excited you are about it, NOT this is available today for $17.95)
Pictures of you at work
Pictures of you with your happy clients
Pictures of your pets, kids, house
Uplifting quotes, photos, sayings
Shoutouts to friends or clients (use the tagging feature of Facebook)
Links to help your favorite charities (I recently helped to get a pre-school a new roof by sharing a Pepsi contest for them)
Things in your life you are proud of like your kids accomplishments, new clients, major milestones like accomplishing goals
Funny things you find (I am not that into funny things, but they are some of the most shared items on Facebook!)

Basically, if you find something interesting, post it! I would recommend that they all be positive rather than negative (do YOU like hanging around with someone who is bitching about everything all the time?)

If I have missed anything, please do not hesitate to post a comment! OR if this sounds like too much work, check out our Social Media Marketing Services page to find out how to get some help!

thanks to Logo & Wallpaper collection for the photo!

Facebook New And Improved Friend Lists! Social Media Marketing

Tara Jacobsen — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:55:10 +0000

SO glad Facebook rolled out their new and improved friend lists! Social media marketing is hard enough without fighting the network’s algorithms to see content and have people to interact with!

So what does this mean to us as marketers? For me, it means getting to see MUCH more of what is going on with people who are important to growing my business, keeping clients happy and more!

Client Example - I have a “Clients” list, knowing that their child had a great day at soccer may not be vital to our business relationship, BUT sometimes they do post things that are important to acknowledge. Being able to pop in and check what my clients are talking about is one of the things I like about Google Plus!

Additionally, I can keep and eye on what prospects are talking about and jump in with helpful ideas, which COULD lead to them hiring my company for their social media marketing services.

Check out Facebook’s Improved Friend List Post

To me this is a gamechanger for Facebook IF the majority of the 500 million users figure out how to use it! Because Facebook so severely limits the posts that show up in the recent wall, views of client’s posts have dropped dramatically. Here is a great post about how using Hootsuite can decrease your posts edge rank.

As with everything new on the social networks, we will have to see how this works for increasing interaction, BUT I have to say that it is definitely a step in the right direction. I am SERIOUSLY PRO the new Facebook Friend list changes!

The BIGGEST Facebook Mistake – Social Media Marketing

Tara Jacobsen — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 18:12:55 +0000

This is UNIVERSALLY the BIGGEST Facebook mistake made by small business owners, entrepreneurs and Realtors. If you are doing social media marketing, you need to check this today!

You are sitting at your email and BAM…you find out that people can see your email address on Facebook! The sender makes it seem like that is HORRIFIC so you rush right over to Facebook and change your privacy settings so NO ONE can see your email, darnit! Now, most of us have our email on our business cards and websites, so I am not sure this is the tragedy that you might think…

but BAM…oh my gosh, another email saying that you need fix your contact settings so no one can see your phone number…trotting to Facebook to dial back my digits…

BAM…just read a web post that said stalkers like to use your photos from Facebook to track you down and murder you in your sleep…Facebook…no photos…

BAM…shoot they are reading my wall posts and stealing my identity…no wall posts…

BAM….holy heck…have to make HTTPS because someone sat in a Starbucks and stole 50 Facebook logins in 27 seconds…

Okay, you may have figured out that this is all ridiculous hype that is just feeding into the fear that most people have about social media. Seriously, take a step back and THINK before you buy into a scary email and think about how it will effect the number of “friends” you get!

The picture to the left shows the difference between someone who has hidden ALL of her information and someone who allows at least a little information to show so that people can make a good decision whether to “friend” her or not! The lady on the left was kind enough to let me know she was female, but NOTHING ELSE. No job, no location, no photos, no wall, no nothing. She asked me to be her friend so I know she is trying to gain friends, but her privacy settings are so dialed back that she is effectively a non-person when I check to see if I should like her.

The BIGGEST Facebook Mistake – Social Media Marketing

I had over 50 friend requests on Facebook and thought I would walk you through the decision making process of how people are deciding whether to friend you or not. You have probably never sat and watched how someone goes through their friend requests so this could be pretty eye opening!

So, if you got through all 12 minutes of Facebook Profile mistakes, you know why it is so important to make sure your settings allow people to see more about you than whether you are male or female! Take a couple of minutes today and unhide all that great info about you that will make someone want to make friends with you!!!

Social Media Marketing – How To Get Comments On Your Posts

Tara Jacobsen — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 15:41:48 +0000

Social media marketing is a bear! It can feel like you are posting all day and no one is commenting or even listening. Don’t let a lack of comments get you down, you never know who might be out there watching and not talking.

The picture that I have on this post was taken out front of my house with an iPhone and the app TruHDR (one of my faves). I noticed when I got inside that I had my thumb in the picture – doh! If I was “smart” I would have cropped it out and had a “good” picture to post (most of our clients want everything to be perfect). What I did was post it to my Facebook with the comment, “they are paving the road! and my thumb…:)”. I got 7 comments and a couple of likes. Social media is about being human and humans are not always scripted and perfect.

This goes for companies too! When Dominos Pizza started losing market share, they did not curl up and die, they said that they would have to change their sauce and the quality of their pizza and sales rose. Many small biz owners are SO concerned that they look perfect that they become bland and boring! Snazzy it up a bit! If you would like to find out about other companies who have admitted to being less than perfect, check out the Washington Post’s, Behind Domino’s mea culpa ad campaign.

Does It Matter How Many Comments You Get?

Getting blog comments and getting social media comments follow the same formula as all regular human interaction. There is research from 2006 that shows this perfectly (and given that the stats haven’t changed in the intervening years, tend to be pretty compelling). According to Jakob Nielsen,

In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.

So think about that, for each commenter you have on one of your posts, there are potentially 90 people who will see it and never comment, BUT they saw it none-the-less! This is why you will go to a party and have someone you have never heard of say, “I am your Facebook friend” or “I see you on Google Plus all the time”. They see YOU and what you are doing, whether they talk to you online or not!

Funniest part of the Participation Inequality post was, “How to Overcome Participation Inequality – You can’t.” You can’t make people comment if they don’t want to, you can only post things that ENCOURAGE commenting and hope that someone jumps in to get the ball rolling.

Additionally, (I promise I will get to ideas of what to post to get comments soon), you need to be aware of WHEN you are posting things and who might be online at the time. If you are a nightbird and posting all your “stuff” at midnight, it may be pushed down everyone’s wall by the time they get up, OR you may have a hoard of people who are all up in the middle of the night with you who jump in to comment because there is not all that much else going on.

Timezones and posting matter too! If you are trying to target overseas customers, working on Eastern time won’t cut it. You are going to have to do some posting and commenting when it is mid morning and early evening THEIR time. Test this and see if it makes a difference in how many comments you get!

Social Media Ideas – What To Post To Get Comments On Your Posts

If you skipped down here, go up and read the rest, we will wait for you..:)

Personal items – The people working on the street outside my house are not inherently interesting, BUT it shows that I do not talk about marketing and small business all the time! It makes me more of a person and less of a company. I would say if you use social media for business that you should not talk about your baby, dog, husband, girlfriend or any other super personal thing TOO MUCH but that doesn’t mean that you can never talk about them! One guy who really gets this right is Daniel Webster Johnson. He is a Colorado Realtor who traipses around every morning taking pretty pictures of the Colorado countryside and his dog. It REALLY works for him!
Quotations – Now please note, these should only be quotations that have meaning to you. Just popping something up there everyday with no background as to why it is interesting is not that great a practive. I like quotationspage.com for quotes, the search engine is good and they have LOTS! Another good things to do is make up your own quotes – one fellow, Imran Rahman, has Imranisms. It always gives me a chuckle to see what he has posted!
Selling With People – You CAN sell if you are giving credit to other people at the same time! Kirsten McKay Smith is especially good at it on her Passion Rockstars page which is a clearinghouse for her to talk to her team (and people who follow it may also want to become a member of her team after seeing how neat she is!)
Great Links From Your Industry – I am always looking for new things that could help my clients increase traffic or get more clients. Frequently I find good resources that I share with my online community. I also save these for my newsletter so they do double duty!
Post your videos – people like to see interesting things and if you can pop out a quicky video about your industry or a topic that will appeal to everyone, you can get some good interaction. Remember to be QUICK! 2 minutes or less.
Things from your past that are interesting – Could be reference to Woodstock from our baby boomer friends or a really great Muppet Movie clip. Just make sure you let us know WHY it is important to you!
Open Ended Questions – Ask your friends and circles an INTERESTING question that does not work with a yes or no answer. According to Buddy Media, Posts that END with a question (rather than having it at the beginning or middle) have a 15% higher engagement rate.
Trending topics – It is okay to comment on current events, I just make sure to stay out of religion and politics. Just think, if you are PRO REPUBLICAN or PRO DEMOCRAT, you are effectively alienating about half of the rest of your customers. I had a funny thing happen the other day, a fellow who was selling insurance threw out the term “Obamacare” and giggled like it was stupid. I can tell you, he DID NOT KNOW that would be offensive to some people in the room who would then choose someone else to work with. I KNOW, some people like to be very partisan on their social media and that is their choice. As a small business owner, I cannot afford to lose that many potential new clients. Nuff said.

The NUMBER ONE Most Important Social Media Commenting Idea!

Talk back. That is right, if you get one comment, talk back. If you get two, talk back again. People are more apt to interact with your posts if they know that there is a real person on the other side! If someone posts something nice on your wall, thank them. In general, just interact as you would with plain old humans you would come into contact in your day-to-day life.

If this sounds like TOO MUCH WORK, check out our Social Media Marketing Services!

Social Media Marketing – Questions By The Numbers

Tara Jacobsen — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 17:00:06 +0000

Social media marketing is all the rage in the media! For our small biz owners it has become a must have line item in their advertising budget, but does the hype match the numbers. Here is my take on a really cool infographic from Mashable about the numbers behind social media!

So let’s start out on the right foot – some of the numbers are for brands like Coca Cola with VERY deep pockets. Our small business owners and entrepreneurs are much less likely to have budgets to match big brands like AE Games and Under Armour, BUT we can take some tips from them for our own social media marketing efforts!

The Good About The Social Media Marketing Numbers

4 Billion – The number of things shared on Facebook every day. Facebook is a place for sharing information about your business in a SOCIAL way, not a “sell my stuff” way. Using Facebook to curate content is a wonderful way to make yourself a thought leader in your space. Additionally you CAN use it to sell, just not directly. So, for a realtor, they can post a picture with a message that they saw a great house that their first time home buyer did not like but which they thought was great! This Realtor has just said a number of different things, first that they are still in business (sad but true, people need to hear this frequently in this day and age). Second that they work with first time home buyers and third they have the opportunity that ANOTHER buyer might raise their hand and ask questions about that house.

400 – the number of checkins at New York Steak House Angelo & Maxie’s in 45 days. Holy cow, if this is the number on an infographic, it is a pretty big number. I can’t help but think that with a little bit of a concerted effort, our restaurant marketing customers could get numbers like that in 45 days! Simply by offering a free drink with proof of checkin, you could get a fair number of people to sign up per day, and all you need is 10 a day to make it!

The Bad About The Social Media Marketing Numbers

65.5 Million – the number of plays for Evian’s “Roller Skating Babies” over 2 years. The thing that drives me mad about this is…wait for it…how much more water did they sell? Did paying A LOT of money to have CGI babies made actually increase the sales of their product. With over 290,000 results on google for a search about this campaign, I was unable to find out how much the ad cost or the ROI on the campaign. Our clients see numbers in the millions and want that for their videos. Let me tell you, the chances of a video about a dog bed going viral are nil. The better thing for small biz owners to do is make great videos and A LOT of them. The more videos you have, the more of a chance that you will find an audience who comes back again and again as raging fans.

Propaganda About How Great The Ad Is
Skating Babies Make Evian Commercial a YouTube Hit [Video]

52% – the percent of ACTIVE Facebook users that use the site each day. – people see the 52% and think it is half of 750 million. Not so, it is half of the number of active users which Facebook does not post on their Facebook Stats page.

4 Billion – The number of things shared on Facebook every day. This is a tricky one because it was in the good things too! The fact that 4 BILLION things get shared means that your sharing is less than a drop in the bucket and that the chances of everyone seeing your post is non-existant. I have to tell you, I have close to 4,000 friends and I know that the number people that actually see what I post is a much smaller number than that. Facebook picks and chooses among the things that your friends post to see if they are “important” enough to show you in the Recent Feeds. Unfortunately for me, they do not think that my Father In Law’s or husband’s posts are interesting enough to show me. If I cannot see family posts, what are the chances that your customers are seeing your sales messages?

The Ugly About The Social Media Marketing Numbers

$1.34 – Eventbrite sales driven by a Facebook Like as compared to just 80 cents for a tweet – This to me is INCREDIBLY telling. While we can pay for fake likes for our clients, having them will not increase sales or ROI. That means that the cost of getting real likes has increased dramatically along with cost per sale for those people who do like the page. Twitter, on the other hand with their open system, allows us to post and follow and interact globally without the increased cost of Facebook’s closed system.

11% – the percentage of people who say they would buy something that was only offered to Facebook fans – So you work up a huge Facebook campaign, pay Facebook to get users to your fan page (there has been a 70% increase in the price of Facebook ads during the first half of 2011) and then have the slight chance that one of those 11 out of a hundred would buy? Give me a break.

Social Media Marketing By The Numbers Wrap Up

I am sure if you have gotten this far you think I am anti social media marketing which is weird because that is what we sell! I am SO NOT anti social media marketing, I am anti social media hype. We spend a good part of the day explaining to clients that social media is like the yellow pages of old:

You have to have a social media presence to be in business. The yellow pages cost about $800 per month and was just a cost of doing business. You had to have your company in there or people did not know you were in business. Social media is like that!
Your customers and potential customers WILL check to see if you are active on these social media platforms. Think about it, if you were going to hire someone and pay them thousands of dollars, don’t you think you would google them to see what is going on with them? The surprising thing is that even if they are going to pay you $60, they are still checking to see if you are a viable company.
The Yellow Pages didn’t sell anything. For some reason, social media customers think that their Facebook Fan Page is going to sell for them. The Yellow Pages did not sell for them so why should social media. In the good old days, you would get a phone call and someone would ask about your business and what you had to offer. THEN then would come down and check you out. OR they would come down to see you and a salesperson would approach and say, “how can I help you?”, after which you might make a sale.

I think that if small business owners look at social media marketing services as a way to increase brand awareness, lead generate and stay in communication with customers and prospects, they will probably be happy with the results. If they think that social media marketing is going to bring hordes of buyers knocking down their doors, they are probably going to be sadly disappointed AND don’t get me started on how long it takes to grow big networks, that is definitely a post for a different time!

Social Media Marketing – Twitter Hashtags or Facebook Page

Tara Jacobsen — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 13:44:20 +0000

Social media marketing is a big part of what we do today to promote our clients and I am always checking out what the “big money” is doing! Are they using Twitter Hashtags or Facebook pages as the call to action?

Yesterday I was watching the boob tube and saw the trailer for 30 Minutes or Less, a summer slapstick comedy thingy that I would NEVER go to see BUT I was facinated by their call to action!

Most movies and big brands are using a Facebook page as their call to action. The cool thing about this is that there was no mention of Facebook at all, just a twitter hashtag at the end – #30MOL (30 Minutes Or Less).

So why is that exciting to a small business marketer like myself? Here are my take-aways for small business:

By giving a hashtag for the twitter-verse to use, they make sure that EVERYONE is using the same tag – hashtags are democratic and there is no set list for what to use. Had they not done that, there could have been hundreds of different streams of talk on twitter about the movie, but they would have lost the impact of millions of tweets and their topic trending.
I find it VERY interesting that the customer demographics for marketing purposes must have shown a trend for their movie watchers to be on twitter more than on Facebook. One of the reasons that I pay attention to these things is that I do not have multi-million dollar marketing budgets to use for research. This movie having Twitter hashtags instead of a Facebook page may signal that there is a shift from Facebook to Twitter in the age demographic they are targeting.
Doing a Twitter search for the hashtag shows that they are already getting buzz – mostly that people cannot wait for the movie to come out. NOW, if you think Twitter is stupid, you probably don’t get why this matters or why they should talk about it, BUT… This is what we are always saying, some people like twitter, some people like Facebook, some of us LOVE Google Plus, no matter your feelings, when you market your business you HAVE to hit all the large social media outlets!
While the TV trailer did have the Twitter, the actual 30 Minutes Or Less webpage had a “like this on Facebook” top and center (with 303,189 likes right now – days before the opening).

I have to say that I feel the same as Mr. @Smellsworth – I like to encourage big business when they do something different!

So how does this affect little business? Well, in your small business marketing efforts, you may want to include a fun hashtag. We have a chicken farmer coming on board and may be using #chickenchat for his hashtag. Remember, just designating a hashtag doesn’t mean anything unless you promote it so keep your eyes out for upcoming Twitter Hashtag (and chicken) updates!

Is Google Plus A Facebook Killer?

Tara Jacobsen — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 13:14:50 +0000

Google Plus is setting out to be a Facebook Killer. Thanks to my friend Cyndee Haydon, Clearwater Realtor, I am IN and messing around with the new system!

So, what does this new social media platform mean for real small business owners RIGHT NOW? Not so much. Like all social media thingy-ma-bobbies, if you are not going to participate, you will get no results. That having been said, if someone invites you, make sure to sign up! (Check out my post on Social Networking First Responder Advantages).

So after an extensive 10 minute mess around with Google Plus, what are my feelings?

I like google – all of my google stuff is hooked together and they pulled my contact list in, set up my profile for me and generally it works like the other google stuff so I am happy!
HUGE PRO – It seems to have WAY more control of who sees what you post. You set up circles and can then share things with just people in those circles or publicly.
It has a place to upload videos – not sure yet if these will then be on YouTube – more on that to come when I have more time to mess around.
Cons – there aren’t many people on it yet so it is not so interesting.
Cons – you have to be invited by someone already using it, a la the start of gmail when you had to get an invite.
The interface is truly lovely, plain and easy to use!
Did not see a business page section yet – have to see how this plays out!

So, does this mean that Google Plus is going to be a Facebook Killer? Who knows? Facebook has a gagillion people using their service BUT they have lost sight of WHY some people use it.

In my social media workers world, we all have noticed that getting a business page “liked” is almost impossible at this point. You can no longer “suggest to friends” as they don’t send an email to notify someone that you suggested that page. You can’t upload your database, well you can, BUT they do not tell anyone you did that so no one responds. The general consensus is that Facebook wants us to pay for ads to get pages “liked”. Well, not sure of the great value of having lots of likes AND if they are going to spend hard earned money elsewhere, we would rather have our peeps pay to have their website or blog visited than to have their Facebook page liked.

At every social media class I give I remind them of AOL. I was in internet hosting and website development in 2001 and AOL was HUGE. When they merged with Time Warner, it was AOL who did merging. Well, today they are no longer a player and popular culture things do come and go! The best way to use Social Media for your small business is to stay agnostic. Do a little of FB, a little Twitter, some LinkedIn, LOTS of YouTubes (had to throw that one in) and now a bit of Google Plus.

I KNOW, we all wish there was just one thing we had to like the Yellow Pages in the old days, but those days are gone. We don’t know if Google Plus will be a Facebook killer but we do know that something will be. Worth the time to set up your Google plus if you get an invite and then wait and see!!!

What Social Media Marketing Is Not!

Tara Jacobsen — Fri, 13 May 2011 13:08:47 +0000

Social media has become the buzz word for small business marketing. Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon and get a piece of this new media channel, without realizing that there is a huge amount of time that needs to go into their efforts.

At first, when small biz owners decide to use the Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn to grow their customers and prospects, they are all shiney and happy. They are going to get a piece of those 600 million people, all ready to buy their product or service TODAY and all it takes is a little tweeting, right?

They set up their profiles, but don’t want to give TOO much personal information because, really, what does it matter, they are just here to SELL, SELL, SELL! Then they wait for the orders to roll in. Tick, tock, tick, tock. No orders.

What happened? Social media marketing is the promise that all you have to do is show up and great things will happen, right?

The Real World of Social Media Marketing

I liked when social media marketing was originally called social networking. That is truly a more descriptive term for what happens on the different internet properties. I KNOW, you have heard that it is like a real-life networking event and you get it, BUT…

There are no buts about social networking, it is JUST like real world networking. You “meet” someone through Twitter or Facebook, say something nice about what they are doing, talk back and forth with them and establish a connection that will hopefully lead to a sale or referral somewhere down the line.

You would not attend your first networking event with new people and start by handing out credit card signup forms, would you? Not if you want to be invited back! When you are getting started with social media marketing, dip a toe into the waters and offer something of value to the people who are considering increasing your relationship.

Setting Up A Social Media Strategy

So what exactly SHOULD you do to increase your likability on social media? Here are some of the things that small biz owners can do:

Post relevant industry information that would be interesting to readers (for a painter, this could mean posting the new colors for the season with a comment about how that translates to their geographic location)
Make Friends, Likes, Followers and Connections in your geographic area and share interesting events and information (for Realtors, this could mean posting area happenings, links to attractions and only then, open house events and new listings)
Find complementary links (for an exercise guru, posting healthy recipes makes sense)
Share your clients and prospects triumphs (if someone has something great that they post, share it or retweet it to your following!)

What Is A Good Sales To Information Ratio

We get this question A LOT! A good sales to information ratio on social media is at least 5 to 1. Five non-sales, non-selfish posts to one salesy, or self serving posts. Again, this goes back to real-world networking! If you are at an event and introducing a friend around to everyone, talking her up to the crowd and generally helping her business, when you do slide in a request to sit down and talk business, she is more receptive to hearing what you have to say.

Some Final Tips

First, don’t try to be fake on social media. If you are a nerdy, engineer type in person, your online friends will like you for that on Social Media. Outgoing and crazy in real-life, you have much more latitude to cut it up online. Remember, at the end of the day, if you are successful at getting a sale, you are still the one that will show up to work with them!

Second, unless you are truly passionate about politics or religion, keep it off your Social Media radar. Talking too much about left or right wing politics can turn off roughly 50% of the people who might have wanted to work with you. Having EVERY post reference your religious preference can be off-putting to the online people you connect with. That having been said, if you live and breathe these topics, it will show up when you do anyways and being fake won’t change that!

Third, get ready for changes. It used to be that we could buy a yellow page ad once a year and be done with marketing. Now-a-days, you have to be willing to roll with the changes that happen, sometimes on a daily basis. Something that works great for you on Facebook may change overnight and you must be willing to adapt. Accounts get frozen or canceled, groups come and go, but once you have the ability to build big networks, you just move on and start building again. The one company that I always think of when I start to get complacent is AOL. If I had told you in 2001 that AOL would out of the picture by the middle of the decade, you would have been astounded. Networks change, sites change and it is the bold marketer who takes those changes and makes a great impact!