Welcome to Social Proof, a series of Guest Blogs from business professionals discussing real results from real social media and digital marketing.
By Kevin Knauss
Independent Insurance Agent
www.insuremekevin.comSocial Media was a little overwhelming at first, then I figured out how to use it for world domination.
[caption id="attachment_910" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="My Social Media Experiment"]

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Back in the fall of 2010 I sat quietly in the back of a room waiting for a seminar on Social Media to begin. Actually, I didnt know how watching TV news with a bunch of friends was going to help my business. While the take away message from that little seminar was Pitch your products to your 23 Facebook friends, I caught a glimpse of how Social Media could work for me.Without too much preparation, I dove into the Social Media swimming pool hoping that it was not empty. Over the next several months I went to numerous free Social Media talks and spent hours trying to understand the applications on the computer and smartphone.To date, I am currently using the following applications.While I am on all these applications, that doesnt necessarily mean I have leveraged them to their fullest potential. I am still learning how best to integrate all the applications to drive traffic to my website and connect with people in a positive manner.As an independent insurance agent I am fortunate enough to have the time and few restrictions to pursue a Social Media strategy for my business. Insurance prospecting is also highly specialized with lots of marketing avenues. For instance, I have the ability to purchase insurance leads from companies that capture consumer information entered at insurance quoting websites. (For my take on these scams see my blog post Beware Insurance Quoting Websites) These leads cost between $8 $15 for a health insurance prospect. This gives me a general benchmark figure for the cost of lead acquisition. Consequently, I know that the average cost of a lead through Social Media must be below the $10 level to be a competitive marketing strategy.Early on I set out my expectations and goals for Social Media marketing. First, I never expected that I would make direct sales from any application. Second, Social Media was to augment existing marketing efforts such as mailers and seminars. Lastly, while there was a faint goal of generating leads, I really just wanted to get my name and brand out into the community and generate traffic for my web site. As an aside, I have spent thousands of dollars on pay per click ads with virtually no results. I gravitated towards using Social Media because it fit my personality of being gregarious, sharing and conversational.After a year of using Social Media, going from zero to maybe 45 mph, I am having positive and meaningful results. The overall statistics associated with my website have increased: hits, page views, searches, and requests for quotes. Most of the traffic is driven by my blog posts, which is a part of my website. My Word Press site statistics tell me, key word searches that brought people to my site, if they clicked on any out bound links, downloaded information and who was the referring application: Facebook, Linked In, Twitter or other. The statistics continue to increase as I integrate more Social Media into my overall marketing strategy.The activity I am getting from Social Media is a confirmation that people are responding to me and not advertising. Similar to when I am at networking function, I never mention what I do. The last thing anyone wants is an elevator speech from an insurance guy or a Buy, Buy, Buy pitch on Social Media. People want interesting content not drivel posing as sales spam. If you follow me on any of the Social Media sites you know that I sometimes break the rules. It may be bad for my Brand to re-tweet certain political comments, but heck, have you read some of my blog posts?! From my perspective, when it comes to something as personal as health or life insurance, people want to work with folks they share common interests with. After reviewing my Social Media and web site and a potential client decides not to engage me, that is a win for both of us.Social Media has allowed me not only to generate leads, but to stay in touch with prospects. I sincerely dislike follow up phone calls in most situations. If a business prospect (that I may have quoted) has a Facebook fan page, I will Like it. In this manner, I keep in touch with the prospect, sharing posts or adding comments, which increases the reach of their business and I am not intrusive with phone calls. (Are you ready to buy yet, huh, huh, you ready?) This support for other people and their businesses has led to closed business for me.Social Media is not a one-way street. I have purchased goods and services from people I have connected with through Social Media. It is fun getting to know the person or business through Social Media. I also want to support those I have a common marketing interest with. Every week I learn a little more about how to upgrade, integrate, leverage and maximize Social Media for my business. I can see it becoming one of the primary drivers of my marketing and lead generation in the near future.November 22 Update: As Thanksgiving will shortly arrive, we have been pondering what and where to eat. I had remembered that a local restaurant had started following me on Twitter. I mentioned to my wife, Lets check out Scotts Seafood, they follow me on Twitter. Their tweets were informational and I had re-tweeted them several times. Truly, I never would have thought of Scotts unless we had engaged one another on Twitter. Now I am looking for to Thanksgiving dinner at a local restaurant. The power of Social Media, one little dinner at a time.
This blog was first published here by Kevin Knauss on Nov. 19, 2011.If you are interested in contributing to our series, Social Proof, please contact us via the form below. [contact-form-7 id="541" title="Contact form 1"]
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The way marketing used to work, you'd put your message in front of potential customers in the hopes that they were in the market for your product. You segmented your audience by interests, profession, geography, demographics, etc. You measured your reach by knowing the number of subscribers, viewers, listeners, etc. would have your message delivered to them. This was your campaign's "Reach."
In order to make sufficient impact, you needed to repeat your message enough times. twice per week in the newspaper, 12x per day on the radio, daily commuters pass your billboard, etc. This was your campaign's "Frequency."This old way of marketing is missing a key piece. The piece that is there between the time your message makes an impact with your prospect and your prospect makes a buying decision. The piece that is there when your prospect is doing their pre-purchase homework.Whether you are selling cars, jeans, lunch, legal services, or any other product, your customers today have access to more information about you, your business, and prior customers' experiences than ever before. Where your prospects once relied on friends and family for advice, they now turn to the Internet. They use search engines and social media to follow up on the advertising message you used to successfully interest them in your product or service.You must participate during this part of the process! Check it out for yourself. Do a search for your business. Search for your competitors. Search for your product category. Search for your product category and add the name of your town to the search. Search Google, Yahoo, Yelp, YP.com, Twitter and LinkedIn. Ask for advice from your friends on Facebook. By doing this, you are replicating the buying journey your prospects are taking.Are you happy with you found? Would you buy from you based on the resulting information you've gathered? If not, you need to add to your marketing plan.If you don't show up at all in your searches or are not on the top half of the first page, you need to start with a Search Engine Optimization program. This is something you can tackle on your own, but I suggest that unless you have the time and expertise, you should shop this out. After all, if you are web savvy enough to know how to do this, wouldn't you have done it by now?Next, take a look at your web page. Today, the web page has replaced the Yellow Pages ad as a static place holder that describes your business and services. Your web page needs to do more!Your web page needs to be the place where people can confirm your business or product knowledge. A place where people learn that not only do you offer a product or service, but why your product or service fits their needs. With all of the choices that your prospects have, your web site needs to be the place that tells them why they should buy from you.But wait! Before you start using your web site to tell how great you are, remember, your prospects are not looking for a hard-sell. They are looking for information. You are a millisecond away from the click that will lose you a customer forever. Instead of hard-selling, determine what information a typical prospect looks for when making a buying decision and give it to them. What can you provide for free that will make your customer comfortable taking the next step with you?This is where blogs and social media come into play. If you can successfully become a resource for your prospects, you are much closer to having a new customer. Blogs allow you to share your knowledge while also improving your search results. If you're not blogging, you should be. In addition to being a great marketing tool, the exercise of writing a blog will strengthen your own skills by getting you to think through your product and service offerings in a way many of us haven't in way too long.Since your customers are likely using social networks to do their pre-purchase homework, you need to participate there as well. Start by listening and observing. Which of your competitors are already active? How are they interacting with customers? What's working for them? What isn't? You need to resist the temptation to use social networks as an outlet for your traditional marketing messages. No one is looking for your sales pitch here. What they want is to start to learning your businesses personality and how you connect with customers. Your goal should be building affinity and participating in your prospects buying research.If you got this far, hopefully it means you understand that there are new opportunities that old marketing tactics can't deliver. It can seem intimidating at first, but the reality is that 15-30 minutes each day is all it takes!If you haven't begun this process, you can bet that many of your competitors have a head start. Not to worry. The best thing you can do now, is start!
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As a Smarter Business Communications company, Domino Theory has been active on Google+ since it went live in June of this year. Our experience with it has been mixed. Google+, so far, is a social network for early adopters. You're not likely to find many of your Facebook friends or LinkedIn contacts aboard yet. As for businesses, well until last week they weren't even allowed. So, knowing all this, why do we suggest our clients get their Google+ Business Page up and running now? 
First, let's be clear, Google+ is not a mirror of Facebook or any other social network and I don't suspect it will soon replace the interaction we enjoy on Facebook or the business networking on LinkedIn. Google+ is something different. From the outset it's designed to be more about Social Business than it is about connecting with friends and family. And that's why your business needs to be there!Search
Google is king of search. Google+ will be tied more closely to Google's search algorithms than any other social network (to the point where Facebook and Twitter are now snuggling up with Bing). Google's recent changes to their search now weighs recency, making fresh Google+ content even more valuable to your SEO efforts. Add to this the ability to set up your Google+ Page as a Local Business and you're enhancing local SEO even further!Put a "+" onto any search for a brand or business and a Google+ search also pulls that brand's Google+ Business Page! Talk about connecting businesses with customers!Forgetting all else, search alone makes Google+ any business's friend.Integration
Google+ is the place where all the various pieces of the Google ecosystem meet. Apps for Business, Gmail, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, third party apps, and YouTube all meet together at the hub that is Google+. Throw in video chats and Hangouts on Google+ and soon there will be no reason to ever leave the Google environment!Thought Leaders are Staking their territory!
Check out the follower activity these leading brands have had in the first week of Google+ pages being live. Do you have any marketing activity in your arsenal that has put you in direct contact with thousands of customers this week?
NASA
The Muppets
The New York Times
FC Barcelona
Pepsi
Burberry
ToyotaClearly many businesses have yet get their arms wrapped around search engines, Facebook, blogging, and the many other social networking tools that will change the way they market. We understand that to the untrained eye this can all be overwhelming. Ignore it at your own peril!The changes we're seeing in marketing can be compared favorably to the changes Moneyball brought to baseball. Analytics and digital tools are delivering an advantage to the companies that know how to use them. While many are afraid to let go of the old analytics, Reach, Frequency, and Awareness, the cutting edge is now counting real interactions and tracking them all the way through Sales, Repurchases, and Referrals. Are you?We can't encourage you enough to get your Google+ page set up and active (here)! And while you're at it, add Domino Theory to your circles!Update 11/19: 94 percent of top 100 brands have Google+ page - Already!Tell us what you think!
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It's bound to happen. You put hours, days, and weeks into building a Smarter Business Communications plan, you have your social media networks running at full speed, your blog is attracting new leads, your inbound marketing is firing on all cylinders. Then, it happens, someone blasts you on Facebook, you get a horrible review on Yelp, your business is being dragged through the mud for everyone to see. What do you do now?
I'm sure our little town of El Dorado Hills where Domino Theory is based, is not much different from where you live. News spreads around town like wildfire. Whether good news or bad, the coconut telegraph never stops clicking out new messages. The Internet operates the same way, but it's not limited by geography. Everyone has a voice and a means to broadcast it. And while we do everything we can to make this exciting new technology work in our favor, it's inevitable that you're going to get kicked in the teeth at some point.How you deal with a negative situation lays the groundwork for your company culture and customer relationships. Businesses deal with these situations all the time, some better than others. If you make the right decision at the right time, you have the opportunity to not only nip the problem in the bud, but even make your business look better for it.A Smarter Business Communications Plan includes a pre-determined process for how to handle these situations. Here's ours:Don't react emotionally. Sure, it's hurtful when bad things are said about you and your business, but when we react emotionally we tend to either fight back or rationalize and ignore the issue. Neither of these two things solves your problem and will likely escalate it. Take your time to be emotional if necessary, but work through that and get your footing solidly beneath you before you respond. It might take only a few minutes, but more likely you'll need more time than that to separate your personal feelings from your desired professional outcome.Take the complaint to heart. Whether you agree with the complaint or not, the fact that one customer feels a certain way means there might be others who feel similarly. Most often, your customers won't complain, they'll simply take their business elsewhere. While you do everything you can to please your customers, a complaint offers an opportunity to review your products and processes find areas where you can do even better. Look at the problem as an opportunity to make your business even better.Look at the issue from your customer's perspective. Maybe she was just having a bad day, but more likely, whether you agree or not, she feels she has a legitimate complaint. Put yourself in her shoes and think about what might turn the situation in your favor.Most people won't remember the problem, they'll remember how you deal with the problem!Be contrite. Even if in your heart of heats you feel you've been wronged, turning an already bad situation into a fight will not benefit your business. Apologize and start working on how you can turn an unhappy customer into an advocate. No one wants to hear excuses, what they really want to hear is how you're gong to make it right!Publicly acknowledge the situation. Make sure everyone knows that you take it seriously, respect your customer's position and are adressing it. Then, as quickly as possible take the conversation private. Send a direct message or e-mail with an offer to discuss the experience in a more personal manner. This gives them the attention they seek without having to deal with issue in public.Share your appreciation for the feedback. Remember, most customers won't complain, they'll just take their business elsewhere. If you're serious about this step, you have a great opportunity to improve your business and begin to turn a problem customer into an advocate.Ask how he would like to see the problem solved. If the request is reasonable, you should meet it immediately. If the request is beyond what you can afford, explain that and offer an alternative. Keep your focus beyond the one event. Try to make your solution one that gives you another opportunity to work with the upset customer within the environment where the problem started. Help them understand that the bad experience was an exception. The goal is not to make the problem go away, but to turn a back experience into a good one.Take this approach and you'r much more likely to have your once upset customers singing your praises - and that'something it's even difficult to get happy customers to do!
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I was introduced at a community event recently and was asked to say a few words about Domino Theory: Smarter Business Communications. The audience was a group of small- and mid-sized business owners. As a key part of our Inbound Marketing strategy, I prefer to learn about my customers business rather than focus on my own, so instead of talking about Domino Theory, I asked a series of questions.
1. How many of you have a formal marketing communications plan that you follow?
About one third of the attendees in the room raised their hands.2. How many of you who raised your hands include Internet marketing in your communications plan?
About half of the first group raised their hands.3. How many of those include blogging and social media in their Internet communications plan?
Most of the group with hands raised kept them raised.4. How many of you with hands still raised apply analytics to your Internet communications to measure results?
Almost all the remaining hands dropped.5. How man of you would like to find more profitable customers?
All the hands in the room went up.This isn't unusual among small- and mid-sized businesses. Business owners are generally very good at what they do, they are also generally not very good at marketing, and by not being good at marketing they fail to reach optimum profitability. But here's the kicker, being good at your business is exactly what Inbound Marketing is all about!My father-in-law is retired in Arizona, but is a skilled woodworker and builds cabinets for friends and family to stay busy and make a little cash. The stuff he builds is really good (we have a number of pieces in our house here in El Dorado Hills). The woodworking he does requires special tools and special woods. So where do you think he shops? Does he go to Home Depot or does he go to specialty shops? He goes to specialty shops!The people who work in the specialty hops are experts! They know the tools and how to use them, they know the woods and their characteristics. They are able to talk his language, share tips, and act as a resource. The people at Home Depot can tell him in what aisle he might find what he needs.You're an expert in your business, right? Isn't that why customers come to you? You have the skills and knowledge to provide a product or service that is better than the competition. You deliver a memorable customer experience and build relationships with your customers so they continue doing business with you and refer their friends and business associates.An Inbound Marketing plan can do all of this and more!When you share your knowledge and expertise in blogs and social networks you establish your expertise, your role as the go-to business. It doesn't matter whether you run a restaurant, a dental practice, or any other business. Your customers want the same thing! They want access to your expertise. It's your job to share it with them!If you're a dentist, it's as easy as including a brief message in your appointment reminder e-mails about what procedures you will be performing at the appointment and why they are important. You can include a link to more information about them so your patient shows up informed and prepared. Everyone wants to like their dentist, but I like my aunt and don't want her fingers in my mouth. I want my dentist to demonstrate expertise!If you're a restaurant owner, the same thing applies. The most common social media posts I see from restaurants are about specials, what's for lunch, and what a great place your spot is to watch the game. People may want to know that information, but most aren't on social networks to be sold something! You need to offer more! Want customers to watch the game at your place? Tell them about that crazy AV system you had installed! Write a blog post and get into the nitty gritty, how many screens, how many games can be watched at once, how the system is networks, why it's the best! Want them eating in your restaurant? Share how you source food, your special preparation techniques, the special equipment i your kitchen that allows your chef to outperform the home cook.But all of this takes a plan! It requires goal setting, timelines, publishing schedules, monitoring, and measurement. As a lawyer, you would never argue a case by the seat of your pants - don't market your practice by the seat of your pants either!
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The Texas Rangers vs. the St. Louis Cardinals. Not exactly a World Series for the ages - on paper. at least. Doesn't matter, it's the World Series, therefore, I watch (even if the Giants aren't playing!).
This year I'm taking a different approach to watching the games. I plan to check out as much social media as I can find that's tied to the Series.It'll be interesting to see who does what, who does something to suck me in, to make me Retweet, Comment, Share, or post a response.Here's a list of the social resources I'll be tracking.Twitter feeds:
(Spoiler Alert - You can just follow my Twitter List here).
MLB 1,519,567 Followers
MLB's official World Series feed 12,432
MLB PR 31,241
The Cardinals official feed 63,935
The Cardinals' Front Office 31,273
Busch Rally Squirrel 27,213
The Rangers' official feed 79,104
MLB on Fox 52,417
ESPN Baseball Tonight 41,525
Steve Berthiaume 33,692
Jon Heyman 105,782
Hashtags:
#Postseason
#WorldSeries
#stlcards
#rangers
#11in11Facebook Pages:
MLB on Facebook 699,834 Fans
Texas Rangers 873,465
St. Louis Cardinals 945,553
Fox Sports 132,286Blogs:
Joe Posnanski's Joe Blogs
MLBlogs
Keith Olbermann, Baseball Nerd
Buster Olney
Sweet Spot by David Scvhoenfield
Big League StewWhat am I missing? What will you be following?
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Just like Smarter Business Communications is part of our DNA at Domino Theory, martial arts is part of our lives at home. My wife and I started our kids in kinder-kicks before they started grade school. We thought it would be a great way to help them develop their coordination while learning respect and discipline in a setting outside the home. Somewhere along the way, rather than turning martial arts into something we make the kids do (you parents know what I mean!), we decided we would turn it into a family activity - something we could do together, forever.
We've all watched action movies and seen various martial arts performed. I always thought, as a pretty good athlete, how hard could martial arts be? Kick, punch, I mean I wasn't Bruce Lee, but I'd done these things since I was a kid. I didn't know, what I didn't know.The thing I remember most about my early training was how awkward the movements felt, how difficult it was to master the little things - proper stances, balance, hand positions. I was learning what I didn't know. My recourse was to to muscle my way through, eschewing technique for brute force.Slowly, and I mean slowly over the course of years, I began to learn to flow, to relax my movements and allow speed rather than mass to power my strikes and kicks. Force=Mass x Acceleration2; Acceleration contributes exponentially more to force than mass does, and since you can't easily alter your mass, concentrating on speed will better increase your force. I could do this, but I needed to concentrate, to tell myself to relax, to allow my muscles to loosen and flow. I could do this only so long as I was conscious of doing it.Now years into my practice, I am a 2nd degree black belt in my school (as are my wife and kids). My instructor occasionally mentions how much I've improved and how much better and relaxed my movement is (it still needs lots of work). I can more often let my subconscious take over and put movements together into a flow without having to think about them.Equally important to me, I have also learned why pursuits like the martial arts, piano, chess, writing, etc. are lifelong endeavors, why earning a black belt is not just a box to check along the way.The more I learn and the more I advance, the more I realize what I don't know and the more I see where my skills need improvement. The farther I advance, the farther away the final destination of expertise seems. However, I can also recognize how far I've come and can better respect the perspective of the white belts who come to class thinking like I did, how hard can this be? They are just beginning to learn what they don't know. Many never get past that stage - they decide they don't want to make the commitment to learning a new skill, and I can't blame them - it is a commitment of hours, weeks, months, and years - a lifetime.But you know what? We all start there in any new pursuit! A black belt is just a white belt that didn't quit! By starting and not quitting we are way ahead of those who never start at all.These 4 stages my training goes through are the normal stages of learning. To put it perspective, think about when you learned to drive.
- You don't know what you don't know. Riding around with your parents, you always thought driving would be easy. If you are like I was, you were better at it than your parents before you even got behind the wheel!
- You know what you don't know. The first time you get behind the wheel, you can't find the pedals with your feet, your eyes can't find the mirrors, the car doesn't seem to go where you steering it. It is much harder than you had imagined it would be.
- You consciously can perform the skill. You can drive, but it takes all your concentration (turn signal, mirror, look over your shoulder, change lanes...).
- Until finally, you subconsciously can perform the skill. Now you drive down the highway and realize after five minutes, you have no idea what's been going on around you because you've been lost in thought; your conscious mind is engaged in another activity while your subconscious mind is driving the car. You've mastered driving and can drive without even thinking about it.
I've been going through this same process in the world of social media and content marketing since I launched Domino Theory. I have over 25 years experience in media and marketing. I have been involved in web site and e-mail marketing since the early days of both in the 1990's (just like I was always active in sports and fitness). But social media, content marketing, search engine optimization and similar skills were areas outside my daily work (like martial arts was new to me). It was easy to ignore them since I was entrenched in "traditional" media and marketing - I didn't know what I didn't know.And just like when I started in martial arts, I thought, "How hard can this social media stuff be?" Fortunately, my martial arts experience helped me to quickly realize I was a social media white belt. I realized right away what I didn't know. I dove into reading, researching, and tapping social media and online training.The more I learn, the more I realize I have to learn. The better I get, the more I realize there are people who know more than I do. But I also know that I am way ahead of most. Most, like the white belts who never come back after visualizing the journey ahead, have decided they don't have the time, energy, or inclination to learn a new skill or fit a new activity into their lives.This describes most business owners I meet when it comes to social media and business communications. They haven't even walked in the door to the dojo yet to put on their first white belt and step onto the mat. They are mostly very good at what they do, but they don't do business communications! And that's too bad. Too bad because they are falling short of optimizing their business opportunities. And too bad because if they continue to ignore the opportunity they will eventually be leapfrogged by a competitor that made the commitment.You are a black belt in your business arena. No one knows your business better than you do. No one needs your expertise more than your customers do. No one is looking for your expertise more than your potential customers are. A smarter business communications plan will allow you to stake a claim to your expertise in your marketplace, make you the go-to resource. It will help you keep customers around longer and attract more of them. To share that expertise, you need a smarter business communications plan.Unless you plan to sell your business next week, now is the time to join the social media dojo. If you do it now, chances are excellent you'll be there long before your competitors and gain that first mover advantage. The longer you wait, the more you put your business at risk.Working on smarter business communications is a lifelong pursuit. At some point, probably sooner rather than later, the skills will be required for business survival. You've likely thought about it before and you know it to be true. There is no better time than now to start your training.
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Domino Theory works with a lot of small businesses on communications plans that often include Facebook. These communications plans are almost always targeted towards customer acquisition and retention, but
we are continually encouraging our clients not to ignore internal communications.A great tool for improving internal communications and collaboration, especially when the team works from different locations, is
Facebook's Secret Groups.
Facebook Groups are a great way to segment both the distribution of your content and to filter your listening to specific people (family, classmates, clients, etc.). Secret Groups take the idea one step further by making your Group interaction invisible. Activity in these Groups does not show up in your personal or business timeline, is not indexed by Google, and is invisible to anyone not in the Group - even if they have the URL!
Set up is simple, when you set up your new Group simply choose "
Secret: only members can see the Group, see and make posts." All communications within the Group are visible only amongst members. While I don't suggest using this if there is a need for strict confidentiality, it is a great tool for business collaboration.
Now that your Group is set up and you've invited your members, you have created your virtual work space. Within the secret group you can share documents, have group chat, share photos and videos, and even have a shred e-mail address where your can send messages to the entire team and can upload and post remotely via mobile devices.
It's Domino Theory's belief that before you begin to communicate with audiences outside your organizations you should have your internal communications strategy in place. This is an often overlooked and under-managed piece of a Smarter Business Communications plan. Facebook's Secret Groups are just one of many tools that your company should be exploring as
social invades the enterprise!
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You built your Facebook page, launched your Twitter account and... nothing?
If you're just arriving at the Social Media party, expect to be playing catch-up for a while. Your competition may have a head-start and you can bet that your customers do, too. The good news is that in this dynamic environment, there are great tools that will help you find your customers and help your customers find you in a hurry!Your customers won't know you have a Facebook page or Twitter account unless you tell them. It might seem obvious to you now, but you'd be surprised how many business web sites do not ask their customers to join them on Facebook and Twitter. It's a must! Point them to your social media and make it easy for them to join. Put links on every page, every article, every blog post.Share your numbers! People love to go where others are hanging out, so use a Facebook button that shows how many followers you have and who they are! Remember, this is "Social!"The Internet isn't the only way to help customers join your conversation online. Your unique Facebook URL and Twitter address should be on all of your printed materials, too. Brochures, business cards, you name it. Point your customers to your pages and feed! Tell them what they'll find when they get there!Offer an incentive for joining you. If they are to join your community, they are doing so as a customer not a friend. You can find success getting them to join by running a drawing or offering free reports or e-books. Giveaways of products or services have proven successful for many. Coupons or discounts are also great incentives. But make sure they have to "Like" your page or subscribe to your feed to earn the incentive!To begin building your Twitter presence, here is a great list of step-by-step instructions from Chris Brogan on How to Build Your Social Media Influence with Twitter Lists. Follow these instructions and you're well on your way!Track your metrics. If you haven't set measurable goals over time for your social media effort, stop right here. Without a set measurable objective and timeline over which to achieve it, how will you ever know what success looks like?When you know what you want to count, there are great tools available that allow you to measure everything. Which of your Tweets are delivering clicks, getting Re-Tweeted, you name it, you can count it. Some goes for Facebook. Keep track of the types of content that your customers share, like and comment on. Run A/B copy tests. Tweet your Facebook updates and track the response when you combine efforts.Don't feel like you are starting from square one. Much of the heavy lifting has already been done for you when it comes to utilizing data to optimize your Facebook results. Here are tips that will help you succeed:
- Keep your status updates short. Posts of fewer than 80 words will maximize your results.
- Optimize your frequency. More is not better. Over saturate your customers news feed with superfluous information and you're gong to get tuned out. Research shows that an average of 2 posts per day is optimal for most businesses.
- Photos and videos generate the most response. Use them! Create infographics, use Slideshare. Visual communication will response!
- Optimize timing. Data shows that posts between 10AM and 4PM Eastern time generate the most response. Schedule your posts to take advantage.
- Thursday and Friday tend to be the best days for generating customer interaction. Use them!
Social media can be a very successful business driver. Help your customers find you and make sure they're glad they did. Then, they'll tell two friends, and so on...
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Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Tumblr, and Twitter, too? What's next?
Get used to it. Social networks are still in their infancy. Anyone who tells you they know where all this is heading, is full of it. All I know is that if you're not jumping aboard to figure out how you're going to integrate all this into your Smarter Business Communications plan you don't have a smarter business communications plan!Twitter is 5 years old this year. Not only are businesses using it to communicate and make money, an entire eco-system of businesses has sprung up to ease the use and help increase the efficiency of this really cool micro-blogging tool.So, how can a company communicate a business message and their corporate values in 140 characters of type? And who's reading that stuff anyway?Look, if you want to reach influencers, you need to be using Twitter. Facebook has more users and LinkedIn is more B2B-centric, but according to research from Exact Target, people come to Twitter because they WANT to influence others. Daily Twitter users are continually looking for ways to add Followers and increase their influence. While the research shows that passive users of Twitter are decreasing their participation in this network, the most influential segment of Internet users are INCREASING their use. These people are even showing positive response to promoted Tweets! Aren't these are the exact people your Smarter Business Communications plan should target!To top it off, the research shows that consumers follow a brand in order to interact. Isn't that the whole idea behind this social media stuff? If you're only using these tools to pump out your press releases and promote your products and services, you're getting tuned out anyway. You have a better chance of getting consumers to interact on Twitter than you have getting them to sign up for your newsletters or "like" your page on Facebook.Consumers on Twitter want authenticity, they want insider information (remember, they WANT to influence others!), they want to get to know the people behind the scenes at your company, they want special offers, and they want to see how you are going to respond when when someone gets all up in your face. Be real. Turn off the corporate speak.One of the top complaints about Twitter is also one of its greatest attributes - brevity. Consumers say they can get what they need from Twitter without spending too much time crafting an e-mail. It's quick and to the point.Real time communications doesn't get much better than with Twitter. Within a minute of the August 23 earthquake on the east coast, Twitter had over 40,000 earthquake related messages. Within 4 minutes over 3 million Twitter users had earthquake related messages in their status updates. Imagine what this means for business. Whether for promotional purposes, internal communications, customer service, or crisis management, the ability to communicate with huge numbers of consumers in real time has never been better.Like with any new tool, getting a handle on how best to use Twitter will take work and practice. There is no one right way to use it and you should count on continually updating your methods. But if you think you can get by without playing, you might soon find yourself paying solitaire.
Tags:
Marketing,
Content Marketing,
Communications,
Business,
Social,
advocates,
Honest,
Smarter,
Twitter