8 Risks When You Ignore Social Media

Ignoring social media because you think you can't prove results? Here's what you risk.

 


Social media ROI has always been a touchy subject. You'll find divided camps: those who emphasize that social media should not be expected to perform like a direct response tactic and those who can provide all kinds of empirical formulas for calculating social media ROI. But one move will have more measurable impact on your bottom line than the number of Likes, mentions or +1s will ever have: ignoring.

Popularized by former Kodak CMO Jeffrey Hayzlett, the so-called 'risk of ignoring' references the dangers for companies that choose to turn a blind eye to social media while everyone else in their world embraces it. Here are those risks.

Conversations Go On Without You
If you're MIA, you better hope people are saying positive things about your company because you won't be there to defend yourself. If people want to talk to you and can't find you on social media, they'll talk about that too, and then their friends and connections will see you're absent. These are all the wrong kind of amplification effects.

You Miss the 24/7 World
Even brands that have social media accounts have learned the hard way that they really can't ever "go dark" in our 24/7 world. I recently attended a conference where Travelocity revealed a social media "war story" where a mommy blogger started complaining over a weekend on her blog about her Travelocity website experience, and because Travelocity wasn't monitoring the social media sphere over the weekend, her complaints only got worse.

You Can Become a Target for Hackers
If no one at your company is paying attention to social media, could you wind up like ExxonMobile who ignored Twitter in its naissance and wound up having a poser create a faux account in the brand's name?

Or, if no one is minding the social media ship, at what point will you notice that your account has been hacked? When the Associated Press's Twitter account was hacked just this week, it caused temporary havoc in the stock markets. At least they were paying attention. 


Competitors Get a Leg Up
Ignoring social media gives your competitors an advantage. You seem archaic or clueless; they can portray themselves as hip and current. Your competitors can also monitor your brand mentions on social media and respond to complainers with offers or other means to woo you away. For example, in my book I cite an example provided by Gini Dietrich: After Avis failed to come through for her despite her being a long-time Preferred Service customer, Dietrich tweeted, "@AvisWeTryHarder No, you don't try harder...at least not in this case." Within two minutes, Hertz tweeted Dietrich, apologized for the hard time she was having with Avis and offered her a car at her location along with a 20 percent off coupon. Now that's smart use of social media!

You're Blind to Existing and Potential Employees
If you choose to ignore social media, you probably also lack a social media policy. If you do not set boundaries for how employees can use (or not) social media on the company's behalf or during work time, you have less recourse if an employee puts your brand in harm's way. At least with the notorious Domino's 2009 "gross-out" video, the employees were rightfully terminated, but apparently the franchisee still suffered: His location could not recover from the scandal and ultimately went out of business.

On the flip side, if you ignore social media you miss the opportunity to see, connect with and ultimately hire that perfect new employee. You know, the one who didn't know you had a job opening, who wasn't necessarily looking to make a switch and you didn't have to pay a recruiter to find.

Falling Rankings in Search Engines
Social sharing now also impacts your search engine rankings. Simply put, if you're absent from social media, don't expect the rest of the world to help your falling search rankings.

Outsourcing Still Needs Your Attention
If you've outsourced your social media management, don't think you have that base covered and you can now move on to more important things. You still need to provide your outsourced agent with guidance and monitor their activities. You can find plenty of stories of social media blunders related to outsourced accounts, so pay attention.

Silence and Abandonment Embody Your Brand
When a crisis does occur, in today's social media age, you cannot be silent! When a recent computer glitch stranded hundreds of passengers, American Airlines turned out in force on its social media accounts to help keep people informed and issue apologies. Passengers were still frustrated, but many credit the airline for its swift, savvy handling of the problem.

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Abandonment is another form of ignoring. Company blogs with the last post dated over a year ago or a Twitter account with no activity in weeks or months instantly tells your prospects and customers that you either don't care about the impression you make or about what others have to say to or about you. Is that how you want to be perceived?

Article courtesy of Inc. Magazine

4 Big Ideas for Your Social Media Strategy

Four social media experts share four ways you can maximize your company's social presence--and gain new customers.

At this year’s Ad Age Digital Conference, a handful of expert speakers shared how you can use social media to get customers to talk about your brand—and put their money where their mouths are.

Here are four tips from the pros.

Stand up for—and with—the little guy.

Newark, New Jersey mayor Cory Booker has become famous for his heroic exploits, which include shoveling streets during a 2010 blizzard and rescuing a neighbor from a burning building. At any given moment, the busy mayor (who is widely assumed to be a Senate contender) can be found on Twitter replying openly to city residents’ reports on missing cars and broken streetlights. What draws the politician to the public arena of social media when other elected officials might shrink away?

"Hacking the Senate,” Booker said yesterday at the conference. “Federal government doesn’t move at the pace of people and technology.” Mayor Booker said social platforms like Twitter and #waywire, the video sharing start-up he co-founded with former Gilt City president Nathan Richardson, enable everyday people to highlight the issues that matter to their community, and actually be heard by those in power.

He also explained that social media tools can be crucial for managing PR since direct, immediate access to the public can, when used effectively, tamp down on rumors or problems.

Go where you are needed.

With more than 340 stores, it’s unsurprising that Whole Foods has more than 20 Twitter accounts. According to Natanya Anderson, the company’s director of social media, Whole Foods’s “local social” marketing presence evolved organically to reflect the range of products offered by region. (That means lots of pickle talk at @WholeFoodsNYC and an outlet for dairy lovers at @WFMCheese.) However, Anderson cautioned brands against creating accounts just because they can.

 “You can’t go local social because it’s right for your business alone,” she said. “It must be good for your customers, too.” Before asking an audience to become part of yet another community, Anderson tells businesses to consider how much of a local presence they have in the first place, if they have enough unique content to share regularly, if the overarching brand is willing to have local ambassadors speak on the company’s behalf, and what that commitment will look like. 

Harmonize and customize.

“Mobile photography is the biggest thing on the Internet today,” said Tobias Peggs, CEO of photo editing start-up Aviary. The company has partnered with more than 3,700 companies including Twitter to offer customized filters and photo stickers for regular use and specialized campaigns. Advertising is a burgeoning frontier.

According to Peggs, photography and social advertising go hand in hand for two reasons: widespread photo sharing among the public, and the emergence of seamless ads from brands. Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter continue to experiment with ways to create unobstructed ad experiences for users, but Pegg says promoted tweets and sponsored posts are on the right track. For the CEO, the ballooning field of photo sharing makes social advertising more fluid, since content is generated by users themselves. (Think branded filters created by Aviary that event-goers use and share on their social networks.)

Pass the torch.

Like other conference speakers, Lerer Ventures partner Eric Hippeau noted that the beauty of social content is its storytelling capability. $90 billion is still being spent in broadcast advertising, he said, because the medium of television is better suited to that task—though social content presents the same opportunity. Some inertia in the transition from traditional marketing to social advertising is expected (and, perhaps, wise), Hippeau said, but he believes that users outpace marketers by a long stretch.

The VC’s solution? “Suspend your disbelief,” Hippeau said, citing BuzzFeed as an example of a company known for its young hires and daring advertising model. “Forget some of the stuff you know and have learned over the years, and trust younger people.” He suggested assigning younger team members the task of producing content for their brand’s market to see if hard work from both ends of the age spectrum equals innovative results.

Article courtesy of Inc. Magazine

Small Business Internet Marketing: 7 Things Decision Makers Should Know

The ways in which businesses can now communicate with potential and existing clients continues to grow at break neck pace. Any decision maker that has invested in a form of small business internet marketing in order to grow their business will have seen the number of options to interact with their audience increase rapidly over the last 5 years. From dynamic website design, blogging, video marketing, email marketing campaigns to social media marketing, the list of methods truly is endless.

With all that choice available it can quite often be very confusing for small business owners who are focused on doing what they do best: delivering value for their clients, regardless of the niche they are in. 

The long and short of it is that the Internet has changed the way in which consumers process information and communicate that information between other people. This in turn means the advertising methods of old are not the same and do not produce the same results as in the past.

In order to compete in a disruptive and often crowded marketplace businesses have to be more creative and outsmart their competition by leveraging strategies and techniques that speak to their target market and invoke a reaction.

The Seven Pillars of small business internet marketing:

1.      Know Your Ideal Audience.

You may think this sounds super simple but you would be surprised at the number of small businesses who don’t know exactly who their ideal client is. If you don’t have an idea of who this is then your advertising is not an investment, it is a cost. Unless you know who your target audience is you will be spending money trying to attract people who are not interested in what you have to offer.

Increase your chance of success by being specific about who you want to market to.

2. Always offer Quality Content.

While it may be hugely time consuming to update your website or Blog several times a week, having a lot of quality content that backs up your authority and helps keep customers interested in you is almost always going to be of benefit to you. I say almost, because if you don’t then take advantage of that traffic, then you will have wasted your time! Think of some of the Big Name Websites, every time you click on Amazon you will see different offers, different products and new information. If someone has been to your site and enjoyed what they saw, then they come back and see the same again they aren’t likely to give you another visit.

Quality content has become a by word of advertising online over the past few years, but that doesn’t mean that businesses haven’t been practising content marketing successfully for years and creating loyal audiences in the process.

And while it may be difficult for a business owner to justify taking the time out to create content, the more quality and insightful content you create that is distributed online, the more targeted clients will see it and the greater the chance you have of making a connection resulting in an inquiry or lead for your business.

The more you can do to educate potential clients about your business from the outset the easier it becomes to convert those leads into paying clients in the future.

3. Distribute Your Content High and Wide

In traditional marketing you have TV, Radio and magazines. Online you have websites, blogs, video sites, article sites, micro blogs, and social media. When your business has invested in creating a piece of content, that one piece of content can be broken up and converted into many different formats and then distributed in many places.

Keep your small business internet marketing interesting and different so people will be able to see your messages on different platforms and recognize that is you increasing your authority and building your brand in the process.

Make sure you are taking full advantage of the different online mediums available as the chances are your audience will be and you can bet your competition is!

4. Targeted Search Engine Campaigns are Priceless

Search engine optimization is where you place your business in front of people who are ACTIVELY searching for your business or services. Targeted potential clients go from not knowing who you are or anything about your business, to seeing the benefits of your services within seconds.

Search engine optimization is a key way to attract clients, the higher up the search rankings you appear, the more clients will click on your listing and therefore you will have a greater opportunity to convert. That is why a lot of businesses invest in improving SEO so they get the opportunity to attract targeted clients before the competition.

5. Connect with those that have trusted you before.

When a client has worked with you in the past they have paid their hard earned money to benefit from your services so they already know about you and how you can help them. Continue to educate your clients even when you have served them to keep them in touch with your business and what you can do. One of the best ways to do this is through email marketing.
Make every possible attempt to get the email addresses of your clients and put together a strategic marketing campaign that uses this prized information.

Tell your clients about how you are helping other clients, inform them through multimedia about other services or products that you offer, offer promotions to entice them to benefit from your business once more.

One of the most expensive things in business is a onetime client, leverage email marketing to make sure that you don’t suffer that huge business failing.

6. Online Marketing is measurable.

The beauty about online marketing is that nearly everything is measurable. From positions in the search engines, the number of clicks, number of conversions or downloads and leads generated to sales made. Everything is trackable and when everything is trackable it means that you can test for the best performing adverts or marketing methods and repeat them time and again while constantly improving.
This is one of the major reasons why so many businesses choose to market online because there is a ready source of information that can be provided to decision makers to support the work that is being done.

Small Business Internet Marketing is Part of the Marketing Mix.

7. Offline Marketing is still valuable

Offline marketing is still valuable and supports any marketing campaign that you have. If a targeted clients sees an advert in a trade magazine that arouses their interest they then Google your business services to find out some more and they see you on the first page sharing some great content or with some brilliant third party testimonials then they will truly feel that you are the best company to help them resolve their problems.

Small Business internet Marketing is not a quick fix, and you shouldn’t consider it a miracle way to save your business and get profitable clients overnight. As with anything it can take time, effort and patience to get the results that you crave but don’t give up. Listen to feedback, monitor what does and doesn’t work and remember that if you consistently apply great techniques then online marketing will deliver your business targeted leads, increased sales and higher profits.

Article courtesy of Social Media Today

Facebook now lets ads target you based on what you do outside Facebook

Watch out, Google.

While Facebook has always been great at providing specific demographics to advertisers, it has struggled with helping advertisers target demand: the people most likely to be in the market for their product. That’s been Google’s forte, and it’s the reason the search engine is worth $260 billion and the social network is worth $60 billion.

But Facebook is looking to change that.

Today Facebook launched a new self-serve advertising product, partner categories, which will allow advertisers to target specific categories of people based on what they actually buy and want to buy, both online and offline.

The new product mixes Facebook’s own personal data with information from third-party consumer segmentation and data companies such as Datalogix, Epsilon, and Acxiom to identify people who are in the market for certain products, and deliver those people in an anonymized group to advertisers:


The new targeting mechanism is available today for U.S. advertisers in the Facebook’s Power Editor, which helps advertisers manage large numbers of ads, and includes more than 500 unique categories of consumers. Advertisers can also take these groups and fine-tune the exact audience they want with Facebook’s other targeting options, meaning that you can now layer a demographic slice with a demand slice and get a very fine-grained target sample for exactly your defined customer base.

The offline part is key.

Partner Categories “allows brands to reach groups of people based on interests they have expressed and actions they have taken off of Facebook,” one of the new ad partners, Epsilon, said in a statement.

Epsilon is an old-school data company started in 1969 that leverages transactional data (sales) and database marketing to help advertisers target. It’s joined by Acxiom, a 40-year-old company that has been big in database marketing but also enables over a trillion digital data transactions a week, and Datalogix, another company that started in the pre-digital, pre-social world of marketing. Other companies may yet be added, as Facebook notes.

The real question is, although these companies have all invested heavily in digital technologies for the modern age, how good are they at targeting demand compared to Google, which has the best consumer insights platform in the world: a search engine that is constantly learning what people want. My guess is: in some things like consumer packaged goods, better. And in other things that have largely migrated online, like electronics and big-ticket items, not so much.
In any case, it’s an interesting combination of online and offline data to understand the whole consumer, as Epsilon EVP Eric Stein says:

“There is a tremendous opportunity for marketers to leverage offline data to reach their customers and prospective customers where and when they are deeply engaged.”



The objective, according to Facebook, is better ads, more relevant ads — ads, in fact, that are as interesting as the original reason you came to Facebook.

“Our ultimate goal is to make the ads people see on Facebook as relevant as the information they see from their friends,” Facebook director Yvette Lui said in a statement.

photo credit: Marshall Astor – Food Fetishist via photopin cc

Article courtesy of Venture Beat

How to Use Twitter to Build Leads

Though such a simple tool, Twitter can be a powerful way to build leads for your business. Here is how sales professionals can use the Twitter machine to connect with prospects that could become paying customers.
 
Before you jump right into the realm of tweets and retweets, you should do a little homework. Create a list of existing clients, customers and prospects, search for them on Twitter and follow them. As the list of those you follow grows, so will the list of people following you. Now, take some time to study what your followers are saying, this is a good way to get to know them at some level.

When you feel confident about what Twitter is all about; then it is time for you to tweet. Some things to keep in mind while you build a strong following; there can be a fine line between engagement and annoyance. Make sure your tweets are relevant; after all, you want to pique interest, not bore to death. Try to avoid retweeting too much, and please don’t sound like a robot by sending out generic messages, be unique.

As your audience expands, the more likely you can connect on an individual basis. Check to see who is retweeting your content or those who tweet directly to you, then begin a more personal and meaningful engagement with them.

As these relationships become established, steer these prospects to your website or even your email address or phone number. From there, it’s all up to your mad closing skills to seal the deal. Good luck.

Article courtesy of Social Media Today
 
Image Courtesy of: twitter/shutterstock

Pinterest: B2B Boards That Will Dazzle Your Clients

Consumer brands have been on Pinterest for a while, since it's the best suited platform for visible content. With 48.7 million users (April 2013) and explosive growth, there's big potential even for b2b companies to establish themselves on the platform.

I'm going to guide you through 5 essential rules for creating a Pinterest account for your b2b that will attract and engage your b2b clients.

First, some Pinterest stats:

• 26% of online b2b marketers used Pinterest to distribute content during 2012.
• Pinterest referrals spend 70% more money than visitors referred from non-social channels.
• Visitors from Pinterest are 10% more likely to make a purchase over other major social media sites.
• Pinterest users spend 10% more money on average than Facebook and Twitter users.
• Pinterest appears to be the stronger vehicle for brand association: 43% of Pinterest members agree that they use Pinterest to “associate with retailers or brands with which I identify,” compared to just 24% of Facebook users who agree to the same use with Facebook.

Rule #1: Dedicate time!

In the early days of social media, social media accounts were handled somehow "on the side" of traditional marketing activities. Very little time and resources were dedicated to online interactions, and social media were treated as another advertising space were one could place their ad and leave.

As social media evolves, the audience has become more demanding. As the world is spinning faster every day, people begin to treat Twitter as the new helpline: when they tweet a business, they demand instant response.

It means that resources needed for social media can't be neglected anymore. My prediction is that in the future for a marketing department of 10, about 9 people will be dedicated to social media marketing, and traditional marketing tasks will been down-sized to possible 1 full-time position.

Action point: Handling social media is not about sending out one or two random posts per day. It requires strategic planning as well as creativity and the ability to handle interactions promptly. Dedicate a proper amount of time for those taking care of your Pinterest, Twitter or whatever platform you choose to be on!

Rule #2: Use bold images!

No matter what, Pinterest is for visual pinning. Make an effort to find eye-catching, emotional images, since those are the ones who are shared the most.

Don't think stock photos. People don't pin what they've seen a thousand times before. They pin surprising, original content.

If you're not a skilled photographer yourself, or haven't got the time - try a creative commons service, like photopin.com. Just remember to give credit to the source!

Rule #3: Create intriguing boards!

Don't pin all your content in one board!

Create different types of boards that gives your visitors a explicit overview of what's in there.
Give the boards clear, yet intriguing titles and choose the nicest image in there for the board cover.

Examples of different types of Pinterest boards

• Create a board for customer testimonials. Pin images with quotes from happy customers. Use pinwords.com or quozio.com to make pinable images of text.
• Tell the company story in a board. Pin images that feature your people and premises as well as images of the product/service.
• Create separate boards for webinars, whitepapers, articles and news.
• Create boards for the niche you operate within and pin related news and info.

Rule #4: Interact & Engage!

With your Pinterest boards in place, start to engage with potential and existing clients.
On Pinterest you may:

• Repin clients content.
• Comment on clients or potential clients pins (in a non-spammy way - no selling!)
• Invite certain people to pin on certain boards on your Pinterest account.

Rule #5: Share on social media!

 

Share your pins on social media like Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.
There's a much higher click-through rate from Pinterest than from any other social media at the moment, so it's definitely worth a try to direct your clients to your website via your Pinterest account.

Bonus: Two Hot Pinterest Infographics

Source: wishpond

 

Source: sandbox

Article courtesy of Social Media Today

How Social Media Saved Our Church

 

I didn’t become a blogger until I had no choice. It was the only way I could help my church survive.

A journalist by training, I have worked in publishing as a graphic artist for 30 years—good basic credentials. I am not a pastor, just a church member. My church’s dire need pushed me into the blogging pool, really as an act of desperation. Here is my story.

The mainline Church is in trouble. Attendance, membership, and giving are spiraling downward. Societal changes have left the Church behind—or vice versa.

Most churches operate on subsistence budgets. There is little money for service or outreach. Regional and national hierarchies, once defining elements of religion, are now difficult for congregations to support.

Yet hierarchies like to survive.

Social Media is tailor-made for Church purposes. Imagine the ability to reach people worldwide for minimal investment! Yet most Church leaders avoid social media like the Egyptian plagues.
Facing significant decline, our regional body, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, was routinely adopting deficit budgets, closing churches, and selling their property kept them afloat.

In 2007, my church, Redeemer Lutheran Church in Philadelphia was on the hitlist — the first of six targets identified by a newly-elected bishop. We owned prime real estate in a desirable neighborhood, had a small endowment, were debt-free, self-sufficient — and growing. Nevertheless, we were going to be shuttered and in this David and Goliath scenario, Goliath was the odds-on favorite.

The doors are closed

Our bishop appeared one Sunday at our doorstep with a locksmith, expecting us to hand over our $2 million-property upon demand. When we resisted, lawsuits naming individual church members ensured that many would skedaddle. Pastors led the retreat.

But this time David fought back.

It wasn’t easy. Through several years of legal challenges, courts ruled (never hearing the case) that they had no jurisdiction in church affairs. The First Amendment puts the Church above its own laws. Our property and money were confiscated.  We were on our own.

In February 2011, Redeemer asked me to launch a congregational blog — 2x2virtualchurch.com – to keep the remnants of our congregation connected.  I armed myself with a copy of Teaching Yourself Visually WordPress, and spent a few days pulling out my hair. Things finally clicked.

In our first month of operation we had exactly one visitor to our site, and then a few more each month.  I started to study to be a better blogger, following the advice of Social Media Examiner, Hubspot and veteran bloggers.

Content was posted daily. Traffic began to grow.

We wanted our blog to tell our story, but we also wanted to be a church — to serve. We focused on what we know best—small church ministry.

• Earliest posts chronicled our social media journey.
• Many of our new members were recent immigrants. This became a series on multicultural ministry.
• General church issues are explored.
• Resources geared to small congregations are featured twice a week.
• The {grow} blog inspired the use of graphics and cartoons.

New doors are opened

This content actually began to drive significant traffic and shape our ministry. An original Easter play was downloaded 150 times when we posted it in 2012 and already 3,100 times in 2013.
Our little church blog began to attract a global audience. A mission in Pakistan shared their fear with us as violence erupted following the anti-Islam video that was posted a few months ago. Churches in Kenya sent us photos of the AIDS/war orphans they serve. Prayer and encouragement continue to fly back and forth across cyberspace. Our members know each other by name.

One day, a pastor in Pakistan asked to be connected to churches in Kenya. Within a few weeks, three churches from two countries and cultures that met through the blog were together in Kenya!

Before the opportunity of social media, this type of mission influence would take years and require coordination of an expensive national office. Two common denominators — the predominant use of English and the Internet — have placed mission work directly in the hands of congregations.

Our regional body justified their land grab by claiming Redeemer was too small to fulfill a mission purpose. Well, we no longer had our land, but with a blog, our mission is extending to every corner of the earth. Even the national megachurches have noted our effectiveness.
Our following is growing and with a demographic the mainline church has a difficult time reaching — young adults.

How does our ministry compare with the ministries of 160 churches who collectively claimed our property?

The largest church in our region has an average Sunday morning attendance of 725 (down from 1324 in 2002). Most churches are much smaller with fewer than 100 in weekly worship.
Redeemer had 72 members when the conflict started with an average weekly attendance below 30. We now have 1300 unique weekly visitors and are adding a few hundred each week at our current pace. An additional 200 subscribe to our daily mesages. The numbers are small by corporate standards but huge in the world of Church.

The reach of Redeemer is greater than any other congregation in the regional denomination that evicted us. The structure of “church” has been turned upside down.

So with this proven success, why do churches still generally avoid the use of social media?

• Most don’t know how to start.
• Church leaders tend to represent an older demographic.
• Tradition prefers failure to innovation.

Redeemer, through our social media outreach, has proved that there is more economic potential in an open church than a closed church. Social Media made all the difference.

Article courtesy of Social Media Today

Tell Your Business Story, One Blog at a Time

 

Since pre-historical times, people have been using the art of storytelling to communicate. Cavemen drew pictures on cave walls depicting great hunts and deeds. As language developed, oral tradition started, where people would tell and retell the same stories over and over again to communicate their history and values. And then to help our forgetful minds, we found ways to preserve these stories on stone, paper and eventually electronically.

There are lots of stories that provide pure entertainment value, but most stories strive to teach us something, whether it's an actual lesson, or our history, or perhaps the human condition. If you think about some of the movies that you've seen which, years later, you can still recall and enjoy - there was a lesson in there that stuck with you.

Do you remember, "Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore." Sure you do, that's from The Wizard of OZ! Dorothy has an experience after her home is struck by a tornado and it teaches her to love and value the people she has in her life.

Ok, how about, "Houston, we have a problem." Of course you remember Tom Hanks delivering that classic line as Jim Lovell in Apollo 13. The simple understatement of the line is even more profound considering most people who watched the film were familiar with the story it was telling, and knew that the astronaut's troubles were just beginning. But we love that story and that film because of the fantastic triumph of the human spirit it portrays.

And what about, "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse." You know that one. The Godfather, right? What's the lesson there? I don't know, maybe, don't mess with the mafia?

The point is, those were great stories which touched us and taught us something. We enjoyed them and related to them and remember them to this day.

What if you could do that for your clients?

One of the most effective purposes for a business blog is storytelling. You can tell stories about your clients and your products or services, but one of the best ideas is to tell stories about your actual business. But what do those stories look like? Here are six different kinds of stories you can tell, as well as some general tips on great storytelling.

Stories About How You Got Started

Some of the classic stories are posts about your business history. You probably already have a summary of how you got started on your About page, but taking the time to dive into some specific stories will be fun for you and really interesting for some of your fans and followers. 

Even if you're a startup, you can share some of the interesting stories of the challenges you faced early on, or what experiences in your life led you to decide to get into this industry in the first place. What inspires you?

If you're fortunate enough to come from a second or third generation business, draw from the rich history of your family and share some insights from your parents or grandparents.

Why was The Social Network so popular? It gave millions of people insight into how Facebook got started, real or otherwise. Your business history might not be movie material, but it's still interesting!

Stories About How You Work

If you're in the consulting business or providing some other kind of service, potential customers are always going to be wondering what it's like to work with you. You can address those concerns early on by providing rich, authentic stories. 

A classic example is to offer a case study from a specific client and project. You might detail what issues and challenges were faced and how you dealt with them. The focus needs to be on the style and technique that you used so that someone who is unfamiliar with you can get to know, like and trust you.

For instance, some time ago I sat down with a potential client with whom I had exchanged several emails. He had found me online and was looking to hire someone to help his new business and website with SEO and social media. We met at a Starbucks and after we'd only been talking for a few minutes, he asked the typical question, "how much will this cost?" My immediate response was to say that we were no where near ready to talk about pricing. I had quite a few more questions for him so that I could understand what his business, what he hoped to accomplish, and what, if anything, I could actually do for him. Strangely enough, that blew him away. You see, he'd already talked to literally 25 other SEO guys, and every single one of them had simply tried to sell him some package. As soon as this client spoke with me and understood that I was there to help him, not necessarily make a buck, he was sold. Not only did I gain his business, more importantly, I also gained his trust, and he has been a valuable client and brand evangelist ever since.

That was brief story and if I simply took a little more time to add some additional details and fill it in a little more, I would have a great blog post! 

Stories That Teach

Some of the best stories are ones that include a lesson. Aesop was a master at weaving simple stories with lessons that the reader should take to heart, like the problem with lying. Similarly, use a story to help your readers understand something. 

You can tell positive stories, but it is often more effective to tell stories where you've made a mistake of some kind and how you worked through it. Just like a good Comedian who tells jokes at his own expense, a business that can admit to making mistakes but demonstrate how you resolved those mistakes not only educates, but also reaffirms that you're human too.

Many of my own blog posts and articles are reflective of this. For instance, I had been having issues for a long time where, when I would get ready to share a blog post on Facebook, Facebook would try to use the wrong image or the wrong description, and sometimes no image at all. After tolerating it for a while, I finally did some research and found that if I enabled and used Facebook's Open Graph tags, I could specify exactly what image to use for that post and Facebook would grab it every single time. Not only was that easier for me going forward, it also meant that if someone else came along and wanted to post one of my articles to their Facebook wall, it would look perfect for them too. I subsequently turned that experience into a successful blog post: Designating Images for Social Media Posts.

Stories That Communicate Vision

It's been said that the leader of a company should have three conversations with employees every day, and that one of those conversations needs to be about vision. Why are you in business? What do you hope to accomplish? The same is true with your blog.

Share stories with your clients about decisions you've made or partnerships you've fostered that help continue to move your vision forward. 

Michael Hyatt's blog started as an email newsletter that he sent internally. You see, Michael subscribed to the belief that as a leader, it was his role to communicate regularly with the people at his publishing company. Eventually, he implemented a blog and his thoughts and communications were found to be of tremendous value to everyone, not just his own people.

Stories That Demonstrate Values

Similarly, it's important that as a business, you communicate what your values are. Your values may include integrity or honesty or several others, but those values do not mean the same things to everyone. It is your job to communicate what your values are, and what they mean, both to your employees and your clients.

What does Integrity mean to you? And how does that translate into your business? 

Stories That Overcome Objections

Finally, use stories to address common objections head-on. In every business, your customers will have typical objections to your products or services that you often discuss with them. Maybe it's the price, or perhaps it's a concern that it won't be right for them. Businesses will often offer guarantees to help assuage such fears, but a story or two about how you made good on such a guarantee can be even more powerful. 

For instance, if price is an issue, you might illustrate a story of how much one client saved by using you, making the cost of your services a virtual bargain.

In speaking with a client last week, they told me about one of their industrial clients that was facing massive municipal fines due to being out of compliance in their waste. My client was able to resolve their customer's issues and my client's fees represented a fraction of the cost of the fines faced by their customer. Additionally, had the customer gone to my client from the beginning, rather than explore multiple other options, they could have saved even more money.

Use stories to demonstrate how you empower customers and you will go a long way to communicate your brand's expertise. And do them one blog post at time. Spread them out and mix in stories with news and guides and other kinds of content, to make a well-rounded content marketing strategy.

For more information on how stories are ingrained in our culture, and how brands are becoming better story tellers, take 8 and half minutes to watch this video:

Storytelling Tips

Be Genuine. Do not embellish your stories and try to be natural and genuine in how you tell the story. 

Be Engaging. Remember that when you're telling a story, you're a Storyteller. Paint a picture with your words and bring your audience into the story. Try to being all five senses into the story: sight, sound, taste, smell and touch.

Be Aware. Always keep in mind who you're audience is. Not every story is suitable for everyone. Pop culture references for instance should only be used if you're sure your audience will be familiar with them.

"You talkin' to me?" Tell stories that impact your readers personally and bring them into your business at some level. 

What stories can you share about your business? And what's your favorite film quote?

Article courtesy of Social Media Today

The Facebook Problem: Why We Need to Rethink Facebook Marketing

It is a common conversation topic in businesses and marketing departments across the world: Facebook. The social network has become the creme de creme of marketing plans, business seminars, college courses, and entrepreneurs. There are thousands (perhaps millions) of articles written about Facebook each week - some claiming it has changed the way they do business, others saying it has been a flop and a waste of money. Behind it all is one simple idea: marketing. It is a key piece many have seemed to forgotten as they make their way into the exciting, confusing, and heated world of Facebook. It is also something I like to call "the Facebook Problem."

Today, Facebook offers businesses several ways to market themselves. The first option is to create a Facebook page about their business and use it to blast out brand messaging via posts to users who like their page. This is an option that many businesses have chosen and has become the talking point across all professionals. The second option is to run paid advertising via Facebook ads. These ads can drive on-site (to generate likes for the business' Facebook page or engagement with prior page posts) or off-site (to drive traffic to a webpage off of Facebook). Looking at it this way, the opportunities on Facebook are rather black and white, though each one offers a complex set of opportunities and strategic implications. It is one site online (with a tremendous amount of traffic) brands can use in their marketing plans. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong. This is where the Facebook Problem comes into play.

Integrated Marketing Communications
The main part of the Facebook Problem is that brands have forgotten about integrated marketing communications. Marketers are guilty here. For years, we tried getting brands to accept Facebook as a marketing tool. Now, brands are adamant to use Facebook as the center of their marketing plans. In fact, some place all of their marketing efforts on Facebook- allocating huge portions of their marketing budgets to the site, spending long nights managing their Facebook pages, and generating a seamlessly endless supply of content for posts. The issue here is Facebook is one marketing channel. In fact, it's one part of a very large marketing channel: social media, and an even smaller part of another channel: digital media. Brands are beginning to forget this and placing all too much emphasis on one site.

Facebook is a great marketing tool, but it still needs to be supported by other outlets. It isn't the only place a business' audience can be found. Consumers are on news sites, reading forums, downloading music, driving to work, reading magazines, and walking by city benches- just to name a few. Beginning to neglect these outlets means missed opportunities. Marketing channels tie into one another and reinforce marketing messages. Consumers need to be touched across multiple marketing channels. They need to see similar brand messaging and campaigns across these outlets. Doing so helps increase brand recognition, favorability, and sales.

Even businesses who do integrate their marketing forget that marketing performance on one outlet can be impacted by another. Did you see a huge increase in Facebook page views? It might have been due to something you are doing on Twitter, or even an event you sponsored. Instead of looking at the entire marketing plan, businesses will often times attribute this to a Facebook post they made that day. Brands need to get over this tunnel-vision view of marketing and once again expand their understanding of the complex interplay between marketing channels. Facebook isn't the place to be. It is a place to be.

Increasing Noise
Facebook is full of content and becoming increasingly clouded with posts by brands. Many businesses think they can just post away and pray consumers see these posts and engage with them. This isn't the case. As more and more brands blast out these posts and buy paid advertising, the actual value of the message decreases. Users become blinded to brand posts and simply pass over them. This means it is even more important for brands to integrate their messaging into other outlets to increase the likelihood users will notice the posts. Additionally, some brands over post to the point users unlike their Facebook pages or hide their updates. This is the exact opposite of what the brand was hoping to do.

Addiction to Numbers
Brands have made things complicated for themselves. They have become addicted to numbers. How many page likes do I have? How much engagement did my post have? Why did like percentage drop 10% last week? Why are my page views down 15% from yesterday? Through offerings by Facebook and countless startups, brands suddenly have a million metrics at their fingertips to look at daily, and have become obsessed. Do other forms of marketing offer these types of numbers? No.

Marketing always needs to be tied to end numbers- why spend on marketing if you aren't really seeing an increase in sales or brand recognition from it? However, these numbers have given brands marketing amnesia. Take them with a grain of salt and focus on the bigger picture. They are wonderful to look at and learn from, but in the end, look at overall results. Did a three-week holiday push on Facebook grow engagement 25%? Great. Try not to worry that on 12/22 at 1opm your engagement dropped 10%. There are too many factors that may have impacted this; Facebook is just one small piece of the pie. There will be ups and downs for any type of messaging. This advice is especially important for smaller businesses who are not spending millions of dollars within a week on Facebook.

Neglecting the Message or Creative
Closely related to addiction with numbers, brands have forgotten that marketing results on a marketing channel are only as good as the marketing message. You could be on the marketing channel where your entire audience is and completely miss the mark all because of promoting the wrong message. Many businesses launch a marketing effort (such as a promotion, sale, or campaign) and blame "performance" on Facebook. They will ask "why is nobody taking up our offer?" or "why is our engagement down for this campaign?" They expect to hear that they are doing something wrong on Facebook - posting at the wrong time, posting the wrong number of times, or not getting enough exposure on Facebook.

Perhaps, however, it is something else. It is the offer. It is the promotion. It is the campaign. All too often businesses get so focused on the small details in performance that they fail to see the bigger picture. Test your campaign. Will there be a high response to it? Are you running on other channels? Are these channels seeing low responses as well? Are these channels targeting the same audience? These are questions brands need to be asking. They cannot neglect the impact of an incorrect message.

What the Facebook Problem Means
So, what does all of this mean? Should businesses forget Facebook? Is Facebook dead? No.
To put it simply, businesses and marketers need to re-evaluate Facebook's place in their marketing plans. It is a tremendously effective tool. Brands have seen huge success from it. However, Facebook should not be the gold in all marketing plans for no reason. Smart marketing strategies still need to be developed. Businesses need to see the bigger picture in their marketing efforts. Facebook is one website, one small part of one marketing channel. Forgetting this can be detrimental. Reaching consumers across multiple marketing channels is extremely important. Repetition and consistent communication is essential. Once businesses remember this and overcome the Facebook problem, the payoff will be worth it.

Article courtesy of Social Media Today

LinkedIn Finally Rolling Out Facebook-Style Tagging

Hurrah!

LinkedIn have finally got up to speed with in-status tagging, which has been part of Facebook and Google+ for a long time. This feature makes it far easier for people to follow companies mentioned, which undoubtedly will have a positive impact on referral traffic to your company’s website.

Here’s a quick guide we’ve pulled together to show you how to use this new feature to easily add links to companies and people that you’re talking about in any status updates you write.

Sign In 



When you sign in you’ll be greeted with this message telling you ‘now you can type a name to mention a member or a company’ - similar to Facebook’s tagging feature, in that it’ll tag automatically without the need for a prefix.

Type and Tag



All you have to do is start typing the name of a company or member and LinkedIn will automatically show you a drop down box with which you can select the profile you’re talking about.



Once selected you’ll see the profile has been linked as it’s highlighted in grey. All you have to do is share this, and all your connections can directly click that link to view the profile you’ve mentioned. It’s that simple.

Tagging In Action



As you can see in my status update, Branching Out Europe has now been hyper-linked to the Branching Out Europe LinkedIn company page. Now everyone who sees this update can instantly click through to that page.

It’s great to see LinkedIn implementing such an effective feature, even if it is perhaps a little behind the rest.  Well done, LinkedIn!

Article courtesy of Social Media Today

20 Pinteresting Business Tools

I am a huge fan of Pinterest and am finding that I'm using it more and more.  There are a lot of skeptics out there that think it's just for girls, or don't see the business value, but for you Pinterest virgins out there, I really recommend you try it out.  It's a great tool for businesses (when used effectively) and I'm seeing more engagement, sharing and traffic back as a result.  
As Pinterest has grown and become more popular unsurprisingly we have seen a rise of tools that have popped into the marketplace to help manage, measure and enhance the Pinterest experience. Without further ado, here are my favorite Pinterest tools and the reasons I love them:  

1. PinAlerts 

PinAlerts is a very useful Pinterest tool that allows you to find out in real time whether someone has pinned something from your website. It allows you to quickly respond and say thanks to those who are promoting your work, as well as helps increasing your followers by asking your pinners to follow some of your other boards. PinAlerts is still in its infancy (aka beta version) and they have plans for more features to arrive soon, such as the possibility to broadcast the number of your repins on your website.  

2. Pinreach 

Pinreach helps you understand better where you stand on Pinterest and how well you’re doing, by calculating your Pinterest “score.” Another useful feature is that you can see the daily trending members and trending pins. This is great for boosting your engagement: repins, comments and increase in followers to your boards.  

3. Hootsuite 

Ok, I admit this one is a slight cheat as I use Hootsuite predominantly for Twitter (it's one of my favorite Twitter tools) but I thought it was worth a mention here particularly as they have now included Pinterest tracking to their portfolio.  

4. Followers on Pinterest 

Followers on Pinterest is a smartphone/tablet app that costs £0.69.  It's very similar to another one of my favourite Twitter tools, ManageFlitter. You can use it to find out who isn’t following you back, track new followers, follow and unfollow users and discover new people and boards to follow. One of the most interesting features of this app is that it allows you to keep track of everyone who has everunfollowed you!  

5. Pin Search 

If you use Google Chrome and Pinterest, then you may find this tool very useful. It’s a Chrome extension that allows you to Google search using any picture on Pinterest. This way you can get all the information there is on a picture as well as similar pictures. A great discovery tool for Pinterest!  

6. Piqora 

Piqora (formerly known as Pinfluencer) is a great tool for anyone who is serious about using Pinterest for marketing reasons. You can use it to start any promotions on Pinterest, to track your results with their analytics and manage your content (including pin scheduling). Another great feature is Pinner360, that helps you identify your most influential pinners, your brand advocates as well as who engages the most with you. A very useful tool and a must for those using Pinterest for their business.  

7. Pinstamatic 

Pinstamatic is a great Pinterest tool that helps you make even better boards. Regular images are just not enough anymore to stand out, and with this tool you can get that extra edge over your competition. For example, you can add quotations to your board, which has a much better chance of attracting users to it as well as fun sticky notes. Another great feature is that you can share music on your boards and your friends can play them right from there – a great tool that helps you create more diverse and more fun boards. You can also use Pinstamatic to add a map to your Pinterest board, so that whenever someone clicks on it they are directed to your location on Google Maps.  

8. Pinterest Right Click 

Pinterest Right Click is another browser extension, but this time for Mozilla Firefox users. Once installed, it adds a “Pin Image” option to your right-click menu, so whenever you find an image that you would like to pin, you can do it very quickly by right-clicking.  

9. PinBooster 

PinBooster is a great tool for those who want to advertise on Pinterest. It works simply by compensating popular pinners to endorse your business on Pinterest. They can share your photos and videos and promote your hashtags and events to their followers.  It's a useful way to grow your follower base and even get some leads out of it. And if you are a great pinner yourself and have lots of followers, you can sign up on Pinbooster and actually get paid to pin.  

10. Snapito 

Snapito is a tool from the Pinstamatic family that has a very simple, yet useful feature. It allows you to pin your website easily, by entering its address on their website and with the click of a button you get a screenshot of the website that you can then quickly post to your Pinterest board. Another very similar tool is a Google Chrome extension called ShotPin, which pretty much does the same thing!  

11. Pinpuff 

PinPuff is a simple tool that allows you to measure your influence on Pinterest. You can get a Pinfluence mark for your popularity or alternatively, for any of your pins. It’s useful as you can get a glimpse into what types of pins are most successful and bring you the most engagement and you’ll then know what to pin in the future!  

12. Shopinterest 

Want to sell your products via Pinterest? This tool, in its beta version at the moment, can help you set up a Pinterest store in a matter of minutes, for free! Pinterest has lots of female users, and some types of products are extremely successful. It’s a great medium for selling clothes, jewelry, household items and even furniture! It’s also the perfect place for art, and if you are a photographer, or sculptor for example, you can easily market your art on Pinterest and, why not, even sell it!  

13. Reachli 

Reachli makes it very easy to market your visual content across not just Pinterest, but also other social networks. Once you start your campaign, you’ll be able to closely monitor it with the analytics they provide, so you are on top of what works and what doesn’t and make the appropriate changes. They also offer a “promote” feature that allows you to, well, promote your campaign beyond your existing networks of friends and followers so that you can reach more people. It’s a great tool for raising awareness and engagement.  

14. Wishpond 

Wishpond, among other features for Facebook, Twitter and others, has a Pinterest Tab. This tab allows you to showcase all of your boards and pins from your Pinterest account on your Facebook Page and your website. It works well on mobile websites as well, and it’s extremely easy to install. Apart from typing in your login information, there’s nothing else you have to do – the tool will do it for you. Great for cross-promotions and for driving more engagement to your Pinterest boards and pins from your Facebook friends.  

15. Curalate 

Curalate works with both major visual social networks: Instagram and Pinterest. It helps you stay on top of your performance on any of the two sites by providing in depth analytics of your images. Apart from your images’ analytics, you can also use the tool to get revealing analysis of your competitors, so you can see what you are fighting against and learn from their successes and mistakes.

 

16.  Repinly

Repinly is a very easy to use tool that I recommend to anyone using Pinterest who wants to keep on top of what’s happening on the popular social network. You can easily find out what the most popular pins and boards are and who are the top pinners. You can also browse popular boards by category, which makes the tool even more useful. It’s great for boosting engagement and for raising follower numbers.    

17. HelloInsights 

HelloInsights helps you ‘pin intelligently’, as they put it. It gives you very useful insights and analytics that help you monitor your Pinterest account and find out what’s working and what isn’t. Another great feature is that it allows you to see how you stack up against the competition with an easy to understand comparison chart. And the features don’t end here: you can also use it to schedule pins and to find out which pins are driving the most traffic to your website.  

18. Pinalytics 

Pinalytics is a very easy to use tool that won’t require too much of your time but that can offer some great insights.  All you have to do is type any subject or keyword in their search bar and get a feel for what’s trending and what’s getting lots of engagement.  

19.  Pinterest Goodies

Pinterest Goodies is where you can get the ‘basic’ (but very useful!) official Pinterest tools. First and foremost, if you are an avid pinner you need to get the Pin It button. Simply drag the button from the website to your toolbar so whenever you want to pin something on the web you can easily do it in just seconds. Another useful Pinterest “goodie” are their website widgets. You can add a Pin It button that allows people to easily pin things directly from your website, as well as Pinterest follow button that people can click to instantly follow you. Great for boosting engagement and gaining more followers with minimal effort on your part. The last, but not least, tool is the Pinterest mobile app, that you can download for your smartphone and tablet in order to be able to keep up to date on the move.  

20. Pinterest Analytics

Pinterest offer their own analytics for businesses. You can use these insights to find out what people are pinning from your website, see what pinners like, what gets most repined or most clicked as well as other interesting information.   So there you have it -  my 20 favorite Pinterest tools! I can’t wait for more tools to pop up so I can try them all and do a more extensive list. But until then, is there anything that you think I missed? Any Pinterest tools that I didn’t include but you think are great? Which tools do you use ? Please let me know in your comments and if you've found this article useful please share.

Article courtesy of Social Media Today