SSS for Success (Simplified Social Media Solutions) Blog and Podcast Series

The Social Media Marriage

A few weeks ago, I had the good fortune to witness an awesome panel discussion on Social Media held by NAMA (The Nashville Chapter of the American Marketing Association). One of the panelists, Erick Goss (Managing Partner at Creative Trust Media), made an excellent statement about the commitment necessary for social media to work effectively.

I’ve slightly sanitized Erick’s description to make it more palatable to a “PG audience”, but essentially, it goes like this: Social Media in comparison to Traditional Media (like TV ads, Newspapers, Magazines, etc.), is like the difference between going on a blind date (traditional media) versus a marriage (social media). Traditional Media is typically a one-shot deal, where you’re spending a lot of time and money (usually the latter) hoping that it will pay off, kind of like you do with a blind date. Yes, you’ve known people that have gone on wonderful blind dates, but there are also plenty of horror stories. The point here is that it’s a one-time gamble that you hope will pay off big, it could work, or it could not. You could have a great time, or you could end up in tears.

Whereas with social media, just by its very nature of planning and the time commitment it takes, it is more so like a marriage. It’s time put in, for hopefully the right reasons, that will have both long and short-term results, and while it won’t be all roses, you can’t just ditch it the minute something goes wrong. Or as Erick said “If my wife gets mad at me, she can’t just get rid of me”.

So, it seems to me that Social Media is like “the new hot girl on the block”. Everybody wants to date it, but no one’s putting a ring on it, because they just don’t quite trust her yet! It makes sense, but if you look around, you’ll see the people that are doing the best things with social media today, have made a long-term strategic commitment to fitting it into their brand’s message.

I think having this “Blind Date vs. Marriage” imagery is a great way to encapsulate just what it takes to make social media work.

So, with that in mind: Are you ready for a long-term commitment?

Kindra Cotton, Small Business Survival Specialist

The Social Media Marriage

The Social Media Planning Process (Part 2)

By sss4success 3 Comments

As stated in “The Social Media Planning Process (Part 1)”, I typically like to map out a Social Media Marketing Plan that shows how social media will be utilized to build a brand online. The first part of the process is creating and updating social networks profiles, and the second part measures the effectiveness of your Social Media Marketing Campaign by monitoring your Social Media Marketing Analytics by some specific metrics. Namely:

The number of web hits to your company website and/or blog.
The number of emails collected on your company website and/or blog for your email marketing campaign.
The number of Facebook Fans, Twitter Followers, LinkedIn Connections, and YouTube Subscribers acquired.
The number of people that attend special events advertised through your social media networks.
The number of referrals from social media fans, followers, connections, and subscribers.
The number of new units sold/leads generated.
The number of units sold/new leads generated from existing customers.

The final component of the Social Media Marketing Plan is monitoring the long-term effectiveness of your company’s social media marketing strategy, as it is key for identifying new customer markets, gaining additional customer feedback, as well as assessing what social media marketing avenues are working best. In this stage, assessing marketing effectiveness occurs by utilizing a collection of online market surveys and/or customer feedback questionnaires, and thoroughly monitoring the analytics of your company’s website, blog, and social media networks, and periodically analyzing the information received for emerging trends and industry shifts.

Social media initiatives can be time consuming, but if done right there can be a great payoff.

So, with that in mind: Where are you in your social media planning process?

Kindra Cotton, Small Business Survival Specialist

The Social Media Planning Process (Part 2)

The Social Media Planning Process (Part 1)

By sss4success 2 Comments

Typically, what I like to do at SSS for Success is map out a Social Media Marketing Plan that fits squarely within the overall marketing plan of a company. Specifically, the Social Media Marketing Plan highlights how social media outlets will be utilized to:

1) Drive traffic to your company’s website or blog,

2) Generate interest in the site’s content,

3) Generate sales or leads for new customers, and

4) Provide ways of keeping existing customers actively engaged in the company’s brand through its website, blog, or other social media outlets.

In order to accomplish the goals set forth in this Social Media Marketing Strategy, I usually take a company through the process of creating and updating their profiles on various social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Youtube. Then I delve into more specific strategies intent on acquiring more Twitter Followers, Facebook Fans, LinkedIn Connections, and YouTube Subscriptions through a series of mindful updates that are relevant to each of these communities and ultimately help your company build that brand recognition among the users who frequent these communities.

For those that have already created many of these accounts, I step back and analyze the medium in question in relation to the overall marketing goals of the company. Everyone doesn’t need a Twitter account. Now, it is always a good idea to register your brand name just in case you need it for future use, but just having a Twitter account and sending out random, sporadic, or spammy messages every now and again only promoting your brand, doesn’t do you any good. So part of the Social Media Planning Process is accessing which avenues are going to work best for your brand message to reach your core customers. What that means is if you’re using these outlets now, but not using them well, then you may need to discontinue them, or perhaps change the direction so that it fits better into your online marketing strategy.

With this in mind, can you firmly state Why You Need Social Media in your small business?

Kindra Cotton, Small Business Survival Specialist

The Social Media Planning Process (Part 1)

Why You Need A Website: The 5-Page Starter Website

By sss4success 2 Comments

A website in today’s business world is the equivalent of a Yellow Pages Ad 20 years ago: It’s a must if you want to be found by potential customers!

There are several different varieties of websites available on The Internet. Some function as an online version of your business card or latest company brochure, and others provide an entirely interactive online experience, complete with moving objects, pictures, video and music.

Your choice for the type of website you have will be based on the size of your imagination and budget. At SSS for Success we specialize in 5-Page Starter Template-Based Websites designed to take you from “no website” to “a web presence”.

Our Web Design & Technical Consulting expertise can also help you build the website of your dreams, and provide you with a Small Business Survival Specialist who has the experience to ask the right questions to insure that your site doesn’t just look nice, but also gets found in search engines.

Here’s How a Website Can Help…

A Restaurant:

Add your menu and give your site some flair by promoting your best dishes through pictures and video testimonials from satisfied customers.

A Dry Cleaners:

Promote exclusive offers and deals to site visitors to get new customers and obtain repeat sales.

A Clothing Store/Boutique:

Make your store hours easy to find and advertise sales while promoting your brands and new season additions.

A Salon:

Showcase your portfolio of satisfied clients and promote your contributions to style in the online world.

One of the things I’ve found interesting when I went out and did my “cold calling” earlier in my business going door-to-door with local area small businesses, is that most people that don’t have a website, apparently don’t feel they need one.

This was somewhat shocking to me, but then I had to think about those businesses and what their long-term visions were. For people that aren’t interested in increasing their revenues, or getting more new customers, or better connecting with their current customers, a new website probably doesn’t benefit them at all. Especially since a good number of them had previously had websites that they paid much too much for in the early dot-com days, and they’re now completely jaded on the whole thing.

So, for those people, I don’t blame them for not having a website. If you have a surefire way of getting folks to walk into your business, and can’t use the increased revenues of more customers, then you probably don’t need a website. For everyone else, I’d suggest the 5-Page Starter Website. And, I don’t just recommend it, because I sell it, and to prove that to you, if you go and do a little search for it, you’ll find that Yellow Pages is now offering 5-Page Starter websites, most likely to the customers they already have that are still paying for Yellow Pages Ads. Honestly, for them, getting new customers is like shooting fish in a barrel, because chances are if you have a Yellow Pages Ad in this day and age, you’re probably VERY resistant to change, and clearly don’t mind overpaying for products and services.

Do you feel like you need a website? Why or why not?

Kindra Cotton, Small Business Survival Specialist

Why You Need A Website: The 5-Page Starter Website

P.S. Feel free to Contact SSS for Success for help getting your small business online.