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SSS for Success: Simplified Social Media Solutions

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4 Social Media-Related Things to Be Happy About This Thanksgiving!

By sss4success 4 Comments

4 Social Media-Related Things to Be Happy About This Thanksgiving!It’s the time of the year when we all get reflective about the things we’re grateful for, and as such, I thought I’d highlight four (4) of the social media-related items we should all be thankful for:

  1. Social Media Itself:  For those of us that remember it, “social media” used to be a handwritten note sent across a classroom, or a letter mailed to a loved one who was many miles away.  In both those cases, we learned what the phrase “waiting with anticipation” meant, but in today’s rapidly moving high-tech environment, both activities are now a thing of the past.  We now have the capabilities to talk to and view people through video chatting on Skype, keeping up with friends and loved ones through Facebook, and for those brave few early adopters and innovators: Use the social media space to grow and promote our companies.  Families are able to stay connected during the holidays in a way that was unheard of 20 years ago.  Old friends and misplaced loved ones are able to find each other after years of searching, and savvy entrepreneurs are continually looking for new and exciting ways to engage our stakeholders by taking advantage of the widespread popularity of social interaction on the Web.  Look at how far we’ve come in the past 10 years: AMAZING!
  2. Social Media Tools:  Applications like Tweetdeck and HootSuite make using social media more manageable.  In fact, having the ability to manage multiple profiles, bulk schedule messages, and track and monitor my social media efforts has made me LOVE my HootSuite Pro account to the point where I can’t imagine what my social media management life was like before it!
  3. Social Media Studies:  The Center for Marketing Research at UMass Dartmouth unveiled in its latest study “2011 Fortune 500 and Social Media Adoption: Have America's Largest Companies Reached a Social Media Plateau?” that there appears to be a leveling off of social media use among the most powerful companies in the U.S., thus implying that this may have indications for smaller businesses who take their cues from them.  The Center being in the rare position of conducting multi-year longitudinal and statistically significant insights into the growth of these exciting new technologies has an excellent viewpoint based on their past benchmarking surveys of corporate social media usage.  As more time passes, we’ll all be thankful for studies like these, because as business owners, they’ll work to highlight the almighty “ROI” (Return On Investment) that a lot of late adopters need to see before jumping on the “social media bandwagon”.  Read more about this study here: http://www.umassd.edu/cmr/studiesandresearch/2011fortune500/
  4. Your Own Personal Social Media Specialist (Kindra Cotton): It is a joy for me to be able to provide helpful information and advice to people that need it.  I appreciate being able to utilize my social networking and technical skills to help make Technology & Social Media less threatening and easier to understand.  It is my pleasure to serve you, thus feel free to get in touch with me and let me know how I can help you get your Social Media Covered!

Rejoice and Have a Happy and Safe Thanksgiving!

What are you grateful for this year?

 

Kindra Cotton, Small Business Survival Specialist

4 Social Media-Related Things to Be Happy About This Thanksgiving!

Filed Under: Social Media, SSS for Success, What You Don't Know Tagged With: Kindra Cotton, social media specialist, social media study, social media tools, Thanksgiving

Google+ Now Has Pages for Companies

By sss4success 3 Comments

Google Plus LogoGoogle is finally allowing brands and companies to officially join its social network with Google+ Pages for Business.  In the past, people may have set up their individual pages for their business, though Google had expressly asked company’s not to.  But now, you can go through the quick 4-step process of Creating Your Google+ Page, Picking a Category, Adding Your Information & Customizing Your Design, and finally Promoting it to all those interested in you and your brand.

Here’s our SSS for Success Google+ Page: http://plus.google.com/107996066801770497422

Check out Mashable’s take on why “4 Reasons Google+ Brand Pages Will Be Better Than Facebook’s”.

 

Kindra Cotton, Small Business Survival Specialist

Have you claimed your Google+ Page for your company? If not, start here: www.google.com/+/business/

 

Filed Under: Online Marketing, Social Media, Technology, What You Don't Know Tagged With: Google, google+ plus

Saying Something Nice: How to Write an Effective Testimonial for a Business

By sss4success 3 Comments

Saying Something Nice: How to Write an Effective Testimonial for a BusinessWe’ve all seen testimonials before, and as such, we know they aren’t all created equally.  In today’s business climate, a sincere “qualified” testimonial from a satisfied customer goes a long way, especially in an age where social media and word-of-mouth marketing are replacing traditional advertising venues.  Let’s look at these two testimonial examples:

  1. “I loved your product and it saved me a lot of time and money!” – L.M.
  2. “The only word I can think of to express how great your New Fangled Widget is “WOW!”. I don’t know how I lived without it in my life, and I don’t know what I’d do if it were taken away!  The moment I got it, I put it to work and it saved me 30% on my utility bills in just one month!  I appreciate how fast you delivered and installed the New Fangled Widget and your Customer Service Representatives were so attentive when I inquired about the possibility of upgrading to New Fangled Widget 2.0.  You have a new customer for life, and I can’t wait to come back to you when it’s time to upgrade.  Keep up the good work!” – Heywood U. Cuddleme, Manager, Hugs-R-Us

There are vast differences between the two, both in terms of length and substance.  First, the first one looks a bit made up, and it’s very generic, in that saving time and money, while being a good thing, doesn’t really tell you about the product and how it may have done that.  Also, the signed name “L.M” doesn’t inspire much confidence, nor does it give you the impression as a would-be reader of this testimonial that you could somehow contact “L.M.” to verify his testimony, should you want more information about how the product fared.

On the contrary, the second testimony clearly shows the person’s enthusiasm, gives a specific instance of how the product was used to deliver a real benefit to its user (i.e. saved 30% on utility bills in one month), and it’s signed by “Heywood U. Cuddleme”, who could easily be Google Searched and located by looking up the “Hugs-R-Us” in your community.  Overall, the second testimonial would likely inspire more people to do business with your company, as they can see a very enthusiast cheerleader is encouraging them to do so!

Here is a brief guide that highlights the best way to leave the most effective testimonial that looks good for you and the business you’re rewarding with kind words:

  • Avoid Generic Language:  Mention the name of the product or service you’re testifying about, and tell what specifically prompted you to talk about your experience and how the product or service in question impacted you or your bottom line.
  • Be Verifiable: Transparency is very important today, especially in the new media era where information is everywhere.  If you take the time to write, comment, or testify about your experience, please leave your name, title, and company, so that people will know you’re a real person, and not just a filler comment that may have been planted by the company.
  • Be Specific: Tell why you would recommend this product or service.  Specify the benefits you gained from the product/service’s features.

Compelling testimonials that are verifiable, drastically increase the effectiveness of your message to new customers of the business because they are the word-of-mouth beacons that help shine a light on the really good products or services in that marketplace.

So, with that in mind: What tips do you have for giving business testimonies?

By the way, if you want to leave a testimonial for the great service you’ve received at SSS for Success, click here (and use "Testimonial" as the Subject line).

Kindra Cotton, Small Business Survival Specialist

Filed Under: Customer Service, Featured Posts, Small Business, Social Media, Tutorials Tagged With: customer reviews, feedback, testimonials, word-of-mouth marketing

3 Ways to Get Content Written Now on Your Blog

By sss4success 1 Comment

3 Ways to Get Content Written Now on Your BlogDo you have a blog or e-newsletter that’s sitting dormant for lack of content?  You’re not alone.  Many a blog/e-newsletters are finding themselves abandoned for weeks or months on end, because their owners either don’t have the time or the inclination to keep them updated.  From my own personal experience, I can tell you that when my blogs go “dark” or content gets thin (or in some cases missing), it’s because I simply haven’t had the time to publish my content.  It’s sad, but even with most of my topics already prepared or mostly prepared, I still find myself occasionally caught in the abyss of never-ending chores that busy entrepreneurs face, and sometimes my blogs suffer because of it.

I get the feeling that I’m not alone, so today I want to share 3 Tips to Getting Content Written Now on your Blog:

  • Option 1: Sit down and write:  It seems a bit harsh, but sometimes the easy solution is the simplest one.  If you’re finding that your blog is vacant for months on end, it’s probably time to evaluate if it’s something worth keeping in your marketing mix, and if it is, then you have to dedicate the time that it takes to build your audience and content.  In order to do that, YOU MUST WRITE.  Since most entrepreneurs never have enough time nor money, you have to take the initiative to place writing for your blog on your list of priorities of things that must get done to run your business.  For me, I find that dedicating a pure 4 hour block of time per week works, when I’m really backed up.  If I can’t pull that off, then I try to at least do 2 hours a day during the week until I’m able to catch up.  I find that I have to make this time available in my schedule, because it is important to me and my business, and right now, there’s just no getting around it.
  • Option 2: Pay Someone to Write for You:  I start all my meetings with new clients by letting them know that despite the general perception that “Social Media is Free”, IT DOES COST!  It’s going to cost your TIME or it’s going to cost you MONEY, but it will cost you!  If you simply cannot find the time to exercise Option 1, then your next best bet is to hire someone.  Prices for getting content will surely range depending on where you look.  It can be a little as $5 if you can find someone to do it on FiveRR.com or it can be upwards of $500/hour if you hire a true ghostwriter from someplace like elance.com or a specialty website for content writers.  For people that purchase Branded Blogs through me, I offer a competitive writing rate, but I always like to encourage people to write their own content to insure that their own “authentic voice” shines through.
  • Option 3: Get Guest Writers:  The jokester in me wanted to title this option “Sucker someone into writing for you for free”, but I opted not to. LOL.  Instead, I’ve left the third option as “Get Guest Writers” because that’s probably the BEST way that you can get posts onto your site in a matter of a few days.  Put out a call (typically privately, via email) to some of your trusted colleagues or up-and-coming people in your field and ask them to write guest posts for your blog.  I find, it’s best to give them an array of topics to choose from, or guide them into a specific area, especially so that their content doesn’t become repetitive of your own.  Ask for 2-3 post submissions at a time, that way, you have the opportunity to review them, and keep them for later, just in case you ever find yourself in another content shortage.

What other strategies can you think of for getting content written right away?

Kindra Cotton, Small Business Survival Specialist

3 Ways to Get Content Written Now on Your Blog

 

 

Filed Under: Blogging, Email Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: blogs, e-newsletters, getting content written

Why You Should Google Me, Plus 5 Tips for Looking More Professional Online

By sss4success 3 Comments

Why You Should Google Me, Plus 5 Tips for Looking More Professional OnlineI’ll start by sharing a story: A few years ago, I got really caught up in the notion that I wanted to honor my civic duty and become a federal employee in order to become an active cog in the system with which I felt was plagued with inefficiencies and ineptitude.  Instead of being a person who merely complained about how bad the government was, but did nothing to change it, I decided I would be proactive and actually submit myself to work as a civil servant for the United States Government. 

My initial job search started by looking in areas that played to my professional strengths, but also related to both my short and long-term career goals.  I have always had a passion for small businesses, so quite naturally, that led me to the Small Business Administration.  Because the agency is relatively small in terms of the number of offices it has throughout the country and the positions that are available, there typically weren’t many openings that were advertised, and when they were advertised, they tended to be in cities and states far away from where I was in Nashville.

So, taking to heart all of the information I had gathered from the tons of job search books I’d read, I took the initiative and decided to contact the local Nashville SBA Office, and talk to someone there, to perhaps get a better idea about their office and the hiring they might be looking to do in the near future.  Upon reviewing the site, I first decided to call someone that was listed under the position that I wanted to apply for.  I thought it would be a good idea to make a connection with someone who was in a job that I believed I wanted, plus I figured it would be a good idea to hear more about what they do, so that I could learn if the job was really for me.

When I called, I was able to reach the person that I was looking for, however what happened next in the conversation took me by surprise.  This person, asked my name.  And I told it to them.  Then, they asked me where I was from, and I mentioned it.  Then, oddly enough, they asked me for the spelling of my name, or specifically my last name, to check and see if I spelled “Cotton” in the traditional way, or if I spelled it with an “E”.  Ironically, I actually shared with them that my first name was the one that wasn’t spelled in the “traditional way”, as I told them it was “Kindra”, spelled with an “I”, instead of an “E”.  The conversation was taking a bit of a strange turn, so I tried steering it back towards the SBA and the position I was interested in, but this person was dogmatic in their pursuit of information about me.  So, they told me they’d Googled my name, and as such had found pages about all that I had been up to on the net over the past 5-10 years.  Most of that was my school work and a variety of work-related projects that I had worked on, and the majority of it was surely related to my two Masters degrees, neither of which had any relation to small businesses (at least not in any direct way).

On the phone, this person was fascinated with what they found out about me.  They were curious about the projects I worked out, what research I’d conducted, what were my findings, and all the things that I would have been more than happy to talk about in any other context, but being in job-search mode, especially in a job wouldn’t find direct value in these projects, I found this conversation to be ridiculously tedious!  And don’t get me wrong, I enjoy taking about my past work, and am always willing to share it with anyone interested, but I was rather perturbed once I saw that the ultimate aim of my call wasn’t going to be accomplished.  Eventually, my call to the Nashville SBA Office ended, and while I’m certain the caller was now at least superficially aware of the Issues and Challenges of Non-Traditional Students in Higher Education, that knowledge wasn’t going to benefit me in a way that would get me hired in their office.

That phone conversation was an eye-opener for me.  It was my unofficial introduction to Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  That conversation made me “Google myself” and see what search engines were saying about me.  Nothing I found there was overly fascinating, bad, nor anything I should have been concerned about, but what I did found didn’t really do a good job of explaining who I was TODAY, just who I had been.  Those results said nothing about what I was looking to gain by becoming a federal employee or working for the Small Business Administration.  In fact, the only mention of small businesses was in a list from my college of all of the graduates in my year, listed by major, which showed my Business Administration minor of Entrepreneurship.  I decided that day, to change that!

I had always been technically savvy and good with computers, but somehow, that savvyness hadn’t quite made it to the internet, in terms of the information that search engines knew about me.  Part of that was because I was, and still am to a large extent, a private person.  The MAJORITY of the information about me on the web at that time was put there because BY SOMEONE ELSE.  For that reason, the story being told was not only fragmented, but wholeheartedly incomplete.  I decided to rectify this by taking a few simple steps, that I’ll share with you here, and give the 5 tips that I believe every person should take to look more professional online (i.e. where the search engine spiders crawl):

  1. First, Email: Please get off Yahoo and Gmail email accounts doing business, and by that I mean, making it the front-face of your business.  I can’t tell you how many people I see that have Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, Comcast, etc. email addresses, and swear to me they’re multimillion dollar establishments.  I’m sure there are people closing million-dollar deals on Yahoo accounts that don’t work for the company, but in general, in my opinion, people doing business on “free” email accounts SCREAM AMATEUR!  Especially when they take it a step further and put that email on their business cards!  Really? You’ll pay $30-40 bucks to print up some business cards, but won’t pay $10 to get a domain that comes with a free email account? Ok, that’s not a smart business decision.  But, I don’t say that to be snarky, because I realize that sometimes people do things because they don’t know any better, and we’ve ALL been there before.  And, to be clear, I have Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail and tons of other free email addresses just like everyone else, but I don’t base my business off of them, nor do I typically share those accounts with my customers.  And I don’t do this, for the same reason I don’t wear slippers to a business meeting.  It just doesn’t look professional!
  2. Next, let’s talk about Domains: Because I’ve now seen this MORE THAN ONCE recently, I’m going to say: be sure that you own your own domain (or company domain name) outright BEFORE you commit it to a business card or print ad!  You can really get yourself into an ugly place by printing your domain name on marketing materials, or better yet, paying for advertising in a magazine, on the internet, or on TV, without actually owning the name.  Don’t just assume because you made the name up, that it’s available, especially if it’s a .COM extension.  Next, in addition to owning your company name (and your own name, for that matter, because domain names are still relatively cheap), it’s also a good idea to buy a domain name that describes what you do (i.e. nashville-fitness-trainer.com)  It can make for a great landing page to drive more traffic to your website down the road.  Finally, when you buy your domain name, I’d advise you to buy it for whatever the low introductory per-year rate you’re getting is.  For instance, I sell .COM domains at $10/year.  Meaning, you can purchase one from me for as many years as you can afford, for $10 a year (i.e. 5 years = $50). But, if you only purchase one year at that $10, then next year, when it’s time to renew it, you’ll have to pay whatever the renewal rate is, and that’s typically 20%-35% higher than it was the year before.  My own unofficial statistical analysis shows that buying bulk year purchases when you first get your domain can save you up to 33% over a 5 year period.  Add to that, if you purchase your domain for multiple years when you first get it, that’s one less thing to worry about in your early years.
  3. Websites:  Even in this day and age there are still people that don’t have a website.  It’s not the end of the world, and it’s an easy problem to rectify.  Also, I want to note that you should have a website, even if you have a Facebook Page and Twitter account, because ultimately, your website will be something you own, and at the end of the day, both Facebook and Twitter can take away your accounts at any time, without rhyme, reason, or warning, and that’s just the price you pay for something when it’s free (add to that, you don’t really OWN your social media pages and profiles, you’re merely using them at the benevolence of the big companies that let you).  When you build your website, keep in mind a couple of things.  Look at the URL for each of your webpages.  Can you read it and logically tell (on sight) what the page is about? If so, then that’s a good URL.  If you see a lot of question marks and equal signs and other non-word characters that don’t spell anything, and you’re not running a major sales site that has a huge catalog where that type of coding is necessary, then your site needs some redesign help.  Last website tip: Be sure to title your pages, and use keywords to guide their content.  It will help you when organizing your site, and later it will help with your search engine optimization.
  4. Let’s move on to Social Media: Everybody’s on it, and it’s almost an inevitability that you will be too, so for that reason, go out there and stake your claim on all of the social media sites.  Fill out the profiles, and if you know you wont be using the site that often (or at all) state that, and point people in the direction of your online space that gets used most often.
  5. Google Alerts and Social Mention:  I started this with a discussion about what was once found out about me in search engines.  It was a learning experience.  Since then, I use Google Alerts and Social Mention to find out what’s being said about me on the web and in social media in “real time”.  Google Alerts are search alert criteria that you can set, where you receive an email when that criteria is found in a search engine.  It’s a great way to keep tabs on what’s happen with you, your brand name, your industry, and even your competition!  Social Mention, is the social media equivalent of Google Alerts, but it works the same way.  It’s a great way to stay on top of what’s out there so that you aren’t surprised by what others are finding.

These are steps that I give enthusiastically because they’re steps I’ve personally taken and can tell you THEY WORK!  Within three months of taking control of my own Search Engine Optimization (SEO), I changed the top search result for “Kindra Cotton”. Today, if you Google Me, you’ll find mostly information about me that I’ve put into search engines, and that information does paint a great picture about me and what I’ve been up to lately.  It’s a simple thing to do, it just takes a deliberate effort.  You can do it to, if you try.  Get in touch with me if you need some help figuring all this out.

Hope all this information was helpful.

Have a great day!

Any other tips for looking professional in the online arena?

 

Kindra Cotton, Small Business Survival Specialist

Why You Should Google Me, Plus 5 Tips for Looking More Professional Online

 

 

Filed Under: Online Marketing, Small Business, Social Media, SSS for Success, Technology, Tutorials, What You Don't Know Tagged With: Google, google alerts, Kindra Cotton, search engine optimization, seo, social mention

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