SSS for Success: Simplified Social Media Solutions

Social Media Made Easy

5 Simple Steps to Start Using Social Media Today

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social-media-bandwagon
Creative Commons by Matt Hamm
Even with the proliferation of news media outlets reporting record uses of technology and social media and tons of success stories of how smaller organizations are able to use social media to increase their bottom line, there are still some people “on the fence” about whether or not social media will work for them and their company (Check out this cool infographic on How Small Businesses Are Using Social Media).

For those few, still sitting on the sidelines wondering if Social Media will work for them, I propose the following 5 Simple Steps to Get Started Using Social Media Today:

1.    Stake Your Claim: Grab your name on all of the social media networks out there (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, etc.).  It’s always better to be safe rather than sorry and risk losing your name to someone else who picks it up once you’ve become popular.  Also, if you grab a name, like a Twitter account, but don’t intend to use it that often, note that on the profile, and tell your visitors the best place to find you online.

2.    Make It Look Professional:  If your goal is to lead people to your company’s website or blog, make sure it looks professional and is user-friendly when visitors arrive.  You only get one chance to make a first impression.  If visitors check out your site once and don’t like it, they likely won’t return again.

3.    Try It for Three Months: Start with 3 months of content to give yourself an opportunity to learn the tools and how best to use them, and to figure out some of the better strategies for engaging your audience in the social media space.

4.    Review Your Analytics:  After the first three months, have a look at your web and social media analytics and decide what they’re telling you.  I suggest you only look at your analytics AFTER a few months have passed, because it will drive you crazy to look at them on daily or weekly basis, especially since you likely won’t see much change in the early days.

5.    Repeat Step 3 for Another Three Months:  Building relationships and capitalizing on the widespread popularity of social interaction for business use is something that takes time.  Let your first three months be the “test case” for whether or not you can handle adding a social media marketing strategy to your marketing mix, and finding out of social media venues truly work for your brand and your customers.  Also, be prepared to tweak things here and there as the need arises.  Now’s the time to ask yourself a few questions: After three months, can you see the potential of where this can lead?  Have you uncovered some new information about yourself, your customers, or your competition that can give you the edge for how you market to your customer base?  Can your business afford not to be engaging customers in some capacity on social networks, given the millions of people that roam the web every day?

At the end of the day, you don’t want to miss the opportunity to be proactive in marketing your business online.  At the very least, give it a six-month concerted effort and see if it’s for you.  And don’t, I can help.  Feel free to use me as a resource, either for Social Media Training (where I show you how to use these tools for yourself) or Social Media Consulting (where I use these tools on your behalf).  Fill out the Contact Us form to get started.

What’s stopping you from using social media in your small business?

 

Kindra Cotton, Small Business Survival Specialist

5 Strategies for Managing Social Media on a Limited Budget

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Time and money are two things that are rarely in infinite supply, thus the following five (5) strategies are provided to show you How to Manage Social Media on a Limited Budget:

Managing Social Media
Image from hotsocialbuzz.com

Step 1: Know Why You’re Using Social Media.  It’s best to have a clear vision as to why you’re using social media and know what objectives you hope to achieve in the social networking space (e.g. to listen, participate in, lead, and be guided by the invisible hand of digital social conversation).  Step one is a great time to review your Social Media Marketing Plan that lays out exactly how social media outlets will be used to drive traffic to your website/blog, generate interest in your content, produce leads for new customers, and provide ways to keep existing customers actively engaged through your social networking activities.  Doing so will ensure that you don’t waste the limited time and resources you do have “barking up the wrong social media tree”.

Step 2: Listen.  In real life, you’d rarely jump into a conversation in progress without taking the time to become well-versed in the topic being discussed.  The same principle applies when it comes to participating in social media.  In order to effectively gauge how you can provide useful content to the already overcrowded social media space, it is important to listen intently and purposefully to what’s been said about your brand, your industry, and your competitors, in addition to keeping up with the latest news and trends that may effect your long and short-term business planning.  Subscribe to your favorite publication’s RSS feeds using Google Reader.  Better yet, take the time now to review this brief tutorial to learn what RSS feeds are and how you can use them: http://youtu.be/f5lJ-fcDDAI

You can save yourself the time and energy of surfing the web, by bringing the web to use via RSS feeds, which can deliver the top news that you’re actually interested in.  The last part of the listening step is to set up Google Alerts and Social Mention for you, your company, and other relevant keywords that can help you keep your finger on the pulse of what’s been said on the web and via social networks.

Step 3: Use Your Tools Wisely.  Trying to manage several social media sites as one person or a small department can certainly become a cumbersome chore, especially after you’ve incorporated 2 or more outlets.  Great tools like Tweetdeck and HootSuite provide excellent ways to monitor your social networks in a column-based format, which you’ll find particularly helpful for managing multiple streams of information.  Tweetdeck is a free application that you can download and install on your computer/mobile device, whereas HootSuite is a web-based application that offers similar functionality through both free and low-cost versions.  As with most things, the paid version of HootSuite offers more extras, but you should only consider these extras if you can see where you can derive a direct business utility from them.  This blog post talks more about HootSuite Pro (the paid version) and gives a bit more information about it.

Step 4: Learn From the Story Your Analytics Are Telling You.  Review the web analytics for your website or blog and look at what they tell you about your content and your site design.  Specifically, look at where your traffic is coming from and what keywords and phrases people are searching for to get to your site.  Note which pages/posts people visit most often and how much time they spend there.  This can help you as you re-design your site, or it can aid when you look for new content to create.

Step 5: Survey Your Customers.  At some point, you will want to take a direct assessment of how we’ll you’re doing from your customers.  Provide a brief 3-5 question survey to find out how what you’re doing right, where you can make improvements, and what suggestions or questions your customers may have.  It’s a great way to get feedback and let your customers know you’re focused on meeting their needs.  (Please take a few moments to fill out our brief survey).

Performing each of these tasks takes a dedicated effort, however once you get the hang of how all these steps work in conjunction together and how you can use tech tools available to make your time more productive, you’ll find that managing social media on a limited budget is a lot easier than you think.

What tips or tricks do you have for managing social media on a limited budget?

What You Should Know About Facebook Contests

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facebook-contest-rulesUsing contests to promote your brand on your Facebook Page is a great way to continue to engage your customers and keep them coming back.  As anybody who uses Facebook knows, the platform changes often, and sometimes with that, there’s a change of the Terms of Service on how you’re allowed to use the platform for both personal and business use.  Over the evolution of Facebook, there have been a number of changes, especially when it comes to companies promoting their brand through non-paid (i.e. paying Facebook for advertising) routes.

There's a lot of legalese and rules surrounding what you can and can't do in terms of running promotions on Facebook (Click here to read more about Facebook’s Promotional Guidelines).  The main thing to know here is that you cannot automatically enter people into contests who LIKE your page or post a comment on your wall.  The bottom line seems to be that Facebook wants to insure that they don't end up having any culpability in any "promotions gone wrong", so they prohibit promotions and contests that aren't specifically run by third-party apps (Third-party apps can be installed, and you can read more about them here).

For those of us that remember “the old days of Facebook”, it’s important to note that most of the old ways of running contests on the platform are now deemed "illegal" (in terms of violating Facebook’s Terms of Service), and while people freely continue to engage in “the old way” of running contests on Facebook pages without 3rd party apps, you need to know when this happens, it's done at your own risk, and that risk is getting your Facebook page shut down, and losing access to however many users you've acquired on the page.

I've read that Facebook isn't really paying too much attention to small businesses and pages with less than 5000 people, since they're typically deemed "small fries" and don't bring in that much revenue to the company, but I think it’s important that you be as informed as possible moving forward, if you’re interested in running contests on your Facebook Page.

In a later post, I’ll delve into some of the third-party Facebook applications out there that let you run a contest on your page, but in the meantime, I can tell you I’ve heard good things about ShortStack (a newer company, offering a free contest option).  And Wildfire Apps (one of the first companies to do Facebook Contest Apps really well; They have a great low-cost option).

Check out this cool article on Mashable on How to Successfully Run a Social Media Contest.

What’s been your experience with Facebook Contests?

Facebook Commerce Option #4: iFrames vs. Facebook Apps

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Lady-Gaga-Facebook-Store
Lady Gaga Facebook Store created with iFrames (image via Mashable.com)
The last option for Facebook Commerce relates to how you can deliver f-commerce options through your Facebook page either through iFrames vs. Facebook Apps.  iFrames allow you to customize your own content that’s displayed through your Facebook Page and it gives you the freedom of creating and hosting your own information that’s displayed within the 520-pixel middle column of your Facebook Page.  The advantage of using iFrames is that it’s fairly easy to use, and you can set it up so that it looks and feels very similar to your website, thus further enhancing the relationship you have with your customers.  The drawback to using iFrames would be the restriction of “real estate” where you’re relegated to the 520-pixel middle column for your selling space.

 

Lands-End-F-Commerce
Land's End f-commerce Facebook App
Using Facebook Apps is another option for displaying content for sale, however the cost of creating and maintaining a Facebook Application can be cost-prohibitive for small businesses on a tight budget.  Facebook Apps do come with the distinct advantage of providing a 46% increase in visible selling space, as they allow for the control the left most 760 pixels on the page.  A good cost-benefit analysis will determine whether or not investing in a Facebook App is the way to go for your brand.

 

What are your thoughts about the future of Facebook for business?

Facebook Commerce Option #3: Complete Selling through Facebook

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The next method of f-commerce is Complete Selling through Facebook, where Facebook operates as your company’s store and takes customers through the entire shopping process within the Facebook platform. 

Delta-f-commerce
Image via Mashable.com
Big companies like 1-800-Flowers and Delta (right) have customized shops powered by expensive social commerce provides like 8th Bridge, but smaller companies will want to take advantage of free and low-cost options like Payvment that offers social sharing, analytics, product management, and order processing within your very own Facebook Store right on your Facebook Page.

 

Ever tried selling through Facebook? How did it work out?