Let’s face it in today’s busy lifestyles we can all use a little help making it easier to keep up with our Social Media efforts. Hootsuite.com is a valuable tool for doing just that. It gives you the ability to manage multiple twitter accounts and schedule tweets ahead of time. Check out this video to learn how!

Tips for Tweeting

Make sure you have a good mix of the following types of tweets:

- Educational Tweets Pertaining to Your Field of Expertise. (ie. cool articles, blog posts, stats, etc…)

- Promotional Tweets - It’s perfectly fine to promote your event, product or service to your loyal followers. The rule of thumb is to mix them in about every 10th tweet or so. Nobody likes to feel like they are being spammed.

- Retweets - Show the love! See a great article, post or tweet, share it with your audience! Just be sure to acknowledge the original tweeter. Proper format is [RT @soandso "Be the Change You Wish To See in the World. Gandhi"]

- Connecting Tweets - Reach out and connect to others. This is a great way to meet new people and increase followers. Search for terms that apply to your area of expertise to form a solid group of relevant followers.

[VIDEO] How to use Hootsuite to Manage Multiple Accounts & Schedule Tweets

Happy Tweeting!

 

Those of you who know me know I have a special place in my heart for non-profits and cause marketing. I think what they achieve for society is truly amazing. One of my favorite quotes is by Mahatma Gandhi, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” This post is for all my non-profit friends out there. Keep up the great work. You are all amazing!

 

Free Online Advertising

1.)     Google AdWords™ – Non-profits can advertise on Google AdWords™ for FREE by applying for a Google Grant. This takes a few moments but is well worth the effort. For more information on eligibility requirements click here.

2.)     Google Local Business Listings – Is a great way to list your business online and get priority placement at the top of the search page. E.g. Google “non-profit businesses in San Diego”. You will see 10 non-profit business listings at the top of the page before the regular search results.

 

Free Online Document Sharing

3.)     My first favorite is SlideShare. This is a free program for non-profit and for-profit companies to easily share power point presentations across the web. Click here to see an example presentation for Xpressive Marketing’s Cause Marketing Project.

4.)     Box.net – This website is a excellent place to post your pdf brochure or event flyers online to easily share with your clients. The Lite version is free to both for-profit and non-profit businesses and allows you 1 GB of storage with up to 25 MB per file. Making file sharing easy and your clients will appreciate it because you won’t slow down their email with large attachments.

 

Free Web Analytic Tools

5.)     Google Analytics – This is a valuable tool to see what visitors are doing on your website and when they are leaving. By learning these great stats you can test and modify your design and layout to maximize your volunteers and donations.

6.)     SiteMeter – Provides basic real-time web stats, has the ability to email reports and predict traffic. The downside is you have to display their logo on your site to use the program.

 

Free Website Builders

7.)     Doodlekit – Doodlekit is completely online eliminating the need to install software on your computer. Doodlekit has teamed up with Grassroots.org to provide free websites for valid 501c3 non-profit organizations. Doodlekit will provide qualifying organizations with a $14 a month voucher which can be applied to one of three website building plans.

8.)      Google Sites – Google Sites is a Free and easy way to get a website up quickly without having to know HTML. Easy to make your own changes and edits as needed.

 

*Special Note: Free website builders usually will place advertising on your website and the site will usually live within their domain name instead of your own custom domain. For a monthly fee you should be able to modify this.

 

I highly recommend creating you own custom website. You can do so fairly inexpensively, but if this is simply not within your budget these tools will work great. Don’t forget to submit your website to the search engines once you build it! Search Engine Submission - Easily allows you to submit your website to the top search engines and get an analysis of your META tags for free.

 

Free Blog Sites

9.)     Blogger.com – Blogger is powered by Google and allows you to build your own blog page for free. It’s a quick and easy to use program.

10.) Wordpress.com – Wordpress.com offers a great way to easily create your own blog. They provide the hosting and security and you provide the content.

 

*Special Note: The free blogging websites are great and easy to use, especially if you are operating on a shoe-string budget. However, they are hosted within their URL, not yours.

 

When hosted within your URL blogs are an excellent way to create relevant content on your website which will improve your website’s SEO. For this reason I highly suggest creating a custom blog and hosting it within your current website. This can be done fairly inexpensively and is well worth the money.

 

Free Talk Radio & Conference Calls

11.) BlogTalkRadio – Create your own radio show! BlogTalkRadio is the social radio network that allows users to connect quickly and directly with their audience. Using an ordinary telephone and computer, hosts can create free, live, call-in talk shows with unlimited participants that are automatically archived and made available as podcasts. No software download is required. Listeners can subscribe to shows via RSS into iTunes and other feed readers.

12.) FreeConference – Free conference calls are great for businesses on a budget. They allow you to setup calls with a fairly large audience base at no cost. There are several services out there for you to use. Note with free services you may experience some technical difficulty and size restrictions.

 

SOCIAL MEDIA!

Let’s not forget the importance of social media! Social Media is the most popular method of meeting, networking and connecting with people. For more information check out this article, “7 Social Media Tools to Successfully Market Your Business” http://tinyurl.com/d9xueo

13.) Facebook and LinkedIn Groups are excellent ways to stay connected to your volunteers and community supports. Start a group for your organization. It’s free and easy to setup and your group will be searchable to all of the 250 million users on Facebook and 40 million professionals on LinkedIn. How’s that for massive reach? Don’t forget to connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook!

14.) Ping.fm – This tool is a time saver! You can update all of your social media sites at once for free.

15.) Twuffer – This great site allows you to pre-schedule tweets on twitter. This is great for promoting upcoming fundraising events. You can schedule times and tweets to make sure you maximize your viewing audience.

 

This list may seem a little overwhelming if you are just starting out. Just take a deep breath, choose the first one that speaks to you and start there. Rome wasn’t built in a day. We are here to assist you in the process with one-on-one coaching calls or complete setup. For more information feel free to call 858-229-4015 or fill out our contact form at http://www.xpressivemarketing.com.

 

We love to hear your comments! Please share and make sure you sign up to receive our posts in the top right corner. If you like this article you will definitely like the next one…Free Online Fundraising Tools!

Michael Stelzner put together an informative white paper called the Social Media Marketing Industry Report. In his reporting he surveyed nearly 900 marketers for their insights into Social Media. This white paper offers some great statistics on how marketers are using social media. A set back to the data is 70% of the people taking the survey were small business owners (2-100 employees) and I think this has a great impact the results. In my opinion, most of the information in the report is what we would expect to see, but it is really great that someone took the step to formulate it for us.

Below are a few Highlights from the report:

• The top benefit of social media marketing: The number-one advantage is generating exposure for the business, indicated 81% of all marketers, followed by increasing traffic and building new business partnerships.
• The top social media tools: Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook were the top four social media tools used by marketers, in that order.
• The number-one benefit of social media marketing is gaining the all-important eyeball. A significant 81% of all marketers indicated that their social media efforts have generated exposure for their businesses. Improving traffic and growing lists was the second major benefit, followed by building new partnerships.
• Nearly all marketers spending 6+ hours a week on social media marketing found exceptionally positive results.
• Sole proprietors were more likely than others to see reductions in marketing costs when using social media marketing.
• Improved search engine rankings were most prevalent among those who’ve been using social media for years, with nearly 80% reporting a rise (and most reporting a strong improvement).
• We asked marketers which social media tools they most want to learn more about. Social bookmarking sites slightly edged out Twitter for the number-one slot.

Top three questions marketers want answered: I have provided a quick and simple answer to the top three questions. I’d love to hear you comments and insights on these questions as well.

(1) What are the best tactics to use?
(A) Key tactics to successfully market yourself, product or company through the use of social media platforms.
- Branding
- Messaging
- Sharing
- Networking
- Promote
For more information take a look at 7 Social Media Tools to Successfully Market your Business

(2) How to do I measure the effectiveness of social media?
(A) The answer on how to measure the effectiveness of your social media really depends on your outcome, but a few quick simple ways to measure are listed below.
- Increased web traffic
- Increased followers
- Better search engine ranking
- WOM – Word of Mouth –How much chatter have you created?
- Email subscribers

(3) Where do I start?
(A) Check out the “Where to Begin”section in 7 Social Media Tools to Successfully Market your Business

I’d love to hear your comments on what you thought about the report and your key insights to the answers above. Have an amazing day!

 

1.)    What is Social Media?

2.)    Branding

3.)    Keep it Professional

4.)    Messaging

5.)    Where to Begin

6.)    Networking

7.)    Promote

 

What is Social Media? - Social Media is an ever-growing and ever-changing new phenomenon. It’s the new wave of meeting, networking and connecting with people, most importantly a new method of meeting new potential clients and marketing your business for free. If you stop for a moment to think about the magnitude of this it’s mind boggling. At any given moment there is a worldwide network of people at your reach. Isn’t that an amazing concept? No longer are we restricted to networking within our immediate geographical location. Best of all, people are friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. Those who are not, are weeded out and blocked fairly quickly. The big question that lies in everyone’s head is, “How?” This blog will give you some key insights on what you need to get started and successfully market yourself, product or company through the use of social media platforms.

 

Branding – In branding, your goals are to gain brand awareness, associate certain qualities and characteristics that make you/your company unique and over time gain brand loyalty. If you plan on marketing your business through social media it is important to keep brand integrity intact. Your brand is an extension of you and your company. How does this translate to social media?

A.)  Avatar/picture – Make sure you use a good picture. A professionally taken picture is highly recommended, but if you choose to take your own just make sure you are dressed in a professional manner and have someone take it for you or use your timer. You do not want the “picture taken in the mirror shot showing the camera”. Use this picture on all of the social networking websites. This will give you brand consistency and increase recognition across platforms. It is important to use your picture. Social networking is about creating relationships, people want to know there is a real person behind the company façade and get to know that person.

B.)   Name – You wouldn’t put a different business name on all of your sales material so make sure you don’t have different user names on your social networking websites. When social networking for your business it is common to have your full name or full business name as a user name, whatever you choose, just keep it consistent.

C.)  Description – Be sure to describe your company, who you are and what you do on all of the social media profile pages. This is the first and possibly last place an interested person or potential client will go to find out more about you. Have a thorough, concise description and double check spelling and grammar. The description can vary from site to site and be custom tailored to the audience, just make sure all of the essentials are there to easily tell people about you/your company.

D.)  Custom colors and background – Most of the social networking websites have an option to customize your page. When doing so try to make sure the colors and images used are consistent across all websites. This will also associate these colors and images to your brand and help you to achieve brand recognition.

 

Keep it Professional –When communicating on social networking websites you want to portray your unique self and interests, this helps to build relationships on a personal level. However, just remember that as you create your social media profiles you are also creating and endless, virtual, searchable stream of information on the World Wide Web. So keep those comments, tweets and pokes to a professional level and make sure you don’t post anything you wouldn’t want printed in the paper or seen on the news.

 

Messaging – In developing your Social Media presence you want to position yourself as an expert in your field. You want the message and information you post to be relevant to what you do. In typical advertising we tell the viewer we are an expert at what we do, through social media you get the opportunity to show them. People are online to search for information - share your knowledge with them and give them helpful advice.

 

Some of you may be hesitant, thinking, “Wouldn’t I would be giving away all of my secrets?” Are they really your secrets? Unless you have a new idea that can be patented, most likely we can find the answer to anything online these days for free?  People are often under the misconception that they hold some secret knowledge that they want to charge others for. The fact of the matter is you learned this knowledge from somewhere and it’s more than likely that someone else has learned it to. 

 

The key to successfully marketing through social media is not to directly sell yourself, your product or your service.  Gone are the days of high pressure sales pitches and 25 different closes to sell someone. This is a new era, people are turned off by these tactics and it’s a sure fire way to be blocked or lose followers. Instead, you should show people that you truly are an expert in your field by sharing your knowledge, insight and wisdom.

 

When you do this you gain loyal readers and followers. Guess what? Those loyal readers and followers are very smart and intelligent people.  They have a thirst for knowledge. The next thing they will do, after you captivate them through one of your blogs or postings, is research you and find out what you do. You don’t need to tell them or sell them in your postings. That’s what your profile and website are for.

 

Over time you will indirectly sell them through your knowledge and expertise. It is important to stay fresh in their minds with regular postings and relevant advice. By doing this you better believe you will be the first person they contact the next time they are in the market for your particular product or service. Since they are already gathering information, they are most likely getting ready to make a purchase decision.

 

Where to Begin – Hopefully you have already begun, if you haven’t don’t worry today is the best day to start. Below are some great ways to get started today!

A.)   LinkedIn is an excellent tool for keeping up with business contacts, listing your experience and awards, searching and posting jobs, creating groups and networking through existing groups.

B.)   Twitter is a great way to stay in contact with people by using short message posts called tweets. Use this site for tweeting and retweeting relevant articles and advice that your follows will enjoy.

C.)   Facebook is the best way to get in contact with your old high school friends and keep tabs on your new ones. This site tends to be more for personal use than business but your friends are sometimes your best leads. You can get some business exposure on here by creating a fan page, event page, promoting your cause or forming a group.

D.)   Blogs are very beneficial for updating your clients or followers on a regular basis. They are easy to use and even easier to keep up-to-date with current and regular information. You can easily setup a blog page through BlogSpot or for the more advanced user you can create a custom blog page through Wordpress.

E.)    YouTube is an invaluable tool for sharing videos on the web. Sign up for your own YouTube Channel and start promoting you/your business today. Just remember, the quality of your marketing pieces are a direct reflection “in the viewer’s mind” of the quality of your work. Professionally created videos are strongly recommended.

F.)    Flikr is helpful resource for sharing photos, portfolios and artwork.

 

Networking - Social media is all about creating relationships and easily networking without geographical limitations. Just as you would go to a local networking event to meet clients, you can now do so online with anyone in the world. Use social media as a powerful tool to build strong relationships, get to know people, share contacts and advice. Most importantly, start today!

 

Promote – Lastly, promote your social networking contact info. Add it to all the places you now list your “typical contact info”. (e.g. email signature, business card, etc…) It is important for people to find you online, you want to gain fans, friends and followers, so don’t forget to add your Skype, twitter and blog info to all of your “typical contact info”.

 

You should now have a good understanding of how to successfully market yourself/business through social media. If you found this post informational and would like to receive more, don’t forget to sign up for them via email in the top right corner. Feel free to post your comments, feedback and suggestions below.

There are a lot of great resources to assist new business owners in creating their own logo. Here are a few below:

Ehow.com

Microsoft

Logoyes.com

These websites will help you create your company logo, however, keep in mind that your time is money!

 

Over the years I have had many clients who have created their own logos. Most ended up spending a ton of time trying to figure out the various programs, coming up with a font and design they liked and in the end still ended up calling me to finish the job. When I asked them how many hours spent working on their logo, they ALL said 10+ with the average being around 22 hours. Not to mention, if you use their artwork you are using stock images. You really don’t want to spend money advertising and building your brand around a stock image that you do not have exclusive rights to.

 

I realize, as a business owner first starting out you are trying to save money and keep costs low. However, put a $ amount on how much your time is worth per hour. Then multiply it by 22 hours. You could easily get a logo professionally designed for that amount, have it be unique to your company and free up 22 hours of your precious time to focus on what’s really important, what you love to do!

 

Work smarter not harder.

 

www.xpressivemarketing.com