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3 Tips For Sourcing Corporate Social Media Content From Employees

social media strategy

The need for developing a corporate social media strategy no longer a dispute, it’s a necessity. The real question has become how? One of the great things about paying employees is that they do things for you when you ask them. One of those things should be assisting with social media content creation, especially if you have a lot of employees! Although you likely don’t want it to take attention away from priority tasks, it’s very possible that many within your ranks have a better eye for content than you do! Related: 7 Quick Content Writing Tips For Your Social Media Strategy   3 Ways To Get Your Employees Involved In Your Social Media Strategy 1. Create Incentives. I was speaking with a friend who works at a major cosmetics company that recently started a company Instagram account and needed to create some content to get it rolling. She engaged employees at the office by providing incentives for taking simple pictures using their products. Employees and their friends could easily get free products by taking creative pictures of them using them. What used to be a big production involving photographers and photo shoots are now a few people from the [...]

Mastering The Art of Selfless Social Media Posts

social media strategy

It’s a scary thought for most business owners to imagine that their efforts online are not only ineffective but also potentially working against them. You could be really business savvy and recognize the necessity for a social media strategy but that doesn’t change the fact you have little to no time, nor interest in adding another task on to your plate. That’s reasonable. The problem is everyone tells you that you have to get on this social media thing and you know it’s true, so you break down and decide to give it a try. You don’t like to read instruction manuals, you prefer to dive in and test the waters for yourself. Trial and error is the best approach, right? That might work at IKEA, but it likely won’t get you very far using social media marketing for your business. If you aren’t getting results using social media, there might be a deeper story that needs to be uncovered and it’s your job to get to the bottom of it before it gets to your bottom line. Related: 9 LinkedIn Mistakes That Are Making You Look Bad   What Are You Doing To Repel People? Social media has made [...]

How Safe Is Your Business From Negative Online Reviews?

social media strategy

Not every business is burdened with the constant suspense of negative feedback that’s prevalent on sites like Yelp, Urbanspoon and even Google Reviews since those are mostly aimed at restaurants and “brick and mortar” businesses. But businesses have plenty of good reasons to consider preventative measures against negative reviews online when planning their social media strategy. Related: Saving Your Restaurant From Bad Online Reviews   Getting With The Times You remember the days when placing an ad in the Yellow Pages was good advice? That’s because it was only a few short years ago. Those were the simpler days when negative reviews had a much more difficult process to go through to scare off potential customers. You really had to screw up to damage your business through negative experiences but in today’s digital era you can do it in minutes. People used to consult the big yellow book on where to spend their money but now they go to Facebook and Twitter to ask their friends. They check out forums and review sites to see what other people are saying about whichever products or services they are considering buying. If your social media strategy hasn’t considered this yet, you’ve almost [...]

5 Warning Signs That Your Blog Posts Are Ineffective

social media strategy

Somewhere between writing content and getting a flood of new leads is a dark area where most people get lost when creating a social media strategy that sticks. If your blog posts aren’t giving you the results you are looking for it could be for a variety of reasons – many of which have nothing to do with the quality of your writing. Understanding the different components of a successful social media strategy that incorporates blogging is paramount to actually getting noticed online. Much like the spokes in a wheel, each different aspect of blog writing, optimization and the promotion process are equally crucial.   1. Time Spent On Page Check in your website analytics to see how long people are spending on each blog post. Most people these days prefer to quickly scan through posts so don’t be discouraged if it is lower than you expected. See which blog posts have to highest time spent on page to get a rough idea on which posts are most effective. Analyze those posts to get a better idea why they had people on the page longer. It could be a video that you embedded, a certain type of media or simply [...]

Is Measuring The ROI of Social Media A Joke?

social media strategy

One of my favorite sales gurus, Jeffrey Gitomer, posted a blog the other day entitled, “Measuring The ROI of Social Media? There’s a Laugh, and a Joke,” and I wanted to address this topic since it is a hot debate with valid points on both sides. Every business that has attempted to create a social media strategy has likely wrestled with this very subject, so I will do my best to provide some insight.   The Argument Gitomer makes a great point when he says that social media is running wild with or without you. Your customers and prospective customers are on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn so if you don’t get involved, you’ll be swimming in a sea of lost opportunity. The opposing argument to this philosophy includes points such as: If social media is so great, how come I can’t trace it back to specific sales? If there is a ‘lost opportunity’ I should be able to measure it How can I reasonably create a social media strategy without calculating ROI? Like I said, these are all valid points but they stem from a few inherent misunderstandings regarding social media. If you think everyone who sees your commercial or [...]

Why Your Social Media Strategy Needs A Face

social media strategy

You might have a business or brand with an online presence and decent social media strategy but when it comes time to closing the sale, what is the number one reason a great product or service isn’t getting the cash? In a word: trust If your visitors don’t trust you, they will never give you a dime. They probably won’t even give you their email! You could have a dynamite website, slick graphic design and a cool logo but that all doesn’t matter unless they believe you are reliable, trustworthy and legit. It’s a very realistic and reasonable concern to think about which companies are legitimate online and which ones are not. Some might be somewhere between where they follow through on the service but do a very poor job, leaving evidence that their flashy site was simply bait (and you took it).   Who Can You Trust? If you are on a website or checking out a business on social media sites and they don’t have the following, consider it a major red flag: Picture(s) of company owners Phone number Professional email Specific names of company owners and/or senior management If a business isn’t willing to display this simple [...]

Meet The 7 Types of Social Media Users

social media strategy

Business owners and management teams tend to struggle over understanding audience behavior when refining their social media strategy. After all, it is a strange thing, isn’t it? They were interested enough to like your Facebook page and follow you on Twitter but they never show your posts any love. What gives? We sometimes forget we are dealing with real people online and fail to distinguish the different species that exist in the digital domain. It’s important to understand the simple difference between these two types of users when creating your social media strategy:                     1. Proactive Users                     2. Reactive Users Proactive users are the people that are actively posting updates, engaging with other users, utilizing most available features and basically make their presence known through a variety of activities. Reactive users are those people that rarely make posts and only interact with comments or posts that are directed at them specifically. They aren’t as likely to like every picture of your cat in their hilarious Halloween costume unless they helped pick it out!   The 7 Types of Social Media Users 1. The Listener. This person is an active social media user but prefers to fly under the radar. Even [...]

Your Customers Are Talking On Social Media. Are You Listening?

A couple weeks ago I posted a blog called Why Twitter Is Still A Powerful Marketing Tool and discussed the importance of monitoring relevant as part of your overall social media strategy. Since then, I’ve had the great pleasure of connecting with Tanya Thompson from Discovery Honda in Duncan, BC and heard about their social media strategy and Twitter success stories. Both stories are perfect real-life examples of why it’s crucial to have someone who can monitor interactions with your brand in real-time through out the working hours of each day. One of the things that make these success stories is the fact that Tanya, Discovery Honda’s Customer Relations Manager, was on top of watching the company’s tweets when an opportunity presented itself. Tanya didn’t have just one Twitter marketing success story but two incredible cases of a great social media strategy in action.   Social Media Strategy Includes Top Notch Customer Service After noticing a long time customer and Twitter follower had a service appointment coming up, Tanya from Discovery Honda took the lead and tweeted a reminder. Not only was this impressive to the client, it was extremely convenient since he was wondering if they did rock chip [...]

5 Things Everyone In B2B Should Be Doing On Social Media

Every B2B social media strategy at this stage of the social marketing evolutionary cycle will need to incorporate a few non-negotiable tactics. B2B marketers now believe that social media is the second most important factor (64%) to organic search success, behind only strong content (82%). [Source] At this point in time, there are 5 things that every single B2B marketer should be incorporating in their social media strategy. If you haven’t started yours yet, here are a few points to think about as you create it your strategic plan. Here are the top 5 most important components of a successful B2B social media strategy: 1. Connecting On LinkedIn Groups I’ve said it before and I will say it again: LinkedIn groups can be one of the most powerful tools in your social media strategy. Not only is it ideal for networking with new professional connections, it can be a valuable source of highly targeted traffic to your blog or website and help position you as an expert online. When you interact with people in groups, it’s not so strange to reach out to them via a connection request if some form of dialogue as already occurred. Plus, when you send [...]

Has Social Media Created A Culture of Free Consulting?

One of the most common mistakes I see so many people make (myself included) is convincing themselves that giving away free consulting is part of every social media strategy. Social media has created a culture of sharing free content but you need to draw the line on where free content hits free consulting work. My philosophy is that if it takes more than three minutes or it can’t be said in 140 characters, it’s free consulting and you shouldn’t be doing it. The content revolution of the internet has been one of the most positive things to ever happen to spreading knowledge throughout the world but it has also created a sense of entitlement among some. It’s not a bad thing unless you let it get out of hand. Give enough people an inch and you’ll see how fast they will try to take a mile. Related: The Ultimate Marketing Strategy: Education-Based Marketing   Fool Me Once… That old saying rings true here: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me! If you keep fueling the problem, it won’t go away. It’s actually likely to get much worse! You can’t be responsible to hold everybody’s hand [...]