Tag Archives: networking

“Like” Your Page?!? What’s in it for Me?

by Jamie Gorman on March 31, 2011

“How do I get more people to…

Add Value with Social Media for Business

…”like” my Facebook page?
…join my Constant Contact email list?
…follow me on Twitter?
…subscribe to my WordPress blog?”

This is a question I get in nearly every workshop, webinar and consultation on social media. I was reminded of this common marketing concern yesterday, when I saw an emphatic post in my Facebook feed demanding that I like a friend’s fan page. My first thought was:

What’s in it for ME?

So you set up your fan page and your family and close friends are happy to join in your little social media experiment, so you have your first 25 fans – enough to get your own custom Facebook username! After a time of networking, posting a few things, maybe even creating an event or two, other business friends and acquaintances become fans and you break the 100 mark. At some point you reach the plateau of people willing to join the cause just because they know you, and this is where it gets challenging. You see, at this point you actually have to show your value! That page, post and tweet have to start earning their keep and providing your audience with something they need. If it doesn’t, there is nothing in it for them and they will not join or will quickly leave.

Delivering Value

I recently saw a list of the top 10 reasons people like a business fan page. Potential discounts, brand loyalty and new product information were among the top reasons in the study. Here are some ways we guide small businesses to add value for their audience:

Use a 30/30/30 Content Mix

If your goal is to just repeat your advertising copy into your Facebook business posts, don’t expect a huge return on the time invested! My recommendation to most clients is that less than 30% of social media posts be straight advertising promotion. Another 30% should be industry news, product tips, research and other information that establishes your company as credible experts. The third 30% should be less business focused and can consist of community news, promoting charity events or entertainment. For all those keeping score at home, use that last 10% however you like!

Make it Shareable

You know those posts that you can’t wait to comment on and share with your friends? Try to be the person who makes that post! Think through your media calendar and post schedule from your audience’s point of view. Are the things you post something they will want to see and share with their friends? When you are not only valuable, but also shareable, your fan base will grow quickly.

Post Consistently

My Facebook friend base combined with the business pages I like totals about 300. Not a large number, pretty average in fact. But, for me to see one day’s worth of posts I have to scroll back through about 8 screens – and I hide Farmville posts! That means if you are a business posting once or twice a week in the morning, it’s likely I won’t even see your posts for months at a time. Social Media is more tolerant of short, valuable posts multiple times a day than email. In fact, if you are on Twitter and only tweeting a couple times a day, most people who follow over 500 people (not uncommon) will forget they are following you.

Social Media Calendar

It’s tough to sit down and in the moment you have to post, think of something creative and valuable to say. Create a social media calendar to help organize, schedule and mix your post content. My social medial calendar includes Facebook, Twitter, WordPress blog posts and Constant Contact email marketing. This provides an integrated, consistent approach to my online marketing (when I have the time to implement!)

Having trouble with your social media or email marketing? Sigma College of Small Business has business classes, webinars and services to help you get started and be more effective.

Would you like a Social Media Planning Calendar? We developed an Excel spreadsheet that we use at Sigma College. Use the comments below to let me know if you are interested.

Posted in Blog, Blogging, Email Marketing, Marketing and Sales, Online Marketing, Social Media | Tagged business, classes, education, email, facebook, fan page, marketing, networking, Online Marketing, Social Media, subscribe | Leave a comment

Why Blog? Can it Really Help Business?

by Jamie Gorman on January 13, 2011

This week I thoroughly enjoyed the kickoff meetup of the Piedmont Bloggers Meetup Group! We are a group of local bloggers and wannabe bloggers that are getting together to share ideas, techniques and support. It was awesome! If you are a Northern Virginia blogger for fun or business, you are welcome to come join us.

Why Blog? Can it Really Help Business?

The kickoff meetup and presence of some folks who came out of curiosity made me reflect on the value of blogging, especially for small business owners. There are a lot of articles giving tips for improving your blog, but many of the folks I talk to aren’t quite sold on the value enough to drop everything for a few hours a week to set up their blog and write a good post.

You are an Expert! You Just Have to Show It.

Publish or Perish is a common phrase in professions that place a high degree of emphasis on knowledge and experience – medicine, academia, engineering careers all benefit from being published. Although writing your own blog isn’t quite the same as being published in the top medical journal (yet), it does project a similar type of expertise and credibility, especially if your blog is well read and commented on by other experts.

At our meetup this week, Bill Slawski of SEO by the Sea shared how his blog had gained an audience and led to speaking engagements across the country! You are also probably noticing that when you search on most technical questions these days, the resulting answers are in the form of someone’s blog. If their solution works, they just became your go to expert!

Each of us is an expert at something. It may be business topics, insurance, travel or fixing toilets. The point is that when people are looking for our products and services, they want to use an expert. Getting to a site where the company has specific articles that help them understand provides great assurance that they are in the right place to meet their needs.

Generate Traffic! To Your Site and To Your Store.

Placing good, regular content online that is rich with the keywords people search on will bring people to your blog and to your web site. This can then generate foot traffic and call volume.

A blog that is attached to your web site, or refers to your web site will help boost you in the rankings Google uses to list the top sites for the key words your customers are most likely to search. No tricks or gimmicks. It is in Google’s best interest that when people “Google” something, the top links in the list are the most relevant to what they are looking for! Otherwise, people will be more likely to “Yahoo” it next time. Being relevant to your potential customer base and publishing what they are likely to search for will generate traffic.

Support Your Customers

I read this logic somewhere and apologize that I can’t remember where, but it goes something like this. When one of your customers sends you a question in an email, don’t you sit and write out an answer? Your answer could be 300 words, but you will take the time to respond to your customer. THAT’S A BLOG TOPIC! Write it up in your blog, give them a referral link in the process (unless it is a private matter) and then send them the link with any information that makes it more specific to their situation. It is very likely that other customers have a similar question.

Several months ago I was speaking to an audience about the importance of subscribing to blogs they find interesting. Stares went blank, faces looked questioning – it hit me that my audience knew nothing about RSS and subscribing. I wrote “Subscribe”, a two part, step-by-step guide about RSS and subscribing to blogs. Because I reference that post so often, I now keep a direct link to that post in the right column of the SigmaBizBlog site.

Getting Started

If you are sold on the value of blogging, but just can’t get it started, please comment below with your questions or issues and we’ll do our best to help. If you need more than some blog dialogue for your business’ social media, call us at (703) 468-1465. Sigma College of Small Business has Social Media Packages that will help you get a jump on your Social Media Marketing.

Posted in Blog, Business Networking, Customer Service, Marketing and Sales, Online Marketing, Social Media | Tagged blogging, blogs, content, meetup, networking, rss, Social Media, subscribe, writing | 4 Comments

Toeing the Line: Professionalism and Social Media

by Jamie Gorman on November 3, 2010

“How Social Media Can Affect Your Professionalism” was the topic of the day at Monday’s Network@Noon at the Prince William Chamber Western Office. Promoting business in social media, while protecting your personal privacy and maintaining your professionalism is one of the biggest concerns for small business owners.

The Big Decision – Are my customers my friends?

One of the first questions to ask yourself as you move forward with your social media plan is “Are my customers my friends?” Answering this question will allow you to set up some “rules” for who you will connect with on the different social media channels. For example, my general rule for a LinkedIn connection is that the person must know enough about me to make a recommendation. LinkedIn is designed to set up professional connections so that your network can recommend you to their network – that’s tough to do if they don’t know me.

This becomes even more important in Facebook. Facebook “friends” are people who have given me permission to see their personal posts and I’ve given them permission to see my personal posts. So if crazy cousin Eddy posts something on my wall about an embarrassing childhood experience or picture, all my friends can see it. Fans are people who choose to follow the posts I make on my business fan page. “Liking” a fan page is a one-way interaction and these “fans” or “people who like” cannot see any information on my personal profile, and I can’t see their personal profile.

For many larger businesses, where the owner isn’t personally linked to the business, this isn’t a difficult decision. However, many smaller businesses and sales people depend heavily on referrals from friends and building personal relationships to make the sale.

If you decide to pull customers into the more personal social media areas like your Facebook personal profile, make sure to adjust your posts to position yourself a personable, yet professional. For example, you may not share that funny picture of your nephew’s potty training progress, but the tasteful pictures of your daughter’s field trip may be fine. If you enjoy being fully transparent on Facebook, it might be better to keep your customers on the Fan Page.

Building Your Professionalism

Here are three ways that people are getting the best results in building their professionalism using social media.

Posts should add value and show your expertise…Make sure your content mix is more than 50% original thoughts. It’s great to re-tweet and share the links of others, but to differentiate yourself and show your expertise it is important to post original stuff. Even when you share a blog post, add a comment that explains why it is great content for your audience.
Blogging really establishes expertise…To really show off your expertise and credibility online, nothing beats a consistent blog. Because blogs are typically longer than the standard social media post, it allows you to deliver real value and complete thoughts to your target audience.
Use social media to leverage your network, not replace it…All the old rules for face-to-face networking still apply and social media is not an excuse to stop attending those networking events. Social media merely gives you a tool to take those relationships to a higher level faster.

Some General Posting Guidelines

Don’t post anything you don’t want on the front page…Including, but not limited to, complaining about customers, sharing trade secrets or talking about extremely personal family situations. Before you “share”, think through your professional audience and make sure they won’t be offended and think less of your judgment and professionalism.
Do you want customers to know you are at their competitors??? If you have a key restaurant client, do you really want them to see you “check-in” at their competitors across the street? It may not matter if you are good about equaling out the love.
Posts can reflect your work schedule, political positions, financial situation, etc…Launching into a bashing of a political candidate or religious group may seem harmless enough, but would you do that in a meeting with customers who may hold opposing views? How about reflecting on your day off golfing to a customer who is still waiting for their overdue web site?

In Summary

While considering how social media fits into your marketing mix, make sure that you segment the audience and adjust your content to ensure professionalism, trust and credibility.

Posted in Blog, Business Networking, Marketing and Sales, Online Marketing, Social Media | Tagged business, facebook, gainesville, LinkedIn, management, networking, Online Marketing, Social Media, subscribe, twitter | Leave a comment

Would the REAL Time for Social Media Please Stand Up?

by Jamie Gorman on October 13, 2010

I attended a great seminar Wednesday presented by Gina Watkins of Constant Contact and hosted by the Greater Warrenton Chamber. (Sigma College co-sponsored with CC) The topic was social media and Gina mentioned that a business owner could be effective at social media spending about 15 minutes a day! There are a lot of us spending more time than that, so I thought I would walk through where the time goes when you make social a part of your marketing mix.

Start Here!

The first slide of my social media classes is this picture of a calendar as a way of telling my students that, although social media is cash cheap, it can be time expensive. One of the first decisions in determining the role social media plays in your marketing plan is how much time should be spent building your network.

Pure Posting

Once you are all set up with your accounts and have a goal of 5 or 10 posts per week on a couple of social media sites, then 15 minutes a day is likely enough time. But don’t get your expectations up! You will likely get fans and followers from your current network, but it will be slow going building that network over months. Mixing in some time to monitor and comment on some blogs, share some posts with your network and start some discussions will be time well spent.

Set-up and Design

Setting up and designing social media pages can seem like an unending task. Every time I turn around there is a new tool, or a new app that I just have to try. And even though they are all “one-click” installation, they typically take me a bit more time. Most of the sample sites we see have had some work done. An extra tab here, a customized page there – it all adds up to extra time or paying someone. Make sure you schedule some time to keep up with the latest apps and keep your sites up to date. It’s part of being relevant and it will take a couple hours a month.

Blogging

I recommend to most of my students and clients to do some blogging. It’s a great way to show your expertise in the industry and adds great content. When you decide that blogging is a part of your social media mix, make sure you plan the required time. Depending on how often, your writing skills, the amount of research required and the pictures and links you add, you may need to schedule a couple hours per post as you get started and 30 minutes to an hour if you really get efficient. But the payoff, if you are good, is that you are putting up good content that will draw readers that will subscribe, share, etc… and build a better network, quicker.

Interacting

I have yet to read a book, article or blog on social media that didn’t stress how critical it is that to be successful in social media you need to read and comment on other people’s posts. In fact, here’s one from Techipedia | Tamar Weinberg that I read yesterday. It’s part of establishing your online presence and building credibility – really it’s being part of the community, part of the network. Plan to spend at least an hour a week just interacting with the online community. Read, comment and share the content of others.

Planning

Now, to be more efficient and add the most value with the time you have will require a plan. I give my students and clients a media calendar to pre-plan their posts. We work through a plan for their posts over the next month or so, determine the topics they should post on and even write out the posts ahead of time if possible. Spending a couple hours planning every month will make you more efficient and improve the quality of your posts.

In Summary

So the answer to the question of how much time do I need for social media is a pretty wide range. Someone who uses social media for a high percentage of their marketing mix may spend a couple hours a day, whereas, a beginner may only spend about 15 minutes a day. The important thing is that you pull out that calendar and schedule the time it will take to meet your social marketing objectives so you aren’t suprised.

Posted in Blog, Business Networking, Marketing and Sales, Online Marketing, Social Media | Tagged business, classes, education, facebook, google, learn, management, marketing, media calendar, networking, online, Online Marketing, Social Media, subscribe, twitter, web | 2 Comments

3 (maybe even 4 or 5) Ways to Promote Your Weekly Networking Group with Social Media!

by Jamie Gorman on October 11, 2010

If you are part of a weekly networking group, I want you to print this post and hand it out at your very next meeting! After all the time and effort we spend networking and building relationships at these meetings, it’s just silly that we don’t leverage social media better.

1. Get Social!

Social Media can help you be a better network group. Think about all the things we try to do in our networking groups-learn each other’s business, build trust and credibility and refer each other. Social media helps with each one of these, and has the capability to explode it by ten if done properly. But you have to play to win! The more of your group that uses social media to leverage the group, the bigger the potential.

2. Be Shareable

Just like it’s not enough just to join a weekly group, you have to participate, build trust and add value. The key to a good network is to be with a group of people that you trust and can recommend, or in social media “share”. Your network must be shareable! The members of your group should learn what, when and how to post. I look for things from my network that I can share, but I won’t share just anything just like I won’t recommend anybody. Who I recommend and what I share reflect on me and my credibility, so I encourage my network to give me something shareable.

3. Connect, Friend, Follow, Join, Subscribe and…, well do those first!

As your weekly networking group gets themselves online posting shareable content, challenge them to connect, friend, follow, join and subscribe. Start a list to pass around during the meetings to make sure everyone knows what services each member is using and how to find them online. You may even want to start a LinkedIn Group that you can use to pass on information among yourselves. If you are really dedicated to the weekly networking group you should at least be connected to each member on LinkedIn, subscribed to each person’s blog, be on every email list, follow everyone on Twitter and “Like” all Facebook fan pages.

4. Pass it on, I said PASS IT ON!

The best weekly network groups recommend each other to their friends and other acquaintances. The best social media networks share posts, comment on each other’s blogs and forward their email newsletters. Make it a habit to monitor the posts of those in your network and share the content with the rest of your network. During your 60 seconds each week, make it a point for each person to share important items from their media calendar so the rest of the group is ready to share. If every person in a 15 person network has 100 people in their social media network, 1,500 people can get an important post! Sure beats the 10 or maybe 20 people that would get it by one-on-one interaction.

Ok, it was 4.

If printing out this article and passing it around isn’t enough to get your weekly networking group, get some help as a group. Schedule a couple sessions with a professional that can help everyone in the group get better at social media. Sigma College provides these types of workshops that can be customized for your group, contact us today to find out more.

Posted in Blog, Business Networking, Marketing and Sales, Online Marketing, Social Media | Tagged business, facebook, gainesville, google, haymarket, management, manassas, marketing, networking, online, Online Marketing, prince william, Social Media, subscribe, Virginia, warrenton | 2 Comments

Boost Your Tradeshow Presence with Foursquare

by Jamie Gorman on October 6, 2010

In Prince William County Virginia, October is Connections Month! Connections ETC 2010 is our local trade show coordinated by the Prince William Chamber of Commerce for their members to showcase their value to the local community – a great annual event. At a seminar I led yesterday on Foursquare we were discussing how an exhibitor might use it at a tradeshow.

What is Foursquare? It’s the most popular location based social media tool, that lets you “check-in” at a business location, announce it to Facebook and Twitter Nation and earn badges, recognition and promotional items. To use it at a trade show follow these steps:

Sign-up for Foursquare
Add Your Venue
Create a Promotion
Make a “Check-in” Sign
Pre-tradeshow Promotion

Step #1 – Sign up for Foursquare

If you don’t already have an account, go to www.foursquare.com and sign up for one. It’s quick and easy, and no, it doesn’t automatically tell everyone where you are at all times.

Step #2 – Add Your Venue

(and “Claim” it if your lucky)

Once you are signed into Foursquare, go to the “Add Things” menu and “add a new venue”.

Name – I recommend your business name, the booth number and the tradeshow name. As people are wandering the floor looking for what’s close by, you want them to see your name.

Address – Put in the address of the building but add your booth number in the cross street or even in the address.

Once you’ve entered the info click “Add Venue”.

If you are out ahead of the event in enough time you may be able to “claim” your venue. This is how you tell Foursquare that you own the venue, allowing you to get info on those who check in and the ability to post “specials”. As I write this, claiming a venue is a little difficult since they personally verify against a web site and their focus is on retailers and restaurants. To claim Sigma College I had to send an email to request, but then it didn’t take too long.

Step #3 – Create a Promotion

Remember your goal – have people check-in, sharing your name with Facebook and Twitter Nation and increasing traffic to your booth. Make sure you have the right incentive for them to take the time and check-in. You could use a premium give-away, something better than the stuff you give out to everyone. Another idea is to enter them in a special contest or give them an extra chance to win in your regular give-away contest. Ideally you want something that will give them a reason to check-in and tell other people to come to the booth.

To include the promotion with your venue you will need to use the “Tips” feature, unless you were able to claim it. Simply bring up your venue in Foursquare and type the promotion into the “TIPS” box.

Step #4 – Make a “Check-In” Sign

Put a sign up at your booth that invites people to check-in and tells them what they will get. Make it big so the Foursquare people are drawn to it and the non-4square people ask about it. Anyone who has served their time in the booth can appreciate the value of something that draws people in and starts the conversation!

Step #5 – Pre-tradeshow Promotion

Tradeshow experts will tell you that the tradeshow success is dependent on the pre-show promotion! Make sure that you have a plan to promote the show and invite people to come see you in the weeks leading up to it. Post it through you social media channels, on your web site, in your print advertising and through your email marketing. You may even consider some special pay-per-click campaigns through Google or Facebook.

One Last Thing

Unfortunately, without claiming your venue you won’t have a clear record of who actually checked in unless you collect their info in another way. You might want to collect their business cards in a separate container or have a different sign in list for them when they collect their prize. Consider following up with this group in a little different manner since they are likely more adept at social media and could add a ton of value to your online marketing strategy.

Sigma College of Small Business is about educating and serving small business owners. To keep up with our classes, webinars and blog posts you can join our email list, “Like” us on Facebook or subscribe to SigmaBiz Blog. And please add your tips, questions and results in the comments section!

Posted in Blog, Marketing and Sales, Online Marketing, Social Media | Tagged advertise, booth, business, conventions, education, Foursquare, gainesville, haymarket, manassas, marketing, networking, Online Marketing, prince william, Social Media, trade shows, twitter | 2 Comments

Using Facebook for Your Events

by Jamie Gorman on August 23, 2010

Facebook Events is an application that lets you schedule your business events from a Fan Page and invite friends and fans to attend. Events can be “Public” in which case anyone can RSVP and attend or “Private”, which only allows invited guests to RSVP. Either way this app is a great way to help get the word out about your next event! Thanks to Becky O’Brien of Optimal Wellness for helping me test the process!

Add an event from your Fan Page

Sign in to Facebook and go to your Fan Page. One of the tabs should be “Events”. If you don’t see an Events tab click on the “>>” tab or the “+” to see more options, “Events” may be there if you have other tabs. Your Events tab will show and at the top right is a button to “Create Event”. This will bring up a page to enter your event information.

After you fill in the event information it’s time to invite people. Realize that the people that you are able to invite are “Friends” from your Personal Profile, not Fans. You might want to filter and select from that list or choose not to invite people at this point if it is a business event. You can always post and share from your Fan Page after creating the event. Don’t forget to add an image to your event so that you don’t get the standard event picture! When you create the event it builds and event page that allows people to post comments and see who else has been invited and who has accepted, if you click on the boxes to allow those things.

When you are done entering the event information, click the button to “Create Event”. This will bring up your new event page. From here you can invite more Friends (once again from your Personal Profile) using the link on the left under the picture. At the top there is a link to edit the page if you need to make changes and…..

Update Your Fans!

Clicking the link to update your fans will bring up an update box for your event that lets you invite your friends to the event. You have the capability to do some filtering on your list by region, gender and age. Add a subject and message then click send. Your friends will see the invitation in their news feed and have the opportunity to comment, share and RSVP directly from the post.

You can send additional updates as your event approaches. You might want to consider planning this out and using additional updates to announce speakers, VIP guests that have accepted the invitation, door prizes that have been contributed or other special news relative to the event.

Sharing Events

The best thing about social media is the ability to quickly share information. This is true of Facebook Events as well. When you see events posting to your News Feed from your network, click on the share button to send to your friends if you think they may benefit. When posting and updating your events, encourage your fans to share with their friends!

Please comment with any additional tips or lessons learned while using the Facebook Events Application.

Posted in Blog, Business Networking, Marketing and Sales, Online Marketing, Social Media | Tagged advertise, education, facebook, gainesville, haymarket, learn, management, manassas, networking, online, seo, small, social, Social Media, VA, Virginia, warrenton, web | Leave a comment

Five Social Media Tips for the Overwhelmed and Panicked

by Jamie Gorman on August 10, 2010

This scene from the movie classic Raising Arizona reminds me of a conversation between a Social Media expert and the typical small business person!

“Well you’re on Facebook, right? You’re not on Facebook, you don’t have a page? And what about Twitter, well you just have to be tweeting…and blogging, are you using WordPress, Blogspot, what, you aren’t blogging? And make sure you use Hootsuite, or Tweetdeck or you won’t have any idea what is going on!”

I often catch myself doing it with my students and clients, and then slow down when I see the eyes glaze. Because of the value of social media and the ease of linking things together and sharing, it is difficult to talk about only one media at a time. For those who are overwhelmed and panicked, here are some tips for fitting social media to you. Make sure to leave a coment with your biggest challenge in social networking!

Some is better than none! Start with one application and build as you get comfortable. What you start with depends on the business and objectives. I like to get professional services people up on LinkedIn first and then get them blogging before digging into Facebook and Twitter. For retail I might focus on Foursquare first, followed by Facebook and Twitter.
Learn to Subscribe and Comment. Find blogs to subscribe to, people to follow on twitter and Facebook Fan pages to “Like”. Track those with experience and see how they do it. Write comments, respond to questions and ask them questions about their sites. It’s a great way to learn and an easy way to start getting your name out there.
Carve out an hour a day. Most social media is free, but if it’s a significant part of your marketing plan you have to put in the time. At first you will spend the hour learning more than posting, but as you get more comfortable and experienced the hour will become more and more productive. To start try spending 20 minutes learning more about social media, 20 minutes reading and commenting on other peoples posts and 20 minutes on your posts – thinking through what and when you will post throughout the day.
Read a good book on Social Media. I recommend the book Trust Agents because it focuses more on the philosophy and strategy of social media than how to use any specific tool. What you really need to understand is how you can add value to the network you are trying to build. For the “how-to’s”, there are a ton of step-by-step blogs out there.
Slow and steady wins the Race. Listen, you may go a couple days and not have time to post anything. It’s ok to jump back in! Even if you can only spend 30 minutes every other day, it’s better than nothing and you will see some results. Just like most other types of marketing, a little every day is better than a marketing dump every two weeks.

Don’t try to solve world hunger in your first week of social media! You will become quickly overwhelmed and likely stop after a couple weeks. Instead, pick one media app and go with it, focusing on establishing a routine and setting aside the time. You will get people telling you about a ton of other tools that are out there. Write them down for reference but make the time and get comfortable with the first thing before taking on the second and third.

It won’t be long until you shift from finding the time to network online to forcing yourself to stop so you can get some work done!

What’s your biggest challenge to social networking?

Posted in Blog, Business Networking, Marketing and Sales, Online Marketing, Social Media | Tagged business, education, facebook, gainesville, haymarket, LinkedIn, management, manassas, marketing, networking, online, optimization, prince william, small, Social Media, twitter, VA, Virginia, warrenton, web | Leave a comment