Social Media

How to Grow Your Business with Relationship Marketing

How to Grow Your Business with Relationship MarketingDictionary.com defines a relationship as a connection, association, or involvement.  It also defines marketing as the total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer.  

My definition of Relationship Marketing is the activities involved in building a greater connection with your clients, prospects and partners.  This strong connection often leads to the sale of products or services, and also increases loyalty to your brand or company.

With that said, Relationship Marketing is a key part of your overall marketing strategy, and should occur both online and offline.

In this blog post I will mention a few activities that you should include in your Relationship Marketing:

ONLINE

In order to build a connection online with your clients, prospects, and partners, it is important to have an online presence.  Included in your online presence should be the following activities:

  • A Company Blog–  In addition to having a company website, a company blog can help to build the relationship that you have with your audience, because a blog allows you to show your expertise, knowledge and personality in ways that a website alone does not accomplish.  The key to a successful business blog is:
    1. It should be updated frequently
    2. It should contain valuable content relevant to your audience
    3. It should showcase the personality of your brand
  • A Social Media Presence–  It’s not necessary to be on all the popular social networks out there, but it is beneficially for your company to be on social networks that have a high percentage of your target market, and networks that will showcase your business well.  Social Networks are a great way to strength your connection with your clients, prospects, and partners because it allows you to create a conversation around your company, industry, products, services, values, beliefs, etc.  The key to a successful social media presence is:
    1. Know your audience
    2. Post content that is interesting to your audience
    3. Create conversations
  • An E-Newsletter or EZine–  An email publication that your company produces is a great way to strengthen the connection that you have with customers, prospects and partners.  It is a great way for your audience to get to know you and get to know what your company stands for.  The key to a successful E-Newletter is:
    1. Know your audience
    2. Give valuable information in each ezine
    3. Provide 80% valuable content and only 20% company promotions

OFFLINE

  • Events–  Plan events to show appreciation for your customers and partners.  Taking the time to host these events can build a strong connection with you and your customers and partners.  It also helps to solidify their loyalty to your company.  You can also have events to introduce your prospects to your business or your brand.  Grand Openings, Launch Parties, etc. are all great ways for people to get to know more about you, your company, and your brand.
  • One-on-One Meetings–  When possible, schedule one-on-one meetings with your clients, prospects and partners.  This is a great way to build a strong connection, and for people to get to know, like and trust you.
  • Send Cards–  It is important to send your customers, prospects and partners cards on various occasions.  This could include birthdays, anniversary, Thank You for Your Business, Thank You for Your Time, Happy Holiday cards and more.   Taking the time out to send your customers, prospects and partners cards really helps to create loyalty and build trust.

These are just a few ways you can use Relationship Marketing to GROW your business.  What other ways can you think of in which you can use Relationship Marketing to grow your business?

Posted by Nadine Mullings  |  2 Comments  |  in Blog, Business Development, Email Marketing, Event Marketing, Marketing, Small Business, Social Media

8 Tips for Creating a “Social Business” (Part 2)

Social Business Image

Image Source: copyright Hootsuite

As mentioned in 8 Tips for Creating a “Social Business” (Part 1), having a “Social Business” is different than just being on a “Social Network”.  In order to be “social” on a social network, you must have a “social business”.

In this blog post, I will share tips 5-8 for creating a social business.  The inspiration and original content for this post is provided by Evan LePage. Originally posted on HootSource.

Tip 5-  Collaborate

Be sure to encourage your team members to distribute new learning both within the team and your organization as a whole. Keep an ongoing loop of discovery and dissemination where best practices, positive messaging or common questions are put forward for comment or collaboration. Social platforms like Yammer and Hootsuite Conversations are exceptional tools for supporting secure internal conversation and exchange of ideas.

Ultimately better internal collaboration supports improved external engagement, keeping messaging consistent, intelligent and brand-appropriate.

Tip 6-  Secure

Fear over losing control is an understandable barrier to implementing social media across an organization. It is important to note that mistakes are preventable. In many popular cases the missteps were handled well and the damage to each organization was more along the lines of temporary embarrassment than anything permanent, but why not stop them before they occur?

Hootsuite developed Secure Profiles specifically in response to instances like these to put a solid measure of prevention in place. This provides an extra prompt when publishing to important branded accounts, preventing errant posts intended for personal accounts.

Limited Permissions is another unique security feature. Hootsuite offers multiple levels of account access and places limits on which team members can participate in outbound social conversation directly. The Limited Permissions puts control over publishing firmly in the hands of those who are most trusted. Your social tools should too.

Tip 7-  Measure ROI

Tie social to the big picture by linking it to organizational and departmental goals. Users can start with tracking the Like, @mention, Retweet or Follow, but tap in to the power to go much further and deeper. Build the capacity for measurement into every social action. Use URL shorteners, like Hootsuite’s ow.ly links, to track your click-throughs. Integrate Google Analytics and Facebook Insights to track on-site conversions or drill in to geographic disparities in data.

One of the more powerful, recent integrations at Hootsuite is the partnership with Adobe SiteCatalyst. For the first time ever, you’re able to track the path from social message to conversion and attach a dollar value to individual social messages against Key Performance Indicators. You’re able to see which social platform performs best against certain kinds of messaging, analyze which of your Social Advocates is driving more revenue per message and understand what times of day work best for which kinds of communication.

Reporting is important. With Hootsuite you can use data gained from Adobe SiteCatalyst, Webtrends, Facebook Insights, Google Analytics, Google+ Pages Analytics, Twitter Profile Stats, Hootsuite’s custom ow.ly Click Stats to generate easy, drag and drop social analytics reports shared easily by email. More importantly, you can analyze that data to optimize future programs and messaging.

Tip 8-  Amplify

When you have a piece of content that is a “hit,” double down. One of the benefits of good measurement and understanding of your data is the ability to hone your messaging and understand what did and didn’t work from a content perspective. Organic social is testing your content for you. Paid social allows you to commit dollars with data-backed belief in your programs and messaging. Invest in promoted tweets, accounts or trends across social platforms or accounts that have already demonstrated the highest yield.

With paid social companies can drill down to microtarget users – either their own followers or people “like” their followers – based on literally hundreds of different interests, by country and city, gender and even device. Companies only pay when users “engage” with the Promoted Tweet in some way, i.e. by clicking on a link or retweeting it. Native ads are also very agile. Members of an organization can log in at any time, create a message and instantly push it to a global audience as a Promoted Tweet. An eBay-style bidding system means prime ad spots always go for the lowest price, minimizing ad spend. The time-consuming (not to mention pricey) requirements of traditional ad campaigns – design teams, creative agencies and media buyers – can’t make the same claim.

Summary:

Social is here to stay and to maintain a competitive advantage, businesses need to stay abreast of this ever-evolving space. Hootsuite Pro helps teams engage with audiences and analyze campaigns across multiple social networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn from one secure web-based dashboard.

Sign up for a 30-day FREE trial

Posted by Nadine Mullings  |  Comments Off on 8 Tips for Creating a “Social Business” (Part 2)  |  in Business, Marketing, Small Business, Social Media

8 Tips for Creating a “Social Business” (Part 1)

Social Media ImageHaving a “Social Business” is different than just being on a “Social Network”.  In order to be social on a social network, you must have a “social business”.  In this blog post, I will share tips 1-4 for creating a social business.  The inspiration and original content for this post is provided by Evan LePage. Originally posted on HootSource.

Tip 1-  Evaluate Your Social Goals

Ask yourself the following questions:

  • What social networks does your company currently reside?  
  • What social networks do you plan to reside in the future?
  • What social goals does your company have?

Avoid considering social in a vacuum. Take the time to understand where it best fits your organization and how to integrate it into your company goals. You’re not reinventing wheels for social, just using it to make the ones you have turn faster.

Other questions to consider are:

  • How are you going to measure and quantify the success of social programs?

Look beyond vanity metrics such as Likes and Follows and try, for example, to find a direct link between conversation and conversion. Focus on influence and analytics over inflating a group size or follower base.

  • What can you reasonably afford to dedicate to social in terms of time and tools?

The allocation of human resources is far and away the most significant cost tied to social, so you have to think about:

  • What will your team(s) look like?

Identify leadership within your organization or begin the hunt to find it from the outside. With your team(s) in place, educate and cross-train team members so that they can be rotated across different areas of specialization. Empower your people.

Look for a reliable and scalable social tool that centralizes control over your social platforms and puts the power to listen, engage, collaborate and analyze in the hands of your team.  Make decisions about which platforms you will be active on or where you may need to consolidate existing accounts. Look deeper than the usual social suspects like Facebook and Twitter to other platforms like Quora or Get Satisfaction where you may have existing communities of powerful unpaid social advocates already at work on your behalf.

Tip 2- Organize Control Over Social Assets

While you want to centralize control over your social platforms with a social tool like a dashboard, you want to de-centralize the conversations you have over them. To do that, you need to empower your team to engage your customers in conversation directly.

Your social tools should also be able to grow along with you, by being flexible to facilitate even further decentralization, expansion, and conversation.

Tip 3- Listen & Learn

There’s no question. People are talking about your organization or your industry. Don’t let your organization get left behind. Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos once described your brand as, “what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” Today, not only do you have an opportunity to be in the room but to take an active role in the conversation itself.

Good search practices start with monitoring for mentions – the good, the bad and the ugly – of your organization, but can also focus on topics related to your business where you may wish to become an influencer. With social, it is also possible to monitor certain users or organizations closely without them knowing you’re listening.

Gather your feedback. There are some interesting disconnects between consumers’ and businesses’ perceptions on why people engage with organizations via social media:

  • 73% of businesses feel consumers want to learn about new products while only 51% of consumers give that as a reason.
  • 61% of businesses think consumers want to be part of a community while only 22% of consumers support that thought.
  • 61% and 55% of consumers want discounts and to purchase something respectively.

Better monitoring, listening and analysis of conversation and feedback could lead to programs to close these gaps and build more empathetic, customer-centric relationships.

Tip 4- Engage to Build a Community

While each brand will have it’s own communication style, there is a right way and a wrong. The most important thing you can do is to acknowledge the voice of the customer, really hear and respect what they are saying. If what you’re hearing is a complaint, let them know a resolution is being sought, then follow through on that resolution to the best of your organization’s ability. Once again, don’t consider social in a vacuum. Integrate your response with existing channels and let the most appropriate channel lead the way to resolution.

Listen and pick your moments. If sales are a priority, nurture potential leads with relevant and helpful content. Make sales through engagement. The age- old sales maxim, “Make a friend first, a sale second” still applies to social, only even more so due to social’s ability to amplify positive, or negative, experiences.

Give advice. Hilton Hotels takes an entirely non-sales oriented approach with @HiltonSuggests by taking an engagement for engagement’s sake position. Hilton monitors online conversation for travelers looking for recommendations all over the world. Acting as a quasi global concierge, @HiltonSuggests steps in to offer accommodation advice to travelers whether a Hilton is a viable option or not.

Perks don’t hurt. 61% of consumers use social to look for discounts. Social is obviously a great way to highlight promotions and deals, but make them appropriate and relevant to your brand. For example, why would a bakery give away an iPad? Promotions of this kind are common and can build vanity metrics such as Likes or Follows, but those need to be balanced with engagement. How engaged are iPad fans with bakeries? Fans of customized cakes are much more likely to be highly engaged and even influential to a fledgling bakery. Fewer more influential followers trump hordes of deal hunters every time. With Hootsuite’s custom URL parameters, our bakery could even track conversions arising directly from their posts to Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn and put that iPad to use around the office.

Original content provided by Matt Foulger. Originally posted on HootSource.

Summary:

Social is here to stay and to maintain a competitive advantage, businesses need to stay abreast of this ever-evolving space. Hootsuite Pro helps teams engage with audiences and analyze campaigns across multiple social networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn from one secure web-based dashboard.

Sign up for a 30-day FREE trial

Posted by Nadine Mullings  |  Comments Off on 8 Tips for Creating a “Social Business” (Part 1)  |  in Business, Marketing, Social Media

5 Must-Haves for Social Media Management

5 Must-Haves for Social Media Management

Image Source: copyright Hootsuite

Social media has grown from a curiosity to an integral piece of a company’s strategy in the space of only a few years. Nearly overnight, companies have brought on whole teams of specialists to craft effective social media strategies and manage multiplying numbers of social media accounts. Companies are hungry for better social media tools to engage their followers.  Below is a list of five features key to delivering on a social media strategy.

1) Scheduling

Social media doesn’t sleep, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to! Ensure your social media management tool of choice allows you to schedule messages in advance. So even if you’re in New York, you can schedule messages out to your customers in Tokyo during their workday.

If you want to take scheduling to the next level, look for a tool that offers the ability to schedule large batches of messages at once. This will be a super useful time-saver when it comes to managing campaigns or contests that require heavy messaging around a certain period of time.

2) Geo

When it comes to interacting with your customers, those in different locations may have different needs, speak different languages or follow different trends. You’re going to want a tool that optimizes your searches and filters your searches by language to help you curate relevant content for different demographics.

3) Keywords

Social media is also an effective way for businesses to keep their finger on the pulse. Setting up keywords or search streams provide insight into what is trendy among your customers. This can help you develop a marketing strategy that focuses on customer’s lifestyles and personal preferences.

Keywords are useful for keeping track of competitors’ activities but they’re also useful for tracking brands that are complementary to your offering. If your product is often purchased in conjunction with another product, keep an eye on the complementary product’s social media activity to take advantage of promotions or recent sales, as these are potential leads ready to be converted.

4) Collaboration

It takes two to tango especially when it comes to being social. Collaboration is key when it comes to developing and executing an effective social media campaign. Ensure your social media management tool enables you to seamlessly collaborate with your team to ensure you execute an integrated social media management strategy.

5) Reporting

Gone are the days of social media purely being about ‘building buzz.’ It is now a line item in budgets as companies invest resources in these channels and there is an expectation for reports which show ROI for social media outreach.

Make sure your tool has the ability to analyze important metrics such as click-through rates on shortened links, clicks by region and top referrers. It’s also important to have access to Facebook Insights and Google Analytics.

The most effective tools will provide the ability to access in-depth granular metrics on the efficacy of your social media programs. This will allow you to determine which messages resulted in the highest number of conversions, which platform is providing the greatest return and which time of day is most effective to drive traffic.

What it takes to go Pro?

Social is here to stay and to maintain a competitive advantage, businesses need to stay abreast of this ever-evolving space. Hootsuite Pro helps teams engage with audiences and analyze campaigns across multiple social networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn from one secure web-based dashboard.

Sign up for a 30-day FREE trial

Written by Matt Foulger. Originally posted on HootSource.

Posted by Nadine Mullings  |  Comments Off on 5 Must-Haves for Social Media Management  |  in Business, Marketing, Social Media, Uncategorized

4 Reasons Your Business should be on Social Media

social-media-pictureWhen it comes to social media for businesses, the question really isn’t if you should be on social media, but which social network your business should be on.  There are so many social media networks out there that it can be hard to decide which social media network is right for your business, but for those business owners who are still undecided as to whether they should even be on any social networks, here are 4 reasons why your business should be on Social Media:

  1. To Stay Top of Mind with Your Current Customers-  Social Media is a great way to keep the conversation going with your customers.  It allows your customers to be able to see another side of your business through the posts that you include on your social networks.  This also helps to build a stronger connection with your customers.  Statistics show that people who follow a company on social media are more likely to purchase than if they do not.  Being in someone’s news feed is a great way for them to remember your business and when they are in the market for what you have to offer, your business will be top of mind.
  2. To Reach New Prospects for  Your Business–  Social Media is also a great way to reach new prospects and potential customers.  You can reach new prospects through two main avenues via social media:
  • Organically–  When one of your followers or fans share your information with their networks, it gives your company an opportunity to be introduced to a new group of people.  If they like what you posts you could also get some new followers and fans.
  • Paid–  If you have a marketing budget, you may want to consider investing in some advertising on your social media networks because this allows you to reach individuals who are not current fans or followers and potentially get new fans and followers.

3.  For Market Research– Social Media is a great place to conduct market research.  No need to hire a market research company, you can question, survey and poll your followers on social media.  This is a cost effective way of finding out the needs of your market and to make sure you are providing the right solutions.

4.  To Remain Current–  As much as we don’t like to admit it, customers kind of expect that your business will be on social media.  You want to show that your business is current and involved in the newer ways to communicate.  It’s kind of like when businesses first started to get websites, after awhile if you didn’t have a website your business did not look current or up to date, so it is important to stay current, which includes being involved in social media.

What reasons do you have for your business to be on social media?

Posted by Nadine Mullings  |  Comments Off on 4 Reasons Your Business should be on Social Media  |  in Blog, Business, Marketing, Small Business, Social Media

21 Things You Must Do to Get Amazing Results from Your Social Media Marketing (Part 3)

social-media-picture

In the last post of 21 Things You Must Do to Get Amazing Results from Your Social Media Marketing, I discussed 7 simple tips to grow your social networks organically, for this post, I will discuss how to grow your social networks using paid methods.

Each social network is different in the types of advertising that they offer, but it helps to look into the following options of advertising for the particular social network you are using.

Here are 7 simple tips to grow your social networks using paid methods:

  1. Purchase an Ad consider paying to place an ad that is targeted to reach your particular target market as a way to grow your network.  The ad must have a good image and good copy to attract attention and get results.
  2. Pay to Promote-  this is a great way to use existing content that has gotten a good response from your followers and fans, and pay to promote that content to a larger audience.  This can include a promoted post on Facebook, a promoted tweet on Twitter, a promoted pin on Pinterest, etc.
  3. Sponsored Stories–  This is popular on Facebook, sponsored stories are messages coming from friends about them engaging with a Page, app or event that a business, organization or individual has paid to highlight so there’s a better chance people see them. It allows you to promote a story on a person’s timeline, so if they liked your page it will say “Jane likes (the name of your business)” and allows people to click to your page to also like it or get more information.
  4. Referral Marketing–  connect with someone with a large audience that fits your target market, and ask him to promote your business, you can offer some type of incentive for each fan/follower you get from that particular person’s network.  This may take a little bit of work to figure out the tracking and an appropriate incentive.
  5. Create a Contest or Sweepstakes where someone will win something for connecting with you on social media.  Depending on the prize the cost of this method could be minimal or expensive.  You can use tools such as Constant Contact’s Social Campaigns or Woobox to create all the necessary pieces to execute the contest or sweepstakes correctly.
  6. Promoted Profile– this is popular on Twitter.  It allows you to pay to promote your profile so you can gain new followers.  Promoted Accounts are suggested based on a user’s public list of whom they follow. When an advertiser promotes an account, Twitter’s algorithm looks at that account’s followers and determines other accounts that those users tend to follow. If a user follows some of those accounts, but not the advertiser’s account, then Twitter may recommend the advertiser’s Promoted Account to that user.
  7. Promoted Page– this is popular on Facebook.  You can pay to simply promote your page without having a special ad or offer.   Your business page will show up for your target market as a suggested page to like.

What paid methods do you use to grow your social networks?

To download the complete checklist of 21 Things You Must Do in Order to Get Amazing Results from Your Social Media Click Here or  go to  21 Things You Must Do in Order to Get Amazing Results from Your Social Media Marketing!

Posted by Nadine Mullings  |  Comments Off on 21 Things You Must Do to Get Amazing Results from Your Social Media Marketing (Part 3)  |  in Business, Business Development, Marketing, Social Media

21 Things You Must Do to Get Amazing Results from Your Social Media Marketing (Part 2)

20-social-media-icons

In the last post of 21 Things You Must Do to Get Amazing Results from Your Social Media Marketing, I discussed 7 tips for creating engaging content on social media, for this post, I will discuss how to grow your social networks organically.

You can grow your social networks organically and/or pay for exposure via advertising on various social networks.  Organic growth is the most affordable because you don’t have to pay money for it, and if you consistently post good content, you will be able to easily grow your network organically.

Here are 7 simple tips to grow your social networks organically.

 Offline Tips:

    1. Encourage people to connect with you online by placing your social network information on your business card.  If you are out networking and meeting new people, then your business card is a great promotional tool to promote and encourage connecting with you on social networks.
    2. If you do speaking engagements for your business, be sure to promote connecting with you on your social networks by placing your social network information at the beginning and/or at the end of your presentation.
    3. If you have a retail space or an office that is open to the public, place signs around your establishment encouraging your customers to connect with you on social networks. 

Online Tips:

4.  Promote connecting with you on social networks by adding links to your social networks on your e-mail signature line.  You probably send out tons of e-mails every day, adding your social networks to your e-mail signature is an easy and effective way to promote connecting with you.

5.  Email your current customers inviting them to join you on a social network.  It helps to offer some type of incentive for joining like a discount, coupon, e-Book, report, checklist, etc.

6.  Encourage your current fans and followers on your social networks to promote your page to their network. 

7.  Post good content and encourage your network to share your information with their network, by asking them to like, share, retweet, repin, etc.

What techniques and ways do you use to organically grow your social networks?

Just as equally important as growing your social networks organically, is strategically using paid methods to grow your social networks.  The next blog post in this series will discuss how to grow your social networks using affordable paid methods .  Stay tuned for the next blog post or click here to download the complete checklist of 21 Things You Must Do in Order to Get Amazing Results from Your Social Media Marketing!

Posted by Nadine Mullings  |  Comments Off on 21 Things You Must Do to Get Amazing Results from Your Social Media Marketing (Part 2)  |  in Business, Business Development, Marketing, Social Media

21 Things You Must Do to Get Amazing Results from Your Social Media Marketing (Part 1)

social-media-icons

If you are using social media to promote your business, or you are thinking about using social media to promote your business, then the first step to being successful in your social media marketing efforts is to put a plan in place.  Create a social media marketing plan that will outline what you want to achieve on social media and how you plan to do it.  It is important to include in your plan the strategies and tactics to grow your social networks and keep them engaged.  In this blog post series, I will go over some tips on creating engaging content and growing your social networks.

Here are 7 tips for creating engaging content on social media:

  1. Know your target market– when you are very specific about your target market, you will be able to know the best social networks to be on to reach your target market, and you will also be able to identify the problems your target market may be encountering and be able to use the appropriate information that talks about the solution to their problems.  Knowing exactly what to say to your target market keeps them engaged.
  2. Create a content strategy and calendar– be sure to keep your overall content 80% Entertaining/Educating and only 20% promotional.  Create a content calendar so you can plan what topic you want to concentrate your conversations around each month, and make it relevant for your target audience and for your business.  Your content calendar could be for the next 90 days, 6 months, or 12 months.
  3. Know what type of content you want to share– will your content be humorous, educational, inspirational, motivational, etc.?   It is good to have a good mix of various forms of content.
  4. Automate the publishing of your content– there are some great tools available to help you to automate the publishing of your content on your social networks.  Some popular tools are HootSuite, Sprout Social, etc.  Planning out your content and then automating the publishing of it saves you a lot of time!
  5. Include content that naturally creates more engagement this includes content like pictures, videos, questions, fill in the blank statements, polls/opinions, and inspirational quotes.
  6. Ask people to like, comment, share, repin, retweet, etc. (whatever the appropriate terminology is for that particular social network you are on, ask people to do it).  You will be surprised, when you ask people to do something, a lot of times they will actually do it.
  7. Consistently post good contentas the saying goes, content is king.  If you have good content, this will naturally encourage engagement.

What techniques and ways do you use to create engaging content on your social networks?

Just as equally important as creating engaging content is growing your social networks.  The next blog post in this series will discuss how to grow your social networks organically (without paying for it).  Stay tuned for the next blog post or click here to download the complete checklist of 21 Things You Must Do in Order to Get Amazing Results from Your Social Media Marketing!

Posted by Nadine Mullings  |  Comments Off on 21 Things You Must Do to Get Amazing Results from Your Social Media Marketing (Part 1)  |  in Marketing, Social Media, Uncategorized

3 C’s to Get Amazing Results from Social Media Marketing

Over the last eight years or so, Social Media has become very popular for personal use and business use.  Businesses are learning how to use various social networks to reach out to current customers and get new prospects just by having an active presence on social media.  Some businesses are doing this very successfully, and other businesses not so much!

In order to be successful with your social media marketing it is important to keep the 3 C’s of Social Media in mind.  In this blog post, I will be go through the 3 C’s and why each one is important to your success on Social Media:


3 “CON”s:

CONnections- The reason why your business is on social media is to connect with people.  These people could be your current customers and also potential customers.  Your goal with your connections is to make sure you are connecting to people who are interested in your company and what you have to offer.  When you keep this in mind, you concentrate on the quality and not the quantity of your fans or followers.  It is more important to have 100 people who are interested in what you have to say than 1,000 people who couldn’t care less.  When you concentrate on strategies to grow your network organically then you naturally attract individuals who are interested in your business.

CONversations-  No matter what social network your business may be on, it is important that you are not TALKING TO or TALKING AT  people, but you are STARTING CONVERSATIONS.  The whole point of social networks is to be “Social” and the best way to be social is by having engaging conversations with people.  Treat your followers and fans like a best friend that you are talking to online.  When you create a conversation in a way that is geared to a more one on one feel, people will feel more connected to you and your business.  Make sure your conversations are entertaining, informative and not “salesy”, nobody likes to feel “sold to”.

CONversions-  your goal on social media should really be for your customers to become more loyal and your prospective customers to learn more about your business.  The best way to accomplish this is to convert them to your other online marketing channels where you can build an even strong relationship.  The three best places to convert your social media followers to are your website, your blog, and your e-mail list.

When you convert them to your website, they are able to learn more about your company and what you have to offer and if your website is designed correctly, they will also have an opportunity to purchase products or services they may be interested in, and/or sign-up for your e-mail list.  Converting individuals to your e-mail list is important because you are able to create a strong relationship with an individual via e-mail because e-mail is more one-to-one while social networks tend to be one to many.  The one-to-one areas are where you tend to create trust and this can help you build your business.  Lastly, you want to convert your followers/fans to your blog because your blog is where you showcase your expertise and where people can learn from you.  When someone is learning from you, they are more likely to buy from you.

Bonus C:

CONsistency-  any marketing activity that you do, it is important for you to be consistent.  If you are not consistent with your efforts, you will not see consistent results.  Whether you decide to post several times a day, once a day, every other day, etc. be sure to do it consistently.  This shows you are committed to building your relationship with your customers and prospects customers, and also show that your company is reliable.

What strategies for social media marketing success do you have for your company?  Be sure to share your comments below.

Posted by Nadine Mullings  |  Comments Off on 3 C’s to Get Amazing Results from Social Media Marketing  |  in Marketing, Social Media, Uncategorized

The best kept secret to using social networking to grow your business

Meetup Logo

With a lot of attention being given to the large social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest, one of the best kept social networking secrets is Meetup.com.  Meetup is the world’s largest network of local groups. Meetup makes it easy for anyone to organize a local group or find one of the thousands already meeting up face-to-face. What makes Meetup.com so great is it merges the online and the offline worlds by providing consistent face-to-face activities for each group.

There are two main ways that you can use Meetup.com to grow your business, joining a meetup group or organizing a meetup group.  For the sake of this post, I will talk about how being a member of a meetup group can help to grow your business.  Here are five ways to grow your business by joining a meetup group:

1.  Join a Business Networking Meetup.  Meetup.com has several business networking groups, if networking is a part of your marketing strategy (and it should be if it is not), start with finding some local networking meetups to join where you can meet other like-minded individuals to network with, make business connections, and learn how to grow your business.

2.  Join Meetup Groups that cater to your target market.  Once you have clearly defined who your target market is, you can actually find groups on meetup that cater to your target market (i.e. looking for women in their 20’s, 30’s or 40’s check out meetups that cater to this group, looking for health conscious individuals there are meetups in your local area that cater to this type of group too, etc.).  Once you find Meetup.com groups that fit your target market, make an effort to join and attend the events and get to know the members.  Go to the events with an intention to make new connections which could eventually lead to business, do not go with an intention to sell your product or service at the Meetup, start with building a relationship first.

3.  Offer a special perk as a member of a Meetup group.  Once you’ve joined a few Meetup.com groups consider offering a special perk to the group in which you offer some type of discount for your services.  Each Meetup.com group is different in how they manage or even if they offer perks to their group, but this could be a subtle way to get your name and your business out to the members of the group.

4.  Join the conversation.  When you RSVP to attend a meetup add comments in the event section to start a connection online before the event even starts, or if the Meetup posts discussions, join in the discussion.  This is also a great was to connect and to get your name out there with the group.

5.  If you RSVP to attend an event SHOW UP.  I cannot emphasis enough the importance of building a relationship with the group and the organizer(s) by making sure you turn up to the event when you RSVP.  If at the last minute you are unable to attend, be sure to remove yourself from the event RSVP list, or reach out to the organizer to let him or her know you will no longer be able to attend, don’t just not show up, it looks bad for you and your business.

If you approach any meetup with the intention to get to know the members and make connections it will eventually lead to business.  If you approach a meetup with the intention to just sell your product or service you will not be as successful.  If you use Meetup.com how are you using it to grow your business?

Posted by Nadine Mullings  |  Comments Off on The best kept secret to using social networking to grow your business  |  in Business, Business Development, Marketing, Networking, Social Media, Uncategorized