social media Archives - Page 2 of 4 - Nadine MullingsNadine Mullings

August

23 2016

Is Organic Social Media Marketing a Waste of Time?

As a busy business owner, coach, or consultant, your time is precious and can be very limited. Even if you have a small team, you more than likely still have to wear many hats in your business, like office manager, accountant, marketer, sales person, customer service, etc.

Because your time is so limited, you want to make sure that the marketing strategies that you implement are going to be worth your time. However, not all marketing strategies are created equal. Some marketing strategies you may see immediate results from, other marketing strategies you see results over time, and some you don’t see any results at all.

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Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Marketing, Marketing for Coaches, Marketing for Consultants, Social Media

March

08 2016

Need more readers for your blog? Get this easy and affordable Tool!

In order to get more readers for your blog, it is important that you stay organized and consistent with your blogging effort. So how do you stay organized and consistent? The right tools can help you accomplish this, but there are sooo many tools on the market, that at times it can be overwhelming trying to decide which tools to use.

I love to research tools and figure out what is going to work best for my business, so in this series, Essential Marketing Tools, I will highlight some of the tools I use that help me to stay organized and consistent with my marketing effort.

The first tool that I am highlighting is a tool that can really help you to plan out your marketing more efficiently. This tool helps coaches and consultants to plan and publish awesome content, share it with the world, and save a tone of time. The tool is CoSchedule and here is why I use it in my business:

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Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Blog, Business, Marketing, Marketing for Coaches, Marketing for Consultants

November

17 2015

How to be Consistent with Your Social Media Marketing

Social media is a great way to amplify your message and reach your target audience, but a lot of independent business owners, coaches, and consultants struggle to stay consistent with their social media marketing effort, so how can you stay consistent on social media?

This blog post outlines several ways to stay consistent with your social media marketing effort:

[Tweet “5 ways to stay consistent with your social media marketing effort. #MarketingEssentials #SocialMedia”]

Be Committed

The 1st step to being consistent with anything, is to be committed. You have to be committed to using social media marketing as a marketing activity for your business. If you’re not committed, you will never be consistent!
[Tweet ” If you’re not committed, you will never be consistent!”]
Create a Plan

A great way to stay consistent with your social media marketing is to have a social media marketing plan. Your social media plan helps you to decide what you will be posting on social media, when you will be posting, etc. Without a plan to follow, it will be easy to stop and not be consistent. Not sure what to include in your social media marketing plan? Check out this post that outlines what to include in your social media plan, The Secret to Successful Social Media Marketing
Limit Your Social Media Platforms

With so many different types of social media platforms out there, it can easily become overwhelming to keep up with staying consistent on tons of different platforms, so limiting your social media networks will enable you to stay consistent. Not sure what social network is right for you? Check out this post What’s The Best Social Media Platform For Your Business?
Schedule Your Activity

Although it is important to show up on social media “live”, scheduling some of your social media activity can help you to stay consistent with your social media marketing activity. There are tons of tools you can use to schedule your social media. To learn how to pick the right social media management tool for you, check out How to Pick a Social Media Management Tool
Check Your Analytics

When you make it a habit to check the results of your social media marketing, this will help you to make adjustment to your social media and will help you to stay consistent with your effort, so no matter what social media platform you may be using, if they offer some insights on your results, be sure to check your analytics.

These are just 5 ways to stay consistent with your social media marketing effort. What other ways have you used to stay consistent on social media? Be sure to comment below.

Also, don’t forget to download the Marketing Essentials Checklist 21 Things You Must do in Order to Get Amazing Results from Your Social Media Marketing .

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Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Social Media

November

10 2015

6 Surefire Ways to Succeed on Social Media Without a Large Following

When it comes to social media, many independent business owners, coaches, and consultants jump in head first without putting together a solid social media marketing plan.

A social media marketing plan can help you stay organized on social media and get you results. However, some people confuse success on social media with a large following, but it’s not a large following that determines your success on social media, it’s how engaged your followers are to your brand, your message, your products and services.

This blog post discusses 6 Surefire Ways to Succeed on Social Media Without a Large Following.

[Tweet “6 Surefire Ways to Succeed on Social Media without a large following. #MarketingEssentials #SocialMedia”]

Know Your Target Audience– 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 be able to know exactly what to say to your target market to keep them engaged. Who is your target audience?
Create Engaging Content– when it comes to the content that you share on social networks, be sure to keep your content 80% entertaining/educating and only 20% promotional. After all it is “social” networks not “business” networks, so you want to make sure that the majority of the content that you post is “social” in nature. However, you are on social networks to gain exposure for your business too, so be sure to post some promotional or “business” focused content. It’s important that you know what type of content you want to share with your target audience, will your content be humorous, educational, inspirational, motivational, etc.? It is good to have a good mix of various forms of content. Including content that naturally creates more engagement like pictures, videos, questions, fill in the blank statements, polls/opinions, and inspirational quotes. If you have good content that is appropriate and interesting for your target audience, this will naturally encourage engagement.
Create a content calendar and automate some of your posts– Be sure to create a content calendar. In your content calendar you can plan what topic you want to concentrate your conversations around each month, and make it relevant to your target audience and your business. Your content calendar could be for the next 90 days, 6 months, or 12 months. Once you decide on the content you will be posting, 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, Social Oomph, Post Planner, Meet Edgar etc. Planning out your content and then automating the publishing of it saves you a lot of time!
Grow your social networks organically (offline)– 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 grow your network organically easily. Here are a few ways you can grow your social networks offline:
1. Encourage people to connect with you online by placing your social network information on your business card.
2. If you do public 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.
Grow your social networks organically (online)
1. Promote connecting with you on social networks by adding links to your social networks on your e-mail signature line.
2. 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.
3. Encourage your current fans and followers on your social networks to promote your page to their network.
4. Post good content and encourage your network to share your information with their network, by liking, sharing, retweeting, repining, etc.
Grow your social networks using paid advertising– Each social network is different in the types of paid advertising that they offer, but it helps to look into the following options of advertising for the particular social network you may be on.
1. 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, good copy, and be relevant to your target audience in order to be successful.
2. Promoted Content– 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. Affiliate 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 promoting you or you can offer to promote that person to your network. Even though your network is smaller, it could still be potential exposure to new people for the person with the larger audience.
4. 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, but it’s a great way to increase you fans and followers. Just make sure that the prize is something that is of interest to your specific target audience.

These are just 6 ways to succeed on social media without a large audience. What other ways have you used to succeed on social media? Be sure to comment below.

Also, don’t forget to download the Marketing Essentials Checklist 21 Things You Must do in Order to Get Amazing Results from Your Social Media Marketing .

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Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Social Media

November

03 2015

5 Types of Content that Creates Engagement on Social Media

Social Media has become a part of every day life for most people. From checking Facebook to see what your friends, family, and associates are up to, to checking LinkedIn to stay connected with your professional network, to checking Twitter to join the conversation about the latest show, event, or major topic, or browsing Pinterest for the latest recipes or fashion trends, social media and checking in to a social network has become a way of life.

Many smart business owners, coaches and consultants have also seen the importance of including social media in their marketing mix, so they can reach their target audience where they are already hanging out on these social networks.

However, getting results from your social media marketing can be difficult. Especially if your audience doesn’t seem to be engaging with your content, so in this post, I will go over five types of content you can post on social media that gets the most engagement.

[Tweet “Five types of content you can post on social media that gets the most engagement. #MarketingEssentials #SocialMediaMarketing”]

Inspirational Quotes
There’s so much negativity in the traditional media channels that people are craving positivity and inspiration, so being the light of inspiration in someones day by posting an inspirational quote can really increase engagement. Inspirational quotes are appreciated on almost every social network. When you post an inspirational quote picture on Facebook you can get engagement, when you post an inspirational quote on Twitter you can get engagement, when you post on inspiration quote graphic on Pinterest you can get engagement, etc., so no matter what type of business you have, or what social network you are on, posting inspirational quotes can help to increase your engagement.
Ask Questions
People like to be helpful and to express their opinions, so asking questions can be a really good way to increase engagement. This can work for the social networks that are more conversational like Twitter and Facebook. It’s not necessarily as effective on image or video sites like Pinterest, Instagram, or YouTube. However, posting insightful questions can help to increase engagement, in fact social media is a great way to conduct market research. If you are wondering how your target audience will feel about a particular topic, product, program, etc., ask them on social media and see what they say.
Show Behind the Scenes
Social media is supposed to be “social”, so having posts that show behind the scenes at the office or behind the scene of an event can really increase engagement. This works really well when you are posting behind the scene pictures or videos on social networks like Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter. Think about what would be interesting to your audience. Would they like to see pics of behind the scenes of a company event? Would they like to see pics of what happens in the office on a busy day? Think about interesting behind the scenes pictures or videos that you can post to your social networks.
Post Pictures
Whether your posting inspirational quote pictures, or behind the scenes pictures, pictures always increase engagement on most social media platforms. #TBT on Facebook is a great way to use pictures. Post pictures from around the office or staff that was from back in the days, because social media is “social”, you need to include some social elements in your social media marketing including the use of various types of pictures. What types of pictures can you use for your social media marketing?
Post Videos
The saying goes that a picture is worth a thousand words, well a video is worth a thousand pictures, so including posting videos on your social networks is important. There are many types of videos you can post on social media (i.e. spontaneous videos shot on your smart phone, professional videos produced by a professional video company, etc.). Whatever type of video you choose to post on your social networks, be sure that it is the type of video that reflects your brand. If you choose to post a spontaneous video shot on your iPhone, be sure that the camera angle is right, the lighting is right, that it still looks somewhat professional, because the video is a reflection of your brand. You can also use a professional to shoot the video for you. I prefer the professional videos, I feel it’s a better look for your brand. I have used Captured in Time Productions to produce some of my latest videos.

These are just five types of content you can post to get more engagement on social media. What other types of content have you posted that creates engagement on social media? Be sure to comment below.

Also, don’t forget to download the Marketing Essentials Checklist 21 Things You Must do in Order to Get Amazing Results from Your Social Media Marketing .

Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Business, Marketing, Marketing for Coaches, Marketing for Consultants, Social Media, Uncategorized

July

28 2015

5 Top Social Media Management Tools That Save You a Ton of Time

Social media can play an important role in your marketing mix, but as a busy business owner, coach, or consultant, it can be impossible to find the time to manage your social media. That’s why using the right social media management tools can save you a ton of time.

Here is a list of 5 Top Social Media Management Tools you can use in your business to save you time.

Hootsuite
This list would not be complete without Hootsuite. More than 10 million users use the Hootsuite social media management platform. This platform allows you to manage your social networks, schedule your messages, engage your audiences, and measure your ROI right from one easy to use dashboard. Hootsuite has a FREE plan that offers basic benefits for personal use, and has business plans starting as low as $9.99/month
Learn more…..
Buffer
Buffer is an app that is used by more the 2 million people. Buffer helps you drive traffic, increase fan engagement, and save time on social media. Buffer makes it easy to consistently schedule content on social media, increasing your reach and fan engagement. This powerful publishing tool make it easy to share content across multiple social networks with one click. Buffer business plans start at $50/month.
Learn more….
Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a powerful social media software. A management and engagement platform for social businesses. Sprout helps entire organizations extract real business value out of social media through effective engagement, publishing and analytics. Sprout Social offers a Free 30-day trial and plans start at $59 per user/per month
Learn more….
SocialOomph.com
SocialOomph.com is a service that provides free and paid productivity enhancement services for social media users. Originally created specifically for Twitter, many of the features are specific to Twitter, but it also offers scheduling for Facebook and LinkedIn as well as scheduling your blog posts. SocialOomph offers a FREE account with basic features, and offers paid accounts starting at $17.97/bi-weekly.
Learn more….
Meet Edgar
Edgar is a social media scheduling tool like no other. Instead of publishing your updates just once, Edgar carefully catalogues them in a limitless library that you build over time. All of your updates are sorted into categories that you create and published on a schedule that you choose, so Edgar publishes what you want, when you want it. Edgar is by invitation only and is priced at $49/month
Learn more….

Are you using a social media management tool? If so, what social media management tool do you use?

Be sure to download our 21 Top Social Media Marketing Tips to help you with your social media marketing!

Posted by Nadine Mullings | Comments Off | in Marketing, Marketing for Coaches, Marketing for Consultants, Small Business, Social Media

July

21 2015

5 Easy Ways to Use Social Listening to Grow Your Business

Listening is an important skill to master in both your personal and professional life. Being able to listen carefully can improve your personal relationships, and being able to listen carefully to the needs and wants of your customers, clients, and prospects can improve your business. However, many independent business owners, coaches, and consultants have not mastered the art of social listening.

A great way to listen to your customers, clients, and prospects is to conduct surveys and polls to gain valuable insight, but one way to listen that most companies are not taking advantage of is listening on social media, so how can listening on social media grow your business?

Here are five ways social listening can grow your business:

[Tweet “Five ways social listening can grow your business! #SocialMedia #MarketingEssentials”]

Listen to the posts people are making in your community (i.e. posts on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) Sometimes you can find your next customer right in your own backyard just by listening within your community. I have gotten more business listening to people in my community on social media over any other social media marketing method. When someone posts a question or concerns that you are able to answer, be sure to reach out to the individual and let them know that you can help. The key is to take the conversation offline. The post may start in a public arena such as a public post on Facebook, but you should move the conversation to a direct or private message, and then move to a meeting either on the phone or in-person. The reason why this technique works so well, is because when someone expresses a need on social media, and you have a solution, it’s almost guaranteed business for you as long as you handle it correctly by taking the conversation offline to learn more and offer your services as a solution.
Listen to the posts people are making in online groups. This could be LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups, etc. I have found more success listening to comments people make in various Facebook groups, especially if you belong to groups that have your ideal target audience, every once in a while someone may post about being in need of someone who offers your services. Seeing those posts and responding, can be a great way to get new business. Similar to listening in your own community, the key here is to take the conversation offline to close the deal.
Listen to the comments people make on your platforms. This could be comments made on your social media posts, or your blog posts. If someone takes the time to comment, be sure to listen to their comment and even respond to their comment. Taking the time to do this nurtures that relationship you have with your fans and followers, and if your response if valuable and helpful sometimes that same person who commented could become a customer.
Create online polls and poll your fans and followers. Another great way to listen to your audience is to ask questions. Social media is a great place to conduct market research. You can create a simple poll and ask questions that will help you understand your target audience better. For example, a good poll for me would be “What social network do you use the most for marketing your business?”
1. Facebook
2. LinkedIn
3. Pinterest
4. Google+
5. Other

By asking this simple question and getting responses, I will then better understand what social networks my audience is using, and I could create blog posts about that particular network, or even create a program or course that talks all about that particular network, but I would never know what my audience uses unless I polled my fans and followers and listened to their responses, and then took some type of action based on their responses.

5. Create online surveys and survey your fans and followers. Similar to an online poll, an online survey can provide you with invaluable information regarding your fans and followers, so why not create an online survey and post it on your social media channels and encourage your fans and followers to complete the short survey. The insight you gain from that survey can help you in so many ways. You can use the information to:

Find out how you are perceived
Learn what your audience struggles with
Create new products, programs, courses with the information you receive
Create your next promotion
And so much more…

Are you using social listening to grow your business? If not, be sure to schedule a FREE strategy session so you can learn how to use social listening in your business. Click Here to contact us and schedule your session today!

Posted by Nadine Mullings | 2 Comments | in Marketing, Social Media, Uncategorized

social media

Be Committed

Create a Plan

Limit Your Social Media Platforms

Schedule Your Activity

Check Your Analytics