A Simple Start to using social media for your small business

“Social media for your small business”

Does that phrase make you a bit anxious?  If it does, you aren’t alone.

Social media for small business is important, but it doesn’t have to be stressful or overwhelming.  The key is to start slowly and with intent.

Simple Start

We spend a lot of time working with small business owners and we wanted to come up with a way for people to break down what needs to happen to start having a social media presence into small and manageable parts. Our answer is a brand new program called Simple Start. 

What is Simple Start? 

It’s starting slowly. 

It’s committing ten minutes a day for a month.

It’s creating a consistent presence on one channel by spending time thinking about: 

• who you are,
• what you do,
• who you’re talking to, and
• what they want to hear.

What do I do?

Block off ten minutes a day for the next month and commit to the following: 

• Figure out what your goals are with social media. Are you hoping to attract new customers, make more sales, be more known?
• Figure out who your target audience is.  I mean, really think about who they are and what they would want from you. It definitely isn’t “anyone who has money.” By speaking directly to one segment of the population you can create content that really connects to them, instead of writing content for everyone that connects with nobody.
• Figure out what you want to say to them.  I know you have a lot say, but there are certain things that are more important than others for achieving your goals.  Know what they are.
• Share useful information.  Be a valuable resource to people.
• Find links to articles that your audience would like.  You don’t have to create everything you share.
• Make a list of interesting pages on your web site to share with them.  Your web site is your home base, make sure you’re telling people they should go there sometimes.
• Once you have a big chunk of content, start scheduling that content and interacting with people every day.

What will this do?

It’s going to make sure that what you’re saying online is actually going to help you achieve your goals.  It’s going to help you build relationships with people.  It’s going to help you stay top off mind with your customers and potential customers. 

It’s going to take the stress out of coming up with content on a daily basis.

Give it a try!

Commit to ten minutes a day and start getting ready to really wow your audience online.  Remember that what you’re saying has to be of value to your customer.  You aren’t trying to sell them anything and they aren’t there to do something for you.  You have to make them think you’re so awesome they can’t help but WANT to buy from you. You can do it!

Checking out check-in apps - what they are, why they're useful

Checking in on social networks is a way for users to announce where they are and/or what they’re doing to their audience. According to Wikipedia:

Many social networking services, such as Foursquare, Google Latitude, Google+, Facebook, Jiepang, VK (social network), Gowalla, GetGlue and Brightkite, allow users to “check in” to a physical place and share their locations with their friends.^[1]

Users can check in to a specific location by text messaging or by using a mobile application on a smartphone—the application will use the phone’s GPS to find the current location.

Have you ever checked in?

It’s common to hear people hesitate to use check-in apps because they don’t feel their friends will be interested in where they’re going and what they’re doing. Even more common is concerns about privacy, not wanting people to know where you are. Fortunately, we have answers to all of these concerns. And we can make a business case for using check-ins to give incentives to customers.

What exactly is a check-in?

Check-in apps are designed to let you tell your personal network where you are and what you’re doing at a particular moment. Generally this is done through a smart phone or tablet, but it can also be done on your computer.

Larger social networks like Google+ and Facebook will share check-in information with connections. Stand-alone apps like Foursquare and GetGlue give you the option of sharing to larger networks, such as Facebook, Twitter and others.

Why should I check in?

Adoption of check-in apps has been slow to take off. Many users don’t really understand why they are beneficial or don’t want to annoy friends. However, there are some compelling reasons to use check-ins:

1) Endorse a business or attraction that deserves it.

Acknowledge great service publicly, share it with friends and be the hero that points a friend to a place they need or want but didn’t even know it.

Help promote events as they happen with a quick check-in. It can raise awareness of the event for future dates.

Reinforce existing relationships with business owners or service providers you know and appreciate. It shows your loyalty and helps them gain new clients.

2) Incentives (a.k.a., free stuff/discounts)

Who doesn’t like a deal? Or a freebie!?

Quite a few businesses will offer check-in deals.  Incentives range from “10% off your bill”, to “free <insert product> on 5th check-in”, or “free coffee to person who most frequently checks in to this location”.

Will most users check-in without an incentive? Probably not. So advertise it in your place of business and make sure you include it in your business’s description in check-in apps.

3) Good information

When you check in to a location on certain apps, you can share tips on the establishment. This is a great way to find out about products and deals that are happening, or as a resource for what’s happening nearby.

4) Fun

Of course there’s an element of fun to it - if there wasn’t, no one would do it. It’s interesting to see where people are going and hear what they thought about it. 

Staying safe while using check-in apps

While everything we’ve stated above creates solid reasons for using check-in apps, it’s important to be safe while you’re checking in:

Don’t check-in everywhere you go. If you limit the number of check-ins each week and the type of check-ins, you won’t inadvertently give someone a roadmap of your weekly routine.

Don’t check-in to places that reveal too much personal information. Examples include your children’s school, the local park, work and your house. 

Do you use check-in apps? If not, does the possibility of incentives make them more compelling?

Social Capital Conference: lessons learned

This past weekend was a pretty busy one around here. On Friday and Saturday, people from all over gathered for Social Capital Conference, an incredible social media learn-a-thon. For those lucky enough to attend, you probably left with your head spinning, trying to process all the valuable information that was imparted over the two days of workshops, conferences and round-tables. For those of you who couldn’t make it, here are a few takeaways that pretty much sum up the weekend:

Video Rocks

Admittedly, video scares the crap out of most people. At Social Capital Conference, Anthony Wong taught us that not only is video easy to do, it’s also fun and really, really effective at getting your point across. Not only can you can shoot, edit and publish video all from your iPhone or iPad but there are apps out there that take the guess work out of creating fun, effective messages that everyone will love.

Lara took the iPhone video workshop - here’s the video she created entirely on her iPhone during the workshop.

There’s No Such Thing As An Overnight Success

Many start to use social media because they think it’s free and easy and you can get 10,000 in a week. In her amazing and inspiring Keynote address, Gini Dietrich shared the ups and downs of how to use content and interaction to build a community and that nothing really comes easy (although it can be pretty fun along the way).

Don’t Forget The Secret Sauce

Remember when you were 5 and getting a sticker for good work was the bomb? People haven’t changed. They still like to be acknowledged and made to feel special. By responding, engaging, interacting, rewarding and basically stroking people’s ego’s you will keep your audience coming back again and again.

Be Human

The message of the weekend was definitely to Be Human. People are online to feel like they are a part of something. Call it engagement, call it interaction but basically, the way to grow your audience is to be yourself.  When you talk to people online, use their names, respond to comments and reply to questions. By using all the common sense, offline business world strategies in your online world, you will, with time and effort, grow your online community and create something that you can be proud of.

Now go forth and be social and hope to see you at Social Capital 2014!  If you were there, share your best takeaway in the comments!

Making a case for Google+

For many small business owners, staying on top of social media can be challenging at times so the thought of adding one more social network to the mix may seem like a daunting task. However, the benefits of having a Google+ business page and community may outweigh the drawbacks of having to set one up (which really isn’t that hard anyway).

Google+ is owned by Google, so what happens on G+ can actually impact your standing in search engine ranking and improve your search engine optimization (SEO). The reason for this is that Google gives a great deal of weight to the social behaviors and recommendations from your connections on Google+, especially at the local level.  In fact, Google treats Google+ pages as regular sites. You can check this out yourself by doing a search and see what pages come up. Often, information from G+ pages is ranked higher than other, non-Google sites.

As a small business, having a Google+ Business page and working to increase your connections (circles), by sharing reviews, posting YouTube video, images and posts, you can actually increase your visibility in search results. Another bonus is that by analyzing those in your circles, Google will be able gather more and more targeted information about what your customers are looking for. Google will incorporate recommended and shared sites from people you are connected to on G+, which can go a long way in ensuring that their friends and circles will be more likely to find your business in a search.

For your customer, this is a good thing. It means that they may actually be presented with search results that not only are they more interested in but with endorsements from trusted friends and colleagues who have vouched for the business/product/place etc. 

Let’s look at it this way.  Say you do a search for the best local restaurant.  In your search results, you see that your friend has shared a great review of the restaurant and vouches for the restaurant’s cleanliness. Can you think of better validation than the endorsement from a trusted friend? 

By creating a page and reaching out to other G+ pages to increase visibility and connections, you will not only help establish yourself in the local community where you do business but you can engage with other, complementary businesses to become a local referral source. Using reviews, +1’s and discussions on group pages, you will be able to continue to build your community, and your brand.

So, what are you waiting for? Go claim your spot on Google+! We’d love to connect with you. We could even Hangout!

Buzz and Brilliance: Week ending May 4

Over the week we go through a lot of content - news and blog posts, how tos and conceptual posts on the state of the internet.  Every Sunday we share some of our favourites with you.

Check out the links and let us know in the comments if you have any questions or if you read any great posts this week!

***

Lara

E-newsletters and Facebook ads are two things that I’ve been really concentrating on lately - there are so many interesting things to learn about how to use them to grow your business.

One of the most important things to remember when sending newsletters is to have a good subject line. If your subject line is boring, who is going to open your email? Here are 25 tips for great subject lines.

Amy Porterfield is my go to Facebook expert and she shared a lot of interesting information on Facebook ads in one of her recent podcasts. The podcast itself as well as the step by step Facebook ad pdf she created explain how and why to try out Facebook’s power editor and how to target ads in the newsfeed only instead of also in the sidebar.

Spin Sucks has a weekly post called Gin and Topics I check religiously every weekend and whenever I see a video I think is hilarious I send it to to Gini in the hopes she’ll include it. This week she did! Corn chips are hilarious.

Karen

Ellen DeGeneres makes me laugh. A lot. She’s also using social media brilliantly to promote her show and be funny for us for longer than an hour a day, five days a week. The story of the game app she’s launched is really interesting to me. It’s wildly successful (understandable given her fame) and is tied to her show only in that she plays the game on the show. Businesses can apply this kind of thinking to their own new media strategies by looking at ways to connect and stay on the minds of customers (and it doesn’t necessarily have to be an app).

It’s easy to make missteps when you first start out using social tools or setting up your website. Darren Rowse (ProBlogger) laid out his own mistakes regarding domain names. I’ve made some of these mistakes and the news is good from Darren’s perspective: they don’t mean you can’t be successful!

One technique for getting traffic to your blog/website is to be controversial. However, as a long-term strategy, it truly isn’t sustainable. I’ve written posts expressing my views about various controversies before and it’s draining. I will only do that if I feel very strongly about something. Otherwise, it’s not worth my time or energy. However, as a business user, it’s important to think about the points Mark Schaefer made, as well as the possible impact on your business.

Though it may be tempting some days to walk away from the internet for a good long time, it’s not something I am likely to do. It was so good to read Paul Miller’s conclusions about how it went when he stayed off the internet for one year.

It’s not social media related, but this article with 10 ways to stay happy as an entrepreneur is one for any business owner to read.

SOCIAL CAPITAL

Social Capital is quickly approaching (it’s May 31 and June 1). Join us this Tuesday for our second #socapott Twitter Chat.  We’ve also announced a lot of great speakers that you won’t want to miss, including Gini Dietrich and Danny Brown!

THE MEDIA MESH

Does everyone hate getting newsletters?

Why Instagram is good for your business

To tweet or not to tweet during tragic breaking news