IS YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY ANTI-SOCIAL?

Small businesses are discovering that not only is social media a powerful way to connect with customers, in many cases, it's a requirement for a marketing strategy that engages with your market.  At the same time, many small businesses struggle with finding the right strategy and tools to manage the ever-increasing world of social media.  With 78% of US internet users (according to Nielsen) engaging in at least 1 social network, figuring out a social media strategy that works for you is more important than ever.

Yet, as many small businesses venture into the waters of social media, they find it to be not only overwhelming, but often they end up doing more damage to their brand then good.  From 

1. Know Your Audience

Do you know who your audience really is?  Do you know which social networks they use?  Be sure that your business or organization is engaging in social media where your customers are.  It's important to know which social media networks actually allow you to reach your intended market.

Additionally, make sure you've clearly defined the type of content that makes sense for your audience.  The content you share, the photos you link, and the articles you post should be relevant to your target audience, or you run the risk of alienating the followers you've worked so hard to gain. 

2. Designate a Social-Media Czar

Every business & organization on social media, needs to have one person responsible for all of that company's interactions.  That doesn't mean that you can't have a team that helps engage with customers, or curate relevant content - but it does mean that you need to have one person who sets the tone, and guides the social media ship.  Ultimately, this person is responsible for making sure that every social media interaction represents that organizations goals, as well as their brand identity.

3. Be Consistent In Your Content

Whether you blog, or tweet, or share on Facebook, your content needs to be consistent with your brand.  In addition, consistency extends to the frequency you create, and share content.  Nothing says "anti-social" more than the twitter account that hasn't posted in 3 months, or the Facebook page with no activity this year.  Brands that consistently share content across their social media channels, and consistently engage in conversations with their customers, generate significantly more traffic across their online channels, and convert significantly more leads into customers.

4. Engage With Your Audience

If your social media strategy is all about pushing out information about your business, but fails to engage with your audience, don't be surprised if that audience doesn't stick around.  By far, the biggest benefit of social media to small businesses, is that it gives instant access to your market, and your customers.  

Every time you engage with your customers, you create an opportunity to deepen the connection they already have with your brand.  On the other hand, if you ignore all of your twitter followers when they @mention your business (for example), you alienate the connection they have with you and your brand.  People much prefer to have conversations, rather than be around the guy that can't seem to stop talking about himself long enough to listen to anyone else.  That's basically who you are when you fail to engage with your audience. 

5. Don't Hide From Feedback

If your business has customers, eventually it will have unhappy customers.  Social media has greatly increased the ability for your customers (happy and unhappy) to share their feelings and opinions with their circle of influence.  When this happens, don't ignore it.  Think of it as an opportunity to engage with, and often fix, whatever happened with that customer.  

Some of the very best brands on social media use it as a front line customer service tool - and their social media team is empowered to help fix customer problems.  Instead of sticking your head in the sand, social media is a great way to reinforce your commitment to your customers - even when they're less than satisfied.

5 RULES OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

For a lot of small businesses, getting started on social media can be scary.  You probably already have a personal Facebook page, and you might already be using Twitter, but if you're wondering how you can best use these tools for your business, you're not alone.  Many small businesses avoid social media all together, or they get started without any kind of plan.  Neither of those options are likely to help you grow your business, but a good social media strategy can.  Here are 5 rules every small business should know about social media:

1. Know Your Audience

Who is your customer?  Start by understanding who they are, and how they engage with your company on social media.  Depending on your audience, you can create a strategy that effectively utilizes the social networks your customers are already using.  Your audience also determines things like what type of content they want to engage with, how often (and when) they engage with your brand, and what calls-to-action work best to move "potential clients" toward becoming "clients." 

2. Quality Content Matters Most

Social networks are no longer about photos of cats, or posts about what you ate for dinner - unless of course you're a pet store, or a chef.  If you really want to develop a social media strategy that builds your small business brand, you have to focus on creating quality content.  What defines "quality?"  It has to be content that is both valuable to the reader, AND well produced.  Quality content means well-thought out, well written, visually appealing, and useful. It's not enough to simply post a ton of content and hope it sticks - it has to be valuable to your audience, and it has to be produced in a way that communicates that you know what you're doing.

3. Consistency Leads To Commitment

While quality is truly king, it's important to develop a consistent schedule of sharing across various social media channels.  Even if you produce helpful content, your audience will likely lose interest if you post, or share, too infrequently.  One of the best ways to build your social media audience is to be consistently sharing quality content.  We recommend that small businesses that are just starting out, figure out what is sustainable in terms of creating content for their business, and commit to that.  The more you commit to a consistent schedule, the more committed, and engaged your audience will become.

4. Build A Community, Not A Company

Sure, you're doing this because you're hoping to add value to your business.  That's a no brainer.  I'd challenge you to think about what that value really is, before starting to use social media.  If all you want is a platform for pushing out self-promoting content about your products and services, social media might seem like a great option.  It's relatively inexpensive, and there's huge potential for building an audience.  Of course, that audience isn't likely to stick around if all you do is promote yourself. 

On the other hand, the best brands understand that social media is a tool for creating community.  It can humanize otherwise impersonal brands and companies, and provide a connection point between you and your customers.  Focusing on creating a community, changes the approach you take to social media.  It means adding value, listening to what your customers are saying, and focusing on solving their problems.  At the same time, the result will be a much stronger brand experience for your customers, which can mean a huge return in terms of customer retention, new customer acquisition, and lifetime customer value.

5. Start

Finally, you can't steer a parked car.  I don't remember where I first heard that, but let's be honest - it's true.  When I travel, I often spend time figuring out where I need to be, how to get there, how long it's going to take, and what the best route might be.  All of that is valuable, but not if I never start driving.  In fact, often, we get paralyzed by all of the "directions," and "planning," and never get going.  

As someone who travels frequently for work, I can tell you that getting lost isn't nearly as bad as it sounds, and sometimes it's better to just start driving.  You can make adjustments as you go, but if you sit there in the driveway, you'll never end up anywhere - but the driveway.  The same is true in developing an effective social media strategy.  It's okay to plan, but eventually you have to start practicing.  It's okay if you make mistakes - chances are good that if you're just starting out, you'll make some.  Simply learn from them, make changes, and keep going!

What do you think?  What are a few rules, or tips, you would share for other small business owners?

OUR FAVORITE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING TOOLS

Probably the last thing any of us has, is too much time.  If you run a small business, that's especially true.  You've got plenty of things to do, and figuring out the best tools for your social media strategy is just one of the thousands of things on your to-do list - if it's on the list at all.

At the same time, a good social media strategy can help you be even more efficient at attracting customers, and building loyalty.  That's why we are big believers in using social media tools that give you results, without wasting your time. 

These five tools are all great at helping you build a streamlined social media strategy, focused on publishing content, monitoring conversations, and organizing analytics in a way that you can actually use.  Social media management tools have come a long way, offering a comprehensive set of the tools your small business needs to be both efficient and effective.

Here are five of our favorite social media management tools for small businesses.

Hootsuite - is a free social media management platform that describes itself as "your social media dashboard.  Hootsuite allows you to connect your various social media accounts giving you the ability to publish, monitor and analyze your overall social presence. This platform allows you to schedule social media posts and easily monitor what your audience is engaging with  Hootsuite has it's own link shortening service, making it easy to share engaging content, and measuring the results.

One of the biggest benefits of Hootsuite, besides the fact that they have a free level of service, is the "Hootlet.” The Hootlet is a browser extension that allows you to pull content from anywhere on the internet.  Hootsuite offers additional analytics and added team members for a monthly fee.

Sprout Social - is a robust social media management platform that allows you to post on your social channels and has an efficient platform for monitoring.  One of the biggest benefits of Sprout Social is the detailed reporting and analytics.  In addition to giving you feedback on the types of posts that your audience most engages with, Sprout Social also gives you detailed information about your audience.  

Sprout Social also integrates easily with your RSS feed, making it easy to share content with your audience, from almost any source.  Though it's not the least expensive, this management software is great for teams managing their brand across multiple social media networks, needing professional reporting analytics.

HubSpot –is a paid software platform that is designed around inbound marketing.  More than just social media software, Hubspot is a complete solution for creating, publishing and sharing content that is designed to attract your target customer.  Hubspot provides some of the most detailed analytics you'll find outside of large enterprise tools, and it is designed to help you continuously refine your strategy based on results.  

Though it's not exclusively a social media management tool, HubSpot has a deep social media feature set, allowing you to post and schedule content through your various social channels, and monitor the results.  The "social inbox” showcases specific social activity and published content, especially as it is connected to your leads and customers. HubSpot also displays specific mentions or interactions on social media that are best for your business.  Hubspot has a 30 day free trial that's worth checking out for any small business. 

TweetDeck – is a free service that helps manage your twitter feed. This is a web based management site (now a part of twitter) for Mac and Windows that can be used to monitor your social media sites and schedule posts. It is also a great tool for hashtag searches, followers, and Twitter lists. Using a column-based layout,  Tweetdeck makes it easy to see your customized columns in one window.   Because it's free, Tweetdeck is a great tool when you need something to get started. 

Buffer –  allows you to schedule various social media posts and automatically staggers them within the day to showcase “real-time” posting. Since consistency is important in building an engaged audience, Buffer helps you create a stream of relevant posts across your social channels.  Monitor and maintain Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and more, and schedule posts that connect with your audience.  Buffer has a convenient Chrome plugin that makes it super easy to "buffer" whenever you're online.  Finally, Buffer also supplies social media analytics and reporting based on your published content.

All of these social media management tools have benefits to using them, depending on where you're at in developing a social media strategy.  We encourage our clients to check them out to see which is the best fit for their organization.

THE POWER OF A SOCIAL BUSINESS

As the Internet continues to lead as the largest global marketplace, the choice to be a social business can be one that makes or breaks your success in today’s data-driven world. Providing a great digital customer experience is one way to boost customer satisfaction and your chances for long-term success.

Often times, small and mid-sized businesses were propelled into motion by a brilliant idea or the zest of a passionate entrepreneur. It’s important to have the right marketing strategy in place so that you can continue to scale, grow and conquer at the optimal frequency and velocity right for your business. Integrating social technology and digital strategies into your overarching business plan can put you ahead of your competition, boost your revenue and foster customer loyalty, the end game for any business.

One of the most important keys to an effective digital strategy is building a consistent online marketing plan. This means establishing and maintaining a compelling website, effective landing pages, engaging social media presence across relevant profiles, positive customer reviews in forums, an enviable search engine ranking, and positive feedback loop for company information (blog, newsletter, etc.).

Through all of this digital real estate, the tone and brand voice should be authentic, informative, transparent and the company should be able and willing to listen and respond to customers, those who are happy and in distress, alike.

People want to know that they can count on you for service, support and quality. They want to, and are, sharing their customer experiences -- the good, bad and ugly -- with their networks. Moreover, they want to entertain their networks.

Don’t forget: Social media is fun! Why is our society so obsessed with social networking sites, such as Facebook and Instagram? Primarily because it’s fun! We enjoy being connected with our family and friends and seeing what they’re up to.

You can use this to your advantage and leverage these free marketing opportunities by utilizing candor, humor and wit.

By optimizing your digital and social presence now, your business will be better suited for the e-commerce boom that is only just beginning to take the world by storm. More consumers will be purchasing goods and services via their smartphones than ever before. In order to stay top of mind and relevant to consumers, businesses must establish and maintain a strong digital identity that engages with it its patrons. Social is the new business standard.