5 Steps to Creating a Social Media Content Calendar

As a small business owner and entreprenuer you know you need to communicate with your customers online. You also know that you need to have a mixture of original and shared content if you are to build a reputation for being an expert in your niche or industry.

Let me rephrase this. If you want to build a reputation for knowing your stuff, you need to create and publish content.

Content comes in various forms. You need to figure out how your customers like to receive and read information from you. Below is a quick list of mediums:

1. Digital newsletters – you’ll need to write articles.

2. Facebook posts and images – you’ll need to create some text. Keep it short. Facebook isn’t designed for longform writing.

3. A blog – you’ll need to write articles, respond to comments from your customers and like and comment on another bloggers’ content.

4. Write commentary/opinion pieces on what others in your niche or industry are posting or comment on any news topics in your area of expertise.

Anyone that knows me knows that I’m a firm believer that blogging is a must for small business. The blog acts as your fuel to ignite your social media efforts across all your channels. It also gives your brand a direct line of communication to your customers and helps give your brand voice and personality. This is essential to your brand equity.

Once you’ve created your original content, upload your link across all your social media profiles and watch your following grow.

Note: Blogging is a vast subject so I’ll dedicate more space to this at another time. Please let me know if you’re interested in learning about blogging and what you’d specifically like to know.

Let’s assume for now that you don’t currenty have a blog and you want to start streamlining your own posts across your social media sites. Or if you do already have a blog – great! A content caledar will come in very handy.

You should be posting at least twice-a-day on Facebook and 15 times a day on Twitter (more on this in another post). A content calendar can help take the stress out of the posting process, help keep you organised and make posting an easier, quicker process.

First, let’s brainstorm Content Ideas:

1. Make a list of all the questions your customers have asked you. Your content should answer them. 

2. Identify and list all the expert, thought-leaders in your niche/industry. Interview them and write about it.

3. Identify and list the top journalist in your niche/industry. Summarise the articles you believe your customers will find interesting and add your comment/opinion.

4. List all the products/services customers use in your niche/industry and review them.

5. Identify best practice for your niche/industry. Comment on them.

6. Have any interesting or exciting developments occured at your workplace? New staff members? Accreditations? Awards? Jot all this down.

Make sure you keep adding to your brainstorming information as new developments take place. Identify any patterns or reoccuring themes.

Now, check out my How-to list on how to design a content calendar:

1. Jot down each day of the week from Monday through to Sunday.

2. Give each day a title. For example: Motivational Marketing; Talented Tuesday; News on Wednesday; Throwback Thursday; Thank goodness it’s Friday; Saavy Saturday; Serene Sunday. Your niche or industry will dictate the type of days that will make sense. In the brainstorm session, however, don’t get too hung up on this. Just go for it. You can edit later. It’s more important to get something down.

3. From here, make a list under each day about possible topics that relate to the catchphrase of the day.

4. Finally, open a PowerPoint slide. Insert a date and day at the top right corner and add your text and image. This is your month’s content calendar.

5. However, if your brand is across numerous social media channels, you may want to create one master content calendar, where you can easily view each post. This will really help organise your social media marketing and provide your plan in one glance. Have all your social media channels in a column on the left and give each channel on the right a different colour. You’ll find a great example here: At Solo PR Pro:

Here’s an example:

Once you have your content mapped out you might like to go ahead and create a scheldue using a program such as Hootsuite or Sprout Social (I can write more about social media marketing scheduling tools in another post).

Being organised makes good business sense and helps keep us sane and happy. Have fun with your social media and remember the 80/20 rule – 80% of information you post is informative, entertaining and useful and 20% is self-promotion and marketing.

If you keep the 80/20 rule in mind and respond and communicate with your customers in a kind, authentic way, your brand equity will get better and better with each post.

Enjoy! And please don’t hesitate to comment or ask me any questions about this and other communication topics.

Social Media Networking Bascics

How do you feel when you think about using social media for your business communications and marketing? Nervous? Apprehensive? Excited or overwhelmed? Feeling any one these feelings or a mixture of all them is perfectly normal. Anything new, fast changing and seemingly complicated can cause fear and anxiety in business women from all background and technical aptitudes. I’ll tell you a little secret: as a social media specialist, I also suffer from a little overwhelm every now and then. I have to stay up-to-date with the latest developments and information as it changes and evolves. I also have to know how we as human, customers and communicators are evolving and choosing to connect with one another online. I have to understand this information across demographics and countries. So I can truly understand why women — busy both operating and running their businesses – put social media networking and marketing in the, “This is too hard right now, I’ll deal with that later” basket. There’s nothing wrong with that except that social media networking is essential for every business owner. So let’s demystify some of the overwhelm right here and now.

You may have heard of the terms social media marketing and social media networking. You know social media marketing is absolutely imperative for good communication with your customers but did you know that social media networking is a key element to building your authorship and authority as a brand?
David Meerman Scott is a well respected public relations, communications and social media marketing authority. In 2009, Scott used a cocktail party as a metaphor for how to network on social media the right way. Indulge me for a moment: put on your best cocktail dress and shoes. Grab your cocktail and come on a little journey of imagination with me for a moment (cue ethereal harp music).

Congratulations! You’ve been invited to the hottest cocktail party event of the year and you have on the perfect outfit. You’re looking forward to the opportunity to chat with some key players about your business. The only downside is that the invite doesn’t include a plus-one which means you won’t know anyone there.
You arrive on time at the venue. You admire the taupe-coloured walls in the sparkling lobby. A glittering crystal chandelier dangles from the ceiling and the perfume of fresh, dust-pink roses fills your nostrils. A fresh-faced host ticks your name off a long list and leads you towards another room. She opens two tall doors, places her hands on your shoulders and gently shoves you forward into the buzzing, crowded room where all of a sudden the chatter stops and a hundred people turn to silently stare at you. You turn back to your host with a pleading look. She gives you a polite smile and closes the doors in your face.

You have a lot of options here: you can run straight back out of those doors screaming over your shoulder, “Sorry. Too scary. Not ready.” You could straighten your back, stick out your chest and get amongst the crowd. Or you could smile and nod at the crowd as they get back to their conversation and you take a moment to center yourself and observe the party.

Let’s say you choose to stay. Good on you! That’s brave. Now, this is where I want you to stop for a moment. Take a sip of your cocktail and exhale. This is the crucial point of the party. What you do next will determine how you as a brand will be received by all those influential and important people. The party goers have returned to normal. They’re sipping their drinks and have resumed their conversations. What are you going to do? You’ve come here to talk and connect with people right? But how do you go about it? You don’t know anybody? Ask yourself these following questions:

1. Will I go up to each and every group and shout about how fantastic I am and why they should buy my product?
2. Will I introduce myself, ask for business cards but not enter into any actual meaningful dialogue?
3. Will I listen more than I speak?
4. Will I only add my expertise when it can truly add value?
5. Will I note that I’m nervous and chose to observe the party, enjoy the conversations and weigh in next time when I’m more comfortable and confident?
6. Will I flit about the party trying to find only the most important people so I don’t waste time on people I can’t plug my product to?
7. Will I walk around the room but not talk to anyone and vow to never put myself through this again?
8. Will I quickly dart about the party, hand out my business cards to everyone and make my escape?
9. Will I seek out my competition and try to start a rumour or add negative comments about them within their circle?
10. Will I align myself with the “cool” group with the hope to have some “coolness” rub off on my brand even through the demographic of their niche is entirely wrong for my target market?

As you know, good business is about good connection. It’s about being human and sharing that experience with others. Your business solves someone else’s problems or serves their needs and that’s awesome but there’s always a time, a place and the right etiquette in which to share this.

Social media networking takes all this into consideration. From the 10 questions above, pay particular attention to questions 3, 4 and 5. Answering yes to these questions, even question 5 is good etiquette. It shows that you are serious about your business. You want to provide good customer service by really listening to people’s wants, desires and needs before you jump in and ramble on about how amazing you and your brand are.

So let’s take this cocktail metaphor and translate it the social media marketing realm and explore how this pans out there.
1. Always listen first. Observe what people are saying about your brand, niche, and competitors online before you type a single word. Do this for about two weeks. Get a feel for how people in your niche connect with one another. Get familiar with the tone of their conversations. Social media networking is a cocktail party. Walk in with grace, listen, be kind and above all, be human and connect. Don’t talk out about your brand or service until it actually adds value. Let your social media efforts do their “thang” in the background. Social media networking is a cocktail party. Walk in with grace, listen, be kind and above all, be human and connect. Don’t talk out about your brand or service until it actually adds value. Let your social media efforts do their “thang” in the background.
2. Only add your two-cents worth when your expertise or opinion is truly, absolutely helping someone… not the moment you think you can convert the conversation into a sales lead. When you plan and strategise your social media and content marketing right, this will happen organically and you’ll have tactics set up to convert leads through email marketing, blogging, video testimonials and other methods (look for more detail on this in a future post).
3. This is an obvious one but unfortunately I still see this happen. Don’t EVER write negatively about your competitors, staff or customers. If you’re tempted: walk away, put your phone down, do something else. Take a moment to calm down. I know this is easier said-than-done. I’ve had circumstances where I know my clients’ customers have outright lied on the Facebook accounts I’ve managed on their behalf but it was up to me to take the high road and not concern myself too much with entering into a battle about facts online. Take the conversation offline if needed. Don’t tarnish your reputation in the process of protecting your reputation or appearing right. The truth generally has a way of coming out. The perfect scenario (and I’ve seen this happen numerous times) is that the community gets involved and other people comment to highlight the truth and comment on your good reputation on your behalf.
4. Don’t Facebook poke or send LinkedIn invitations to people you think you can sell to or use to sell for you. Observe what these people do online first. Get involved in their communities, build relationship and rapport. You’ll then be in greater stead to directly connect. Be motivated by goodness and helpfulness.

By the way, if you answered yes to question 7 above, don’t beat yourself up. It’s okay. Like I said, social media networking and marketing can be daunting. Please know though, that for business the rewards far outweigh the challenges. Keep these points in mind:
1. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Start small.
2. If you can afford it, outsource it.
3. You don’t have to be on ALL social media channels. Just the ones your customers like and use.
4. Get organised. Have a plan. Strategise your communication efforts.
5. Use tools like Google Alerts, Twitonomy, hashtags, Google+ circles, LinkedIn groups to start connecting with communities (more detail on this in a future post).
6. Always remember: your customers are mothers, daughters, sisters, employers, hobbyists, students, sportspeople, carers, enthusiasts, employees, fathers, husbands, sons, and, above all… people.

So go to the cocktail party, have a look around, talk with – not at – people. Listen to what they’re saying. Pay attention to what they’re interested in. Listen to what makes them tick. Not because you can use this information to sell to them but because you value that person as a human being and you’re specifically at this cocktail party for human connection. If, at the party, someone asks you about yourself, that’s great! Tell them what you’re interested in. Tell them what makes you tick and when you do finally slot in that you’re running a business that does X, Y, Z you’re telling them this because you’re having an authentic two-way conversation, not because you have an agenda.

In a nutshell, meaningful online conversation and communication is essential for good business, customer service and reputation, which ultimately helps with brand growth and healthy revenue.

War and business – people and connection – what this means for good social media practices

I can’t imagine the absolute fear the young men and women would’ve faced during the first World War (or any war, thereafter). Facing unknowns, and harsh conditions; they would’ve had to conjure up courage on a daily basis to get through it.
It’s Anzac Day here in Australia as I write this post. It’s an annual day of remembrance for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. In particular, the day signifies the battle that Anzacs faced in their campaign to take hold of the Gallipoli peninsula so they could take control of Dardanelles and open Constantinople to the allied forces and push out the German ally – the Ottoman Empire. 
As the Anzacs landed on the beach at Gallipoli, they were met by fierce resistance from the Ottoman Empire. What was hoped to be a quick win dragged out to eight months of fighting.
Not all the soldiers came home alive — in fact, 8000 lives were lost —  and Anzac Day is truly a day of honouring the fallen and remembering their sacrifice.

It’s how we handle the tough times… when we are put into situations that can easily bring out our worst traits, when our true characters and personalities shine through.

Today, I’ve reflected on the meaning of Anzac Day and how as humans, we get through times of adversity and uncertainty and I translated these feelings into the business arena. I know there isn’t direct comparison in regards to fighting for your country, facing life and death situations and a tough client, I’m interested in the feelings we show and the sentiments of character we display through times and situations we cannot necessarily control.

It’s how we handle the tough times… when we are put into situations that can easily bring out our worst traits, when our true characters and personalities shine through.
Being in business can do this. Everyone that works for themselves or for someone else has faced a situation they couldn’t control or was in charge of a task that they really didn’t like. We usually call these incidents: “having a bad day.” It could be the moment you discovered you’ve made a huge mistake and have to walk into the boss’ office to notify him/her, or a difficult client has decided to change a strategy at the last minute that you’ve spent the last three weeks designing… It hurts even more when you know they’re suggestions are wrong, won’t work and you’ll have to take responsibility for the negative ROI.
But at the end of the day, business, like war is about humanity. It’s about people helping people. Sure, we use machines to make things and communicate with one another but at the end of the day, it’s humans that buy and sell those things. And we do so because we either need or want those things. We trade with one another and sell our services because we all have different things to offer.

Communication and connection are the absolute building blocks of all personal and business relationships. Good communication in business is good business. Good business is good communication.

During the war, almost strangers became fast friends through necessity and unnatural environments. Trust was built on mutual suffering, anger, laughter, loss and celebration. Long lasting relationships were formed. Their foundation? Connection. The glue? Communication.
Communication and connection are the absolute building blocks of all personal and business relationships. Good communication in business is good business. Good business is good communication.

Your customers, colleagues, clients all require something from you in order to have their needs and wants met. They made need your products as a link in their value chain. A colleague may need to see your smile to brighten their work day or a client may just want to rely on you to deliver your service in a professional way so they have one less thing to worry about.
Your connection to clients or colleagues may be minimal or strong but how you communicate with them will forever be the glue that binds that connection. How you hold yourself, how you handle stress and how you handle those tasks you absolutely despise doing, all contribute to how others view you.

It’s the corporations and brands that foster good connection and communication that do well on social media.

1. They respond to negative feedback within an hour. Eg: https://www.facebook.com/boostjuice

2. They work to resolve the customer’s issue. Not just make them go away. Eg: https://www.facebook.com/boostjuice

3. They use the customer’s feedback as an opportunity to learn and improve. Eg: https://www.facebook.com/jurlique.au

4. They let their customers’ be the stars on their social channels. They encourage engagement; build community and ask their audience to get involved: upload photos, comment and share content. Eg: https://www.facebook.com/kathmandu

5. They consistently think of how their product or service helps their customers and build their content from there: providing entertaining and informative answers to their customers’ questions. Eg: https://www.facebook.com/kathmandu

The next time you’re having a bad business day, think about all those who fought for your country (some of whom didn’t have a choice). Think about the strangers that were thrown together in cold, muddy trenches and were asked to guard each other’s lives. Think about those young frightened people connecting with other young frightened people. It wasn’t just what they did for each other and for their country that they’ll be remembered for. It’s how they connected, and bravely helped one another… because, at the end of the day – we’re just people helping people.

Have you had an experience in business that required tested your character and personality?

Facebook announces “streamlined” look

Hi everyone,

In case you weren’t aware of this news, Facebook has announced a new “streamlined” look with more roll outs and changes expected to go live next week. Below is the link published yesterday on the Mashable website.

LINK: http://mashable.com/2014/03/10/facebook-redesign-pages/

The main takeaways are: 

• Same two columns layout but right column will be the timeline; the left is profile information. So there will now be a clear distinction between profile/brand information and the newsfeed;
• The posting text box: “What have you been up to?” will move from the left side of the screen to the right;
• The “Invite your Friends” section will move from the right side of the screen to the left side;
• A new metrics section will appear on the far right side of the screen, complete with engagement data (likes, post reach, ad info);
• A new option now for Page Admins is the “Pages to Watch”. Admins will be able to create a list of competitor/brand pages to compare metrics against.

I hope this was useful and helpful information.

Have you heard any other interesting Facebook news?

Regards,

Flavia

A 24-slide guide to using public relations to grow your personal profile and brand

A 24-slide guide to using public relations to grow your personal profile and brand 

Digital Vanity: Time to check yourself out. Bieber style.

EdgeRank and Klout are two analytical programs that can provide you, as a social media user, with an indication of how you rank or compare with other social media users.

In a less competitive view, the EdgeRank and Klout algorithms provide a metric to help you determine the content, activities and conversations that others enjoy. A word of warning: while high scores are favourable, the motivation behind the content and the activity should always be authentic: to create and share thought-provoking, useful and entertaining information.

So as you read the rest of this article, keep the following words in mind: relevant, informative, useful, and meaningful.

EdgeRank

This is the Facebook news feed algorithm that determines which content appears in other people’s Facebook newsfeeds. It is impossible for every activity of our own or our Facebook followers users to be captured and shown in our news feeds

If your content doesn’t rate well, it simply won’t appear in your follower’s feeds.

Each share, like, tag, post and comment is classified by Facebook as “edges”.

So how can you ensure you rate well?

Your content is judged according to affinity, weight and time decay. The higher your score in each of these factors, the more preference your content will be given.

Affininity

This component of the algorithm is about the frequency with which you interact with others. If you post regularly on the wall of a particular friend or business page, your affinity score with that person/business will be high. The higher the score, the higher the chance of your news being seen by the people you interact with most.

Weight

This is essentially the activity that your content generates. For example, the Edgerank algorithm will score the amount of shares, likes, friending, tags and comments (“edges”) your news has attracted. If your news generates a lot of activity, it will be given preference to lower level news that generated no or little engagement/activity.

It is important to know, too, that each activity is judged according to the effort needed by generator of the “edge” or activity. In other words, each edge is scored and ranked differently and a comment, in which the user has had to think and formulate words, will have a higher score than a like where only one click is needed. However — and this is important — the amount of edges or activity is factored in, so if the original content was only text – as opposed to a higher ranked photo – but generated a more activity than the photo, then the original text post will have higher EdgeRank than the photo.

In short, weight measures reach, engagement and resonance.

Time Decay

This component of the algorithm has a negative tone to it but it essentially highlights the frantic rate at which new content is uploaded and shared, and thus reminds us that what we say on social media has a minimal window of opportunity to capture the attention of others. Keeping the time decay component of the Edgerank algorithm in our thoughts when we create and share content, will remind us to keep our content relevant, entertaining, fresh and useful.

A great inforgraphic, with 6 tips on how to increase your EdgeRank score is available below:

http://mashable.com/2013/05/07/facebook-edgerank-infographic/

How can I see my EdgeRank score?

As usual, Facebook has kept their secrets close to their chest. However, one way to check your EdgeRank score is to discover how many people you’ve engaged with.

Facebook analytics tools such as:

EdgeRank Checker – http://edgerankchecker.com/

Facebook Pages Manager – http://allfacebook.com/how-to-facebook-pages-manager-app_b89572

Unified (previously PageLever) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbrgWxRNb2Q

Klout

This website and app uses analytics to rate your social media profile and influence between 1 and 100. The more you post and engage with others and they engage with you, the more this is reflected in your Klout score.

When you sign into your Klout dashboard, you’re able to see the score attached to each activity across your social networks.  However, don’t get too fixated on your score. As I said previously put it into the context of relevance, information, usefulness, and meaning for your followers.

For example, my current Klout score is 35. Justin Bieber’s is 99. But from the two choices who do you think other social media zealots will likely follow and connect with? And if someone wants to follow a pre-pubescent, chart topper with a chiseled jaw and six pack, I certainly wouldn’t be the first, second or 1000th choice.

My Klout score

Needless to say but I’m going to anyway: I haven’t taken any shirtless selfies of my buff, tattoed bod and posted them on Facebook or Twitter. And I don’t think Bieber has written about the importance of business to be honest and engage in two way communication for mutual respect, relationship and connection.

Mine, yours and Bieber’s scores should be viewed within the context of our areas of expertise and industry. So if you must compare yourself, compare yourself within the circles of people and businesses that you respect.

I truly hope this article was useful, informative and entertaining. If you have any subjects you’d like me to write about, please don’t hesitate to comment and let me know.

* To create a free Klout account and start checking out your score click on the below link.

www.klout.com/

Leads are great but conversion is better

On Monday 18 March 2013 I went to see Bruce Springsteen and the E-street Band live at the Allphones Arena, Sydney Olympic Park.

The band was exceptional, Bruce was “on fire” and the whole experience made me feel alive and connected – both with the band and the audience around me.

On the way home from the concert I reflected about the warm fuzzy feeling the experience gave me. There was a tone of authentic trust and connection that, for me, resonated long after the final bow.

To provide a little back story: my husband and I could only afford to purchase tickets for seats directly behind the stage and we were a little apprehensive before we got to the venue that we wouldn’t enjoy the concert. We imagined having to face a tall wall or at best the backsides of the musicians and Bruce. Not so bad, some might say.

We were pleasantly surprised, then, on the night of the concert, to discover there wasn’t a wall at the back of the stage at all. And being quite close to the front, we felt Bruce was close enough to touch… well his backside, at least.

The concert began and Bruce, a super-fit senior “worked” the stage. In fact, he regularly walked into and sang amongst his adoring fans. He also made a conscious effort to turn around regularly and acknowledge the audience behind him. Us!

At times I felt like he looked directly into my eyes, connected with me solely. It made me feel like he saw only me out of thousands of other people. Now I know this makes me sound like a stalker-fan but I’m far from it. I enjoy his music and respect him as a musician but I don’t swoon over a celebrity. At the end of the day, they’re ordinary people, like you and me. The difference is they have a talent and a passion that we as a society have put a value on.

I believe Bruce made a concerted effort that night to truly connect with each person at the concert and I believe that each person regardless of where they sat in that large arena felt the same connection I did. To me, it was evident that Bruce had made a conscious decision to ensure he evoked this feeling in his audience.

The other element that resonated with me about the concert was trust, particularly when Bruce walked away from the stage and his security guards and walked into the crowd. People rushed up to touch him and shake his hand. He stepped up on to a ledge and fell back into the crowd. Propped up by his fans, he continued to sing — horizontal — at the mercy of strangers. The beautiful act came when Bruce, at the opposite end of the stage, as he swam on the current of hands, was delivered safely to the shore of his stage,  just in time to be vertical again for the climax of the song.

It was a lovely moment of trust and connection. To me, this act spoke a silent question of Bruce asking of his audience: “If I trust you to treat me well, can I show you that I will repay this trust by putting my safety literally in your hands?” We, the audience demonstrated our thanks and connection to him by honouring that trust with a resounding “Yes.” And thank you for trusting us.

This act of asking, trust and connection reminded me of another musician. Check out Amanda Palmer’s TED Talk at this YouTube link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMj_P_6H69g

Palmer starts her presentation by quietly walking onto the stage. She stands on a box and holds out a flower in street-performer style. This is a nice lead to introduce herself and inform the audience that before she was the highly popular Dresden Dolls singer she worked for five years as a street performer. She shows slides of herself and her fans to proceed through a timeline of her efforts to make her music free to the consumer.

She consistently links back her experience of engaging with her audience with the days of working as a street performer as a touching synergy of performing and being paid for it directly in real time by asking the audience to donate money, their homes, resources and food to assist her to continue playing, recording and distributing her music independent of a music label.

In particular, Palmer asked — through social media – and received more than $1 million from approximately 25,000 fans (crowd surfing) to independently record and produce an album.

During her TED talk, it was evident that Palmer had the audience hooked – even perhaps those not used to the alternative style of content – because she was confident, clear, endearing and presented fresh content with flair.

So the take away for me this week is to trust, connect, and ask. If you have a connection, have built a rapport of trust, in other words a lead, maybe it’s time to just ASK for the sale. These terms are big in sales: ASK, CONVERT, CLOSE.

The difference here is you’re not asking for someone to put their hand into their wallet then walking away. You’re asking your customer to interact with you, to join you in the journey that your service or product evokes and because you are engaging with the right buyer/target market, then the conversion of a lead to a sale should be mutually beneficial, natural and organic. It should be the second last piece in the puzzle. I say second-last because the relationship shouldn’t end unless the consumer asks it to.

Make sure you honour your relationship by providing after-care service. Ask your customer how they have used your product, follow-up, show you care and your trust, connection and courage to ask will be rewarded with true brand ambassadors, word-of-mouth advertising, relationship longevity and a meaningful, quality reputation.

And then make sure you celebrate with Bruce, Amanda and your customers!

Little tools to create Big leads

SlideShare

Jason Miller provides a brilliant 10-step post at Social Media Examiner on how to use Slide Share to maximise your content creation and converting your efforts into meaningful leads. Following is a brief summary of his suggestions:

1. You’re an expert on something. Base your presentation on your particular area of expertise.

2. Word your heading wisely. This will entice time-poor readers to click on your slide and actually read all of it.

3. Write the content with SEO in mind.

4. Implement the slide across all your social media channels.

5. Plan all marketing and promotional foundational elements of the slide to leverage all possibilities; communicate the publishing of the slide with all creative departments in the business.

6. Make the slide impactful, use it more than once, across various platforms on and off –line.

7. Look for ways to repurpose current content into a Slide Share presentation.

8. Upgrade to a Pro Account to make use of Slide Share’s Analytical tools.

9. Say Yes: Embed the lead generation form. This form pops up at the end of your presentation so interested consumers can enter their details to find out more about you.

10. Embed your Slide Share presentations into your personal LinkedIn profile.

Please click on this link: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/slideshare-for-lead-generation/ for the full article by Jason Miller.

LinkedIn

On March 13, 2013, founder and CEO of Wired Advisor Stephanie Sammons used Hubspot as an example of a company using their LinkedIn company page to encourage “a consistent flow of leads”.

Sammons cites Hubspot’s success as identifying the most popular marketing offers and asking their networks to recommend their software programs.

It is important to mention here that any social media networking and tactics need to be part of an overall and integrated communications and marketing plan. In other words, don’t view social media networking or channels as the strategy; they are simply the avenues in which to implement tactics. The strategy provides the business direction, objectives, budget, timeline and activities that combine and are able to be measured.

Check out Sammons full article here: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-creative-ways-to-use-linkedin-company-pages/.

Continuing with LinkedIn to generate leads, Michael Stelzner of Social Media Examiner posts a podcast interview with Sammons on March 1. 2013 that provides more in-depth information about generating leads through LinkedIn. Here’s the link: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/lead-generation-with-linkedin/.

Some of the highlights are:

1. Think of LinkedIn as the professional version of Facebook. Create a rich personal profile page. Keep your page current and up-to-date.

2. Be consistent and create content regularly in order to stay in people’s minds and create a profile of being a thought leader.

3. Don’t sell, promote or market to people. Build relationships with your peers and network. Everyone is time-poor; make sure you provide content your network will want to invest time in reading.

4. Spend 10 minutes each day on LinkedIn. Your network needs to be exposed to you more than seven times to consider you as a professional. Make sure, however, that you contribute with a purpose in mind, not just for the sake of it. Make sure you are actually saying something of value to your network.

5. Keep your total network to less than 500.

6. Consider self-service ad programs.

Blogging

If you’ve got something to say, a story to tell and expert information to share, blogging is a effective way in which to share and to build networks. I strongly suggest David Meerman Scott’s book The New Rules of Marketing & PR. How to use social media, blogs, news releases, online video, and viral marketing to reach buyers directly, published through John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Scott presents easy-to-read and apply information about digital marketing and how to engage consumers. He passionately guides the reader into desiging a content-rich strategy to build connections and relationship. In fact, the content of this book was originally part of his blog; overwhelming comments made him think he should publish his posts into a book format.

I almost read the book cover-to-cover in one sitting. It is insightful, inspiring and timely.

To find out more about Scott or purchase his book, check out this link: http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/

Thanks for reading my post I hope these small steps and tools bring you some meaningful, valueable leads. And if any of these tactics work, please keep me posted or if you have any other comments or opinions of what has and hasn’t worked for you please comment and share. I’d love to hear from you.

Enjoy.

Amp up your SME Twitter presence for effective E-Marketing

Small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SME) should be using Twitter as part of their overall E-Marketing strategy.

Once thought of a confusing, ambiguous SMS platform, Twitter has grown into a social media network and community with far reaching implications. Twitter can help you convert a sales lead, grow your business through networking and sharing, and promote your personal brand, product or service.

Unfortunately, too many SME use Twitter at a very basic level; they start an account, intermittently post promotional messages and link their posts back to their stagnate website.

Twitter provides so much more scope than this. Check out a list of links below to open up a world of meaningful dialogue, sharing, community, networking and return-on-investment.

1. http://leaf.me/blog/success-on-twitter-a-how-to-for-small-businesses.html

2. http://www.jeffbullas.com/2012/06/10/12-keys-to-success-on-twitter/

3. http://www.techwench.com/why-twitter-matters-for-small-business-and-what-to-do-about-it/

Some peer-reviewed quotes are available below:

1. “Not only does it seem natural to see a brand Tweet in your feed, but it is probably much more likely that the brand in question is of interest to you,” (Levy, K., 2012. Twitter’s success lies in grasping the mobile opportunity. Campaign, pp. 20-20).

2. “In the meantime, companies such as Dell, Zappos.com, and JetBlue are using Twitter more often as a robust and low cost corporate communications channel and as a monitor for cost-effective customer service and brand reputation,” (Kho, N.D., 2009. Ten Things You Need to Know About Twitter. Information Today, 26(6), pp. 1-15,18.)

3. “”At the time I was very skeptical about Twitter,” [said Matt Ferguson – an engineer of the Ankle Foot]. “I thought it was populated by people saying what they were eating or talking about Justin Bieber’s new hairstyle. But at the same time I knew a few different companies were using it. I decided to give it a look, and it quickly became evident Twitter would allow us to listen in to see what was important to potential customers,” (Thilmany, J., 2013. Professional Networking. Mechanical Engineering, 135(1), pp. 41-45).

From social media to mobile media?

The loudest, clearest voices in the marketing industry all seem to be saying the same thing: whether you like it or not, mobile marketing is happening, so start thinking now about your mobile strategy.

Digital Marketing Lab blogger, Teresa Sperti, says unfortuantely Australian bricks-and-mortar retail businesses are late adopters of mobile strategy, still focused on traditional marketing tactics.

http://digitalmarketinglab.com.au/index.php/2012/11/12/aussie-retailers-still-lagging-in-digital-ecommerce/

Strauss and Frost in their text E-Marketing provide a case study titled The Customer’s Story. It provides a snap-shot, of a young man – Justine’s — one-hour social media experience. He goes through a series of 11 medium/uses: beginning on his iPod he watches a Diggnation podcast; the soccer is on TV which in the background; he looks up a blog on Tumblr; researches the origin of the link on his PC; he then calls his friend from his mobile phone who lives in a different time zone and tells him about the video on Vimeo (before YouTube); he discovers the Vimeo video is produced by some Vimeo employees, they publish that the company is currently hiring; he clicks on the link (all the jobs are taken because there were several thousand applications in response to the video; Justine decides Vimeo is the type of company he’d like to work in; he posts a link to the video and Vimeo to his Twitter stream…. all this in under one hour.

So what does a mobile strategy look like? According to the Quirk Biz website it should include the following steps:

1. Define your objective according to the SMART criteria

2. Research your target consumers

3. Decide which mediums you’ll

4. Define your message

5. Create opportunities for sharing

6. Regularly create content

7. Evaluate, track and analyse activity.

http://www.quirk.biz/resources/mobile101/298/Planning-a-Mobile-Marketing-Strategy

Please check out the below links for further instruction on mobile marketing strategy:

1. This is a great link for SME: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blaBXuvUk28

2. A Stanford University theoretical lecture on strategy, marketing and apps: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBwomf0ZBlE

3. Adam Horwitz (Top 100 young entrepreneurs) – advertising video about making money online through mobile marketing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QJYtZ2aRNg

4. Empirical evidence of mobile marketing trend: http://digitalfiber.wordpress.com/2013/03/09/more-evidence-that-mobile-is-vital/

5. Great debate on mobile apps versus mobile websites posted by David Moth of Econsultancy: http://econsultancy.com/au/blog/62326-85-of-consumers-favour-apps-over-mobile-websites?utm_campaign=blogtweets&utm_medium=socialnetwork&utm_source=twitter

In conclusion, I ask — seeing as mobile marketing strategy is the trend and seems to be what everyone will be adopting — can we drop the social out of the media and add mobile. Can we now simply begin to talk about mobile media?

Enjoy!