Business Marketing | Increase your social media weight

Business Marketing | Increase your social media weight

One of the few areas where increasing your weight is necessary is where you have a business with a presence on-line but you have yet to grasp it and create some waves and positive consequences for your business.

Leaving aside all else for a moment there is something you can do with Twitter that is not so obvious. Assuming you have Twitter profile and you are posting a variety of messages with the occasional flag waving for your business – that’s another article in itself, then you are probably trying to find ways of increasing your followers with useful contacts.  To read the full LinkedIn article, just click here. Simple really.

Marketing | The Power Of Business Communication

Marketing | The Power Of Business Communication

Communication takes many forms and is not just about speaking at events or writing. In business many things are important but communication is right up there at the top of the list.

What many do not realise is that you are communicating your business worth, credibility, trustworthiness, efficiency..... To read the full LinkedIn article by Bob Shepherd Associates, just click here.

Traditional Marketing With A Hint of Digital Marketing - Make It Easy For Them

Digital Marketing | The digital follow-up to networking

Recently, I have been catching up on my business contacts (do stay on top of this!).  I take a card from the pile that is starting to topple over and I go through the following process....

• I look to see if there are any Social Media icons with the businesses tag present? – Yes/No (7 second have lapsed)
• If no, go to their website: (14 seconds have lapsed)
• Are there any Social Media icons at the top of the page – Yes/ No
• No, scroll down to the footer – Yes/ No
• No, click the contact icon (are they hidden Here) – Yes/ No
• If I still can’t connect with the person (40 Seconds have lapsed). I ask myself “do I need to connect with this person – this is becoming hard work!”

So now, look at your own Business card!  Would someone have the same problem connecting with you?  To read the full LinkedIn article by Bob Shepherd Assocaites, just click here.  Simple really

The Cost of Marketing

Marketing Your Business doesn't have to cost a lot. There are ways you can present your service, your product and your existence to the outside world which don't cost a fortune.

Social Media

Most obviously there are a number of social media channels open to you free of charge. The only cost will be your time and effort. But that starts with understanding how to deliver a strategy for your business and the differences in their weighting.

It also involves understanding where your audiences are. For example two businesses  I am helping should appeal for different reasons primarily to young ladies between say 17 and 35. Five minutes observation in any high street coffee shop will tell you that they are very likely to be on smart phones and or tablet computers for what seems like most of the day. Conclude therefore that we need to have a presence there with a mobile friendly web site, good search engine architecture and a good active presence on the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and probably Instagram.  

None of that will be direct marketing but will all build the notion that we are attractive, knowledgeable and fresh with ideas.

Networking in person

Similar principles apply to networking in person. Building a 'profile' in the business community is always valuable and in some cases those people are our potential customers anyway. Again though there are things to know before diving in. Somewhere around 100 networking outlets are available in SE Wales. You can't do them all and some are more suitable for you and your business aspirations than others.

There is a cost to some. Others are less and some are free. Always there is travel to take into account, and your time again.

Articles , press,  blogs and publication

Are you expert in your trade, your field, your area of business? Can you talk about it? In some cases you may be able to deliver talks.  It doesn't follow for some reason that if you can talk about your subject you can write about it, but if you can set out your thoughts and theories on blogs online using one of the platforms that are easy to operate. If you can submit articles to publications, on line or on paper then do so.

Use the discussion forums to hold forth in an entertaining way either in answer or to start a new thread.  'PR' may cost but it needn't be expensive. So called editorial is more effective than plain advertisements. As with anything there are things it is better to know and understand which will improve the quality of your material and therfore its effectiveness.

Talk to your audience

Always bear in mind the attitudes of your audience or no one will read your efforts. There is no harm in telling of your achievements if you do so with a certain humility and are generous to others as well. No one likes boasting but you can be pleased that something in particular has turned out well and others will join in your pleasure. It also waves a flag for your success.

If you already have customers then talk to them without being pushy. Send them newsletters perhaps or some form of news delivery that shows appreciation of them. In the bad old days that meant a bottle of wine at Christmas plus a diary they mostly did not want.  Things have evolved since then. Imagination is rewarded nowadays.

If you are adventurous shout about that. Charitable activity is always applauded and the publicity is there for the taking.

Never be pushy, trying 'too hard' It is not appreciated and can be derided, which is not what you want.  Your Market is what is out there, your marketing is what you do about it. BobShepherd Associates will help you build your business by looking at what you are doing within your resources of finance, time, skills to get the best out of the potential you have. 

Too Many Channels

Social Media for business is undoubtedly the thing! But where to start? There are outlets for your creative muse by the dozen. Actually there are hundreds of them but you have to pick ones where you feel comfortable and your audience is likely to be relevant for you. So explore before you belong, and see what sort of thing is going on there. It's like a giant party with groups of people drifting in and out of the conversations.

My own perceived difficulty is with the inspiration. If I see a useful article or some observation strikes me I can tweet about it, put it on my facebook business page, include it in an article I am publishing somewhere, put it on the 4N forum, Linked in Groups, Googleplus,  or any of the other outlets I have something to do with. The point is that having done one or two of those the creative inspiration has been used up for that little topic. I am not short of ideas but I am short of enough to service all these outlets.

Keep it under control

The obvious answer is to keep an eye on the response you get and service the outlets that are most useful. You are in business, TIME is your biggest resource problem and it is not cynical to ignore some of the chat that is constantly going on. The measure might be - would they miss me if I didn't bother for a few days? Harsh but fair!

Measured Response

You could go overboard and studiously examine the insights, the klout, the metrics and the various applications (apps) available to tidy up your social media. Probably it is worth keeping an eye on some of it but you can spend too much time analysing and worrying about all the measures and creating a bigger problem still.

Allocate your time

So my considered conclusion is that a mixture of outlets is useful. This should be a mix of what you perceive to be useful areas to keep in with and you do that by seeing if the material there is useful to you. There is also the social context. A little light distraction is not harmful, but don't spend all day on it.

Content

Of course you should talk about your business things, but not without humour and not incessantly. Equally I think it is unhelpful to talk about frippery and pointless inconsequential things. Have something to say, just as you would when chatting to a friend at a break in a meeting.

There is the key. It is 'social' media you are dealing with. Building up a circle of friends in business is always useful. Helping them promote their on line presence is not difficult and creates the goodwill you need.

Bob Shepherd Associates builds up businesses. One of the components - a sub heading under 'Marketing' in the business plan is social media and what to do about it. Off loading it to a managed service is okay only if you keep a close eye on what they say and supplement the whole with your own content. The arena for this is changing and evolving. Emails are no longer as effective, newsletters are  largely ignored, blogs are losing their impact. It's a moving floor and you need to keep your balance. Doing something involves allocating time to service it. Doing it badly is a waste of time. A strategy is necessary to make it worthwhile.