As a small business owner, you have lots of people telling you that you MUST be on social media if you want to thrive…or even if you want to survive.  It’s not just Social Media anymore, it’s Social Business. 

I’m sure you’ve heard the statistics:

- 1 out of every 9 people on the planet is on Facebook (750 Million +)

- Facebook now tops Google for weekly online traffic

- People upload 3000 images to Flickr…every minute! (here’s my page)

- 1 in 6 marriages are people who met online (nearly twice the number who met in bars)

- Sadly 1 in 5 divorces is being blamed on Facebook

The reality is that Social Media has arrived…and you do need to be doing something with it for your business…but it’s not a silver bullet.  You have to find an approach that makes sense, isn’t going to overwhelm the business, but still gets you out there.

Here are 4 fairly simple steps that can help you make sure your Social Business efforts aren’t wasted.

1. Recognize that Marketing has changed

The world has changed in the last 10 years, and it’s no surprise that marketing (and sales) have changed along with it.  10 years ago, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube didn’t even exist.  Mobile?  You could kind of get to the internet on a mobile phone, but it sucked and it wasn’t really worth the time or the effort.

Fast forward to today – if a consumer wants to buy something, wants to learn something, wants to get opinions, they will go online and search for it themselves, no matter where they are.  They don’t want and they don’t trust traditional advertising.  So where does that leave us from a marketing standpoint? 

“Selling to people who actually want to hear from you is more effective than interrupting strangers who don’t”.  Seth Godin

If you want to market your business successfully, you need to be found online (because that’s where people are searching) and you need to attract potential buyers…not interrupt them.

2. You have to have a plan

Just being online isn’t enough.  You’re going to invest time and money to support your online marketing efforts (although probably a lot less than you would have had to invest in traditional marketing).  And since you’re investing, you need to be clear on a few things:

• What are you trying to achieve (drive traffic, generate leads, educate, raise awareness, support customers – all of these might drive to different strategies).
• Who’s your target (and where do they hang out)?  What are they looking for (keywords)?  What do they want?
• What’s your message?  What benefit or outcome are you delivering?  What problem are you solving.  If you can’t be clear on this, you aren’t going to attract anyone.
• What’s your call to action?  What do you want them to do next?  Call you?  Download a report?  Visit your location?  Buy something?  Be clear and keep it simple.

On top of all of that, you need to have a quality website.  It doesn’t have to be expensive or fancy, in fact simple is probably better.  But it does need to be clean and professional.

3. Develop a Social Media Presence

Once you have an idea of what you’re trying to achieve and you have a sense of who your target is, you need to pick a starting point for where to go with your social media presence. 

If you’re selling something to consumers and it’s visual or has an emotional component, then Facebook is probably the best place to start. 

If you’re selling to professionals or other businesses, then LinkedIn is probably your best bet.

Twitter is great is for engaging fans and supporting customers and there are lots of other choices out there that are smaller more niche plays (i.e. Lawlink for Lawyers or Bakespace for people who love to cook).

Whatever makes sense for you, pick one site to start with, set up an account and start listening.  Listen for people who are talking about your industry, your product, your competitors…get a feel for what’s being talked about.  then start using that information to engage with the influencers.

Use Google Alerts and tools like Tweetdeck to setup searches to help you stay on top of things without spending hours every day doing it.

4. Develop Great Content!

Finally – the real secret to Social Business success is to develop great content (and host it on your site).  Content that will especially appeal to the potential customers you’re attracting.  That content could be a Blog, it could be a series of reports or great emails, it could be videos (check out Will It Blend) or even podcasts or webinars.

The point is that you need to create great information that will inform, educate maybe even entertain the people you are trying to attract.  They get to know you, they get to see that you know what you’re doing and talking about and they have enough information to decide if they want to take the next step with you.

On top of all of that, Google loves great content because it drives backlinks to your site and builds out a lot of context for keyword searches…which just means that your Search Engine Optimization will be a lot stronger than if you didn’t have content…always a good thing.

Bottom line – your prospective clients are looking for you online, so if you want a shot at them, you have to be found.  And when they find you, they want to get to know you and understand you.  They want to learn from you, they want to be sure you can solve their problem.  It’s not easy, but if you can do all of that, you will be in great shape in this new world of marketing and social business!

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

Similar Posts:

• Are you looking for alternatives?
• Is Social Media a Silver Bullet – Part 2
• The 4 Levels of Social Business Engagement

Your prospective clients are hungry…are you feeding them good stuff?

Whether we like it or not you have to have a presence on the internet…if I hear about you from a friend, if I meet you at a networking event and get your card or if I stumble across you on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook the first thing I’m likely to do if I find you interesting is to find your website and check you out.

I’m looking for a better understanding of who you are, what you do and why I should care.  I’m hungry for information and if you want me to do something beyond a quick glance, you need to feed me something tasty and nutritious.

Sure your website has all of the basics…you do have a website that’s up to date, clean and professional don’t you?  If not, don’t pass go until you get that figured out!!!

Assuming you do have a real website, you’ve likely got the the typical stuff (about, services, contact, why us, etc.)  All of that’s fine, but unless it’s unusually thorough, interesting and professionally done, it’s not likely to tell me much other than marketing speak.

What you really want to do is feed me something tasty…some content that I can’t resist digging into!  Ideally it’s something healthy (good for me) and adds value in the long run, but a sweet treat…something light and funny would be alright as well…as long as you don’t over do it.

Only after getting a few bites of what you’re serving up will I start to understand who you are and what makes you tick. 

There are a few ways to differentiate your business, but the easiest (and certainly the one everyone should be doing) is to authentically be yourself…by definition you’re the only one who can do that.  

And if I like you, the person, then I’m a lot more likely to buy from you or suggest you to other people…which is what you really want.

But I can’t get to like you until I get to know you…and I can’t get to know you without some tasty content that you are serving up fresh!

There are other reasons to generate content…as an example, here are 5 reasons why a business blog is smart, but at the core it’s so I can start understanding who you really are, how you think, what’s important to you and how you help people based on the stories you tell.

So what tasty treats are you serving up to your visitors?  Are you getting stuck in the kitchen with no time to cook?  Don’t think you can cook?  I’d love to hear your thoughts on how important fresh content is and how you’re approaching it – share your thoughts in the comments below.

Great apple photo by Selma90

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

Similar Posts:

• 4 Steps to mastering Social Business
• Have you been thinking about your Why?
• Are you getting the little things right?

Marketing is the lifeblood of any business – without marketing that works, you’re left wondering where everyone went, with the crickets chirping in the background. 

I’ve said it before – whatever business you’re in, you are also in the business of marketing, or you won’t be in business for long – especially these days.  Unfortunately a lot of business owners don’t really get marketing – maybe they’ll occasionally throw some money at it – buy some advertising and hope it all works out.  But they don’t make it a core process of their business. 

Maybe that worked 10 or 15 years ago, but with the explosion of competition, messages and media everywhere, it won’t work today.

Here are 8 reasons why your marketing isn’t working (and why you’re hearing crickets when you’d rather be hearing paying customers)!

Odds are that not all of these apply to you, but if more than one or two of them do then you need to carve out some time to fix some things (or get some help!):

It’s all about you!

Established in 1923!  Located at the corner of 10th and Main!  Using our proprietary process, we deliver results!  We train our people extensively and use only the finest components to create great products!

I hate to break it to you, but your prospective customers don’t care about you and if you create marketing materials that are all about you…they won’t care about that either.  What do they care about?  Your prospective customers care about their problems…and more specifically solutions to their problems.

Try this:  Check out one of your marketing pieces – your website, a brochure, whatever and use a red pen and circle anything that refers to your company (usually starts with We, Our, company name).  Now use a blue pen and circle anything that refers to solving your customer’s pain (usually starts with You, You’re, Our customers).  The Blue should outweigh the Red substantially – if not, talk to your customers and start learning why they work with you and talk about those things!

You’re boring and you look like everyone else

Well maybe you personally aren’t boring, but your marketing is.  Sadly a lot of business owners will look at around at what their competitors are doing and just do the same thing.  If your message and approach is a lot like everyone else, you are throwing away your money, plain and simple.

There are a lot of ways to stand out – lighten up a little and have some fun with it.  Find or create an angle on what you do that’s different – think Gates BBQ and their signature “Hi May I help you?”.  If you really don’t have anything you do that’s different in any way than your competition, then you’re just competing on price, which is going to be a losing proposition.

Here’s an example of a basic business that has a unique approach – it’s not boring and you will remember it:  Check out Cullman Liquidation Center (funniest commercial I’ve seen in a long time).  How could you stand out – at least a little?

You believe your customer is anyone who fogs a mirror

I hear this all the time from business owners:  “We sell to anyone who has money” – “Everyone can use what we sell”. 

If you’re trying to sell to everyone you are going to fail.  Let’s flip this around, let’s say that you are trying to solve a problem and you’re willing to spend some money to do it.  Do you go with the vendor who sells a product that works for everyone?  Or would you be more interested in the vendor who specializes in working with people just like you?

Odds are, if it’s a problem you really want solved, you’d be willing to pay a premium for the solution that’s tailored to your problem as opposed to the one size fits all.  Don’t you think your customers would feel the same?

You can’t be found online

Go to google and do a search on your name.  Now do a search on your business name.  Finally do a search on a likely way that people are going to try and find you if they don’t know who you are – for me that’s a search for Kansas City Business Coach, for you it might be around the problem you solve or some other niche keyword.

If you and your business name don’t come up in the first 5 or 6 results for those searches, you have a serious problem (obviously if you don’t have a website you have an even more serious problem). 

David Meerman Scott – author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR , does a great job of illustrating why it’s so important to be online in his Keynote Speech at the Business Marketing Association conference last year (check out the first 2 minutes of this video).  Where are you spending your marketing efforts?

You don’t have a compelling offer

In a lot of cases, there might not be any offer at all.  If you are actively trying to market your business, you must include an offer…a call to action…give them a clear next step.  If your marketing just tells people you’re great and you’ve been around for 20 years, it’s a waste of time and money.

Assuming you have an offer – it needs to be compelling.  You should have an Overt Benefit that appeals to your target market.  Fed Ex knocked it out of the park when they shared their benefit of “When it absolutely has to be there overnight”.  On top of a clear next step and a clear benefit, you also need to generate a sense of urgency – “space is limited, call today!”, “Offer ends at the end of the month – sign up now!”.

Take a look at what you’re currently offering in your marketing?  Is it compelling?

You don’t follow-up

I see a lot of business owners doing the hard work of marketing and then stopping just short of where they will start seeing the payoff. 

How many times have you gone to a networking event and connected with a few people who could be good referral partners or good prospects but you never took a next step with them and followed up for another meeting?  I know business owners who have received leads and referrals but are too busy to follow-up on them…they slow down in a couple of weeks, but by then the potential customers have moved on.

Do you have a systematic process for making sure that you follow-up on opportunities and nothing falls through the cracks?

You’re not taking advantage of all the tools that are out there

Social networking is no longer the fringe new kid on the block.  Facebook has over 400 Million people with profiles.  LinkedIn has o
ver 60 Million and a majority of those are listed as executives or business owners.  People are spending more time online with social media than anywhere else.  Social Media isn’t a silver bullet for marketing, but if you don’t have some sort of presence – if you’re not participating at all, then you’re seriously missing the boat.

Email marketing isn’t new, but I talk to business owners all the time who don’t use it, despite the fact that it has the highest ROI (return on investment) of any direct marketing tactic.

Blogging has been around for at least 10 years and has also become much more mainstream when it comes to being an effective business marketing tactic.  However most smaller business owners haven’t made that leap despite all of the benefits that blogging can bring to them.

What tools could you use that you’re currently not considering?

You’re not focusing on your current customers

I imagine everyone has heard a variation on the idea that it costs 5X to 7X as much to acquire a new customer as compared to retaining an existing customer.  Unfortunately that doesn’t translate to very many tangible programs or efforts towards really rewarding your existing customers.

Here’s a quick summary of why it’s important that you focus 50% or more of your efforts towards existing customers.

• Your best chance of making a new sale is selling to someone who’s already happy with you as a customer. 
• Your best chance of getting a great referral is from someone who really knows how you work and the benefits you deliver. 
• Your best chance of not losing ongoing revenue from a customer is to keep them happy.

Not losing 10% of revenue is the same as adding 10% of new revenue and likely a lot easier to do.

How much time and focus do you spend on your current customers?

Is your marketing succeeding?

Where do you stand on all of these areas with your marketing?  Are there some key things I missed?  Are you making marketing a real priority for your business?  Are you tracking results (and improving as you go)?  I’d love to hear your thoughts – share them in the comments below or let me know if you thought this post was helpful.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

Similar Posts:

• A Refreshing Look at Marketing!
• What you need to win the Marketing Game?
• 4 Steps to mastering Social Business

I’ve been really busy the last few months (which is a great problem to have these days), but it’s been challenging to keep up with all of the great stuff that’s out on the internet.

I pick up a lot of ideas for articles and blog posts from Social Media (LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) when I get the time to surf a bit – or if I’m doing research.  I also have a lot of blogs set up on various RSS readers, on my Yahoo home page, my Google home page and even some just tucked into odd corners.

I also follow blogs from a variety of local folks that I see around Kansas City that I think are very good – here’s a few – Sarah at Dog Eared Pages of course.  Although I haven’t met him personally, I like Sam Meers at Smoke and Meers and a couple that  new to blogging,  Tara Renze at Prospects to Partners and Jason Terry (of the upcoming Blue Gurus) are going to be good reading.

On a national level, there are just a few blogs that I value enough that I sign up for their email feed – several of them because they have good content, but more importantly because I just enjoy reading them.  These are the kinds of emails that you look forward to reading – a treat to look forward to.

Here are 4 of them that add a real splash of color to my inbox!

Naomi On IttyBiz

In the professional world, sometimes it’s easy to forget that the world is a colorful place and that not only is it okay to be  yourself, but sometimes being  yourself can make all the difference – of course it helps if you are genuinely funny, demonstrate that you care about the people you are writing to, give valuable advice and ideas and…have a mouth like a truck driver.

Here’s a recent post from Naomi on How to Become Rich and Famous on the Internet that will give you a pretty good idea of her style and substance.  She makes great points, but she’s also consistently very funny!

The Wealthy Freelancer

I haven’t been following this blog quite as long as the others, but I have found myself reading, saving and occasionally forwarding several of his posts (which is fairly rare for me).  There’s a lot of great information here for any business owner (not just freelancers) and he has a good voice / writing style.

This post on using an effective pick-up line is very good.  I love the simplicity and the practicality of the approach, well worth the time.

Jonathan Fields – Awake at the Wheel

I’ve never met Jonathan, but he has a fascinating story behind how he got to where he is today – the typical former power lawyer in New York that burns out, starts a Yoga clinic, figures out how to make it insanely popular, sells it for a lot of money and becomes an author and respected thought leader / blogger all in a few years.  It happens all the time…!   

Seriously – I would challenge you to read his blog for a couple of weeks and not be totally impressed by how much he’s just himself.  He’s a huge success story and he’s more concerned with family, friends and posting interesting and insight articles.

This is an older post from last year on Slogan Train Wrecks – very funny, insightful and overall a good read.  Jonathan has a lot of variety in his posts (which is hard to do) and he shares my joy of finding the right image to lead with.  Check him out.

Brian Clark and the rest of Copyblogger

There may very well be better blogs out there than Copyblogger – but if so, I don’t think I’ve found them yet.  Copyblogger started with Brian Clark recognizing a need to instruct all of the would be bloggers on how to bring copywriting skills to their blog.   Of course he writes about much more than copywriting, but most of the topics tie into that theme in some way.

Brian also has other Copyblogger writers – and all of them are excellent (I especially like a lot of the stuff that Sonia Simone at Remarkable Communications writes).

Here’s a post that I think will give you an idea of what you’ll find at Copyblogger – Ernest Hemingway’s top 5 tips for writing well – maybe it’s because I’m not a writer, but I find almost every post I read on this site (and there are a lot of posts) to be really helpful, extremely thoughtful and generally very entertaining – it’s the best of the web as far as I’m concerned.

What are your favorite blogs?  The best of the best?  Share your ideas here – I’d love to hear them and add some more color to my inbox!

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business CoachSimilar Posts:

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