IdeaPaint is doing very well in the online sphere utilizing Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and a blog and website. I am impressed by this company’s approach to social media and online marketing. In this short video you’ll hear that IdeaPaint tracks results by traffic, leads and sales (as typical companies do), but they also take it further (and in the right direction if you ask me) by looking at engagement and quality of relationships with their customers.
Small business owners are continually asking us about the ROI (return on investment) of social media and online marketing of every incarnation. Fair question. But sometimes it’s not as simple as “build it and they will come”. Online marketing today takes a new way of looking at the prospective customer as an individual who is looking for solutions – not a faceless consumer wanting to buy something. So, the answer to “What is the ROI of online marketing?” is often “That depends!”. (Most bean-counters and business owners don’t like that answer, but hopefully we can clarify that a little here)
Bottomline: You must care about people, building relationships, and providing value, and not come across as blatantly selling and self-interested.
Where am I going with this? You might remember the video of the talk I gave at the BC Social Media Summit about Lora Lonesberry and Creating Occasions? Lora is an example of a business owner who truly embraces the idea of building an online/offline community for her customers and actually takes the time to get to know what they care about and want from her business.
Watch this interview with Lora to hear her tips and keys to success, and learn about the true ROI of online marketing through creating win-win scenarios:
Do you have a story about how you use social media and online marketing in your business? Please share! Either in the comments, or contact Terri for a video interview.
Last week I met with Zech Inkster from European Flooring in Victoria. He has recently (3 months ago) joined Twitter and has found it to be beneficial to his business. I wanted to interview Zech to find out what he’s doing that is bringing him success, and what tips he has for other business owners.
3 Quick Twitter Tips:
Consistency: It’s important to set a schedule for yourself so that your followers know they can rely on you to be on Twitter regularly. Consistency also means having the same look and feel from your Facebook account to your Website to your Twitter account.
Professional Design: Having a professionally designed account shows people that you take Twitter and the relationships you’re creating seriously and that you are there to stay.
Personal Interaction & Providing Value: Twitter is not a place to sell, it’s a place to interact and build relationships. This can mean providing help and value to those who are looking for it, and giving kudos to those who your respect and appreciate. That will build relationships and generate business much more effectively than asking for the sale.
When I started using Facebook it was only accessible to those of us with college/university email addresses. (That was 2005) So, you can imagine that my friend list was pretty limited at that point – to “pals” I went to school with (or had gone to school with back in the highschool). I didn’t worry much about what information I shared about myself because I knew my small group of Facebook friends quite intimately. Now my “friend” list has grown to include family, business contacts, long-lost friends, and those who I barely know (mostly friends of friends). Up until recently this was an “issue” that nagged at me everytime I got a new friend request…..how in the world would I keep being “me” while at the same time not sharing too much with certain people??
Of course one solution is to direct people to a fan page where they can “like” your business instead of being a personal friend. Fan pages are handy for keeping personal and business separate (we have a page for Sunstar Creative and plan on keeping it going strong) and keeping prospective and current customers connected to what’s happening in your business, but here’s the downside: Pages make it difficult for people to get to know, like and trust you as a person.
So what’s the solution? Lists! If you’re not already using lists, get ready for a fundamental shift in how you use Facebook. I feel so much better now having organized the structure of my Facebook account. Here’s the scoop:
You can sort your “friends” into different lists and share information with them accordingly. This way you can make it so that no one except close friends can see when you’ve been tagged in a photograph (phew, those old college party picks are safe now), you can even make it so that your status updates are protected from certain lists of people. There are so many options, but here are the steps:
1. Create Your Facebook Lists
Choose a logical way to categorize people. I have a group of people who I think of as “friends” in general who I give full access to by default. Everyone else I have certain things that they are restricted from seeing. Here is an insight into my lists so you get an idea of how you might want to organize yours:
Close Friends (those who I share the most with and are not restricted from anything) Note: You don’t need to sort these people into a list because the way Facebook works is everyone has access to everything by default and you start restricting access from there. I simply do not restrict access for my close friends. Note #2: In my case, I have sorted close friends into a list because it allows another neat feature: you can view their updates in a separate timeline from everyone else you’re connected to in Facebook by clicking on their list name under “friends” in the left sidebar).
Family (have access to almost everything)
Professional Distance (business contacts, anyone who I don’t include in my inner circle but I still know fairly well – has access to my updates and selected photos and videos)
Quite Restricted (friends of friends, people I barely know, those I don’t want to see even my status updates but I’m not ready to delete as friends)
To create a lists from your Home screen in Facebook:
a) Click on Friends (in the left sidebar)
b) Click the “+ Create List” button (in the centre column)
c) Name the list descriptively so that you’ll remember the name of the list and what type of people are in it. Add people to the list by selecting their names.
2. Set Privacy Settings
Now it’s time to start restricting access for those who are part of your various lists.
a) Click on Account in the upper right corner > select Privacy Settings from dropdown:
b) Click on Customise Settings at the bottom:
c) Manage each area of your privacy by clicking Custom in the drop down menu:
d) Start typing the name of the list you want to restrict from seeing that area and select it:
3. Protect Your Photos
To set who can see your various albums you do this at the time of uploading new albums, or to do it for albums you already have up, select “Edit Album Settings” on the page you’re in for your other privacy settings and complete the same process you just learned:
Conclusion:
It feels great to know who can see what in my Facebook page and to be able to accept friends and business contacts without a second thought. Every time I accept a friend request I add the person to the appropriate list and all is well! I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and that it gives you the same peace of mind when you set up your account with lists. Cheers!
The home page of your website is an opportunity to ‘wow’ prospective customers. In fact, it might be the only opportunity you ever get if you don’t put your best foot forward. What do I mean ‘put your best foot forward’? Like a job interview, you need to consider your appearance and what first impression you’re making. If you are applying at a tattoo parlour, you’ll make a fool of yourself if you show up in a $2000 Armani suit – but at a Mercedes dealership you’ll most likely be respected on first sight. So, knowing your audience is important. Knowing your strengths is also key. How does this apply to the web? On your website home page, you want to impress your target audience and make them feel at ease. On the note of highlighting your strengths, you don’t want to overwhelm a prospective customer with all of your offerings at once along with twenty calls to action or they’ll struggle with option paralysis.
This is where ’sliders’ come in. Uber popular all of a sudden (with good reason), ’slider’ refers to the rotating slide show you’ll see featured on almost every web 2.0 site this year. This allows company’s to showcase their work and/or their various services or product offerings in an instant without overwhelming a prospect with text. It is a graphical snap-shot of your company aimed to intrigue and elicit click-throughs and deeper investigation.
Below you will see an example of a website we recently launched for a local painting company. It features this slider technology and is worth checking out in the live version so you can see what I mean by “sliders”:
But first, here’s what the website looked like before. You can see that there is no main focus of the site, and little to inspire a prospect to go deeper into the website:
Take a look at the live version of the site to see what I mean by “slider” – it’s a non-flash, search engine and mobile (and iPad) friendly function. Personally, I am really excited about it. What do you think?
HubSpot is a great resource for social media education. If you’re passionate about marketing (for your own business or others’) then I definitely recommend reading their blog or subscribing to their eNewsletters. This morning I checked my email, and I found this presentation from HubSpot. Many of the slides in this presentation jumped out at me, it is so worth browsing through.
Some of my favourites:
__________________________
“Social Media Marketing: Enables others to advocate for your business through compelling content”
__________________________
“Twitter is like a text message with a BCC: To The World”
This is the redo of a video I often show to begin my social media seminars. Things are changing so fast in this industry that the redo will probably be out of date in a matter of weeks, but that’s the way it goes with the times that we live in, isn’t it?
I was lucky enough to be picked as a panelist to present at the recent BC Social Media Summit at the Vancouver Island Tech Park a few weeks ago. I wanted to share the video footage with you. The image quality is quite dark, but the sound is good. I’m presenting a case study of our client, Creating Occasions, who uses Facebook and blogging very effectively.
Simple definition: a location-based game where you get points for “checking-in” at different locations (today I visited the grocery store, a coffee shop, a pet store, and a convenience store), and adding new locations to the map.
You can “unlock” badges which then show up on your profile. My favorite feature, the ultimate in perpetuating consumerism at local businesses – you can become the “mayor” of a certain location by being the person to visit that location the most. This can become a competition between foursquare users who all frequent the same location. I also really like adding “tips” which are comments about a certain business, and “tags” which allow people to find the location based on those keywords.
“What is the business application for this?” you might be asking. Here are some initial ideas:
Get Repeat Business: Some coffee shops, for example, are giving away free coffee to the current mayor of their establishment – a really fun way to increase customer loyalty! Logan’s Pub in Victoria is doing it. Take a look at Logan’s on foursquare. So is Highland Pacific Golf Course!
Encourage Customers to Share What They Like: People leave “tips” at different locations for their friends. I just left a tip for friends that Fiamo Italian Kitchen has an amazing goat cheese salad. When they visit, or come into proximity to that location, they’ll get my tip.
Keep track of what customers are sharing about your business. Foursquare is looking for businesses that want to participate by giving the mayor of their establishment a deal and tracking their customer’s activity: http://foursquare.com/businesses/
Note of interest:
If your customers can’t find your business, they will often add it to the map – and sometimes incorrectly spell it. This is why it pays to be the first to create your location – ensuring that your patch of real estate is staked-out properly in the wild west of foursquare.
I’m sure we’ll be revisiting the topic of foursquare soon. In the mean time, see a related application I came across that shows you the foursquare posts in any location FourWhere
What are your thoughts on foursquare? Is it something you use, or would consider using?
In April we’re starting our in-depth seminar series on how to use social media for your business at the Ambrosia Centre, and this is the appetizer to that.
Some of the topics we’ll cover:
Why Traditional Marketing is Losing its Appeal
Inbound Marketing – What it is, and how it can help your business
Top 10 Reasons Why Businesses are Getting Involved in Social Media
Twitter & Facebook for Business - Success Stories (Local & International)
Wow, is it really August!? Actually, 1/2 way to September? Eeek. We're soaking up the sun in between building websites and teaching soc. med 2 weeks ago
Latest Entry
Simple definition: a location-based game where you get points for “checking-in” at different locations (today I visited the grocery store, a coffee shop, a pet store, and a convenience store), and adding new locations to the map. 
In April we’re starting our in-depth 
