Tag: social media marketing

How to

How to Start a Facebook Page Step by Step | Social Media Help Links | Social Startup Guide

When Small Business folks find out I’m “in social media” I usually get one of 3 questions…

  1. How do I make a Facebook page?
  2. Is my Facebook page setup up correctly?
  3. What should I do on Facebook (or Twitter)?

So here you go, all the steps to getting started including answers to the most commonly asked questions – in one help-link-packed downloadable presentation. It’s even downloadable & editable for Pros free (Creative Commons)

Link for mobile: http://bit.ly/SocialMedia101SMBs

I hope this helps!
@richardbouchez

Richard A. Bouchez | Social Media Specialist | New Media Production Richard Bouchez is a certified Inbound Marketing professional specializing in Social Media Marketing & New Media content development. Richard’s web, audio & video work has been honored with Emmy, Promax & CBA awards.

DAILY SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING TIPS FOLLOW @INOVEDIA ON TWITTER!

PROMOTE YOUR TWITTER & FACEBOOK!>>>

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add your Twitter name!

Photography credits

Got tips or tricks for creating killer videos? Sound off and share in the comments!

Good luck!

@richardbouchez

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Social Profile Business Card tf 2.0 Back logo profilecard
——————–
——————-
Reading Reward Minicard profilecard

———
———————
—————–
——————–
Follow Me by imagepromo
LIST OUT Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Linkedin.com, etc. on back>>
—————-

Twitter Specials 1 CUSTOMIZE IT! blk 1sd dashes by twitterfunny>

Twitter Specials 1 CUSTOMIZE IT! blk 1sd dashes profilecard

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————————–
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————————–
Cute Twitter business cards by uniquebusinesscards>

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—————————

Choose your own background color & add your twitter on back!>>>
——————–
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Social Profile Business Card tfl 2.0 Wer@bl tflbak profilecard
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WTF is Twitter?

January 11, 2010 in “New Marketing” tactics, Small Biz Social Networking, Your Website: Tips & Tricks | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 comments (Edit)

…and why would (I) my business use it?WTF is Twitter? dark men classic t shirt

The same reasons that make Twitter so popular are those that make describing twitter problematic.

While that might not makes sense at first glance, once you realize that  Twitter has no real product direction or single “primary use” you may begin to realize just how difficult it is to describe (and figure out) Twitter’s relevance as a businesses tool.

Here’s a parallel challenge:

  • Come up with one blanket statement that clearly describes what our existing land line phone systom does.

Why is that a challenge? Well, in your description you will have had to include all uses of consumer land line phones such as fax transmission, internet connections, VOIP phone line connections, 911 ermergency services, automated home alarm warning services, etc. So, that being said, please consider the technology of Twitter just as complex.

That’s all great, but WTF is Twitter?

The direct answer: Twitter is whatever you can make of it.

That’s probably disappointing, but its absolutely the reason people say things like “I’m still figuring Twitter out” or “trying to get used to Twitter” or “I don’t get it.” The unfortunate fact is, once you create your account you are stuck trying figure out what to do with little to no direction and that takes time most people don’t have. Fortunately there are a lot of folks, like myself, willing to spend way too much time writing stuff like this and trying to help out:-)

10 things you can do with Twitter (for free):

  1. Connect with fans using Twitter by offering relevant information.
  2. Provide updates on your product for active Twitter users (millions & growing).
  3. Improve your website by posting updated information to your site via Twitter (RSS) fed widget.
  4. Offer scheduled information to anyone interested. May included daily, weekly or random information to customers which could include specials, coupons,
  5. Follow experts in many industries for fresh information as it happens.
  6. Post last minute deals, specials, emergency information, etc. to customers or other interested parties (because users choose to follow you we can assume they are “interested”).
  7. Update any RSS capable reader or product connected to the internet.
  8. Get found in real-time keyword searches. *Google, Bing and other search engines are adding Twitter search results to their own first page results and further integration is ongoing.
  9. Have your “tweet” reposted in the streams of organizations followed by tens, hundreds, thousands or even millions of passionate people.
  10. Publicly comment on anything.

So why use Twitter?Social Profile Business Card tfl 2.0 vertblank bak profilecard

First and foremost, because the simple act of posting information on Twitter significantly increases the chances of being found in search engines and because using Twitter as one of your marketing channels makes for a great introduction to using Twitter.

What did I miss? Got more ways to use Twitter? Do you disagree? Please add your thoughts and ideas in the comments.

If you like this explanation, please link to it in your blog posts > Twitter

Good luck,

@richardbouchez

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Check out Social Media Profile Business Cards>>>

The Chicago Small Business Tweet Up! 5/26

May 25, 2010 in Small Biz Social Networking, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment (Edit)

Small Business Week In Chicago

City Treasurer Stephanie D. Neely invites you to her Tweet Up for Small Business Week in Chicago.

When:
Wednesday, May 26th at 5:30pm Where:
ING Direct Cafe
21 E. Chestnut St.
Chicago, IL 60611
Workshop:
5:30 – 6:00pm – One of the great secrets to social media marketing
A 60 second video that will change your business.

6:00pm – 6:30pm -Operating lean and efficiently. All you need to change your personal and business finances are “The Plan and $1.”

Social media is the wave of the future towards helping expand and grow your business.

Get started today by attending this FREE event.

expo logo

Join us at our FREE 9th annual Small Business Expo on Friday, July 16, 2010 at UIC Forum (Halsted & Roosevelt) from 8:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.Over 30 workshops, network with other small business owners.

Are you looking to exhibit or sponsor event?

*Information from:

Office of the City Treasurer

Stephanie Neely Treasurer Contact: Public Affairs

(312) 744-8122

**InovediaMarketing.com is proud to be 2009 ambassador for the City of Chicago Small Business Expo. Follow @inovedia on Twitter for updates and information and daily Social Media Marketing tips for business!

Please add us to your RSS reader here. >>click here for a tutorial on using RSS.

You may also be interested in these InovediaMarketing.com articles:

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PROMOTE YOUR TWITTER & FACEBOOK!>>>

add your Twitter name!

ENTRY ENDS SOON! 2010 Business Plan Contest and Important Updates

April 8, 2010 in Small Biz News | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment (Edit)

Chicago City Treasurer Small Business Expo UpdateSpring is a very busy season for our Small Business Programs. We hope you can join us for one of our great contests or events including The Small Business Plan Contest, The “One-Hour-Mentor” Program and Small Business Expo. Happy Spring!

2010 Business Plan Contest to End Soon

Just a reminder that the deadline to enter your 2-page business plan template into consideration for the 2010 Business Plan Competition has been extended to Friday, April 9th.  Enter for you chance to share in $10,000 in prizes.
Deadline April 9th – Enter today!
Any questions call 312-960-0324.

Elevator Pitch Winner
Congratulations to our 2010 Elevator Pitch Winner “Second Act” Thank you to all of our outstanding contestants. Please consider entering our Business Plan Competition (see box above)

Small Business Expo

The 2010 Small Business Expo will be held on Friday, July 16th at the U.I.C. Forum. Join us for one of the best networking days in Chicago with over 130 exhibitors, 30 FREE Small Business Workshops, and 2,000 attendees. Sponsors, Exhibitors, and attendeess can find more information at FREE SMALL BUSINESS EXPO.

The “One- Hour- Mentor” Program for Chicago Small Business Chicago business leaders come together 4 times a year to help Chicago small business owners to brainstorm and problem solve. Workshops fill fast – NEXT One Hour Mentor May 26th at 10am.

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*Information from:

Office of the City Treasurer

Stephanie Neely Treasurer Contact: Public Affairs

March 26th, 2010 (312) 744-8122

**InovediaMarketing.com is proud to be 2009 ambassador for the City of Chicago Small Business Expo. Follow @inovedia on Twitter for updates and information and daily Social Media Marketing tips for business!

Please add us to your RSS reader here. >>click here for a tutorial on using RSS.

You may also be interested in these InovediaMarketing.com articles:

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Update 2010 Business Plan Competition: Time’s Tickin’!

March 26, 2010 in Small Biz News | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment (Edit)

There are less than 10 days to enter the City Treasurer’s 2010 Business Plan Competition. Submit your two page executive summary by April 5th, for your chance to share in $10,000 in prizes and be featured in the media. Visit www.chicagocitytreasurer.com BUSINESSCONTEST.

Winners will be announced at the Small Business Expo, July 16th at the UIC Forum.

Bookmark and Shareclick to share

*Information from:

Office of the City Treasurer

Stephanie Neely Treasurer Contact: Public Affairs

March 26th, 2010 (312) 744-8122

**InovediaMarketing.com is proud to be 2009 ambassador for the City of Chicago Small Business Expo. Follow @inovedia on Twitter for updates and information and daily Social Media Marketing tips for business!

Please add us to your RSS reader here. >>click here for a tutorial on using RSS.

You may also be interested in these InovediaMarketing.com articles:

—-

Twitter Specials 1 CUSTOMIZE IT! blk 1sd dashes by twitterfunny>

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Win Cash & Free Booth at the Chicago Small Business Expo in just 30 seconds!

March 5, 2010 in Small Biz News | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment (Edit)

Will we see you at the top in Chicago business?

The 2010 Business Elevator Pitch Contest entry deadline is 3/18!

Can you write a: 30 pitch that clearly sells and explains your business?

Enter your :30 script:

http://chicagocitytreasurer.com/events/elevatorspeechvideo2.htm

More information:

http://www.chicagocitytreasurer.com/events/elevatorspeech.htm

Expert feedback – winner gets cash and a free booth at the City Treasurer’s Small Business Expo, Friday, July 16th at the UIC Forum.

Get on the doors are closing!

Full details posted on www.chicagocitytreasurer.com

Bookmark and Shareclick to share

*Information from:

Office of the City Treasurer

Stephanie Neely Treasurer Contact: Public Affairs

July 02, 2008 (312) 744-8122

**InovediaMarketing.com is proud to be 2009 ambassador for the City of Chicago Small Business Expo. Follow @inovedia on Twitter for updates and information and daily Social Media Marketing tips for business!

Please add us to your RSS reader here. >>click here for a tutorial on using RSS.

You may also be interested in these InovediaMarketing.com articles:

—-

Twitter Specials 1 CUSTOMIZE IT! blk 1sd dashes by twitterfunny>

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Choose your own background color & add your twitter on back!>>>

Social Media business cards: ru following me? Double sided skinny grn profilecardadd your Twitter name!Click image to add your Twitter name!

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FOR CHICAGO SMALL BUSINESS

Chicago City Treasurer Small Business Expo Update

City Treasurer’s FREE Annual Small Business Expo is set for Friday, July 16th at the UIC Forum from 8:30am-3:30pm. Network with over 2,000 fellow small business owners, 120 highly selected exhibitors and a full day of free expert workshops designed to grow your business. Learn more at http://www.chicagocitytreasurer.com

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"New Marketing" tactics, How to, Small Biz Social Networking

How to Pitch Social Media: A New Client Presentation Outline for Digital Marketers

Compelled to answer this question on LinkedIn, I thought it would probably be pretty helpful to other too, so if you’re in marketing and you’re pitching social to new clients or up the ladder internally, I hope this outline helps!

Question:

What Social Media points would you cover in “45” minutes delivery to an audience of Business men?

Answer:

  1. Why Social Media (keep this short)
    • Demonstrate the dramatic growth of social channels such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.
    • Demonstrate the growing adoption of social media by companies large & small (Coke, Bank of America, etc.)
  2. Why NOT Social MediaFree Tools Slide from Hubspot's presentation
    • You may have heard that social marketing is cheap or free. I have bad news. While the accounts and many of the tools are cheap or free, marketing via social will cost you time and it may cost you money!
    • Introduce “Myths/Realities of social media” – organic growth is actually pretty hard in social (Facebook wants you to pay so likes don’t come easy, Twitter growth comes through engagement, Social accounts actually come with an obligation to pay attention to them, etc.)
  3. Finding Success in Social Media
    • Forget about “social media” … it’s not about being social, it’s about generating leads, managing customer relations, providing customer service, generating buzz or a slew of other strategies. It’s the strategy that’s important, not the social channel – “social” is a tool not a strategy.
    • Introduce Targeting Ideal Customers
    • Introduce Content Development
  4. Case Study
    • Provide a simple case study. Consider customer service or channel growth strategies because these tend to show direct correlations between actions and understandable metrics. Examples: Company A uses LinkedIn to reach out to prospects and sees an increase in leads and conversions. Company B solves customer service issues in their channels and customers post testimonial’s thanking them.
    • If you don’t have case studies of your own, you might find a partner who can bring this experience or look to Hubspot or other Inbound Marketing folks for published case studies, usually posted to their blog or in a White Paper.
  5. Questions (the most important part):
    • Give ample question time. Try to wrap it up in 30 minutes, if you only have 45 minutes or an hour. This way the audience is sure to get what they came for and, probably more importantly, it’ll allow you to demonstrate your expertise and give you the opportunity to offer individual follow up conversations.
    • Wrap up questions 5 minutes before your out time to give your closing statement!
  6. Final Thoughts
    • -You don’t need a Social Strategy, you need a digital strategy!
    • -Jump in, but listen before you start chatting up the channels. Walk, crawl, run.
    • -Get help! A Social Strategist can get help walk you through the process, saving saving you time and headache by identifying results driven opportunities for your business online, optimizing your social sites, training you on the tools that will integrate social use into your (or your staff’s) day and help you set measurable benchmark’s so you’ll know if you’re on the right track.
    • -Social can help you generate leads, connect you with customers & help you grow your business.

    Walk, Crawl, Run - Content Curation
    Photo credit http://www.BethKanter.org

Let us know if you found this useful, I’d love to get your feedback, suggestions and tips on presenting social. Given a presentation you love or found one you want to share? Leave a link!

If you’re just sitting down to write one – good luck!

Richard

@richardbouchez

You may also be interested in these InovediaMarketing.com articles:

PROMOTE YOUR TWITTER & FACEBOOK!>>>
Social Profile Business Card tf 2.0 Back logo profilecard
"New Marketing" tactics, Small Biz Social Networking, Your Website: Tips & Tricks

WTF is Twitter?

…and why would (I) my business use it?WTF is Twitter? dark men classic t shirt

The same reasons that make Twitter so popular are those that make describing twitter problematic.

While that might not makes sense at first glance, once you realize that  Twitter has no real product direction or single “primary use” you may begin to realize just how difficult it is to describe (and figure out) Twitter’s relevance as a businesses tool.

Here’s a parallel challenge:

  • Come up with one blanket statement that clearly describes what our existing land line phone systom does.

Why is that a challenge? Well, in your description you will have had to include all uses of consumer land line phones such as fax transmission, internet connections, VOIP phone line connections, 911 ermergency services, automated home alarm warning services, etc. So, that being said, please consider the technology of Twitter just as complex.

That’s all great, but WTF is Twitter?

The direct answer: Twitter is whatever you can make of it.

That’s probably disappointing, but its absolutely the reason people say things like “I’m still figuring Twitter out” or “trying to get used to Twitter” or “I don’t get it.” The unfortunate fact is, once you create your account you are stuck trying figure out what to do with little to no direction and that takes time most people don’t have. Fortunately there are a lot of folks, like myself, willing to spend way too much time writing stuff like this and trying to help out:-)

10 things you can do with Twitter (for free):

  1. Connect with fans using Twitter by offering relevant information.
  2. Provide updates on your product for active Twitter users (millions & growing).
  3. Improve your website by posting updated information to your site via Twitter (RSS) fed widget.
  4. Offer scheduled information to anyone interested. May included daily, weekly or random information to customers which could include specials, coupons,
  5. Follow experts in many industries for fresh information as it happens.
  6. Post last minute deals, specials, emergency information, etc. to customers or other interested parties (because users choose to follow you we can assume they are “interested”).
  7. Update any RSS capable reader or product connected to the internet.
  8. Get found in real-time keyword searches. *Google, Bing and other search engines are adding Twitter search results to their own first page results and further integration is ongoing.
  9. Have your “tweet” reposted in the streams of organizations followed by tens, hundreds, thousands or even millions of passionate people.
  10. Publicly comment on anything.

So why use Twitter?Social Profile Business Card tfl 2.0 vertblank bak profilecard

First and foremost, because the simple act of posting information on Twitter significantly increases the chances of being found in search engines and because using Twitter as one of your marketing channels makes for a great introduction to using Twitter.

What did I miss? Got more ways to use Twitter? Do you disagree? Please add your thoughts and ideas in the comments.

If you like this explanation, please link to it in your blog posts > Twitter

Good luck,

@richardbouchez

Bookmark and Shareclick to share this post

Check out Social Media Profile Business Cards>>>

 

Richard Bouchez is a certified Inbound Marketing professional specializing in Social Media Marketing & New Media content development. Richard’s web, audio & video work has been honored with Emmy, Promax & CBA awards.

"New Marketing" tactics, About Us, How to, Small Biz Social Networking, Video & Multimedia, Your Website: Tips & Tricks

How can we help you?

Inovedia Marketing provides the following services, how can we help you?

Social Media Marketing

  • We provide training, monitoring, blogging & copy writing services which means we can just get you started or manage and build your social networking efforts!

Multimedia Production

  • Let us create your web videos! We have Emmy award winning talent and the know how to create high quality videos & podcasts on a budget. For bigger projects, our access and established relationships with full service facilities means the sky is the limit!

Web Design & New Media Development

  • Put the web to work for you! From tweaks to complete redesigns, we’ll transform your website into an engaging resource your ideal customers will frequent! Ask how we can deliver highly target-able audiences to your door through new media product development! We can extend your brand, drive traffic and multiply your reach!

General Creative Services

  • Copy-writing, design services, online and traditional marketing campaign development, contest creation & management. Ad creation including banner ads, print, radio, television, newspaper and direct mail.

Email: InovediaMarketing at gmail dot com

Twitter: @inovedia

 

Richard Bouchez is a certified Inbound Marketing professional specializing in Social Media Marketing & New Media content development. Richard’s web, audio & video work has been honored with Emmy, Promax & CBA awards.

"New Marketing" tactics, How to, Small Biz Social Networking

3 Ways to Laser Focus Your Business for Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.

 

Lose focus and customers get the wrong message from your new media marketing!

 

FOCUS is the number one obstacle you will face in any “new media,” web or social networking project be it company wide tweeting or starting a Facebook fan page. Without focus businesses “forget” to update websites, they post links  customers don’t care about and generally send mixed messages. It’s no coincidence focus is also the number one obstacle in any marketing project! Everything your company does involving new media – even the content – is marketing and the possibilities are endless so it’s very easy slip off track.

  1. Find out WHERE and WHAT your customers are doing online.
    A quick survey can tell you a lot! You can ask your customers as they walk in the door, hand out a short questionnaire, cold call them or whatever is appropriate for your business! Ask about websites they visit like Facebook or Youtube. Ask them how you could serve them better by being there too!Tweets U Right CUSTOMIZABLE white TEE shirtCUSTOMIZE it for your biz! @ourbiz tweets u right white tee for Men or Women. Also available various colors and in long sleeves.

  2. Set guidelines “What Would My Brand do?”
    Is your brand loud and fun, like the t-shirt above? Use your brand’s “personality” as a guide for what you should post on Twitter or Facebook. A comedy club might post jokes when a Lexus dealership would not. While B2B might connect with customers via Linkedin.com, everyone should consider starting a “brand” account on Twitter in which you only post business related updates, successes, discussion and events. Facebook is an exceptional place for small business owners to connect with customers as “friends” to exercise your personal brand. Everyone wants to know the owner!
  3. Make a plan. Check it, tweak and repeat.
    You never really know what any given moment will bring, so executing a plan might be just be your biggest challenge! Whatever you decide to do, make sure you sit down with the calendar you really rely on and schedule it! Schedule daily or weekly updates for Facebook, plan out the next 3 months worth of recipes for your blog. Keeping the plan simple and making it a priority will improve your chances for success tenfold. Create ways to measure your success so you cannot fail! If you were to create a goal to get your regular customers to be your friends on Facebook by sending them email invites you should check your progress in a month or so. If your efforts are stalled tweak your approach. Consider handing out social media business cards, direct mail or contesting. The point is, keep on eye on your progress and tweak it if it isn’t working.

Need help with your online product, projects or marketing? There are many free programs available for scheduling tweets and Facebook statuses and there are ways to have your social media sites monitored (for free) as well. If you cannot be active on the sites, please seek out other solutions because at the minimum you should be reasonably “accessible.” If you are asked questions or worse, taken to task, you need to be aware and you need to respond!

If you need help, there are a lot of resources “out there”  that are very cost effective and you’re welcome to shoot me an email or begin a discussion right here in the comments.

Good luck!

@richardbouchez

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killertweetsbanner

 

GET KILLER CUSTOM TWITTER BACKGROUNDS!

 

 

 

Richard Bouchez is a certified Inbound Marketing professional specializing in Social Media Marketing & New Media content development. Richard’s web, audio & video work has been honored with Emmy, Promax & CBA awards.

"New Marketing" tactics, How to, Small Biz Social Networking

10 EASY Ways to Inject Twitter and Facebook into Everyday Business!

*Post updated 4/23/2010!!! Please sign up for your email news letter!!! (upper left of sidebar)

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This list combine’s new & traditional marketing and is somewhere between the obvious, hanging a “We’re on Twitter” banner, and the incredibly inventive but perhaps not so practical. “BakerTweet”, for example, automatically tweets from donut shops whenever their donuts are fresh! Please let me know what you think and add to the list in the comments!

1. @YourBiz Shirts

add your Twitter name!
Click image to add your Twitter name!

2. Sign-on cards with JUST your social networks on them is a great way to bring attention to your web efforts! It’s a no brainer to add your social networks to your business cards, but having separate cards printed up can include each of your social network sign-ons, your email & website or blog. You might just see them run out before your regular business cards do!

3. @YourBiz Vehicle Magnets should be long and practical for multiple locations such as above the rear tire. Please avoid big huge ridiculous white squares with tiny writing that are slapped on the door!

4. Across a vehicle’s rear window is a great place to add @YourBiz in large letters!

5. @YourBiz on Your Bumper

twitter bumper sticker
Click to buy, customize to your biz colors!

Click to customize yours in red, blue or black. Also totally customizable to your business colors

*For #s 1 – 5 keep in mind folks on Twitter immediately recognize @YourName as a Twitter sign-on so, in most cases, the “Twitter.com/” can be scratched. You can use any of these ideas for your @twittername or your /facebook name. When choosing a name, try to balance these three traits: as short, simple and close to your business name as possible. All reasons we chose @inovedia from InovediaMarketing.com for our Twitter sign-on.

6. iPhone contests create buzz!

Step 1. Go to the apple store.
Step 2. Consult your attorney. I am not one, I don’t pretend to be one and if you don’t you’re on your own.
Step 3. Purchase a gift card for the equivalent value of the iPhone you want to give away (adding $ for monthly service gives you bonus points).
Step 4. Create a plan to tweet, use Facebook & your email list to execute a contest everyone will be talking about.
Step 5. Create signs, banners, flyers, etc.
Step 6. Reap the reward & email me your story!

7. Are you on Twitter? If you have a restaurant, ask if anyone the table is on Twitter & follow them while placing their order. Ask them to tweet where you are or what you’re ordering. Don’t tweet that they are there without asking as that could be a major faux pas!

If you’re thinking social networking is impractical you probably don’t have the right tools in place. Here are a couple of suggestions that will help make it easier to access Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc. throughout the day.

8. Get a smart phone! Treos are older clunkier phones, but they’re still great tools for social networking with cameras that work find and keyboards that rival any blackberry for under $100. New phones with contracts are now ridiculously cheap with versions of the iPhone now under $100 and the Palm Pre under $200. Suck it up and get a “store phone” that can be kept at the counter or front desk for whoever is on duty. No more excuses about not tweeting because I wasn’t at my desk.

9. A netbook placed at the back of your restaurant or on your store counter with internet access. I picked up a Lenovo S10, which I love, for under $350. It’s small, inexpensive, light weight and there’s no DVD drive tempting employees to watch movies (though HULU will be a click away). More importantly, all the social networking tools you’re business requires will be right at hand. Truth is, even most out of date laptops will do the trick!

10. Ping.fm is a free site that let’s you send status updates and photos to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, Friendfeed and a slew of other social networks all from one place. Genius! Chi.mp is another option that let’s you send to multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts and comes in very handy if you have multiple businesses or if you’re rocking both personal & business accounts.

Got more ideas? Want to add to these or trash them? Please chime in with your comments!

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Good luck!

Richard (@richardbouchez)

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"New Marketing" tactics, How to

Create your own edge! Build your own community!

You have a store front, so does your competition. You have a website, so does the competition. You might even have a blog, a Facebook fan page and a Twitter account but if your competition doesn’t already, they will soon. So, how can you stay ahead in the marketing game? How can you stand out from the pack, ensure growth and make a difference that will really matter?

Build a community.

What does that mean? It means create a market place where you can provide a product or service to draw like minded individuals or folks with common interests. This could be anything, a blog, a tip newsletter, quote or photo of the day, whatever you can come up with and, if successful, your new market place will provide you a growing community filled with those who need and/or want your service.

Where do you begin?

  1. Identify your ideal customer.
  2. Identify your ideal customer’s needs or wants.
  3. Identify new products that can deliver that content.
  4. Experiment and test your ideas without breaking the bank.
  5. Set expectations and deliver on promises!
  6. Commit to the long term!

Ideal Customers: These aren’t your favorite customers or even your best customers. These are the ones who want or need your product the most. If you make baseball bats you are probably interested in reaching kids who play baseball, their parents or perhaps schools who outfit entire teams.

Identifying Needs & Wants: This can get a bit tricky so ask them! Social media is great for this! If you’re not active on Twitter or Linkedin, start now! Linkedin groups are a great place to ask questions and get feedback but start now so you can get comfortable using the site.

New Products Brainstorming: Successful new products can be as simple as a branded e-newsletter, a blog or podcast and as complicated as an un-branded video sharing site. If you’re an electronics store, avoid creating a gadget blog because there are already so many out there. Your going to have to be much more creative! Investigate hobbiests and other niches, perhaps there’s an opportunity for that electronic store to blog about installing or tweaking car stereo systems. Look at your staff for hobbies and passion to tap into!

Testing: If your new product resembles a blog, newsletter or other niche website take advantage of WordPress.com’s free blogs to create test sites. If you’re considering a podcast build a free channel on youtube, if it works you may just end up sticking with it anyway! If you have an idea that’s not working toss it right away! With proper benchmarking steps in place, failing strategies can be quickly eliminated.

Set Expectations & Deliver on Promises: Trust is, with out a doubt, the key ingredient for any community and once you lose it there no telling if you can regain it! It’s very important to be as transparent as possible! If you’re creating a new unbranded product don’t deny or hide the fact that your company is supporting it. If the product is good and solid there’s no reason to hide. If you plan on serving ads begin doing so early-on to set the expectation of how many ads there will be and try to stick to a posting schedule.

Set your own expectation, this is not an overnight process! While marketing costs can often be curbed with good social marketing plans and by utilizing resources and databases you already have, such as lists of email newsletter subscribers, vendors, trade inventory, etc., this is a process that will take time to build and cost you time to maintain!

Commit to the long term: Depending on the community, you may have to moderate or provide content for as long as the product is in place. Understand that to keep a community going you have to be actively involved!

The possibilities are endless! With an ideal community at your fingertips you can speak to folks who are actually listening whether your strategic goals are brand building, product positioning, increasing press coverage, educating new customers, re-educating existing customers, driving traffic, creating buzz or creating new revenue streams. Even more importantly, you can reach folks who are actually interested and that’s an amazing thing!

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Good luck!

Richard (@richardbouchez)

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Creative New Marketing Tips for Small Business
Creative New Marketing Tips for Small Business
Small Biz News

Be an Ambassador! Chicago Small Business Expo

SMALL BUSINESS EXPO FRIDAY, JULY 17th – Be an Expo Ambassador

*Register now for Friday’s Small Business Expo!

Chicago City Treasurer Stephanie D. Neely is proud to announce the launch of the 2009 Small Business Expo Ambassador Program. Latest research being used by the Flashpoint Academy of Chicago indicates the in this world of social media – 55% of people get their news from their friends and family!

In the spirit of a new generation of communication –

EXPO AMBASSADORS ARE – Those groups helping communicate our message about the Free Small Business Expo on Friday, July 17th at the UIC Forum to their networks of 250 or more. These links will remain listed through the EXPO.

Any group getting 25 mentions or more will be listed on the EXPO AMBASSADOR Page of the City Treasurers Website – throughout 2009

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE AN EXPO AMBASSDOR EMAIL businessplans@cityofchicago.org

www.chicagocitytreasurer.com

  1. Steve Bernas – President and the team – Better Business Bureau Chicago and Northern Illinois www.bbb.org
  2. Richard Bouchez – CEO- www.InovediaMarketing.com
  3. Rosemary Reeves – CEO – www.womeneye.com

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*Information from:

Office of the City Treasurer

Stephanie Neely Treasurer Contact: Public Affairs

July 02, 2008 (312) 744-8122

**InovediaMarketing.com is proud to be an ambassador for the 2009 City of Chicago Small Business Expo. Follow @inovedia on Twitter for updates and information!

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