social networking – InovediaMarketing.com

"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.

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!CUSTOMIZE it for your biz! @ourbiz tweets u right white tee for Men or Women. Also available various colors and in long sleeves.
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!
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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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

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!

Social Profile Business Card tf 2.0 Back logo by twitterfunny

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!