Tag Archives: social media marketing

Blogging

Keeping Up With Blogging & Social Media Marketing

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Some years ago I talked about the concept of social media marketing, and why I think it’s a more important way to handle your business online rather than blatantly spamming all over the place. Today I’m talking about the difficulties in keeping up with it all, especially if you’re also trying to keep up with blogging as well.

Autographed; hanging in my favorite restaurant!

Do you believe that doing something so many times can help it become a habit? I have mixed emotions on that one. There are things I’ve done that have stuck, while other things I’ve done for a long time were good for that moment, but some months later, maybe even a year, it’s like I never did it to begin with.
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Social Media

How Important Are You On Social Media?

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If you get to thinkin’ you’re a person of some influence, try orderin’ somebody else’s dog around.”

Back in August I decided to try a little experiment; y’all know how I like to try experiments from time to time. Going into this one, I was betting I knew how it would turn out, but still had some hopes that maybe I was wrong. In the end, there were some interesting lessons to learn.

What I did was fairly simple. I decided that for the week I wasn’t going to initiate any conversations or share any information on either Facebook or Twitter, other than my normal marketing endeavors on Twitter whenever I create new content. The only caveat I had was that if someone wrote me first I would reply. But if nobody tried to contact me, I wasn’t going to post any other links, or do a retweet, or reach out to comment on something anyone said, including just saying hello. In essence, I wanted to see if anyone would miss me.
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Advertising, Social Media

The Facebook Ads Experiment

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There’s a young guy I sometimes mentor and have lunch with named Adam. One of the things he does for business is he tries to help people market their businesses or products on Facebook.

We were having a conversation about this and he asked me if I wanted to try to market my business on Facebook using Facebook ads. I told him that I didn’t believe either of the main industries I was in would work all that well on Facebook. Still, I decided to give him a chance.
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Marketing, Social Media

Let’s Talk About That 80/20 Social Sharing Rule

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By now most people have heard of the Pareto Principle. In essence, it’s the belief that 80% of consequences comes from 20% of causes. The origin came from Pareto’s recognition that 80% of Italy’s wealth belonged to 20% of the population. He came up with this in 1896, and for over 120 years people have equated it with everything from investing to business and customers to fitness and health.

Over the last few years I’ve seen it being recommended by a lot of bloggers and marketers when it comes to the concept of social sharing. The premise is that if one is trying to market themselves via social media, they’ll get the most benefit by sharing other people’s content 80% and their own around 20%.
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Marketing, Social Media

Social Media Can’t Be Your Only Marketing

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Often I talk about the need for businesses to get into social media so that they don’t get passed by because their competitors have gotten into the business. Whereas that’s true, what can’t be missed is that there must be a real world component to social media marketing.

The Other Cola (Peru)
Geraint Rowland via Compfight

For instance, say you make contact with someone because of your blog. Most probably they’re going to reach you by email or phone if you’ve remembered to add a contact page to your blog, or at least have a link to your business website, which should have contact information on it. This means that you’re following up with people in a more personal manner, whether it’s email or phone or, if you’re lucky, meeting someone in person.

I point this out because if your website or blog is so good that it actually does attract business, what you can’t take a chance on is that people are letdown by what they see once they’ve reached out to you. I don’t hide from anyone that I’m a one man operation, but some companies represent themselves as large corporations and suddenly find that they don’t have either the skills or resources to handle certain types of work that might come their way.

Another thing I’ve recommended businesses should do is follow both their business name and their industry on Twitter using hashtags. Many businesses have done this and have used the customer service potential to their benefit. However, what I’ve also seen is some companies using the opportunity to go on the attack rather than help their customers out, or reach out to a customer, answer the first query, then not follow up with any visible action.

Social media isn’t a game where business is concerned. Irk just one person, the wrong person, and you can believe that thousands will know about it soon enough. And when that happens, it’ll be hard for any business to follow up with all those other people to apologize, if it’s warranted, because they won’t know who they all are.

You can’t avoid social media because whether you like it or not, you’ll be pulled into it if you don’t act. It’s better if you make the decision to do it on your own. But be proactive across the board. Get it as right as you can. Your business will prosper and you’ll thank me later. 😉