Archive for the ‘Social Media Marketing’ Category

Your Social Media Recipe

 

What is your social media recipe for posting? We all have one. Have you given yours any thought?

 

Let’s have a little fun.

 

Below is a list of different online persona’s. Go through the list and see if you can identify the people that you follow on social media.

 

 

Who do you know on social media that is:

  • Professional Sports Fan (Football, Basketball, Baseball, etc.)
  • College Sports Fan
  • Traveler
  • New parent or expecting
  • Grandma or Grandpa or soon to be
  • Meme lover
  • Dog person
  • Cat person
  • Parent
  • Parent of teen girl(s) or teen boy(s)
  • Loyal to their alma mater
  • Parent of a kid that plays a sport
  • Parent of kid that dances
  • Angry all the time
  • Complainer
  • Ranter
  • Spammer (always selling their product or service)
  • Political Left or Right – will fight to the death
  • Encourager
  • Up-lifter
  • Foodie
  • Drinker
  • Partier
  • Gardener
  • Book lover
  • Artist
  • Crafter
  • Renovator
  • Hippie
  • Health nut
  • Movie watcher
  • Information provider
  • Mom of the bride or groom
  • Over-sharer

How many were you able to identify? Did I miss anyone?

Ok, now go back and determine who people think YOU are online. Go ahead, I can wait…

Welcome back. What did you learn?

What you post online personally and professionally gives an impression. You may not think about what you are posting, but if you can identify others’ by the list above, you can probably be identified as well. It may be that you or the people you follow fall into more than one category.

Recently, I did this exercise in a group that I lead. At the end of the exercise, I could see the light bulbs going off and then someone said “I better relook at what I’ve been posting!”. Yes, you do need to pay attention to it!

This brings me to my original question, what is your social media recipe for posting? I think that many people bring a variety of different aspects of their personality to social media. We typically throw in a little bit of this and a pinch of that. Maybe though, we need to take a closer look at the ingredients and what we are making. You don’t want to be labeled as the spammer or someone that is constantly negative. This hurts your personal brand. What we see online is what we expect in-person. People are constantly observing what we do and we invite them to get a view every time we post.

My social media recipe for business is: encouragement, inspiration and humor, plus social media tips and information. For personal I have a more complicated recipe that includes my business ingredients plus family, gardening, food and sports.

When choosing your social media recipe…

  • Start with your goals for social media.
  • Add who you are talking to.
  • Mix in your expertise.
  • Fold in topics and information your audience can relate to and are interested in.
  • Be mindful that ingredients may need to be substituted from time to time with something fresh.
  • Check the temperature to be sure that your dish is not overcooked.

What is your recipe? What does it include? Please share in the comments or on Facebook or Twitter.

16 Best Social Media Tips for 2016

 

Social Media Tips for 2016Are you looking for the latest social media tips for eliminating overwhelm while marketing your business? Look no further than these 16 tips for creating your social media mindset so you can take action on what works.

1 – You Don’t Have To Do Everything

I see business owners burn-out on social media very quickly when they think they have to be on every platform and update 24/7. Give yourself a break. It is good to claim the real estate on each platform for your name and/or business, but then choose the one or two platforms that your ideal client uses and learn to communicate with them there. Once you mastered these, decide if you want or need to add another platform. Doesn’t that feel better already?

2 – Know Your Ideal Audience

We all like to think that our products or services are good for everyone, but in reality there is a select group of people that resonate best with us. It’s okay to niche your business. In fact, it’s better than spreading yourself way too thin trying to be everything for everyone. Who is your ideal target audience? Where do they hang out online? As mentioned above, work with the platforms that they use the most. This way you don’t have to be on Snapchat when your customer is mostly on Facebook.

3 – Build Relationships First

Social media is like a big party. When you walk into a party, you don’t go up to someone and immediately ask for them to buy something. That would be weird. On social media don’t immediately start selling to people you just met. Ugh, I hate when I connect with someone and their very next message is to a sales page.  Twitter Direct Messages or any kind of message with links back to your website that ask for the sale is considered SPAM. Just don’t do it. Work on getting to know the person first.

4 – A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words

Have a good, professional picture to use on your social media profiles. Be sure you are looking at the camera and have a nice, warm smile. Use the same photo on each of your profiles for better recognition.

If using a logo for a business, be sure that it’s clear and sized correctly. It is worth paying someone to give you multiple sizes of a good quality logo than to use something that is fuzzy and/or doesn’t fit in the space provided. It’s the little details that make all the difference.

5 – Branding

Each of your social media platforms should be named the same. This is true if it’s a business name or a personal name. This allows for ease of searching and identifying your name or business. It also adds to your search engine optimization.

6 – Do a Social Media Audit

Over the past 13 years, social media sites have frequently popped up. When was the last time you had a thorough look at your total social media presence? Are you named the same on each platform? What is the profile picture? There are a lot of areas you should be evaluating. If you would like to have a professional take a look, go here to sign-up for a Social Media Audit with me.

7 – Content is Still King and Queen

Providing high-quality content for your audience and potential customers is key to having social media work for you. Great content attracts people organically and creates trust in you and/or your business. Create consistent, relevant content that illustrates your expertise, approach, culture and core values. This will help to keep you top of mind whenever potential customers are ready to make a decision. 

8 – Video, Video, Video

Create more video content. Video is the most important strategy in content marketing. Whether it’s on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube or with Periscope, Blab, or Facebook Live, be sure you are adding video to your updating plan. By the way, don’t feel like you have to use all of these platforms. Choose where your ideal customer likes to connect with you.

9 – Be Real

Social media should be an extension of what it’s like to meet you in person, or for a business, should convey the culture. Don’t be afraid to show the human side of the business. Give a peek inside. Endear your customers to you.

10 – Be Useful or Educational

Too many times I see businesses that are using social media like it’s a commercial or a big ad. Instead of that approach, think of this medium as a way to provide education or to be useful in some manner. There are many thoughts out there on how much to sell on social media, I like the 80/20 Rule where 80% of the time is all about education, entertainment and being helpful, and 20% is selling something. No one likes to be spammed!

11 – Have a Plan

I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to have a social media marketing plan. When I hear of a business owner or entrepreneur that is struggling with social media, at the core is that they don’t have a social media structure, strategy or plan that aligns to their goals. The lack of a plan causes overwhelm and frustration and then social media gets put on the back burner. If this is you or someone you care about, I have a proprietary system that will make everything so much easier. Ask me about Social Media MAP – Mindset and Action Plan. 

12 – Consistency in Updating

You do not need to be on social media 24/7. However, you do need to show up consistently. Once a month is not considered consistent (and the algorithms won’t be your friend). I recommend daily connection in most cases.  Also, there are many tools you can use to pre-schedule your content so that you can: plan it, schedule it and then check-in daily for engagement. For my scheduling, I use Hootsuite and the Facebook scheduler, but there are lots of other options available.

13 – Hashtags

Using hashtags to help identify the topic or keyword in a social media update can be helpful, but choose the correct platform. Hashtags work great on Twitter, Google+ and Instagram, but they have very little use on Facebook (although they are searchable). They are not necessary for Pinterest and on LinkedIn they are not searchable at all.

14 – Social Media Tools

One of my favorite tools for creating graphics is Canva. It’s a great site that provides you the proper sizing for creating social media images and has lots of different formatting options. I call it the “photoshop for dummies”.

15 – Personalize Connection Requests

When asking for a connection to someone on LinkedIn, use the feature where you can send a personal message. Mention where you met, what you talked about and ask for the connection. If you haven’t met the person before, tell them why you wish to connect. This starts the relationship. (This feature IS available on the app. When looking at the profile of someone, in the upper right corner should be three dots, click on the dots and this should bring up a menu of options.) Don’t skip this step, it’s important in establishing rapport.

16 – Facebook Advertising

I typically hear a collective groan when I mention Facebook and advertising together. Then the whining starts, “I don’t want to pay to play….”. Well, you are missing out on one of the best and least expensive advertising opportunities available. Consider the sheer size of Facebook and the information that is available to them, Facebook ads have a high success rate at targeting a specific audience of potential customers for very little money.

There you have it, 16 social media tips that can help focus your social media efforts. Did you learn something new that you can take action on? As always, if you have questions, reach out to me.

Until next time….

Coffee and a Post

Coffee and a Post  When I poll a group of entrepreneurs or small business owners about what their biggest challenge is for social media, I hear time and time again, “it takes so much time.” I can already tell you are nodding “yes,” with that answer as well. I get it! Social media does seem to be one of those time-traps.

Last weekend I was discussing with my husband, Gus, the topics I was going to speak about in some upcoming keynotes and workshops. I told him that time management seems to be a very hot topic. He mentioned that he sees lots of people having a cup of coffee while scrolling through social media on their phones. We talked about if someone used that time to actually post, wouldn’t it seem like it didn’t take as much time? He then said, “Coffee and a Post”. (Have I told you yet, that I married a brilliant guy?!)

Now, to make your posts valuable content and simple to do while sipping your coffee, you have to know what to post ahead of time. That is where a simple social media content plan comes in handy. I truly believe that not having a plan is the biggest issue, but also finding a way to slip in the time to work the plan is the second largest issue.

Today I am introducing, Coffee and a Post™.

Each day when you have your morning beverage (whether it be coffee, tea, soda, juice, water, etc.), pause, then get your phone out and make your social media post. You CANnonDo it! This also works for later in the day, so consider doing, Wine and a Post™. It doesn’t matter what the beverage is; what matters is that if you are pausing to check your phone during a brief break anytime during the day, you have time to maintain a consistent social media presence for your business. That presence may be posting new content, sharing content from peers, or responding to follower engagement (comments, likes, replies).

If you want help with a simple updating plan, reach out for a coaching session with Vicki.

11 Social Media Tips to Jump Start Your New Year

Jump Start New Year with Social Media

Ready for a jump start? The New Year always reminds us of new and fresh starts. It’s also a perfect time to evaluate the past year and decide what worked, what’s still working and what needs to go away. This is true not only with life, but also with our businesses. Since I focus on social media for entrepreneurs, employee-preneurs and small business owners, let’s talk about what you can do to jump start your New Year.

1 – Goals: Create and solidify your social media goals for the New Year. Do you want more followers, engagement, prospects, brand awareness, website traffic, etc.? Each goal has different tactics, so choose just a few to focus on.

2 – Profiles: Take a fresh look at all of your social media profiles. Is it time for a fresh profile or cover image? How about your bio and about sections? Canva.com and picmonkey.com are great resources to help you create new cover images. Plan to change your cover images at least quarterly.

3 – Analytics: Take a look at your insights for your Facebook Business Page. Also, if you use a tool like Hootsuite, plan to review other social platform analytics. Resolve for the New Year to take a quick look, even just once a week, and learn at least one thing from your content’s performance.

4 – Planning Tools: Planning social media across multiple platforms can be complicated. Start with a content (editorial) calendar and updating strategy. Schedule a weekly planning and scheduling session just like you would any other important appointment. Choose a tool like Hootsuite, Buffer or Social Sprout for pre-scheduling your posts.

5 – Evaluate Platforms: Are the current platforms working for you? Is your ideal client still using them? Are there new platforms that you should be considering? Spend some time researching changes to social media that may impact your business.

6 – Training: Do you need to brush-up on any social media skills with some training? Maybe it’s time to hire a coach to help you take it to the next level. Don’t go it alone — social media changes quickly and the tactics you used this past year may not be what you should be focus on for the New Year.

7 – Facebook Ads: If you are use Facebook for business, ads are critical for expanding your reach. Facebook is the largest marketing company in the world. You can target your ideal client for a relatively small budget (as little as $5 to $10 per day). Review your social media goals and determine your ad budget for the next few months.

8 – Save This Link on Facebook: When Facebook introduced the “save” function, many content marketers were excited (I know I love this feature).  However, remember to review the file at least weekly. You saved content for a reason, so a quick review can help you unearth a few hidden gems of content to share.

9 – Use Hashtags:  Hashtags are important because they help increase social media engagement with new users on most of the top social media platforms. Find relevant hashtags to your business/niche so you can reach your target audience.

10 – Plan On Being More Human: Authenticity and candor are what people are looking for. You can build “Know-Like-Trust” much quicker when people feel they can identify with you. Consider doing at least one weekly behind-the-scenes image or video post.

11- Don’t Ignore Video: Many of us hate to be in front of a camera or to be on film, but video is a strong way for people to get to know you. Add at least one video update per week.

So there you have it – a New Year and many new ways to engage with your friends, clients and prospects. Also a roadmap to jump start your social media. If this seems overwhelming, reach out to me and we can discuss a coaching or training program to help you take the New Year by storm.

Your Voicemail is an Extension of You & Your Business

How do you feel about voicemail greetings?  Lately these have become a pet peeve of mine.  You know what I’m talking about – the message you receive when you call someone and their voicemail kicks in.  If you are running a business – don’t you want to have everything that you do (the touches you make with your clients & prospects) come across as professional as possible?  Recently, I was sent to a voicemail that said this:  “at my earliest convenience I will call you back.”  How do you feel about that? It makes me feel like:  “when/if I deem it important enough to call you back, I will.”  I am assuming that what this person was really saying was: “as soon as I can, I’ll call you back”, but that wasn’t how it came across.

Ok, how about the one that sounds like the person is distracted or recording the message from a tunnel or while driving? It sounds something like (background noise) and “um, you have um, reached, um, ….” With lots of pauses and noise in between.  This also conveys a message about your professionalism and the message isn’t favorable.

Here is my voicemail greeting:  “You have reached, Vicki S. Cannon of Cannon Social Media Solutions.   I am unable to take your call at this time, so please leave your name, phone number & a brief message after the tone and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.  You may also email me at: (insert email address) or contact me via my website: www.cannonsocialmedia.com.  Thank you for calling.”

It only takes a few minutes to write something out and to record and re-record until the right message is given. This is still an extension of you and your business.  What kind of impression are you leaving? Does the impression match your business?

Physician offices are usually pretty good at leaving a detailed greeting that includes when you should expect a call back and the type of information you should leave on the message (for instance, date of birth).  I appreciate these greetings because I am not left in the dark about what they need and when I should hear back.

Have you recently started a business? Don’t forget this important extension of your brand.  Many people are quick to start a Facebook Page and/or Twitter Account, but forget what may be an important piece of communication.  Starting with: “Hi, this is Vicki. Leave me a message.” may not be professional enough.  Also, please smile when you record and have a little bit of energy. There is nothing worse than listening to Eeyore give you a greeting (even if you are a Winnie the Pooh fan).

One last thing, take the time to record your own message.  The pre-recorded: “you have reached the Mobile Carrier Mailbox for 555-555-5555…” is not good either.  It looks like you aren’t keeping up with the little details.

You may be asking: “what does this have to do with social media”?  Well, I believe that everything you do in-person or online is an extension of your personal and professional identity.  You never know if this is the first real contact someone is making with you.  Do you want to put any doubt in the mind of a potential or even current client about your professionalism?   Take a moment and listen to your voicemail greeting. Is it the right message? How would you feel after hearing the greeting? If you aren’t sure, ask someone else to listen to it. What is their impression?  The same is true with your Social Media sites. What kind of impression are you leaving every time you post? People are watching and listening all the time.

Ok, I’m off of my soapbox now.  Do you have any pet peeves on professionalism?

Excuse Me – Where Are Your Social Media Manners?

We’ve all had the social media friend or Facebook Page that has made us want to turn them off, right? You know the one where every post is about what they are trying to sell you. “BUY FROM ME, BUY FROM ME, BUY FROM ME!” If that is you, knock-it-off!

Social media is about being social. You wouldn’t sit down to a meal with someone and immediately ask them to buy from you, would you? The answer better be no!  We need to remember that when we are on social media sites, we are engaging in conversation. It is about building the know, like and trust so eventually the person may buy from you or at least be a good referral source.

In my training class this week I am sharing 12 tips on social media etiquette. I could probably make the list 3 times larger, but since it’s a busy month I will keep it short.

12 Tips on Social Media Etiquette:

1. Use your real name. People like to engage with real people.

2. Use a current headshot of YOU (not your child, husband, dog, niece, etc.).  As author & blogger Chris Brogan says in his 2011 blog: An Insider’s Guide to Social Media Etiquette, “It feels creepy friending a four year old kid (avatar).”

Also, on another note about having a picture: I don’t follow anyone that doesn’t have a picture. I don’t trust that the person is real &/or question if it is a spammer/phisher trying to gain access to me, my computer and my network. Remember, people like to connect with people, so put a good quality headshot of you on your profile.

3. Set your privacy settings to control who can tag you. Facebook offers the opportunity for you to review any post that you are tagged in before it appearing on your timeline.

4. You are not obligated to friend or connect with anyone. In fact, it is a great idea to use some discernment here. If you keep your personal and professional life separate, send a message to the person asking for the connection and tell them that you prefer to connect with clients in a different way on LinkedIn and/or your Facebook Page.

5. When asking to make a connection, don’t use the default settings (for instance on LinkedIn). Include a personal note with the request that may include where you met the person, who you are, and why you wish to connect with them.

6. Be authentic.

7. Listen first and then join the conversation. Be sure you are always adding value.

8. Never spam. Ever.

9. Don’t repeat the same post on ever network within a 10-minute span. Change it up a bit and spread it out.

10.  Instead of selling, why not share with your followers why they should buy from you; what other followers got from buying from you; or some other relational fact.

11. Promote others.

12. Modesty is a beautiful thing. Don’t retweet and share every nice thing someone says about you and/or your company. Thank the person for the testimonial and leave it at that.

Your CANnon Do® for this week is to find a way to unselfishly promote someone else.

What other social media etiquette tips do you have?

Squirrel – How to Resist the Shiny Object Syndrome of Social Media: 5 Questions To Ask Before Adding Or Jumping To A New Social Media Site

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Digg, Delicious, Tumblr, WordPress, Instagram, flickr, Pinterest, Google+, MySpace, LittleMonsters…the names go on and on and will continue to grow from year to year.  How do you have an effective social media marketing plan and still keep up?

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The Beginning

Blogging.  If you’ve been following social media marketing the past few years, you hear & read about how important blogging is to your online presence.  I’ve discussed it many times with my clients, but have avoided it myself (the old method of – do as I say, not as I do!).

Here are some of my hang-ups with getting started:  What do I call the blog?  What do I write about?  What if I am boring? What if I can’t really write? Will I have time?  Who will follow?…  Sound familiar for those of you procrastinating about blogging?  These are not very good excuses for someone who tells her clients of the importance of this platform in their social media marketing plan.

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