Leverage your social media. In Business, it all comes down to “leverage” within your Social Media setups. You see, without it, we are merely talking to people and sharing ideas but it wouldn’t go farther than a few people.
I remember the days before true Social Media networking, when people would email out a funny(or not funny) joke or a great article and it would go as far as it could reach depending on who sent it to who (My father would send me at least 10 emails a day with something he found interesting). With social media, we can leverage that process through the platforms we use today and post a great article/video /call-to-action/quote, and the possibilities are endless on how far something can be shared and liked around the globe. It’s truly amazing to see where people are from when they re-tweet or like or share something I post.
In business, we need to embrace the fact that social media is now an integral part of our Marketing plan. It must be used on almost everything we do in order to get the most people to see what we want to show them. See, in business, we are always looking on increasing our profits (or in some cases, just making a profit). That is why we are in business. So it makes sense that when we post things on Facebook, pin on Pinterest, post on Linkedin groups and tweet about our latest widget, we are looking for a return-on-investment (ROI) for the time we put into it.
To leverage social media, you need to post content and links that people who will follow you will find interesting. The more the people that find it worth their time (in terms of being interesting, compelling, funny, serious), the more you will get shared/liked. By being shared, liked, tweeted, pinned, the content you post now gets put your content DIRECTLY into that sharing person’s Timeline. The benefit is that now all of their friends/followers will see that Share.
This is the power of leveraging the internet. Getting people to do the footwork for you. The more it’s shared, the more eyes on your content, the more chances of converting them into prospects. It’s a win-win (I can spend all day on how to convert people – that is for another article) and that is the start to move people towards the sale and seeing a ROI on your postings.
This is where is comes down to getting people to like/share your pages. How to do that, exactly you ask? At the moment, there are 2 things that get the most traction on social sharing/networking sites are:
1. Be Visual. Posts/pin/tweets with Images or Videos in them. We are visual creatures and our eyes naturally go to images. That is why Pinterest and Instagram as so big. So make sure when posting to add in an image or a video if none are present so that it will catch attention.
2. Asking good questions. A good question can go very far. Ask a question that you want people to answer either about your product or service or in the field that you are an expert. This will provide you with some Credibility, when comment on other people’s posts and comments.
I hope these two ideas and the concept of leverage sparks some great ideas for your Business!
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Social media is a great tool to use in order to communicate with people that already follow you and to help find prospective consumers of your product or service. With the help of Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and more, there are many ways you can grow your business and reach a new unexplored consumer base. Social media gives you multiple platforms that expose you directly to the consumer and enables them to give you valuable information regarding your product or service. In order to be successful in today’s business environment, you must have a presence on social media. That’s a given. However, in order to assure consistency throughout all social media platforms, it is very important (even crucial) to have all your social media accounts leading back to one place. I called it the “Hub”.
Think of an airport. All the flights fly into one place however they all originally started from another location. This “hub” could be your Blog, your Company website, or whatever you fancy, but it should be where all your traffic merges. You may be bringing people back to your site to read a new article or discuss a new service or product or it may be showing people pictures of your services/products. Whatever it is, the end game is to always bring people back to this main “Hub”. By doing this consistently, people will start remembering your brand better as they get repeated exposure to it, what you do, and why they should be using you over everyone else. By keeping it simple, all of the main material on one site, you won’t split the attention of your prospects.
As an example, if you posted a new article that discusses a topic in your Business, it is best to have it on your Company blog. That way, you can use Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and the other social platforms independently to drive those followers/friends back to one location to funnel the traffic to where you want them to be… on your site. It is also a great way to build up links back to your site and demonstrate social proof to the search engines (yes that is becoming a major factor in ranking) that your site pages should be ranked better. (Just a side note, when people land on your site, it should ideally be with some call-to-action such as Subscribe to my newsletter, Buy Now, Follow me, as you will get the most traction and more subscribers in your list by doing so).
Having one hub for your business will make it easier for you to find and develop relationships with prospective clients that are interested in your product or service as you will always be adding to your site and those that have visited before, could also return for each posting. Another side effect is that it will also help with search engine optimization using the newer part of their ranking algorithim for social proof.
If used properly, social media platforms can add so much to your business by having one central Hub. Your one Hub will help brand your Company more effectively online and allow people to automatically identify your brand to a certain product, service or post.
Are you already using your website as the “hub” of your Social Media marketing?
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LinkedIn, the Business Social Media Platform, is a social media monster on the rise again. Often I find people I work with don’t have a LinkedIn profile or very basic as they feel it’s only for people looking for a job. But it is a lot more than that…. and has been for a while. I started using LinkedIn back in 2005 and it’s gone through many changes. All for the better and maybe this is why people feel it is best used looking for a Job as you may not know the potential of it.
LinkedIn is often the misjudged Social Platform of the bunch. But it shouldn’t be. Here is why:
With new changes that took place in the past year, this profitable media monster has taken over a large portion of the business world looking to grow and expand their customer base as well as connect with others in the same niches of the business world.
With this network, you can reach people who actually can make your business money and vice versa. Reach up to 160+ million others who are on the site to do business and learn more about how to do business better. Now that’s not the same as Facebook however people on LinkedIn are business-minded people, who generally have money and can, if positioned right, spend money with your Business.
There are great features you can use that do not exist at the same level as they do on LinkedIn. For example, you can create specific interest groups on LinkedIn that pertain to your genre of business. You can use this group to drive traffic to your website and gain a ton of members. It is very possible to get thousands of people to join a specific business network. The best part is you can do more with it than just having “Likes” as done on other type of media.
You can also host events and webinars for your group to keep people interested and they will network with each other as well. You actually create your very own network which is relatively unique in social media. You can even do one on one counseling and mentoring on LinkedIn through your business page.
Unlike other platforms, with LinkedIn, people can actually see how other professionals feel about you and your Business through your Endorsements, Skillsets and Recommendations. Once you have a personal profile, you can also create a separate page for your company which you can grow exponentially by putting out good content and keeping people engaged, by talking to them, helping them and answering questions.
It’s worth working on your profile as well as having a business page for a lot or reasons. You can get a lot of feedback from actual customers. This is invaluable if you use the information to your advantage. You can earn business from some new people by growing your network and trying new things that you are learning from customers. It may also be a great tool for you to meet other professionals that you can network with and even learn some new things from too.
To sum it all up, don’t let LinkedIn be social platform you use when the moons align. If you are a professional business owner or Entrepreneur or working your way up through a Company, you really should be using LinkedIn on a regular basis to find new contacts, connect with others, post about your skills, share your skills, etc. It’s truly where the professionals with money are.
Come connect with me on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/winstonbromley and if you want to find out more about learning about using LinkedIn correctly, contact me
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In this quick Pinterest for Business training video, I walk you through how to setup or Convert your Pinterest account to a Pinterest Business Account.
Pinterest recently created even more buzz to their Platform by launching the Pinterest Business Accounts. At the moment, the difference between the two types of account at the moment has only a few important things (including the Terms and conditions and a great categorization feature – such as Celebrity, Local business, etc.) HOWEVER if you are a business on Pinterest, you should be moving over to the Business Accounts as Pinterest has hinted at adding in more resources (can someone hope to say “Buy IT”) to help businesses succeed on the Pinterest Platform.
With Social Media being integrated into everything from TV shows to businesses, some may see it as a great tool that people have learned to utilize to better their business and personal lives, while other see it as the bane of existence, something that is only cluttering up our internet waves and depriving kids of exercise. Whatever you feel it may be, there is definitely no stopping it now. Many people have found that having an online presence on any one of the most popular websites of today such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and even Instagram have helped them build a long list of social or business contacts. Each platform fulfills a need. These are the building blocks of what social networking is all about.
As someone who helps coach and train business owners leverage social media, I am going to share why social proof is so important to building a product, brand, or business these days… and without it you aren’t going to be able to leverage yourself that well.
Here it is in just 6 words:
“People like what other people like”
In the online world, Social Proof is really just something that we share or see others engaging in or sharing, feel it is something worth checking out because other people are into it, see that others like it, and that helps us to confirm our choice. It’s human nature. A little bit of Darwinian Internet Selection if you will.
It’s the reason Justin Beiber is famous and Lady Gaga has world tours. Alone, these people would be a pre-teen who came too late on the boy-band train and a talented girl with an interesting fashion sense, but because they had a niche that someone liked, people began to flock to it in droves. Thanks to Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and social sharing, we have the behemoths that are these celebrities.
In business, getting the social proof such as the number of Facebook likes, Google’s +1, and Twitter followers and Re-Tweets is a matter of building up a network around the brand or product, and spreading the word about it. To do it smart, you must leverage yourself with tools to speed up the process.
As you see above in my article right below the title, with the social sharing buttons, as people like this, re-tweet it or pin it (which you can do as well when done here 😉 ), what it does is build up a credibility about this particular Article to others, that give it more of a credibility and makes it worth reading (more people that read it, it must be good right? – not always the case but stick with me here)
As a business, you need to ask your clients, friends, people on your email newsletter list and customers to like, pin, share your website links and your content. And you need to make it EASY for them. As humans, we like things that are SIMPLE so make sure your site has Social share buttons on them as mine do or hold a contest.
The best part of this Social Proof, in my mind, is being able to leverage yourself and business. If Dan likes this article, and presses LIKE on the Facebook Button, it goes into his Facebook Timeline where the people that follow Dan will see. This usually results in more people reading it and helps to build the social proof that this Article is worth reading.
Now, the down side, it may seem like it is an easy thing to do, however it require some convincing to getting people to go out of their way to Like or Re-Tweet something for you, if they don’t already like and trust you. However this can easily be fixed with great fresh content. Great Fresh Content is number one in building up your Social Proof. Reviews, ratings, viral videos, and interesting stories and images. These can all can help — It’s about getting more people involved that is really the key.
People like what other people like – so build up YOUR Social Proof today so you can build your Business online AND offline.
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Pinterest has finally created Secret Boards! This is a great thing for the Pinterest Platform.
The benefit to businesses is that these Secret boards can only be seen by the people you invite to them so you can collaborate on these boards as a team and keep the details private, such as new client images, or social media strategy articles or even Event ideas for your get-togethers..
My favourite thing for these Secret Boards is that you can create Client Boards for each Client (You get 3 secret boards from Pinterest. So use them wisely!). This way you can then assign the Client to contribute to the board and you can share ideas back and forth visually.
Watch the Pinterest Tip video above for how to set up your own Secret Board.
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Enjoyed this post? If so, please share on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to let your friends know about it. Your help spreading the word would be really appreciated.
Leverage your social media. In Business, it all comes down to “leverage” within your Social Media setups. You see, without it, we are merely talking to people and sharing ideas but it wouldn’t go farther than a few people.
