Pursuit Of The Idea

Can you sit down and actually bring those ideas into production? That's the skill to build.




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Are you lousy at self promotion too? 



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Developing A Social Media Strategy

Update: Good strategy doesn't change just because other things in the environment change. A good social media strategy will be flexible, dynamic and fit new information into the responding appropriately as the context changes. For example, as smartphones and tablets become the favourite way to view content online, this needs to be incorporated into the strategy.


A question this week on Quora was a good one and one that deserves some attention from us all, in conducting our business activities. Here's my response.

"My company is a B2B company and we are trying to come up with a strategy around social media. I find it tough to figure out what to include and what to avoid. Are there any factors I should take in to consideration while devising a strategy?" 

I would suggest you start with a clear understanding of the social media environment and a well defined purpose (and expectation) that is realistic and achievable in the first instance.

For those who want to use social media, and those who vehemently don't want to - they need to understand enough to make an informed choice either way and to deal with the consequences of that choice. Whether one is 'using social media' or not they can be the subject of discussion on social media and managing one's reputation online is just one element of this new world.

Basics

Get these right the first time. Know what kind of Facebook page is the wrong kind to use for business. Use the right kind. Don't set up a Twitter page then fail to keep updated regularly.

Remember Your Website!

Make sure your website is optimized for search - and for the people who
will use it! - Most that I see are very poor - on both counts. (Never
mind they may have cost a lot of money from an expensive web designer).

Never, never let a stranger be in control of your business online. Get informed and get interested.


Not Just What, But How

It is important to understand the etiquette of online interaction and also the ways to leverage time and effort without putting those to whom we are connected offside. (Easy to do!)

Putting up a Facebook or Twitter Page ( and with the correct configuration and naming protocols) all need to be considered and that is just the beginning, the strategy behind this needs to support the objectives and while platforms are free to use there is always a cost in time and resources and budget need to be allocated for this purpose. Expect this and include it in your plan.


Social Media Policy

Some things to consider on creating a social media strategy:

Your social media policy - needs to be fair, realistic and training done with employees so that everyone is clear. Also needs to be in line with employment legistation so that you are not overstepping and writing in clauses that you have no right to demand. Suggest your policy begin with an intention to be open to the opportunities of social media, as well as the potential downside.

Hoary Old Myths

On the matter of Control - some employers think they can dictate all manner of things to employees and restrict their access to social media during work hours and this will keep them in control of their staff members. This is quite a silly assumption. Firstly, because you have no control now, secondly, because such an environment may just guarantee that good candidates won't want to work for you. Lastly - they can access anything they wish to via their smartphones and a combative attitude is not going to deliver a harmonious outcome that leverages the best available opportunities that new media can deliver.

Your Social Media Stategy:

• A social media policy
• A Clearly articulated purpose and vision
• Select appropriate platforms
• Allocate a budget
• Who will manage it?
• Time and resources that need to be allocated
• Which KPIs you are going to measure
• How you will measure your results
• How you will manage (an enhance) your reputation online
• How you will integrate your social media with your conventional marketing
• How thoroughly your social media activities should permeate throughout the operations of the business (Which department will handle this? Will all departments be involved?)
• Ways you can adapt social media to help you improve how customers interact with the business
• Ways that you can use social media to improve communications within the business and strengthen the team
• Managing and monitoring the plan
• Reporting - how often in what way
• Integrating platforms to allow transfer of content seamlessly, but in a regulated way (not spamming)
• Understanding that social media is not a broadcast medium! It can't be all just about YOU!
• Design for the type and quality of the content to be delivered by social media
• Who will create the content?
• What amount of content should be (can be) generated and by what frequency?
• Modes of content that can be made available - articles, blogs, ebooks, video, podcasts etc
• Integration with website

Engagement

People follow people so it is important to remember that there needs to be engagement and if multiple people contributing to the social media for the company, there is merit in these being tagged to the individual who is posting at any time. Be interesting. Be interested.


Not Just For Christmas

There is often a thought that a social media strategy is a one-off, trial kind of activity that we do. It is not set and forget and it not even a funky thing to do any more. It is become expected. If you are not visible online, for an increasing many, you just don't exist. So get accustomed to this being a new marketplace. Devise a plan that brings your existing customers along with you and if you are really smart - introduce them to those who can help you help them develop their own online presence. This is where the magic is, and this is where most fail to connect the dots.


See Also:
Check Your Website For Roadworthiness

Think Social Media Is No Use For Your Business? Think Again.

How To Get Your Local Business Noticed Online

Purpose Then Strategy - Case Study Starting Your Website


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Tying Shoe Laces Masterclass

Things are easy when you know how - but sometimes it can be tricky to get to the stage where we are able to do things automatically.

When you have children you discover there are quite a few things that present some new experiences which can take a while to be mastered. Tying shoe laces is one. Now you don't want your kids growing up to be adults who are forced into confining their footwear to just velcro fasteners or slip-on loafers so here are some ideas to help you help them get started on the right foot.

Both of these videos share a common element. They help address that issue of keeping the loops available while the rest of the process is undertaken.

This first video makes the role of the loops prominent... a good start. Maybe you can improvise something for holding the loops in place.



This second video is a bit more basic but does the job.


Test them out. These are two different strategies to accomplish the same end result.
How does your strategy that you've been using for this compare?

Action:

The real take-away lesson from this is that there are all kinds of strategies that people use for doing common tasks. Sometimes we have a great strategy that works a treat. If you have one of those for something, share it. But if you have been using strategies that aren't working so well for some things, it is great to know that you just need to find a better strategy. Maybe one that someone else might be using already, and try that. See if that gives you better results and know that you can get better at doing most anything, if you find a good strategy to use.

What's something that you wish you could do better or more elegantly?

Test yourself out and see how you can use a new strategy to master that skill at last.

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Like to discuss your business? Lindy Asimus Design Business Engineering Get Help For Your Business Download your free 24 Page Action Plan Marketing Workbook! Subscribe to Actionbites Blog

Your Business Media Hub

Did you know that the internet opens up your big chance for every business - whether you run a large corporations or a family business on Main Street, Anywhere, to present your business to customers wherever they be, either around the world or across the street if you sell to local customers.

You don't need a huge budget. You don't need a special degree. You don't even need to buy special tools. You just need to have an open mind and an attitude that puts the interests of the business over any personal inhibitions that you may have.

You do need to apply some resources to build your very own media hub.

You can add good content (information) to the internet by a range of means. First is your website. Then your social media platforms. This may be Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, YouTube, and many others. You may use all of these or just some of these, depending on the type of business you conduct.

No matter if you are a B2B business, or a B2C business. The way you carry out your strategy may differ but the basic way to develop your own businesses public relations, news desk, customer contact point, and information service for your business remains the same.

Now isn't that exciting!



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The Story Your Business Has To Tell

Yes even the most 'boring' company has a story to tell, and online is the place to tell it.

Business owners often confuse what they sell with the limit of what there is to say about their  business. That's not true but it is widely held as a belief.

The issue is not one of a business that has no story it is an issue of a lack of a creative approach to seeing the business as a customer might, and taking for granted those things that the business owner knows so well, but customers don't know.

You can't get much more boring than flour. Right?

Here's what one flour producer managed to make of their story.


What's your story?

Understanding your story is great for developing interesting marketing to capture the essence of what you do and what customer love about your business. But the secondary benefit is sometimes the main benefit. Understanding the story you have to tell, lets you understand who you want to know your story and who will care about it. This is a marker for a great customer. And getting great customers and keeping them happy is what business is all about. Whether that is online or in the street.

How can you develop your story and integrate this with your operations and marketing?

Now this is simple, but that doesn't mean it is easy. You might need some help and that's okay too.

What will you do today to make a start?

 
 Related
Develop A Strategy For Social Marketing
Check Your Website For Roadworthiness
Think Social Media Is No Use For Your Business? Think Again.
How To Get Your Local Business Noticed Online
Purpose Then Strategy - Case Study Starting Your Website
  Quick And Dirty Business Review


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Like to discuss your business? Lindy Asimus Design Business Engineering Get Help For Your Business Download your free 24 Page Action Plan Marketing Workbook! Subscribe to Actionbites Blog

Great Question!

Out of the blue today I found myself in the middle of someone else's blog. Paul Hassing writes a very nice blog over on MYOB and today the topic was on interview questions. You'll find that here .

Questions are funny things. Not all questions are equal when it comes to getting down to the nuts and bolts of why you asked the question in the first place!

So what makes a good question?

The first place to go when you want a good question to ask someone else - is yourself. What purpose is there in asking the question? What is it that you really want to know? What's important about this question? What will knowing the answer give you?

Critique Your Own Questions

• What is the purpose of the questions I will ask at this interview?
• What precisely am I looking to understand by asking these questions?
• Does this question align with that purpose?
• Does this question have a trap set in it?
• Will this question put my candidate in a position where they have to guess what I want and just tell me what I want to hear?
• Is there a better way to ask this question?
• Is there a different question that would be more useful?
• I really need to know the answer to this question because... (insert answer)
• What's my objective means of measuring the responses to the questions that I ask?

How we ask questions and the quality of our questions is just one aspect. The next hurdle is in interpreting the answers that we receive.

When you ask questions that are not concrete with measurable, quantifiable, or verifiable answers then you are out in no-man's land without a compass. You have to translate that answer into something that is meaningful for you and that can leave a wide gap between what the person meant when they responded and what you thought they meant when you heard it.



Facebook Foolish

Which brings me to another issue that is more and more a factor in hiring and that is checking Facebook and social media platforms. In the same way, the information that may surface (leaving aside legalities and ethics) is subject to interpretation. Not everything that you see online is real or true and not every situation that looks bad on social platform, tells you anything about the ability of that person to show up and perform  in an excellent manner in the specific role for which they have applied.

Indeed, the worry is that many who are vetting the sites for this information may have little or no experience of the online environment and no knowledge of how to reasonably make judgment about work suitability or competency, based on irrelevant information from a completely different non working environment.

Over time we have been reminded that 'we don't know what we don't know'. Just as tricky, is separating what we assume we know, from what we just think we know.

Ask yourself if you really have done enough to know your questions are the best ones to get you the information you want to know and that this is information that you also need to know.  Make sure you are not asking a bunch of questions that don't further your purpose while failing to ask the questions that really do matter.

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Like to discuss your business? Lindy Asimus Design Business Engineering Get Help For Your Business Download your free 24 Page Action Plan Marketing Workbook! Subscribe to Actionbites Blog

What A Business Should Know About Social Media

"What should I know about social media marketing and Facebook and Twitter and all that?"

This is a great question! Unfortunately nobody asks it so I am putting it out there.

This is a great question because it starts at the beginning. Many times businesses have already put a website up on the web, maybe they have paddled around on Facebook and started to build their Friend list thinking that this is social marketing ... but not asked this question.

Basic Components For Getting Found Online

Website

It comes to many as a bit of a surprise that a website is a part of social media marketing for local business. I have to say ths seems to be a secret that many "Gurus" don't know either.

The sad reality is that most websites don't work very well.
And there are many things that can be adjusted slightly to make them work
better, without the need for a new website. Indeed, I've seen businesses
replace a website that wasn't effective with a new fancy website with all
the bells and whistles ... that is still not going to be effective.

It may be pretty - and still be useless.

An attractive website is a good thing, and you want your website to be attractive and show your business in a good light. But if nobody finds it, you've done your dough.  If people find it and there is nothing there for them to see that you really know what you're on about then you've wasted that chance to convert their click to your site to a sale.

"Whatever Google Wants ... Google Gets"
Search and how websites are selected by search engines is changing all the time. One constant that you can rely on is this. Google will  always want to see

1) Fresh content
2) Quality Content that is relevant for visitors searching for that topic.

This will never go out of fashion.

Your content needs to be verified that it is yours and original and that what it says was worth saying.

What is content?
Content is articles, blogs, images with good tagging, online discussions and more.

By integrating your effective website with your social media platforms you have the best chance of being found. In search engines - and in the local chit chat that happens online when people are looking for recommendations.

Customers look online now when they want to know about something. As a business owner your job is to give your business the best chance of owning your category in your local market. That means getting your act together and making sure your business is there where it counts.

Facebook
Facebook is not for every business and yet really there are few that can't benefit by having a presence on Facebook and building a local network.  I could probably think of a few but then I could probably give you a very good reason why even those businesses may find it useful. Sometimes those reasons are not obvious to the business owner.

Keep in mind Facebook's agenda is to build Facebook - not your business. You are renting a space there and paying with your time and you do not own that space. You can be evicted any time so remember to spend time on your website and keep that in good order and incorporate your social media profiles with your own property that is your website.

If Facebook goes belly-up - You don't.

Twitter
Twitter can be a great platform to use and you need to understand what it is - and what it isn't. For meeting new people in your local area it can be fantastic and a great way to keep in touch in a casual and sharing way.

Linkedin
For those business owners who think they are too Fine for being on Facebook, Linkedin could be your place of preference. Linkedin is not for pushing out ads it is for many things and connecting to people of influence that you want to meet is just one of them. There are many ways that Linkedin can be used. First and foremost ensure that you have completed your profile and that you look like you know what you are doing. This is where you establish your professional bona fides and this is critical as the first step. While there are many things you can do with Linkedin you need to look the part first. And never, NEVER use Linkedin to spammy sales letters to people in your network!

Blogging
For some the idea of blogging is just such a weird idea that it is beyond comprehension and impossible to consider doing. Well get over it, your blog is your key to keeping your website fresh and the quality content added regularly. Before you start you need to plan what kind of information and content you can use it for. You will be amazed at how much you can do with this blog and once you get into the swing of it, will wonder what you ever did before you had your business blog. This is the key to managing your business information that you want customers to know and to being able to post quality information to your social platforms. Without a blog - what are you going to post? What you had for breakfast? No seriously, nobody with any sense posts that kind of thing to social platforms.

The beauty of the blog for you is that you can package your expertise and reuse that in many different places and contexts. This is what I like to think of as Radical Laziness. Write it once - get to use it over and over. Also sometimes called Increased Productivity.

Your Traditional Marketing
Guess what? This is part of your social marketing too.
When you have a marketing strategy that works, your existing marketing will be aligned with what you are doing online and each of these will support and complement your business.

It's a wild ride but fun too.

And seeing your business become better-known in your market of choice is a great thing to know.

 Related
Develop A Strategy For Social Marketing
Check Your Website For Roadworthiness
Think Social Media Is No Use For Your Business? Think Again.
How To Get Your Local Business Noticed Online
Purpose Then Strategy - Case Study Starting Your Website
  Quick And Dirty Business Review





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