The Marketing Magazine For Smart Businesse
I’m going to share with you how I used Twitter to go from a well-paying government day job to a far more rewarding full-time career as an author of science fiction/fantasy and thriller novels. When I started I had no experience with marketing or publishing. You don’t have to be Wile E. Coyote, Supergenius to use Twitter to move your business forward. But it takes time, perseverance, some tools, and an unwavering focus on other people.
You have a Facebook business page, and now every day, along with making sure the phone calls get made and the to-do items get crossed off the list, you’ve got to figure out what to put in that horrible empty status box. Fear not, faithful Facebooker! There are strategies you can use to engage even the most reticent fans. Here are five you can try for yourself.
What makes social media different from other marketing is its potential for robust engagement. Therein lies the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of social media. Once upon a time we’d converse with or respond to customers and prospects on the occasion that they specifically contacted us with a question, comment or complaint. But social [...]
A Facebook landing page can increase the chances that someone will like your company’s fan page by 50%. When you combine sound strategy with valuable content and the right aesthetic, you’ll have a powerful marketing tool. When you don’t, you run the risk of creating a bad first impression – and you know what they say about first impressions.
I was flipping through a local publication that comes free to residential households in my town. It’s got color stories interspersed by advertising for local businesses. As I flipped, I noticed that many of the businesses had Facebook icons in their ads but no actual Facebook address. And so I counted. Out of 40 ads with a Facebook icon, exactly 5 listed their actual Facebook address beside it. Only 12% of businesses in my local area thought to let people know where to find them online.
Every time Facebook sneezes, the entire Web ecosystem bursts into flames. Everyone laments the end of privacy, whines, complains, and then goes back to using Facebook. The fact is that we, as people, hate change. Facebook knows this and doesn’t care, because Facebook also knows that we, as people, adapt to change.
Once upon a time it was novel and awesome if you had a website for your business. Now, you’re an anomaly if you don’t. Say you don’t have a website and people look at you like you’ve switched into some foreign and ancient dialect they don’t understand. Then time went by and Facebook came along.
We all know that the Anthony Weiner “hack” was not a hack but just another politician pulling off the scandal du jour. But it’s worth tackling the issue of privacy and security anyway, because it’s huge. And everywhere. And never in a good way.
When my friends at Rahvalor asked me to write a guest blog for their site I began to think about the common thread between my company, Defined Logic, and Rahvalor for a topic. “How to best market your business using social networking” was an obvious answer but the question remained: strategy.
As pervasive as Facebook and Twitter are, it’s not always easy to sell a small business on the idea that social marketing is for them. Lots of business owners will admit they “need to figure out this Facebook thing” but not all are convinced that it’s important. A lot of small business owners see Facebook as a fad and Twitter as the “anti-social” social media.
