Set Your Social Media on Fire!

Set your social media on fire
Set your social media on fire

UPDATED social media stats as of 2019.

The number of social media users increased by 176 million in one year according to an article at Social Media Today. Kadie Regan, Social Media Executive for iSocialUK, says “it has become clear that social media really is #TheFutureOfMarketing.” In addition to a website and traditional marketing, solopreneurs and small businesses need to build a strong brand using focused social media and content marketing strategies.

It can be overwhelming to manage your social media marketing while starting and growing a business. It takes a lot of time and effort. If you choose to focus your time on your business, you may want to invest in having someone manage your social media marketing.

Here are some of the strategies we at Ausoma implement to set social media platforms on fire:

  • Make quality connections.  Susan Gunelius, CEO of KeySplash Creative Inc. in an Entrepreneur article states, “It’s better to have 1,000 online connections who read, share and talk about your content with their own audiences than 10,000 connections who disappear after connecting with you the first time.” Focus on connections with people who are specifically interested in your message.
  • Consistently deliver content using systems. Consistent posting is vital. If you don’t share anything for a week or a month, your audience may stop following you altogether. We follow John Lee Dumas’ advice: “One of the best ways to grow your following and increase engagement on social media is to be there consistently. The first step is to put the right systems in place to keep your posts relevant, interesting and valuable for your audience.” Our team has specific processes they follow to ensure that valuable messages go out to your audience on a regular, consistent schedule.
  • Create and implement content marketing strategies. We analyze drafted blog posts and ensure they each have appropriate images and SEO, including titles, keywords, and descriptions. We create several messages for each post and push them out on all social networks over an extended period of time.
  • Share content from other sources. If you want your audience to share your content, you need to share from other sources also. We monitor our client’s social media accounts, regularly share and retweet relevant content published by others, and thank followers when they share and retweet.
  • Create a consistent appearance and descriptions across all networks.
  • Track your results and adjust strategies. Keep track of how many connections you have on each network and how many website visits come from social media links. Determine which networks drive the most traffic to your website and adjust strategies as needed. If you are outsourcing your social media marketing, ask your team to provide a monthly analytics report tracking the increase in website hits and social media connections and has a monthly phone call with each client to discuss adjusting strategies.

It takes time and effort to regularly and consistently create the quality content and personal touch of a top-notch social media presence.

The Top 3 Benefits of Social Media Marketing

top 3 benefits of social media marketingAccording to the 2014 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, the top 3 benefits of social media marketing are:

  1. increased exposure
  2. increased traffic
  3. developed loyal fans

Of course in order to determine if your social media marketing is resulting in these benefits, you’ll need to create a way to track these three areas. As part of our service to clients, we create a monthly report tracking website traffic and social media network growth and interaction.

 

What Are Your Social Media Objectives?

What are your social media objectives?You want to have specific objectives when using social media. Knowing your objectives helps you create the most effective strategies in your social media marketing.

Objectives Using Social Media May Be:

  • Find new clients
  • Promote your business
  • Increase website traffic
  • Grow your professional network
  • Find a job

Once you’ve determined your objections, you can reach out and connect with others that may be able to help you reach those objectives.

Who Should You Send Connection Requests to?

  • People you work with now and those you’ve worked with in the past
  • Partners
  • Clients
  • Association members
  • Networking contacts
  • Classmates, friends and family

Another way to reach your objectives is to join groups in your social media networks and participate in discussions.

What Groups Should I Join?

You are allowed to join up to 50 groups on LinkedIn. You could join local groups, industry groups, and professional association groups. To minimize the number of emails you get from LinkedIn, turn off daily notifications. If you are a member of many groups, you may even turn off the weekly notifications. Instead plan some time to go to LinkedIn weekly and review your group discussions.  Participate in the group discussions most relevant to your objectives.

On Google+ you may join Communities within your industry. Your goal is to add value to these communities and connect with people who can help you reach your social media objectives. Facebook also has groups you can join.

Be sure that what you share, including messages and status updates, is in line with your specific social media objective.

Q&A: How Can I Market My Business?

How Can I Market My Business?Marketing a business is a huge topic. Today we will address a specific concern one virtual assistant has.

Question:
I ran a VA business from 2007-2009. As much as I loved it, I found that I was having to spend a large percentage of my time marketing my business. I would like to start up again, but what alternatives should I consider besides doing my own marketing?

Answer:
To give the best answer, I first asked some additional questions.

  • What percentage of time did you use to market your business?
  • What marketing strategies did you use?
  • Would you be open to having someone else do your marketing and if so, how would you envision that?

The virtual assistant stated she spent at least 50% of her time marketing her business. Now that may seem like a lot. However, I did a bit of research and found several entrepreneurs who encourage spending at least 60% of your time marketing. I do know that if I’m working 20 hours a week for clients, I’m spending an additional 10 hours or so marketing my business. So the amount of time seems right.

What we sometimes forget is that we are entrepreneurs and business owners. That means usually we are the one person doing it all: sales, marketing, client work, administrative work. And that takes time. If we don’t want to spend the time doing the marketing, we have two choices:

  1. Hire someone as our marketing person
  2. Find a J.O.B. – because a business owner must market their services and products in order to succeed

Some marketing strategies that are very effective are in-person events such as SBA events, BNI meetings, professional associations. Then there’s online marketing: a blog, social networking sites, ezines, press releases. Yes, these all take time. That’s why it’s important to put together a simple marketing plan and calendar and schedule these events and actions. Our Action Guide has a sample marketing plan and calendar with details on how to put them into action.  Having a plan helps you make sure you’re using strategies that are most effective and less-time consuming than just haphazardly posting something on a social network every day.

Joining local small business groups and attending monthly mixers are effective marketing strategies. Get to know the people, what their needs are, how you can refer them to others. It’s important to build relationships with these people before you ever try to “sell” them your services. There’s a whole section in our book, The Commonsense Virtual Assistant – Becoming an Entrepreneur, Not an Employee, that has lots of great information on marketing. You can purchase a copy on the website.

The Commonsense Virtual Assistant
The Commonsense Virtual Assistant

I believe doing your own marketing is most effective. However, hiring someone to market your services for you is also a viable option. After all, isn’t that what many of our clients hire us to do for them? You can hire someone to help promote your services – online, via mailings, follow-up phone calls, and even by attending in-person events.

Another great marketing strategy is article writing. It establishes you as an expert and always links back to your website. Check out my articles at Ezine Articles.

You can read more about proactive marketing at another blog post of mine.

I’d love to hear your comments!

Writing Your Business Plan for 2010 to Increase Productivity

It’s time to start thinking about the New Year. Are you just starting out in business or have you been in business a while? Either way, each year you should consider writing a new business plan.

Your business plan does not need to be lengthy and complicated. It should include specific goals, strategies and actions you can implement on a daily basis. Having a written business plan with specific daily actions can increase your productivity and grow your business.