You are here: Home / Archives for Small Business Marketing

Digital and Social Media Holiday Greetings Rolling In

December 17, 2009 By Leave a Comment

One of the things that might take a hit this year is the retail store holiday card industry.  With so many options to iceagetrailvolunteerconnect with people via anything but paper (email and social media), I expect to see some very creative online ideas.

Its not just the sending of cards either.  Consulting firm Deloitte estimates that 17% of consumers would use social media during their holiday shopping to compare or shop for gifts. How do you plan to send your greetings or shop this year?

What did you get?

My first e-card was just received for 2009 Holiday season.  It was from one of my favorite volunteer groups – the Ice Age Trail. If you are looking for a way to increase your activity in 2010, get outdoors more, and enjoy wonderful Wisconsin scenery, I suggest you consider joining and contributing time and funds.

I have also gotten a creative animated card from the Dane County YMCA Lodi Branch . They used  JibJab that was an absolute hoot since you add the faces of people to the animated dancers.  And of course its free.

If you are looking for a more substantial gift I love Amazon for widgets for building a wishlists  for yourself that lets others get exactly the education gift you are looking for.  On my book wishlist are Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel, and the latest LinkedIn book Rock the World with Your Online Profile by Mike O’Neil, founder of Integrated Alliances  (Disclosure – I am a regional executive director for IA).

These wishlist widgets can be added to your sites as well if you want to be helpful.  For IPhone apps this might be a good place to down load your choice.  This recent post at Widgets Labs highlights 3 different sites to go to for other types of apps.

Send me a card

Paper cards aren’t going away either.  Just how you send them. In fact, I recently started using real cards that I send from a web based system called SendOutCards.  Judging by SendOutCards, who indicated they had their largest day of sending cards last week at 405,203 cards in one day, real cards are going to continue to be big.

Why? Because we all get a little tired trying to find a WIFI location to read our e-cards!

Video has arrived 12-19-09

Yes! Today I started getting the first video greetings from businesses such as Hupspot and other social media related organizations.  I will have to create my own response to post.

How are you sending your holiday greetings this year?

Related articles by Zemanta

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
Share
Filed Under: Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , ,

How can social media help my business? Part 2

November 13, 2009 By 1 Comment
YouTube, LLC

Image via Wikipedia

In Part 1 of this series, I suggested you look at your existing marketing content to see how you might re purpose this for social media.  We created 5 new pieces of content from your company’s Frequently Asked Questions. For Part 2, let’s work on what you can do with this new material.

Creating social media accounts  – its about people

Next, let assume that you aren’t currently on any social media site – you will have to create a couple of accounts at some social media sites.  Remember these are not anonymous business accounts.  Decide what staff person is interested and willing to participate on social media sites and is ready with your support to do this long term. Allocate a set amount of time each day or each week, create guidelines and policies for this individual that support your business goals.

1. Create accounts at Youtube.com, pitchengine.com, Ezine or doc.com, Slideshare.net, and Itunes.

2. Write and edit your article

3. Edit your video clip with free, simple video editing software. Windows Movie Maker and Flip Video editing software are both free products.

4. Build a PowerPoint presentation of less that 10 slides. use only 1 intro slide with contact info on it and repeat as first and last slide.

5. Create an audio file from the separate digital recording of the Q&A interview (should be done at the same time as the flip video recording.

Tips: Brand your video or slide set with a title, your website and contact info to the beginning and end of clip/presentation. Also make sure you introduce each person in the audio recording prior to the interview so you capture that in sound.

Add appropriate content to social media sites

1. Post article on enews sites, pitchengine.com, event on your website, trade website, online news site and local news paper.

2. Post video on Youtube.com and your website/blog.  Share the link with your connections.

3. Upload audio to Itunes.com in the podcast category. Share with your connections.

4. Add the PowerPoint slides to Slideshare.net.  Share with your connections.

Tip:  Make sure you use the tag features for each social media site.  This is especially important for the video, audio and slide content.

Then make sure your customers know about this free information by

  • Send email out to your mailing list giving them the links to wherever you posted content.
  • Update your status on any active social media sites.
  • Ask every employee at the company (and yes, they are on social media) to do the same.

For traditional marketing efforts, add the link into your next print newsletter, add as note in your invoices, add as signature in your emails and on any letters.

Next month, pick another piece of marketing material, previous article or interview and start the process over again.

Related articles by Zemanta
Share
Filed Under: Business Development, Inbound Marketing, Linkedin, Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Tools, Tips and Techniques Tagged With: , , ,

Who wants to block our social media sites?

September 5, 2009 By Leave a Comment
<div class=\"postavatar\">who-wants-to-block-our-social-media-sites</div>

The comment by Twitter Watchdog – Tim Carron on September 3, 2009, who found some info on companies blocking social media access by employees has caused a stir.  Some of the ones listed include Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Censure has been happening in the public sector and public schools (not colleges and universities) for a while.  The reaction of employees to this action and the actual action by corporate execs perhaps shows a lack of planning and strategy creation by those businesses.

Social Media Sites  – Blocked more than online shopping

Tim mentions that,

“ScanSafe saw a 20 percent increase in the number of customers blocking social networking sites in the last six months and according to their data, 76 percent of companies are choosing to block social networking and it is now a more popular category to block than online shopping (52 percent), weapons (75 percent), alcohol (64 percent), sports (51percent) and Webmail (58 percent). “

Further in the article, which was published on Networkworld.com, Spencer Parker stated,

“in recent months, employers are obviously wising up to the dangers and negative impact on productivity linked to certain sites and more and more customers have chosen to block social networking, online banking and webmail.”

Get Your Social Media Strategy in Place

In my opinion, if you approach use of social media tools as components of a social media strategy – and that strategy is targeted to achieve business goals – you as a business owner will know the reasons why any department or employee should be on a social media site.  With a action plan around programs you will also have measurement in place to track the success. C-Level management won’t have to wonder what everyone is doing, they can see reports, quarterly monitoring, audits and results such as increased sales and reduce customer support.

Should you block social media sites or create a social media plan instead?

Should you block social media sites or create a social media plan instead?

The key is strategy, action plans, resource allocation and a budget that are defined to achieve your business goal. Along with that creation of guidelines for posting, resource designation for problem escalation and internal knowledge resources so those designated “social media team members” know how and why they move forward in the conversation.
This will make executives comfortable in participating in social media and where necessary, stop others from using their work time to converse on personal issues.  Social media is about people and people talking, we should just want them to do it with guidance.
To shut every social media site down by blocking, is like cutting your nose off to spite your face.
What’s your take on this?

Share
Filed Under: Business Blogging, Linkedin, Small Business Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Strategy Tagged With: , ,

Citrix/Webex Social Media Assessment by Social Media Academy Alumni

August 26, 2009 By Leave a Comment

What does an assessment look like for a social media ecosystem?  Take a look at this case study done on Citrix by Social Media Academy following their Four Quadrant Methodology.

Social Media Assessment Case Study Citrix Webex

 

Four Quadrant Methodology

If you are wondering what a social media assessment might look like I have included a presentation by Social Media Academy. In this webinar presenters discuss the Four Quadrant Methodology developed by Axel Schultze, one of the founders. This methodology helps a business to understand its market from a social point of view including customer mapping and field assessment, brand analysis, competition analysis and partners/alliances analysis.

BlueButton_Assessment

The research was done by the Summer 2009 class of which I was a Alumni and member.  We used various research tools and investigation to compile the data and then to determine our suggestions to  improve the social engagement. This was presented in a public webinar on July 22, 2009.  Neither Citrix nor Webex paid for any of the research or presentation.

View the Slideshare presentation given publicly by the Social Media Academy – Wendy Soucie was one of the participants and presenters

Share
Filed Under: Linkedin, Small Business Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Academy, Social Media Strategy Tagged With: , , ,

Coffee Shop Hangout of the Day – Yolas Cafe Madison WI

June 23, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Yola’s Cafe – Where business folks can hangout

Bright and Friendly Yolas Cafe, Off Highpoint

I am on a mission over the next few months to try as many different coffee shops as places to get work done as I can.  I will let you know which ones I will go back to and for what reasons.

I recently visited Yolas Cafe , for a business meeting .  I liked that fact that the shop was named for someones Grandmother, as it explained in the brochure.  Grandmothers are usually pretty good and they, as a general rule, have made food that stood the test of time.

First impression were positive, as the area was well lit with natural light from many windows, the chairs were soft cushy chairs near a fireplace (not really a good thing today with temps of 95-102 depending on where you were).

For those cold winter workdays - this is where I will be

For those cold winter workdays - this is where I will be

It was a long room with a kids play area at one end – far away from tables at the other end.  I like a place that recognizes that you can actually have both “peoples” but they sometimes like to be removed from one another.

The coffee was good and salad was fresh and very respectable, brought to our table by the owner himself.  However, the work reasons I will go back are key:

  • they have a vast number of plugs
  • WIFI
  • great music playing

What I noted most of all after a second trip to this location, is that they remembered me smiled and talked with me at my table briefly.  I think coffee shops are the new corner bar where”everyone knows your name.”  With so many different ones to chose from, you need to create some differentiating reason to have people return.  Proximity doesn’t work so well since we have coffee shops on almost  every corner.  Maybe those that make a point to cater to the mobile worker by recognize the repeat customers in various ways.  I wish coffee shops would provide one of my wishlist items – a printer available for a last minute print need could create a real standout uniqueness.

But for sure, I will return for the baked oatmeal!

Share
Filed Under: Linkedin, Small Business Marketing Tagged With:
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »