Tag Archive for facebook

30 Apr 2012
blogging • facebook • google plus • linkedin • social media • social networking • twitter

What to say on social media

Help – what do I say on social media?

This is a “frequently asked question” in my experience, and it seems that many business owners wonder what to say on social media.  They are worried about saying the wrong thing,  and/or they simply can’t think of enough different things, or indeed anything at all, to say to make social media activity worthwhile.  A common misconception is that people only use social media to post about what they had for breakfast…

It’s not unusual for people to feel that they aren’t interesting, or they don’t want to sound like they’re bragging, and they know it’s not about what you had for breakfast……so their perception is that they don’t have anything useful to share on social media.

Newsflash…

…you don’t have to post about yourself or your business most of the time!  Here’s the thing:  there’s absolutely no need to continually produce original content to post on social media, in fact it’s far better not to.  Sharing other people’s content is far more valuable and will go a long way towards building your social communities and generating interaction and engagement. A good rule of thumb would be to make at least 80% of your social media updates not directly related to your own business or products.  However you can – and should – post links to your own blog articles whenever you produce them.  If you don’t already have a blog for your business,  you might want to read this article I wrote last year.

Ways to find shareable content

If you’ve just set up your social media accounts –  we’ll assume you’ve chosen Facebook and Twitter to start with – I’d recommend not posting anything for the first week or two.  Instead, just watch and learn from others.  Run a few searches to find other businesses in your niche, follow them,  then keep an eye on the type of things they post.  Do you find any of it interesting?  Chances are that you will – you might click a few links and find yet more useful information.  Would your colleagues also find it interesting?  Go ahead and share (on Facebook) or retweet (on Twitter).  Congratulations,  you’re learning what social media is all about!

To make sharing easier,  try setting up a few lists in Twitter and in Facebook.  This allows you to curate content from like-minded people or those in the same field of business as yourself,  without having to trawl through updates from all of your followers.  You can then simply visit your lists daily and quickly find anything of interest that you feel is worth sharing.

From my own viewpoint, I’d be lost without Google Reader.  It has been a real goldmine of information for me and I spend time every day going through my list of blogs and sharing links on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus.  (I don’t share every link to all networks, I am selective about it).  Take a look at my previous article on Google Reader to learn more – I highly recommend you set up an account if you’ve not already done so – it’s free :)

Interact with others

Once you’re feeling comfortable on your chosen social networks and are starting to build a community, you will want to start giving back to others, perhaps by recommending them.  If you see a request for help and you know someone who offers that particular service,  all you have to do is reply and tag / @mention your contact and guess what, everyone benefits and you might well gain a new follower and/or potential customer.  And it goes without saying that if anyone recommends you, you should respond quickly and thank them.  This is one reason why you do need to visit your social media accounts regularly, to check for messages and mentions so that you aren’t leaving someone waiting and wondering why they’ve not had a response to their question.

And finally…..

The burning question – YES!  It is OK to mention yourself, your products and services occasionally.  But try to keep the self-promotion as subtle as possible.  For example, I might post something like “Need help using social media for your business?” with a link to my website.

Need help using social media for your business? Take the first step! Contact me on 01777 249075
or by email at info@naomijohnsonsocialmedia.co.uk

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Naomi | 2 comments | Tags: , , , , , , ,
01 Mar 2012
blogging • business growth • facebook • google plus • linkedin • social media • twitter

Content Syndication with Social Media

What is content syndication, anyway?

 

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Let’s look at a couple of definitions:

The act of syndicating a news feature by publishing it in multiple newspapers etc simultaneously

Making information on a website available (preferably in digest form) for a wide range of uses, prime examples of which are RSS and Atom feeds. Syndication is a great way of making news updates, blog entries and podcasts immediately available to a Web audience.

Basically then, syndication is a way of sharing content across a number of platforms or publications simultaneously.  I’m sure you’ll agree that it would be beneficial to your business to be able to share your latest product news, forthcoming events etc with hundreds or even thousands of interested viewers.

How could this happen?  When you publish your blog post, or details of your event, you share it with various sites. These sites may then republish to other sites, and so the process becomes exponential.  From one piece of content you get multiple shares, therefore reaching a huge number of people.

Let’s say you have a business blog and you write a new post each week. Do you write, publish and walk away,  in the hope that visitors will mosey along to read it?  Sorry, but that just won’t happen!  You need to take a proactive approach and push that content out far and wide.

Get Started with Content Syndication

Here are 7 simple ways to get your content in front of more eyeballs than you ever thought possible……

  1.  If you haven’t already, set up a RSS (“really simple syndication”) feed for your blog.  WordPress blogs have RSS built in, and for additional benefits, use a service such as Feedburner.
  2.  Add a link to your latest blog posts on your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ pages.  Whether you also add them to your personal profiles on Facebook and Google+ is up to you (may not be appropriate for every post)
  3. Add Facebook Like & Share, Google +1, and Tweet buttons to all your posts,  newsletters, event listings and product pages.  If you’re using WordPress it’s simple to do this via plugins (there are scores that do this job, but that’s a topic for another post!)
  4. Use a service such as ping.fm to share your content to scores of online directories
  5. Share your updates to Facebook and LinkedIn groups that you’re a member of –  only if the content is appropriate for the group, of course.
  6.  Always encourage people to share, retweet, like, and +1 your content. This gets you in front of an increasingly wide audience.
  7.  Given the recent exponential growth of Pinterest, I’m also going to encourage you to “pin” your new content whenever appropriate.  (If you haven’t signed up for a Pinterest account yet, seriously consider doing so!)

Benefits of Content Syndication

Aside from what we’ve already covered (getting your content in front of thousands of potential clients/customers), what are the main benefits of content to you and your business?

  •  It’s a cheap way of reaching far more potentially interested people than you could ever hope to speak to individually or even collectively.
  •  You’re boosting your online visibility by making use of social media, thus gaining massive SEO benefits.  You’re already using Google+ aren’t you??
  • When people see you everywhere online,  they get the subconscious message that you are an expert in your field – as a result they’re more likely (a) to come to you as a client  and/or (b) to recommend you to others.

Do you use any other methods of content syndication and do they work well for you? Share below in the comments!

Need help with content syndication? Take the first step! Contact me on 01777 249075
or by email at info@naomijohnsonsocialmedia.co.uk

Naomi | No comments | Tags: , , , , , , ,
23 Dec 2011
facebook • facebook pages • social media • social networking • twitter

We Wish You a Social Christmas!

Vervain Cats

If you’ve read my About page, you will know that I breed pedigree cats as a hobby – and every year since 2003, I have designed a digital greeting featuring one or more of my Vervain cats and kittens. Here’s my 2011 offering!

These are two of my current litter of Burmese kittens. In order to find suitable homes for my kittens, I post lots of photos on my Facebook page , and this then links to my Twitter account. Using social networks has made it a lot easier to reach  potential owners.  I actually have a lot more “Likes” on my Vervain Cats Facebook page than on my business page – but that merely confirms that Facebook is more effective for B2C rather than B2B.   I hasten to add that cat breeding is definitely not a business!

Do you have a hobby that you promote via social media?  Let me know!

Finally I would just like to wish you all a peaceful festive season –  and remember to take time out to plan your social media strategies for 2012!!

Need help with monitoring your online reputation? Take the first step! Contact me on 01777 249075
or by email at info@naomijohnsonsocialmedia.co.uk

Naomi | No comments | Tags: , , ,
16 Dec 2011
facebook • google • online reputation monitoring • small business • social media • twitter

Your Online Reputation Matters!

Do you care about your online reputation?

I’d consider it pretty strange if you’re in business and you don’t!  OK,  it’s not that easy to monitor your offline reputation (unless you’re into eavesdropping, or wish to employ a private detective).  But it’s not at all difficult to keep track of what’s being said about you online.

Online reputation monitoring is one aspect of social media activity that people don’t automatically consider when the subject is mentioned.   From my experience with networking events and chatting with a variety of business people,  many of them dismiss social media because “it’s about what you had for breakfast”.  They haven’t looked beyond the noise to discover the real power of social media.  This is a pity.

So, let’s look at a few methods for tracking your online reputation.

Here’s an example of what might happen,

and British Gas’s timely Twitter response (including typos!)

British Gas on Twitter

What if the company hadn’t had a presence on Twitter?  That complaint was seen by the followers of the original poster and of British Gas,  in other words several thousand Twitter users…….if just a few re-tweeted, you could multiply that by several thousand more.  See why it’s essential to  keep an eye on things?

Google Alerts.

You may already have come across this free tool.  You can set alerts for absolutely any keyword or phrase, including your business name, your own name, or a brand.

Google Alerts

The drop-downs are “everything; news; blogs; video; discussions; books”, “as-it-happens”; once a day; once a week” and “only the best results; all results”.  So you have a good choice in setting up your alerts.  If you use quotation marks around your specified search term, you’ll get only exact matches – so this would be useful for monitoring your company name, for example.   I’ve used Google Alerts myself for several years – it’s well worth a try.

Social Mention.

SocialMention

Quoting directly from SocialMention:

“Social Mention is a social media search and analysis platform that aggregates user generated content from across the universe into a single stream of information. It allows you to easily track and measure what people are saying about you, your company, a new product, or any topic across the web’s social media landscape in real-time. Social Mention monitors 100+ social media properties directly including: Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google etc.”

Basically, SocialMention is Google Alerts for social media – and is also free.

TweetBeep.

TweetBeep

TweetBeep is another “alert” application and as the name suggests,  restricts its searches to Twitter.  So you could search for any mentions of your own name, your brand,  your company, or your competitors :)

Finally,  there are the social media management tools such as Hootsuite and Tweetdeck (each with a loyal following). These allow monitoring of online reputation,  and also pre-scheduling of tweets and Facebook updates.

Now what’s your excuse for not knowing who’s talking about you online?!

Do you have other monitoring tools you’d recommend?  Share your thoughts in the comments.

Need help with monitoring your online reputation? Take the first step! Contact me on 01777 249075
or by email at info@naomijohnsonsocialmedia.co.uk

Naomi | 4 comments | Tags: , , , , , , ,
01 Dec 2011
digital marketing • facebook • google • google plus • linkedin • marketing • mobile marketing • social media • twitter • youtube

Digital Marketing – An Integrated Approach

Wordle: Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing – Why You Need An Integrated Approach

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the need for an integrated approach to the whole digital marketing thing.  Social media is of course a vital component in any business marketing toolkit,  but it can’t stand on its own.  Traditional marketing also plays an important part,  as do the newer innovations as described below.

We already know that tweets, Facebook updates and Google Plus posts are indexed by google, (are you using keywords in your social media updates?)  and of course YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine.  So you should be establishing a presence on all of these networks and building your communities.

But how many businesses (thinking particularly of the UK here) are aware of the huge growth in mobile technology?  I’ve talked about this issue in a previous post on Mobile Marketing, and another where I discuss an infographic on Mobile Marketing Statistics.   I also suggested actions that business owners could take immediately to respond to this new revolution in digital marketing.  There’s no doubt that a high percentage of web browsing, search, and online shopping will take place via mobile devices in the very near future and businesses need to be ready.

Meanwhile, I would like to share this presentation.  It shows how to take an integrated approach to your social media activities.  Feel free to download if it will be helpful :)

Are you finding it easy to integrate traditional and newer marketing strategies?  Is your website optimised for mobile devices?   Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Need help with digital marketing? Take the first step! Contact me on 01777 249075
or by email at info@naomijohnsonsocialmedia.co.uk

you can also TEXT

INF SOCIALMEDIA or INF SOCIALMEDIA + your email address  to 60777

to receive your free copy of my booklet “10 Reasons Why You Need to Get Up To Speed With Social Media”.

Naomi | One comment | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
20 Nov 2011
business growth • facebook • linkedin • small business • social media • twitter

Social Media for Small Business

Social Media For Small Business – Some Statistics

I came across this infographic the other day via Socialnomics. I found it quite eye-opening,  yet very consistent with my own experience.  I go to a lot of networking events and naturally, am asked what my business is. This usually leads into a discussion around social media and its uses for business – 9 times out of 10 the other person says that they’ve set up social media accounts but don’t have any idea what to do next……

Small Business Social Media Infographic

Social media for small business – takeaways from the infographic:

A massive 88% of owners believe that social media does, or will, impact on their small business – so it’s clear that they see the potential.

A somewhat lower proportion (63%) have established social media accounts, the majority spread across Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Another survey found that 31% of small businesses were not using social media at all,  and the reason given for this was that they “don’t know where to start”………  this is sounding very familiar!

Apart from “don’t know where to start”, other reasons for not using social media were “don’t have the staff”, “costs too much”, “information overload”, “too many sites to manage”  and astonishingly, “doesn’t help me or my business”.

Confusion over who should manage social media for a business is also widespread, responses varying from “business owner” (18%) down to 1% for HR, customer service, corporate, administrator etc.   All a bit vague, isn’t it?

Social media seems to have become a huge mystery, a black art,  something only to be attempted by those of strong constitution. This is borne out by the fact that 67% of small businesses do not plan to increase their investment in social media for 2012.

In light of this, it’s rather strange that virtually none of the small business owners surveyed had plans to hire anyone to help them with social media.

How about you?  Do you find yourself mystified by social media?  Would you consider hiring someone to help with social media for your small business?   I’d love to hear your comments.

Need help with social media? Start by contacting me on 01777 249075
or by email at info@naomijohnsonsocialmedia.co.uk

you can also TEXT

INF SOCIALMEDIA or INF SOCIALMEDIA + your email address to 60777

to receive your free copy of my booklet “10 Reasons Why You Need to Get Up To Speed With Social Media”.

Naomi | No comments | Tags: , , , , , , ,
01 Nov 2011
business growth • facebook • marketing • relationship marketing • social media

What Is Relationship Marketing?

Relationship Marketing

This is a blatant and unashamed piece of publicity for a widely respected lady who knows what she’s talking about when it comes to social media and relationship marketing……

The New Relationship Marketing

I’d like to share with you a brand new book that is a must-read. It’s “The New Relationship Marketing”, by my colleague, Mari Smith. If you don’t know Mari, she’s one of the foremost leaders in the social media arena – with particular expertise in Facebook marketing.

Mari wrote this book specifically for those business owners and entrepreneurs who have so far just dabbled with social media marketing, or have reached a plateau with their online marketing efforts, and wish to propel their business to the next level and beyond.

What is relationship marketing? It’s a term for all the actions you take online and offline to nurture the connections you have with your prospects, customers, alliances and partners… and yes, even with your so called competitors.You’ve heard of B2B and B2C (business to business, and business to consumer). Mari talks about how it all comes down to P2P; People to People.

Many businesses have not fully embraced the power of today’s social technologies for a number of reasons, including fear of exposure, fear of negative comments and fear of wasting time and resources. In her new book, Mari skilfully walks you through her proven nine-step program for building a large, loyal and profitable network using the social web.

You can pick up a copy now at this link: 

Mari’s Book

And, as if that’s not enough, Mari is including a special FREE 4-part webinar series to dive deep into the principles she teaches in her book. When you get a copy of “The New Relationship Marketing”, you then simply sign up here to reserve your place: 

Sign up for Mari’s Webinars

Now that’s value!

I’ve already signed up as I know from previous experience just how much value Mari puts into her webinars :)

P.S. In true Mari-style, you get to register for the free four-part webinar series on the “honour system!” That is, you do not need to scan/fax/email/snail mail any proof of purchase before you get access to the online classes. Once you order your book, just register here

Register for the webinars

and that’s it!

Need help with social media? Start by contacting me on 01777 249075
or by email at info@naomijohnsonsocialmedia.co.uk

you can also TEXT

INF SOCIALMEDIA or INF SOCIALMEDIA + your email address to 60777

to receive your free copy of my booklet “10 Reasons Why You Need to Get Up To Speed With Social Media”.

Naomi | No comments | Tags: , , , ,
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