Social media has made great strides in gaining a foothold in the business world over the last year. Yet it’s still an uphill battle to convince many entrepreneurs it’s worth their time to invest in the social media scene. 

Social media platforms will surely continue to evolve at a rapid rate as viral marketing spreads at a fever pitch. Like it or not, though, social media is here to stay.

There is no “one-size-fits-all” social media formula that applies across the board to every type of business. Each company is unique and should develop a customized online marketing strategy. However, the one platform that every business ought to be on is Facebook.

With over 400 million worldwide users (50% of whom log on to Facebook every day), Facebook has the drawing power to provide a business owner with an online audience right at his or her fingertips. Recent statistics show that people spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook. There have been some cases where, on a given day, Facebook actually surpasses Google in number of hits.

Here are some common objections or questions I hear from those still on the fence about using Facebook for business:

• Will having a Facebook page make me any money?
• I don’t have enough time to keep my Facebook page updated regularly.
• How can I come up with interesting content to post about?
• What if someone posts something negative on my Wall?
• I don’t want to mix business with something social like Facebook.
• I already have a good website. Why do I need a Facebook business page as well?

If you’re still unsure, here are some points to consider:

• A Facebook page is part of your overall marketing and branding strategy. Like any marketing, there are direct and indirect returns on investment. Some returns are immediate; others take time. Facebook is a good place to get the word out about your business. And don’t forget – it’s FREE online advertising!!
• You can use social media integration sites such as ping.fm or Hootsuite, which link your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Delicious, etc. accounts together so you only have to post an update in one place. You can also outsource the task, hiring someone to spend a specific amount of time each week keeping your page updated, or appoint someone in-house to be in charge of the page.
• Upcoming events, photos, new products or sales – these are all newsworthy items to post on your Facebook page.
• If you have a blog, link it to your Facebook page so that your posts are automatically reposted there.
• If you’re really stuck for ideas, sign up for a Google Alert using a keyword from your industry. Once a day, you’ll get delivered to your mailbox all the news from across the internet that has to do with that topic. You can then post the URL to that interesting link. People will appreciate you sharing pertinent information.
• If you’re an admin on your page, you can remove negative or unwanted posts from your Wall at any time. You can also change the privacy settings to only allow certain individuals to post on your Wall. If the negative comment has some validity, you can put on your customer service hat and answer it right there on the Wall. Other fans will appreciate how you resolved the issue.
• Creating a Facebook business page actually helps you to keep business and personal separate on Facebook. Instead of having clients or customers trying to friend you on your personal page, you can direct them over to your business page.
• On Facebook, you will have greater exposure due to the sheer volume of people interacting. Also, Facebook often has better search engine optimization than a traditional website due to its constantly changing content.

With the potential of reaching over 400 million people, businesses can no longer afford to ignore Facebook.  It is not a passing fad and it’s not just for teenagers anymore.  Facebook is here to stay and businesses who are not already on board, should rethink their online marketing strategy to make this a priority.

If you’re a one-person company, you already wear a lot of hats.  you do all of the sales, marketing, networking, operations, billing and bookkeeping.  You may have some help here and there – perhaps from an assistant or a contractor – but for the most part you’re on your own.  And now everywhere you go, social media expectations are thrust upon you.  You feel pressured to “do it all” or else feel like you’re falling behind the competition.  Some entrepreneurs feel so overwhelmed that they don’t know where to start, so they do nothing at all.  Others dive right in only to find they are in over their heads and then they bail out – leaving partial LinkedIn profiles and abandoned Facebook pages in their wake.

Larger companies have marketing departments or at least one person whose job is dedicated to marketing, including online marketing.  Solopreneurs don’t have that luxury.  They need to find the time in their already busy day to fit in social media.

Keep in mind that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.  I recommend that you start slowly.  Choose one social media venue that fits your business strategy and reaches your target market.  Choose one and do it well.  Whether it’s blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or something else, you can have success with social media by finding the right fit.

Some aspects of social media can be outsourced.  You can hire someone to install and customize your blog, set up your Facebook business page, or create a template for an email marketing campaign.  But I don’t recommend outsourcing it all.  Remember social media should be “social.”  It’s all about creating and maintaining relationships.  A hired constant can’t connect with your customers the way that you can.

But a social media consultant can provide training to get you up and running faster with social media.  They can help you to learn the technology so that you are more comfortable using it.  An experienced consultant will make it easier for you to stay on track with your social media strategy by providing you with the right tools to help monitor your social media conversations.   They can even tell you how to automate updates to all of your social media platforms at once.

Taking it one step at a time helps to take the pressure off of you.  Ask for help when you need it and learn which tools can make it easier so that you can actually enjoy it!

Facebook Friends.
Twitter Followers.
LinkedIn Connections.

Everyone is following everyone else.  Sometimes I wonder if this is this just a numbers game.  He who gets the most followers wins?

My kids are on Facebook now, so I had to set some guidelines.  #1 is that they have to friend me and #2 is that they can only friend people they know – no strangers.  As kids will do, they’ve stretched the boundaries of rule #2 to include:  friends, relatives, friends of friends, friends of their cousins, each other’s friends, kids in their grade that they know of (but don’t really know well), etc.  “He who has the most friends wins.”

I use LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter for business and I often see the same mentality in adults.  I receive email notifications each time someone new follows me on twitter.  Although it is flattering to have people following me and as a business owner it is great to have an audience that is interested in my company and my services, but sometimes I can’t help but wonder why?  I can go for weeks without a tweet, yet I continue to get new followers.  Why would you follow someone who has not posted anything of value to you?  What do you get out of it?  Are you just looking for a follow back?

I don’t follow someone just because they are following me.  I don’t follow someone just because they have a lot of followers.  I follow someone who I think has something meaningful to share.

I also don’t follow someone hoping for a follow-back.  I follow someone because I agree with their point of view or because I think I can learn something from them.

Remember, one of the key rules to social media is to add value.  This goes both ways.  You’ll gain a larger following if you add value through meaningful posts.  But don’t you also want to get valuable information from others?

Social Media can be a waste of time if not used wisely.  If you are following thousands of people on Twitter or have hundreds of “so-called” friends on Facebook – then you are only seeing a very small fraction of posts and are probably missing many of the more important ones.

What do you think?  Do you choose your friends wisely or do you think it’s more important to just rack up the numbers

A New Year’s Resolution

I was recently given some great advice that I think will make a great New Year’s Resolution.  Go offsite to a coffee shop once a week/month and write multiple blog articles at once.  So if you blog daily, write 5 articles every Monday or if you blog monthly write a month’s worth of blog articles.  By leaving the office and turning off your phone (this is key!) you’ll have fewer interruptions and will be able to spend your time more efficiently.  Plus, if your blog software has a scheduler, schedule your articles to go out automatically and check that task off the to-do list!

As far as social media goes, you should at a minimum promote your blog articles on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.  There are even applications that can automate this task for you.

So no more excuses – businesses need to keep marketing during the busy times to keep business rolling in.

How do you keep up with blogging and social media when things get hectic?  Please share your tips in the comments below.

We all love a bargain.

OK.  I admit it.  The first thing I did when I got to work this morning was to go online to see if there were any amazing Cyber Monday sales online.  I really didn’t find anything that knocked my socks off, but it got me thinking about how businesses could create their own “Cyber Monday” phenomenon using social media.

Everyone likes to feel like they are getting a good deal.  Why not give your customers what they want?  A Cyber Monday special every Monday!  Why save it for just the Monday after Thanksgiving?

I’m not suggesting that you go broke giving away your products, but you could have a special offer each week that drives traffic to your web site and social media would be the perfect tool to do so.

I’ve seen large retailers offer special savings exclusive to their Facebook fans or Twitter followers.  It does make you wonder what you are missing if you don’t sign up.

So, on your website and in your newsletters, let your customers know that they can get on the “inside” if they fan you on Facebook or follow you on Twitter.  Use one or both to announce the Cyber Monday sale of the week — exclusive to your followers.  And if you consistently post the offer around the same time each Monday, people will start to expect it and even look forward to receiving your Cyber Monday online special. 

Over time, you’ll watch your list of followers grow and your sales too!

Yesterday I was reading through some of my favorite blogs and came across a story on Mashable about eBay/PayPal & Miller Lite raising money for cancer research – a cause close to my heart after losing my dad to cancer last year.  Of course I had to find out more, so I went to http://beatcancereverywhere.com and learned that a $0.01 donation would be made to cancer research for every mention of the #beatcancer hashtag in a blog post, Facebook update or Twitter tweet in a 24-hour period.  In addition to raising money for cancer, they were trying to set a Guinness World Record for social media mentions.

Now I could care less about breaking records, but I do believe that every penny counts when fundraising for a worthy cause.  So I did my part – I posted it on Facebook and tweeted about it.  Some of my followers re-tweeted and the word continued to spread throughout the night.

beatcancereverywhere.com has a counter on their website and at the time of my first tweet, they were only several hours into the countdown and already had over 5000 mentions.  I checked and re-tweeted three hours later, finding the count at over 81,000 mentions.  The next morning the count was over 200,000.  And by the end of the 24-hour period, 208,424 people had used the #beatcancer hashtag in social media.

They had reached 208,424 people in just 24 hours.

Can anyone ever doubt the reach of social media again?

If you have remarkable ideas to share or a worthy cause to fight for, you too can reach out to the world with social media.

Feel the Power.

Since I’ve struggled with these questions for some time now, I was curious to see how other business professionals were using Facebook.  And frankly, I was not surprised to receive mixed results.  With some people it was black and white and they gave responses such as:

            “LinkedIn is for business.  Facebook is more social than professional.”

            “Facebook is only for keeping in touch with classmates and friends.”

Others were a bit more flexible with replies like: 

            “It matters what business you’re in.”

             “Not all businesses are a good fit.”

I was pleased to see the majority felt that you could use Facebook for both business and pleasure and many responded that you shouldn’t worry so much about separating the two.  Their responses were more along these lines:

            “We tend to do business with people that we have a relationship with.”

            “Facebook has helped me to build more personal relationships with people I do business with.”

The idea here is that you can re-connect with old friends and classmates as well as build stronger relationships with business colleagues.  Facebook is definitely on a more personal level, but you never know where your next business deal will come from.

As for me, I’ve decided to give Facebook a try.   

I created a business page: 

And I have connected with some friends I haven’t seen in over 20 years!  Wow!  What a great feeling!  Perhaps that’s what social media is all about.