Your Social Media Strategy – 3 Tips

by Pinpoint

small business social media strategy

What Are You Aiming At With Your Social Media Efforts? A Good Strategy Will Help You Hit Your Target.

From small to large, businesses are adopting Social media as their marketing vehicle of choice.  However, for many businesses the results have not met their expectations.  Why?  Often it is the lack of a solid, well thought out Social media strategy.

This article from Social Media Examiner offers some very practical steps you can take to make your online marketing efforts work for you.

#1: Attraction: How to draw people to you

For most of us, we want to attract qualified traffic to our website. While there are many ways to do this—including search engine optimization, traditional advertising and referrals—I’ll focus here on social media.

To succeed with social media, you’ll need to have a content strategy. This means talking to your ideal customers about what they’re interested in, and having those conversations where they hang out. (For more details, check out How to Develop a Social Media Content Strategy.)

Depending on your audience, you may need to become more active on Facebook or join groups where your customers talk on LinkedIn.

If they’re not active on social networking sites—or can’t access them during the working day—you’ll need to create blog posts and videos that help them solve their biggest problems.

While developing your social media profiles, a few things to keep in mind:

  • Brand your profiles: It’s free or nearly free to set up a blog, create a YouTube channel or build a profile on popular social networking sites.

Because of this, everyone does it. To rise above the pack and establish your credibility, you’ll need to create a branded experience that will immediately help build trust with your audience. This may mean a custom Twitter background, a Facebook landing page or a detailed work history on your LinkedIn profile.

  • Go deep, not wide: Don’t try to be active on every social network out there. Instead, focus on becoming great at one or two platforms where you’re most likely to engage your prospects. Once you’ve mastered those, you can add more to your plate.
  • Be consistent: One blog post, one video or one tweet won’t save your business, no matter how clever it is. Success comes from consistency. Your customers don’t want to work with a one-hit wonder; they want to work with someone who has consistently established credibility and expertise over time, which shows that the person should be around for a long time to come.
  • Create paths back to your site: Although being too salesy can turn prospects off, you should always have links to your website so they can learn more if they wish. Ben Pickering has a great article entitled 5 Tips for Driving Facebook Fans to Your Website that gives some suggestions on how to do just that.

#2: Retention: How to keep people coming back

If you’re selling a big-ticket item, chances are your prospect isn’t buying from your site without looking at your competitors’ sites as well. Likewise, if you’re selling a product that needs to be regularly repurchased—like contact lenses or morning coffee—your prospect will continually see competing offers.

How do you stay top of mind and keep the lines of communication open after someone has left your website? This is where retention comes in.

While “traditionally,” email marketing has been the favored tool of the Internet marketer, these days social media plays a critical part.

From the home page, we’re asking people to like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and subscribe to our blog posts or YouTube channel… all of which send them offsite.

This goes against everything we used to know: You never send people away after you’ve captured their attention! (It’s like the Vegas casinos: Never show a gambler the exit sign.)

However, getting people to like, follow and subscribe to us gives us the opportunity to continue to engage with them. We can build a relationship by better understanding them through listening and helping them.

To maximize your retention activities, make sure that it’s easy for someone to engage you in your social media activities right from your home page and every other page on your site.

Remember: Always provide value to your ideal customer with your social media activities. You’re only one click away from being unfollowed, unsubscribed from and unliked if you’re not providing value.

#3: Conversion: Moving from liker to buyer

Improved conversion rates (whether it’s a “buy now” button or filling out a contact form) are a natural outcome of being active in social media.

The latest HubSpot “State of Inbound Marketing” report showed that companies that blog more have more consistent sales. Companies also report that social media has made the biggest gain in lead generation activities.

Is social media working for you?  Please share your experiences.  If you would like to set up a free consultation to discuss ways to improve your presence online call or email us today!  We’d be happy to help.

 

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Is Your Business Social Media Use Going To Increase in 2012?

by Pinpoint

business social media

Social Media is The New Watercooler. Are You Using it To Promote Your Business?

This is a very interesting study that shows that most businesses large and small are moving more of their marketing budgets to social media in 2012.

With increasing numbers of marketers using social media, this channel is becoming established as a must-have tool. The latest survey from Chief Marketer shows that social media is close to reaching the tipping point this year. And despite the continuing debate about the best way to use this channel, more merchants are allocating higher budgets for social media efforts.

Nearly ¾’s of merchants now use social media according to the Chief Marketer survey on this topic.  Another 15% will be initiating some type of social media effort this year which leaves about 10% of merchants who haven’t yet considered taking the plunge. B-to-C marketers are a little ahead at 78% while about 68% of B-to-B marketers say they use the social channel.

Top reasons for turning to social include:

  • Multiple customer touch points 85%
  • Reach consumers where they spend their time 60%
  • Opportunity to go viral 59%

Marketers also hope social will help them achieve goals such as driving traffic to their sites (56%), generating leads and sales (48%), and addressing brand fans (47%). So far, surveyed marketers say that social is driving 15% of their web traffic, a notable increase over last year’s 7%.

The key problem regarding social media has long been the doubts about effective measurement. Over half of firms say the lack of accurate ROI measurement is still a problem. However, merchants say they’ll increase spending on this channel. In this survey, the average social media investment for 2011 will be about $166,000. Many smaller firms, though, only spend about $5,000 on social media. But analysts expect the monetary outlay will continue to rise.

[Source: Quinton, Brian. Social Marketing Goes Mainstream. ChiefMarketer.com. 1 Oct. 2011. Web. 3 Nov. 2011]

If you are unsure about the best ways to use social media in your marketing please contact us today for a free consultation.

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Mind-Set Monday – Are You Using Goals To Grow Your Business?

by Pinpoint

goal setting for small business

Are You Using Goals To Grow Your Small Business?

As a business owner it is easy to get so wrapped up “working in” our business that we forget to “work on” our business.  Goal setting is an essential step in moving our businesses forward.  Having a clear vision of what we would like our business to be will help us ensure we can get there.  Here are 5 tips for setting effective goals that can lead to business growth.

Successful people are masters at setting and reaching goals. If you interact with people who have “made it,” you will see patterns that anyone can apply.

1. Write out goals in detail

The act of simply writing down goals sets the process in motion and provokes emotion, which is an essential key to activating a new belief system—so be very specific. Instead of writing, “A new home,” write, “I am enjoying a  5,000-sq ft home on three acres of lakefront property with vaulted ceilings, five bedrooms, three baths and a private boat dock.” The more detailed information you include the more you can associate yourself into the probability of that outcome. By being emotionally detailed you will activate your subconscious brain to work for you in the most efficient way possible. After all, your brain is the most powerful resource available to you in the universe.

2. Make your goals consistent with your values

Most people don’t do what they value first and therefore find themselves out of alignment and lacking motivation. When you create a list of your highest values and then align your goals with them; you will have a sense of being on purpose and are more likely to be motivated naturally and become more consistent.

3. Every goal must have two things

First, you need a detailed plan to achieve your goal (conscious brain), and second, you need the right beliefs and mindset (subconscious brain). It’s the combination of both of these that will help you achieve your goals verses just setting goals. To get your subconscious brain working for you consider, meditation even 5-10 minutes a day of focusing on your indented goals. Visualization is when you imagine a vivid picture in your mind’s eye of what you will be thinking, feeling, hearing and experiencing having achieved your goals. Lastly, positive affirmations stated out loud daily “as if they already are true,” will further support overriding the subconscious brains old defaults.  All of these methods individually or together will help you rewrite your old beliefs into new ways of thinking that are in alignment with your goals.

4. Review goals daily

This is an important part of achieving your goals, and it must become routine. Review your list every morning when you wake up. Visualize your completed goals and how your life will look and feel as a result. At the end of each day, repeat the process. This is a great way to train your brain to expect your goals to materialize. A good example is when you set sales goals, you first create your sales plan and then review the plan each day to make sure you’re on target. This process sets your subconscious brain in motion through visualization to move you towards your goals on a daily basis.

5. Finally, don’t get discouraged

You will either achieve your goals as you imagined or receive the insights into what may be necessary to reach your goals.  This is not a setback; rather, its feedback of what you may need to do more of, less of, or not do at all. That insight is all part of your forward progression. Stay focused on what you want to achieve and you will find ways to solve difficulties or break through barriers. Celebrate every success and memorialize your accomplishments so that you can begin to see how you are moving towards and in fact achieving your goals. This supports anchoring positive emotions that are the glue to changing the subconscious.

Applying these five steps to your goal achieving process will help you better understand how to develop the right mindset and strategies to help you realize your goals and dreams sooner.

Please share what works for you in setting realistic and effective goals.  One of the most important items above is #4.  Do you have a strategy or method for reviewing your goals daily?  Please share what is working for you.

 

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It’s Finally Friday! How Often Should You Post to Your Facebook Page?

by Pinpoint

facebook marketing

Are Your Page Fans Happy With Your Posts?

As a small business owner your Facebook page can be one of your biggest sources of new business and referrals.  How do you make sure that you are producing the right amount of content for your audience so that you keep your page fans happy?  How often should you be posting to your page?

Answer: Post whenever the most recent status update for your page stops showing up in your fans’ News Feeds.

If you post often, you will see an immediate spike in News Feed impressions, but it’s generally not worth the cost in lost fans. When your fans see two status updates from you in their News Feeds, they’ll likely get annoyed, and will consequently unsubscribe or un-fan. There are few exceptions to this rule.

If you post too infrequently, you’re missing out on opportunities to reach your fans. Over the course of a year, a page with 10,000 fans that posts only half as often as they could misses more than 1 million chances to get their content in front of a hyper-targeted Facebook audience. The larger your fan page, the more often you should be posting — without annoying your fans.

The kicker: Each post performs differently. Some posts last ten hours, and some posts last thirty hours.

Calculate the average post lifetime by using the method below, but remember it’s just that — an average. To get really in-depth, figure the average post lifetime for photos vs. articles, or the average lifetime when you post Thursdays at 3 p.m. vs. Saturdays at 10 a.m. However, it’s still just an average; each post is unique, so you can never exactly predict how it will perform.

How do you know when a post stops appearing in your fans’ News Feeds?

The good news is that when you track your posts’ performance, you’ll be able to see, in real-time, when that post drops out of the News Feed. If it flops five hours sooner than you expected, then immediately stick up a new post.

Each status update drops out of different fans’ News Feeds at different times, depending on how long Facebook’s algorithm EdgeRank calculates that particular fan will be interested in that particular status update. Then, the best we can do is look at how each status update performs across all your fans’ News Feeds.

You’ll actually see a slowdown in new impressions, clicks, likes and comments as a post starts dropping out of News Feeds. The following graphs show cumulative numbers, so when the graph flattens, the post has dropped out of News Feeds.

Each of these metrics has pros and cons.

1. Impressions per-post: Impressions per-post is a single aggregate count of how many times a particular status update has been viewed. Facebook updates this number as more and more people view the post; however, it often won’t update for several hours at a time when Facebook’s computers are calculating for millions of posts across millions of fan pages. On the bright side, when it works, it’s great — you can literally watch as your post gets viewed by fans.

2. Comments per-post: All the comments on any status update are time-stamped, so you can measure on a minute-by-minute basis exactly when a fan saw the status update. Unfortunately, most status updates receive so few comments that there aren’t enough data points to determine whether your fans are choosing not to comment or simply aren’t seeing the post in their News Feeds.

3. Likes per-post: In general, this is the most accurate way to see when your status update starts dropping out of News Feeds. Facebook updates the post’s like count in near real time, so it’s more reliable than the post impression count. And because posts tend to get more likes than comments, the data presents an accurate picture of how long a post stayed in News Feeds. On the other hand, likes aren’t time-stamped, so you have to check the like count regularly to see when new likes are added.

So how do I actually measure?

Post a status update. Every hour, record the number of impressions, likes and comments. Figure out when the rate of new impressions or likes slows down.

Try recording all the raw data in Excel, then graph the data just like you see above. Visually estimate the post lifetime based on when the graph flattens out.

After you calculate the post lifetime for 10-20 posts, you’ll start to generate an average post lifetime unique to your fan page.

What’s the average post lifetime?

I surveyed 20 posts across five fan pages that had 2 million+ fans, and calculated an average post lifetime of 22 hours, 51 minutes. Theoretically, this implies most fan pages shouldn’t post more than once a day.I strongly recommend keeping track of your posts in real-time because post lifetimes vary widely, even across the same fan page. In my sample of twenty posts, the shortest post lasted only 10 hours, while the longest post lasted a full 50 hours!

If you weren’t tracking those posts, you would have been invisible in the News Feed for 13 hours when the post flopped at the 10-hour mark. Similarly, you could have delayed your next post when the high-performing post showed no sign of slowing down.

Lastly, feel free to experiment and break the rules.

You won’t know if your fans respond better to a different posting strategy until you try it. Use these analytics to augment your intelligence, not replace it. Original Article Here.

This can give you a good look at how your content is being consumed by your page fans and where small changes could lead to increased customer interaction and retention.  This information can be invaluable to a small business looking to use Facebook to grow their business.

Please comment on what you have seen that works best for you.

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Innovative Use of QR Codes By Starbucks

by Pinpoint

starbucks qr code

Are You Using QR Codes in Your Marketing?

Have you made QR codes a part of your marketing arsenal?  Here is an innovative and useful use of QR Codes by one of the most progressive and successful marketing companies of our time.

Starbucks is launching a QR code program designed to let consumers learn more about its coffee.

The codes, created by Scanbuy, have already started appearing at some Starbucks locations and in ads in popular magazines like People and in daily newspapers as well as on billboard ads. The ads promote Starbucks’ mobile payment app and give additional information, often in video form, about coffee sold at the stores beginning with Caffe Verona. Mike Wehrs, CEO and president of Scanbuy, says one QR code might, for example provide a sample of music that people listen to in the region where the coffee was picked or a description by some coffee experts about what makes that coffee unique.

“This is bringing to to the Starbucks consumer the ability to interact,” says Wehrs. “We can show a very evolved shopping experience through some advanced technology.”

A Starbucks rep confirmed the company is working with Scanbuy on the initiative, but offered no further details. Scanbuy has previously worked with The Home Depot and Taco Bell, among others, on QR code campaigns. Though QR codes are often used to provide promotional content, like movie trailers or provide discounts, The Home Depot used them to help DIYers with instruction videos and Taco Bell’s program was linked to sponsorship of MTV’s Video Music Awards.

Starbucks has employed QR codes before, including a scavenger hunt which tied to a partnership with Lady Gaga in May. Original Article Here.

Despite criticism it seems that QR codes are here to stay and are growing in both popularity and usefulness.  They are easy to use and can be used to easily share a wide variety of information.

How are you using QR codes to promote your business?  Share yours in the comments below.

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How To Grow Your Google+ Contacts List

October 24, 2011

When you start using Google+, your circles will be empty. You will want to fill those circles up quickly so you can extend your reach. The trouble is, you can’t easily connect with others using Google+ alone. So we’re going to show you a few ways you can easily grow your circles. First, take some [...]

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Adding The Google +1 Button to your Website or Blog

October 21, 2011

The +1 feature is an incredibly useful feature of Google+. It works much the same way as the “Like” button on Facebook, it allows visitors to your site to quickly and easily share links to your content with others. The more people who +1 a particular link, the more exposure it will receive and the [...]

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Have you noticed the new “Are Talking About This” Counter on Facebook Pages?

October 6, 2011

Facebook Page Owners – Have you noticed the new “Are Talking About This” counter below your Page Like Totals? What is it about? Here is the answer from Facebook: About the new “People Talking About This” metric. “People Talking about this” counts ‘stories” – structured content that people choose to share through Facebook that is [...]

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What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid? – Mind-Set Monday

September 26, 2011

According to the NFIB Small Business Optimism has declined six months in a row.  How can you keep this from affecting your business?  In this video I share some points from the book “Who Moved My Cheese?” by Spencer Johnson, MD.  In it he asks a very thought provoking question “What would you do if [...]

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A Hamster Does Our Marketing – it’s Finally Friday!

September 23, 2011

For today’s episode of Fiverr Friday a very talented hamster goes to work to promote Pinpoint Local Marketing. Could you use a fun little video like this to promote your small business? Remember that to really optimize your Google Places listing you should try to max out your 5 video limit and these short inexpensive [...]

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What is The Strangest Place You Have Seen A QR Code? – Here Are 3 Unusual Ones – it’s Finally Friday!

September 23, 2011

I have been seeing QR codes all over the place recently.  Especially in many of the magazines that I read.  However, recently I came across three QR codes in some unexpected places. The first was while I was having breakfast at a local restaurant.  I don’t know about you, but I love ketchup on my [...]

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