How to Manage Your Social Media Strategy
March 4, 2010
Once you have selected the tools and technologies to increase your online presence, how do you manage your strategy? You may find it difficult to squeeze one more item on your already hectic schedule. Here are some tips for you manage your online presence.
Giants Unite
First, let me mention something about partnerships. You probably have seen the menu items expanded when visiting your local Taco Bell because for several years now they are offering Tacos and Pizza. Their relationship with Pizza Hut was a good move for them and the customers.
The social media networking giants of Facebook and Twitter have done something similar. By networking, both giants maintain their popularity among their already enthusiasts. LinkedIn and WordPress are also working together. This has given more power to you and I, while making it easier for every social media enthusiast to post updates on multiple platforms. It won’t be too long, I believe, when there will be a single platform where you can upload your post and automatically populate your updates to multiple platforms.
Take Advantage of Partnerships
So how should you manage your strategy? Take advantage of the relationship between Facebook and Twitter. Setup your Facebook Fan Page to tweet your Facebook posts in Twitter automatically. Also, take advantage of the relationship between LinkedIn and WordPress. If you have a WordPress blog, you can set up your LinkedIn account to automatically display your latest blog posts. By the way, YouTube also allows you to connect to your Blog. Pretty cool, isn’t it?
Schedule It
Finally, and most importantly, review your monthly calendar and your schedule editorial dates. Do you need to blog every day or every week? Not necessarily. What you want is to maintain fresh information on your website at least once per month, and this is also very good for you to gain a more favorable position with the search engines. However, writing a couple of blog posts about your new home projects, new developments, or even press releases, you can easily plan to write two blog posts per month. This could take you approximately 2-4 hours per month, depending on the amount of research your articles require. If you can schedule 1 hour per week to keep your social media accounts updated, this will look good on you and it will not be overwhelming.
Manage Your Time
How many hours do you actually need to manage your social media networking accounts? Suppose you decide to post two blogs per month, budget about 1.5 hours per blog, that would be a total of 3 hours. And suppose you decide to update your accounts once per week, for which you budget 1 hour per week (this would be your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn).
Your total hours could per month could be about 7 hours. This is not bad to manage your online branding using platforms that cost you nada, only time! Larger organizations spend thousands of dollars on a monthly basis to do this. You can do it for $0 if you budget your time right.
Whatever amount of hours you budget, stick to those hours and schedule them just as you schedule your doctor’s and customers’ appointments. It simply takes discipline. But recall, it’s $nada$!
Manage Your Brand
One last thing: both the search engines and customers want to see fresh information. Neither one of them likes stale news. This is your opportunity to be a creative resource for your current and future customers.
What’s your strategy?
Learning the Social Media Lingo
February 15, 2010
The social media networking and bookmarking universe has a world of its own when it comes to terminology. Facebook, Friends, Fans, Pages, Twitter, Tweets, Followers, YouTube, Flickr, Digg, Blogging, CMS―and many other acronyms and lingo can be overwhelming and difficult to understand.
We have put together a Social Media Dictionary for you to familiarize yourself and master the language of social media networking.
Did we miss defining any other wacky terms? Let us know!
4 Social Media Marketing Strategies To Attract Your Customers
February 2, 2010
It is no longer business as usual in the home industry business. It is a totally different ballgame!
Today’s savvy homebuyers are using the internet first to search for their new home and builder, green builder that is!
The top 4 Social Media Marketing Strategies is your key to:
- Enhance your online presence
- Boost your company brand
- Attract your market niche more effectively
- Increase your bottom line
Strategy #1 – Yourcompany.com/Blog
You need a Blog to showcase your expertise to your market niche. Educating your past, present, and future customers builds trust. Updated and fresh information on your current and completed homes, customer testimonials, and upcoming projects is your magnet to attract your customer base. Don’t get fooled paying thousands of dollars for a website that makes you programmer-dependent. A User-Managed Blog site gives you total control to update your site, costs less, and eliminates the waiting time for a web programmer to do your updates.
In a nutshell, a Blog helps you to:
- Highlight your expertise to your market niche
- Build trust with your past, present, and future customers
- Update fresh information with customer testimonials and new projects
A User-Managed Blog site:
- Gives you total control
- Costs less to create and maintain
- Eliminates the need for a web programmer to do your updates
In today’s competitive business environment, you need a business Blog.
Strategy #2 – Facebook
Facebook has over 350 million active users, more than 700,000 local businesses have active pages, which has generated over 5.3 billion fans!* Local businesses from all industries are Facebooking. You want to Facebook.
*Source: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statisticsStrategy #3 – Twitter
According to Michelle McGiboney of Nielsen Online, “Twitter.com continues to grow in popularity and importance in both the consumer and corporate worlds. No longer just a platform for friends to stay connected in real time, it has evolved into an important component of brand marketing. Unique visitors to Twitter increased 1,382 percent year-over-year, from 475,000 unique visitors in February 2008 to 7 million in February 2009, making it the fastest growing site in the Member Communities category for the month.”* You definitely want to Tweet!
*Source: http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/twitters-tweet-smell-of-success/Strategy # 4 – LinkedIn
This is your place to connect with other industry pros, engage in discussions, learn from others’ expertise (for free!).
As a business owner in the 21st century, you need to be LinkedIn.
Social Media Marketing Training
Check out our Social Media Hands-On Training class.
Social Media and Your Business
October 12, 2009
Social Media has redefined and extended the way we communicate with people, and in business, with our clients.
Social media fosters the human need for social interaction, using Internet- and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many).
Businesses are using social media to nurture their relationship with their clients. Fresh information that adds value to your clients helps keep your customers connected.
See our Social Media Hands-On Training class for business professionals.
See our Social Media Dictionary to familiarize yourself with the social media lingo.
Do You Need to Incorporate Social Media Into Your Business Marketing Strategy?
To assess your needs, your answers to the following questions should help you make the determination for your business:
- Are your customers using social media?
- How will using social media technologies enhance your relationship and connection with your client base, and new customers?
- How will using social media reach a broader audience with your products and/or services?
What Is the Big Fuzz About Social Media?
3 huge reasons why you should care:
- Twitter has 6-10 million users and roughly 20 million unique visitors each month
- LinkedIn has 48 million members in over 200 countries
- Facebook has 400 million active users spending 6 billion minutes a day
Why Should You Consider Having a Blog Web Site?
4 huge reasons why you should consider having a blog for your business:
- We live in an internet-savvy society.
- Consumers today surf the internet for everything when making purchase decisions.
- Your customers are looking for information (helpful content).
- Your future customers are trying to find you!
Therefore, your website can no longer afford to be just a big “blah”, simply stating who you are, what you do, a few photos of your projects, and how to contact you. Those days are over!
With the popular spread of social media worldwide:
- You need to have an online conversational component as an extension of your business.
- You need a blog to facilitate the dialogue between you and your clients, and future customers.
Why Is a Blog Considered an Effective Customer Connection Tool?
8 important reasons why a blog is an effective customer connection tool:
- Provides a way to communicate with your customers and your prospects quickly and in an informal non-threatening way.
- Gives you the opportunity to write short articles and pieces of information that add value to your customers.
- Positions you as an expert in your field of business.
- Plants you in the minds of your customers and prospects as a resource for the solutions they want.
- Separates your website from being a big “blah” to a content-rich and informative site that offers fresh information that’s helpful to your market niche.
- Its what consumers are engaged in daily, so you can LISTEN to what they want, like or dislike, and observe how you can meet those demands.
- You want to have a presence where consumers are communicating regularly, so you can ENGAGE in conversations with them.
- You want to be a part of the party where the bees are, so you can PARTICIPATE in building relationships with with your customers and prospects.
Two Secrets of Successful Blogging
- Educate and inform your client base.
- Be authentic! Don’t copy and paste.
Twitter is a fairly new micro-blog platform. It is expected to grow up to 18 million users by the end of 2009. With over 6-10 million users and roughly 20 million unique visitors each month, and your opportunity to be part (and beneficiary) of the party, why not get in the ballgame?
You should consider Twitter because:
- With only under 140 characters that Twitter allows you to enter, you can stay connected with your client base.
- You can engage in conversations with your clients where they also give you feedback (positive or negative) on your products.
- Feedback received allows you to measure your customer service and product effectiveness to make improvements to your products and services.
- Your customers can praise your products and services, serving as your word-of-mouth advertisers.
You should consider being LinkedIn to:
- Build your network with other professionals.
- Build strategic business alliances to expand and reach a broader audience.
Your e-Newsletter or e-Zine
What is the point of having a blog and collecting emails from your clients and prospects if you don’t communicate with them on a regular basis? There are many businesses that make the mistake of not maintaining consistent communication with their clients and prospects.
You should consider having a regular e-Newsletter because:
- It helps you stay connected emotionally with your clients.
- It helps you retain your resourceful position in the minds of your clients.
- It is the most cost-effective way to keep engaged with your market niche without the added costs of printing and postage. (This is green!)
- It is the easiest way to keep them connected to your blog for fresh news, information, hot tips and guidance that are of interest to them.
As you can see, social media has totally transformed the way we communicate with customers today. How you use social media could help take your business to the next level.
Green building is a new concept that not many people understand. Using social media to reach out to your customers may seem like a difficult task. But, sometimes when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at also start to change.
When you begin to make changes in your business, that’s when you differentiate yourself from your competition.
Resources
Check out Starbucks Twitter chat
50 Ideas to Use Twitter for your Business
Tweetdeck to manage your Twitter account
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