Why Facebook Fans Are Important to Your Business

Just about everyone uses social media networks these days. It’s a way to keep up with friends old and new. But, did you know how important it is for the business side of things?

Social Media Hype

What is it about social media that is so appealing? For one, in the age of technology, it is a way for people to keep up when their schedules are too busy for actual face-to-face meetings. People can stay social and share with others over the cyber waves even if they don’t get out much.

Friends and family can stay in touch over the long miles with social sites. You can also meet and make new acquaintances through the personal information that you provide on your profile. Facebook can make suggestions for you of people you might know.

What Does It Mean for Your Business?

If you own a business, whether brick and mortar or online, you can benefit from your association with Facebook. Most of us use Facebook for personal reasons. We chat, share photos and other things. But it can be turned to profit your business.

Start by creating a business page on Facebook. You can link to this page from your website. Use your social media page to offer special coupons or offers to those who visit and see what you are talking about there.

As your page is an extension of your business, use it as a way to hone in on what your customers are thinking. Do your due diligence as well. Respond to questions and comments asked there. Offer surveys and polls for those who “like” your page.

Highlight what is going on at your business and upcoming features. Target your updates to those who are in your niche market. And, keep them brief and timely so no one is inundated with a lot of posts to their wall.

If you are just beginning a Facebook business page, invite your friends and family members you are already “friends” with to visit and “like” your page. This can get the ball rolling. They can suggest your page to their list of friends as well.

Another suggestion is to hold contests on your business page. Mention them on your website, but only offer entry to those who check in on the Facebook page.

Did you know that Facebook pages appear in search results on major search engines? With that thought in mind, don’t forget to optimize that page just like you have done with your website. Post snippets of your content here with links back to your website for those who find you through the social site first.

Facebook fans are important to your business because there are so many of them. And, through their clicks, you can find more targeted traffic for your website.

Let Yourself Shine! Be Yourself

Personality marketing is one of the most powerful kinds of marketing you could employ. Take Oprah for example. Oprah is one of the most powerful women in the world, able to take unknown authors to the top of the New York Time bestseller list just by mentioning them on her show. Her entire business is built around her personality.

People often follow websites not for its content, but because people like the personality behind the website. In many industries, like weight loss for example, success is determined much more by your personality than by anything else.

Most People Aren't Willing to Let it Out

Everyone has a personality. When you're with your friends, you probably say things spontaneously that could come off as hilarious. And you probably aren't afraid to express dissenting opinions.

But online, people tend to tone their personality down. They sound "correct" rather than spontaneous. They err on being right down the middle, rather than risk their audience by expressing an actual opinion.

This can get you so far, but you can't build a truly successful business on it. Most people are afraid that they'll lose their audience if they let their personality out. The opposite is true.

When you withhold your personality, you don't grow your audience. People just won't be that drawn to your work. When you really express your personality, it's true that some people will be polarized away from your work. But those people weren't really your audience anyway.

How to Let Go

Of course, telling someone to just express their personality can be about as useful as telling someone to just "be yourself" in tense social situations. For some people, it just doesn't come that easily. So what can you do?

Take out a journal and a pen. Write your opinion about a topic, as if you were just ranting to yourself or to an imaginary friend in your diary. Talk as if nobody would ever read it. Pour your emotions and inner thoughts into the page.

Once you're done, let it sit for a day, then use that journal entry as the outline or foundation for your post. This can be a very useful technique for circumventing your mind's innate resistance to expressing your personality.

Getting Positive Feedback

Perhaps the best thing about letting your personality out is the positive feedback you get from your audience. People will generally be much more excited about your work when you're pouring your heart into it.

Start letting your personality out to your audience. Then listen to their feedback. Let the excitement from your audience pour over into your own excitement, and use that to bring even more emotion into your personality marketing.

Marketing Campaigns Made Easy

The best kinds of marketing campaigns are those that integrate all kinds of different media in one. It's far more effective to use email, social media, blogging, SMS and other media all together than to just use one. So how do you create integrated marketing campaigns?

Tease with Social Media, Launch with Email

The most powerful platform for launching a marketing campaign is by far your email list. You'll be able to reach far more people through your email list than through any other avenue.

Use social media to tease people about upcoming launches. For example, drop hints about what might be in a new product, or tell people that an awesome contest is coming up, without actually letting on what the contest is.

Once it's actually time to launch, use your email list to get things kicked off.

Enroll Cheerleaders and Affiliates Early

Reach out to people who can help you early on. Talk to people who could retweet you once you're ready to launch. Reach out to potential affiliates as early as possible.

Cultivate relationships with people in your industry before you need it. When you're ready to launch a campaign, you should have allies across all kinds of media. You should have people retweeting for you, affiliates mailing promotions and bloggers writing reviews.

Have Two-Way Communication

Build a two-way communication channel with your audience. Use social media and use blog comments to get feedback from your audience. Having open communication also lets your users feed off of each other's excitement.

If you were just using email marketing, people can't talk to each other about your launch. They can't share what they think is coming up, or ask questions of each other. Make sure you have at least one channel of communication that allows your audience to talk to you or to each other.

Using SMS and Direct Mail

SMS and direct mail are two forms of media that are seldom discussed.

For each promotion, product launch or contest, send just one or two SMS messages. Don't overload your audience by sending too many texts. Send your text when it's most timely.

Direct mail is a fantastic avenue for reaching previous customers. It's only really valid for product or event related campaigns, since it's quite costly. You have to be able to make money by making sales to recoup your costs.

These two tactics aren't mandatory, but can really make a big difference when used properly.

During Down Times...

When you're not doing a campaign, do as much as you can to cross-promote your different kinds of media. Use your email list to grow your social media following. Use social media to boost your blog traffic. Use your blog to bring on more email followers. So on and so forth. This makes launching campaigns much more powerful once you get around to it.

Should You Use Craigslist for Marketing?

Craigslist is the largest classified advertising website on the planet. In the past, if you wanted to promote a small business, the best place to go would often be the newspaper's classifieds or services section. Today, this is more or less completely replaced by Craigslist.

Craigslist is free for the vast majority of users. There are certain sections in the Services category that charge a $5 or $10 fee in certain high traffic cities. By and large, however, the majority of users won't have to pay a dime to use Craigslist.

So how can you use Craigslist for local marketing?

The Services Section

The services section of Craigslist is the best place to market most small businesses.

Start by looking through the section you're interested in advertising in. How many other people are competing there? What kind of prices are they asking for? Open as many of your competitors' ads in new tabs as possible.

Scroll through your competitors' ads and put yourself in your customer's shoes. Which competitor would you personally choose? Why?

Did one stand out in some way? Were they offering something that others weren't? Did they seem more credible?

Try to duplicate the things that make one company seem better than the other. For example, if you're a graphic designer and notice that the ads that have a lot of samples in their portfolio seem to be the most compelling, then you should probably do the same.

Before you post in the Services section, make sure you read Craigslist's terms and conditions carefully. It's easy to inadvertently break the rules and get flagged, or in the worst case scenario get banned altogether.

Marketing Other Types of Businesses

What if you have a business that isn't a service? For example, what if you're marketing a restaurant?

One of the best options is to use the "Groups," "Events" and "Classes" sections.

In order to do this, you need to actually host an event at your restaurant. That's pretty simple - you can just put together a wine taster, or an appetizer taster.

Then go on Craigslist and market that event. Of course, you should also market the event over different avenues, mailing lists and in your restaurant itself.

Get creative. You can't just post a flyer for your business or a menu for your restaurant on Craigslist. You need to find a way to fit it into Craigslist's infrastructure.

One Last Method

Finally, you can look for people who've checked "Yes, contact me about other commercial interests." The vast majority of people won't check this box. Those who did, however, you can email directly with your proposition.

That's how you can use Craigslist to promote your local business. Look for a section that specializes in what you offer. If it doesn't exist, then create a way for you to offer something that matches the Craigslist structure.

Happy Marketing!

Fool Proof Marketing Campaigns

The best kinds of marketing campaigns are those that integrate all kinds of different media in one. It's far more effective to use email, social media, blogging, SMS and other media all together than to just use one. So how do you create integrated marketing campaigns?

Tease with Social Media, Launch with Email

The most powerful platform for launching a marketing campaign is by far your email list. You'll be able to reach far more people through your email list than through any other avenue.

Use social media to tease people about upcoming launches. For example, drop hints about what might be in a new product, or tell people that an awesome contest is coming up, without actually letting on what the contest is.

Once it's actually time to launch, use your email list to get things kicked off.

Enroll Cheerleaders and Affiliates Early

Reach out to people who can help you early on. Talk to people who could retweet you once you're ready to launch. Reach out to potential affiliates as early as possible.

Cultivate relationships with people in your industry before you need it. When you're ready to launch a campaign, you should have allies across all kinds of media. You should have people retweeting for you, affiliates mailing promotions and bloggers writing reviews.

Have Two-Way Communication

Build a two-way communication channel with your audience. Use social media and use blog comments to get feedback from your audience. Having open communication also lets your users feed off of each other's excitement.

If you were just using email marketing, people can't talk to each other about your launch. They can't share what they think is coming up, or ask questions of each other. Make sure you have at least one channel of communication that allows your audience to talk to you or to each other.

Using SMS and Direct Mail

SMS and direct mail are two forms of media that are seldom discussed.

For each promotion, product launch or contest, send just one or two SMS messages. Don't overload your audience by sending too many texts. Send your text when it's most timely.

Direct mail is a fantastic avenue for reaching previous customers. It's only really valid for product or event related campaigns, since it's quite costly. You have to be able to make money by making sales to recoup your costs.

These two tactics aren't mandatory, but can really make a big difference when used properly.

During Down Times...

When you're not doing a campaign, do as much as you can to cross-promote your different kinds of media. Use your email list to grow your social media following. Use social media to boost your blog traffic. Use your blog to bring on more email followers. So on and so forth. This makes launching campaigns much more powerful once you get around to it.

Successfully Build Your Brand

Building a successful brand can solidify your business in your niche. It establishes you and your business as a name that can be trusted. Here are some tips to help you build brand success.

What Is a brand?

When you see the swoosh logo, what does it make you think of? And how about Coca-Cola? You know the tagline, don’t you? And if we say “You’re in good hands with -” you can probably finish the sentence.

All of these show how a particular brand has influenced not only society but also our idea of what these certain products should be. For instance, when it comes to photocopying, people use the term “Xeroxed.” Actually, Xerox is a brand name that has become synonymous with the act of photocopying. How is that for brand success?

Building Your Brand

Who’s to say that you won’t become as big as Xerox one day? For any business, you start in the same place – building your brand.

Here are some tips to get the ball rolling.

Be real with your customers – Anyone can create a “smoke and mirrors” advertising campaign. You can promise the world and some will believe you. But, when you don’t deliver, your credibility is shot. One way to be real is to put a face on your business. Add your photo. Speak plainly and in simple terms with your customers.

Make good on your promises – The problem with many companies is poor customer service. If you promise to send a confirmation email after purchase or an answer to an information request, then do so in the time promised.

Sell your product – Inspire customers to buy by giving them a reason to use your product or service. Describe how their life will benefit from having your product in it. Help the customer make an emotional connection to your product.

Promote your product in as many places as possible – When new products come out, do a press release. Promote it on your social networking site, your blog and your website. Create YouTube videos and also podcasts about your products to increase the talk. Don’t forget offline promotion as well.

Be consistent with your brand – Whatever you decide that your brand will stand for, be true to that. Use people and ideas that are in line with your brand to help identify it for your audience.

Target your customers – Now that you know your brand, you have to connect with the people who “need” what you offer. Use keywords to draw your customers to you. Create a list of potentials and then stay in contact with them.

What does your product stand for? Take some time and create your brand. Then, provide quality products that connect with your customers so they almost sell themselves.

5 Common Business Process Mistakes

Happy New Year!  Is your business ready for a great 2014?  Having great business processes is crucial to business success. That said, if you do it wrong, the creation of business processes can actually hinder your success.

How can you ensure that your business processes actually help rather than hurt you? Make sure you avoid these five mistakes.

Mistake #1: No Overall Model, Only Details

It's common for people to only focus on the details of how to perform specific tasks. Unfortunately, if your business processes don't have an overall model or goal, the details will be disjointed and inappropriately applied by staff.

Every business process should be part of a bigger business model or philosophy. The process is the "how" of running a bigger system. Just having a bunch of "hows" without a "why" is a recipe for disaster.

Mistake #2: The Processes Are Technology Based

Great businesses use technology. Writing businesses for technology is important. That said, if your processes are completely reliant on technology to work, then you're laying a very weak foundation.

Let's say you have an expense tracking process. The process should focus on the step by steps of tracking expenses, rather than the software itself. That way if the software ever fails or if you ever switch to a new system, your employees will know how to perform the actual tasks, rather than just push the right buttons.

Mistake #3: Not Enough Details

Your business process documentation should be detailed enough that a person new to the job could operate the process with a little guidance.

It's common for people who're competent in a task to write documentation for others in a way that could only be done by people who also have competence in that task.

Instead, documentation should be written in a very step by step manner. It should be written for a new trainee, not for someone who's more experienced.

Mistake #4: Documenting Untested Processes

Not everything in your business should be documented. In fact, you should only document a process once it's been proven and refined to its most efficient form.

If you spend time documenting processes that haven't been proven to work yet, you'll spend a lot of time documenting things and then throwing them out.

Documentation should be done to help train people on things that work. Wait until your processes are proven before doing this.

Mistake #5: Neglecting Human Relationships

Finally, remember that processes often involve human beings.

Say you have a process for handling fulfillment when you're shipping a new product. The documentation might cover how you handle order volume, how to get samples from fulfillment and so on. However, the documentation might not include how to actually interface with the people who run your fulfillment house.

The human element in processes is a crucial element. Make sure you're not neglecting it.

These are five of the most common mistakes business people make when they're automating, documenting or designing business processes.  What do you think?