The Networks (Part 2)

LinkedIn

As mentioned before, if making connections is critical to your business, LinkedIn is necessary. To be able to make tactical connections with vendors, strategic partners, prospects and employees gives you an opportunity to align your company with the right people.

• Look your best with a profile that spotlights your company’s best products, services and achievements in a way that makes it look like you know what you’re doing (not that you don’t).
• Explore your market for new prospects, vendors, partners and employees enabling you to interact prepared.
• Post links to articles you’ve written…where? On your blog – exactly! Share articles you’ve come across while doing your own reading and comment on the same posted by those you’re following.
• Engage the people you want to get to know, but be sure to lead with your interest in them. It’s always good to ask what you might be able to do for them (not a sales pitch). Ask who would be a good referral for them. Ask if there is anyone with whom you’re connected to whom they’d like an introduction.
• Look over all your connections and their connections to determine who it is that can help you. Then develop a plan on how to approach them. Sounds like a good job for a sales person to me.

YouTube and/or SlideShare

Media posted to your blog gives your blog gravitas (remember that word?). Google spiders/crawlers see your site as more interesting if it contains media. That’s because it is! So, we’ll use it in our other social platforms as well.

That is all well and good, you say, but what can I use video and slides for? Not to worry, Vin has a couple of ideas:

• Imagine an inventory of videos and/or slides, categorized in a place where, not only your people could access them, but your customers could too (to the extent you wanted them to).
• SlideShare allows you to upload these media either to the site or to your LinkedIn profile. We’re talking how-tos, sales presentations, introductions, product demonstrations – the list goes on.
• These should also be used in conjunction with what you’ve been doing all along with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Traditional Email

The strength of an email program is that it is an opt-in program. That means you are sending messaging to an audience that has agreed to receive it. Most email lists are not big enough to do anything with because they’ve been built the old way, a clipboard at the point of sale.

Email is so important that we’re going to attempt to capture it on all platforms. There is nothing like it. Done correctly and coupled with your social media campaign, you can create a very large pool of people that want to hear what you have to say:

• They get it right in their inbox
• Open rates can be 10x that of corresponding direct mail
• If done right, click-through rates will make you very happy
• The emails must look sharp and professional
• It carries the message of your blog beyond its pages
• Can be set up to be forwarded to friends
• You know when/if the email was opened
• There are strict laws in place against spam
• It is highly recommended that a professional email service be used

Traditional Advertising

We talked about it a little bit and said that it can sure help along the way. This blog is written for small businesses, so I assume there isn’t much of an ad budget. I personally think, for most B2C outfits, any type of broadcast is a waste of money. Its reach is large and, unless you own a chain of some kind, you’re in a small corner of the DMA. Cooperative direct mail, in my estimation is the best way to go.

Whatever you do, fold your social media into it:

• Tag everything with your social media logos and how to find you
• Ask people to let you know that they saw your ad
• Save the use of advertising for big promotions, events, etc.
• If you’ve been running the same ad on a coupon or in a savings magazine for a long time, mix it up with a social media contest designed to get you more followers.

This is just the beginning. As I mentioned, social media at our level is certainly not easy, but it is a simple concept. If you get into trouble there are two words I rely on, “Ok Google” or “Hey Siri” for my iPhone friends.

If you really feel like you would like to get some help, we would certainly appreciate the chance to talk. Please connect with me on the Let’s Talk About It tab

Hope you enjoyed. .

1. Strategic Planning
2. 7 Reasons to Maintain a Company Blog
3. Social Media is Massive (Part 1)
4. Social Media is Massive (Part 2)
5. Social Media is Massive (Part 3)
6. Going Traditional
7. Bringing it all Together (The Blog)
8. Bringing it all Together (The Networks) Part 1
9. Bringing it all Together (The Networks) Part 2