Social Media Marketing: ROI

If you have been following my blog these past 13 weeks, I hope you were able learn a bit about Social Media Marketing for your small business! I know that I have learned a ton writing each blog and I hope one day I can implement such information in my own company or help a friend with theirs! The best way to wrap up my blog involves a bit of information about the Social Media Return on Investment (ROI). Let’s see if your Social Media platform is paying off!

Social Media and Business Strategy

In one of my very first blog post I talked about the importance of having a business strategy. I hope at this point you have grounded your business strategy and linked it to your social media platform. Strategy involved a long-term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal or set of goals. Social media is not a strategy! A business conversation about using social media should start with understanding the overall business strategy, this is something I have pointed out numerous times throughout my blog.

A need for measurement is very important. Measurements help us keep business and marketing activities on track. They also help us know when adjustments may be needed. If you measure what matters to your business, you will know what works and what doesn’t. Words, images, and videos you post online is not the most important, it’s about the impact they give on your audience, and it’s on the impact they give on your business sales. Another important note, you need to know what you are spending on your business and marketing activity. Put all of those numbers together, and you have your return on investments; this is the measurement that really does matter!

In deed this comes with experience but this will also come with SMART objectives. This stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time Related. Objectives provide us with the ability to track and measure success. Objectives translate the business strategy into plans and action. To sell more books is not a smart objective. To sell 15% more books in the next month by running a promotion on Facebook, is a great SMART objective.

What is Social Media ROI

Despite all the metrics available it’s particularly tough to know how much money you make from something like social media because it focuses so heavily on brand reputation and connections. We need to be aware of both the micro and macro environment when assessing the effectiveness of marketing activity; this is the true challenge when calculating ROI.

The most common metrics used in social media are around the number of likes for a Facebook page or the number of followers on Twitter. Unfortunately, these are not thee measurements that will tell you what’s working and what not, and they are not metrics that will impact the bottom line for your business. Measurements in social media concern our ability to attract, retain, and convert potential customers. A note to remember on this subject, the posts you make involves relevancy and quality are much more important than noise and quality.

When looking into your ROI you need to look into the money you have been spending with regards to advertising, boosting posts on Facebook, promoting tweets, or sponsoring content on LinkedIn. You may also need to invest in expertise when it comes to design input when your setting up your profiles. This all costs money which is a subtraction to your ROI. Remember though, if done properly this could raise your ROI to!

Social Media Metrics

Volume: Success on social media isn’t just all about the numbers of followers, connections, or fans you have, but volume metrics are important. This measurement is like a stepping stone to other measurements. Volume metrics show us how far social media content is circulation, it’s reach. The larger the audience, the greater the reach, but that’s only valuable if your audience is a goof fit for your business. Quality is much more important than quantity at the end of the day.

Engagement: This is a two-way game, it’s not just broadcasting, it involves a response or reaction. Engagements means slightly different things on the different social media platforms. On LinkedIn, it’s the likes, comments, shares, and views on your update. On Twitter, it’s the replies, the mentions, the retweets, and the likes of on your post. On Facebook, it involved the reactions, comments, and shares. Lastly, on Instagram, it also involved the likes and comments. You want people to interact with your content, it means they value you it. Take a look at my post regarding a really special moment for my brother. It reached many people around the nation!

Traffic: One of the major goals of social media should be to drive traffic to your website, because it’s a platform that you own.  Google Analytics is a great tool you can use to help see what’s going on behind the scenes of our website. Using Google Analytics can give you the digital analytics tools you need to analyze data from all points of interest in one place, for a deeper understanding of the customer experience. You can then share the insights that matter with your whole organization.

Measurement Tools

There ae several analytical tools out there like: Twitter Analytics, LinkedIn Analytics, Facebook Analytics, and Instagram Analytics. By paying close attention to social media analytics, you can measure your performance against your social media goals. Each social media platform offers unique tools you can use. On Twitter, engagements look at the total number of times a user interacted with a Tweet. Clicks anywhere on the Tweet, including Retweets, replies, follow likes, links, cards, hashtags, embedded media, username, profile photo, or Tweet expansion. On LinkedIn, some insights you may see include the amount of views and likes your share generate or the number of re-shares on your articles/posts. On Facebook, you can see how many people have liked your page in the top right-hand corner section. Facebook Analytics provides you with insights, this also can help you track the number of active users to better understand page performance. Instagram Analytics is a new feature, and only available on a smartphone. You will then see the number of impressions your posts have received over the past week and the change over the previous seven days. Impressions are the number of times all of your Instagram posts have been seen. Do you see how all these analytical tools focus on the reach of information!

Analyzing Social Media ROI

Return on investment is the value an organization receives from investing in a project or piece of marketing activity. It’s a performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment, it’s also a measure of the profit earned from each investment. Calculating social media marketing ROI needs to start with a set of goals that line up with your business strategy. To calculate to ROI we first need the revenue from social media and the cost of your social media activity. You then subtract the cost from the revenue and then divide by the cost.

For example, from Luan Wise: “1,000 clicks from 10 social media campaign posts on Twitter, of those 1,000 clicks,500 converted to a lead by filling in a form on a landing page. Of those 500 leads, 100 ended up making a purchase. This means that our traffic to lead conversion ratio is 50%, and our lead to sale conversion ratio is 20%. We know each purchase generates 100 pounds of revenue and 500 pounds of resources were allocated to the 10 campaign posts. The campaign generated 10,000 pounds of revenue, and so the ROI is 19 to one. For every one pound spent, 19 pounds of profit was generated” (Wise,2017).

Final Thoughts

As this is my last blog post in regards to Social Media Marketing I want to leave with you a piece of inspiring advice: Social media allows us to observe what’s going on inside your industry and amongst your competitors. There’s so much value to be had, and that’s what social media is all about.

References

Smiciklas, M., & Google. (n.d.). Intersection Consulting. Retrieved from https://www.intersectionconsulting.com/2009/social-media-roi/

Wise, L. (2017, January 12). Social Media Marketing: ROI. Retrieved from https://www.lynda.com/HootSuite-tutorials/Social-Media-Marketing-ROI/504398-2.html

Thought Leaders

How well you’re considered to be a thought leader can greatly affect your career. Becoming a though leader is an invaluable factor of authority. Authority is very important because many people overlook it. You may think it doesn’t apply to you because you don’t own the business, or you’re not the author, or you don’t have certain credentials. But in reality, an average employee who is recognized both inside and outside of the company as a though leader dramatically improves their value. If you want to work on strategies to help you develop authority, both within your company and in the community, you will want to keep reading!

Preparing to Build Authority

• Determine your area of authority: to prepare this part you need to think and define your talents as activities in which you love to do, you are gifted at, and where you already have developed skills.
• Scheduling time to build authority: This is my biggest downfall and don’t let it be yours. Schedule time to focus on developing yourself. You are the most important person in your life. Find some time in the 168 hours in a week to work on becoming an authority. Schedule yourself; using a schedule will help you create a foundation in which you can see yourself improve with time.
• Finding a mentor: I have many mentors in my life; my brother, my boss, and a few more I could name. They mentor me in different ways throughout my life. To fully become the best, you need to be guided by someone who already is an expert in the area. You need to find a mentor who you trust and who have already achieved success. To find mentor you can look to three places: inside your company, within your network of friends and family, or a long-distance mentorship where you find a master to mentor from afar.

Building Authority within a Company

Becoming a system expert: When it comes to building your authority inside of the company, the fastest way to begin is by becoming a system expert. In order for people to be truly successful in a position, they must learn from someone else. They must be someone who knows the path and can teach it to others. The systems expert is recognized as the authority using that software and because of that, they are valuable to the company.

Getting company buy-in: This is a tricky one. Follow the guidelines that have been established within your company. It may take some time to build your authority and be recognized within a larger business. If you consistently make an effort over time in mastering their systems, your opportunity to be recognized as a system expert will come, there is always plenty of opportunities to become a system expert.

Documenting the “what” and “how” in systems: The “what” component involves the systems; what, who, when, how and with what. The idea is to outline what someone should do when using the system. The “how” component is general steps someone should follow to complete the system. Creating a simple outline is key and it should fit onto one page without making the text smaller than comfortable for reading.

Formalizing systems: You need approval from someone higher than you, or if you are at the top of the organizations chart, you will want to submit it to a proofreader. By reviewing, editing, and then formalizing the systems your create, you will begin to improve the skills as the systems expert!

Building Authority in the Public

Climbing the authority ladder: Think of building your authority like climbing a ladder one step at a time. The bottom of the ladder involves writing helpful reviews of products and services. Second step involved commenting actively on others’ blogs. Then, you can also create your own blog or a podcast. Time to take the big step and complete higher level of education or certification. Then, create your own specialized social network. Find where you are at on the ladder and consider taking the next step to build your authority!

Building a library: By building your library of materials that you can send or perhaps even sell to other people, you’ll establish tangible evidence of your expertise. You can build your own library through articles, books, and videos.  If you can bring your expertise to life in a video, people will hear your voice and see your work in action, they will become more familiar with your expertise. Every public authority in some way has built their own library; you can begin building yours today!

Gaining personal publicity: The key is having a message that is relevant and interesting to their audience. Keep this rule in mind, publication, blogs, radio shows, or any kind of publicity source exists to serve their audience. If you can show them how you can make their job easier and serve their audience, they’ll become interested in you! This leader to becoming a partner in helping you build your authority and becoming invaluable.

 

References:

Crenshaw, D. (2013, January 03). Thought Leadership. Retrieved from https://www.lynda.com/Business-Skills-tutorials/Becoming-a-Thought-Leader/88535-2.html

Famous Quotes From Business Leaders And Entrepreneurs. (n.d.). Motivateus. Retrieved from http://www.motivateus.com/famous-business-leader-quotes.htm

Mitchell, N. (2016, January 13). 9 Inspiring Spaces with Library Ladders. Retrieved from https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/9-inspiring-spaces-with-library-ladders-226881

 

Twitter for Business

When I think of Twitter, I think of feeds full of news, sports highlights/play by plays, and memes. After looking in-depth of what Twitter has to offer, businesses can use Twitter as a Social Media outlet to promote, advertise, and inform customers in a positive matter, reaching out too many different people and sources! If you want to learn a but more about Twitter for small business, you’ll want to keep reading!

Get Started with Twitter

Twitter has over 300 million people worldwide turning to Twitter to talk about things that interest them. Twitter is great for Social Listening, Talking, Energizing, Supporting, and Embracing. Using it for business you can convey your brand’s personality by sharing other news from your industry or adding an opinion to an existing topic. As a business, the goal is to obtain followers. Twitter is a timely matter; it requires a willingness to commit to frequent posts. (Something I am not good at within Social Media). Twitter claims that people are 72% more likely to make a future purchase from a business after they follow or interact with them on Twitter. People want to hear from business on Twitter. A good example of this is airlines! Take a look below at responses WestJet has done creating customer interactions. This lets the customers know they are being heard. In my personal opinion, I find Twitter’s interface to be easier to navigate compared to Facebook or LinkedIn.

Create an Effective Profile

Your profile tells a story about your brand. Every time someone taps on your username or visits our page directly they’ll have an opportunity to step into an experience; you want this to positive and you have to craft that for them. Some things to consider when creating your profile, you’ll want to add a photo and a header image (hint for my dad if your reading this, a little egg is out of date). Another thing you’ll want to add is a Twitter bio, make it clear and concise which describes your brand. The biggest thing is making it inspiring with less than 160 characters! I will use WestJet again, they demonstrate an important and eye-catching profile! The hashtag in their bio really says it all.

Connect

Connecting is important and you want to explore what similar businesses are doing on Twitter. You want to follow those core group of users. It may be a good idea to distance your personal objectives with your business objectives. You’ll want to distance yourself from politicians, celebrities, and brands from other areas. To connect with a larger audience, you’ll want to include hashtags so it reaches to more people. Be sure they are relatable, appropriate, and common!

Tweet

To be successful on Twitter, you really want to identify your core marketing objective. Spend your effort and energy building your niche. With only 140 characteristics can be hard to convey your message so include links to your website or share events or news, add photos, video, your location, and polls. A simple photo or video can go a long way in increasing the engagement on your posts.

Tapping the Groundswell

It has become quite clear that if you want your organization as well as the products or services you’re offering to be known and recognized the use of the groundswell is essential. Twitter has become such a revolutionary tool for organizations and people these days that the understanding and execution of using this tool is a no brainer! A great quote that sums up chapter 10 in our required readings regarding tapping the groundswell with Twitter and is really good to keep in mind when creating a Twitter profile; “Twitter may well be among the simplest, most powerful social tools you can use. Just make sure you integrate it with the rest of your social channels.”  This is the thing I really enjoy and admire about twitter’s whole setup and presence on the internet is that anyone can become someone on there.

Twitter Sample

• Tweet: It contains 140 characters of text which can be uploaded with a photo, a link, GIF’s, or videos!
• Reply: If you would like to respond to a tweet, you’ll click ‘reply’. Replying to a Tweet shows that you are listening to your customers. I highly recommend you doing so as much as you can!
• Retweet: Click the ‘Retweet’ button if you want to share what you are seeing. A Retweet is an act of passing along someone else’s tweet, this will display on your feed.
• Like: This is what I am getting my views to do. See below on the amount of likes I have been receiving on my previous Twitter posts. A like is a simple way of positive acknowledgment.
• Hashtags: #food #easter #tbt. A hashtag is a word beginning with the “#” symbol. This brings connection to other posts with the same hashtag, it helps get your post views.

References

Batesole, B. (2017, April 18). Twitter for Business. Retrieved from https://www.lynda.com/Twitter-tutorials/Twitter-Business/480768-2.html

Charlene Li, J. B. (2011). groundswell. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press

Facebook for Business

Just 5 years ago if you logged into Facebook you would have probably seen no business ad’s. Facebook was simply a social network to keep up with friends and family. Now it’s 2018 and the majority of your “Timeline” or “Feed” is overflowing with advertisements from your favorite companies. If you want to know what goes into a good Facebook Profile and want to know how to utilize the business functions of Facebook, you will want to keep reading!

Get Started

Marketing on Facebook starts with a page. A Facebook page is where you house all your business information. When creating your page be sure to use your business name and include your business logo. I know when I am searching for locally owned business’s, I click on the page that has the logo I recognize. You need to realize your personal Facebook page is quite different then your business page. Within the Business Profile, you gain insights and analytics with your engagement. You are also able to create advertising campaigns. When creating a post, you need to realize the news feed is a competitive place, and when you do get in front of your customer, you want to make sure that it’s with quality information. We will dive into this point throughout the blog.

Build Your Page

Something I did not know was when creating a Facebook business page, you create it through your personal profile. The personal account will be the one associate to the page you’re setting up. This account will also be how you’ll manage your page, and you’ll be able to add other admins once it is set up. The greatest thing, users wont know your personal profile is associated with a specific page.

Facebook has all kinds of options when creating a marketing page for your business. You can select from Local Business or Place, Company Organization, Institution, Brand, or Product. Once you have created a page based on the type of business you are in its time to add some information. You want to add as much information as you can to your page. Some of that includes contact information, hours of operation, address, logo, cover photo, photos, and a call to action. I know by experience I have seen businesses create a page with little to no information then slowly keep adding information. I found that to be very frustrating and disorganized. To avoid that, consider unpublishing your page until it is perfect. This way customers wont get a bad vibe and never return to the page.

Build Your Audience

The goal of a Facebook page is to have a clear voice and presence for your brand. Without fans or people following your page, your reach will fall short. Some ways to create reach includes inviting friends to like your Facebook page, inviting your email contact to like your Facebook page, add a Facebook like button on your website, and paying to promote your Facebook page. This past weekend I went to an Expo show called Make It in Edmonton. One of the local boutiques taking part in the show used Facebook to promote the show. The best thing about this business when visiting their booth was the lady passing out cards with their Facebook page information. She asked us to give them a like and to keep an eye out on the page as they were going to post about a 50% promotion for only 20 minutes. This was a great marketing tactic because not only are they going to attract customers to make sales, they also gained a ton of likes.

Advanced Facebook Page Features

Most people are avid Facebook users but when it comes to a business profile on Facebook, there are plenty advanced features. One of these is creating an event on Facebook. For example, with the boutique in which I spent a ton of money at during the Expo. They had created an event giving clients information about the Make It market.  They are able to use the function and invite people. Some other advanced features include Facebook milestones, ratings and reviews, and embedding your Facebook posts on your website. A note to remember, when looking at your ratings and reviews be sure to make sure the client knows they are being heard. Be sure to comment back on the reviews thanking them for their business or help them solve an issue they may have.

Engage Your Audience

This topic leads perfectly from the last. When it comes to your customers you need to make sure you are hearing them. You also need to moderate Facebook comments and users connecting with your page. You may have heard the word “Trolls” well they are a thing in the Facebook world. They try to impose on a post and tear apart the company but no need to take the abuse. You can go ahead a remove them completely from having the ability to interact with your page.

Understand Facebook Insights and Reports

Understanding and monitoring your Facebook business page is important. If you need help determining if your Facebook page is growing and you’re posting the right content, you’ll want to take a look into Facebook analytics. Using this function, you can see the likes, reach, and visits. Another tab to keep up with is the message tab. Facebook insights is where you’ll learn about your audience, and is your number one tool to fine-tune your Facebook page and posts to create higher engagement and conversions.

References 

Adams, M. (2017, May 29). Facebook for Business. Retrieved from https://www.lynda.com/Facebook-tutorials/Facebook-Business-2016/490656-2.html

Facebook, Logo, Social Network. (n.d.). Pixabay. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/en/facebook-logo-social-network-770688/

Instagram for Business

An Instagram account can help a brand to build a stronger brand image and grow trust with their customer base, even more so than other platforms. The visual nature of Instagram encourages people to create user-generated content for brands to feature and repost on their feed. If you are in the age range of 10-30 you will probably already know what Instagram is. Now if you want to learn how you can use Instagram and its marketing potentials then keep reading!

Instagram Basics

You can increase the awareness of your products and services simply by posting photos or videos of them. Instagram has 500 million monthly active users. There are 95 million photos uploaded on Instagram daily, with 4.2 billion photo likes per day! That just shows how many people use Instagram daily and how people are really engaging with the content that is uploaded. You may think Instagram is just filled with selfies but I know I use Instagram to search for products and services I may want to buy or get done. For example, a ton of hairstylists use Instagram to advertise their services. This is how I found my hairdresser! You can create a business Instagram page in which it is linked to your Facebook page. This allows clients to find you easier! In my opinion, I find the interface of Instagram simple and easy to use. Nowadays, the interface of Facebook can be confusing and has to many options. I believe when it comes to advertising and promotion, simplicity is key.

Developing a Business Strategy for Instagram

When it comes to developing a business strategy for Instagram you need to start with finding inspiration. Usually the customer is looking at the picture itself so a long captain will do nothing for you. To find inspiration you need to first list products and services. Secondly, list the benefits or products and services. Thirdly, list the different ways your products are used. Fourth, ask the questions: when are people happiest using your product? Lastly, think how can you capture those special moments. Hopefully this will help you simplify what you decide to post.

One of the most important aspects of running a successful business is researching the competition and keeping up-to-date in regards to what they are doing. Knowing what they’re doing, the type of content they are posting, and that will help you tailor your content to your Instagram profile. Using similar hashtags to promote your products is a secret hint. Most times customers will click those hashtags that are relatable to what they are looking for. This could lead them to your page!

Now let’s talk about scheduling. You may be thinking why do I need to schedule my postings? Well, this gives your customer a schedule on when they can expect your post and they will be sure to check out your Instagram page the days you decide to post. Some of those days that stand out are throwback Thursday (#TBT) or Inspirational Mondays. If you need a little help with scheduling, check out the app ScheduGram. You can sit down on Sunday and upload your posts for the week; set the date and time you want the posts to be uploaded to your page throughout the week and ScheduGram will make it happen.

Working in the Instagram App

Instagram Stories let users post photos and videos that vanish after 24 hours. Once you’ve posted a story, you can also see how many times each post in your story has been viewed and who has viewed it.

Instagram filters can make amateur photographers feel like pros. And if you don’t have high-end photography equipment or editing software, they’re a great way to enhance photos with just a few taps. Filters can drastically change the look and feel of a photo or video, so it’s important to use only a few that you feel best represent your brand — and stick to the few you’ve chosen. Using a different filter for every post can quickly make an Instagram feed feel unconnected.

Some things you may want to follow on your business Instagram include engagement rate and follower growth rate! Measuring engagement, which includes likes and comments, will give you a better idea of how you should be changing things and what steps to take. You want to find out the average engagement percentage of both, your total followers and per post to get a clearer understanding. When it comes to follower growth rate the number of followers you have may be considered a pride metric. However, the growth rate is not. By keeping an eye on the growth rate of your followers you will see how your content or posting frequency is making a difference.

Fine Tuning Content Posted to Instagram

#throwbackthursday #inspirationalmonday #love #photooftheday #happy #food. You may ask what those are! They are hashtags! Implementing hashtags helps people find your posts! They shouldn’t have any spaces. It is like a hyperlink. When you click on the hashtag, several posts will pop up if it’s a popular hashtag that many people use! Use hashtags to expand your reach. These can be campaign specific or general, all that’s important is that they are relevant.

You may also want to use the location function. If you tag the location, it increases the visibility of your uploads. I have used this function tons when it comes to looking at what’s going on in my community. I usually end up finding many different services happening and also promotions of locally owned businesses!

Utilizing Instagram Business Tools

Instagram makes it easy for business users! It will tell you impressions, reach, profile views, website clicks, and followers you have! If you have questions about those, take a look at a few of my previous blogs, I go in-depth about what those are and how they are important to your business. Another thing that makes Instagram great is you can actually look up what they mean from the drop down menu at the bottom of the settings page!

You know the Google Home? Well, funny story… I have one sitting in my kitchen. I was recently talking about how I wanted a water pack bag so when I am running I don’t need to have a water bottle. Well about 30 minutes later I was swiping through Instagram and an advertisement for the water bottle bag popped up! Instagram has created promoted posts, exactly what popped up on my feed. Businesses can run a promotional campaign for a price. They actually use the same campaign as Facebook.

Instagram actually created a blog to help business owners! Go check it out! (Instagram Blog)

Integrating Instagram with Other Platforms

By driving traffic to a company’s social media platforms, you work to increase the brand’s overall social media influence, which then helps to build relationships and long-term customers. Embedding a business’s Instagram feed on your website is an enticing attraction, especially for your regular customers to update them on new products or services. From another perspective, it can act as a portfolio of sorts to direct prospects, giving visual examples of what you sell or do.

References

Alexander, A. (2016, November 03). Instagram for business. Retrieved from https://www.lynda.com/Instagram-tutorials/Instagram-Business/533221-2.html

How to back up your Instagram photos for free. (2018, February 26). The yorkshire dad of four. Retrieved from http://theyorkshiredad.com/backup-your-instagram-photos-for-free

LinkedIn Profiles for Social Business Success

Getting noticed on social media is difficult. LinkedIn: one of the up and coming social media platform the crucial for the success of your business along with your personal life! If you want to learn more about the effectiveness of LinkedIn along with my personal experience of landing my career with LinkedIn, you will want to keep reading!

Get Started with the Essentials

The effectiveness of a professional profile can be dictated by the effort and intention of the individual creating it. The primary creation of the profile is not enough for it to be effective in nature. In this day and age, optics can determine our opportunity. First impressions can be crippling or elevating to a business, and developing an image for oneself and their platform is crucial. Three levels were introduced on the base level of professional profile orientation: participation, credibility development, and increasing perception of trust with your connections. Beginning with participation I am constantly witnessing the importance of investing time and input not only within LinkedIn but in social media platforms on a personal and societal level. To be effective in this manner is to make yourself present and attainable to your professional audience, establish that consistency, inherently leading to development of reputation. Leading to the second level of developing credibility, which demands investment in your brand; whether it be fine tuning the optics of your profile or adeptness of your craft within professional interactions and practice. Through combination of participation and credibility development, the result is increasing public trust in you as a professional and your profile. By being an advocate for your brand and having cognizance of how easily public perception can be swayed, beginning a professional profile can direct or redirect your professional endeavors.

As aforementioned, the fine details and how much you invest in your own self as a brand can dictate the optics and perception of your professional effectiveness. This fine tuning includes providing your name and simplicity in locating you. Our world is click and access, thus our accessibility must be searchable and simple to be best involved. Should this involve variations of our name possibly searched, we must be cognizant in thinking outside of the box as to how it could be searched in different variations. For myself, I understand that there are various spellings of Mikayla and must be prepared to introduce those variations onto my profile for increased efficiency. Secondarily, our world is entirely visual and our professional photo is our virtual first impression. It is crucial to ensure that the optics of you are professional in nature, as this is not a social media site, it is a business investment. Alongside a clear and concise LinkedIn headline which illuminates your skillsets and what you offer, a professional photo and the details of your business will determine your first impression.

Your Contact Information

As previously discussed, our world is one click and entirely dictated by accessibility and this would continue into how easily one can be contacted. The LinkedIn profiles provide four platforms of contact: email, Instant Messenger, phone, and address. It is imperative that these four points of contact are accurate and consistently updated for your clientele. If I were to provide an inaccurate phone number, a client was to attempt to contact and thus was unsuccessful, this would lower the perception of my professional conduct and damper my reputation. Additionally, you must further facilitate personal accessibility by providing supplementary platforms you operate such as Twitter which is prominent in the business world. In daily life, the average person will operate several social media platforms which if oriented professionally can be introduced to your clientele on LinkedIn. I believe that this allows your clientele to perceive that they know you better than simply reading the profile, and they can invest more time into you as a brand.

 Your Summary

The summary is the most crucial aspect of your profile which is often underestimated in its importance. There are certain points to hit in the development of your summary: corporate branding, professional branding, and personal branding. In a summary, it is simplistic to brand your business through explanation of the directives of your business and the services able to be provided which essentially allow the reader to know they have arrived at the right profile. Secondarily, branding yourself as a professional and allowing the reader to know what you do for the business will further confirm that they are interacting with the right person. If your role is not provided, how is the reader to know that if they invest a connection in you that you will be able to provide them with what they may be seeking? Leading into the tertiary branding, which is that of you as a person. A personal touch can allow for conversation starters which can lead to increased trust in a business relationship.

Your Experience

Your LinkedIn connections are not as interested in your resume as they are how you have utilized your experience and how you will continue to apply your experience to goals and endeavors. The aforementioned corporate, professional, and personal branding continues into your experience and how you may service the clientele through effective, expert practice. In this sector of your profile, you want to state what you have done, what you are doing, and what you plan to do to establish success. By introducing your results and the specifics of such you are confirming that you are able to achieve and illustrating that an individual will be making a wise choice in investing in you as a professional. Further to this, you then want to establish what you can facilitate for them and create contact accessibility should they need furthered clarification prior to investing in you. Prior experience and explanation of such can reduce the hesitation, and you must introduce a call to action or point of communication which will provide personal interaction with you to eliminate hesitation and encourage investment. To further eliminate hesitation, it is crucial to visually introduce your successes to an increasingly visual world. Photos, power points, videos, and other forms of rich media will allow the viewer to feel as if they can truly experience what you have achieved and compartmentalize that into a professional relationship. This will direct individuals towards the path of “calling to action”, where you can then create a professional relationship out of the initial professional interest.

Create Your Own Brand

I personally feel that your individual brand is one of the most important parts of your LinkedIn profile, and beyond that it is crucial to being a successful professional in that likability is key. By introducing your professional skillsets, then highlighting them with other relevant abilities, achievements, and accolades you are furthering their personal investment in your brand. When listing these, it is not necessarily boasting so much as telling your personal story and how you have grown as a professional to where you are today and what you can bring that a peer in business may not be able to. Adding accomplishments via project work to your LinkedIn profile can increase the perception of success and concretely introducing your effectiveness to the audience. The more tangible content you introduce, the more effective your profile will be. By utilizing articles or expert advice effectively, you will create dependence from your clientele on the information that you provide. This will then lead to conversation about your brand, and thus conversation will lead to increased clientele and time investment in your profile as well as you in general as a professional.

Skills and Recommendations

Delegating and prioritizing skills on your profile can lead to confirmation that the clientele is in the right spot and speaking with a person who has the skills that they themselves are lacking and seeking out. It is important to select the skills that are most applicable to your business endeavors, rather than trying to add skills that may be true to you but not necessarily applicable to your field. Having an efficient list of your personal skills, alongside recommendations from your peers can improve the vote of confidence you may get from your clientele and how willing they are to develop a working relationship with you. In regards to recommendations, an individual cannot necessarily ask for a recommendation but should you provide recommendations for others they will inherently be more inclined to provide accurate and respectable recommendations for you. Thus, increasing the level of trust within your brand as the general audience will seek to see that others have had positive interactions with you in determining their investment in you.

Your Education

I personally found it quite interesting that education was an aspect of a professional profile often left out, as education is a crucial piece to the success of many professionals. This is not saying that education is required, because there are many individuals who have found great success without schooling. However, should you have accomplished educational success, it is crucial that you provide this information to your professional audience due to the fact that this provides them insight into your focus, drive, and sense of completion. Not only on a post secondary level, but reaching back to high school as you may be able to facilitate connections with individuals you may have interacted with which could lead to positive business relationships. Secondarily, adding your certifications and courses can further introduce the clientele to the extra steps you will take to ensure your success as a professional, in that you invest time and energy to further your skillsets and what you are able to provide. By articulating education and certifications you have obtained, this will only increase the level of trust in your brand and what you are able to provide in the future.

 Make the Most of Your Personality

I believe strongly that a personal touch can make you stand out from the crowd. Sometimes people isolate themselves into a “professional box” which illustrates a very serious individual who is solely seeking out effective, professional relationships. The realism of this, is that a likeable person who is willing to emotionally involve themselves in a working relationship will be inherently more successful than someone who is cold. Ensure you are allowing your audience to know you as a human beyond your professional capacity. This will increase natural interest and trust in you as a person beyond what you may be able to provide on a professional level. Including volunteering can also allow for finding common ground with your clientele. By introducing yourself outside of your business and the kind of person they can expect to be interacting with, this will increase how many individuals want to seek out connections.

Extra Strategies to Stand Out

Utilizing keywords or “buzzwords” for your target audience to locate you can increase the number of connections you are able to establish. Accessibility is crucial and allowing yourself to be found with ease is imperative. Increasing accessibility also depends on how you involve yourself, and utilizing LinkedIn groups is a primary manner of ensuring increased involvement. After ensuring your profile is fine tuned and in order, you can begin involving yourself in groups where questions may be asked that fall within your “wheelhouse” and thus you can allow for your expertise to direct individuals with further questions to your profile. Thirdly, who you follow can motivate you as well as illuminate your influences and intention within your professional endeavors. In summation, your profile is a direct indicator of who you are, what you’re able to accomplish, and what you have to provide the general public. You have direct control over how you influence your clientele in the time you invest in your public profile, the interactions you facilitate, and the ease in which you are able to be interacted with. Our world is inherently visually oriented, and we must orient our professional capacity in that direction.

My Experience With LinkedIn

I was unable to log into my LinkedIn profile but I was able to find it through Google. If you want to give it a look, here is the link! (Mikayla’s Profile)   This is my old profile and after learning a lot more about what goes into a LinkedIn profile I have a lot of changes to make. I find my profile a bit busy. I need to use better keywords that stand out. I have had a great experience with LinkedIn because I recently landed a job through the social media platform in the financial world. I applied for the job through the corporations LinkedIn profile. From their I received a phone call from the recruiter headquarters based out of Toronto. He mentioned that my resume and profile were very strong and I had all necessary skills displayed which fit the job I applied for. Creating a LinkedIn profile take time, it’s not something you can sit down and do in an hour. You want to make it professional, reliable, and intreging.

References

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell, Expanded and Revised Edition Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.

Media, I. (2017, May 24). Get a Better LinkedIn Profile in 2017 with These Steps. Retrieved  from https://www.islandmediamanagement.com/better-linkedin-profile-in-2017/

Verdonck, B. (2017, January 30). Follow the leaders most influential to your career. Retrieved from https://www.lynda.com/LinkedIn-tutorials/Follow-leaders-most-influential-your-career/512777/581607-4.html

Top 5 Tips for YouTube Channel

Everyone has heard of YouTube! Or I think they have? It may be where you put on some of your favorite tunes, or watch those epic fail videos, or get your laughs my watching funny cat videos. But did you know, YouTube is so much more than that!  YouTube is a great social media outlet to market your business! If you want to learn the top 5 ways you can market your brand to earn top revenue, please keep reading!

Create a website: You may be asking why you need to create a website to be a successful YouTuber? Well having a website gives you a lot more credibility. It gives potential customers another place to check you out. It also gives you a place to embed your video. Not only that, you can tweak the title of your video with different keywords to be something different on your website so you can reach more people. Here is a tip, be sure to always back up your project file and make sure you do regular backups of your website just incase something crashes.

Use consistent branding: Be sure to always have an intro, make it short and sweet so people don’t get disinterested. When it comes to the intro include a logo and maybe some sound to go along with it. Make it catchy and enticing so people will remember you! Be sure to brand all your social media outlets with the same logo but change it up, angle it on YouTube and keep it straight on Instagram. Very small differences are important but keep it recognizable.

Optimize videos for search engine visibility: Make sure your titles are descriptive, take advantage of the tags feature that allows you to pinpoint some key words that will represent the video. You want to make it easy for your viewers to find you! Be sure to do your research before you start hash-tagging it up!

Entice viewers into viewing multiple videos: One skill to develop is linking one video to a similar video. Firstly, you upload a video, and you’ve got your title and your description of the video. Now below that description, think about other videos on your channel, that are similar, that the audience that’s watching the current video would also be interested in, put a link to that video down in the description of the video that you just uploaded. This is important because you don’t want people coming to view one video then moving onto the next person’s, you want those views!!  Another opportunity YouTube has set up to make this easy on you involves creating a playlist. This function allows the viewers to view your videos on a cycle and they would never have to click to view another video of yours.

Research your competitors: I have said it before and I am saying it again, you need to do your research before anything. Look at your competitors and see what is working for them and what isn’t! Learn from their mistakes.

Let’s Get Personal

One of my favorite things to do is cook and bake! So I decided to take a look into one of the top YouTube channels: Bon Appétit! Over 60 years after its creation it is still one of the top hits. Actually created based on a magazine, their YouTube channel is charmingly simple and smart. It’s full of recipes and techniques that’ll help you create such a wonderful meal. There website is tasteful and informative and it corresponds well with the YouTube Channel. They use consistent branding throughout all social media platforms. They also market all their different platforms via the YouTube channel with direct links. Most times their video’s link to another video if they are making multiple products. It’s just one click and you are now at the corresponding video and they also use the playlist function! Check out How to Make Beer with Brad!

References 

Bon Appetit – Condé Nast. (2008, September). Retrieved February 25, 2018, from http://www.condenast.com/brands/bon-appetit/

Alexander, A. (2014, October 07). Top 5 Tips for YouTube Channel.  Retrieved from https://www.lynda.com/YouTube-tutorials/Top-5-YouTube-Channel-Tips/181239-2.html

Social Listening for Marketers

Have you ever been in a conversation and you can just tell its going in one ear and out the other? Its annoying, isn’t it!? When it comes to running a successful social media platform, listening is the key to success!

Integrating Social Listening

Do you feel like you talk to much? Well it is time to step back and listen to the needs of your customers. Keep your eyes, ears, and minds open so you can go places you never imagines, and paying attention to your customers you can bring them along.

Groundswell

Chapter 5 in groundswell involves “listening to the groundswell.” The chapter starts off with a story involving a man named Perry who is suffering from prostate cancer which involves many hospital visits. He attends M.D Anderson located in Houston, Texas. He describes his experience by them “[giving] you this little document they’re very insistent on patient promptness. I am there right on the button. I sit there; wait an hour, an hour and a half, and two hours. There is something wrong with this picture. My time is more precious than theirs (Charlene Li, 2011).” I know I can relate to this, more times then not when you have an appointment with a medical practitioner, they are always late and its extremely irritating.

This discussion then carries into how marketers tell us how they describe and direct brands. Marketers say that they purchase a brand which obviously means since they spent the money on it they own it. This is NOT true! Ricardo Guimareas a brand theorist, said that brands belong to the customers not the companies which I believe in. Going back to the beginning of this chapter with M.D Anderson and Perry, the facility believes its brand is defined by a polished new $125-million-dollar proton therapy center. Perry on the other hand, defines part of M.D Anderson’s brand as a place that wastes his short time left on earth. This story accurately depicts the typical organization thinking they know what customers think about their brand compared to just what they think it is simply to listen. 

Creating a Listening Strategy

When creating a listening strategy, one needs to do two things:

1. Set up your own private community which is like a continuously running, huge, engaged focus group.
2. Begin brand monitoring like hiring a company to listen to what consumers are saying on tools such as blogs, discussion forums, twitter and everything else social media so you can determine what’s happening and how to address customer issues.

Let’s Get Personal

Listening to your customers proves to be so important and in the end will create a much better relationship. I know with experience; I feel like I am not heard most of the time. When I do get heard, it is so heartwarming and I want to go back to that store. A small local boutique in Sherwood Park is a prime example, the owner is very active on social media and is constantly making sure customers are happy. When there is an issue she always seems to try her best to listen and find a way to help the customer. Go check them out! K-Lee Boutique.

References

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell, Expanded and Revised Edition Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.

Waxman, M. (2017, June 05). Social Listening for Marketers.  Retrieved from https://www.lynda.com/HootSuite-tutorials/Social-Listening-Marketers/546104-2.html

 

 

Google AdWords and Technographics

Don’t know what Google AdWords even means? Me neither, until I was informed with an extensive video through Lynda.com which put me through Google AdWords Essential Training. If you want to know all about the concepts and strategies behind Google AdWords to have a successful social media appearance please continue reading!

What even is Google AdWords? 

AdWords is Google’s online advertising platform and it’s built to put you in front of a potential customer at the right time with a right message when they’re in the right mindset.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

AdWords is a pay-per-click model which is tremendous when it comes to budgeting. You only get charged when someone clicks your ads. This model lets you wean out bad advertisements based on the fact that they aren’t getting looked at (clicked). This also allows you to determine where you need help in your advertising.

Before Getting Started

You need to define your business, define your product, define your customers, and set realistic expectations.

Getting Started with AdWords

To get started you need to head over to adwords.com. It’s a pretty self explanatory process from here, if you you already have a google account your already half way there! When inputting the information regarding time zone and location be sure it is correct as it cannot be changed going forward. The interface is user-friendly . It is divided in four top-level areas, which include Home, Campaigns, Opportunities, and Tools. If you want go make a fake account and roam around! I did and I know if I ever am involved in the social media marketing aspect of a business I will be coming back to this blog and getting it set up to suit the company I am working for.

Researching Your Keywords

Be sure to choose your keywords to the target market in which you want the ad to reach. To do so, think like a customer, you want to know how their thinking about your product. For example, not pre-owned cars, it’s used cars. Google Keyword Planner  which is located in Tools, will help you determine and forecast what you could expect from future and current ads using particular keywords.

Monitoring Your Advertisements

You have now researched your keywords, implemented and created your campaign and advertisement. It is now time to monitor these ads. AdWords has reports available for you in which you can review. The three most important reports include search term reports, the auction insights report, and the user location report. These are pretty self explanatory and if you extract the information from the reports you can then better your ad!

Key Optimizing Strategies

Once you become a professional at AdWords you will want to test your ads! The user friendly site actually has a great way to handle experiments. You start by creating a draft of your campaign, after that you can make changes and then convert to an experiment. The experiment results will share your original campaign traffic and budget, then test those changes you made to make a decision on which gives you the best return on your investment.

Example of a Good Ad

I decided to apply what I have learned throughout this section and I have to say I was actually stumped on what to look up (crazy I know because I use google all the time to search things). I decided to use an example that was relatable and that was getting my dishwasher fixed. I searched the keyword “Appliance Repair”.  The add is described as “All Appliances Repair | Only $69 Service Call, 24/7 All Appliances Repair, Certified Technicians, Low Prices, Call Us Now!” As you can see, the advertiser is not targeting a specific niche as they can fix all appliances. They offer compelling benefits, including 24/7 service. They have a flat rate $69 service call and they are all certified technicians, and they have a clear call to action to call now.

Social Technographics

In Chapter 3 of Groundswell they performed a case study on the popular subject of 2007 involving Alpha Moms. One may associate Alpha Moms with the love for technology, interested in parenting, and above-average incomes. Using a Social Technographics survey they were able to come up with those characteristics. You may be asking why this is relatable to Google AdWords… well Alpha Moms were targeted by major brands like Nintendo and Cadillac. So combining Technographics and Google AdWords people created a service in which it took time to determine where their target market fits into the equation when building a social media site for Alpha Moms (Li & Bernoff, 2011).

Go Try!

If you think this would benefit your social media marketing platform (which it will) I highly suggest going and trying it out for yourself, even if it’s a fake business! Give it a try: adwords.com!

References

Batesole, B. (2017, September 05). Google AdWords Essential Training. Retrieved from https://www.lynda.com/Marketing-Lead-Generation-tutorials/Goodbye/368574/412896-4.html

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell, Expanded and Revised Edition Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.

Social Media Marketing for Small Business

Do you have a small business? Maybe it’s a photography company, an Etsy business, or any sort of business entity that you pour your heart and soul into to make ends meet; you will want to keep reading!

Understanding Social Media Marketing

To understand social media marketing there are some very important terms you want to be familiar with. Those include content, Search Engine Optimization, tags, hashtags, infographic, data visualizations and live streams! If you don’t know what those may be, give a click on the term and that can help you decipher the definition.

Use social media to build awareness and deepen relationships with customers. Make sure you choose a social media platform that is best suited for your business! It may be Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or maybe YouTube!

Listen, listen, listen! The most important thing when it comes to social media marketing you want to do is to listen to the conversations happening on your platform. You will understand what the customer is looking for, the problems that need to be solved, and find where your business can help.

Develop Your Strategy

Set your social media goals: Design your goals to measure actions. What do you want the customer to do? You want it to be measurable. NO that does not mean the business with the most likes is the most successful.

Understand your customers’ social media habits: Pick the best times and channels to connect with your customers. The best way to find out this information is asking the customers!

Craft a social media policy: This should offer a code of conduct for the way your company will behave online. This also sets the tone for your business’s culture.

Create a social media plan: Think of your plan as a key to getting to your destination. When creating the plan be sure to start with a goal, objectives, strategies, then the social media tactics.

Build your social media team: Skills in creativity are essential for success! Don’t just throw your accountant in the position just because they have an hour to fill in their daily schedule.

Make time for social media: Think ahead and get organized. Create a calendar to get things rolling.

 

 

How to Publish Shareable Content

Here’s a secret! If you want to develop great content, you want to step into your customers’ shoes. Again back to the listening point. Document questions that customers are asking, group those questions into themes and answer those questions in one or two sentences. Use your imagination and think of which format or platform would work best for the particular subject and then add it to your content calendar. Find, filter, and share! After publishing the content you have come up with you want to be sure to measure your success.

Let’s Get Personal

I am on social media daily, probably for a few more hours then I should be! I never realized how much goes into the social media platforms of businesses! It is almost overwhelming. Dreaming one day that I may start my own mortgage broker firm or at least be a leading associate I can use these skills to my advantage to hopefully attract a customer base.

References

Waxman, M. (2016, Aug, 28). Social media marketing for small business. Retrieved from Lynda.com: https://www.lynda.com/Facebook-tutorials/Next-steps/471976/518645-4.html