Edition 2: A Social World Beyond Facebook by Social Media Success Magazine

EDITION 2 // A SOCIAL WORLD BEYOND FACEBOOK?

LinkedIn for business by one of the industry’s best JULIE MASON Coach Tour Specialists GET SOCIAL DOWN UNDER How a Business Drives 40% of Sales from INSTAGRAM VIDEO TECHNIQUES the Most Powerful Man in the World Uses

“Overlooking LinkedIn might be a big mistake. It’s been found to be 277% more effective for lead generation than other networks” Julie Mason, LinkedIn Expert

OPTIMISING Your Social Media for SEO

N O

B U S I N E S S

L I K E

S O C I A L

B U S I N E S S

NOW ON THE

APPLE NEWSSTAND www.socialmediamagazine.com

The Magazine Editor’s Note Welcome to the 2nd Edition! This time around we’re excited to announce the release of our iPad app for the magazine, making SMSM easily accessible wherever you are. In future editions you’ll also be able to access an app for Android and read SMSM on Kindle. In this edition you’ll notice a theme of businesses getting great results from social media and not just from Facebook either, but other networks - in particular Instagram Facebook’s younger sibling. You’ll also see case studies from a range of different industries - we’ve worked hard to make this happen so that no matter what business you are in you’ll be able to find case studies and advice that relates to you. There are valuable articles contributed by leading international social media professionals from all over the globe and we’re excited to have our feature article on LinkedIn from the top LinkedIn expert in Australia, Julie Mason. Social Media Success Magazine is all about celebrating the great things social can do for business and in the 2nd Edition, you’ll find unbelievable value showing you how to get great results from social media. The businesses profiled have used social media to get more leads, sales, customers and ultimately, grow their business to thrive. You can too by following the advice they give! This edition will further equip you to reach the social media success that you’ve always dreamt of for your business! Dan Willersdorf Editor of Social Media Success Magazine

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THE TEAM DAN WILLERSDORF Dan started working in the Social Media field wa y b ack w h en Facebook advertising first started, using Social Media to market his web design agency. As owner of Wide Reach Social Media he has worked with hundreds of businesses to get more leads and sales from their Social Media. In his spare time he Stand-up paddle boards, surfs and drinks lots of coffee. editor@socialmediasuccessmagazine.com

FRANCE PINZON France is a writer and editor based in Manila, Philippines. She believes that the rise of things, such as Facebook and Twitter is the Universe’s way of telling her that genetic awkwardness isn’t meant to carry on. When she is away from the computer, she’s either busy with her vintage LPs or trying out a new burrito-and-beer joint in the city – or doing both at the same time. deputyeditor@socialmediasuccessmagazine.com

SHANNON WOOLACOTT Shannon is in her third year of University studying a Bachelor of Arts degree. She has always shared a passion for writing with a love of people, making journalism a natural career choice. She is an avid Social Media user with a proficient understanding of business management and marketing due to experience in retail management. In her spare time you will find her buried in a book or spending time with family and friends at the beach. news@socialmediasuccessmagazine.com

BUSINESS ADVISORS, WEB AGENCIES & MARKETING CONSULTANTS:

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THE CONTRIBUTORS JULIE MASON Businesswoman, keynote speaker and author. Julie is a passionate LinkedIn expert, specialising in creating strategies that promote the brand, enhance its reputation and generate big money leads for the business. Through her coaching programs, speaking events and online webinars, Julie has helped and inspired thousands of people to make a significant difference in their business using Social Media and LinkedIn. For more information on maximising leads and sales using LinkedIn, visit www.juliemason.com. au.

GEMMA ABELA With seven years of experience in media, communications, marketing, and the public relations sector, Gemma Abela is director of Prestige Communications and Marketing, a cross-consultancy business specialising in both marketing and communications. Their focus is on achieving amazing promotion and public relation results for their clients. www.prestigecam.com.au

BEVAN MOLLER Owner of website design company Catalyst Directions, Bevan has a passion for helping businesses get started online with simple steps to start the process. Since 2002, Bevan has been working with a wide variety of clients, from small business to local government and international organisations. Visit www.catalystdirections.com.au for more information.

DIANE LEONE Diane is a Certified Inbound Social Medial Marketing Professional and Social Media strategist who helps customers get social using Social Media marketing campaigns to promote their brand. She teaches them to effectively utilise many Social Media channels, and build and manage their websites and

Social Media platforms. She is a professional writer and speaker, and has authored two published books available at Amazon.com. Diane writes articles on luxury travel, interior design, and marketing for publications and online sites. www.ButterflySocialOnline.com

KATRINA CAREY A Social Media manager and trainer, Katrina loves using Social Media to indulge her passion in women’s style and clothing, and is happiest when her Facebook news feed is full of the latest season’s collections! Katrina rates Instagram as her favourite, most preferred platform, followed closely by Facebook, and then Pinterest. At Wide Reach Social Media, she assists clients in making an impact with their Social Media marketing in her role as their Social Media account manager. www.linkedin.com/in/katrinacarey

JAY DANIELLS Jay has been in the web design and SEO industry since 2003. He owns and manages two Web design and online marketing businesses: Jay Daniells www. jaydaniellsweb.com.au and his newest start-up business Green Valley Digital www. greenvalleydigital.com.au. When he is not working for his clients, he is often reading and keeping up to date with SEO strategies and industry news, socialising, tinkering in his workshop as a hobbyist, spending time at the Gleneden Organic Farm, travelling, or exercising and playing sport.

BETH JONES Beth is a Social Media Strategist, a self-proclaimed ‘marketing nerd’, owner of SunShark Media, and a proud militar y spouse. With Sunshark, she implements Social Media strategies and helps businesses engage their current customers and attract new ones that not only ‘like’ and follow pages, but make purchases as well. www.sunsharkmedia.com

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CONTENT 03

The Magazine / The Team

The Contributors

Content

In Front of the Curve

What Does a Social Media Manager

Actually Do?

Getting Social Down Under

The Great Big Social Media

Striking Gold Using Social Media

Mobile-Friendly Websites: Optional or

Essential?

No Pipe Dream with Social Media

LinkedIn For Lead Generation

Creating An Escape For Their Customers

How to SEO Your Social Media

Social Media Mind

Instagram, not Facebook the winner

for Green Cathedral

7 Great Tools for Creating Infographics

In with the New Vintage

Loving the Social Media Life for Yoga

Doing It For The Kids

Obama Connects and Inspires With

Social Video EDITION 2 // A SOCIAL WORLD BEYOND FACEBOOK? For access to new case studies each week visit www.socialmediasuccessmagazine.com and enter your email to subscribe

Australian Cycling Brand rides their way to business wins through Social Media. INTERVIEW BY

OWNERS: Steve

Varga, Jesse Carlsson and Adam Lana BUSINESS YEARS: 2013

to Present

WEBSITE: www.curvecycling.com.au

Dan Willersdorf

INSTAGRAM PAGE: instagram.com/curvecycling:

3,800 followers and counting FACEBOOK PAGE: www.facebook.com/CurveCycling:

3,496 likes and counting

n only 18 months, Curve Cycling took their brand out of the velodrome and their custom, cutting edge bike components into the hands of bike enthusiasts across Australia. The company has gone from startup to a large player in the market in such a short time by harnessing online and Social Media (they use no traditional advertising). Curve Cycling was created to offer cutting-edge bike components for emerging trends to bike enthusiasts. Their products are available online via their website— they have no retail stores.

Adam, himself a long-term competitive cyclist, joined the company just prior to their official launch in 2013 and was quick to utilise his online marketing expertise to build their brand.

FINDINGS 1. SOCIAL MEDIA TYING IN WITH THE CURVE CYCLING BRAND Curve Cycling has hardly used traditional advertising. They believe using Social Media gives them a bigger edge in promoting their product. “We don’t want to put a boring ‘big brand’ message out there. We would much rather tell stories and keep our marketing real than being too sales-y,” Adam explains. “By being more real, this keeps us clear of our competition.” 2. FACEBOOK ADVERTISING

One of their products is a “Grovel”, a newer type of bike that is a hybrid between a mountain bike and road bike. “Our customers are the more savvy bike riders who want quality and unique/cutting edge gear, but at a reasonable price,” says director Adam Lana. 6

“We kicked off with a Facebook campaign – a $50/day spend for 1 month – to build the brand initially. This had an immediate effect; we grew the Facebook likes to 3,000 inside a month. These were valid/targeted likes. It took the brand from nothing to something and

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kids are on it.” Instagram users have also become the trendsetters. Whatever they post about, for instance a new product they happened to like, they influence others to follow suit. Our product is “aspirational” – we are selling an adventure and a cool product that people want,” Adam shares.

“We don’t want to put a boring ‘big brand’ message out there. We would much rather tell stories and keep our marketing real than being too sales-y.” 4. FACEBOOK & VIDEO

people were going ‘wow, look at this brand’ after just one month,” Adam says. 3. INSTAGRAM AND CHANGING TRENDS Adam also shares how Instagram is so important for them because of the changes in Facebook (drop in organic reach for businesses), and because “all the cool

“We’ll continue to use more video on Facebook as that is what they want to see, and videos get great engagement and reach on Facebook,” Adam advises. 5. MONITORING ON SOCIAL MEDIA Adam adds that monitoring your efforts is very effective with Social Media. “Traditional advertising is hard to monitor and you don’t know what you are getting out of it,” he says.

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3. MAKE THE RIGHT CONNECTIONS - Continue to grow . Find the right partnerships online – connect with users that have over 5,000 followers so they can cross promote. Curve Cycling only follows people over 1000. He will go in and like their bike photos to have initial engagement. 4. USE APPS AND TOOLS TO YOUR ADVANTAGE Curve use Iconosquare (http://iconosquare.com) for statistics on Instagram, users, who’s engaging, what’s working. Adam says it allows them to get a snapshop of their engagement week to week. The tool also plugs into shopfiy (their ecommerce platform).

Social Media Tips for Businesses from Adam Lana 1. FIND A VOICE AND STICK TO IT – Know what your brand represents.. For example, Adam will not post a photo without a bike on the Curve Cycling page. “It has to have a bike/road – always relating back to cycling.” 2. CONTEXT AND RELEVANCE - Always keep the posts in context. “Otherwise, you’re creating confusion to your followers. People follow you because they want to see your brand, not your dog,” he says.

“Traditional advertising is hard to monitor and you don’t know what you are getting out of it,” What’s next for Curve Cycling? “Our vision is to be a global brand based here in Australia. There are currently no large global bike component brands based in Australia.” Adam says with their marketing efforts so far they are meeting targets and well on the way to their end goal.

Curve Cycling sells high performance bike components including carbon wheels and accessories for savvy cycling enthusiasts. Visit www.curvecycling.com.au

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WHAT DOES A SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER ACTUALLY DO? By Beth Jones

Experienced Social Media manager Beth Jones takes us through a typical day. A Social Media Manager (SMM) is a job role that did not even exist a few years ago. But with the huge growth of Social Media, there is great demand for such a position. As companies realise how much influence Social Media has over purchasing decisions, yet do not have the time to do it themselves, many businesses are now outsourcing their Social Media marketing to a SSM. 95% of Millennials expect a brand to at least have a Facebook page. Think it’s just because they were raised with the internet? Think again—87% of Gen X’ers (ages 30-44) and 70% of those ages 45-60 feel the same. A Social Media manager may work for a marketing agency, or they may be a one-man team, managing up to 20 or more clients throughout their week.

A day in the life of a Social Media manager A Social Media manager’s job is to ensure their clients’ brands have a presence online that is: · on the platforms where their customers spend their time · cohesive with their branded image both in physical store locations & across the other marketing platforms. In order to do this effectively and to assist businesses with legitimate growth, a good Social Media manager wears many hats - from marketing funnel creation to being a customer service representative. Some of their most major tasks: • SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT CREATION - This one is a given, and it’s also the one people consider the easiest. In reality, it takes planning, strategy, design, analysis, and implementation. A good Social Media manager doesn’t just put random, canned content up on a page and hope it works - they know

what’s driving engagement. Additionally, communication styles change from platform to platform and some messages even become obsolete from one platform to the next. It’s important to know where each message belongs and how it needs to be presented. • MARKETING FUNNEL CREATION/FILLING Whether people recognize it or not, brand presence on social platforms (done properly) is soft-selling. Relate this to networking events we don’t attend networking functions thinking we’re going to walk out with thousands of dollars in sales. We attend them to build relationships so that, when the time presents itself, those people think of us and not others. The same process happens with Social Media. The goal is to have a daily presence in the lives of your customers and potential customers. Users that engage with brands online are absolutely part of the funnel. There are also many tools that can be used to collect data and contact information from a target audience. • CUSTOMER SERVICE & BRAND REPUTATION MANAGER - It’s almost second nature for people to take their life experiences online, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that their friends/followers are going to hear about it if customers are unhappy with a product or service. Social Media managers use tools to monitor the feedback online about the businesses they manage. They also understand how to handle this effectively publicly (so others know the brand was quick to respond and cares enough about their customers to try to fix the problem), privately, and then back to the public again. A SMM should know their clients well enough to know how to direct an angry customer so the problem can be resolved. And they should also know when a customer just needed to feel heard. Your Social Media manager should work hard to understand the needs and growth goals of your company - and have a plan to make them happen! Beth Jones is a Social Media manager & strategist, a selfproclaimed ‘marketing nerd’, and owner of SunShark Media. www.SunSharkMedia.com

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Coach Tour business uses Social Media for customers in an over-50 age bracket and gets great results

GETTING SOCIAL DOWN UNDER INTERVIEW BY

Shannon Woolacott

EDITED BY

MARKETING MANAGER: Janelle YEARS IN BUSINESS: 1970s

Taylor

FACEBOOK PAGE: www.facebook.com/

to Present

WEBSITE: www.downundercoachtours.com.au

own Under Coach Tours has been taking their customers on luxury guided tours all over Australia since the 1970s. Janelle Taylor, Marketing Manager of Down Under Coach Tours for the last 8 years, is proud of the growing numbers of loyal customers they have, who see the value in their services even after travelling with them for many years. “We have a lot of regulars. One lady has done over 19 tours with us. Where possible, we keep in touch with the people who come along with us,” Janelle shares.

France Pinzon

downundercoachtours: 3,592 likes and counting

newspapers and magazines and for the return, it wasn’t really paying for itself.”

Starting on Social Media Given that their target audience is in the over-50 age bracket, this was an initial concern for Janelle and the team as Facebook is generally seen as being for younger generations. “We thought most people [on Social Media] would be younger, but when we went to a Social Media training session, we discovered that a

However, in recent years there have been new challenges for the touring industry. Ocean Cruise packages in particular have become very popular with their target market, which is in the over-50 age group. Janelle has also noticed a change in the effectiveness of traditional advertising, “Newspaper advertising, television advertising, radio advertising - we’ve done it all in the past. It’s very expensive to advertise in 10

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lot of parents are on there to check up on their kids. Then we realized that maybe we had been wrong in that aspect and there might have been more room for Facebook as an advertising avenue for us,” Janelle says. [Editor’s note: There are 3,000,000 active Facebook users 50 years or older in Australia).

“It was a real surprise because I really didn’t expect it to happen. We’ve only been doing it now for three months and we’re getting wonderful results. We have had one person that booked a tour straight away and has already completed the tour.” Surprising Results from Social Media Before they started working with a Social Media agency Janelle recalls, “I think we’d got up to about 92 Likes. We had a person here or there that would comment, but then once we started working together with a Social Media Agency and they started to do Facebook advertising and implemented other strategies as well, we started to see some action.” “It was a real surprise because I really didn’t expect it to happen. We’ve only been doing it now for three months and we’re getting wonderful results. We have had one person that booked a tour straight away and has already completed the tour. “You know, [there are] people in our town that didn’t even realize we’re here even though we’ve been

advertising in many newspapers in our town for years. Now they are starting to enquire.”

FINDINGS Why Social Media? 1. GENERATING INTEREST FROM YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE Janelle believes there’s nothing quite like Social Media: “The fact that it’s really interactive and people are getting to know and asking about us is great. We’ve had a lot of people asking for brochures and a lot of people wanting information,” Janelle explains. “It is much better than any other form of advertising that we’ve done, to create interest and enquiries about our tours.” 2. FASTER CONNECTION For both Down Under Coach Tours and their customers, it allows faster communication. “We’re always up-todate with what’s happening on our page. Our customers can ask a question and get an answer back straight away.” 3. ACCURATE MEASUREMENT The arrival of Social Media has highlighted some of the limitations and frustrations with traditional advertising. “I think that the biggest frustration is in knowing what method of marketing is going to work the best. In the past, that’s how it’s been - because you can spend a lot of money on advertising and you can get no results from it. Knowing how to measure the results is quite difficult at times,” shares Janelle.

When You DO Get Your Business On Facebook… 1. DON’T BE INTIMIDATED. SEEK HELP! According to Janelle, getting Down Under Coach Tours on Facebook was a decision they didn’t make without

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things onto your personal Facebook page - what you are doing for your business page may not necessarily be correct. You need guidance on what to put on your page that will help to drive those customers to you. I think professional assistance is really beneficial.” 2. REVIEW YOUR INSIGHTS REGULARLY

“It is much better than any other form of advertising that we’ve done, to create interest and enquiries about our tours.” reservations. But with the assistance of a Social Media Agency, Down Under Coach Tours finally got onboard. “I would say get on to someone to learn how to do things - just because you might be capable of posting

Down Under Coach Tours has found the value of Facebook Insights and reports, which are available to any user managing a page. “I can go on the page and I can see what time and what days of the week gives you a good response from your fans. That identifies for me what days of the week I want to put my most important post up,” Janelle says. “The stuff I really want our fans to pay attention to, I put on those days where there’s more people that are on the page. The page insights are a really good guide.” 3. DON’T BE SCARED OF ONLINE COMPLAINTS Janelle shares her thoughts about negative feedback or complaints. “If a complaint came in, which fortunately hasn’t happened for us as yet, I would respond with

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something like, ‘Could you get in contact with us? We’d really like to work with that’. People like to see you are responding to feedback.”

You need guidance on what to put on your page that will help to drive those customers to you. I think professional assistance is really beneficial.” The Future of Social Media Is doing business via Social Media going anywhere? Janelle is excited about the future: “I think really that anybody can see that the internet is going to be the way of advertising in the future. Everything is going to be more internet-based because we’ve become so used to it. “I’m in my 50s and I am using the internet more for everything. I do my banking, I do everything on the

The Numbers

internet. If I search for a phone number - I go to the internet. I don’t use the phone book,” she explains. “And that’s why I think that Facebook is going to be more and more important because there’s more and more people getting on the internet.”

Final Thoughts “I wish [someone] could have told me a little bit more about how Social Media works. If I had known I probably would have tried it a bit earlier. I think we didn’t realize how Social Media could drive traffic to our website. Social Media always seemed to be more of the thing that works for personal use. I never really understood that it could be a valuable tool for business. It can actually be more important than your webpage because this is generating the traffic for your webpage,“ Janelle says. Her advice for people considering doing more on Social Media? “Give it a go. Just give it a go.”

After 3 months

50+ new enquiries

Visit Down Under Coach Tours Facebook Page for more details Specialising in Australian Coach Tours for Seniors, call Down Under Coach Tours on 1800 072 535 or email info@downundercoachtours.com.au for bookings or more information

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The Great Big Social Media Thrill-seeking backpacker uses the Internet to help conquer his fear of the world. What comes out of it is an inspiring new perspective in traveling and a growing number of followers online and in real life. INTERVIEW BY

ADVENTURER: Jamie YEARS ACTIVE: 2013

Bowlby-Whiting

to present

Dan Willersdorf

WEBSITE: www.greatbigscaryworld.com FACEBOOK PAGE: www.facebook.com/

GreatBigScaryWorld: 3,646 likes and counting

oung adventurer Jamie Bowlby-Whiting’s inspiring thirst to explore the world started his website “Great Big Scary World,” eventually pushing him to publish his book, entitled The Boy Who Was Afraid of the World, which were all based on his rich experiences in the many towns, cities, and countries he’s been to—through hitchhiking. But his works doesn’t just come across as a mere personal outlet on the Internet; Jamie has initiated a movement that is motivating other individuals (or fans online) to not be afraid of living a little dangerously. In time, the website grew organically from family to friends, to receiving many hundreds of visitors a day. Here, Jamie gives Social Media Success Magazine the pleasure of an interview on the power of Social Media and the World Wide Web to promote his stories about the world as he continues his exciting journey around it. SMSM: You use Social Media to spread your vision, “anything is possible,” as the first priority, and your product, your book, as secondary. Why do you do this? JBW: I started writing my site as a way of updating my family on my hitchhiking journey through Europe. 14

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Strangers started reading out of interest, and I soon realised that more and more people were reading because either they wanted to do what I was doing or they wanted to live vicariously through my stories. Thus, I continued sharing s tories, advice, and thoughts, and when people agree with what they read, they seem to pass the posts on to others. If I was to change the topics of my posts, the current audience would no longer be interested and they would not visit the site anymore. Writing my book was something that I had always wanted to do and as the site is related to the book, I use the site to promote my book when I feel it is appropriate. If I was to focus solely upon promoting my book, however, it would turn readers off and they would not come back. They don’t come to the site to be sold products, they come to the site to read stories, watch videos, and learn how to change their own lives. If I pushed the book too hard, they would go to a site that didn’t do that. Instead, I slip the book in where I can and a tiny percentage of readers will buy it. SMSM: What made you decide to use Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)? JBW: It is an easy way for people to access and distribute information that costs nothing. I added share buttons to the site and made a Facebook page and Twitter account.

SMSM: Why do you think photos are important for Social Media? JBW: Photos are vital. A photo on Facebook with a decent caption can be viewed thousands of times. With Facebook insights, you can now also see exactly how many people see each post and how they interact with it. I enjoy taking photos, so it is something I do naturally. But it means that when I go to write or share something, I have an instant visual image for followers to see. Because my photo-taking is natural, it seems a natural part of the site.

“They don’t come to the site to be sold products, they come to the site to read stories, watch videos, and learn how to change their own lives. If I pushed the book too hard, they would go to a site that didn’t do that.” SMSM: Why do you use both Facebook and a Blog? How do you use them differently? JBW: I use the blog for sharing what I want to share and Facebook for pointing people in the direction of the blog. Most people use Facebook every day and by posting material, it is a little reminder to people to come

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back and visit my site. Essentially Facebook is just a tool for getting people to my site. SMSM: Why did you use Amazon to publish your book? JBW: Amazon is the biggest seller of books in the world, and by using their KDP and Create Space services, I was able to easily publish a book myself without spending anything. The other route would have been to try and get a book published through a regular publisher, but this takes a lot of time and may never have happened. As I had the blog to promote my own material, I decided to do it myself. SMSM: How many book sales have you made, and how many do you estimate have come from your Social Media efforts? JBW: I actually don’t keep track of this, but I know at the end of each month, I’ll get a payment representative of how many sales I have made. It’s not huge, but it ticks along and I have plans to start some advertising and work on other books. I did offer the book for free on Amazon for two days and during this two day period, I had around 1,200 downloads. This was largely due to sharing the promotion on Facebook, then the book rising quickly through the charts as a result of this. I wouldn’t recommend giving the book out for free to people who aren’t interested in it, because you then suffer as a result of reviews. In the future, I will offer it for a very low price when on promotion, meaning that only people who are interested enough to fork out some money will actually read it.

SMSM: What were the other things that you learned as you went along? JBW: If you post genuine articles that people are interested in, users will read and share. Also, scheduling posts means that you don’t have to be at the computer everyday. Statistics allow you to see what it is that people enjoy and share, helping you to tailor future posts. SMSM: Do you think about getting “engagement” when writing your Facebook posts? JBW: I mostly post whatever I feel like posting, but I do think about whether or not people will engage. If they don’t engage with a post, it won’t be seen by many people. There are multiple different types of engagement though, and they can be interpreted in different ways. For example, I posted a picture of a sign about hitchhiking that was liked / shared 87 times, clicked 1,300 times, and seen in the news feed by 2,300 people around a similar time to posting a quote that reached 7,500 people, was liked / shared 517 times, but only got clicked 214 times. Which was more successful? It depends how you measure success. A big part of these particular cases was that people may have been clicking the hitchhiking image to read the text because it was too small to read in the news feed. Also, the caption I wrote encouraged people to click the image. I think about how many people will engage with a post when I click it, but I don’t get too hooked up on it because it is hard to tell. Sometimes I post something that I thing is amazing and no one engages with it, while other times, the ‘likes’ start pouring in unexpectedly on something that I thought people wouldn’t care too much about. SMSM: How did you handle if there were negative comments? JBW: Respond to the issues raised when appropriate, or when dealing with trolls, simply ignore them and allow your own audience to respond for you.

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SMSM: Do your self-publishing efforts prove your own message that “anything is possible?” JBW: I hope so. I am not an author, because writing books does not support my life, but a combination of writing books and articles has supported my life for a long period of time. I aim to continue this and develop my writing, and I think this is in line with the ‘anything is possible’ ethos.

SMSM: What’s next for you? JBW: I have written a book and plan on writing more in the future, as well as delving into the world of video production. I intend to use Social Media to promote these.

Ten years ago, it would have been much more difficult for me to write and publish a book with zero budget. I am making it happen because I want it enough and if I focus on it - which I plan to do - I hope I can look back in a few years time and say, ‘I did it. I made it work.’

JAMIE’S GREAT BIG ADVICE CORNER What are 3 tips you can share with business owners & authors still contemplating using Social Media? 1. It’s free and the response you get is invaluable. 2. There is no more powerful way to reach people than ‘word of mouth’ recommendations. 3. See what people like and don’t like, then tailor future posts accordingly. Tips for new authors who want to use Social Media to promote their book: 1. Don’t oversell. It turns people off. 2. Post passionately about interesting topics. That will create a reader base. 3. Be sure of your topic. You can’t post about everything, so pick a niche and stick to it. 4. Scheduling posts means you don’t have to be at the computer every day. 5. Statistics allow you to see what people enjoy and share, helping you to tailor future posts.

Words to the Aspiring Author: “Plan exactly what you will write and why you are writing it before you write. Otherwise it is word splurge. The do your best, get feedback, and edit heavily before publishing. When you get feedback after publishing, don’t feel too proud of each 5-star review and don’t feel too sad at each 1-star review, and when you learn to do this, please tell me how.” Reading Recommendations for Wannabe Authors: “If people are looking to build their own site, I recommend checking out this step-by-step guide to build your own website. If people are looking to selfpublish, I also wrote some advice for self-publishing. I think the videos on my site capture the essence of what the site is about and the message I want to promote - particularly in Pedal and Paddle. They also bring in new viewers from Vimeo and actually got played on UK TV last year.” Final words: “Social Media is great in general for businesses it is the most powerful way to reach a large audience without the need for investment.”

Jamie Bowlby-Whiting is the author of ‘The Avant-Garde Life’ (www.greatbigscaryworld.com/ag/) and ‘The Boy Who Was Afraid Of The World’ (amzn.com/1499798806). He blogs about adventure and dealing with fear, and offers practical advice so that you can have your own adventure at www.greatbigscaryworld.com.

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Striking Gold Using Social Media “INVESTIGATE WHETHER OR NOT YOUR TARGET MARKET USES SOCIAL MEDIA. IF THEY DO, GET ON IT – NOW!” INTERVIEW BY

Dan Willersdorf

OWNERS: Skye

Anderton

BUSINESS YEARS: 2010

FACEBOOK PAGE: www.facebook.

to present

www.instagram.com/ rubyoliveonline: 2,247 followers and counting

INSTAGRAM PAGE:

com/rubyoliveonline: 8,888 likes and counting WEBSITE: www.rubyolive.com.au

fter spending eight years in London working as an accessories designer and buyer for High Street retailers, Skye Anderton decided to return to her home in Brisbane, Australia, looking to launch her very own jewellery business “with an ethical heart by using sustainably sourced materials whenever possible.” Thus the birth of Ruby Olive, the brand that’s a namesake of her grandmother. Ruby Olive tried all sorts of marketing strategies in the first four years “including joint ventures with other brands, public relations, print and online advertising, and Social Media - all with varying effects, at different stages,” Skye shares. “We’ve noticed significant changes in the past 4 years in relation to each platform’s return on investment, and as a result we’ve changed direction accordingly. “We found that many people in our target market were active on Facebook and Instagram, making it the perfect way to keep our customers up to speed on our latest offers, collections, news and inspirations,” Skye says. “We started a Facebook and Twitter page and starting posting anything and everything. We took notice of what was getting the most interaction. We constantly 18

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we also post fun facts about the brand, travel photos, food photos, arts and crafts, interior designs and just generally anything that encompasses what Ruby Olive is about,” she shares. “It’s all about human interest! We as a brand are just as much about being fun and social as we are about being in business.“ 3. FACEBOOK ADS “Facebook Ads are definitely a great tool that can be really cost effective if done right.” Skye says. “I do think every business and their target audience is very different. It’s all about trialing, testing and measuring each platform to see what works.” 4. TWITTER & AUTOMATION

“Be the business that is engaging and your audience feels like they can interact with”

Skye says they connected their twitter profile to Facebook so they didn’t need to post to Twitter separately. “It’s not ideal, but we don’t have the time and we don’t get the results from Twitter like we do from Facebook and now Instagram.”

refined, and we’re still refining and changing focus even now. It was hard work getting to 1,000 likes on Facebook, but as soon as we reached that goal it seemed to be a bit of a domino effect. Now we’ve almost got 9,000 likes.” “It’s now a really important part of our business. We find it’s a great branding tool to tell new customers all about Ruby Olive in a fun, social and engaging way–it provides you with an amazing opportunity to constantly be in touch with your existing and potential customers,“ Skye adds.

FINDINGS: 1. THE BEST TIMES TO POST “We learnt that the best times for us to post were early in the morning between 7am and 9am, and later in the evening between 6pm and 9pm. We developed a schedule to accommodate both morning and evening users,” Skye notes. 2. HUMAN INTEREST NOT JUST SELLING Skye recommends that businesses should also keep in mind that it shouldn’t be all obvious selling of their brand. “In amongst the posts about products and offers,

And when YOU do get your business on Social Media... 1. PERSONALITY COUNTS! (BUT JUST HAVE ONE!) Skye emphasises the importance of being able to identify the kind of personality you want your brand to convey. “You want to be that business that is engaging and your audience feels like they can interact with,” she says. “We recently had a great time interacting with our customers on a post asking everyone to guess the name of our new collection – they loved it!”

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2. STUDY, AND HAVE A PLAN “What are the best times of day to capture the majority of your target audience? What kinds of posts are they clicking on and interacting with? Play around with a bit of trial and error then take your findings and build a solid plan around them - even if it’s just a clear and structured post schedule,” Skye advises. 3. POST GREAT PHOTOS ON INSTAGRAM Skye admits that photos that are bland will go unnoticed when published online - that’s why every post matters. “When posting on Instagram, make sure you have images worth sharing,” she says. “If they’re not clear, of poor quality, or just a little on the boring side, your followers will just keep on scrolling and potential new followers will not follow. Keep the images consistent, too. It’s another platform for your brand after all. We’re a very visual business, so Instagram works brilliantly for us.”

Final words from Skye: “We LOVE Social Media…where else can you talk to customers and get honest, immediate responses? Social Media is the perfect way to tell your customers about what’s going on in your business. So many people use Social Media now from all sorts of demographics and it’s proved itself to be a very powerful tool.”

“I do think every business and their target audience, is very different though…I guess it’s all about trialling, testing and measuring each platform to see what works,”

Skye Anderton Jump into the colourful world of Ruby Olive at www.rubyolive.com.au

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Mobile-Friendly Websites: Optional or Essential?

By Bevan Moller

If you are using Social Media marketing for your business but you don’t have a mobile friendly website, you are losing customers. So is a mobile-friendly site an essential today, or just a nice idea? Your customers aren’t looking you up on their phones anyway, are they? According to Facebook, over 80% of their daily active users are on mobile devices. So if your customers find you on Facebook and click through to your website, there’s a very good chance they are viewing your website on their phone. What are the stats for your website? How do you even check that? Hopefully, your web developer has set up Google Analytics for your website (if they don’t - ask them to). In Google Analytics, look in the left column under “Audience” and click “Mobile”. This will show you stats about website visitors using desktop computers, mobile phones, and tablet devices so you can compare between the three. Our clients are typically seeing over 15% of overall traffic to their sites from mobile devices with some clients seeing up to 40%! So what’s the big deal though, a website’s a website right? How can it be “mobile friendly”? In essence, a website is “mobile friendly” if it presents content on a mobile device in a way that is easily readable, and with buttons that can easily be clicked. If your website is not mobile friendly, you’ll see the full-size website (intended for a large, wide desktop screen) shrunk down to fit on the small screen of a mobile phone, which is usually tall and narrow.

The user has to zoom in so the text is big enough to read, but then they can only read small chunks at a time before they need to scroll this way and that to see everything. Often links and buttons are awkward to click as well, because they are too tiny to touch with a finger accurately. If your website isn’t mobile friendly, the whole experience for a mobile user is much more difficult than it needs to be. Many users will just give up, go back to a Google search, and try another business. As you would expect, Google is very much aware of this and plans to prioritise mobile-friendly websites in the search results. Yes, that means that Google will give your website a better ranking for mobile searching if your website is mobile friendly. Obviously, this also means that if your website isn’t mobile friendly you’ll likely drop off the top rankings for mobile users. There are plenty of websites (including large companies) that aren’ t mobile friendly, so there’s also an opportunity for you to get ahead of the competition. You may even climb the rankings in Google for mobile searches above your competitors that aren’t mobile ready.

Bevan Moller is the owner of website design company Catalyst Directions. Visit www. catalystdirections.com.au for more information.

No Pipe Dream with Social Media No Dig, No Fuss, Just Great Results from Social Media. INTERVIEW BY

Dan Willersdorf

OWNER: Sam

Foss

YEARS IN BUSINESS: Since

WEBSITE: www.NuFlowwidebay.com.au

2005

FACEBOOK PAGE: www.facebook.com/nuflowwidebay

oes Social Media work for businesses like plumbing? Surely not…after all this is a service you only need when your tap leaks or your pipe bursts. How would Social Media work in this case? There’s nothing glamorous about the work Nuflow Wide Bay does. They are in the drainage business: poo, sludge, silt, nappies, baby wipes, grease, fat, and anything else that can block a drain business. Nothing at all glamorous about it in the slightest. So by conventional wisdom, it should not work on Social Media. Who would want to follow a Facebook page about “poo”? In an interview with Social Media Success Magazine, NuFlow Wide Bay owner Sam Foss shares how he was finally convinced to try out Social Media for his plumbing business and what results he has achieved. SMSM: Tell us about when you first thought about using Social Media. SF: Initially, when I set up the business, I probably thought Social Media was a waste of time. As I got to know more about the rest of it, I knew it was a necessity.

I saw a Social Media consultant talk at a “ReIgnite Business” conference, and he talked about using Social Media. Previous to this, I had thought about Social Media a lot, but I couldn’t see how it would work for my business. I also didn’t have the time to look into it. During the presentation, I saw how many people were on Facebook in my region, and how many were over the age of 50. Almost everybody uses it. That means that you’ve got a massive audience that you can target very specifically. SMSM: What surprised you when you started using Social Media for your business? SF: I wasn’t expecting so many people to interact with it, like it, post on it, whatever. I kind of figured Facebook only works for a café or massage parlor or something exciting like that. [NuFlow Wide Bay is in] an industry based around blocked drains.

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SMSM: So you were skeptical if it would work… SF: At first I was not sure at all. But yes, now I can see the value in it. I can tell on the phone--I always ask where people got our number from or where they heard about me. They are not necessarily saying Facebook, but I can tell by the questions they’re asking me when they ring up that they’ve seen us there. They’re asking about the drain camera and other stuff. They’re asking more in-depth questions than they used to before I did Facebook. I know they have seen our Facebook. It’s the only way they could know to ask these questions. SMSM: What makes you say you can see the value in it now? SF: We’re also getting better customers. They’re probably easier to sell to once they ring because we have already got a foot in the door. We already have a relationship started through Facebook. Blocked drains always block for a reason. On Facebook, we’ve been telling people the causes behind blocked drains. Now they understand that we must fix what caused the blocked drain, not just unblock it. And if the pipes are damaged, they know it will need to be relined. Now our customers are more willing to purchase our reline service and other products because they’re better informed about what we do and its benefits.

“Who would want to follow a Facebook page about poo? But it’s worked. I know from the questions people ask when they ring up that they’ve seen us on Facebook, and the business is growing.”

targets in the advertising and reaching other people. Those things, I will never know how to do it myself. They just turned it into something I’m not going to really worry too much about now. The content was kind of on the internet. I don’t sit there for hours trying to come up with something informative or whatever. Social Media consultants also take care of the advertising or copywriting category. Hiring professionals has made my life easier. SMSM: Part of the Social Media strategy for Nu Flow Wide Bay was giving away free advice on Facebook. Were you worried about giving away your “secrets”? SF: We do give free advice like how to unblock a drain yourself. People are going to read it and 10% will follow it and do it themselves, but these people were never going to pay for relines anyway. The other 90% are going to get us to do it because they can see from the advice that we are giving away that we are the trusted professionals. SMSM: As well as outsourcing your Social Media, you also pay for advertising on Facebook. Why pay for advertising when it’s free on Facebook? SF: Why do people pay for anything? Because generally, it’s worth paying to get a lot more exposure. You get your free listing on Google. You can get free listing in Yellow Pages. But when you pay for it, you get a lot more.

Our reline service is one of our more profitable products. I would say the reline service is what the business is built around. Before (our Social Media marketing), only about 30% of customers were using our reline service. Now we’re at about 60%. SMSM: Why did you decide to use Social Media professionals to do it instead of doing it yourself? SF: I’m just not creative enough. It’s easy it to do with professionals guiding you. It’s like a one-stop shop. They’ve created the graphics and the ads for me. And obviously, they are a lot more experienced with the

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If I’m doing it for free, I’m only going to be reaching the people that liked us or connected for whatever reason. With the paid advertising, we’re reaching people that I’ve never seen or heard of ever before. Also, even though I knew you could target audiences on Facebook, I didn’t realize was how far you could narrow that targeting down and utilise it to your advantage. SMSM: How is Facebook compared to the Yellow Pages in giving more information? SF: There’s a lot more with Facebook. On the Yellow Pages, I’ve got a quarter page that doesn’t change for a year or whatever it is. With Facebook, it’s new and it’s fresh every day. Even with a radio campaign or a TV campaign, you get to see it every day, but you don’t [get to change it as quickly]. So with Facebook, it’s always new and fresh. Also, in the past when someone asked “who’s your target market?” I said “it’s just anyone that owns any property”. But now I can see through their posts from Facebook, who our target market really is. SMSM: Were you ever concerned about negative feedback? SF: No. I think any feedback is good, even if it’s negative, as long as you respond to it in the right way. Having said that, no, I don’t have any negative feedback. I’ve heard of people in the past where somebody’s had an issue and they’ve gone through Facebook and posted negative feedback. Then the company has gone to see the customer privately to sort it out. But it’s better to respond on Facebook for everybody to see what you’re

doing about it, how you’re handling it, and all the rest of it. SMSM: Why do you say Social Media is a necessity? SF: For the same reason that Yellow Pages is a necessity. You’ve got to be there. It’s one of the most widereaching forms of advertising. With Facebook, with the organic posts, the people that see them are going to pay attention because they’ve already liked you. Then their friends might see it because they’re sending it to people that they want to see it. You might be paying for a newspaper ad to 20,000 people. Probably half of them don’t own their own home, read the ad, and will never use your service.

Plumbing company NuFlow Wide Bay promises to fix your blocked drain for good. Visit their Facebook page to see Sam’s karaoke singing www.facebook. com/NuFlowWideBay

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THE SOCIAL MEDIA SUCCESS SECRETS FOR NUFLOW WIDE BAY We asked the Social Media account manager for Nuflow Wide Bay, Katrina Carey from Wide Reach Social Media, to share the strategies she used to achieve these results for Sam’s business.

1. 2.

“Create a marketing plan specific to the industry and the business. People consider plumbing to be boring - how do you make it exciting? The strategy must be more creative, and uniquely and well thought out for a business like this than, say, a cafe.”

“Pay for advertising. The days of a huge reach on Social Media for free are gone. Create targeted paid advertising to reach new customers.”

3. 4.

“Create different paid advertising campaigns for different audiences. In Sam’s case, he works with other plumbers that refer him work, he works with real estate agents that also use him for their drainage work, and of course the general public. We created a different campaign for each audience. They all say different things in the ad to appeal to that audience.

“Tie the marketing into the personality of the business. In Sam’s case, he’s known as a friendly and funny guy. This must come across on his Social Media. We’ve posted up videos of Sam singing karaoke in his plumbing truck and gotten huge response.”

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LINKEDIN FOR LEAD GENERATION Overlooking LinkedIn is a big mistake. It’s 277% more effective at lead generation than Facebook or Twitter. By Julie Mason

inkedIn has gotten a bit of a beating in the Social Media race. While it is the oldest social network out there, LinkedIn’s stodgy appearance just isn’t as attractive or as much fun as Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. That’s probably because the members on LinkedIn aren’t posting lunch pictures or cat memes. However, overlooking LinkedIn might be a big mistake. While many have categorised LinkedIn as a ‘resume holder’, it is much more than just a site for job seekers. It is a great resource and a dynamic business network. In fact, Hubspot research showed that LinkedIn was 277% more effective for lead generation than Facebook or Twitter. That’s a massive margin! Here are three ways you can start using LinkedIn to generate leads for your business.

HAVE A MAGNETIC LINKEDIN #1 PROFILE Your profile is the first impression people get of you on LinkedIn, so let’s make it count for you.

For example, if you are a business coach your headline might be “Discover How This Business Coach Helps Entrepreneurs Grow And Succeed.” Don’t make people climb Mount Everest to get in touch with you – fill in your contact details and make it easy for them. If it is hard, you will lose prospects. Fill in your Experience section and add a description with each position. This is your credibility! You want to let people know more than just the tasks you did. Tell them your achievements in each role. Finally, complete the Summary section. This is where you can share more about how you help your ideal prospects. Your Summary needs be conversational, with you speaking in the first person. Make it interesting and memorable, and cover these points: • HOW you help your clients (what is your value proposition) • WHY should they consider you (what is your uniqueness in the marketplace) • WHAT outcomes have you helped others with (what results have you helped clients achieve)

Have a great profile photo. Ensure that you are looking directly at the camera and smiling and that you have a clear background. Profiles with a photo get viewed 11 times more than profiles without one.

• WHAT is the next step to doing business with you

Underneath your name is a space for you to have a Professional Headline. Avoid using your title of Director at ABC Pty Ltd as it doesn’t help people understand what you do. Instead, share with people how you can help them.

Posting content that is relevant and provides great value to your prospects and clients will help to position you as an authority in your industry or niche. Most business owners forget how much helpful knowledge they have that could be shared.

YOURSELF AS AN #2 POSITION AUTHORITY

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Remember that what you might consider as ‘basic knowledge’ could be seen as amazing by your prospects. We forget how much we learn in our skills and knowledge over time. Here are some ways you can share your knowledge and start to position yourself as an authority: • Share helpful tips and hints using LinkedIn’s status update box on the Home page • Join Groups where your prospects might be and create a Discussion • Like or comment on your connections posts on the Home page’s news feed • Provide a Recommendation to someone who has provided you a service

talk to people I don’t know yet. Do you know every person who walks into your business? Probably not. If you need leads, you are going to need to connect with people you don’t know yet. The key word is YET. View the profile of each person who asks you to connect before clicking accept or ignore. Find out more about them before hitting the accept or ignore buttons. We can’t completely prevent the spammers, but in my experience on LinkedIn, I have found people to be good-hearted and sincere. Use the LinkedIn Search Box in the top navigation section and start to enter some keywords to find your ideal prospects. For example, you might provide a software program that is specifically for accountants, so you would type in accountants in the search box. Once the search results have come up, you can view the profiles and click the connect button on ones that look promising. Once you are connected, you can send that person a message and discover if there is a good fit for you to do business. Once you have a relationship, don’t be shy about asking for business... you might get a few no’s but you might get a few yes’s as well. Those who are successful lead generators on LinkedIn build a relationship with their connections through messages, posting valuable content, and being good community members. Here’s to your success on LinkedIn.

#3 CONNECT AND CONVERT ‘Do I connect with people I haven’t met or don’t I?’ is a question I hear all the time. The choice is totally yours of course. I’ll share my perspective for you and see if that helps. Having spent over 25 years in sales, I know for a fact that if I want my business to grow, I need to meet and

Businesswoman, keynote speaker, and author, Julie has helped and inspired thousands of people to make a significant difference in their business using Social Media and LinkedIn. For more information on maximising Leads & Sales Using LinkedIn, visit www.juliemason.com.au

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Creating An Escape For Their Customers Once reluctant to post photos of food on their Facebook page, at the urging of their customers, Oodies Café finds Social Media Success. INTERVIEW BY

Katrina Carey

OWNER: Suzy

Evans

YEARS OPEN: 2014

to present

FACEBOOK PAGE: www.facebook.com/

oodiescafe: 2,003 likes and counting

odies Café began as a vision for a café where people could come and “get out of their lives.” Suzy Evans and her sister Jen opened Oodies Cafe after many years of running other people’s businesses. Their location in the north part of town was a big reason why they decided to be the coffee shop that people would really go out of their way to get to, not just chance upon. “I think that’s the overwhelming part for us, that people actually have to choose to get in their car and drive across the bridge and specifically come to us,” Suzy shares. “We really wanted to just create an environment that people could love and get to know,” Suzy explains. “I always had a vision in my head of it being very eclectic and very recycled because that’s ultimately what I love. I love finding bits and pieces and shoving it together, and I think it adds to the atmosphere, and we wanted people to be attached to it.”

their “Do you have a Facebook page?” question followed right after. At that time, they did not. “My friend Cass is a professional photographer. She came and took some photos. She put them all into a collage and then asked if we could put it on her business page, which we were okay with. “As a result of her putting it on her Facebook, it kind of just went nuts. And hundreds and hundreds of likes later, all these people started getting excited about Oodies, which made us a little nervous because we hadn’t open our doors yet,” recalls Suzy. “It did bring us months of new faces every day coming into the cafe,” Suzy adds. “Without it, I don’t know if we would have been as busy as we were in the first couple of months.” ”About three or four months in, we got [the Ooodies] page up and running,” Suzy says. “It’s interesting because it’s the older generations that ask for the

By June 2014, Oodies Cafe began running and was quickly flocked by customers who were curious of the interesting new coffee place with eye-catching grafitti on its outside wall. But as fast as the customers came,

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business card and the younger generations that ask for the Facebook page, so you still have to have both.” Suzy explains that while they are still fairly new to using Facebook as their main marketing tool—they don’t do traditional promotions and they don’t have an official website—Social Media, despite a few initial setbacks, is ultimately great for businesses. HERE ARE SOME OF SUZY’S INSIGHTS ABOUT FACEBOOK AND SOCIAL MEDIA IN GENERAL: I love that it’s instant. I love that people can connect with it straight away. It has been able to connect us more so with our customers and a different generation of customers. I love that as soon as something motivates me, I can pass that on and motivate other people straight away through Facebook. Social Media can reach a lot of people all at once. With Facebook, you’re connecting with a lot of people very quickly. What I don’t like about Social Media is that it’s a bit of a double-edged sword. It cuts out that face-toface communication. I think with Social Media, you take the good with the bad. At the end of the day, I’ll look at it and go, “Well, probably 98 percent of anything that’s happened on Social Media, as far as Oodies is concerned, has been extremely positive.” And that’s pretty cool. If we’ve had a lot of exciting things happen all at once, I post three times a week. Our confidence has grown through Facebook because things that we swore we would not do, we’ve started doing. And because we’ve been getting a great response, it’s then egged us on to do it even more. Where we are in our business, [Facebook] suits what we’re doing right now. Maybe in 12 months’ time, that might be different.

And when YOU get your business on Facebook... 1. Stop thinking about it and just do it – “Don’t let your own frame of reference get in the way because even if you don’t think it’s going to work, you may be wrong. You need to look at the bigger picture. That’s been our biggest learning lesson in this business,” Shares Suzy. 2. Keep it interesting – “Don’t be afraid of it. We were a little bit. Be true to what it is you’re trying to put out there. We wanted people to know the real us and that we’re not perfect and that we are learning.” says Suzy. 3. Be personal. “That’s been a learning lesson for us in Facebook. I’ve found that people respond really well when you get personal with your customers, when you tell them a story or when you share. It’s about sharing a story with them. They like to hear a story. 4. Post pictures of food! “We were both very skeptical about putting pictures of food on Facebook. We had spent a week making this cheesecake. We were so proud of this cheesecake. I got so excited. I said to Jenny, “I have to put this on Facebook. These people need to understand how much effort we’ve done to make this cheesecake.” And it was an amazing cheesecake. And the first time I put it on Facebook, the amount of people that responded to it was out of this world. It was ridiculous. People respond to pictures of food.”

Starting on Instagram

Oodies Cafe has now begun dabbling in Instagram. “Facebook was our first platform,” Suzy says. “But all of these guys have been on our back about Instagram. I mean a lot of our staff are of the younger generation and use Instagram.”

Instagram hashtags

Their business name had already been used as a hastag by customers even before they even started using Instagram. “Somebody said to us, ‘Oh, just go and type in #Oodies,’ and a hundred and something photos of all these random customers that had taken photos of Oodies appeared,” Suzy shares. “And we finally did start an Instagram account. So I think that will be our next stage of development.” Oodies Cafe, visit Instagram: https://instagram.com/ oodiescafebundy/ to see some great images of their unique café.

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HOW TO SEO YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA Ensure that when your customers search for you online they can find you! Optimising your Social Media (not just your website) for search engines is a task overlooked by many. Use these tips to get the jump on your competition. (EDITOR’S NOTE: if you don’t have a website yet, only Social Media, then these tips are especially crucial for you.)

by Jay Daniells

You are doing great work on your Social Media. But if new customers go looking, can they find you online?

looking for you online, your Social Media must also be optimised correctly for the search engines.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a term normally used to describe work done to your website so that it ranks higher in the search engines, meaning that when people search for your product or service online, they will find and visit your website and not your competitors’.

It’s a given that customers are spending more time researching online and checking out your business online BEFORE doing business with you.

To ensure that customers are able to locate not just your website, but also your Social Media profiles when they go

THE 7 KEYS TO CORRECTLY OPTIMISING YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA FOR THE SEARCH ENGINES:

1. Make sure to write unique information in each of your “About” sections for your Social Media profiles. It is important that they are unique and you have not used the same text anywhere else on the internet. Google does not like ‘duplicate content’. 2. Include the name of your product or service (your keywords) into your “About” section on your Social Media pages. This further prompts Google and the other search engines to show your profiles in the search results for these terms. 3. Create links back to your website in your Social Media pages. 4. Monitor your SEO progress using a tool like MOZ Pro http:// moz.com/ - it can monitor your Social Media SEO along with your website SEO.

Imagine if someone types your business name into Google and the search results return your website and your five Social Media profiles. Impressive? Definitely.

5. Even if you don’t have the intention of using certain Social Media channels for your business at this time, be sure to still register them for your business for future possible usage. This will prevent your competitors getting their hands on them in order to strategically block you out from using them in the future. 6. Cross-promote everything as much as possible. For example, if you use Instagram, why not include a live feed from your Instagram channel into your website? 7. Ask trusted clients and/or buyers to write a review or a favorable comment on your Facebook page. Each time you notice or get notified that someone has left a really

good “Post to Page” on your Facebook page, you can then ask your Website Designer to embed it within the testimonials (or Guestbook) section of your website. This further extends the usefulness and visibility of the review. (Editor’s note: this is a relatively new feature from Facebook and a great one to use). 8. Consider utilising the “Notes” section within your Facebook business page. Using it can be a great way to publish slightly more in-depth information for your target audience to read. Because the notes always remain visible in the sidebar of your Facebook page, they will be seen by your Facebook page visitors for a long time into the future.

Jay Daniells owns and manages two web design and online marketing businesses; www. jaydaniellsweb.com.au and Green Valley Digital www. greenvalleydigital.com.au.

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Social Media Mind Find out how this very distinct business found its own growing market through Facebook and “business seemed to take off overnight.” INTERVIEW BY

OWNER:

Dan Willersdorf

Jo-Anne Moore

BUSINESS YEARS:

27 and counting

www.facebook.com/ jmooreenergypsychology: 1,033 likes and counting FACEBOOK PAGE:

In this case study, we cover some great findings and tips to help other businesses, even those with an unconventional product or service, to use Social Media! Initially, Jo-Anne Moore’s only business target wasn’t super precise. She just wanted to share personal empowerment and happiness with as many people as possible and create awareness of the benefits of complimentary and natural therapies. Energy Psychology is described as the “manipulation of energy to create happiness, ease, abundance and health.” JoAnne Moore Energy Psychology began as Jo-Anne’s hobby business in 1993 and has expanded over the past 22 years to a great business. Jo-Anne initially decided to utilize Facebook for her business because it was a natural progression with the integration of the worldwide web and technology. Everything about Facebook was appealing to her: “the immediate mode of delivery and it was FREE and an easy way to reach my clientele, promoting myself, services, classes and events,” Jo-Anne shares.

FINDINGS 1. WHAT RESULTS HAVE YOU ACHIEVED? “Social Media has been more than worthwhile. My business has grown quickly and I am able to communicate with my clients and interested people regularly and with ease. Social Media is also a way of future clients finding you and feeling a familiarity with you and all that your business has to offer without making any kind of commitment. Making use of the event, cause, and status features has added another dimension to my business and income streams. Additionally, my clients can reside anywhere, and utilising Social Media, including Skype, they can utilise my services.”

2. UTILISING PRIVATE INSTANT MESSAGING TO COMMUNICATE WITH CLIENTS Because Energy Psychology can be an extra personal transaction between motivator and client, “the added feature of personal messaging was the pinnacle point of ease in communicating with clients at any time to discuss questions and make bookings,” she explains. 3. SOCIAL MEDIA REACH IS BIG “Social Media has expanded my business from a just a local to a worldwide entity,” Jo-Anne says.

Clueless about Facebook? Seek help from professionals. According to the Energy Psychologist, if you’re going to get on Facebook, do it right, right away. Seek professional help with your Social Media endeavours to speed up the growth of your business. “I took a Social Media class where they simplified and explained all of the aspects that I had been missing.” With my newfound understanding and enjoyment of technology, I then implemented, studied, and experimented with the many features and ways of posting, which included boosting a post,” Jo-Anne adds. “I found that once I could read and understand the Insights, Advertising, and some competition ideas, business seemed to take off overnight.”

“Seek professional help with your Social Media endeavours to speed up the growth of your business.” Final words: “It can add to your business in ways you never dreamt possible. If you are unsure, give it a go anyway and experience the results for yourself. Take some training or enlist someone who enjoys working on Social Media to do it on your behalf. If you don’t choose this, you and your business will be left behind.”

Jo-Anne Moore has been practising Energy Psychology for more than 27 years. www.facebook.com/jmooreenergypsychology

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Instagram, not Facebook the winner for Green Cathedral

After limited success on Facebook, bespoke furniture maker turns to Instagram with huge results. INTERVIEW BY

OWNERS: Tim

and Sally Scarce

BUSINESS YEARS: 6

years and counting

WEBSITE: www.greencathedral.com.au

Dan Willersdorf FACEBOOK PAGE: www.facebook.com/

greencathedral: 1,156 likes and counting INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT: instagram.com/

greencathedral/: 8,468 followers and counting

rom a young age, Tim Scarce had a passion for furniture making. Even whilst working as an aircraft engineer at Boeing, he was designing and building pieces for friends and family.

next 4 months, the range had extended to include a bench seat, dining table, and kids furniture (the Mini Babanees range), and it was selling from three new stockists in Victoria.

In 2009, Tim took a voluntary redundancy from Boeing, used his redundancy money to buy some key tools, and Green Cathedral was started.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;With limited resources (i.e. finances), the initial marketing strategy was to get as much exposure for as little cost as possible, so Social Media was the obvious channel,â&#x20AC;? Sally shares. Sally had previously done a number of Social Media for Business workshops in Brisbane for another business that she was involved in.

Their first business goal was to build up a client base of interior designers requiring a custom furniture maker and to create a portfolio of high-end custom pieces. This all changed when his wife Sally joined the Green Cathedral team in 2011. With her encouragement, Tim designed and created his first piece from one of his many scrapbooks of original designs - The Babanees stool. Within two days, it was selling from a store in Hastings St, Noosa. Within the 32

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“We have proportioned approximately 40% of our direct sales to have originated from Instagram. This does not include the sales that have been made directly through our stockists.”

GREEN CATHEDRAL’S FINDINGS USING INSTAGRAM:

Their first Social Media experiment was on Facebook marketing. Over a 12-month period they spent approximately $500 on Facebook (targeted) marketing. “We usually advertised posts of new products intermittently with good photos of our current pieces and found that we had a spike in new followers after every post.” “Facebook did bring some brand awareness and a number of sales and enquiries, and we found that our fans increased from 49- 500 in six months,” Sally shares. “However, we did find that this started to decrease over the following months, and the advertising was not having the same success in increasing new followers to the page.” In August 2013, on the recommendation of a client, Green Cathedral joined Instagram and started posting regularly. “Within four weeks, we had surpassed the number of Facebook followers and had started receiving sales enquiries directly via the Instagram page. “It took less than 12 months for Green Cathedral to gain 6,000 followers on Instagram and almost 2 years to gain 1,000 on Facebook,” Sally notes. “We have run two (giveaway) promotions on Instagram with the aim to increase followers and traffic to our page. Both were extremely easy and successful.” Sally says that once they established that a high volume of enquiry was coming through on Instagram, they started to track and measure the orientation of their sales.

1. PEER SUPPORT AND REFERRALS INCREASED We have received many (product) tips, ideas, and encouragement from an extremely supportive international community of Furniture Makers,” Sally says. “We also gained instant referrals from Interior Designers, decorators and stylists.” 2. UPDATES IN THE INDUSTRY “We can easily keep up-to-date on upcoming fashions, trends and information that is relevant to our specific industry based on pages that we follow,” Sally shares. 3. REGULAR WHOLESALE ENQUIRIES “We receive at least one wholesale request a week originating from Instagram.”

“Approximately 40% of our direct sales … originated from Instagram.” Why Turn to Social Media? 1. It’s FREE! 2. It can be as quick and simple as you need it to be. 3. It has quantifiable results. 4. You have a captive audience - the people who choose to follow you are more often than not interested in what you are doing, unlike radio, print or TV.

Helpful Tips if YOU Want to Get on Instagram: 1. Start watching how others in your industry are doing it. 2. Choose what they are doing well and put your edge to it. 3. Use this simple strategy to increase exposure: ‘tagging’ bigger brands in relevant posts - e.g. by using a well-known bedding brand on our beds and tagging them in the post, they “regrammed” the image and gained 800 followers in 24 hours. Final thoughts from Sally: “Social Media is great in business because….haven’t you been reading??”

Green Cathedral Bespoke Furniture is close to 10,000 Instagram followers and will have their next giveaway soon. http://greencathedral.com.au

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7 GREAT TOOLS FOR CREATING INFOGRAPHICS By Diane Leone

Wow your customers by using infographics to explain complicated information in a super attractive visual way. Infographics are a tool that individuals and companies use to succinctly communicate a substantial idea or a large amount of information effectively, and in a way the reader can easily scan the data and absorb the information. There are different programs available that you can use to create your own infographics with – even with no graphic design skills.

FIRST, ORGANISE THE CONTENT FOR YOUR INFOGRAPHIC

Identify your topic and title

Think through what information you want to communicate

Narrow that information down to short bullet points in a logical order

Identify the colors and style that will reflect your brand

THEN, USE THESE 7 GREAT TOOLS FOR CREATING INFOGRAPHICS With the information prepared, it’s time to “create” the infographic. The following are software programs and online websites that can be used to create infographics. 1. Easel.ly - www.easel.ly - an online site with a selection of free templates; it’s fun to use with easy drag-and-drop functionality. 2. Piktochart - www.piktochart.com - a pay-for-service website that allows you to create infographics for free with a limited supply of templates. Try it out. If you like it and you need to build infographics often, you might find it worth paying to use. 3. Infogr.am - www.infogr.am - an interesting twist on creating infographics, it’s a free service online that uses Excel spreadsheets. 4. Visual.ly - www.visual.ly - a community platform that is free and allows for both infographic creation and the opportunity to have them shared on Social Media. 5. Canva - www.canva.com - a favourite tool for many Social Media managers, Canva allows you to easily create stunning images, including infographics. Much of Canva is free, and the paid features cost as little as $1. 6. Datawrapper – www.datawrapper.de - allows you to easily create charts and maps in just 4 steps.

Craft your call to action

7. Visme - www.visme.co - allows the simple creation of charts including infographics, as well as see what other people are creating – great for ideas! Free for up to 3 projects.

Diane Leone is a Certified Inbound Social Medial Marketing Professional, speaker, and professional writer. www.ButterflySocialOnline.com

NOW ON THE

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APPLE NEWSSTAND

In with the New Vintage

Queensland furniture restoration and restyling expert brings her craft on Facebook and finds immediate success. INTERVIEW BY

OWNER: Sandra

Reeves

BUSINESS YEARS: January

Dan Willersdorf

FACEBOOK PAGE:

2014 to Present

www.facebook.com/

NewVintageBundy: 2,434 likes and counting SMSM: Tell us how the idea of New Vintage started. SR: Initially it was just to have a creative outlet—an interest. I suppose it was my husband Daniel who gave me a gentle shove. We were looking to buy an established business locally. The two things that held me back were 1, the huge level of commitment -financially and time wise, and 2, the fact that there was nowhere for me to restore one-off pieces of furniture. SMSM: What kind of marketing strategies did you implement, and how effective were they? SR: My marketing was purely Facebook and word-ofmouth. I started with my friends, who told their friends, and the circle expanded. I have never spent a lot on advertising. SMSM: What made you decide to use Social Media (Facebook)?

It’s every mum’s dream to be able to run her very own business—one that she not only loves, but that also doesn’t require her to give up taking care of her family full-time. That’s why when Sandra Reeves launched New Vintage solely on Facebook, it had an impact right away. The fact that it has consistently grown over the past year makes for a true “Social Media success” story worth sharing.

SR: I have been a stay at home mum for almost ten years and spent a lot of quiet time reading over blogs

Here, Sandra narrates her business journey that can inspire anyone to start their own online:

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SANDRA’S FACEBOOK FINDINGS: 1. GAINING MORE LIKES - “I spent a lot of time looking, liking and commenting on other similar business pages. This in turn had me gaining new likers from a whole different circle than my friends.” 2. DEALING WITH NEGATIVE COMMENTS - “People like to have an opinion. Sadly I have had to delete comments and even ban one lady altogether. Usually I kill these people with kindness or fact!” 3. USING INTERACTION ON FACEBOOK - “I think the interaction is wonderful! It engages a whole new audience in a different way. A lot of people like to see, research and then buy without having to go into a brick and mortar shop front.”

SANDRA’S SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS: 1. Look at similar businesses. Take points you like, and learn from the points you don’t. 2. Research your target group and learn to post to suit them – in time, content and interaction. 3. Set it up correctly from the very beginning. “Start as you mean to go on.”

about home renovations, styling and cooking. I have always had interactions with other mums through the internet and knew it was my key focus market. The other benefit of Facebook is the control over when and what to post. All those years of research has seen me understand my target audience, stay-at-home mums, and the times of day they are online.

SMSM: Any future steps for the business that you plan to execute on Social Media? SR: I am hoping to have more connections between my Facebook, Instagram and a website—that’s a learning curve for me personally!

SMSM: Were you skeptical about using Social Media for your business? SR: No, not at all. I think the fact that my business started from nothing, I really had nothing to lose. SMSM: What were the difficulties you had the first time you used it? SR: The big gest challenge is keeping the target audience engaged. SMSM: What were the initial steps you took using Facebook to promote the business? SR: Initially it was marketing directly to my friends, then to their friends, and then strangers came on board. I knew when to post and what to post, and I also knew a few tricks about getting interactions, such as gaining people’s input through competitions, opinions and home styling. Everyone loves to show off!

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Loving the Social Media Life for Yoga Yoga teacher utilises Social Media to reach business nirvana. INTERVIEW BY

Dan Willersdorf

OWNER: Carmen

Lee-Schneider

YEARS IN BUSINESS: Since

2014

WEBSITE: www.LoveLifeLiveYoga.com.au FACEBOOK PAGE: www.facebook.com/lovellifeliveyoga

SMSM: Tell us how your business “Love Life. Live Yoga” came about.

in marketing and has used Facebook to successfully promote many other businesses in the past.

CLS: I have been doing yoga for years. I really love to share my passion, inspire people and help them lead better lives. I started teaching casual classes in Bundaberg at the beginning of 2014 after moving from Sydney. Initially my plan was to just do two, maybe three classes each week, but since the demand was there and our following was growing quickly, I was soon running five classes per week, offering additional workshops, and I even organised our first yoga retreat in Thailand in March.

To attract new students and grow our classes, we have solely used Facebook. It has allowed us to grow our fan base way beyond the people who actually attend our classes. Our very first campaign was a Facebook competition where people could win a 10-class pass. The post was shared and liked dozens of times and probably cost us $20 to promote. This really helped to get the word out there and create a bit of buzz.

SMSM: What kind of marketing strategies did you implement, and how effective were they? CLS: When we put our website up, we spent quite some time on SEO, making sure that people would find us when searching for yoga classes in our area. Within a couple of months we managed to appear on page one of Google for nearly every search term that contains ‘yoga’ and ‘Bundaberg’.

After some time, we put together a free 1-day yoga workshop called ‘Yoga Base Camp’. We aimed for 30 people, and were absolutely stunned when we over 70 people registered in less than 12 hours. All just through Facebook with a promoted post that got people onto a squeeze page where they could register for the event. Yoga Base Camp has really helped us to spread the word and get people to experience an entire day with

SMSM: What made you decide to use Social Media (Facebook, etc.)? CLS: We always knew that Facebook was going to be our tool for growing our business. My husband works 38

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me teaching where they can enjoy the atmosphere. It was an amazing experience. Yoga Base Camp is d e f in i te l y go in g to b e o n e of o ur o n go in g conversion tools.

Sharing relevant content, I believe, is the first step in building a strong relationship with your audience. It is also important to not only post, but to listen to what they have to say.

Facebook is an amazing platform to promote almost any kind of business. No other platform out there lets you target your audience in a way Facebook does, which results in higher conversion rates and less money spent per conversion.

Listen, acknowledge and respond. Every now and then someone posts a negative comment on a post, but staying positive, open and compassionate has proven to be the right thing.

Another important point is that Facebook allows you to connect with people, even when they aren’t ready to join just yet. Take Google Adwords for example. If people click on an ad, but don’t buy your product or service, you still pay for the ad, but the opportunity is lost. With Facebook, we find that a lot of people will at least like our page, even though they aren’t ready to buy yet. This gives us an opportunity to engage with and educate our audience on an ongoing basis. Furthermore, communicating on Facebook is fast. Everyone is on there and the majority of people check their newsfeed multiple times a day. You are basically putting your business in their pockets.

“The longer you wait, the more you will have to catch up. So make a move and get on Social Media” SMSM: Did you find any aspects of using Social Media for business difficult? I didn’t find it particularly difficult to get started on Social Media. I live what I teach every day and I share thoughts, quotes, yoga poses and anything I come across during my days. Really, it’s just like sharing things that I value with my friends. SMSM: What were the things that you learned as you went along? CLS: The biggest lesson to learn was that Social Media is not about business. It’s about people; about stories that inspire us. It’s important to post about things that your followers genuinely care about.

We got a negative comment once and decided to respond in the nicest way possible. Suddenly, we had our whole Facebook community behind us and the person ended up deleting the comment. As a result it only made our community stronger by sticking together. I believe you can always turn a negative situation into a positive experience. SMSM: What aspect/s of Social Media do you find the most beneficial for businesses? CLS: It is great for businesses because it’s a free tool that allows you to invite others into your own little world, stay connected to them, and build strong relationships with them. I sometimes wonder how some businesses still aren’t utilising Social Media to grow their audience. The fact that it’s basically free and that you can communicate with your customers in real time was enough to get me on board from day one. SMSM: What are some tips you can share with business owners still contemplating using Social Media? CLS: The longer you wait, the more you will have to catch up. So make a move and get on Social Media. Make it an integral part of your business. There are plenty of great workshops out there to help you get going. SMSM: What is next for Love Life. Live Yoga? CL S: We are planning to produce a number of inspirational and how-to videos for Facebook , YouTube and Vimeo that will help our audience to stay motivated and improve their yoga practice, no matter where they are. Videos are a great way to educate and inspire people.

Visit www.LoveLifeLiveYoga.com. au to find out more about Love Life. Live Yoga

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DOING IT FOR THE KIDS

How two sisters started a Facebook page to become a reliable guide to child-friendly activities in their Community INTERVIEW BY EDITED BY

FOUNDER/OWNER: Angela YEARS IN BUSINESS: April

Stedman

2012 to Present

France Pinzon

WEBSITE: www.widebaykids.com.au FACEBOOK PAGE: www.facebook.com/

widebaykids: 4,199 likes and counting

n year 2012 Angela Stedman and her young family made the exciting move back to her hometown of Bundaberg from Brisbane. Once settled Angela found it really difficult to find child-oriented activities and services. To combat this she joined with her sister Gayle, and together they created a Facebook community page that was designed to cater for all things children and families in the Wide Bay. Wide Bay Kids started off by collating helpful parent resources, business, and event information orientated towards families in the region. “We started out just sharing information with everyone so that others knew what was on and what services were available, and it just grew from there,” says Angela. 40

Katrina Carey

To date the active community has created playgroups and promoted businesses and services - all aimed at nurturing and educating children and families. This all started through Social Media.

The Social Media Factor “Basically our whole organisation has been established by Social Media,” Angela recalls. She said “everything started by us simply launching on Facebook, and this was back when it was not the norm for businesses or organisations to market themselves in this way”. ‘I do not have any formal marketing qualifications, just a whole lot of experience working in advertising

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and community development roles. I do a lot of reading online,” Angela admits. “I follow a lot of people and marketing experts. I’m part of different networking groups on Facebook, which I find are an amazing source of information.” W ide B ay K ids has s t ar te d reaching ou t an d expanding their audience using other Social Media platforms, such as Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. “We have not invested as much time into these other platforms, however I’ve starting to read a little more about Instagram and will be looking at it further into the future”.

2. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF A MORE TARGETED AUDIENCE AND USE FACEBOOK ADVERTISING Angela suggests that Facebook page owners should take advantage of the Facebook Advertising facility. It is very effective at narrowing down a targeted audience and adds more advertising value for money. “There is no point in having a page with huge Facebook likes if those likers are not interested in or engaging with your posts. By advertising on Facebook (through Facebook’s own advertising or via shout-outs on selected larger pages) you can target those who see your advertising... which in my book, is money well spent.”

For those starting out on Facebook… 1. YOUR PAGE NEEDS TO HAVE PERSONALITY “It needs to be about them (the fans), not necessarily about your business,” Angela shares. 2. ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE - RUN FACEBOOK COMPETITIONS, ETC. “I think that by engaging your audience it makes them feel part of a community. In the beginning, we ran a lot of competitions and that definitely helped with our page being shared and liked. It was an integral part of our brand becoming known.”

Angela’s Top Facebook Tips for Page Owners: 1. SCHEDULE POSTS WHILE YOU ARE MOBILE Angela swears by the functionality of the Facebook Page app, especially if you’re an on the move admin. “I schedule straight from Facebook and I tend to use my mobile or an iPad rather than a PC or laptop. The Pages [manager] app means I can be out and about and post something immediately, giving our page fans real-time updates,” she adds.

For more information, visit the Wide Bay Kids Facebook Page Visit www.widebaykids.com.au for more information.

Photographs by Freckles Photography.

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Obama Connects and Inspires With Social Video What you can learn from the most powerful man in the world about using By Gemma Abela video on Social Media. This year, America’s president, Barack Obama, used non-traditional media methods when making a huge announcement, and it had some incredible results that every business owner can learn from.

he won the election. Obama was able to influence a nation, who has no obligation to vote, to listen to his political stance through Social Media.

If he was able to create a voting revolution in 2008 and Instead of calling a press conference and assembling inspire 1.2 million people to watch a video in less than journalists in a small room with their notepads and an hour in 2015, then we need to take his lessons and pens, Obama decided to utilise his online network to implement them. provide a prelude to an upcoming announcement. The video is set in an office, with Obama sitting on the corner of his desk in a business shirt and tie without his suit jacket. Obama addresses the topic, talking directly to you, as if you were in the room having a one-on-one conversation with the president. It’s not a formal address, and he uses his hands to punctuate his points. He doesn’t use the words “government” or “White House,” opting instead for inclusive language like ‘we can accomplish together’, ‘everybody agrees’, ‘we understand’, and ‘everybody has the opportunity’. In those 90 seconds, Obama has captured an audience from all different demographics and generations. In less than one hour, the White House reported the video had reached more than 1.2 million people on Facebook. He had connected with and influenced the country. The American president is no stranger to using Social Media effectively. Many believe that Obama’s use of Social Media during his 2008 campaign was the reason

3 TECHNIQUES TO APPLY TO YOUR OWN BUSINESS WHEN USING VIDEO ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Consider your language. Obama opts for inclusive language, using words like “we”, “us”, and “everybody”. Just like Obama avoids using the words ‘government’ and ‘White House,’ avoid using the name of your business. Instead, talk about your customers’ problems, fears, and frustrations, and your solution to them. Talk with your audience, not at them. Obama talks to the camera is if it were a single person so the viewer feels they are having a 1-1 conversation with the President. He uses a warm and informal approach that feels more like you are having a conversation rather than him making a speech to you. Share engaging content your customers will value. You must know your target market well to understand how to effectively connect with them, meaning that they will watch your video. On Social Media, you also want engagement, meaning you get feedback and interaction from them, such as liking, sharing, or commenting on your video. If your posts aren’t engaging, they will easily be dismissed when your customers are swiping through their newsfeeds. Gemma Abela is director of Prestige Communications and Marketing, a Cross consultancy business specialising in both marketing and communications. www.prestigecam.com.au

Social Media Success Magazine is a dual-format (digital and print) journal that profiles and analyses business owners and managers successfully using Social Media to promote their businesses. If you know of a business that would be a great case study for Social Media Success Magazine, please email editor@socialmediasuccessmagazine.com

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