9 Tips to Social Media Success

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Nine Tips to Social Media Success NINE TIPS TO SOCIAL MEDIA SUCCESS The Social Media Revolution is on us and savvy business owners are getting on board to ensure they don’t miss the boat. Social Media provides so many advantages to business owners to grow their businesses. Used correctly, Social Media can increase your brand awareness, build you a community of raving fans who will not only recommend you to others, but buy more from you more often and create a stream of potential new clients who are pre-sold on you and are easier for you to convert to new raving fans.

But be warned, done incorrectly Social Media can also end up being a big waste of your time and resources. I have seen so many business owners jump on the Social Media platforms and waste too much time, pass up too many opportunities and end up frustrated and no better off than when they started.

Of course I can’t teach you everything in one e-book, however, I have put together these tips to steer you in the right direction so you get the right advice first which will allow you to get started on social media and get the result you want.

At this stage you are probably wondering who I am and why you should be listening to me. I have been using Social Media since early 2006, starting with blogging and Facebook. I have successfully used Social Media and online marketing to brand myself as an expert in my field, create raving fans and of course gain more sales. I don’t believe in advertising as only 14% of consumers trust advertising whilst 78% of consumers trust peer recommendation and 70% trust consumer opinions posted online, so why would you waste your time and money advertising! You can read my full bio at www.nataliealaimo.com/about So my intention in this book is to share with you nine tips to get your started on Social Media - the right way.

Nine Tips to Social Media Success

THE NINE TIPS

Nine Tips to Social Media Success TIP ONE Strategy Any great plan starts out with a good strategy and a good plan. Before jumping into the Social Media mine-field you need to decide, what is your strategy? What are you hoping to achieve and how will Social Media be able to assist you with this? Just because ‘everyone’ is on Social Media it doesn’t mean that you should be. It doesn’t mean that you and your business will benefit. Are you looking to build a brand, gain more clients, create better relationships with your existing clients or just generate traffic to your website? Define your strategy and the rest of the process is a lot easier. You know what you are trying to achieve so there is no time wasting.

TIP TWO Set Objectives Following on from strategy you need to have objectives and goals to monitor and track your performance. I see so many business owners start on social media with no knowledge and no plan. After about 3 months of wasting their time, they call me up and ask me what they are doing wrong! I also ask, what are objectives? What are you trying to achieve? How do you know you haven’t done that? Your objectives should be SMART - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic & Timely. An example of social media objectives could be:

Increase “Fans” on Facebook Page to 100 by March 2011 To post one blog article per week from 1st December 2011 - 31st March 2011 Increase traffic to website by 10% over the next three months Gain 2 enquiries via my website form per week

Do you get the idea? Each of these objectives is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. What will your objectives be?

Nine Tips to Social Media Success TIP THREE Be Authentic Social Media is networking and building relationships online so you need to be authentic and real. It’s a long term strategy and you can’t pretend to be someone you’re not just to impress or make others think differently of you. At the end of the day it’s too much work and people will see through it. People often fall into the trap of trying to be like everyone else and liking everything they do. You need to be uniquely you, who you really are and people will be attracted to that. Just because everyone is talking about the new action movie and you can’t stand action movies, don’t say you do just to fit in. In the end it’s not worth the hassle.

TIP FOUR Build Relationships Building relationships is the whole point of Social Media, it’s the whole reasoning behind it. If you aren’t on Social Media to build new relationships and develop deeper relationships with your existing clients what are you doing there? Remember it’s a social environment in which you get to share business information. Think relationship first and will this deeper or threaten my relationship?

Nine Tips to Social Media Success TIP FIVE Social First, Sell Second Following on from Tip Four you are building relationships. Think of it as an offline networking event. Would you walk up to someone, shove your business card in their face and then tell them all about your latest special? No. I hope not and if you do please don’t visit any events that I’m at! It’s the same in social media. You are there to be social first, build relationships and then sell. People buy from people they know, like and trust so get to know your clients, get them to like you and then they will buy from you.

I once had someone add me as a friend on Facebook who I didn’t know, however, since we lived in the same location I accepted their friend request. Within five minutes of me accepting their request they were on Facebook Chat telling me all about their latest acrylic nail special. I not only don’t have acrylic nails (so not their target market), I didn’t know who they were, so why would I buy from them? Only 7% of people buy on price, so don’t be pushing your products and services too early!

TIP SIX Integrate With Marketing Social Media should form part of your overall marketing strategy, however, it shouldn’t be your only marketing strategy. You need to integrate your offline world with your online world. Most of your initial success on Social Media will come from your offline clients who you encourage to find you online. The benefit of Social Media is the ease-ability in which content can be shared around friends. By encouraging your existing raving fans to join you online they will then spread you and your brand through there friends, accelerating your success.

Do your social media activities compliment your existing marketing strategies? Is your branding consistent? Are you directing traffic back to your website?

Nine Tips to Social Media Success TIP SEVEN Consistency It’s very important when using social media to be consistent. Social Media sites such as Facebook, Twitter & YouTube are excellent at increasing your organic search engine rankings in Google, Yahoo etc. One of the ways search engines rank websites is by relevancy and consistency of posting. If you post with consistency on your social media profiles you will increase your rankings.

The main benefit, however, to consistency is to stay top of mind to your existing and potential clients. The old statistic is that you need to be in contact with your clients at least every 90 days otherwise your competitors will.

With the new social media technologies and the rate in which these sites move, I believe you need to be active on your profile a couple of times a week at the very least. You need to be adding value so when they are ready to buy your product you are the first company they think of.

One of the biggest mistakes on social media is setting up a profile, being very active for a few weeks and then forgetting about it. People are starting to think of social media like other forms of communication. If you are sent an email people expect a reply within 24 - 48 hours, the same if they write on your Facebook wall, sometimes quicker. So make sure you can keep up with whatever you have set up. The most famous example is Boost Juice on Twitter http://twitter.com/boost_juice. They have 1,200 followers and haven’t done anything since November 2009!

Nine Tips to Social Media Success TIP EIGHT VCP Formula Business Network International (BNI) founder Dr Ivan Misner talks about the VCP formula and it’s very relevant to Social Media and online marketing. Once you learn the formula and incorporate it into your overall business strategy you are able to gain a lot more clients because you are moving to an attraction model of marketing instead of a chasing model. Clients who you want to work with are attracted to you and your business and you aren’t wasting your time chasing clients who won’t work with you business model.

So what does VCP stand for: Visibility + Creditability = Profitability Visibility Social Media tools and platforms are great for building your visibility online and offline. You need to be visible where your target market is. If your target market is males, 35 plus, who enjoy playing computer games (yes the average gamer is a 35 year old male) then you may not need to be on Facebook, you may need to be on World of War craft gaming site. You need to be visible where your market is.

Credibility Credibility is gained by the information your share with your fans/followers. You are positioning yourself as an expert in your industry - the go-to person. Make sure you are giving first and not just selling. Provide information such as this e-book for free so people can build trust with you. You are increasing your credibility. Also think about your comments and response on other people’s profiles/pages and how this will increase or decrease your credibility.

Profitability Once you have visibility and credibility you can move into profitability.

Nine Tips to Social Media Success TIP NINE Personal Branding Your customers and clients want to work with specialists, not generalists. You need to be an expert in your own niche, you need to own that niche. One of the quickest and easiest ways to build your expert status is via personal branding. You can still have a company name that is different, but you need to become the expert for your specific target market.

People buy people, not companies, therefore personal branding is the way forward. People Google other people before they decide to invest their time and effort with them. What will they find about you?

Will they find the drunken images of your 30th birthday party? Or a respectable person they want to do business with.

Social Media is forcing people to be real, be who they are and they can’t hide on the internet any more. This means that you need to be careful about the information you are sharing online and how your existing and potential clients will see you online.

Nine Tips to Social Media Success About Natalie Alaimo Natalie Alaimo is the Founder and Director of Brilliant Web Design, a web design and social media agency located on the beautiful Gold Coast, Australia. She is also an assistant director with the BNI Gold Coast Region.

Natalie’s passion is to assist business owners generate more traffic to their website, build relationships with clients and ultimately gain more sales. Using a mixture of online marketing, social media and referral marketing this can be easily achieved for your business.

After leaving university with degrees in Marketing and International Finance, Natalie commenced her career in direct sales of mailing equipment, where she not only sold the machines necessary for high production of mail, but she also assisted the business with their marketing to ensure they got the best returns from their mailings. Through this she discovered that marketing was her true calling and went to run the marketing department for the family owned printing business and again assisted business owners achieve their marketing objectives. Whilst in this role the company moved into online marketing and utilised the mixture of online and print media to achieve amazing results for their clients.

Natalie then followed the market and moved her full time focus to online marketing, web design and eventually social media.

During her time in the printing industry Natalie was introduced to BNI and was quickly on the leadership team and attending directors training. Along with Peter Fitzgerald, Natalie looks after 12 of the 17 Gold Coast Chapters - and approximately 250 members.

Natalie is one of the few individuals who were born and bred on the Gold Coast and has no immediate plans to leave. She lives in Ashmore with her partner of 8 years, Dean.

A published author with articles appearing in International Magazines, Natalie now blogs for Telstra.

Natalie is an international speaker, speaking on Online Marketing, Social Media and Referral Marketing. She also runs a series of workshops on Social Media, Blogging and Online Marketing.

Natalie consults on online marketing, web design, referral marketing & social media.

Nine Tips to Social Media Success

Natalie Alaimo B r a n di n g You w i t h O n l i n e M a r k e t i n g a n d S oci al Med i a Visit www.nataliealaimo.com to access information on websites, social media and referral marketing and how they can help you grow your business. www.nataliealaimo.com l me@nataliealaimo.com Š 2011 Brilliant Web Design Pty Ltd & Natalie Alaimo International Second Edition 2011 Published by Brilliant Web Design Pty Ltd PO Box 6078 GCMC Qld 9726 Australia All rights reserved. This publication is protected by copyright laws, trademarks and other forms of proprietary rights. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, sold, modified or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of Brilliant Web Design Pty Ltd. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: This publication is published with the understanding that neither the author nor the publisher is engaged in rendering legal, accounting or other professional services by publishing this publication. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the service of a competent professional person should sought.

The publisher and author specifically disclaim any responsibility for liability, loss or risk, financial, personal or otherwise, that is incurred as a consequence, whether directly or indirectly, of the use and application or any of the contents of this publication.