What are the biggest challenges in using social media for business?

Social media is everywhere. There are no shortage of people on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn who are there to tell you how to use it. Social media is a lot of things, but one thing it is not is a get rich quick scheme. There are challenges. It’s something that you have to work hard to have success with.

Content is King. It takes quality content to engage with customers and potential customers. If you talk about what you do from an insider’s perspective you run the risk of boring the very people you’re looking for and sending them away.

Talk with them. Ask them questions. Figure out how they benefit from your product or service, and post things that way. But don’t just post about what you do. Post articles you find interesting. The news, sports and music tend to be things that everybody is interested in. Show that you are human, and more people will interact.

Are you on the right platforms? If you’re preaching to your Facebook fan base about your B2B endeavors you may not be talking with the right people. LinkedIn is great for B2B, because it’s made up of professionals. Finding a targeted audience on Twitter will also help your business. You can go into a website such as Twellow, and follow people in specific industries. This helps you know who you are talking to.

I’d also recommend trying sites such as Biznik and Guru. They are opportunities to find more work.

Tick Tock. Time is also of the essence. People who need to spend all day worrying about the ins and outs of their business often do not have time to spend developing a strong social media presence.

When you get on to a network, have a purpose. Know that you need to update your status, or find followers, or answer LinkedIn questions. Make sure you do what you set out to do. There’s no question all of these social media platforms can be black holes of time if you begin surfing.

You might want to make a list of some goals that you hope to accomplish. For example, getting your friend base up to a certain number, or engaging with five potential customers. That way you can stay on task, get things done and move on to your business. If you do not have time to devote to developing a quality social media presence, you may want to consider hiring it out.

Time To Revisit Your Marketing

As we prepare to sit down for a turkey meal, it is time to think of the 2011 moments with your small business that you have to be thankful for. It’s a great day to celebrate. I am grateful for all the new clients I’ve picked up over the recent months that are helping my business to take off.

With new year coming around, it is a great time for businesses to start thinking about their goals again. Now is the time to consider creating a marketing plan for 2012.

There are a number of questions that it is never too early to start asking. What are the things that you hope to accomplish for 2012? What can you do on a daily basis to make sure you hit those goals?

Are you doing what you need to be doing, in order to increase your marketing exposure, and your customer base?

Now is a good time to make sure your marketing materials are in order. Make sure that your website content, design and navigational structure are where you want it. Make sure that you are using the social media platforms that are out there to create exposure for your business.

The marketing materials your business issues and posts online are the equivalent to a job seeker’s resume. If they’re full of errors, or not looking their best, the first impression may suffer. Don’t be afraid to hire a professional when you need it!

Organize Your Brain

When inspiration strikes, are you prepared? Have you ever had a good idea and nowhere to file it away?

I recently discovered the benefits of the app, Evernote.

It is a good way to make sure there’s one central location for you to keep an electronic filing cabinet. You can create an unlimited amount of notes, and modify them as you see fit. You can use type, audio and photos. It’s an excellent way to keep track of the things you have going on.

There could be a little more functionality with this app, however. You can’t combine mediums in any one note. If it’s a written note, there’s no photos. If it’s a photo note, there’s no words, etc…

You can use this app to organize the random thoughts that pop into your head. You can use it to keep a grocery list. You can write blog notes. I just began using this app to keep me a little more sane. It’s a great tool for those who think about things at inopportune times.

For example, I’m at a bar with friends when the perfect phrasing for a writing project I’m working on comes into my brain. The next morning, I’m working on the writing project, and the perfect thing to say to my friends pops in. There are a lot of times I operate backwards like that. I use this app to help me keep track of things…

Have you found a good application for Evernote? I’d like to hear it.

Keeping Track of Your Time

I will start out with a little note about myself, here. I’m the type of person that if I don’t have a clear sense of purpose for what I’m supposed to be doing at the moment, it’s easy to derail my concentration.

Maybe I got on Facebook to send somebody a message. All of a sudden there’s a status about the Bears game that I have to comment on. Then somebody commented about the album I’m listening to on Spotify, which happens to be one of my favorites as well.

It looks like somebody just posted a blog about the top 10 songs from this week in 1995, and pretty soon an hour’s gone by and I haven’t done what I originally intended to do.

That kind of thing happens to me all the time. So, I like to organize my time, and make sure a certain set of things must get done on a given day. Maybe I need to reach out to five different business owners to see if they need my services.

Maybe I need to reply to a series of followers on my Twitter account to engage with them. Maybe it’s being active in a LinkedIn group. Whatever the case may be, each of these areas can be a time suck, if you’re not doing precisely what needs to be done. So, I try and remind myself of that electronically.

I’m curious, what are the best electronic organizational methods that people have used? There are so many products out there, and honestly, I’m finding myself scattered between a few different methods right now.

It’s safe to say you no longer necessary to carry a book around with you. With smart phones, it’s all in one place. I still rely pretty heavily on Google Calendar myself. Over the weekend, I set up the meetings, and events I have scheduled for the upcoming week.

If there are phone calls that need to be made, I put those in the calendar too. The nice thing is, you’ll get the reminder emails to help you keep track of the daily tasks.

With the iPhone 4s, there are more options available. I find myself setting voice reminders through Siri. That’s a good way to remember that you have calls you need to return, or that you have a meeting at 3 p.m. It does seem a little less structured, however.

I’m also using the notes app to help me to remember to do certain things. I still am notified for everything I need to have done, but it seems less structured, and through more apps.

I’m just wondering what other people do to organize their time?

Branding You

With the advent of social media, branding is not just for businesses anymore. Schools and employers have never had more information to base their decisions on—decisions that can change your life.

Whether you are looking for a job, applying to schools, or own your own business, your personality, your brand, shines through in all the information you make public. Every piece of public information matters. It gives clues as to who you really are.

This affords you a great opportunity. You have the opportunity to appear hard-working. You have the opportunity to appear smart. You have the opportunity to be an expert in your field.

There are plenty of things you can be working on to improve your personal brand. You could fill out your LinkedIn profile, and use the platform to network and build relationships. You could mention and engage with more people on Twitter. The stronger the presence, and the higher the level of engagement, the better your online brand.

The opportunity for disaster also exists. If you complain about your boss, make sure they won’t creep up and comment out of the blue.

Before you post it on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, stop and think about EVERYONE on your friend list. Is it something you don’t mind if they see? If you have your own business, do you really want to be complaining about clients there? How will your other clients take that?

It’s much better to remain positive and upbeat. Remain true to your personality. You don’t want your personal brand to feel forced.

The upside is that you have the opportunity to publish more information about who you are, and why you are worthy of every opportunity you seek. Unfortunately, this is also the down side.

The Power of Keywords

Maybe you’ve taken the time to build a web site that you are extremely happy with. Maybe someone else built it for you, and the graphics and design are beautiful and spectacular.

Great. Now what? Well, it needs to be findable. This means thought and effort need to go into selecting keywords. First, you need to think like a customer. What are they going to search you under? Write down the first five or so words or phrases you may think they’ll look for you under.

Now, you need to do your keyword research. Find the Google keyword tool, and type those phrases in. What the tool does from here is tell you how competitive those search phrases are, and how many global searches there are.

From here, you are walking a line. You want a low to medium competition rate, with a high level of searches. This means that there are not as many sites trying to rank with these words, and there are plenty of searches for them.

These are the keywords that truly have the potential to benefit your marketing efforts. Use them in your keyword meta data. Make sure that the keywords that mean the most to you appear at least one to two times in your copy.

From there, wait, and monitor the results in your Google Analytics. Hopefully, you should start to see the results from there. You can see how long the visitors who used that keyword remain on your site. If you’re not getting the results you hoped for, adjustments can always be made.

If you find the most relevant keywords, and use them correctly, your marketing efforts should become a lot easier from there.

Speak Your Searches With Google Voice On Chrome

Has anyone else noticed the Voice Search from Google? They began rolling it out over the summer, and it is on the Google search in the Chrome browser. It’s not quite the same level as Siri, but I’m sure Google will have enhancements in store.

Right now, it is simply for Google searches, and seems to be pretty accurate, if you give it keywords. It doesn’t have the knowledge base that Siri builds up, however. For example, I asked Siri “How do I get to Iowa?” and it gave me directions to Des Moines, from my current location. I asked Google voice, and I still get some irrelevant searches for Iowa.

It will happen soon for Google, I’m sure, but it hasn’t happened yet. The Android voice recognition still has problems understanding the question correctly. Once they build in a strong artificial intelligence system, they’ll be able to compete with Apple on that front.

My guess is we’ll see more of the personal assistant type apps in home computing as well. Can you imagine simply telling your computer to play a movie, or make a Facebook post? Have it answer a question, or play your favorite music.

This will also be an interesting progression in home and business automation. Tell your computer to turn the heat down, or bill a client. Apple was ahead of the curve again, and the possibilities with this one are endless.

Generating Business Leads

I was just going through LinkedIn questions, when I found one asking the best ways for a small business to generate leads. There are many ways to do this. First off, it’s important to understand that the internet has replaced the phone book.

I just watched the movie Searching For Bobbie Fischer again. You know that scene where the kid sits on some phone books to be able to see, when he plays chess with his dad? That’s about the best use for these massive books anymore.

With that in mind, I would direct the majority of your lead-generating effort online. Networking and cold calls are still important, but you want to make sure that what people see 24/7 is the best representation of your business.

Website—This is the best place to start any effort to gain more leads. Make sure you’ve got a current, competitive design. Make sure it looks right on a mobile device. Many designs look dated. Your customers can tell. Make sure it has a solid navigational structure. People should also be able to easily contact you. It should represent your business like an online salesperson.

SEO—Search Engine Optimization is also hugely important. This is the practice of making sure your web site and your business are represented well in the search engines. Quality content, the proper back end tags, strong social media, and link building all come into play here. You can have the most beautiful website in the world. If no one finds it, you won’t have any leads.

Social Media—My first social media lead happened like this. I watched the fireworks for the town I lived in. I tweeted that I was doing so. Somebody else responded to me. A few months later that somebody else needed a web site redesign for their business. They called. Social media leads can take time to formulate. It is crucial for any business to have a network of customers and potential customers to engage with on a regular basis. This will only increase the strength of your brand. You never know who you will find, and where you will find them.

Press Releases—Make sure and try press releases and online press releases. Are you a new business? Are you celebrating an anniversary, or have a newsworthy product release? A press release can help. There are plenty of distribution sites out there that will help get the word out. Don’t forget about your local news agencies. They can still kick up some business for you.

Networking—Old fashioned networking groups still help. Go. Find people in other related businesses, and make connections. Again, they may not need your services for months. But it pays if you are the one they think of when they do need your services.

Cold Calls—I have to admit, not my favorite way to find leads, but it can be effective. If you call the right places, and enough of them, you may be able to find a job or two.

If you have a strong message, and use these strategies effectively, the leads should follow.