Grow Your Biz Using Social Media Class

For those of you in the Indianapolis area.

I have completed some Rain University Classes the past couple of months and I have another class coming up on the 19th of March.

This class is not for beginners. We will not be covering basics. It will help if you have been through at least one of the introductory classes or are already blogging and engaged in several social media sites.

Social networking is a great way to promote your business and build your brand. With that said, how do you use it productively? How do you spend 30-60 mins a day and get the most out of social media?

What you will learn:

We will also be offering this class with a live online video stream. To find out more information follow the link to the Information Page.

Social Media and the Recession

When is the next phase of the Internet going to present itself? We hear talks about Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 but when are we going to see social media adapt into it’s third phase? It could be after the recession.

I was reading a post by Chris Charabaruk about social media surviving the recession and he makes a comment about social media adapting towards the end of 2009:

“I think that social media will survive the recession. The idea itself is so insidious, so viral that it’ll never be stamped out. But how the world of social media will appear at the end of the recession will certainly be much, much different than it looked like going in.”

I always liked to dream that the next phase of the Internet or social media would be through innovation and a new form of communication. When will the next phase come? When does innovation and quick development happen? In what Keith McFarland calls Hard Times University in his book Breakthrough Company.

When we are faced with hard times and adversity… the survivors shine through. I think we will see the advent of a new form of social media because of the economic crunch. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace will have to learn how to monetize or die and because of that market stress they will evolve or die.

I am excited to see the transition. In like every market there are deaths, changes, and rebirths.

Unless you are Ford and GM… then you get a bailout.

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All Shapes and Sizes

Guest post by Social Media Consultant Colin Clark

I spend the majority of my day every day thinking up creative ways for businesses to use social media tools to improve their bottom line.  The one thing that I’ve found is that if I put together social media action plans for 10 different companies, all 10 would be very different, even if they were in similar industries.

The reason for this is that it’s extremely important to look at all aspects of your business before delving into social media, because once you do you’re baring your soul to anyone who you interact with online.  Since every business is composed of different types people, every strategy must be optimized to ensure those people will be successful in communicating with people online

So many consultants are saying ‘You must blog’ or ‘You must have a presence on Facebook‘.  It may or may not be the case.  The only ‘must’ is that you ‘must’ use good judgment and good marketing fundamentals to put together a strategy that’s going to be successful.

You Want to Drive Traffic? Ask. Ask. Ask.

(via Darren Rowse @ ProBlogger)

The same question always seems to resurface at every seminar or class we (Brandswag) give: “How do I drive traffic to my blog?”

We try to give the best answers and there are a couple of ways to do this through social bookmarketing, social networking (Twitter), linking… blah blah blah..

There is another way to drive traffic both through Twitter and through a single blog post: Asking Questions.

Mr. Rowse has some great points to asking questions, asking for advice, and asking for tips. If you ask a question there is more of a chance that you will be  able to drive conversation and in turn traffic to your blog post. This also gives you (the write) the ability to create relationships with the people/readers who are contributing to your post and answers the questions you presented.

Twitter traffic can be driven (even using your status updates in other social networks) to your blog through asking the same question in you Twitter Stream.

Example:

What do you think about the new MacBook Pro? Http://www.tinyurl.com/woej2

There are plenty of ways to drive traffic to your blog. I would encourage you to keep reading and educating yourself. Some of the best blogs to do this are Chris Brogan, Darren Rowse, and Liz Strauss.

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Baby Boomer Me Up. The 43+ Revolution.

How many times have we heard the negative remarks surrounding social media marketing sound something like this:

“I don’t feel like I need to invest our time and resources into social media. I don’t think our Baby Boomer demographic will relate to that type of technology.”

At Brandswag we hear this all the time. It is a concept that has been etched into the mind of small business owners who cater to the baby boomer generation. They have a hard time connecting the importance of social media to their niche clientele. This is because of the overwhelming MYTH that social media is only for my generation, the millenials.

The shift has slowly started to take form. The paradigm shift between social media being a “bright shiny object” and it actually become a viable marketing tool. The time is not to stop ignoring and start implementing into your marketing strategy.

ReadWriteWeb’s Sarah Perez has a great post entitled, How to Reach Baby Boomers with Social Media. In the post I found the following image below… which gives an inside look into the social technolographics of the Baby Boomer generation:

Here are some stats to show you the potential of using social media marketing with the baby boomer demographic.

In 2007, the percentage of Boomers consuming social media was 46% for younger Boomers (ages 43 to 52) and 39% for older Boomers (ages 53 to 63). By 2008, those number increased to 67% and 62%, respectively.

This is some huge growth! The potential of using a blog, wiki, podcast, or social networking site to reach the baby boomer generation is something that cannot be ignored by YOUR business.

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Ignore Digg. Quality is First.

Image via CrunchBase

Here is an example of information spreading on the web via Twitter and Blogging. One of my twitter and friendfeed buddies, Zee, fed a post on Twitter that was in turn sent to me by re-tweet from Roger Byrne (@styletime on Twitter). The post is called 15 Things I Wish I Had Known When I Started My First Blog by Neil Patel. If you have been using the Internet, blogging, or reading you have probably run across Neil Patel’s name on a blog or two. He knows how to create relationships and engage people online.

One of the things that I found interesting on his blog post was the point he made about not writing for Digg. I have heard from multiple bloggers that it is important to hit Digg because you drive a ton of traffic to your site.

“On the other hand Quick Sprout hasn’t got on Digg more than once and I have a very strong core user base. This is the main reason Quick Sprout has tons of reader interaction compared to other blogs.”

Neil took the opposite approach when building readership to his blog. He decided to focus solely on the people hitting his blog through links and other avenues other than the ungodly amount of traffic from Digg. I think that is extremely important.

I have been pushing myself to care more about the daily reader than the hundreds of hits I get from outside sources. It is always cool to open your Google Analytics and see an increase in traffic but how qualified is that traffic? The important relationships to forge are the people that are constantly contributing to your content and vice/versa.

Thanks to Neil for helping me get back on track and focus on the quality of my blog. Thanks to Roger and Zee for constantly feeding me information that helps all of us along this wonderful process.

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Deleting 20,000 Followers from Twitter

Holy crap. I just read one of the best blog posts ever.

Jim Connolly just deleted 20,000 followers from Twitter. I about passed out from bewilderment. Talk about a way to focus more on quality over quantity! If you want an example of how to refocus your social media efforts read the blog post by Jim. When you read the post focus on the sections of Tweeting again “small time” and The “right” was to use Twitter.”

The most important thing to take away from Jim deleting his 20,000 followers is the understanding that we are constantly learning and adapting as the environment of communication changes. Jim decided to do what was best for him in the long run. I can’t imagine getting 400-500 direct messages a day. My face would literally blow up!

When you are starting social media as a small business owner or as another just another lover/user (sounds like a heroine addict) it is important to read and learn from the “professionals” but remember to do what is best for you personally.

I couldn’t handle 20,000 followers. It is hard for me to create valuable relationships with over 2,000! If you are creating relationships with 200 followers. Good! You are living out the idea of quality over quantity.

And that is what matters…

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Unloading On Compendium Blogware

Image via CrunchBase

There is a small buzz going around about a recent blog post by Jeb Banner at SmallBox (a local website design firm) about some of the techniques and tools implemented by local blogging giant, Compendium Blogware. In his post, The Problem with Compendium Blogware, Jeb talks about the merits of the Compendium system and whether or not Google will be punishing Compendium in the long run because of a tweek in their algorithm.

To be completely honest with you, as a small business owner, I think the bigger problem is the fact that Compendium is still selling and overtly offering their service to small businesses that cannot afford a $6,000 blogging tool that they can get for free on WordPress. I don’t want to debate the merits of a tool that is better or worst than WordPress. I don’t want to debate whether or not Compendium has better functions and offerings than another free blogging platform out there.The simple fact is that Compendium is targeting the wrong consumer group for this product.

I will be the first to say that I don’t care about the backend programming merits of one blogging platform over the other (no offense Jeb and Chris). I can tell you first hand and from experience that WordPress works for me. Plain and simple.

I have a corporate blog we just started on our company website Brandswag (using wordpress) and I have the personal blog that you are reading now. Why would I spend $6,000 dollars, which is 10% of my overall revenue, to buy a tool that is free online? I just haven’t seen the value yet. I get great search results on my blog from using the WordPress platform and I can actually tell you the amount of money I have made because of my search rankings and because of my blogging. Why? Because I measure it.

I can understand a corporation using Compendium. Heck, I will refer clients to Compendium if they have the revenue to support the kind of investment the tool costs and if they fully understand the strategy behind blogging. Most small business owners simply should not invest 10-20% of their revenue into a tool when they do not understand the concepts, the fundamentals.

Start small and graduate big.

Start with a WordPress site and get the hang of blogging. Once you understand the value of content and you realize a return on investment make the switch (if you want).

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Building a Pre-Meet Platform

I was browsing the many, many pages of social media blogs this morning and found a post by Steve Woodruff. His blog StickyFigure has some great content and his post, The Personal ROI of Social Media is one of those posts. I am going to borrow a concept from his post and expand upon it: the pre-meeting.

From Steve’s post:

“Through bloggging and Twittering, I have “pre-met” a vast array of people who have shared interests in marketing, branding, social media, pharma, and other aspects of life. By having initial contact in the safe zone of social media, a shared sympathy has been built up, irrespective of any borders of geography, race, background, and political leanings.”

I thought to myself… hmm… It is always good to try and fit a visual description of an idea in order to help people remember the concept. If you are using social media as a platform to build a business network that far surpasses  anything in your location.. you are on the right track.

Social media allows you to pre-meet thousands upon thousands of people and then decide whether you want to take that relationship to the next level and meet at a conference or by other means. You could almost think of it as a pre-screener. Ehh, I would rather not meet them in person. Blah.

I encourage everyone venturing into the social media world to pre-meet and extend a hand to the people you find interesting in the online environment. If you have a location based social network (like Smaller Indiana in Indianapolis) it is important to have these offline meetings to further strengthen your online network.

Build the pre-meeting platform and you will flourish. Just remember to take it offline sometimes too.

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Small Biz Use of Social Media to Double in 12 Months

My father, Dan Lacy, sent me a SearchEngineWatch.com link in my email today that talked about the number of small business and social media. Now, I am a huge fan of small businesses and I am a huge fan of social media. I had to open it.

According to the Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, the number of small businesses using social networking services and strategies will double in the next year. Now, this is good news for companies like man that want to help small businesses leverage social media. It is good to see a tool being adopted by the small businesse market (my favorite).

I do have one word of warning to small business owners wanting to leverage social media. If you are wanting to enter the social media space whether it is through social networking sits, a blog, podcasts, wikis, blah blah blah make sure you have a strategy in place to complete your efforts. Get the right training and social media partner. It is a must.

Danny Brown made a great comment on the post saying:

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