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I challenge you! Make Social Media Resolutions and stick with them.

Are you making the RIGHT Resolutions? Similar to making a New Years Resolution, I challenge you to make a Social Media Resolution. As small business owners, we need to make a committment to use social media effectively and follow through with it. I promise if you commit to updating your social media sites, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest regularly you will start seeing results with expanding your online brand, client base and bottom line.

* This post was published prior, but is still relevant, important and valid for increasing your online presence. So read it! Act on the suggested resolutions and let me hear about your successes online!

As many of you know Wednesday was Social Media Day as declared by Mashable, even though I was tied up in meetings most of the day, I felt torn, because I wanted to be online reading all the great Social Media Day content. I did get to catch up on a little reading the past few days and some if it made me do some thinking and evaluation.

As a social media marketing strategist, often times I am so busy working on my clients’ accounts and teaching others how to leverage Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter that I end up neglecting my own business.

I decided like to make a Social Media Day Resolution. We make New Years Day Resolutions, so why not Social Media Day Resolutions. My resolution is relating to one key piece of social media that is essential in growing your brand.

My resolution is to keep my website current. I will do this by adding important events that I am participating in and blogging, which as you know is essential for driving website traffic and SEO. I have a tendency to know I need to do things on my website, but keep putting them on the bottom of the priority list.

If you don’t have a top notch quality website and updated blog you are missing a key part of social media. The whole purpose of using social networking sites for marketing is to drive traffic to your website. The more your network will learn about you and your services the more they will hire and recommend you to others.

Here are a few suggested resolutions for you to consider:

  • Blog WEEKLY. If you know you need to blog and either don’t have the time or desire you hire a ghost blogger. A lot of VAs offer ghost blogging services. I even do ghost blogging for some clients, depending on their product and services. More on blogging…Have you read Why Blog and What to Blog about?
  • Be ACTIVE on social media. Don’t just do your obligatory Status Update, daily or weekly, whatever standard you have set for yourself. Realize that making one status update per week on social media is almost pointless for you. Your connections need to see you name in front of them repeatedly and it needs to be in front of them sharing great content and having conversation. Not pushing your product or services constantly.
  • Grow your NETWORK. I just love when I am chatting with someone about social media and they tell me “I Tweet or use Facebook for marketing my business”. Being a social media strategist, I’ll immediately go to Twitter and see when their last Tweet was and how many people are following them. Sorry to say this, but you can Tweet all day long, but if you only have 200 people following you and they are following 2000 the odds that your Tweets are getting seen is not likely. You need to make new connections daily to get the word about you and your brand on social media.
  • Let your CONNECTIONS know you on different levels. Take your online connections to other social media platforms, so they can learn about you in different ways, i.e. when you connect with someone on Twitter and you really find them interesting and you would like to be connected with them for another reason (potential client or referral source for you) invite them to be your friend on Facebook. They will get to know you on a more personal level and then you can even follow up with them via a phone conversation or Skype video chat perhaps.
  • FOLLOW up. How many times have you made an important contact in person or online and never found the time to seal the deal. Make sure you follow up with all commitments and request you have made online. Your online reputation is important and a key part of getting recommended or them contacting you for your services is to follow up. Make sure that you set aside time, at least every few days to complete these tasks you committed to doing.

Now that I have told you what my Social Media Resolution is and gave you some ideas for ones you should consider I ask you the following:

  1. Let me know if you see something on my website that you feel I should add or do definitely.
  2. Comment on this post with topics you would like to read a blog about. (I really like writing, but I don’t like my blog posts to be the same-o-same-o, like many other people in social media. Sometimes I feel like I am reading the same blog written in 10 different ways.
  3. Tell me your Social Media Resolutions, so I can help hold you accountable, as I need you to hold me accountable.
  4. Share your additional resolutions ideas you think should be on this list, so when others read the comments they’ll get your great suggestions also.

Here goes my shameless self promotion: If you need to learn more about how to leverage Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to grow you network you can schedule a social media coaching session with me. If you don’t have the time and enthusiasm for maintaining your social networking sites, but realize it’s essential to growing your brand I can help you. I actually provide this service for my clients.

Thanks for visiting my blog! Look forward to next time!

What Small Business Can Learn From Big Business In Social Media

The social media marketing world is chock full of examples of how businesses can use social media to engage audiences and drive conversation. There’s also a growing number of case studies that show how businesses can actually drive customer acquisition, lead conversion and the like — which are all better business metrics.

But small businesses are often left by the wayside since the case studies are typically focused on companies that invest thousands of dollars into their social media livelihoods. Still, the big companies can offer lots of ideas and even corollary examples for the small- and medium-sized business in this realm.

Most of the customer service models in social media (Comcast, Dell, etc.) were not started with great budgets or sizable teams. Instead, it was typically one person responding to individual Tweets. Sure, the companies quickly scaled upward once they realized how much of an impact social media customer service could make, but small businesses can still do it. And for not much more than time invested.

The revenue-driving case studies we’ve seen to date, like Dell’s $6.5 million in sales from its @delloutlet Twitter account (As of December of 2009, by the way. They haven’t updated the figure since.) or even Cold Stone Creamery’s $10,000 monthly sales increases (per store) thanks to eGifting on Facebook, are inspirations as well. No, not all small businesses have insatiable products with fans lined up out the doors to buy, but understanding the mechanisms used to track and credit sales to social channels is good learning for any business.

When you’re looking at case studies from existing businesses, even large ones, ask yourself a few questions to help understand what you can take from their learnings. Questions like:

  1. What channel or communications method did they use to engage their customers? Can I use that same channel and replicate that type of method without adding a lot of time or cost to my marketing?
  2. What mechanism did they use the measure their success? Can I use that same mechanism without adding at lot of time or cost. How easy will it be for me to capture that information?
  3. Take away the fancy design, fact they probably used an agency or two and had a big budget. Do the tools exist to help me do this on a budget? Google the functionality to see if something exists (e.g. — “free Facebook contest application”).

We can emulate the big businesses out there, often times for a lot less investment than we think. It just takes seeing how other’s success is working and finding more efficient ways to produce it.

Of course, there’s a big advantage small businesses often have over large businesses, too. They’re more in tune with location and a local audience than larger ones. That means they have easier access and more relevant messaging for the end consumer than larger brands. That’s probably the one area of social media that empowers small businesses most.

You and your small business can learn how you can attack the advantages of small business at Explore Dallas-Fort Worth on Feb. 17 at Union Station Dallas. Mike Merrill will be talking about that exact topic. Not to mention, you’ll have lots of exposure to ideas and inspiration from some larger brands and exposure to some high-level strategic learning from national speakers and experts.

Join me, Brian Clark from Copyblogger, Tom Webster from Edison Research, Zena Weist of Edelman Digital, Chris Baccus of AT&T and more at Explore Dallas-Fort Worth. The day includes breakfast, lunch and a cocktail reception, great learning and networking and a one-month free trial of ExploringSocialMedia.com, a question-answer site and learning community. Next Friday will rock. I want you to be there.

Head on over to register. Just make sure to use the code LISSASVIPS to get $150 off the full ticket price. (Lissa’s cool like that … takin’ care of y’all and such.) We’ll see you on Feb. 17!

Special thanks to Jason Falls for this guest post contribution! (The first guest blogger I have had on my blog – not to shabby, if I say so myself! Next guest blogger – who knows! You better stay tuned! You never now what rabbit I will pull out of my hat next. ~ Lissa

Jason Falls is the CEO of Social Media Explorer, host of Explore social media marketing events and author of the book No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing. Follow him on Twitter at @JasonFalls.

#FollowFriday or #FF – What does follow friday mean to you?

What does follow Friday or #FF mean to you?

@VANetworking shouted out to me several weeks ago on Twitter and asked “Why so many #FollowFriday recommendations?” and I have been thinking about this every since.

I do give quite a few #FollowFriday recommendations because it has several meanings to me:

  1. I recommend people that share great content.
  2. I recommend people that have a great business model.
  3. I recommend people that are my friends.
  4. I recommend people that have a service I highly value.
  5. I recommend people that to me – are just plain great for one reason or another.

#FollowFriday was started originally as a way to help our friends grow their Twitter following, especially the new Twitter users that were getting started and didn’t have any followers yet. Over time, as we have all grown our followings and it has turned into the above Items #1 thru #5. Some quit giving #FollowFriday altogether.

Do you even have time to click on the Twitter ids that your friends are recommending anymore? I know for myself I try to, but between giving all the #FollowFridays, Tweeting content and RT’ing, plus thanking everyone for the mentions and RTs it is quite hard to keep up and I am a social media professional. I can imagine who overwhelming it can be for everyone else out there.

I myself have stopped doing all the “Thanking for each #FollowFriday & Retweet”. I do my thanking on Sundays or Mondays for the #FollowFridays and do my RT thanking about three times a week. It gives me more time to have the real conversation that is so important and the reason for Twitter in the first place.

I often write blog posts to get myself back in line on what I should be doing or want to do differently. I am still going to do my #FollowFriday’s as I have been in the past (so don’t worry – I won’t forget about you), but I am going to add in throughout the week a #SoloShout to new friends and businesses that I want to introduce you to.

Why don’t you help me out with this mission? Commit to sending one #SoloShout Tweet per day. (Or maybe for your schedule it will be once a week.) Don’t send hundreds – pick one person or business and help get the word out about them that day! Perhaps you could send the same Tweet out three times that day – to hit the morning, afternoon and evening users. Just think – if you focus on helping your fellow man/woman grow their business and spread their brand, they will want to help you in return!

Please comment below your thoughts on this idea and your commitment! Looking forward to seeing and reading your #SoloShout recommendations in my stream in the coming weeks! Adding a search column in my Tweetdeck right now — #SoloShout!

P.S. Here is to my first #SoloShout to @VANetworking – Thanks for your question about #FollowFriday & your inspiration!