Facebook – Small Business Odyssey

December 29, 2011December 29, 2011

Google+: Why Small Business Must Get Involved with Google Plus

Google Plus is Google’s new social network launched in June 2011. Google+ will be an integral element in small business marketing into the future. It will not only enable you to build your personal profile but also build your business brand online. Google Plus membership has already reached 62 Million and is growing at the rate of 625, 000 new users per day.

Why bother with Google Plus?

Google views Google Plus as extending its capability (and value) beyond its traditional search engine focus to social networking. However, these two major arenas of Google’s activity should not be seen as separate. Google has already made it clear by its own words and actions that the Google + social network will feed search engine results. It has also shown the intention to rapidly integrate other Google applications into Google Plus, its new social network.

Google has already integrated Google+ into its toolbar as shown in the images below:

This icon. ‘+Ron’ , provides a direct link to my Google+ account. In the following toolbar image, you can see how Google integrates ‘notifications’, ‘sharing’, ‘profile” (thumbnail photo) and ‘settings/help’ icons for ease of access:

As we progress through my blog posts about Google Plus, you will see that Google is deadly serious about this new social network – it is not just a new ‘plaything’. Wherever you go on Google, including the search results, you will see increasing integration of Google+. Google played around with its early social network, Google Buzz, but has since canned it to build Google Plus – all the time using Buzz as a learning laboratory. If you have any doubts about Google’s long-term commitment to Google Plus, just check out Google’s own announcements re its ongoing Google + updates.

Integrating Google Plus into your small business marketing will no longer be a nice option (initially, Google+ was invitation-only), it will be an essential element. Otherwise, you will see your online marketing progressively vanish into the background as Google takes over the foreground with its Google Plus social network.

As mentioned in my earlier post on the major changes for small business marketing in 2011, Google+ is one of Google’s strategies designed to wrest back the Number One web traffic position from Facebook. The similarities between Facebook and Google Plus will hit you immediately, so this new social network represents head-on competition with Facebook. As a small business owner, you can stand on the sidelines and watch the battle or you can engage with both these giant networks and ensure that you have a sound footing online – this is where the action is and where the people (your customers) are.

What is significant about Google Plus?

Google Plus has already been lauded for its ease of use and flexible privacy settings (addressing one of the key problem areas of Facebook). As Google+ is in its early stages, it is also possible to get access to people you would not normally be able to link to.

So here is a list of key things you can do (explained in detail in later posts):

create a comprehensive personal profile
build ‘circles’ (add people to different circles/groupings and control the access and distribution of your information via your circles)
share photos and videos
develop your ‘stream’ (similar to Facebook’s ‘News Feed’ – integrating ‘status updates’ and content such as photos or videos)
private message other people in your circles
create a hangout (an evolving facility to engage others in live conversation via video and text chat – considered by many to be the real technological breakthrough for Google Plus)
create ‘sparks’ – recommendations
build business pages (sound familiar?).

Some commentators are suggesting that with these features and the growing integration with Google’s own applications, Google Plus represents a combination of Facebook, Twitter and Flickr rolled up into one state-of-the art social network.

How to Join Google Plus

You can join Google+ via a link on the blog/website of a Google+ member. You will see the image displayed at the top of this post and the sign-up box as shown in the following screenshot:

Alternatively, you can go directly to Google Plus and click on the following image and this will take you to the signup page indicated in the above image:

Note: You will need a Google account to join Google Plus (with either sign-up option).

With each advancing day as we move into 2012, Google Plus will become more critical to small business marketing and this will be progressively explained in succeeding blog posts (which symbolically will take us into the New Year).

December 26, 2011

7 Major Changes in Small Business Marketing in 2011

As 2011 comes to a close, it is instructive to reflect on the massive changes to small business marketing that occurred during the year and to look at their implications. These changes were driven by a number of landmark events that spawned innovations.

One of the key drivers of the changes that small business marketing confronts today, and into 2012, is the direct competition between Google and Facebook for Number One position on the Internet (and all the revenue that goes with this position). The impact of this competition is being felt throughout the Internet marketing world and in social media. There are many people becoming disengaged by the endless changes created by the two Giants of the Internet as they try to outpace each other. One possible prognosis is that this could open up the arena for another player who undermines the customer base of the both the big players, as Facebook did to MySpace.

I want to focus on seven (7) key changes as a way to highlight the impacts from a small business marketing perspective. This approach is in line with my suggestion to write blog posts in sets and sevens. So here are the seven key changes in 2011 affecting small business marketing:

1. Google Places upgrade and resurgence

Google introduced improvements to Google Places, the platform for local businesses to highlight their location, hours of business and their products/services. Along with these changes, Google gave new prominence to Google Places in local search results, changing the display and increasing the value of a Google Places web presence. Sadly, very few small businesses understand the value of this change and have failed to take up their allotted Google Places website. In 2012, Google Places will be an absolutely essential part of your small business marketing. Without it, you may find yourself dropping deeper and deeper in the list of local search engine results as your competitors make full use of this facility (one which Google itself hosts!).

2. Changes to Facebook Pages

The big news of 2011, was that Facebook had more web traffic (visitors) in March than Google and took over the Number One position in terms of search engine volume. The race is now on and Google and Facebook are involved in a head-on tussle to capture (or retain) the number one position. This competition has generated many changes on both sites. Facebook has made major changes to its Facebook Pages to make further inroads into the business market. These changes have complicated the scene for small business marketing. It has meant that many small business owners have had to ignore Facebook or engage small business marketing consultants (who are struggling themselves to keep up with the changes). But how can you ignore the Number One source of web traffic that is also a social media site with over 700 Million members?

3. Introduction of Google Plus and Google +1

Google quickly responded to Facebook’s resurgence with the introduction of its own social network, Google Plus. It also introduced an equivalent to the Facebook “Like” in the form of the Google +1 button. There are other major changes in Google’s search algorithm and results display that accompanied these changes. The challenge for small business owners is, “How can you keep abreast of these changes and their implications for small business marketing?”. Again, you cannot afford to ignore the Google changes or your competition will be appearing in a much more prominent way than you as Google attempts to “reward’ those who get on board with its new social network and related changes.

4. The resurgence of LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the world’s largest online network focused on business and in 2011 grew to over 130 Million members. LinkedIn is a new and growing force in small business marketing. Depending on the nature of your business, it can be a critical component of your small business marketing, particularly in the light of the overall growth of social networking which looks like continuing unabated in 2012. The introduction of status updates by LinkedIn is an attempt to utilise its growing power to move into the Big League occupied by Facebook and Google.

5. The growth of local marketing

During 2011, there was a massive switch of focus by Internet marketers from affiliate marketing to local marketing. This was driven in part by two influences, (1) the decline of affiliate income owing to the depressed economy in the US and (2) and the recognition that around 80% of business for offline businesses comes from within a 5 kilometre radius. The changes to Google Places and the emergence of social networking ‘review” sites, intensified this new focus. What it means for your small business marketing is that you have to make the most of online local marketing tools because your competitors are being courted daily by Internet marketers who see this area of consulting as a the new “goldmine”. The new superstars of Internet marketing generate their income from monthly retainers paid by businesses, small and large, for local marketing services.

6. The massive growth of mobile marketing

With the advent of the Smart Phone and the associated growth of mobile usage, mobile marketing has taken off as the new frontier for Internet marketing. This growth is being aided by the focus on local marketing and has spawned the development of thousands of apps for mobile phones. Two new areas of online riches are emerging, (1) the creation and sale of mobile phone apps and (2) the development of mobile marketing strategies and tools (software). As a small business marketer, you are going to need mobile compatible websites and mobile marketing tools. One advantage of Google Places discussed above is that it is already mobile-compatible – which is another reason why it is so critical for small business marketing.

7. 2011 – The Year of the PlugIn

With so many changes on so many fronts, WordPress developers have had a field day. There has been a massive growth in WordPress Plugin development in 2011. I receive an invite every day to purchase two or three new plugins. It is becoming increasingly difficult to keep abreast of these software innovations. However, the WordPress plugins are designed to make it easier for you to accommodate your small business marketing to the changes that are occurring in Internet marketing. Many of the plugins help you to automate your small business marketing process.

In succeeding posts, I will further explain these 2011 changes and highlight their implications for small business marketing moving into 2012.

November 18, 2011November 18, 2011

Auto-Post with Posterous: Leverage Your Hard Work

Posterous enables you to broadcast your Posterous blog post (whether or not it was created by email, screen capture or onsite blogging). You can also specify a target for a specific email post, e.g. twitter@posterous.com.

You can set up the specific accounts in the “autopost” area of your Posterous site to advise where to broadcast your blog post. The above image lists the social media sites that you can auto-post to with Posterous.

Posterous, through email and screen capture blogging, gives you the power to leverage your online content (blog posts, articles, Squidoo lenses, Hub pages, videos. podcasts). The autopost facility allows you to levrage your hard work in creating online content by simultaneous broadcast to other social networking sites.

At the time of writing, I have set up my site to post my Posterous blog posts (however created) to my Affiliate Marketing Coach blog (Blogger.com) and to my Facebook site. So you can set up a sequence of auto-posting that suits your style of operating and fits with your small business marketing strategy.

Here is an example of where Posterous has created an autopost to my Affiliate Marketing Coach blog from a Posterous screen capture post I created from this Small Business Odyssey blog:

The original blog post on Small Business Odyssey was posted to my Posterous blog via the screen capture bookmarklet. I have added a comment and a link to my target URL (automatically hyperlinked) and Posterous has auto-posted the Posterous blog entry to my Blogger.com blog.

You have the option of letting Posterous post directly to each site you nominate or have it feed into one of your sites that is set up to auto-generate other posts.

You are limited only by your imagination with respect to the range of content that you can capture, and the means of achieving leverage. In this example, my AudioBoo podcast is automatically posted to my Posterous account which in turn posts to my blog, Twitter and Facebook:

So there are a number of options for using the autopost feature of Posterous. Here are three of them:

Allow Posterous to autopost directly to your selected social media sites
Allow Posterous to autopost to another site (e.g. Twitter) which in turn is set up to autopost to other sites (such as Facebook)
Allow another site (e.g. AudioBoo) to autopost to your Posterous blog and setup the latter to autopost to selected sites.

The autopost option is located under “Manage Spaces” – you need to click on the down arrow as highlighted in the image below so that the menu displays with the autopost option:

Posterous through its email blogging and screen capture blogging supports an array of options for auto-posting and creating leverage for your online content as part of your small business marketing.

November 2, 2011November 8, 2011

Social Media for Small Business Marketing

You have to search really hard to find someone who relates social media to small business marketing and does so in an easy-to-understand way. However, Social Media Today has achieved this sharing by assembling a panel of experts who can guide you through the social media maze.

The YouTube video presented above gives great insights into how to use social media to advance the marketing of your small business. They effectively cover Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube and relate these to small business marketing. The information is really well grounded and focused on “how to” information – it does not go into the technicalities of each of the social media sites.

The video covers the practicalities of social media marketing:

How to use social media to build your small business
What social media to use for small business marketing
How to avoid the risks associated with social media
How to connect with your customers (current and future) through social media
Ways to measure the effectiveness of social media marketing.

Without this kind of guidnace, you can easily waste time, money and resources on social media and inhibit the success of your small business.

Core messages for small business marketing using social media

After watching the video and related Slideshare presentation, I distilled eight (8) key messages that relate to the use of social media for small business marketing:

Social media are designed to build community, not to offer a platform for direct marketing (overt marketing can result in account deletion)
Social media marketing is a form of indirect marketing (unless you use paid advertising on social media sites)
Your goals should be to build connections and relationships with current and potential customers
Unless you have a specific strategy when you visit social media sites, you will waste a lot of time for no productive outcome
The essence of social media is conversation with others and sharing – about yourself, your small business, your interests and information relevant to your niche
Effective marketing on social media requires content creation on your part – blogging, podcasts, e-books and videos
It’s important to personalise your business and your staff – profiles and videos help greatly here (you have to present as a real person, with real interests and real staff)
Profiles are critical – make sure they are relevant to your business, up-to-date and keyword rich (for SEO purposes).

Small business owners can use social media effectively if they follow some basic principles and develop a marketing strategy. The potential of social media is enormous but the realization of this potential requires focus, targeting and discipline.

October 20, 2011December 3, 2011

10 Top Tips for Small Business Marketing on LinkedIn

Here are 10 top tips for building your LinkedIn presence together with tactics and strategies for marketing your small business. LinkedIn is growing in status and size, so a presence on this site is becoming increasingly important for small business owners.

#1. Make the most of your LinkedIn Profile

Your profile is the core of your presence on LinkedIn – it is what people will visit to connect with you or to view what you have to offer. LinkedIn understandably provides a comprehensive profile area – covering aspects such as current and past positions, education, specializations, experience and websites. Make good use of the summary area which allows you to personalize the information by adding applications (”add sections”) that enrich your profile presentation. The additional information area is where you add your websites, interest, groups/associations and awards.

The website descriptors are “my website”, “my blog” , etc. – choose “other” instead and add a keyword rich title for your website(s). Here are some other suggestions for your profile:

hyperlink wherever possible using anchor text
use keywords in description areas such as summary, specialties and experience
add an image for your profile (critical for this professional network)
create a personalized URL for your LinkedIn public profile (option provided), e.g. http://au.linkedin.com/in/ronpassfield
consciously determine your public profile settings to ensure you display the aspects you want to be visible to the public.

#2. Create your small business profile

LinkedIn, like Facebook, provides the opportunity to create a Company Page. You can build your small business profile on this page and add your blog feed and other content. As discussed in a previous post, a key aspect of your small business page should be your Company Status Updates. This operates like Twitter but enables you to include a website image and description.

#3. Build your network

A key strategy for LinkedIn marketing is building your network. Your connections are a reflection of who you are and your small business brand. You can connect with customers who know you, business associates, employees/contractors, professional colleagues, potential joint venture partners and contacts from other social networks such as Squidoo, Facebook and Twitter. You can really get to know your “friends” through their work experience, background and current business pursuits.

You can grow your network by direct invitation to individuals, active participation in relevant LinkedIn groups or through people finding you via the LinkedIn search option (reinforces the importance of your keywords!). LinkedIn, like Facebook, suggests connections based on your key interests, business associations and existing connections. Your role is to consciously develop and shape your network.

#4. Create a group and participate

Another key LinkedIn marketing strategy, once you have developed your LinkedIn network, is to create a group. You can build a group around your brand, particular product/services or professional affiliation. However, you need to be active in your group to stimulate participation by others. This could involve starting discussions, sharing news, creating sub-groups and posting relevant valuable information and resources. When people join your group, this will be visible to their own network via the news feed.

#5. Use Slideshare to upload content such as presentations and videos

SlideShare is the world’s largest community for sharing presentations. You can:

share presentations & documents with your LinkedIn network
upload portfolios, resume, conference talks, PDFs, marketing/sales presentations and display them on your LinkedIn profile
use a range of formats such as ppt, pps, pptx, odp, pdf, doc, docx, odt, Keynote, iWork pages
embed YouTube videos in presentations or add audio to make a webinar
upload your videos.

If you have a SlideShare.net account, you can import your existing presentations into LinkedIn. If you don’t have one, you can signup from LinkedIn to share your presentations worldwide and get more views/traffic. You can add the SlideShare presentations to either your profile or your home page. Your SlideShare uploads show up on the LinkedIn pages of your connections (if they have added the SlideShare application).

You can use SlideShare on both Linkedin and Facebook. You can synchronize these with SlideShare so you have a three-way leverage. If you upload anything to any one of the networks — SlideShare, Facebook or LinkedIn – it shows up instantly on all three.

#6. Promote your LinkedIn profile

You can promote your LinkedIn profile on your website, blog or Squidoo lenses by adding the LinkedIn button or text link. Alternatively, you can use one of the many social media icon sets to encourage readers to connect to you and your small business on LinkedIn.

#7. Use LinkedIn applications

LinkedIn has a range of applications that you can use to brighten up your profile. These include Portfolio Display, Blog Link (sync with your blog posts from Blogger, etc), WordPress (sync your WordPress posts), Reading List by Amazon (share the books you are reading), Company Buzz (Twitter activity about your company), Polls (create a poll for market research) and Tweets (display your tweets and view and comment on your connections’ tweets).

#8. Provide and seek recommendations

Recommendations are central to the purpose of LinkedIn as they contribute to your credibility and can reinforce your brand in the eyes of potential consumers/customers. They strengthen your personal profile and give you increased visibility. An integral principle of social media marketing is reciprocation, so you should both give and seek recommendations to build your profile on LinkedIn. Your recommendations will appear on your profile page and can often say as much about you as they do about the recipient – as they disclose what you see, and value, in other people. As with any social networking site that you are trying to build a presence on, it is important to maintain your contribution with regular sharing.

#9. Ask questions and and respond to others

When you join a group it is very useful to ask, and respond to, questions and to be active in discussions. In this way, you can display your expertise, engage others and connect with potential customers who share your interests and/or perspectives.

#10. Create LinkedIn Ad Campaigns

Contrary to popular belief, LinkedIn has ad placements that you can purchase, either by way of cost per click (CPC) or cost per impressions (CPI or CPM). You can target your audience by:

Geography
Job function or seniority
Industry and company size
Gender and age

You should keep in mind the demographics of LinkedIn when using the site for paid advertising. It pays to read the FAQ’s to learn about ad placement, advertising conditions and recommendations for writing ads.

LinkedIn is a valuable way to build your small business brand, make new connections, increase the online visibility of your small business and develop relationships with customers