online marketing for small business – Page 9

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.

November 2, 2011

7 Benefits of Focus in Small Business Marketing

Focus is a key component for small business success. When we write about focus in the context of small business, we are talking about your focus on a target market, on specific offerings for that market (products and services) and on specific marketing strategies.

Without focus, you are attempting to be all things to everybody, and that is a recipe for failure.

This article is not about how to decide your focus, that’s another issue. What I am exploring here are seven (7) benefits of focus in the hope of assisting you to build and maintain your own focus.

1. Focus builds commitment

When you decide your focus, you are immediately inspired to action. You suddenly see a way ahead and your goal is seen as achievable. The act of choice – deciding what to do and what not to do – frees up your creative capacity and enables you to move forward. The experience of progress builds commitment to your chosen course of action.

2. Focus saves time

Focus stops you from trying to be everything to everybody. Trying to fulfil everyone’s needs is both time consuming and exhausting. Focus saves you time because it enables you to let go of a lot of things and concentrate on the things that are important.

3. Focus overcomes information overload

In this era of endless information, your focus helps you to decide what to look at and what to avoid. It becomes a benchmark for deciding relevance. For example, I used to focus on affiliate marketing and I would read everything I saw about the subject (a massive area). Now that I have re-focused onto small business marketing, I can let all the affiliate marketing information pass me by.

4. Focus attracts others

When you are focused you demonstrate commitment, enthusiasm and energy – all personal qualities that attract others. Think of someone who is really focused and recall the energy they emit and how much easier it is to be attracted to them and their business In contrast, think of someone who is “all over the place” in their activity. This lack of focus makes it really hard to get on board and get energised by what they do. In fact, this kind of person can actually repel you because they tend to “suck up” your own energy because their energy is so dissipated.

5. Focus develops disciplined energy and enhances productivity

You have to have discipline to focus your energy in the first place. Then, as you grow and maintain your focus, you strengthen your discipline and you begin to develop productive habits. Your deepening focus enables you to ward off distractions, to set priorities and to choose activities that will lead more directly to your small business goals. Focus brings into play the power of concentration.

6. Focus develops expertise and Trusted Authority status

Through your focus, you are better able to increase your knowledge and understanding of your target market and their needs. You feel more committed to use your expertise and core competence to help your customers solve their real, everyday problems. Through this assistance with problem resolution you are able to build your status as a Trusted Authority – one who is not just an expert but who has demonstrated the capacity to use their expertise to help customers solve their problems. So you become the Trusted Authority in your marketplace.

7. Focus creates wealth

Focus enables you to direct your energy and creativity to identifying and meeting your customers’ needs – the foundation for real small business growth and personal wealth. As a friend of mine, Jennifer Ledbetter, often states in the context of small business marketing:

If you are willing to do for a year what others won’t, you can spend a lifetime doing what others CAN’T.

Focus brings multiple rewards. It builds your commitment and develops your Trusted Authority status. Through focusing you save time, overcome information overload and attract others. Focus helps you to develop disciplined energy, to improve your productivity and, in the final analysis, to create wealth.

November 1, 2011

Creating a Free E-Book from Your Articles and Blog Posts

One of the most effective forms of small business marketing is creating and marketing a free e-book. These e-books can be developed very easily by drawing together articles or blog posts that cover a common theme and then organizing them into a logical sequence.

I have recently completed an e-book, “Building a Team through Performance Conversations”, for my own small business. It is available for download via our website at the following URL;

http://www.meritsolutions.com.au/products/

Identify the purpose behind your free e-book

The purpose behind my free e-book is threefold:

create awareness of our business, Merit Solutions Australia
promote our training program
promote a specific training program focused on performance conversations

To achieve these ends, our website address is prominently displayed on the front cover and on the footer of each page. The “about the author” page includes details of our training programs. Reference is made to the performance conversation workshop throughout the text and these references are hyper-linked to the sales page.

The purpose behind your free e-book should drive the length, focus, format and overall design. You can add images, illustrations, diagrams, mindmaps and screenshots to add interest, aid understanding, assist memory retention and facilitate action by the reader. It is important that the images reinforce your content and do not distract from it.

The “Building a Team” e-book is my 6th free e-book and I find that, as with any writing, creating an e-book gets easier every time.

Converting your free e-book to a PDF Document

Typically, e-books are written as Microsoft Word documents in the first instance and then converted to a PDF format. The PDF format enables easy upload and download, retains formatting and facilitates security over your content (you can lock out the facility to highlight and copy).

If you have 2007 or 2010 Microsoft Office, you can save your Word document as a PDF file with clickable links. There are many free PDF converters on the Internet but most of these display hyperlinks that are not clickable, so you lose one of the major advantages of a PDF file.

However, there are paid programs that have all the required features. A low-cost option ($10) that I have used is eWriter Pro. This software has the following features:

You can create your content directly inside the software or just paste it in from your text editor (like MS Word).
You can include active hyperlinks to websites or email (clickable links)
You can password-protect your PDF document (for security purposes)
You can disable the copy/paste function or print function to prevent people thieving your e-book
You can easily insert pictures, footers & text frames
You can include page breaks & automatically add page numbers and footers
You can manage, store and categorize all your ebooks, articles and works-in-progress from within the software.
You can create an unlimited number of full-featured PDF files. No restrictions, no royalties, no 3rd-party ads.

So there is no limitation on how many free e-books you can create and distribute to market your small business and your products and service.

October 29, 2011

How to Use Wizzley to Market Your Small Business Online

Wizzley provides a great platform for you to market your small business, your personal profile and your products and services.

Wizzley is an online writer’s community that incorporates social networking and article writing/article marketing. The writer’s platform is easy to use with a range of modules that can be plugged into an article with a click – the net result is a potentially, very attractive multi-media presentation:

You can embed videos and images and incorporate the RSS feed from your blog. The design options (e.g. two-column presentation, different themes and colors) add to the flexibility of the site for small business owners who want to present their business in the best possible light.

Jimmie, a top author on Wizzley, provides a great exemplar of how a small business, Backermann’s Bakery, can be attractively presented on the site:

http://wizzley.com/backermann-bakery-whiteville-tn/

Jimmie has creatively used the two-column presentation, video, variable-sized images, Google Maps, the duel module and the Amazon affiliate module. Her presentation, with delectable images of baking products, makes you want to visit the Bakery.

Wizzley is a free platform for you to market your small business and present your business and yourself in an attractive light.

October 28, 2011October 28, 2011

Using Flickr Images for Content Creation

Flickr photos are often high quality and make superb images for online content creation such as blog posts, e-books, articles or videos. The following discussion provides some ideas on how to use Flickr for content creation for small business marketing.

1. Check license arrangements

Before you use a Flickr image make sure you check the license agreement. You need to be aware whether or not the image can be remixed (to create a derivative product) and whether or not you can use the image (remixed or not) for commercial use. The ShareAlike component of a license means that, “If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.” The range of licenses looks like this:

Attribution License
Attribution-NoDerivs License
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
Attribution-NonCommercial License
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License
Attribution-ShareAlike License

2. Advise when you have used an image

In all the above licenses, you have to make an attribution to the originator in the form they request – usually a hyperlink to their Flickr site showing their username and photo title. Of late, I have been making the habit of commenting on the photo I use and leaving a link to my blog post or other URL where I have used the image. Often, the originator will respond with some form of appreciation.

3. Be creative in your use of Flickr images (within the terms of the license)

There are endless ways you can use Flickr images. A common way is to integrate them in a PowerPoint presentation and make an attribution list at the end. You could use them within an eBook (abiding by the “fair use” rule). Wizzley, a writer’s community, has a built-in module for displaying Flickr photos which provides a range of options. The most frequent use of Flickr photos is in blog posts and a number of the top bloggers illustrate their posts with Flickr photos.

4. Showcase a photographer via Squidoo

If you come across an outstanding photographer or one who is creating images relevant to your focus/niche, you could build a Squidoo lens to showcase their photography. When I was working towards my 50^th Squidoo lens (GiantSquid) I developed a series of lenses focused on the towns/beaches on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland (the home State for my small business). In the process I came across the stunning photography of BarbaraJH on Flickr. Barbara lives at Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast and at last count had more than 7,700 photos on Flickr with 81 sets. Her photography is exquisite, so I asked her whether she would agree to my building a Squidoo lens to showcase her work. She readily agreed. The lens provides a great insight into the quality of her photography:

http://www.squidoo.com/BarbaraJH-Maroochydore

Barbara’s public comment on seeing the early version of the completed lens was:

Thank you Ron, you’ve made a simply wonderful showcase of my photos, hopefully others will now get to enjoy seeing just a glimpse of the beautiful area in which I live.

Her personal appreciation via email was particularly moving. This is one example of how you can build social equity through your innovative content creation using Flickr. You can imagine that if your small business was located at Maroochydore, illustrating a top Flickr photographer from that area could bring a lot of traffic to your personal profile(s).

Flickr makes it easy for you to create online content with quality illustrations.