More Social Media Tips & Tools

I’m attending Constant Contact’s free social media workshop…so you don’t have to…and will be sharing the highlights here for you! See the previous post for the first part of this two part blog post.

While social media tools are free or low-cost, they can have a huge price: your time.

The presenter argues that all a small business needs to do is 15 minutes a day three days a week to maintain a social media presence that’s consistent and active.

I would disagree: if you have plenty of time, if your business is young, or if you’re underemployed, invest time in social media, especially if you are blogging–which she isn’t addressing in this workshop.

Recycle and reuse content. Post the link to your email or blog post to social media sites. You can even break down information from a larger article into smaller Facebook or Twitter sized updates.

Make sure you cross promote your various social media platforms.

Social networks offer YOU a chance to share your message but also a chance for OTHERS to talk about you, so you’d better monitor the web for what people are saying.

If someone says something, respond! If it’s positive, thank them! Engage them! If what they said is NOT positive, you need to respond immediately and take it offline quickly.

Bad feedback? Contact the person immediately and take it offline. Don’t be defensive: fix the problem.

In addition to monitoring, it’s important to measure your impact. Start with a baseline. Figure out what you want to measure and get that information, possibly into a spreadsheet like Excel. Then experiment with the different platforms and see what the results are.

Some tools:

NutshellMail.com is a monitoring tool.

Google Alerts sends you an email notice about whatever topic you want to know about: your name, your business, your blog, your community.

HootSuite and TweetDeck help you to monitor what’s happening on various social media platforms.

bit.ly shortens links and provides tracking information.

Constantcontact.com offers more free tools and free trial for 60 days.

Constant Contact Workshop Part 1: Focus on Facebook

So I’m devoting the day at two workshops on social media presented by Kelly Flint of Constant Contact…so you don’t have to! Or if you’re considering attending one in the future, you’ll know whether it’s worth it or not.

What follows is based on my notes from what Kelly had to say in today’s morning workshop, an introduction to social media.

The people who are your customers already are your best customers: your best customers are your current customers.

But how do you keep those customers? How do you let them know what’s new and exciting in your business? How do you engage them?

The presenter started with a brief overview of the major social networks: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube (she didn’t mention blogging). The main idea is to be where your customers are. Are your customers hanging out on facebook? Then you should be too!

First you need to figure out where your customers engage you online. She offered a case study of a nail salon who offered a 20% discount to people who mentioned a keyword which changed depending on the source. The salon owner listened to which key phrase the customers shared to get their discount and learned that 50% used the discount they got from the email.

Average open rate is 12% but in one case she shared, the open rate was 22%, and even more amazing, the share rate was 60%. Why? The email was about an international bacon day and offered significant information, content, that inspired sharing. And since the user turned on the “share” button, people did.

Content is always king. If you share content with your readers that engages them, they will want to share it.

In another example, people who are on an email newsletter list are members of a “club” who get discounts. What happens if people are excited about the content of your email it can and will be shared with their friends via social media outlets if you use them.

Facebook Content tips: