MackCollier.com

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Why I Now Trust HootSuite a Little Less Than I Did Yesterday

I like and use HootSuite’s basic/free version quite a lot, especially for scheduling tweets and it’s dead simple to use.  So this morning when I got an email from HS telling me how I could get 60 days of HootSuite Pro for free, I was intrigued:

HSNow normally I hate these ‘give us a tweet and we’ll give you this’ offers, but I do use and like HootSuite, and I have been curious about trying out HootSuite Pro, so I decided to send the tweet.  And as promised, I immediately received my email telling me how to get my 60 days of HootSuitePro for free:

HS1Yep, I’ve just been had.  After I send the tweet that HS told me would get me 60 days of HootSuite Pro for free, I am then told that I can only get the 60 days free if I am ALREADY a Pro subscriber.  So why not just tell me that to begin with?  From my POV, HootSuite just punished me for trusting them.  So I am now less likely to make that mistake again.

I see this sort of stunt all the time, and it doesn’t build brand loyalty, it builds brand distrust.  I get why HootSuite made this offer, they want me to sign up for Pro, and then I can apply the coupon and get the first two months free.  At least I think that’s their motivation.  If the goal is to drive Pro signups then just give me a 60-day trial.  If the service is worth paying for, then I will.

I’ve talked about this before, but as a customer, I cannot advocate for a brand that I do not trust.  So if your brand wants to cultivate fans that love you (and customers that stick around) then the trust of your customers is your most prized asset.

Here’s what HootSuite should have done instead: Since the goal is to drive new signups, then instead of 60 days free, give me 30 days, no strings attached.  And in those 30 days, give me access to training (via videos, screencasts, etc) that will show me how to get the most out of HootSuite Pro and help me understand how to use the new features so that I see for myself why HootSuite Pro is a service worth paying for.  Then tell me if I agree to stay on with HootSuite Pro after the 30-day trial is up, that you’ll give me 50% ($5) off my first two months as a ‘thank you’.  That gets me hooked into using HootSuite Pro for 3 months, which gives me time to use the features and become familiar with them.  If the service is worth my time and money, I’ll stick around.  But even if I don’t, I will still feel like I got a ‘deal’ because I got 3 months of premium service for $10 and HootSuite does get my $10.

And no, I don’t want someone from HS to read this and offer me the free Pro trial the email promised, that’s not why I wrote this post.  I wrote this post to give YOU a real-world example of how an offer such as this can drive new business if positioned correctly, and how it can do the opposite if not positioned correctly.

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All #Blogchat Topics and the Sponsor For April Plus Blog Reviews!

I’m thrilled to announce that Karrh & Associates will be sponsoring #Blogchat in April! Karrh & Associates is run by my friend Jim Karrh who I’ve known since my early blogging days.  Please check out Jim’s site and blog to learn more about his marketing, training and consulting services.

And we’ve got a pretty solid list of topics for April, along with the return of an old favorite!

April 6th – How to Create Content That Organically Reaches Customers.  With the recent changes to Facebook’s algorithms that have reduced the visibility of updates from brand pages, it’s more critical than ever that brands create compelling content that now only reaches our audience organically, but that they share with others as well.  Well talk about some of the things that are keeping people from reading, sharing and acting on your content, and also the keys to creating compelling content.

April 13th –  Making Sure the Voice of Your Blog is the Voice of Your Organization.  Consistent brand voice is incredibly powerful and its incredibly obvious when a brand is missing this.  We’ll discuss ways you can discover that your brand voice is out of synch and how to get it in tune, especially making sure that your blog’s voice and tone is consistent with that of your larger organization.

April 20th – Blog Reviews are back!!!   We’ll review four blogs (Jim has already volunteered his for the 4th slot) over the course of an hour.  So there will be 3 slots available for #Blogchat members.  I’ll share more details on this the week of the 20th and how you can nominate your blog if you would like to have #Blogchat review it.

April 27th – OPEN MIC!

So there you go, all topics for April, and thanks again to Jim and his team for sponsoring #Blogchat.  Please make sure you are following Jim on Twitter.

Want to sponsor #Blogchat in May? Here’s price and details.  See y’all Sunday night!

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The Social Media Free Ride is About to End

FreeAbout six months ago Popular Science made a pretty significant move on its website that a lot of people missed.  It turned off comments on its articles.  A few days ago, Copyblogger followed suit, and suddenly everyone paid attention.

This is just the start.  Other sites with sizable audiences will likely do the same in short order.  Some sites will nix comments simply because they see other influential sites doing it.  Earlier this week I wrote about how Facebook is putting the squeeze on brands and attempting to push a ‘pay for play’ model where brands will have to pay to get visibility for its content that had previously been free.

All of these moves are a sign that the social media industry is maturing.  Blogs that started out as a 1-person show have grown into publishing empires with entire staffs churning out content every day.  Facebook went public last year, Twitter recently did as well.  New shareholders mean new demands for new revenue streams.

So what happens next? How about paying for blog content? Did you just faint?  It would not surprise me at all to begin to see popular sites go to a subscription-based model.

Here’s the thing, there is far more content out there than any of us can consume, and more being added every day.  And a lot of it is very bad.  Since there is so much less useful content available, it increases the demand for good content.  In some cases, that demand is high enough for the content from some creators that there’s an opportunity for them to sell their content.

Paying for content results in better content.  If a blogger suddenly starts charging for her content, she can then afford to spend more time on content creation.  Which will likely improve the quality of that content.

And  no, I have zero interest in charging for my content, at least not now.  But I know a lot of bloggers/writers/publishers that would love to.  Bold moves like turning off comments or charging for content rarely happen because no one wants to be the first one to make such a potentially unpopular move.  Which is exactly why I think you’ll soon see more sites dropping comments.  It’s a big story because Copyblogger is the ‘first’, but that makes it much easier for the second and then third sites to follow suit.

The dominoes are about to topple it seems.  2014 looks to be a very interesting year.  

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Facebook is Screwing Your Brand, and You Should Thank Them For It

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For brands that rely on using Facebook to reach customers, the hand-wringing just went up a notch.  Time and other sources have recently reported that Facebook’s plan is to restrict a brand’s ability to organically reach followers down to 1 or 2%.  That means that eventually, only 1 or 2 percent of your followers will see the average update your brand posts.

Unless…your brand agrees to pay Facebook for more exposure.  Apparently social media is free…until your company goes public and has stockholders to answer to.  It’s not a coincidence that Facebook is looking for new revenue streams now that it’s a publicly-traded company.

Newsflash: Twitter is now a publicly-traded company as well.  Don’t be surprised if the San Francisco company doesn’t also try to generate new revenue at the expense of brand activities that had previously been free.

While I have never been a huge fan of Facebook, I also recognize its right to monetize as it sees fit.  Let’s be honest: Facebook has been letting your brand effectively advertise for free for a while now.  You could argue that they have been letting you get ‘hooked’ on using its service for free and then they charge you, but its still your brand’s choice to use Facebook.  This is why I have been cautioning clients and companies for years now to not plant all their seeds in digital gardens that they do not own.  Facebook in particular has a history of changing the rules and making things more difficult for brands.  Now it is algorithm changes that affect organic reach, before that it was constantly changing rules on running contests on brand pages.

The bottom line is that you never want your brand to be in a position where all its content eggs are put in a basket that someone else owns.  If your social media efforts depend on Facebook to reach your customers, then effectively you have ceded control of said social media efforts to Facebook.

The reality is that Facebook is screwing with your ability to reach customers for free.  And that’s a good thing.  This move is going to force companies to do one of two things:

1 – Start paying for exposure on Facebook

2 – Start creating content via tools that the company controls

Many companies will go the first route.  Budgets devoted to SEO and other digital marketing channels will likely be diverted in a quest for paid Likes.

The smart companies will be the ones that invest in learning how to create and distribute content via channels that the company owns.  Guess what?  The corporate website is about to become relevant again.  The same corporate website that was bemoaned as being an archaic waste a few years ago has been seeing its own Renaissance recently.

Let’s be clear: Your website should be the central home or base of your social media efforts.  All your efforts should feed back here versus going through Facebook or Twitter.  Because while you don’t control Facebook, you do have control over your website.

I am a fan of this move because it is going to force brands to become better content creators.  It’s also going to require that brands get serious about social media: Either by paying for exposure, or by investing in learning how to create content that’s valuable enough to customers that they will seek that content out via channels that the brand owns.

For brands like Red Bull and Patagonia that have been nailing content marketing for a while now, this move won’t have a huge impact, because customers will actively seek out content from these brands.  If no one is reading your content on Facebook now, that’s not on Facebook, it’s on you.

Now’s your chance to get serious about social media and content marketing, and start seeing serious results.  Want to learn how to create effective content that gets seen by your customers? Make sure you follow this one simple rule.

Pic via Flickr user BobLinsdell

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Your Brand’s Legal (and Practical) Options for Addressing Negative Comments

7468312536_638cf71b6d_zSooner or later, your brand will receive a negative comment or bad review. Some posts will come from actual customers, others from competitors hoping to poach your customers.

Still others will come from trolls: people who have never bought from you, will never buy from you, and seemingly have nothing better to do than make your brand manager’s life difficult.

Regardless of who made the post, your reaction is likely to be the same: a deep longing for the post to disappear. But it won’t.

Here are your options for addressing damaging comments online, from least feasible (a lawsuit) to least palatable (taking the high road).

When can you sue?
People and brands alike must suffer a certain number of “slings and arrows.” Just because someone thinks your service is slow or your fries are soggy doesn’t give rise to a legal cause of action.

Once the comments move from obnoxious to defamatory, however, suing might become an option. Laws vary from state to state, but in most jurisdictions, defamation requires a false statement of fact (as opposed to an opinion), publication (communication of the false statement to at least one other person), negligence (if the defamatory matter is of public concern), and damage to the brand’s reputation.

Think “this finance company steals money from client accounts” as opposed to “this finance company sucks.”

You could issue a cease and desist letter to the person who posted the comments, but be aware that many such letters wind up featured on the person’s blog, or on third-party sites like Techdirt.

Ultimately, if the false statements really are damaging to your brand, you might have to bring suit, but you’ll want to carefully consider the implications before you do.

In the United States, the plaintiff must prove that the statements were false (as opposed to the burden being on the defendant to prove that they were true). In some jurisdictions, companies must meet the same standards as a public figure or celebrity in order to recover damages, and show that the person making the statement did so with “actual malice,” knowing it was false or exhibiting a “reckless disregard” for the truth.

In addition to the costs inherent in litigation, you could easily find your company cast as the bully in a David vs. Goliath type conflict, as we saw in the case of a Missouri bar owner who received a cease and desist letter from Starbucks.

Instead of suing, what should you do?
Respond. More than 1/3 of people who mention a brand on a social network expect a reply in 30 minutes or less (like a pizza delivery)!

As quickly as possible, post a reply to the comment on the same site where it was made. If the comments are in a Facebook post, reply on Facebook. If it was a Yelp review, reply on Yelp.

If the comments are on someone’s blog, contact the publisher directly, or post a comment on that site, but keep a screen shot in case they delete it.

Bear in mind that some people who post negative comments about your brand have a legitimate grievance. You will provide a better response if you write your reply with his in mind.

Brands do have some options when it comes to addressing defamatory statements. If the comments are posted to a third-party site like Yelp, you can contact the site to request that they be removed.

Be prepared to explain precisely how the comments posted violate the site’s terms of service. To report a defamatory review on Yelp, for instance, you’d select “Questionable Content” or “Legal Inquiries” from the drop-down menu provided and report the objectionable post as violating Yelp’s terms of service, section 6(a)(I) on content guidelines.

Be sure to give specifics about what the commenter said, and emphasize that it is both false and damaging.

Google has a form users can complete to request that information be removed. Facebook and Twitter provide options for reporting abusive posts, pages, accounts, etc. If the damaging review is posted on a blog, you can request the hosting company to remove a defamatory post.

In most instances, the costs of bringing a lawsuit will outweigh the benefit, and might even bring more attention to the negative comments about your brand. When defending your brand against online comments, consult with an attorney in your jurisdiction.

Ultimately, the best protection against negative comments is a healthy dose of goodwill. Invest time now—before a crisis hits—cultivating a closer relationship with fans of your brand, so they can be your first line of defense if the trolls attack.

Connect with your fans now, before you need them to rally to your brand’s defense: you’ll be glad you did!

Pic via Flickr user DonkeyHotey

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In the Future Your Customers Will Completely Control Your Marketing

I recently saw a study into the content consumption habits of millenials that claimed that individuals ages 18 to 36 spend an average of 17.8 hours a day with different types of media.

Some forms of media are more important to millennials than others. Social media is a top priority, as 71 percent say that they engage in social media daily. User-generated content — which encompasses social-media posts, photos, blogs, email, texting and talking to others about media — occupies about 5.4 hours of the average millennial’s day. That’s 30 percent of their total daily media consumption.

The only rival to user-generated media is the old standby of traditional media — print, radio and television – which accounts for 33 percent of millennials’ media consumption.

Think about that for a minute.  Better yet, those of you that are over the age of 36, recall when you were children, in a pre-internet age.  How much time did you spend each day consuming media and what percentage of it was from traditional sources?  Contrast that with the 18 hours a day total and 6 hours of traditional media that millenials consume today and it’s clear to see how media consumption habits are changing.  More media is being consumed every day and increasingly it is coming from a source that is not paid for by brands.

This trend will only accelerate.  A couple of weeks ago when I went to get my haircut, the women that cuts my hair brought her 2 year-old nephew with her to the office.  How did she keep him entertained?  By giving him an iPad.  Here’s a child that cannot form coherent sentences yet, but he can use a computer.  By the time he’s 18, almost all of the media he consumes will come from people just like him, and little if any of it will come from your brand.

In the future your marketing messages will be spread via your customers.  They already are to a great degree, but your ability as a brand to create messages and send them directly to customers is increasingly being diminished.  Last week I keynoted at Strategy 2014 in Huntsville, and at the end of the day I participated on an ‘Ask the Experts’ panel (I call these ‘Stump the Chump’) with a few other speakers.  An attendee asked us which social media tool would be the next ‘hot’ thing.  What would be the next Twitter or Facebook.

It’s a question many brands want to know the answer to, and it’s completely the wrong question to ask.  Your focus shouldn’t be on understanding how to use social media tools, your focus should be on understanding why your customers are using social media tools.

That understanding only comes from increased interactions.  You need to focus today on increasing the number of direct interactions you have with your customers.  This will lead to you better understanding your customers, and they better understanding your brand.  Here’s why this is important:

Interactions

If you start interacting with your customers today, that will lead to understanding. So when we reach a not-so distant future where your customers completely control your marketing message, they will understand your brand, they will trust your brand and they will be able and willing to spread your marketing messages for you.

Your focus shouldn’t be on understanding social media tools, your focus should be on better understanding your customers so that you can create a more valuable experience for them today, so that you can earn their trust tomorrow.

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If You Want to Write a Book, Here Are Two Things You Need to Know

So in 2012 when I signed my contract to write my first book, I decided to write a post that would help my peers get a similar book deal.  It’s become one of the most popular posts I’ve ever written, but something unexpected happened as a result.  Every week I either get a comment or an email about this post from people that want to write a book.  Often, it’s from someone that shares a heart-breaking life story that they want to share with the world, and they are asking me if I can help them.

First, you have to remember that publishers are a BUSINESS.  They won’t publish your book or your story unless they believe they can make money off it.  That’s reality, and in order to get a publisher to buy your book idea, you have to make the case to them that it will earn them more money than they will pay you for it.

Let’s assume that when you approach a publisher that they have no idea who you are (don’t worry, most publishers my agent contacted had no idea who I was when she pitched Think Like a Rock Star to them).

That means you need to convince a publisher that you have two things:

1 – A story/book idea that they believe they can make money on by publishing.

2 – The ability to effectively market your book idea and sell copies.

If you don’t have both of these things, then you have almost no chance of getting a book deal.  I’m sorry, but that’s reality.

So you really need two things: A great idea for a book and a great platform for promoting your book.  A publisher will want to know what you can do to help promote the book and sell copies.

Will you be speaking regularly to promote the book?

Do you have an online following?  Are you active on social media?

Could your position at the company you work for potentially bring positive exposure to the book?

Do you have a huge marketing budget and can you spend a LOT of money to promote the book when it launches?

 

Let’s assume you said ‘NO!’ to all of these questions.  So what do you do if you have an idea for a book, but you have no way to promote it or market it?

Here’s what I would suggests you do: Start a blog based on your book idea.  Starting a blog is your chance to do two very important things:

1 – It helps you flesh out the idea for your book

2 – It gives you the chance to prove to publishers that other people would buy your book and that you can write it

 

If you can go to a publisher and show them that you’ve been writing a blog for the last 6-12 months based on your book idea, and that readers are regularly commenting on your posts and enjoy them, then you are proving to publishers that there is a market for your book.

So that’s my advice if you want to write a book.  Instead, start with a blog, make it successful, and then show that to publishers with your idea.  If the writing on your blog is generating engagement with your readers then it greatly increases your chances of getting published.

Good luck!

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The Art and Science of Blogging With John Wall at #Blogchat!

Here’s the transcript for this #Blogchat with John.

I’m excited to announce that John Wall will be sponsoring the next two weeks of #Blogchat on 3-9-2014 and 3-16-2014!  For John’s sponsorship, he’s come up with a pretty cool two weeks of blogging topics.

Over the next two weeks John will teach us about The Art and Science of Blogging.  This Sunday, 3-9-2014, we’ll cover the 4 Keys to the Science of Blogging:

1 – Follow the Rules

2 – Build the System

3 – Measure Everything

4 – Always Be Testing/Closing/Selling

And to prepare you for Sunday’s chat, John has written an excellent post over at his blog outlining exactly what we’ll be discussing.  Next Sunday (the 16th) John will cover the Art of Blogging.  Over the next two weeks, John will teach us about several areas of blogging that have long been requested topics by #Blogchat members, such as responsive design for your blog, design with an eye toward improving your blog’s readability, and user experience and interface.

It will be a fabulous two weeks of #Blogchat discussions to please head over and read John’s prep post on the 4 Keys to the Science of Blogging for this week and also make sure you are following him on Twitter.

Also, check out John’s book B2B Marketing Confessions on Amazon!  And finally, John is co-host of the excellent Marketing Over Coffee, one of the very best business podcasts!  See you on Twitter Sunday at 8pm Central for #Blogchat!

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Five Proven Ways to Build More Engagement On Your Brand’s Blog

One of the biggest struggles that blogging brands face is creating engagement with their customers.  It’s tough to sell your boss on how effective your blog is if none of your customers are reading your content.  Here’s five proven ways to not only build readership, but convert passive readers into active participants on your blog:

1 – Create customer-centric content.  I’ve written in the past about how much I love the content strategy of Red Bull and Patagonia.  Both brands do an amazing job of creating content that resonates with its audience.  For example, on its blog The Cleanest Line, Patagonia rarely blogs about its products, instead Patagonia creates content about the activities that its customers engage in, and the causes they support.  Patagonia understands its customers well enough to know that if they create content that actually interests them, that it will not only give those customers a reason to engage with the brand on its blog, it will give them a reason to buy from Patagonia as well.

Patagonia

For your blog, think about how you can create content that relates to your brand, but that isn’t about your brand.  If you want the science behind why this works, Facebook actually did a study a couple of years ago of their most popular brand pages, and the type of content being created by these brands.  Facebook found that, across the board, the type of brand-created content that did the best job of driving customer engagement was content related to the brand but not about the brand.  In other words, write about the activities that customers love that are related to your brand.  For example, if your brand is in the hospitality industry, create content that helps your customers be better travelers.  If your brand is an automaker, write more about driving than your cars.  Write about the topics that matter to your customers, and then your blog will matter to your customers.

2 – Post regularly and on the same core topics.  This is very easy to do and few brand blogs follow this strategy.  The idea with posting regularly is to ‘train’ your readers to know when new content is going to be up on your blog.  So if you only write one new post a week for your blog, write it the same day every week.  That way I know that every Wednesday there’s a new post on your blog.

And as for topics, the best approach is to pick 2-3 core topic buckets that you write about.  I wrote before about the process for using topic buckets for a business blog, but the process is so find 2-3 sub-topics of your blog’s larger topic that you can blog about.  For example with Patagonia’s blog above, some of its topic buckets are outdoor activities, protecting the environment and sustainability.  These are three of the topic buckets that Patagonia creates content around.  Notice that each topic bucket is also focused on a topic that’s relevant to its customers (again tying back to the first point).  By simply creating a few topic buckets for your blog, it makes the content creation process much easier.  For example, if you want to write one new blog post a week, and you have 3 topic buckets for your blog, you can easily map out your posting schedule for the month by writing one post from each topic bucket!  That gets you three week’s worth of posts, and then for the fourth week you can write an additional post for one of those topic buckets.

3 – Write better headlines.  The cold, hard reality is that most customers won’t read your blog, the best case scenario is that they will see a link to your blog with the title of your post pass by them on Facebook or Twitter.  Which means your post title has to be compelling enough to, in 2 seconds or so, convince the passive reader (who is literally scanning their social feed) to become active and click your link.  So in some respects, writing headlines is the most important skill you can possess as a blogger.

HeadlineI’ve written about how to write better headlines in the past, but I’ll share a couple of tips here.  In short, the biggest mistake that I see brand bloggers making in respect to headlines is writing a headline that summarizes the topic of the post, instead of focusing on it.  For example, a headline that summarizes this post could have been ‘Getting engagement on your blog’.  While that headline is somewhat specific, it’s also a bit boring.  You have to remember that the headline you write is going to be competing against headlines written by sites specifically trying to steal attention.  Your headline is going to be in the middle of a stream of links (and linkbait headlines) like this:

“This Man-Eating Tiger Stood Ready to Devour This Child, But What Happened Next Was Totally Unexpected And Will Break Your Heart”

” Free Download: How Twitter Can Solve 3 Major Challenges for Sales”

“Getting engagement on your blog”

“That Record-Breaking Selfie That Ellen Took at the Oscars? Here’s What Samsung Doesn’t Want You to Know About It”

See what I mean?  You have to learn to write amazing headlines to even have a chance of getting clicked in a stream such as this.  But the good news is that most bloggers are woefully bad at writing headlines.  So if you can learn how to write good headlines, it gives you a huge advantage versus the competition.  When you write your headline, review it with ‘The 2-Second Rule’.  Take two seconds to read your headline and then consider that’s at best what someone on Twitter or Facebook would give your headline.  So if your headline can’t grab your reader’s attention in 2 seconds and compel them to click the link, then it’s not a good headline.

Focus on making your headline as specific as possible, so the reader knows exactly what they are getting if they click.  Note the headline to this post, it’s very specific, and promises to give you five proven tips for building engagement.  So if you write for a brand’s blog and building engagement is a problem you are trying to solve, the headline of this post will probably (hopefully) compel you to click the link.

Remember, your headline has 2 seconds to work its magic.  Make it count.

4 – Use amazing visuals.  This goes along with writing a great headline, but consider that every time your post is shared on Facebook, it pulls up the lead image and attaches it to the link.  So if you write an amazing headline and have a visually-grabbing photo to go with it, you’re already halfway home to getting that person to click the link and read your post.  You have to constantly be aware that most people aren’t going to read your blog post by coming to you blog, they are going to read it from seeing someone else share a link to your blog.  So writing great headlines and adding amazing pictures works wonders.  

My favorite source for finding amazing photos for your blog is still Flickr, in particular the photos that have the Attrition License via Creative Commons.  You can use these photos, you can even adapt or build on them (like in a Powerpoint presentation), the only requirement is that you attribute (link) to the source.  Now recently, Getty Images has made waves by making a lot of its images free for the first time, and embeddable.  I was really excited about this at first, but unfortunately there are two big caveats to this move:

  1. Most of Getty Images photos of celebs, sporting and entertainment events are still off limits.  IOW many of its most desirable images.
  2. The images that are free to use cannot be used for commercial purposes.  And while I’m no legal expert on social media like Kerry Gorgone, I think that pretty much means your brand can’t use them.  I certainly won’t be using them and I’d advise you to check with your legal team before you do.

5 – Respond and be grateful for the engagement you do get.  The two most powerful words in social media (and probably life as well) are ‘Thank You‘.  Simply responding to and thanking readers for existing comments and engagement is a great way to get more of the same.  You want to reward the type of behavior that you want to encourage.  So if you want your readers to comment more on your blog or signup for your brand’s newsletter, or download that white-paper, you need to reward them when they engage in these activities.  When it comes to commenting, simply replying and engaging them back signals to them that you value their input, and appreciate it.

And we tend to stick around when we feel appreciated!

So there you have it, five proven ways to build engagement on your brand’s blog.  If you apply all these methods you *will* see readership and engagement on your brand’s blog increase.  And remember that now more than ever, your blog is your most important piece of social media real estate because you own it.

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How to Get Started in Social Media When YOU Are the Business

I just had a reader send me an email with a problem that I think a lot of you are facing so instead of sharing this with only him via email, I decided to write this post.  His issue is that he’s a small business owner with no employees, that wants to start using social media to grow his business.  But the catch is he really has no time for social media and wants to know if it would be worth his time to hire someone to post updates for him on Twitter, Facebook, etc.  Any of this sound familiar to y’all?

If you are in a similar situation with limited time and resources, you need to remember two things:

1 – You don’t have to do everything.  You don’t HAVE to be on Twitter and Facebook and blogging, and on Instagram, etc etc.  It’s far better to start small and grow bigger.

2 – You WILL need to invest time in your social media usage.  Or you will need to pay someone else to do it for you.  In almost every instance, I would rather see your business use social media itself since no one can speak in your voice as effectively as you can.

 

So since you have limited time (and money) but still need to find time, we need to start small, but also make smart usage of the limited time you have.  In other words, it would be nice if the time we had to devote to social media was spent on activities we are already engaging in, so that way we can effectively ‘kill two birds with one stone’.

For these reasons, I would recommend starting out by blogging.  Your mileage may vary, but for most small businesses that are trying to get their name out there, a blog is a great vehicle.  As for what to blog about, here’s some ideas:

1 – Common questions you get from customers.  What are the 5-10 questions that you are answering from customers all the time?  Write a blog post for each question, and then you’ll have the answer on your blog.  Because if people are asking you this question in person, they are likely going to Google and looking for the answer as well.  And if your customers are asking these questions, the customers of your competitors are probably asking the same questions.  ‘

2 – The 3-5 reasons why customers won’t do business with you.  This is scary to deal with straight on, but a fabulous way to convert a skeptical customer into a new customer.  Think about the reasons why customers won’t do business with you, and address those reasons head on.  For example, customers might not want to buy your home improvement product because it’s 20% higher than the chain department stores.  But what customers don’t realize is that your product is made of better quality materials that will actually save customers 15% more per year in energy costs than the product that the chains sell.  So if you educate customers on the cost savings of your product over its lifetime, you may earn their business once they realize the actual savings from buying your product.

3 – Industry news.  You are likely already reading up on the latest news in your space, so why not share that information with your readers?  This isn’t quite as applicable in a B2C setting, but is a great idea if you are in the B2B space.  Also, sharing industry news creates a valuable resource for current and potential clients, which helps establish your expertise.  And again, this is likely information you are already searching for on your own, so just share your findings with your readers.

So the key with a small business is to start small with social media, and then grow as you can.  You don’t have to start using 3 or more social media sites at once, in fact that’s often the fastest way to kill your social media strategy.  Start small, and focus on the 1 or 2 channels that give you the best way to reach your goals for social media.