Archives for May 2014
Taming the Social Media Beast
Has social media taken over your life? The larger your network, the more crowded your feed becomes. The more groups you belong to, the more time it takes to keep up with the latest happenings. What started out as an occasional task can quickly grow into a time-consuming beast. Fortunately, social media doesnât have to consume your professional life. Use the tips below to tame the beast.
1. Be more selective about who you follow and who you let into your network. When you first start building a social network, the feeling tends to be âthe more the merrier.â However, youâll soon find that your news feed is filled with irrelevant updates from people that arenât a good fit for your professional brand. Wouldnât you rather have a tightly focused network of like-minded individuals over a large network of people with whom you have little in common? If your social network is becoming too bloated with the wrong contacts, it may be time to start pruning your list and restricting access to new members. 
2. Be more selective about the groups you join. Itâs often difficult to tell if a group is a good fit until youâve been in it for a while. By now, you likely have a better idea which groups are right for you and which ones you could leave. If a group doesnât make sense, leave it. This will give you more time, and more news feed real estate, for more relevant discussions.
3. Sign in a scheduled times and use a timer. Itâs easy to get sucked into social media. Before you know it, several hours have passed and you have little to show for it. Donât let this happen to you! Set aside specific times each day for social media and use a timer to limit your time. Setting a timer will keep you focused and prevent you from inadvertently overdoing it. For example, you may want to start your day with an inspirational status update, respond to comments mid-morning, and then close out the day at some point in the afternoon. Thus, your schedule might look like this:
- 8:00 am to 8:10 am: Social media update
- 10:30 am to 10:40 am: Respond to comments, comment/share othersâ posts
- 4:20 pm to 4:30 pm: comments, like/share othersâ posts
4. Use RSS feeds for inspiration. Coming up with fresh ideas, day in, day out, isnât always easy. At some point, perhaps more often than youâd like, youâll experience writerâs block. Subscribing to RSS feeds in your niche is a great way to stay inspired. Use a feed reader or your RSS-compatible email client and subscribe to relevant RSS feeds. This will keep you fed with the latest news, trends, controversies, and other fodder to write about.
5. Use a scheduling tool. Scheduling some updates in advance can buy you a great deal of breathing room as well as ensure that you maintain a steady stream of posts even when your schedule gets hectic. Some also find it easier to come up with a series of related tweets, updates, and blog posts in one sitting than it is to do them haphazardly. For example, if you regularly write about iPhone apps on Monday, Macintosh tutorials on Tuesdays, Windows optimization tips on Wednesdays, and post funny cartoons on Fridays, you may find it easier to write your posts in batches. As you search for funny cartoons on Friday, you may find five to ten funny ones all at once. Rather than just grabbing one and being done, doesnât it make sense to pre-schedule the others? With the right scheduling tool, this only takes a few minutes.
There are many ways to tame the social media beast ranging from being more selective and pruning your lists to using timers, RSS feeds, and scheduling tools. Implement one or two of these tips â or use them all, and you should notice that you have more time and more focus.
Share What They Said on Social Media
Donât you just love it when a social media post resonates with your audience? They often become viral on their own or result in glowing comments or favorable reviews that serve as social proof that you have delivered on your promise. However, these posts will soon get pushed down as all social media conversations eventually do. Below are a few ideas to increase the visibility of some of your favorite posts and comments.
Share It or Like It
The Share button is designed specifically for sharing content on Facebook. However, not all posts have a share button. For example, if you allow others to post to your wall, their posts will go out to your audience. Thus, 
sharing would be redundant. You can, however, like or comment on those posts. The same is true of user comments; you can only like them or add a comment.
Pin or Highlight It
If one of your Facebook posts is particularly strong, consider pinning it to the top of your page or highlighting it so itâs much more prominent than your other posts. To do either of these options, click the down arrow in the upper right corner of the post. To pin it to the top of the page, select Pin to Top. To make the post larger, select Highlight.
Use Embedded Posts
Another option is to embed your favorite posts elsewhere such as on your blog, a newsletter, or another social network. This can open the doors to a similar conversation on a different platform as well share a great post. To embed a Facebook post, click the down arrow in the upper right corner and click Embed Post. This will generate a code that you can then copy and paste into your blog, newsletter, or other social network. Once your post is embedded, viewers who see it on your blog or other destination can like your Facebook page directly without having leave your site. To embed a Twitter tweet, click More followed by Embed Tweet.
Use Twitter Favorites
You could also mark your favorite tweets as Favorites by clicking the star icon. Favorite tweets will appear in under the aptly named Favorites section. Though some Twitter users will check out your Favorite tweets, the power of Twitter Favorites is in its RSS feed. Your Favoriteâs RSS feed is: https://twitter.com/yourusername/favorites. By marking tweets as favorites and grabbing this feed, you can now use your Favorites just as you would any other RSS feed. For example, you could use a WordPress widget to display a dynamic listing of your favorite tweets in the sidebar of your blog.
For example, letâs say youâre an author whoâs just published a book. As readers tweet positive feedback, you could âfavoriteâ those tweets and automatically have them appear on your blog thanks to RSS.
These are but a few ways to share what others have said on social media. Give positive posts and comments a boost by using these techniques.
Matching Marketing Messages to Your Audience
Have you identified your target audience and built detailed buyers persona's yet? Great! Now itâs time to figure out what to say and when. Developing your messaging so that it resonates with your audience is a must. After all, an audience of tweens and an audience of CEOs are worlds apart. Not only do they speak different languages, they have different problems, wants, needs, and budgets. They also have different decision-making processes.
In addition to addressing the various nuances of your particular audience, your marketing messages must align with the various stages of the customerâs journey. Though thereâs much to consider, matching marketing messages to your audience isnât overly complicated.
Where to Start
Start with one persona, two problems, and three overarching messages that you want to communicate that appeal to that persona. For example, a busy CEO may be 1.) short on time and 2.) technically challenged. Thus, heâd likely be more impressed by ease-of-use than bells and whistles. Thus, a primary marketing message centered on simplicity would be appealing. A secondary marketing message such as âwe make your job easierâ 
could also appeal as would âseamless setup.â
Once you have a set of overarching marketing messages, consider the various stages of the customer journey that the persona will go through. These stages typically include:
- Discovery/awareness â The customer realizes he or she has a need for something.
- Consideration â The customer begins exploring options and eventually narrows the choices down to a few top contenders.
- Decision â The customer chooses a solution.
Fine-tuning Your Customer Journey
Your customer journey may look slightly different than this. Fine-tune the customer journey accordingly and then think about each stage from your personaâs point of view. What type of message does your persona need to hear when sheâs just discovered that she has a need? How is this message different than the messages youâll want to share when sheâs done her research and is considering a competing solution? What about when sheâs just on the edge of making a decision â what type of messaging or incentive can prompt her to decide in your favor?
As you work your way through each phase of the customer journey, youâll see that youâll need a different approach depending on where the customer is in their journey. A CEO who has just realized that she needs an online collaboration tool for her team will have different questions and concerns than one who has already watched several videos and read numerous whitepapers. Though youâll have different marketing messages and calls to actions at these different stages, your overarching marketing messages (in this case, of simplicity, making the job easier, and seamless setup) would still apply.
Tying it All Together
Letâs say that you have a solution targeted to the CEO persona we discussed earlier and that each persona will go through several stages including discovery, consideration, and decision. How might you introduce and position your solution at each of those stages while remaining true to your marketing messages? Here are a few ideas:
- Discovery â Blog posts such as lists, how-to's, and tips. You could also post checklists, info-graphics, and other educational materials on your social media sites. Position yourself as an authority in the area by sharing useful and relevant information. Use one of your overarching marketing messages to reinforce that you understand their concerns. At this point, calls to action should be focused on educating the prospect and building trust such as enticing prospects to subscribe to your newsletter or download a whitepaper.
- Consideration â At this point, more in-depth information is needed such as webinars, podcasts, whitepapers, special reports, videos, case studies. Again, the content you present should adhere to your marketing messages and show that you understand the problems your prospect is facing. You have already begun building credibility; now itâs time to get into the nitty-gritty of your solution.
- Decision â The prospect now has a better understanding of the problem and potential solutions and has likely narrowed down the choices to just a few. Comparisons, purchasing guides, product literature, video demonstrations, hands-on demonstrations, presentations, webinars, and in-depth articles that highlight the benefits of your solution are all appropriate. Special promotions, discounts, and other incentives can also give your solution an edge over your competition.
When using social media to market your business, you need to know who are you interacting and where they are in the process. If you can answer those questions, youâll be better able to match your marketing messages.
How to Add Social Media Icons to Email Signatures
Adding social media links to your email signature file is a fantastic way to remind your contacts to connect with you on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, or any other social network of your choice. While you could simply add the URLs to your signature file, using social media icons is much more visual and instantly recognizable.
Here are a few ways to do it:
- Use an interactive email signature service. Several services are available including free and paid services. For example, BrandMyEmail is a free online tool that will create a signature file compatible with Gmail that contains social media icons for Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, and a few other social networks. WiseStamp is a little more versatile, but it doesnât currently support Mac email clients. Other commercial services offer robust services that appeal to companies concerned with continuity, branding and disclaimers.
- Create an HTML signature file. If you are comfortable with HTML, create a signature file using your favorite HTML editor. Youâll need to source appropriate social media icons and link them to your social media
pages. While you can find plenty of free social media icons online, they often require attribution which could clutter your signature file. Others are free only for personal use. Consider purchasing a set of icons from a reputable source to avoid problems.
- Use your email clientâs WYSIWYG editor to create an email signature file. Depending on your email client, you may be able to create an attractive email signature complete with social media icons without having to know how to use HTML. For example, if you use Airmail on your Mac, go to Preferences > General (and select the appropriate email account) > Signature. Next, enter your name and contact details and then drag and drop your social media icons into the WYSIWYG signature editor. Again, consider purchasing a set of icons rather than using freebies with strings attached. Once youâre happy with the general layout, click the first icon of the set followed by the link button. Enter the URL of the designated social media site. Repeat for each social media icon and save your work. This ensures that each icon links to the appropriate social media site.
Adding social media icons to your email signature takes a bit of work and may cost you a few dollars depending on the choices you make. However, your email signature will look more attractive and become a marketing tool in its own right. Using social media icons in your email messages is one of those tasks that continues to work in the background long after youâve done the hard work
