Archives for August 2014
How to Respond to Social Media Disasters
If you have a Twitter or Facebook, you've probably seen it happen before: a company or celebrity gets involved in some sort of controversy, and makes things even worse with their response over social media. It's happened many times in the past and will happen many more times in the future. While you might think it'll never happen to you, it doesn't hurt to be prepared for the worst-case scenario.
So how do you respond to a disaster situation on social media and spare yourself a huge hit to your business? Here are a few tips:
- Respond as quickly as possible. The longer you hold your silence, the more the frenzy will work up while people wait for you to respond. Also, if you choose silence rather than action, it gives media and other
people online the ability to form their own narrative about what happened rather than getting the truth from you. Responding quickly gives you the chance to stay in control over the situation. - Admit your mistake. Don't play the blame game or try to gloss over what happened; people respect individuals and companies that are able to admit their imperfections and acknowledge that they are human after all. It's easy to default to becoming a corporate robot in these situations, but you can show a little bit of vulnerability while still staying professional about the situation.
- Don't take yourself too seriously. Depending on the type of disaster situation, you can poke a bit of fun at yourself if it was one of your tweets or posts that got people frustrated. Don't downplay the seriousness of the disaster, but if you crack a joke at your own expense it can help to soften up others' opinions of you after the situation happens.
- Make amends with customers/followers. If it was a particularly damaging disaster, feel free to try to reach out to customers or followers with a special deal or giveaway as an apology.
Social media should be a fun way to get to know your customers, not something you need to worry about causing controversy with. But controversies do arise, so if one ever happens with your company you can follow these tips to deal with it!
Watch out elephants! This slayer of business challenges comes with 30 years of record breaking sales, marketing, operations, training and leadership experience . He has worked face-to-face with 100’s of small business owners as well as large firms. His love of creating, communicating, developing and executing results for clients shines with each project, publication and training event. His entrepreneurial spirit, passion, industry experience, education, problem-solving prowess, charismatic personality and been-there-done that attitude leads his client focused approach.
Tips for Creating Your First Crowdfunding Campaign
Thanks to the rise in popularity of sites like Indiegogo, Kickstarter and GoFundMe, crowdfunding campaigns have quickly become a go-to way for small businesses and nonprofit organizations especially to get funding they need for various projects and causes. However, it's not as simple as filling out a few forms and watching the money roll in. There is still a lot of work involved in marketing the campaign and convincing people to contribute.
With that in mind, here are a few tips for first-time crowdfunding site users:
1) Make sure everyone on staff knows the project is a priority.
You need help from all areas of your company or organization to get the campaign off the ground. As a group you should discuss the marketing and messaging strategy that you'll use, the targets of the campaign, the perks
that people will get for contributing, the actual set up of the campaign site and how you'll promote the campaign across your own media.
2) Make sure you have an established and engaged network.
You're much more likely to have success early on if you already have people tuned into what your business or organization does and what you are trying to accomplish with your eventual crowdfunding campaign. Connect with people through email, social media, blogging and more, so that you'll have an easier time rallying support when launch time finally comes.
3) Develop a full-scale marketing strategy for the campaign.
Put together a campaign video, donation perks, blog posts, press releases, social media updates, email newsletters and more, all of which should have the same branding and themes to reinforce the message. Think of your crowdfunding campaign as a new product or service that you're rolling out. Your campaign page should be compelling to read and look at, as well.
4) Attempt to get others to match donations.
If you can find other organizations or investors to match any donations made, you are even more likely to be able to get people to donate to your cause.
5) Make it personal.
Frame your story in a way so that it's not about your organization, but about people. You need to be able to bring the story of your campaign down to a personal level so that it's easier for the average person to connect and want to donate.
Is a crowdfunding campaign what your organization needs for your next endeavor? Contact Viral Solutions today for more information about how to find success with your campaign and your web marketing.
Watch out elephants! This slayer of business challenges comes with 30 years of record breaking sales, marketing, operations, training and leadership experience . He has worked face-to-face with 100’s of small business owners as well as large firms. His love of creating, communicating, developing and executing results for clients shines with each project, publication and training event. His entrepreneurial spirit, passion, industry experience, education, problem-solving prowess, charismatic personality and been-there-done that attitude leads his client focused approach.
Content Curation for Your Facebook Business Page
Keeping your business Facebook page filled with relevant, interesting content is essential in keeping your audience engaged. Most page owners use a mix of text-only, photo, video, and linked content status updates. Each type of update has its place in the mix. Sharing links to interesting articles, reports, and other forms of content is a form of content curation. When done properly, curating content for a Facebook page is an effective way to demonstrate your expertise.
What is Content Curation?
The word curate comes from the Latin word curare which means to “take care.” You're likely familiar with the term curator. For example, a museum curator collects, interprets, and oversees a museum’s collections. With
content curation, the content curator collects, interprets, and oversees content. Just as a museum curator would assemble a collection around a given topic or theme, the same is true of a content curator. Instead of curating fossils or folk art collections, you will be curating articles, blog posts, special reports, and other forms of content around your Facebook page’s areas of interest.
Determining What Content to Share
As the content curator, you need to know what your Facebook page is all about as well as what its audience is interested in. The content that you share should support both. For example, if you run a Facebook page for your interior design business, you might share articles about trendy window coverings, eco-friendly flooring materials, or the psychology of color. Sharing content around your niche and audience’s interests can position you as an authority who knows what you are talking about (even if you didn't write the original material). Because the content you are sharing is relevant and interesting to your audience, it gives your followers a reason to keep following you. As your relationship develops, you are also building brand awareness.
How to Find Good Content to Share
Curating content for your Facebook page makes sense, but how do you find it? One option is to use your favorite search engine and search for articles by keyword. The problem with this approach is that you must do it 
regularly, and it’s not the most efficient way to find content to share. A better option is to use RSS feeds based on your desired topic and keywords. For example, using a standard RSS reader, you could create your own topic-based feeds and receive the latest hits in real-time based on the sources and keywords you have used. Many social media management tools have the ability to pull in RSS feeds based on your keywords, making it easy to find and share content without leaving the tool itself.
Scheduling Content for Your Facebook Page
As you search for content to share on your Facebook page, you'll likely discover more than one article to share. Rather than overwhelming your audience with multiple articles and reports all at once, use a scheduling tool to schedule your posts. Curating content for a Facebook page isn't overly difficult, and it can make a big difference in how your audience perceives you.
Watch out elephants! This slayer of business challenges comes with 30 years of record breaking sales, marketing, operations, training and leadership experience . He has worked face-to-face with 100’s of small business owners as well as large firms. His love of creating, communicating, developing and executing results for clients shines with each project, publication and training event. His entrepreneurial spirit, passion, industry experience, education, problem-solving prowess, charismatic personality and been-there-done that attitude leads his client focused approach.
How to Prevent Hiring the Wrong People
Hiring the wrong people will severely limit the potential of your business, especially if your team is on the smaller side. In fact, it's not inaccurate to say that the success of your business hinges just as much on the people you have as the quality of product or service that you have to offer.
So how can you make sure that you're not hiring the wrong people for your small business? Here are some tips:
1) Find people who have the same passions as you.
This is especially important in the early stages of your business; you need to be sure that the people you bring in are just as passionate about helping your business to grow and succeed as you are. This makes it so much 
easier to set company goals that everyone in your company will be willing (and excited) to work toward.
2) Find people who enjoy competition.
People with a competitive spirit are more likely to work hard to achieve the best possible results. There are plenty of ways that you can encourage competition within your work space, ranging from offering rewards for outstanding performance to setting goals that allow you to compete with other companies.
3) Find people who are adaptable.
In the early stages of your company, you may need the members of your team to be able to adapt to a wide variety of roles and situations while you work to get to a steady level of success. People you bring in should be flexible and be able to move quickly.
4) Find people who fit in with your team.
When you hear people talking about the “culture” of a work place, that's not just a buzzword. You should have a pretty good idea of what the culture of your business is, and whether a potential new employee fits into that culture or not. It's not just enough that they are qualified and experienced in the work; they need to be able to be a part of your well-oiled business machine.
5) Look out for potentially dangerous personalities.
It should be pretty evident in an interview if you have a potential jerk seeking a job, but if they manage to make it through undetected you need to have a zero tolerance policy for jerkish behavior. That kind of behavior could quickly deter the performance and cohesiveness of your team.
Still in need of more hiring tips? Contact us today at Viral Solutions and let us help you make your business the best it can be!
Watch out elephants! This slayer of business challenges comes with 30 years of record breaking sales, marketing, operations, training and leadership experience . He has worked face-to-face with 100’s of small business owners as well as large firms. His love of creating, communicating, developing and executing results for clients shines with each project, publication and training event. His entrepreneurial spirit, passion, industry experience, education, problem-solving prowess, charismatic personality and been-there-done that attitude leads his client focused approach.
How to Build (and Keep) Momentum With Your Business
If you can count on anything in the business world, it's that nothing will ever stay the same for very long. This is one of the biggest challenges you'll have to face as a business owner; if your business environment is constantly changing, how can you stay adaptable and continue building momentum through all of these changes?
Here is a brief list of tips on how you can keep the momentum going through any changes that come your way to achieve your goals:
- Outline your priorities. Come up with a list of six or so areas of your life and work that you want to prioritize. This could be something like sales, family, health, networking, finances, etc; any area of your life or business that is important. These priorities should be somewhat different from each other, yet all contribute to the overall health of your business.
- Decide on an action to take in one area every day. Let's say it's Monday, and you want to accomplish one major goal for that day. Look at one of your priorities and take action. If one of your priorities is
sales, you could call or email at least one new potential client. For health, you could reserve a certain amount of time for exercise. Simple actions like that. - Make a schedule of those actions. Try to get yourself into a routine so that every day, no matter what, you're taking action on at least one of your biggest priorities. Even when the environment surrounding your business changes, you'll still be able to stay on track by following this routine.
- Follow this plan. This method for staying on track even in a changing work environment is extremely simple, but it works. You'll be able to continue to build momentum even in the most hectic times of change for your business.
Not only does this routine help you to continue to build and maintain momentum in your business, but it's also a great way to make sure you're touching on every area of importance in your life every single week. It'll help you to maintain more balance in your life.
Try out this method for a couple weeks, and see how it benefits you and your business!
Watch out elephants! This slayer of business challenges comes with 30 years of record breaking sales, marketing, operations, training and leadership experience . He has worked face-to-face with 100’s of small business owners as well as large firms. His love of creating, communicating, developing and executing results for clients shines with each project, publication and training event. His entrepreneurial spirit, passion, industry experience, education, problem-solving prowess, charismatic personality and been-there-done that attitude leads his client focused approach.