“Hi, how’s it going?” Person A asked. “Not too shabby. I’m not looking forward to the snow Wednesday.” Person B replied. “I’m great today. Did you see the football game last night?” Person A questioned. “No, I had to work. What a horrible night.” Person B responded. “Did you see that interception Cassel threw? Glad we traded him away, huh?” Person A said. Person B quipped back, “If you aren’t going to listen to a word I say, why am I bothering to talk to you in the first place. Good bye.” Often times, our social interactions online are similar to this demonstration conversation. We fail to appropriately acknowledge what is being said. This blog discusses and illustrates the potential failures, and how these failures can destroy our social media campaigns, and how to proactively stop this from occurring. First of all, if people comment on something that you say, show the world that you heard. On Facebook, comment about their comments. On Twitter, @theirname mention them back. If one commenter closed down the discussion with his or her comment, and ended the topic (e.g. , they answered a question in which there is only one answer) then thank him or her for answering. There should never be a time that anyone makes a statement, asks a question, or mentions you at all without you having input after. If you’ve never had the chance to have the last word, your time has finally come! On Twitter there is a great feature called “Favorites”. It allows you to mark a Tweet, and save it for later. Every time someone says, “Thank you” on Twitter, mark it as a favorite tweet. Anytime someone replies to you in a positive light, mark it as a favorite. Let’s say you have 50 positive things being sent to you, or about you, out there in Twitterland. Instead of simply sending people to: Your goal is to always forward the conversation. If you have someone responding, do not simply answer a question with a statement, and don’t answer with a question. Here’s an example of what I mean: Customer Comment: How’s the weather at the store today? - Wrong #1: Great.
- Wrong #2: Are you planning on swinging by?
- Correct!: The sun’s shining, and the walkways are clean. Planning on stopping by soon? Can you bring me a coffee? –Just kidding!
Obviously, if you own a coffee shop, I wouldn’t recommend requesting a beverage, but otherwise, you could probably get away with it. Don’t be afraid of acting like a social human being. They call it social media for a reason, right? If you were to take your interactions off of the web, and hand people a printed copy, could they read it as a script back and forth, amongst the group? Your goal is to have your interactions look like a dialogue between people, not a monologue or soliloquy. Make sure that you are acknowledging your social media the same way you would if someone was speaking it in front of you.
The hardest part of creating a social media presence from scratch is creating an audience. To do this, we need to look at Twitter and Facebook the same way we would look at the beginning of any new social interaction. Bust out the way back machine and think about your first day of school. Chances are, you didn’t walk in the first day, yelling out, “HI MY NAME IS BILLY AND I AM HAPPY TO MEET ALL OF YOU! I HAVE PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY FOR LUNCH, ANYONE WANT TO TRADE?” Can you imagine how that would have gone down? I can tell you, it wouldn’t have been pretty. A more accurate look at that first day of school would probably show you walking over to a group of children and listening to them talk. You got a feel of what they were discussing, and then volunteered information on the subject. You didn’t try to immediately dominate the conversation, and you didn’t interrupt. You joined into a conversation. Hopefully, you added to the conversation and gave the other people a reason to talk to you. In essence, you gave people something to talk about. The same is true of Twitter, Facebook, or any other social platform. If you are brand new, you need to politely join a conversation, otherwise you will be that weird kid screaming about PB&J. Of course, the online techniques for doing this are a little different, but overall, the goals are the same. The first step is to search for people talking about things in which you could add to the conversation. Search out the established people, and follow them. Read what they are saying. Retweet the statements you agree with. Get a following from your peers. Start dialogue with people that know what they are talking about. It will give your future followers proof that you are an expert in the field and are a valued member of the expert community. Chances are, you aren’t planning on selling to these other experts or peers. You need to find customers. Step two is to start to follow your potential customers. If you own a jewelry store, search for people that talk about jewelry. Do you not sell online? Better search for people by location, or you aren’t going to find customers. Search for local community events, and see if people are talking about them. Retweeting community events can lead you to additional local followers. Remain positive. Misery loves company, and retweeting sarcastic comments can gain you sarcastic people. Although these people do buy things, you never want to give your business a negative personality. I recommend asking if a sale will work before putting the sale out there. If you are making declarations and statements of a factual manner, what can people say about it? “Buy one get one half off today only” is not going to stir up conversation. Ask some questions. “Should we do a buy one, get one half off? Would you buy one today?” is more likely to get a response. Take your time and build a strong community. I can show you how to get 1000 followers in a week, but they aren’t going to do anything for you. You want followers that add to the conversation, and respond back. Otherwise, you risk being followed by 1000 people named “BILLY!”
Businesses often rush into social media avenues, without planning them out first. The thought is, “Better to be there sloppy than not at all!” I don’t think I am the only person that would disagree with that thought process... Let’s spend some time talking about your social presences on each platform. The number of social media tools and networks available grows larger every day. Some of these are highly inclusive, and cater to everyone, while some are very niche market oriented. Many social media strategists start to talk about the universes that encompass social media, and there are several graphics that illustrate the hundreds of sites and programs related to social media. Today, we are going to discuss 2: - Twitter
- Facebook
Don’t get overwhelmed with the other stuff out there. Start where 95% of the population is. Remember, these social sites are an extension of your traditional website. This means that there must be a cohesive feel to all of your different sites. Do you have puffy clouds as the background of your website? Is light blue prominently featured in your color scheme? Chances are the default background on Twitter has nothing to do with your website. Therefore, we need to clean that up fast. · Make sure there is a smooth aesthetic transition from one site (and sight) to the next. If your website has a red background, then so should your Twitter page. · Your logo should be displayed as more than simply your avatar (the picture next to where you type, for those that are not comfortable with the word). Incorporate it into your background. · Your profile is 140 characters long. Use this space to tell your readers who you are, not how to reach you. Do not clutter it with phone numbers, street addresses, etc. Instead incorporate geographical information into your background. Facebook has been criticized for its lack of customization. This is no longer true. You can create a custom landing page for those who have never been to your Facebook page before. On this page, you should include: · Branding (logo, tagline, etc.) · Current Promotions (graphic links to ad pages, if you have any, or whatever else you are currently using as a promotion.) · Selling points (Three bullet points as to why to do business with your company) If you only have 3 seconds to grab someone’s attention, make it worthwhile! Make sure your landing page is up to date. Nothing will turn off your customer quicker than a 4th of July Savings Ad in August. Have a “Facebook only” promotion, and list it as such. Now that you have the customers’ attention, keep them coming back, and looking for more. If they have never been on your Facebook page before, and all they see is your information page when they arrive, they may be too disinterested to go any further. We’ll talk about what types of content you should post in steps 2 and 5. For now, focus on making your social pages look as well put together and professional as your main website.
 No one likes to be the last one picked for a team. When businesses finally decide to start using social media, they often feel the same type of anxiety. You cannot launch a brand new social media site, and instantly have hundreds of Fans on Facebook, thousands of followers on Twitter, or immediately have an award-winning blog read daily by millions. These things can take time. The problem that most beginners have is that most of the help written about this subject is aimed at those who have an already-established online presence of some kind. We talk about Growing Social Media, Strengthening Social Media, Re-Kindling Social Media, etc. all the time, but forget about starting from scratch. We are going to focus on building a social media presence out of practically nothing. We’re going to discuss ways to add additional relevant content from places you never considered looking. Rather than another blog that discusses social media maintenance, the following five blog posts will teach readers how to create new buzz. That’s not to say, “Stop reading this if you’ve already got it going on!” There are some ideas in here that should be launched when you first start your social media campaigns, but if you didn’t complete our recommended steps, it’s never too late. The beauty of these postings is it doesn’t matter what level your social presence is at, it can always get better. The same way you can patch cracks in the foundation in your building, you can do the same with your social media. Let’s start this journey today. We’ll begin with Step one, Fully Create Your Social Platforms.
 I was watching a child load a trophy into his mother’s car this weekend, and I swear the trophy was almost as tall as the child. I have no idea what it was for; I was too far away to see what the gold fellow on top was doing, but I would assume that this young gentleman came in first. Branding your business is similar to that 4-foot monster the child was wrestling into the back seat. Your business must be built in a similar manner to that trophy. We start at the bottom, and work our way up. In order to sell a product or a service, you need to tell the world what you are all about. That’s where the gold plate comes into play. The plate represents your mission statement, which is a testimony of why the company exists. It is here that you want to concisely state what your company is all about. A trophy’s plate simply states who won, what they won, and when; it is not a book, page or paragraph. The mission statement, in the same way, should be short, and tell anyone who reads it who you are and what you do to “win”. On the trophy, it tells anyone who reads it who is the winner. In business, it should do the same. The pillars of the trophy come next. Those pillars are the values used to build your business. If you had to summarize your business with only two or three words, what would they be? Those words are the pillars that you must build your brand with to be successful. Be wary of using the wrong words. If you are using the word "Price" as one of your pillars, but your pricing is not extraordinary, you are weakening your structure. Make your pillars strong by focusing on reality, not simply what you think your customers want to hear. As you can see in the picture above, there are no words on the pillars of the trophy. You don’t need to announce these words to the world, but you need to make sure that YOU know what they are to remain focused. The other characters on the trophy, like the eagles above, would be words that form your company’s brand messages. Highlight words you would want other people to use when describing your business. Though your marketing campaigns, you help associate these words with your product or services. When people think of Toyota, what words come to mind? Most say reliable, long lasting, dependable. They are not necessarily the same words that you use as the pillars of your business, but are essential characteristics of your business. They add depth to your branding, and are extremely important. You cannot sell a product without being able to describe its features and benefits. The same is true for your brand messaging. Anyone looking at your business needs to see the logo, and it helps if the logo illustrates what you are all about. The martial artist atop the trophy, pulling off a complicated kick, allows anyone who sees the trophy know what it represents. Notice, the guy atop the trophy isn’t reading a book. Anyone seeing this trophy knows that its owner practices martial arts. The logo must fit your business, both in what you do, and the spirit of how you do it. Build your business in this manner, and you will take home first prize.
 Guest Blog by Chris Gregoire “When I was a child, I had to walk to school through a blizzard, for three miles. There were no snow days. We didn’t have fancy global warming; it snowed every day. Uphill both ways. Barefoot.” How many times have you heard stories like this? I remember every single snow day when I was a child, hearing some variation of this story, when I was dropped off at my grandfather’s house. Maybe without the “Global Warming” part; in the 80’s, it wasn’t really as big an issue. There was always an element of fantasy in these stories though, and a morsel of truth. I can just imagine the stories I’ll tell, when my 11 month old daughter reaches school age: “Back when I was a child, we had to wait until there was snow on the ground before the schools would close. There’s no way a school would say they were closed the night before a storm. We didn’t have that much trust in weathermen. And if there was only an inch or two, school was still open. We used to have these things called ‘Delays’ which meant that the town would plow, and we would go into school a little late.” I wonder if my daughter will look at me with the same, “Are you serious?” look I am sure I gave my grandfather. Turn on the news every time a snowstorm hits a southern state, and watch the New England news stations poke fun at the inhabitants down there. And yet there was nothing on the news this morning other than the fact we were getting pummeled with a three inch snowstorm. At 6:30 this morning, Fox news had the totals up, and there were none higher than 2 inches. But it was all they would talk about last night on the 6, 10, and 11 o’clock news. What happened to the “Tough New Englander”? Is that image no longer fitting? What do you think?
 I went to a big box store the other day, looking for material and advice to replace a cracked shower tile. The problem was, I couldn’t find an employee anywhere. I don’t know if there was a meeting going on in the store, or if every single employee took the same break at the exact same time, but it seemed as though I wandered aimlessly for weeks before finding someone that could answer my question. Luckily for the store, I was there with the material in hand, with their closest competition fifteen minutes away. Otherwise, I may have simply stopped shopping there, and found someplace more convenient. Does this happen on your website? Do customers get lost page after page, desperately seeking an answer to a question before hitting, “Add to cart”? I know personally, if I am interested in making a purchase, but cannot get all of my questions answered online, I’m going to a different site. There’s nothing tying me to buying on your page. It’s not like I have a fifteen minute drive in between websites, so chances are, I’m out of there, fast. We’ll pretend you sell scissors. How many questions could a customer ask? Well, for starters, they may ask: • Do these work left handed, too? • How many sheets can I cut through at once? • Are the grips soft? • Can they be sharpened later, or are these pretty much disposable? • How well do these work on hair?” I know, some of these questions seem silly. Would you want to risk losing this sale, just because the question was silly? I know that if the customer was in the store, they wouldn’t have some of these problems. Now that people are buying more online they have more, shall we say, creative questions. So, what is the solution? Live chat. Imagine the live chat button on your website as an old-school bell on a countertop. When a customer has a question regarding a product, they ask right away, while they are still on the website. They don’t email you, and then go buy the product elsewhere on the Internet while waiting for a response. They instantly get their question answered, and make a purchase. I can already hear naysayers, “I don’t have time to sit in front of a computer screen, waiting for people to have questions!” If you have time to sit at a counter, servicing live customers, you have time to answer questions online. The same person can do it. They are both making a purchase from your store. It comes down to training your staff to help online and live customers. There are other huge advantages to live chat. If you notice someone wandering around your store, you can ask them, “Can I help you?” The same is true of live chat. If someone is on your site, you can ask them, “Can I help point you in the right direction?” You can see how many people are on your site at any time. You can watch what parts of your site are being visited most frequently. Want to look at this more in depth? Send us an email, and we can discuss this option for your business.
 There is a lot of competition for my business on my drive in to the office. I pass by 6 different coffee shops/restaurants that offer a drive thru service to sell me my coffee. That’s not including the 9 different mini-marts, of which 7 are attached to gas stations, that also provide freshly brewed coffee. All in all, on my half hour drive in, there are 15 different places that can earn my business. I’ve been to the majority of these places, and had decent coffee at all of them. Four out of five mornings, I stop at the same one. The one time I don’t, it is usually because I need gas, and I don’t want to stop twice. How did the one business win my business? They offer better service than the others. It’s that simple. When I drive up to order, they do not interrupt, and say, “Anything else?” while I’m halfway through my order. They let me finish talking. When i have completed my order, they repeat back the entire order, tell me the price, and ask me to pull up, please. When I arrive at the service window, they acknowledge my existence, even if my order is not ready yet. More times than not, the order is completed quickly. When it is taking a little longer, they tell me it will be a minute. Then, I am on my way, with a “Have a nice day!” Did any of this sound like phenomenal service? If you look at it on the whole, they did nothing that I would consider above and beyond. They let me order without interruption. They were courteous. That’s really it. Does that mean that the other places offer bad service? I believe it depends on your definition of “Bad”. To me, “Bad” service is any that leaves a bad impression. If you do not let me finish my sentence when I’m talking, I feel like you're not listening to anything I'm saying. If I drive up to the service window, and you look like you are avoiding me until the order is complete, you make me feel as though I am a leper. If you hand me my coffee and my change, and say, “Thanks” as the window is closing, I feel like I’m the one that provided you a service, not the other way around. You don’t have to spit in my coffee for it to be bad service. You don’t even have to be overtly rude for it to be bad service. This is good news for small start-up businesses. You don’t have to be a superhero. You don’t have to be the most innovative, and re-create the wheel. You simply have to make sure that your level of service is better than your competition’s service. I’m waiting for the phone call from the coffee shop willing to advertise, “We’ll let you finish talking before we ask, ‘Anything Else?’”
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