Social Media For YOUR Local Business?

How can local businesses master the art of social media?

Related Article: YOUR Local Business Social Media Marketing?

It's as Elusive as it is Appealing:

Social media offers access to millions of potential customers, and yet figuring out how to get their attention can feel like an impossible puzzle.

What to post? When to post? How to work with Facebook's ever-changing algorithm for serving up content? "how to get followers on Instagram" and Google will reward you with 53 million answers. But mastering the art and science of social media isn't as easy as following one set of rules.

Pittsburgh businesses will have a chance to discuss their social media wins and losses next month at The Yearly Carnage, a strategy-driven marketing conference taking place on April 13 at the Ace Hotel. The event aims to dial down the talk and offer tactics from a lineup that includes Victoria Ekwenuke, global brand manager at eBay, as well as locals Seth Hunter, founder of Toll Gate Revival.

Nicholas Comanici, CMO of Carney, the Pittsburgh-based marketing agency organizing the event, says sessions will explore topics like how to effectively run Facebook ads and how best to build e-mail lists. The goal? Leaving attendees with advice that they "can implement in their business come Monday morning."

Related Article: Social Media Mistakes YOUR Company Makes?

One Key Takeaway: Focus on Quality

"People get obsessed with frequency," Comanici says. "But they end up putting out low-quality content just because they hear,"I should be putting out as much content as possible, as frequently as possible."

A better use of your time as a small business owner, he says, is to funnel your energies into one really great post a week. Putting thought into the image, copy, hashtags and what time you post (Facebook traffic is often highest in the mornings and late at night) can have a tremendous impact.

"You'd be better off doing that than putting out five meager posts," he says, "because at the end of the day, you're not going to compete with people pumping out really good content at a rapid pace. Figure out what you can do consistently and very well.

Related Article: Social Media Secrets To Going Viral?

Another Key: Don't Get Discouraged

It's unavoidable that every post won't be a hit with every fan, as Three Rivers Outdoor Co. co-founder Christine Iksic discovered. One of their fans got so annoyed he posted a comment threatening to unlike their page.

"That was from someone I actually know, not a stranger," says Iksic, who plans to attend the Yearly Carnage event. "And we were posting around twice a day, but not more than that. I'm sure this is just touching the surface of what we're going to come across. You don't realize until you start a company that people have a lot of expectations for you and you take that for granted. And that's one of my biggest fears: everybody wants something different from us, so how do I handle that?"

For Comanici, the answer is simple: seek out a small but loyal following. Your tribe. "It's tempting to cast a wide net, but in the end you'll appeal to no one," he says.

Social media offers the chance for two-way communication, so get to know that small but loyal tribe of fans as you cultivate them.

Related Article: Promoting YOUR Social Media Content?

Another Tip:

Roll with the randomness and don't assume it means you should change your strategy. Occasionally, an irreverent post written offhandedly will do tremendously well in terms of likes, shares and comments, and a particularly well-strategized one will flop. Learn what you can from that experience, but don't assume one hot post — or one flop — holds the key to your perfect social media recipe.

"It's really frustrating, putting a lot of time, money and energy into some of these campaigns and seeing them fall flat," says Paul Guarino, owner of ASCEND Pittsburgh. Even with his very visually appealing content of indoor rock climbing and various yoga classes, Guarino is another local business owner who has found that social media has a sometimes steep learning curve.

His advice, in the end, may be the most valuable: "Generally," Guarino says, "we just try to have fun.

Guest Authored By Kate Benz. Kate is always swinging her "Write Hook." She writes for Table Magazine, Pittsburgh Magazine, Pitt Med Magazine and more.. Follow Kate on Twitter.

Related Article: YOUR Social Media Sales Targets?

"Find the intersection of what you are passionate about with what you best at, and what drives your dollar generation." -BlakeDowling

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  Post Crafted by:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

Social Media Not Working For YOUR Business?

Why social media isn't working for your business, and 6 things you can do about it..

Get your followers to also follow you in other places where you can reach them.

Related Article: Overcoming YOUR Social Media Challenges?

“Facebook profit hits an all-time high, unaffected by recent scandals—so far.”

“X posts record $100 million profit but loses 1 million users.”

The above are recent headlines from top publications about the profitability of two of the biggest social media networks’ advertising business models.

It gets interesting.

The following screenshot (courtesy of Statista) shows Instagram’s revenue from 2015 projected through 2021.

Related Article: Should YOUR Business Advertise On Instagram?

With social media sites posting record profits every quarter, and with projections of an increase in their revenue year over year—based on the advertising business model they rely on—certainly, the businesses that advertise with them must be making bank? Not necessarily.

According to recent research from MDG Advertising, only 20 percent of businesses are able to measure the impact of social media on their bottom lines. A whopping 44 percent do not know if social media is working for them. In fact, a particular study provides an even clearer picture: 62 percent of small businesses report that Facebook ads aren’t working for them.

The question then, is: Should you do away with social media? That would be foolish. Social media sites aren’t going away anytime soon. In fact, they will continue to be more of a force to reckon with. And for every business reporting social media to be ineffective, there is another experiencing massive success. You just have to know what you’re doing.

If you can work on the following six things, you can rest assured of an increase in the effectiveness of your social media efforts:

Related Article: Marketing Strategies To Transcend YOUR Industry?

Realize That 'Social Media' Isn't A Business Model

Many business owners fail at getting results from their social media efforts because they expect “social media” to be their business model. For these businesses, regardless of the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of other measures they put in place, they assume that all will work well once they can commit a lot of time and money into promoting their business on social media.

It doesn’t work that way.

Even for the social media networks, social media isn’t their business model—most top social media networks have an ads business model and, as a result, optimize every aspect of the experience on their platform to ensure that people keep advertising and paying them money.

If you want to get results from social media, you should realize that social media—no matter how much you are spending on advertising—is only a means to an end: It will get you clicks and exposure to users, but everything else from there on depends on you.

Related Article: Successful Social Media For YOUR Small Business?

Start Tracking Your ROI

There’s only one way to know if your social media efforts are working, and that is by tracking your return on investment.

Social media can be very deceptive: If you put out a post or an ad and get thousands of likes, it is easy to assume that your efforts are successful. Not necessarily.

You only know if your social media efforts work if you track. What is the cost of a click? How many clicks do you need to turn a profit? Did you set up conversion tracking? Most social media networks provide tools and means for you to track how your efforts are performing on social media, so start using them.

Related Article: What Other Peoples Advertising Can Teach YOU?

Leverage The Familiarity Principle

The familiarity principle states that we tend to be more receptive to, and liking of, something with more exposure to it. Depending on your industry and several factors, it can be difficult to effectively measure your ROI—or generate profit—if you only focus on people’s first exposure to your brand. This is where the familiarity principle comes in, which you can take advantage of through retargeting.

Retargeting is so powerful that research shows that it can increase your click-through rate by 76 percent, your brand awareness by 1,046 percent and your sales by 50 percent.

Don’t be too obsessed with getting new users: Retarget old users and visitors—they are more likely to convert.

Related Article: Applying YOUR 2018 Marketing Data Science?

Ensure An Optimal Website Experience

When using social media, it is important to be prepared: Your content can go viral, your ad can suddenly become a hit and so many things can happen. It is even more important to realize that people are now more impatient than ever—any delay can be dangerous, so much so that a single second delay can cost a business 7 percent in conversions.

You don’t want to be like Best Buy on one of the busiest days of the year, when it had to find out on social media that its website was down.

If you’re using social media for your business, then you’re most likely directing the social media visits to your website. Here are some tips to optimize your website experience:

Ensure that you have a good, reliable server: If you host yourself, carefully monitor things, particularly during periods of peak traffic. If you pay for a host, make sure that you’re not using a host with regular performance issues. Otherwise, look for a better host (my review of web hosting companies breaks down various web hosts by performance, so you don’t need to look far).

Related Article: Top CEO Social Media Strategy?

Don’t just rely on external information about the performance of your website and server:

There are website uptime monitoring tools that help you track the performance of your website around the clock, notifying you of any downtime, lag in performance and other errors, so that you don’t have to find out on social media, and so it doesn’t affect your sales.

Realize that the faster your website, the better your conversions: According to research monitoring real-time data from 33 major retailers, improving page load time from eight to two seconds boosted conversions by 74 percent. Disable unnecessary add-ons, optimize your images, enable server caching and take other steps to ensure your website experience is faster.

Realize that there are more social media users on mobile than on desktop: Ensure your mobile website is well set up and that mobile users are automatically redirected there.

Related Article: YOUR Explosive Social Media Growth Strategy?

Reduce Your Social Media Ad Cost By Retaining And Nurturing Users

In an attempt to ensure more profitability, social media networks will continue to make it difficult for businesses to reach their followers on their platform for free. Research shows that organic reach on social media is declining, and that it has been doing so for years. It won’t change anytime soon.

As much as you can, get your social media users to also follow you in other places where you can reach them without having to break the bank. This could be through email newsletters or push notifications.

Use incentives if you have to. This makes it easy to reach them repeatedly, with multiple offers, for a fraction of what it would cost to reach them on social media.

Related Article: 7 Gary Vaynerchuk Social Media Tips?

Listen And Engage

60 minutes: That’s how long 72 percent of Twitter users are willing to wait for a response, and 84 percent of people expect companies to respond to their social media posts within 24 hours.

While social media can serve as a great way to get new users and improve profitability, it can also serve as a coffin for your brand if you fail to listen and engage to what people are saying. Word can quickly spread, and you have a disaster before you know it.

Guest Authored By John Stevens. John is founder and CEO of web hosting tracker Hosting Facts.

Related Article: YOUR Social Media Listening Power?

When users complain on social media, you want to listen and respond in a way that people see that you’re paying attention.

Not only will this help your brand image, but it will also help contribute to new users discovering your brand...

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  Post Crafted By:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at GetMoreHere.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, CO. where I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

Social Media Listening For YOUR Business?

Why it is so important to listen on social media..

These days we have the incredible advantage of social media. These platforms give us the freedom to express ourselves and our ideas and to sell products.

Related Article: YOUR Social Media Advertising, Explained?

The vast majority of people are becoming aware of this fact, and they are looking for insiders to teach them how to best take advantage.

They want to know how to get more people to follow them, how their profile needs to look, how to get people’s attention, how to entertain an audience and how to sell a product or a service.

Of course, these are very important things to know, but I have noticed that very few people know how to listen to social media and understand the value of doing so. In order to be successful on social media, you need to know how to listen to people online as well.

Related Article: Should YOUR Business Advertise On Instagram?

In my experience, I have achieved the best results once I understood that my business it is not about me, how good I am, what I am doing or what I am sharing.

It is about the people who choose to buy my products and services. Once I gave up the need to prove how important I was and how much value my services could bring people's lives, people started to come to me naturally. That’s because I was able to understand them better.

Here are some specific tips on how to listen on social media:

Related Article: What Other Peoples Advertising Can Teach YOU?

Look for people in your vicinity whose activities are related to your business and approach them in a friendly way.

Even though these people don’t need your products or your services now, they may need them in the future or may know somebody who does. It is very important to create connections with the people around us because this is how we will gain their trust. If they trust us, it is easier for them to trust our business.

For example, if you own a ski shop near a ski area, you should be engaging with local skiers. Instagram will show you who is posting and checking in. Just hit the like button or make a simple comment like, “Great day for skiing.” You don’t need to follow them. In fact, I wouldn’t recommend following them. If they like your brand they will follow you. And they might even stop in to pick up a pair of gloves, or more.

Related Article: Social Selling To Build YOUR Client Relations?

Comment on people's posts in your community, and make them feel like you are paying attention to what’s important to them.

People like to show off what is going on in their lives, and a simple like or comment can go a long way. We need people’s support and approval. We all like to feel important, and we have developed that need even from our early childhood. It is a great feeling to know that an important person or an expert is supporting us on our choices.

Respond to people's comments on your posts and answer their questions.

When we post, the follow up is important. Don’t stop halfway when you post. Your community will often respond to your original post, but it’s not over just yet. Keep the conversation going. Keep engaging and show that you are listening. Not taking the time to continue to engage can and will turn off your community. Why should they comment when it goes on deaf ears?

Related Article: YOUR Social Media Public Relations?

Take into consideration their opinion about you or your business.

Social media is the main way your community provides feedback. It’s a powerful tool to get opinions, good and bad. But some of us aren’t sure how to handle a bad opinion, or we overlook responding to a positive mention. This is where you have to treat review sites as social media as well. If someone takes the time to leave a comment or mention or review you, you should take the time to answer back.

Guest Authored By Marcus Guiliano. Marcus is Restaurant success coach & Restaurateur at the Hudson Valley's 1st Green Restaurant. Follow Marcus on Twitter.

Related Article: YOUR Local Business Social Media Marketing?

"Remember that all you want is to grow your business.

The time spent on social media has to be just enough to use the above tips and give your business a boost. It doesn’t have to be the main marketing strategy unless you are a big social media influencer.

Keep track of what social media does for your business, but don’t expect results right away. Sometimes it takes up to 15 times to touch a potential client with your brand." -MarcusGuiliano

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  Post Crafted By:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at GetMoreHere.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)