Not having a Social Media Plan is like going for a long Hike in the Mountains without any Food and Water.

The point is that you may survive, but it will be a very challenging and frustrating experience that could have otherwise been avoided. In my last post, I wrote about how planning starts with a VISION. In this post, I want to emphasize the importance of PLANNING. When most people think of planning, they yawn, BORING! Who wants to get boggled down with details?! “Let’s just go for it, make it happen and we will adjust along the way. Besides, it’s more fun and adventurous to have some spontaneity in our lives!” I swear, I used to say that and believe that with all my heart, and I still do in some areas of my life, but NOT when it comes to business. Unfortunately, I have had to learn through too many failures to understand why PLANNING is key to a successful business. So let’s dive into some key factors that are fundamental to having a solid social media plan. For the purpose of this blog post, I will be referring to small businesses:

• Know your target audience – Who are you selling to? Who’s attention do you want? Let’s narrow it down further. What  is your buyer persona?  That means, what are your buyers’ preferences, tastes, likes and dislikes. For example, my company, Hware sells software tools that help small businesses. Therefore, I look for entrepreneurs, and Work-at-Home folks to connect with online and try to make myself useful to them. I am laser-focused on the kind of person I want to interact with online. It’s  not that I don’t or won’t engage with anyone other than my ideal client, it’s just that I am very specific and clear about who I need to be talking to online for my business. More importantly, if your target audience is not online, then you are wasting your time being online. You need to be where they are. That’s where market research comes in.
• Spend some time doing some Market Research – It is crucial to find out where your customers hang out. Are they on Twitter or LinkedIn? Are most of them not using social networking sites and still prefer e-mail? The point is that you need to have a clear understanding of where they are so that you can communicate with them.  Occasionally, I enroll my online audience in surveys, which gives me insight into what they need. I then provide them with the results of the polls. By engaging my audience and asking for feedback, I gain tremendous knowledge on who they are, what their challenges are, and how I may better serve them. Here are a few online survey tools: Poll Daddy,  Survey Monkey and Twtpoll (for Twitter). The surveys need to be short, simple and convenient for the participant, otherwise, they will be reluctant fill it out.

• Know your online STAG: I call these your Strengths, Talents, Attributes, and Gifts. You must find and own your STAG and become like the beautiful statuesque male deer I live with here in the foothills of Northern California. They know their own power and beauty.  They grace the land with great ease and confidence. When you know your STAG, you will attract, engage, and be like a magnet to your online Fans, Friends, and Followers. When you are clear about your STAG, it will show in your energy, your presence. We all feed off of each other’s energy and your customers are no different. They will know if you are moving with ease and confidence and when you are putting their best interests first and foremost. (I will write more about STAG in future blog posts.) An example of using your STAG is let’s say that you are better at talking than writing; then perhaps you may want do more vlogging (video blogs) than blogging. The point is that you are playing to your strengths and when you work from a place of strengths, it always much easier.
• Remember that your Social Media Plan - should come under the umbrella of your marketing plan and your marketing plan falls under your business plan and your business plan should be part of your long-term strategic plan, (which I will write about in more detail another time.) So many people get overwhelmed with social media, but it is important to keep things in perspective. Social media is just one aspect of your overall business and as an entrepreneur/self-employed, you wear many different hats – social media is your marketing hat.

On my next blog post, I will delve into more detail about social media planning. I will be writing about some specific automation tools to help systematize and simplify your online presence.

Brenda Horton is Co-owner of Hware, a software company that designs business planning tools for small businesses. She will be hosting a FREE and LIVE Webinar on Social Media STRATEGIES for beginners on September 2nd.

If you would like to be a subscriber to Hware’s blog click on Email or RSS.

Brenda’s Social Media 101 Slideshow from the Lunch & Learn Series sponsored by the Nevada County Association of Realtors.

 

How Social Media and Twitter are changing the way we connect online

Last week I was dining at Centros in Sacramento with my 60+ year old friend. We talked quite a bit about social media. She works in the fund development department for a non-profit. She asked me to explain to her what all the fuss is about with regards to social media. She said that she did not understand why anyone would waste their day in front of a computer talking to people on line when relationships are most powerfully built in person. She felt overwhelmed with all the different online communities and she was clearly having a hard time wrapping her brain around Twitter. “I just don’t get it,” she kept saying. So, I gave her the highlights of how social media and Twitter are changing the way we connect online.

 

A brief history of Social Media

On a very basic fundamental level, humans have a great desire to connect and share with one another. When you understand that, then you will understand the power of social networking sites. It’s also important to understand that social media evolved from the early 80’s. People were connecting online via bulletin boards, forums and general chat rooms. My business partner built one of the first IBM PC bulletin boards which the Sacramento PC User group later adopted. The bulletin board (platform) allowed the users to share files, upload and download files, create forums and manage user registration.  Keep in mind there was no Internet at the time. Back then everyone had to dial in to him to connect. He was the “platform.” He was to the users of the PC user group what Twitter is to its users today. Later, came the live chat rooms where like-minded people connected via the Internet to discuss a specific subject matter, i.e.,politics, dogs, motorcycles, etc.

 

Make social media part of your marketing plan

Today, people are connecting online through platforms like Face Book, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter. These platforms facilitate getting a message, product, idea out to the masses in seconds. So, instead of having one person as the hub or platform that allow people to connect, we now have online platforms called social networking sites, which brings us to my friend’s question. “Why would anyone want to connect online when face-to-face is much more powerful?” Here is where the power of social networking sites like Twitter and Face Book are often misunderstood. Just because you are connecting with people online does not mean that you stop using the telephone and other means of communication tools. While having a face-to-face interaction with someone is absolutely the most powerful way to build, nurture, and cultivate relationships, it is also the most time and labor intensive.

With social networking sites, you are no longer limited to your local outreach marketing efforts, which are often expensive. Moreover, your online marketing strategies should not replace your face-to-face efforts of building relationships with your customers. It should be complementary and supplemental. Think of social media as a marketing strategy incorporated into your overall marketing plan and in today’s business environment it is vital to have a PLAN for your business.

 

Brenda Horton owns Hware, a software company that develops business tools for small businesses, entrepreneurs, non-profits, and start-ups. She is the membership co-chair of the Sacramento Social Media Club.

Brenda Horton will be teaching a beginners class on Social Media at the Nevada County Association of Realtors on Friday May 29th from 11:30 am-1:00 pm. For more information and registration call 530-272-2627.

 

This is a good slideshow on SaaS as on Ecosystem by Marc Lehmann of Saasu.com.

This slideshow gives you an overview of using Facebook for Business. Let us know what you think by commenting below.

This is an interesting slideshow showing how the Web has gone from Web 1.0 to 2.0 and on it’s way to Web 3.0. Let me know what you think.

Inbound Marketing & the Next Phase of Marketing on the Web

What Is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound Marketing is marketing focused on getting found by customers.

In traditional marketing (outbound marketing) companies focus on finding customers. They use techniques that are poorly targeted and that interrupt people. They use cold-calling, print advertising, T.V. advertising, junk mail, spam and trade shows.

Technology is making these techniques less effective and more expensive. Caller ID blocks cold calls, TiVo makes T.V. advertising less effective, spam filters block mass emails and tools like RSS are making print and display advertising less effective. It’s still possible to get a message out via these channels, but it costs more.

Inbound Marketers flip outbound marketing on its head.

Instead of interrupting people with television ads, they create videos that potential customers want to see. Instead of buying display ads in print publications, they create their own blog that people subscribe to and look forward to reading. Instead of cold calling, they create useful content and tools so that people call them looking for more information.

Instead of driving their message into a crowd over and over again like a sledgehammer, they attract highly qualified customers to their business like a magnet.

Place Independent Work

Work any place from any device. If you can connect to the Internet you can use smartphones, internet mobile devices, ultra mobile pcs, laptop computers, and desktop computers to access you data. Your computer systems should not require you to come to an office to get your work done. Instead your information should be accessable where ever you need to work. Be it home office, a local shared office, internet cafe, car, regional office, central office, client location, a job site, etc. Place Independent Work allows workers to get there job done where every it is most productive.

Examples

Envision Plan Act™ – Hware’s Internet based system for Strategic Planning, Business Planning and other types of plans.

GEMS-General Engineering Managment System – Hware’s Internet based system for Dispatch, Time, Mobilization, Equipment Service & Repair, and Job Safety for Heavy Construction industry.

Tools / Applications

LogMeIn.com – remote access and desktop control software for your computer. You can use LogMeIn to control your Windows or Mac PC from any computer that has a browser and Internet access.

Gmail.com – is a new kind of webmail, built on the idea that email can be more intuitive, efficient, and useful.  After all, Gmail has: less spam, mobile access and lots of space.

Google Apps – web applications for communication and colloboration. Google Apps includes Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Google Docs (share online documents, presentations, and spreadsheets), Google Sites (create websites and seure group wikis).

Zoho.com – is a suite of online applications (services) that you sign up for and access from our Website. The applications are free for individuals and some have a subscription fee for organizations. Our vision is to provide our customers (individuals, students, educators, non-profits, small and medium sized businesses) with the most comprehensive set of applications available anywhere (breadth); and for those applications to have enough features (depth) to make your user experience worthwhile.

Basecamp – project management and collaboration. Collaborate with your team and clients. Schedules, tasks, files, messages, and more. By 37signals

Highrise – online contact manager and simple CRM. Keep track of who your business talks to, what was said, and what to do next. By 37signals

Salesforce.com – easy-to-use Web-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution for sales, service, marketing, and call center operations that streamlines customer relationship management and boosts customer satisfaction.

SurveyMonkey – enable anyone to create professional online surveys quickly and easily.

Box.net – is the easiest way to share and manage your files online.

What is Internet Marketing

also referred to as web marketing, online marketing, or eMarketing, is the marketing of products or services over the Internet.

The Internet has brought many unique benefits to marketing, one of which being lower costs for the distribution of information and media to a global audience. The interactive nature of Internet marketing, both in terms of providing instant response and eliciting responses, is a unique quality of the medium. Internet marketing is sometimes considered to have a broader scope because it refers to digital media such as the Internet, e-mail, and wireless media; however, Internet marketing also includes management of digital customer data and electronic customer relationship management (ECRM) systems.

Internet marketing also refers to the placement of media along different stages of the customer engagement cycle through search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), banner ads on specific websites, e-mail marketing, and Web 2.0 strategies

Search engine marketing, or SEM

is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs). According to the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, SEM methods include: search engine optimization (or SEO), paid placement, and paid inclusion.

Search engine optimization (SEO)

is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it “ranks,” the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines. Go to www.netconcepts.com/learning-center/ for good articles on SEO. Go to www.seobook.com for SEO tools, learning modules.

A web banner or banner ad

is a form of advertising on the World Wide Web. This form of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract traffic to a website by linking to the website of the advertiser. The advertisement is constructed from an image (GIF, JPEG, PNG), JavaScript program or multimedia object employing technologies such as Silverlight, Java, Shockwave or Flash, often employing animation, sound, or video to maximize presence. Images are usually in a high-aspect ratio shape (i.e. either wide and short, or tall and narrow) hence the reference to banners. These images are usually placed on web pages that have interesting content, such as a newspaper article or an opinion piece. Go to Yahoo.com for examples of banners ads.

E-mail marketing

is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every e-mail sent to a potential or current customer could be considered e-mail marketing. ConstantContact.com is a company that provides the tools for e-mail marketing.

Viral marketing

is a marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message voluntarily. Viral promotions may take the form of video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, ebooks, brandable software, images, or even text messages. One of the most successful examples of viral marketing is the Will it Blend? campaign.

Web 2.0

describes the changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aim to enhance creativity, communications, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web culture communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, video sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies.

What is Open Source Software

Free and open source software, also F/OSS, FOSS, or FLOSS (for Free/Libre/Open Source Software) is software which is liberally licensed to grant the right of users to study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code. This approach has gained both momentum and acceptance as the potential benefits have been increasingly recognized by both individuals and corporate players.

‘F/OSS’ is an inclusive term generally synonymous with both free software and open source software which describe similar development models, but with differing cultures and philosophies. ‘Free software’ focuses on the philosophical freedoms it gives to users and ‘open source’ focuses on the perceived strengths of its peer-to-peer development model. Many people relate to both aspects and so ‘F/OSS’ is a term that can be used without particular bias towards either camp.

Free software licenses and Open-source licenses are used by many software packages. The licenses have important differences, which mirror the differences in the ways the two kinds of software can be used and distributed and reflect differences in the philosophy behind the two.

Our favorite Desktop Open Source Software

Ubuntu – Linux based operating system alternative to Windows and Mac OS. It can be used on desktop, laptop computer operating system or as a server operating system

OpenOffice – is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. You can use this instead of Microsoft Office

Mozilla Firefox - the premier free, open-source browser. Tabs, pop-up blocking, themes, and extensions. Considered by many to be the world’s best browser. Use this instead of Microsoft Internet Explorer or Apple Safari

Mozilla Thunderbird – email application is more powerful than ever. It’s now even easier to organize, secure and customize your mail. Use instead of Microsoft Outlook or Apple Mail.

Our favorite Server Open Source Software

Ubuntu – Linux based operating system alternative to Windows and Mac OS. It can be used on desktop, laptop computer operating system or as a server operating system

Apache – open-source HTTP server for modern operating systems including UNIX, Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. The goal of this project is to provide a secure, efficient and extensible server that provides HTTP services in sync with the current HTTP standards. Apache has been the most popular web server on the Internet since April 1996

MySQL – a database server software that runs on Windows, Mac OS or Linux. Use this instead of Microsft SQL Server, Oracle, or Sybase

PHP – is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML

LAMP Server – Linux + Apache + MySQL + PHP. Most common Web Hosting Server setup

Ruby on Rails – is an open source web application framework for the Ruby programming language. It is often referred to as “Rails” or “RoR”. It is intended to be used with an Agile development methodology, which is often utilized by web developers for its suitability for short, client-driven projects.

WordPress.org - is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time. We use this for www.hware.com.