Something weird, wonderfully weird, on Small Business Saturday

When you get off the plane in Austin, you sense immediately that something is different.  There's a different vibe, a beautiful array of colors, and unique products displayed in creative ways.  The folks here advocate "Keep Austin Weird" with signs, posters, and t-shirts.

At the baggage claim, there are a set of over-sized guitars that are decorated using different themes.  As the photo shows, one of these guitars is inspired by the theme "Keep Austin Weird."  When you look closely, you see that many of the small images on the over-sized guitar promote small businesses.  Indeed, the guitar screams, SUPPORT SMALL BUSINESS.  And we couldn't agree more.  You've heard it all before -- small businesses are the back-bone of the American economy, small businesses are the engine that create jobs -- but we like Austin's approach.  Perhaps we should support small businesses because that's where real creativity and innovation lives.  Yes, let's keep Austin weird on Small Business Saturday.

Facebook for small business: Do you “like” it?

By Monica W. Wamsley

Facebook has altered the vocabulary of social-network users and non-users alike: All of a sudden, “like” is a click of a mouse, and Oxford Dictionary declares “unfriend” the word of the year.

As of October 2012, Facebook boasts one billion monthly active users. A large audience, which willingly displays demographic information and interests, could not be easier to find.

And a plus for small businesses: Sucharita Mulpuru, a retail analyst at Forrester, says they seem to have more success on Facebook than big stores do.

Getting started

The New York Times channels Ideen with its clear introduction: Make a short list of goals before jumping in to Facebook. Take your time to plan.

Go ahead and “like” Facebook Marketing while you’re at it. That gives you access to a bunch of tips to advertising on Facebook and FB-authored white papers, including “Facebook’s Steps to Business Success” (a great one-pager to print and keep by your laptop), “Building essential connections: Engaging your audience by publishing to your page,” and “Facebook Offers.”

From Facebook itself, a memorable Web address is key. Constant Contact reminds us that your Facebook page extension is customizable once you hit 25 “likes”; NYT suggests asking your friends and family to like your page so that it has a good crowd before its debut.

Flyte New Media points out that Facebook pages are publicly available to search engines for finding and indexing — bonus traffic for your page.

The ever-awesome Mashable recommends a quick trip to Name Vine. Name Vine instantly checks domain names, Twitter handles, and Facebook and Pinterest extensions.

By the way, heads-up that you don’t own your Facebook page; Facebook does. Because of this, the layout can change at any time. Be aware, and be adaptable.

Once you get past the ownership and the all-Facebook-pages-look-the-same stumbling block, begin with your cover photo: It is the first thing a visitor sees. At 851 x 315 pixels, it is much larger than your 180 x 180 pixel profile photo.

First things first, though: Resist the urge to do a Google image search for a stunning picture. It could land you in legal trouble because of rights and permissions, AllFacebook reminds us. AllFacebook recommends TimelineImages.com for purchasing quality cover photos that are safe.

Check out examples of great cover photos over at Social Media Examiner’s 2012“Top 10 Small Business Facebook Pages,” especially Chocolate ForBreakfast. Chocolate For Breakfast is up 3,000 likes since the post from two months ago.

Notice that the cover photos relate to both the product (or service) and the customer. They are not trying to make a sale; they are trying to connect.

Additionally, your profile picture will be seen when you are represented in places other than your own page. Constant Contact is right on in asserting the main image for most companies is a logo. Choose something that represents you in a professional manner.

This author wants to suggest a brief stop at Hershey’s Kisses for profile photo and cover photo use, but she does not want to suggest that chocolate fares best.

The last elephant in the room as to getting started on Facebook is your advertising budget. It is no secret that the social-media budget of a small business is dwarfed by that of larger companies.

However, even $50 per month can help a small business make waves on Facebook, according to Mashable. You can control how much you spend by setting daily and lifetime budgets. The price of advertising is among Facebook’s most appealing features for small businesses.

Etiquette

This part of Facebook is wildly uncomplicated.

Use a conversational tone, and don’t hawk your wares constantly. According to studies picked apart by AllFacebook, “[o]vertly business-oriented posts consistently performed poorly. Facebook users expect to interact with friends; brands that don’t act like friends will be defriended.”

Be succinct: Facebook is not a blog. Feel free to post links to blog entries, but save the lengthy content for another medium.

Respond to posts from fans and other businesses! “You end up moving away from being an Internet marketer and go into almost customer service,” Jim Glaub,creative director at Art Meets Commerce, told NYT.

Engagement

Right off the bat, Facebook itself suggests adding at least one post per week. Facebook reports that most of its users’ time is spent on their individual news feeds — 40 percent of their time, in fact. Constant Contact recommends a few posts each week, varying the types of posts. Stay relevant by adding content.

According to Facebook, a photo album garners 180 percent more engagement; a photo, 120 percent more; and a video, 100 percent more. Those items get likes, comments, and shares. You can find more of Facebook’s engagement suggestions here.

Who can resist more numbers? AllFacebook broke it down for us last month:

• Posts that asked specifically for likes got 240 percent more likes than posts that did not.
• Posts specifically requesting input got 70 percent more comments. (Those that asked more than one question, however, received fewer comments.)
• Posts receiving the most comments averaged 144 characters — about the length of a tweet. (In case you missed our blog on Twitter, check it out here.)
• Fill-in-the-blank posts landed the best response rate: 370 percent more comments than open-ended questions.

Use personality on your business’s page. This goes hand in hand with being conversational.

NYT makes a great point: “Flaunt your personality. The page of an ice cream parlor should feel different than that of a funeral parlor.”

On top of having a page for your business, Facebook offers advertising options. You can tailor your ad to a gender, to an age group, to a geographic location, to those with certain keyword interests, etc. Facebook lets you combine your budget and your demographics — and lets you change your angle if you are not getting the results you wanted with a certain approach.

As mentioned before, Facebook advertising is affordable. A screen capture on a Facebook-authored document showed a $5 budget reaching upwards of 20 people (depending on the other demographics and keywords).

Jason Keath, CEO and founder of Social Fresh, a social media education company, told Mashable: “Facebook offers more options and data than any other online marketing channel. Ever. I can target an ad to editors that work at BusinessNewsDaily. I can target an ad at hiring mangers for The New York Times. I can target people in my ZIP code that love BBQ. The options are endless. That gives a business access to marketing gold and relevance.”

Although the power to find the people in 81147 who like Star Wars and cupcakes is remarkable, small businesses have to remember that others interested in their products are not as comfortable with social networks.

Your mother might not want to purchase something through Facebook, but a bourbon-chocolate cupcake and Darth Vader might indeed be her thing. Give users the option to head to a traditional website from your Facebook page — and track the traffic — says NYT.

TechCrunchlets small businesses in on a way to appear on fans’ news feeds: “sponsored stories.” Using some of your budget on sponsored stories makes your posts visible higher in users’ news feeds, when they might have otherwise missed them if they were not logged on when you published. You can also use sponsored stories to reach certain demographics and friends of friends.

As always, you want to interact, so announce your page via e-mail marketing, a physical sign in a store, and even QR codes on menus.

Measuring

Set goals, and keep track of activity.

No matter where you look when you Google “Facebook marketing,” you will come across Facebook Insights. This feature allows you to analyze demographics and content consumption.

You can export the data from Facebook Insights to an Excel spreadsheet for your own records — or for explaining progress to your boss, if you’re the social-media manager.

Summary

Just as your cover photo makes its big impression, your posts are always representing your brand, too.

Current, engaging photos are your sure-fire posts for interacting with fans and customers. Give them an inside look and drum up conversation.

Make your list of goals, set your budget, interact, and keep track as you take the plunge.

Twitter for small business: Brevity is the soul of wit

By Monica W. Wamsley 

We’re all familiar with that Hamlet quote: “Brevity is the soul of wit.” When it comes to social media, Polonius’s words surely refer to Twitter.

Twitter gives its users a scant 140 characters for each message. Polonius would have been fine, by the way: His statement above is 27 characters. What does this limitation mean for small businesses?

Beyond the character count, there is much more to do with Twitter and much more Twitter can do for you.

Getting started

Key in Twitter’s “Twitter for Small Business” PDF  and the piece of advice offered most in Small Business Trends’ “137 Twitter Tips: How Small Businesses Get the Most from Twitter” was to “lurk and listen.” Find the leaders in your field and watch their tweets. What are they doing well? What mistakes are they making?

Jen Harris (@JenHarris09) of Caffeinated Marketing, in “137 Twitter Tips,” recommended a short Twitter handle. Not only is a long user name hard on the eyes and the fingers; it also takes up characters of your followers’ cherished 140 when they send you a tweet.

Twitter for Small Business breaks a Twitter profile down into its basic anatomy. Lest you lose business — or worse: look like a spammer — make sure you have these Twitter profile body parts: an image that best represents your business, a clear and informative bio segment, a link to your website, and maybe a custom background for your Web-based Twitter home. Freelance Folder’s “21 Freelancing Social Media Faux Pas” adds that a way to contact you is helpful.

If you think you’ll use Twitter for more than business, go ahead and create two separate accounts, personal and professional, and keep them that way. Ideen blogged about this previously, and Small Business Trends agrees.

Etiquette

To channel Polonius: Everything you do on Twitter represents your brand. (Fifty-one characters.) But we have more to get into here.

Freelance Folder reminds us that although social media requires little or no cost and a minimal time commitment, it shouldn’t be taken lightly. A few no-nos from Freelance Folder: an unprofessional image or no image at all, typos in your bio, excessive automation, obscenity, lack of activity, and not responding to tweets addressing you directly.

Editing is key, even for only 140 characters. Be professional and knowledgeable, instead of perceived as a 13-year-old girl texting her friends. Small Business Trends stresses the professionalism of thinking before you post. Would-be followers are turned off by ignorance, irrelevance, and rudimentary errors.

Sending direct messages automatically to new followers is spammy and impersonal, and users can’t reply if the sender does not follow them.

Another oft-mentioned suggestion from professionals on Twitter via “137 Twitter Tips” was to use Twitter to build relationships rather than using it for selling. Focus on customer service, chat participants, said.

Along those lines, Twitter for Small Business reminds small businesses to reply to tweets directed at them — and to know when the take the conversation off the social network. Is there too much back-and-forth on your timeline? Are topics too specific? Send a direct message to a follower who needs your help, asking him for contact information so you can better resolve his issue.

Engagement

Twitter makes it easy to filter tweets via hashtags and to use its search box. Mashable’s “5 Advanced Twitter Tips for Your Small Business” suggests Topsy.com, for real-time searches of the social Web. Topsy is especially useful for mutations of your business’s name (e.g., omitting an apostrophe, a misspelling, etc.). Don’t be afraid to reply to relevant messages.

Twitter for Small Business recommends asking a question and answering it with a link. This is a way around longer messages and directs traffic to your business’s site of choice: a blog entry, a menu, etc.

Sample tweet: “What are the top 10 autumn cupcakes at Baked Alaksa? Yourlinkhere.com/10-autumn-cupcakes”

If you’re keeping score at home, that tweet was 87 characters.

Twitter for Small Business suggests the traditional media for following and retweeting: Follow reporters and news outlets covering your areas. Their content could be of interest to your readers, and mentioning their accounts provides attribution and gets you on their radar. Some reporters might even follow you back.

Likewise, Twitter for Small Business reminds you of the social media resources right under your nose. Are your employees tweeting? If their content meshes with your goals and messages, retweet or mention them. This shows the human aspect of your business and can provide glimpses of behind-the-scenes action your followers won’t get elsewhere.

One of the most mentioned tips in “137 Twitter Tips” is to set specific times for interacting on Twitter — and to limit your time, too. Otherwise, you’ll spend hours responding, searching, filtering, retweeting. It’s easy to get in too deep. Remember one of your basic tenets for success in business: time management. Apply it to social media too. In fact, you can schedule your tweets ahead of time with programs like TweetDeck and TweetLater.com.

Media Bistro has this infographic for you with daily and weekly Twitter checklists. One bit of warning here: Following 10 new people per week without a similar growth in your own followers can make you look like a spammer.

What if users can’t find your account or don’t even know you use Twitter? Both “137 Twitter Tips” and “Twitter for Small Business” stress promoting your handle everywhere: website, e-mail signature, business cards, and even your company vehicle.

Twitter for Small Business put the company name, its Web address, and its handle (@TwitterSmallBiz) on the bottom of each page of its report. Twitter practices what it preaches.

Before we move on to the final segment, let’s quickly discuss syncing accounts across social media platforms.

Although a convenient “post to all” option may seem great, what it really does is show your users your preference for one platform over another. A tweet sending your followers to Facebook to see photos makes them wonder why they are bothering with you on Twitter.

Remember the character limit on Twitter? What’s short enough for Twitter might not be catchy enough for Facebook, and what is catchy enough for Facebook is likely too long for a tweet. Here is your new mantra: Think before you sync.

Measuring

It almost couldn’t be easier.

First up, Mashable’s list lobs a giant softball your way with Bitly. A free Bitly account allows you to create custom URLs (bit.ly/fallcupcakes is better than bit.ly/asdfP3) and to track how many people have clicked your link with a simple addition of a + at the end of your link. You can knock that one out of the park.

Without fail, Twitter for Small Business has an original idea: Create Twitter-only promotions.

Twitter for Small Business also offers up a common-sense measurement: Are people tweeting at you? Are they retweeting you? How many followers do you have?

You could, of course, also just flat-out ask your customers if they follow you on Twitter. Old-fashioned word-of-mouth can play a part in your digital presence, too.

Finally, remember that every little tweet contributes to your big picture: Work through your Twitter strategy before you dive in and tackle getting started, etiquette, engagement, and measuring for your business.

Look before you leap: Social media strategy for small business

By Monica W. Wamsley

Even if your small business is already head-first into the social media pool, it’s never too late to develop a strategy for making your splash. 

The Web is teeming with ways to connect with your clientele: Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+, blogs, Instagram, and MySpace (it does still exist).

According to this sweet Mashable infographic based on Myers-Briggs personality research and networking platforms, two-thirds of all “online adults” use social media. (To add a little perspective: We haven’t even had voter turnout that high in more than 100 years.)

So, should you utilize social media for your small business? Yes. But you don’t have to utilize all of the platforms.

Don’t spread yourself too thin, Social Media Today warns: Focusing on one major platform helps your business stand out — and be exceptional.

But first things first to guide yourself toward a perfect 10: Is your business based on services or products? Are you focused on your local area, or are you national? Should you go the visual route, or are press releases your strength?

Network choice aside, always keep in mind your goals: Are you trying to build your customer base? Are you looking for a forum to interact with your customers? Are you building brand recognition? Are you working to generate buzz? Are you promoting specific marketing campaigns? These questions will help lead you in your platform selection and your posts.

If you answered “yes” to all of those queries, you have an even bigger job on your hands.

Alas, social media success does not operate on a “just add water” approach. Social media — and engaging your followers — requires your attention every day.

Although social media platforms themselves are free, you will find yourself investing in social media in other ways: investing your time if you are the one managing your account(s), or investing in wages if you hire someone else.

And it is no small project: The social media manager will schedule posts for optimal times, write blog entries, add photos for behind-the-scenes looks, answer questions and provide customer service, reveal special promotions, keep followers abreast of news, research praise and criticism, build the customer base, and even seek out stories and angles. Your social media manager (or you!) might use a smartphone to do all of this on the go.

The social media manager doesn’t have to be on her own island, either. Harvard Business Review stresses embracing top-down social media pursuits, encouraging CEOs to take to the networks to interact with and relate to customers, suppliers, and even employees, regardless of company size.

Social media means being connected, engaged, tethered — but not tied down or drowning. 

Warm up on the diving board before you jump, and then make your splash.

Facebook: Mandatory marketing? Apparently not ...

With all the buzz around social media, we found a refreshing blog by a marketing company that quit Facebook.  What?  Quit Facebook? A marketing firm? That’s right – they quit Facebook, despite all the pundits encouraging companies to use any and all social media platforms.

Sisarina is a marketing firm empowering small businesses and nonprofit organizations.  (Hmmm…sounds like Ideen…perhaps that’s why we like them so much…) 

Late last year, Sisarina made the decision to pull the plug on Facebook.  As they point out, and we agree, this medium works best for B2C (business to consumer) companies that have products they can give away for free.  If you’re in a services industry or B2B (business-to-business), it may not be wise for you to invest your precious marketing time on Facebook.  

First, establish clear goals for your social media marketing activities.  Second, decide where you’re going to invest your time and energy.  Your decisions may or may not include the latest, hottest social media platform...and that's okay.

At the end of Sisarina's blog explaining why they shut down their Facebook page, they published their social media plan for 2012. 

It is a total of 54 words.  That’s right – this marketing firm concisely states their approach to social media in less than 60 words.

We’re highlighting this decision and Sisarina’s ability to boil down a seemingly complex and complicated world of social media into a 54-word plan because it is a refreshing alternative to the hype we see from other marketing or PR firms.  Well done, Sisarina, well done! 

Social Media -- What's Hot Today -- 20 June 2012

Today, we’ve been tweeting with the academicians and private sector participants who were lucky enough to attend the 2012 Academic Summit on social media.  By following the #2012Academicsummit hash tag on Twitter, we were able to gather some of the gems from the conference, insert our opinions, and otherwise participate in the lively discussion.  And, we’re in Colorado.  Fantastic!

Day Two takes place tomorrow.  You can catch the live stream and enjoy the action at it unfolds.

And, you may ask, why is this important to you?  There’s an informative infographic published by the folks at socialmediatoday that shows how businesses are using social media to support their communications strategies.  Check it out, especially the six helpful hints at the end of the graphic.

Stay tuned ... Ideen is working on new research in the area of social media to help separate the myths from the facts.  

Twitter Personas: Should you mix personal and professional?

We’ve noticed that some folks are hesitant to jump into Twitter because they're not sure whether this medium is best for professional or personal sharing.  Is it okay to share that photo of your BFF at the martini bar with your professional contacts?  Does it make you more human or merely stupid?  Are your friends really interested in your latest research on small business use of LinkedIn compared to nonprofits?  (Trust me on this one – they’re not!)

If you find yourself paralyzed by the tension between personal and professional, you may want to consider setting up two Twitter accounts – one for professional tweets and one for personal tweets.  

From a personal perspective … lock down your personal account, so potential followers must request permission to follow you and read your tweets.  Sharing photos, providing a location, or sharing jokes stays in the right circles.

From a professional perspective … consider keeping your professional account open to all, so people can easily follow you.  Create professional insights, share fast breaking information in your field, complement colleagues.  Use your professional persona to build new relationships.  By keeping it all about your business, people know that your tweets won’t be wasting their time.  Your tweets will be read – your followers will grow.

Sounds like too much trouble?  Try using HootSuite or TweetDeck to manage your Twitter feeds.   They're cheap, simple, and help bring organization to the Twitter chaos.

While you're at it, follow us on Twitter -- @DrWitzig.

Ideen, LLC -- Westward Ho!

This week, Ideen moved its headquarters from historic Old Town Alexandria to the mountains of Colorado.  Located in the Cherry Creek North neighborhood of Denver, Ideen is bringing its mission-focused marketing techniques to the western states, while still serving our clients in the nation's capital. We're excited to be in this part of the country and know we'll be inspired by the glorious Rocky Mountains, the Colordo culture of pioneers, and the entrepreneurial spirits we see all around us.  Westward Ho!

Super Bowl 2012 Ad Smorgasbord Review

Ideen asked its talented Associate, Monica Witzig, to evaluate this year's Super Bowl ads from a twenty-something's perspective.  What follows are her critiques...Enjoy!

By Monica J. Witzig

The average cost of a 30-second ad during Super Bowl 2012 was $3.5 million. Are the impressions worth it?

The Catchy

Hyundai's employee sing-along to "Gonna Fly Now" (aka the Rocky theme): How do you resist running up and down your apartment complex's stairs? How do you not "DA DA DA, DA DA DA!" along with everyone?

Samsung Galaxy's "I Believe In A Thing Called Love": Darned if I can sing that high, either, but I know I'm among thousands who try — and enjoy doing so. JUST LISTEN TO THE RHYTHM OF MY HEART!

The Sexy and Sexist

David Beckham for H&M: I have to admit hitting the Web to figure out what exactly this was advertising; I was distracted. I was distracted by the skin, the muscles, the tattoos, the sex ... We finally had one that appealed to those of us who are not the stereotypical Super Bowl ad base — and I am grateful. I think it was for guys' skivvies. I guess. I am merely dubbing it a favorite and moving on.

Adriana Lima for ... everything else: OK, no, just two items — Teleflora and Kia. Back to the stereotypical Super Bowl ad base. Bye bye, equal time.

Justfab.com: Actually, let's assign the "maybe it's your first time and you're trying too hard" sub-bullet here. Orgasmic shoe shopping? I'm going out on a limb and asserting that few women who hear two other women heaving and oohing on the TV will enter the living room joyously to find out what's on. The shoes, by the way? Ugly.

GoDaddy: You knew what you'd see the second the logo appeared: The general sex and sexism that sells enough domain names to give us similar ads each year.

The Annoying

The Etrade baby: He must be stopped.

Dannon's Oikos yogurt: John Stamos, it was cute the first 472 times. Getting old. (Stamos or his "keep the yogurt playfully" ploy? Your call.)

Acura: Jerry Seinfeld's methods, although excessive for comedy, just made me wish he were given the 2015 car — and on top of that, Jay Leno swept in and made it even worse.

"Pepsi for all": Flashy and loud and all for a soft drink. I admit to getting a headache until the end, when Flavor Flav was in the dungeon. Worth our brain cells, though?

The Funny

Hyundai smokes a cheetah in a race: Man-screams and slapstick humor. I think we're done here.

VW's "two-fer" commercial: A dog working out is funny. Viewers almost even feel bad for the guy as he ignores morsels dropped to the kitchen floor. Felt a little hiccough as VW transitioned from its commercial-within-a-commercial to the cantina scene to remind everyone of last year's Vader kid. (He found your lack of faith disturbing.)

"Matthew's Day Off" for Honda's CR-V: This was among the most-anticipated ads this year — if not the most anticipated, sprinkling lines an entire generation has quoted for 25 years. "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

The Poignant

Clint Eastwood nails it with a message backed by the Dodge vehicle family: "How do we come from behind? ... This country can't be knocked out by one punch ... and our second half is about to begin."

The Obligatory Mentions

Audi's "daylight in a headlight": Over the vampire craze? Maybe Audi is, too: Kudos for killing 'em off. Too much glitter and too many fangs these days.

Coke: Coke and polar bears have had this relationship for decades. Is it cute, or do we think all that high-fructose corn syrup might end them?

Downy: The play on the nostalgic Mean Joe Green commercial ... didn't flop. In fact, it was very realistic in how rank I'm sure NFLers are after hustling, but I don't expect to talk about it on Monday.

Pinterest: Curation and Attribution

By Monica J. Witzig

In case you thought you had fully covered and traversed the Web with your profiles, your posts, your comments, your likes, your follows, your +1s, your thumbs-ups, your RTs, your friends, and your subscriptions, be prepared to take one more step.

Your community corkboard has reached the Internet: Pinterest. The invitation-only organization site launched in March 2010 and absolutely burst at the end of December 2011, according to analyses by Hitwise and Shareaholic. Pinterest boasts 260 million unique visitors each month and — put simply — owns YouTube, Reddit, Google+, and LinkedIn in referral traffic. (Does MySpace still exist? ... Do I hear laughter?)

At Ideen, we're hearing lots of buzz about Pininterest and here's why: Hitwise reports Pinterest appears to claim the clicks and pins of women (almost 60 percent of users) and those in the 25-44 years age group (again, almost 60 percent), but a quick search reveals "pinboards" are not limited to shoes, weddings, and DIY crafts for your toddlers. Web humor, social media, sports, gadgets, and Super Bowl cuisine all still have significant showings on Pinterest.

The Daily Dot runs down a list of ten of what it calls "superusers." Admittedly, lots of home design and weddings here, but users want those creative stairwells and sunflower champagne flutes.

One of the great things about Pinterest might be that posts are images (with some linked to further elaboration) — so you don't have to scroll through your Twitter and Facebook timelines to miss someone's rant. Don't want to see quiche? Don't have to.

But what — in an era of online piracy and the rush to yell "first!" for every instance, be it news organizations or your sister-in-law — should appeal most to creators and moderators alike is Pinterest's commitment to attribution. Even if you think the language is a little soft, Pinterest's etiquette listing cheers citing sources. (No. 1, by the way, is one your mother, your boss, your little brother, and the Rev. King all support, too: "Be nice.")

Worthy of the buzz from a marketing perspective?  Definitely...