Social Media Marketing 2-for-1, w/ Bonus Content: Social Media Marketing + Twitter Marketing Successfully for Beginners (Social Media Marketing, Social ... Twitter Revolution, Facebook, Youtube,)

A Beginner's Social Media Guide for Small Businesses - by Social Media Examiner -

This is an article that is written for small business owners, about small business owners and in a language that assumes you are not an IT expert, yet is is surprisingly complete. Some of the topics, but by now means all, are listed below:

Why Social Media for Small Businesses?

Do Your Homework

Coordinate Your Social Channels

Get Started, but Start Small

Listen and Share

Create Your Daily Plan

Boost Results With Social Advertising

If you want to understand what all the Buzz is about, and how to create your own buzz, read it now.

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10 Ways to Make Your Small Business Social Media

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Activities Rock - by the U.S. Small Business Association - one of the traditional enemies of Small Businesses is government. No matter what side of that argument you stand on, it should be clear that the U.S. Government would know more about what makes businesses tick than the average bear. This article is a collection of that wisdom, collected and presented in a way that is both useful and understandable to small business owners.

Not only do they give you 10 ways to make your social media ROCK, but they also have links to other useful information, including articles like: "8 Ways to Develop Online Content for Your Business – Even if You Hate to Write" and "Never Run Out of Blog Topic Ideas: Here are 36".

Two of the 10 ideas might strike a cord of fear or inquisitiveness:

Have an Authentic Voice
Don’t Overly Automate

One of the mistakes that small business make, according to business publications, is jumping at the chance to "automate" everything, and that leads directly to having a mechanical or inauthentic voice. The good news is, you can prevent it. The bad news is, people will notice if you do not.

Let the US Government teach you some tricks.

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Social Media Marketing 2-for-1, w/ Bonus Content: Social Media Marketing + Twitter Marketing Successfully for Beginners (Social Media Marketing, Social ... Twitter Revolution, Facebook, Youtube,)

Saturday, November 29, 2014

Using Tabs on Your Business Page - Saturday November 29, 2014

This is a complex, though easy to follow through on, subject. As such, this issue is about only 1 aspect, App (application) Tabs. In this case, collecting email address and sending membership action emails to prospects.

To give a clear example of how this information can be used,

I followed the examples above directly, and I will illustrate the results here for greater understanding.

To the Right, you can see the App, "membership offers" on our facebook page, @mccoysactionkarate.

We changed the picture from the Aweber Icon to a picture we made, and the words to "Free Email Membership Offers." The App itself is supplied by www.AWeber.com. We have chosen Name, Email and Phone number because when we ask for more, use declines, and when we ask for less, i.e. just email, no change occurs.

Once the subscribe, the start receiving email, 1 a week for twelve weeks, automatically, unless they unsubscribe or join. Aweber stores the information for our later use. If we get a phone number, we call.

Our consulting firm, United Professionals, designed the letters we send and our webdesigner, http://www.eswdg.com/ put this exact form on our marketing web site, www.MccoysActionKarate.com, but many organizations supply a similar service and app.

We purchased a domain name, www.FreeMAKOffers.info, as the video suggested, and pointed it to our email tab, also as suggested.

When you either click on the TAB marked by the yellow arrow or the tab shown above, you go to the page shown with the red arrows above.

The somewhat surprising information for me was that this alone would have nearly ZERO impact or utility. The video above suggested you register a URL just for this purpose, and then run facebook ads that drive or funnel people to this tab.

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A Book that offers more detail is listed below, and is VERY cost effective, for such a confusing topic.

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Using Instagram for Business - Thursday November 20, 2014

Share your Brand's Unique Point of View with Instagram - by Business Instagram - The home page for Instagram

Business has a few case studies about major corporations that use Instagram in advertising, and they document the 2 -3 times increase in results over just using facebook or other online advertisements. All of them integrate Facebook Ads with Instagram ads. The stories of these mega corporations are compelling reading.

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Getting Started - by Instagram -Business Instagram - This article starts like every other article about advertising. 1) Start With Clear goal, 2) Chose themes to tell a cohesive story, 3) Create High Quality Content. After that, however, it gets into the nitty gritty of how to actually use, set up, logo and function as a business with and within Instagram.

I have had an instagram account from the get go, however, never one we used for business. Today we started the process. To see what we are doing, so you can avoid our mistakes or let us know how awesome we are doing, visit instagram account http://instagram.com/mccoysactionkarate/. We are currently running a series on sport karate, trying to get more students involved.

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26 Tips for Using Instagram for Business - by

socialmediaexaminer.com - This article starts with some advise that will easily be ignored at your disadvantage. Point 1 is take some time to get acquainted with Instagram. Back in the day, before we stated teaching anyone how to write code or use a computer for business, we had them play games on them, just to get used to how to enter data, push keys, start it up and the like. If you skip this stage, your boat has already sunk. It then gets more and more detailed, so that this one article can set you up for business with Instagram in a day.

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Instagram Marketing for Beginners, Getting Real Followers: Insight from Successful Entrepreneurs is exactly what it sounds like. If you are already an instagram pro, go to the next book.

Instagram Marketing Mastery: The Ultimate Guide To Building Your Brand And Gaining Active Engaged Followers Harnessing The Power Of Instagram is more advanced for the Instagram King or Queen.

Friday, November 14, 2014

Facebook Ads - Friday November 14, 2014

Facebook Advertising - This Week's Social Media Scan :

Emerging Entrepreneur Nick Unsworth: How To Market On

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Facebook Like A Pro - a Forbes Article by Cheryl Conner: in essense, this is a book review and case study of Nick Unsworth that is about Facebook Marketing. The Book, The Book On Facebook Marketing: To Help You Set Your Business & Life on Fire, an e-book, just happens to be free Today. I don't know for how long, so reading this wrap up the day its published might help in the future, if it is no longer free.

I suggest you "buy" the free book, then read the article. Forbes has been bringing it my entire career in sales, and it does not fail you now.

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How to Create Successful Facebook News Feed Ads - by

socialmediaexaminer.com - This is a soup to nuts article for facebook news feed ads, and begins by asking "would your business even benefit from Facebook ads," then goes on to explain the different types of ads.

It show you how to do every step of ad creation, with screen shots so there can be little confusion. It even tells you how to track the ads to see if they need to be changed or stopped. Very good information.

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10 Quick Steps to Creating a Facebook d Campaign by

entrepreneur.com - Jonathan Blum and Alex Dalenberg - This is reminsesant of the old "Everything you needed to know for the complete idiot" type of article, in that it not only shows the screen shot of how to do a small business Facebook ad, but it explains it in a way that does not require you to be the expert from a fortune 500 company, just the expert in your own business. Very easy to understand, do and make work.

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A step by step guide of Facebook advertising by someone who actually has made it work, and documents that in this book.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Using Facebook for Business - Wednesday November 4, 2014

This Week's Social Media Scan :

5 things your business needs to consider before starting a Facebook Page from InsideFacebook.com: This article is good advice if you are planing a Facebook business page or if you would like to start running a professional and productive one. It tells you why you want a business page, what to do with it and it even tells you which metrics to watch and how to watch them. Very informative.

10 tips to creating engaging Page posts by Facebook - First

off, when I was studying physics in undergraduate school, we had the opportunity to go to a lecture by Dr. Philip Morrison from MIT, about Oak Ridge and the Manhattan Project in NM. I studied the math, had an Oak Ridge scientist as my advisor and professor, and loved nuclear physics, but having the opportunity to learn from one of the physicist who was actually part of the original project, did the original math and was there and part of the team when it was finally built could not be replaced by any secondary or tertiary source. This article is BY FACEBOOK, so you can literally take it to the bank. If you need more to read this one, then this article tells you how to create engaging copy and to create 2 way conversations along with 8 other easy to do methods of making your facebook page awesome.

Facebook for Business by Facebook - Another article from
facebook about how to use facebook for your business. This

Click Picture to Read More

one give case studies and best practices from several large corporations, giving you some clear trails already made for you to follow. This particular one is about finding customers and increasing sales.

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Discover how to kick start your business with facebook.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Event Marketing on Social Media - Wednesday October 29, 2014

This Week's Social Media Scan :

Event Marketing 2.0 How to Boost Attendance Through Social Media from Cvent, On-line Event Registration: This paper includes how to use LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to advertise and increase event registration, as well as integration with a website for the event. Topics like "Crafting an Event Social Media Strategy," "Social Media-tize your event registration website," and how to "Build a Social Infrastructure for Your Event." Good information.

15 Social Media Tips for Successful Event Marketing by

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Grassfed: This is pretty much a straight forward how to do list of things you should be doing or considering in planning and marketing your events and using Social Media, including: Event Registration Tracking, Proper use of hashtags, event tease and photographers. Much of this I already knew but have never looked at it as a package before. Eye opening, if you are open to suggestion and change.

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How to Use Social Media to Promote an Event - This article comes complete with a video for you visual types an even covers non-event topics like how to draw people to you facebook fan page again and again. It has a primer on 4 Ways to Maximize Your Event with Social Media and 10 Ways to Use Social Media to Promote your event. Worth reading and bookmarking.

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Additional resources for Social Media Marketing are legion, however, I have always found the straight up do this variety of xxxxxx for Dummies to be one of the straight lines to an actionable plan. I recommend this book.

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Distributing Coupons with Social Media - Saturday October 25, 2014

This Week's Social Media Scan :

Online Coupons 101: How and Why to Use Online Coupons to Grow Your Local Business from Local Vox: With subject

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like "Online Coupons Make Customers Happy, Science Prove It" and "Go Forth and Coupon," this online treatment of Coupon Marketing in Social Media is pretty much a soup to nuts list of how to for small business. For me, the outstanding take away was "Studies show that there is a vast improvement in effectiveness when you offer at least 20% off. In the age of Groupons, less than that is more easily dismissed. Customers also like definitive amounts they can value, like $5, $10 or $20 off. They can understand those offers because they have concrete value."

Using Social Media Coupons and Offers to Expand Your Customer Base from the UPS Store. This is a straight

Click Picture to Read Article

up in your face, Do This type of article, where they give 7 or 8 really good ideas and how to do them in a very short and easy to read format. The major take away, among many, was: By hosting a coupon campaign directly on your social media pages, you will be driving traffic away from competitors and to your own brand.

5 Things to Look for in Social-Media Analytics - from

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Entrepreneur Magazine deals with the importance of knowing your market and tracking results within social media. Though it is basically just a survey article that requires more research, the take away for me was immediate and direct: "Not only do they understand their brand, customers and fans alike, they also completely understand how to translate that into engaging social media. They understand that unless the content grabs the audience’s immediate attention, they are just one click away from being ignored," and
"Context is everything."

This weeks Social Media recommended Product:

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Proper Use of Hashtags in Social Media - Wednesday October 15, 2014

This Week:

How To Properly Use Hashtags In Your Social Media Marketing: A basic primer on Yahoo, including why hashtags exist, how to use them, how to misuse them, how to avoid being seen as a spammer (which most small business are seen as) and which platforms support hash tags.

How to Use Hashtags in Your Social Media Marketing from

3 Key Hashtag Strategies: How to Market your Business &

Constant Contact: Facebook added support for hastags in 2013, and according to this article, "Whether you like them or not, hashtags are a key part of social media marketing. In fact, 71 percent of people on social media use hashtags." In other words, using hastags will increase your contact with 3/4 of the users of facebook and twitter.

Content - The 3 key marketing strategies discussed in this article are: brand and campaign specific, trending and content. This is article has a fair amount of detail and is a how to article as well.

Why Companies Should Adopt Hashtag Marketing - This

article comes from hashtags.org and not only tells you why you NEED to use them, but includes Buzz Creation and affordable content on social media for small business, with plenty of hyperlinks to more information and detail.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Week September 28 - October 4, 2014

This week:

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1) 4 Free Social Media Listening Tools Every Small Business Should Be Using: This blog tells you how to listen to Social Media, and turn the noise into productive feed back for your business. We actually use some of the tools it mentions already, so not only did I learn from this article, I also sharpened some skills.

2) Digital Sparks Marketing 7 KILLER TIPS FOR SOCIAL MEDIA FOR SMALL BUSINESS YOU SHOULD KNOW -

This article list 7 areas all business should already be using social media for, among them Consumer Education and Brand Marketing. Brand Marketing is generally only available to mega corporations, so that line alone is worthy of investigation.

3) 4 Common Community Management Myths Debunked -

4) Watch for these Small Business Social Media Marketing

what building a online social community is, and 4 things that it is not. This article flies in the face of "common knowledge," and can save you some time and dollars.