YouTube Marketing for Small Business - Issue 11

If your first thought is, "Everyone is using YouTube," then this

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article is for you.  "An idiot's Guide to Using YouTube" states that 99% of businesses are NOT using YouTube.  It's always good to start riding the wave when you are the only one on it, long before it crashes into the shore. Most of us know that any action is better than no action.  The example I most often use is the one where a child is standing in the middle of a road, and hears his mother yell, "Car." If he does nothing, just looking at the car, he gets flattened where he stand.  If he runs left, right or backward, he at least has a chance.  Using YouTube is like that this same article suggests.  Don't let your ignorance or fear of making a video get in your way.  Just Do It.

Wishpond in it's article titled "12 Tips for Using YouTube" suggests that not only should you make a video, but you should include IN THE VIDEO and the description, a Call To Action.  Calls to action can be to subscribe to your channel, giving you access to them over and over again, calling your business or visiting your website or facebook page that will collect their contact information.  The go on to remind you to ALWAYS ANSWER COMMENTS.  Dialog is good for your video.  The old adage, good news, bad news; it does not matter.  They all bring attention to your Chanel.

Finally, there is the step by step flow chart found in "The Small Business Guide to YouTube."  This is s step by step guide bringing you from Getting a Youtube account to advanced marketing, simply by answering Yes or No questions.  I would start here.

One of our first YouTube ads that really helped was to a Social Event at our karate school.  We made it with AfterEffect from Adobe.  This is it.

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Products that Can Help:

YouTube Video Marketing Secrets Revealed: The Beginners Guide to Online Video Marketing

Social Media Marketing Plan for Small Business - Issue 10

Stellar Evolution - click to Read

When I started studying stellar physics back in undergraduate school, I distinctly remember looking at the math involved, partial differential equations, and thinking to myself, "You're screwed."  I knew calculus and differential equations but even the notations involved in partial differential equations looked foreign.  I was out of my element and I knew it.  I had no idea where to start, how to start or even if I could start. That feeling that in the movie the Replacement Players was expressed as "Quick Sand," where you knew you were sinking and even trying to save yourself, accelerated the rate that you were sinking.

As it turns out, it wasn't the death of me.  I had to pick a point, any point, and just move forward.  For me, that point was admitting I was clueless and asking for help.  2 days later, I was out of confusion and into the interior of stars. Social Media Marketing Plans felt like that for me too, and once again, I was wrong.  

At the end of this article, I list two web resources from which I drew this advice, and I suggest you go there for more information and clarification if you like what you read and want to do it.
1) Who are you trying to reach? - For example, in American Express Open forum, I read, "Women between the ages of 18 and 29 comprise Facebook’s primary audience, for instance, while LinkedIn’s users are predominantly males with graduate-level education. Find out where your target customers are networking online." If you are using Linkedin, and you're selling books on why education is a waste of time, you might want to rethink your strategy. 

1a) Sit down and write down who you are trying to reach, and why, then go after the network or networks that touch that demographic. The Pew Research Internet Project list the demographics of most of the major Social Media networks. Start there.

1b) Now make sure that your profiles are completely filled out. It's hard to find you if your information is missing. Buffer Social suggests that you keep your pictures consistent with your business and each other across platforms and that you make sure they are sized correctly. "You can consult a social media image size chart that will show you the exact breakdown of dimensions for each photo on each network."

2) Your USP, or unique selling proposition, needs to be well in hand.  Greg Silva, the CEO of United Professionals, retaught us this vital concept 20 years ago when we couldn't answer the question, "What Makes You Different than Everybody Else?"

Once you know, and can be written down, what makes you unique, you can begin to write social media posts that talk about your "USP," and even know what products you should sell or discount to stay consistent with your USP.

3) What's Your Flavor? You need to know your company's personality, Buffer Social suggest, by asking questions like "If your brand was a person, what kind of personality would it have?

Once you know what personality you are going to project, you company's flavor, be consistent in all of your posts. Don't let emotions, attitudes or other people or companies drag you out of your personality.  Nobody likes false people or companies.

4) Start slow, but START NOW.

Finally, we suggest something like Hootsuite.com to help you organize your posts.  Its easy, inexpensive, and organizes your own content the way you want it.  One way or the other, however, start.

The 2 Awesome sites we borrowed most of this from are:

American Express & Buffer Social.  Click their name here, and read their take on a social media marketing plan.

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Products that Can Help:

How to Create Your "Unique Selling Proposition" (USP)

Instagram for Small Business - Driving Sales

Click Picture to read Article

Issue 10 - 12/12/2014

Small businesses use Instagram to drive sales - from Crain's Detroit Businesses - AP This article starts out with a case study of a small Hair Salon and how the owner drives sales to her business just by posting picture of what she has done. The picture to the right is an example. One single photo generated $10,000 in sales. Since many are relying on ROI, the investment in times is minutes, the return 10K. Not Too Shabby.

The main take aways for our business use were:

• Right now instagram does not have a way to pay to boost readership of your posts, though they are working on it. However, much good results have occurred by paying bloggers or celebrities to post you pictures linked to you website or account. 
• There are less expensive ways to promote use. One is to scan Instagram for use. Say, you post everything with #MAK, and ask your clients too. Then you link back to their hastags. 
• Hashtag everything! 
• Pick a number of photo's you are going to post a day, compete with hashtag, keeping it consistent. One business in the article post 6 a day. 
• Post a photo for a discount campaign. One business in this article posted a product discount for mother's day. Boom! 
• Consistent use and # tag use builds your brand over time. 

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Products Than Can Help

Social Media Marketing 2-for-1, w/ Bonus Instagram Rockstar: Step-by-step Guide To Engage All Followers Available For Your Niche And Turn Them Into Raving Fans - Free at the time of this post

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

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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

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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.

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

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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:

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

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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

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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.

3 Key Hashtag Strategies: How to Market your Business &

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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

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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.

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 -

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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 -

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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.

4) Watch for these Small Business Social Media Marketing

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Killers - another Digital Spark Media article that pointed out some things I never would have know, like a suggestion that we, as small business, try to do everything and be everywhere, and why that is a mistake for social media.