Do you do any of the following?

• Receive incoming calls/enquiries every day
• Employ someone to make cold calls to promote your business
• Network regularly
• Entertain clients

Social Media allows you to do all of the above but in a more efficient manner, every day, globally without leaving your office.  By being part of social media you can help to:-

• Build your brand
• Your image
• Your reputation

With over millions of users you won’t find a larger audience.  Ask yourself – can you afford not to be involved?

If you need any help or guidance as to how to get started with your Social Media give me a ring on 01672 569092.

I am forever being asked as to which marketing strategy will lead to better sales and having been in business for more years than I care to remember my bulk standard reply is to use as many marketing tactics as you can and to measure the results with perspective having given heed to your products/services and your target customer base.

So what does this mean in reality and where do you start?

Start with your product and service. Does demand truly exist? Are you sure? Have you done your research? Can you prove it to yourself?  OK so you think you can prove a demand but then comes the next challenge – how do you stand out from the crowd?

If yours is a niche product or service then you might not have much competition but also absolute demand will be lower. Contrast this to commodity products/services where there are many sellers chasing a small slice of a crowded market and it becomes very difficult to be noticed and attract new clients, unless you are constantly “on the go” and on your toes.

Social Media is a way of creating noise and if done right it will create opportunities to close business deals if your product and service is right. If your price/product/service is wrong then, whatever your activity level, conversion will be poor.

So this now leads on to knowing your target market and where and how they choose to shop your services/products and this is changing.

In parts of our business Social Media is useless because our target audience at present do not use Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin (the holy trinity of Social Networking) and we have to market to them differently.  However, SM enables us to have international reach far beyond the scale of our operations and has enabled us to find candidates for Saudi Arabia and Australia and on one occasion a Polish girl living in Denmark applied for a position in the UK via Twitter.

The inspiration for this blog entry is a story of a tweet picked up by Lesley-Anne of On The Go and referred to me for a local operation where I actually knew one of the non-executive directors but was oblivious to the opportunity. On checking it out I was sent a Facebook URL to the guy’s profile, saw he was under 35 and it clicked – here is a young decision maker, in a modern business, using today’s technology to reach out to the market place. There is no doubt this will increase over time.

As for SM strategy we’ve been at it longer than most. Initially we struggled but went back to the drawing board and redesigned our strategy which is a mix of little and often, a bit of humour, informational tips and links to articles to drive traffic towards our websites. SM is and will remain part of our marketing strategy but will create no opportunities unless our buyers want our services in the first place.

SM is a business tool, amongst others, in you marketing golf bag- use it wisely, well and sparingly. If you need to repeat messages/themes, then at least try and use a variety of words and to amuse your audience as at the end of the day SM is P to P (people to people) whether you are B2C or B2B and all those other awful acronyms used in modern marketing.

The market has changed. We need to think backwards from the future not forward from the past.

I have two teenage daughters who need to be surgically separated from “facebook and fone”.  Their generation will be the decision makers of tomorrow and  for them to be communicated with via social media you’d better get involved now while the SM market is young, immature and forgiving.

Adapt or die.

Having just read this article  Mistakes Marketers Make with Tracking Social Media it is frustrating to see that if anyone who clicks on a link you’ve posted from a desktop app, such as TweetDeck or HootSuite, or from a mobile device, which it’s highly probable most people will, the links will show up in Google Analytics as direct traffic!

However, you will be pleased to know that if you follow the guidelines in this article there is a way round it.  It will take time but it will certainly help give a clearer picture in the future of how your social media is working.

I have made the decision to concentrate my energy and time on Social Media.   I believe in everything it stands for, it’s not going to go away and will only progress to bigger and better things.  I enjoy providing a service to businesses that simply don’t have the time to concentrate on Social Media. Therefore in December On The Go VA Services became On The Go Social Media Services.

This does not mean I won’t be continuing with the VA services I provide to my existing clients however it does mean I will be focusing all future business towards Social Media.  Here’s to new beginnings for 2011.

Have a wonderful festive season and enjoy the video below, a compilation of the businesses I have worked with this year and the people who have supported On The Go during 2010.

Best wishes

Surprising isn’t it that so many companies have websites but omit the most crucial information.

Check your website and make sure that the following are in place:-

• Telephone number is displayed clearly – best position top right hand corner, in my opinion, it’s where I always look first.
• Have a separate tab on your site “Contact” which will have a pre-set email form where they can send you a message direct
• If you don’t have this and only show your email address then make sure that is hyper linked
• Ensure your Social Media Links actually link to the relevant sites

As I say, it might be common place for a lot of us but there are a lot of sites out there that just don’t want to be contacted – amazing!  Why make it impossible for your prospective clients to contact you?  What will they do?  They’ll move on to the next provider they find on Google search.  Now that is a missed opportunity.

Debra Ellis wrote about this recently too.  Note:  If you are not already registered on The Social Customer you will need to sign up to read the report – well worth it.

Take a moment now and check your website is working for you.

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It was good to chat to you this morning Nigel – I didn’t realise I was going to be featured in your blog!  MYSMB appears to have got a few people in a spin judging by the various comments on blogs and social networks.  I will reiterate.  Although I have been involved in social media for over two years (thank you for the compliment – I think she was proficient in the first place!) as with anything to do with technology changes happen at an alarming rate. We are learning all the time, different ways to enhance what we already know, the changes we need to make, what we adapt and what we drop.  The training modules within MYSMB are excellent and I have gleaned information that may well be out there for free as Mike McGrail clearly states, I just hadn’t found it.

I believe this needs to be put in perspective.  MYSMB is a job opportunity that will provide an income for those keen to learn, for others it will enhance a service they already provide (as in my case) and unfortunately for the remainder who don’t realise they have actually got to work at it the opportunity will pass they by.

I don’t believe there are any experts in Social Media, there are people who have become involved originally through fascination, possibly intrigue as to how global it is,  realise they have a talent for it and eventually make it part of their business.  Some people are better at it than others but that doesn’t make them an expert.  Society will decide for themselves who they want to work with and who they want to represent them.  Where Social Media representatives, for another word, will come to the fore is how they produce the ever evasive ROI for their client.  We are a nation clamouring statistics.  Anyhow that is another comment for another blog no doubt.

Just to confirm I did pay for the branding package which will be integrated with my existing site, under development as I type my response.  Each person will choose how they want their site to look and no doubt will update it frequently as we do with our own sites so the few you have earmarked in your blog may well be working on them now.

MYSMB has provided me with the relevant information and support I expected it to.  It will give other people the opportunity to run their own business however large or small they want it to be and who are we to deny anyone that.  Should existing Social Media experts be concerned, well that will depend on how confident they are themselves on the packages and services they provide now.  As someone who provides this service already I wish every new MYSMB person lots of luck with their new venture.  I will be looking to see how they are marketing their business, just as I do with Virtual Assistants, competition is healthy.  Do I feel threatened, no.  It’s a very large world and I firmly believe there is room for everyone.  MYSMB is no different to any other business; it provides a profession and a service to the business community and each and every one of us has the right to choose which provider we use to fulfil that service.

As you rightly point out I am a member of Nigel Botterill’s Entrepreneur Circle and I appreciate his leadership.  As we discussed on the phone we all find someone we “follow”, “admire” and listen to – Nigel happens to be one along with quite a few others whose knowledge in their individual fields I respect highly.

Take this week for example. During the week two new opportunities were presented to me, one verbally and one by email, both of which I took time to ponder over.

Opportunity 1 – Nigel Botterill’s Entrepreneurs Circle

I received an e-mail which encouraged me to listen to a webinar entitled “18 Secrets of Business Success”. It was an hour long so I made sure I put the time aside. One hour later I had gathered a load of free (yes free) information that I could implement for my business. Now Nigel is a bit like the Marmite factor – some love him and some don’t. That’s fine, we are all entitled to our opinion. For me I found him refreshingly honest and down to earth. If you have an hour to spare and would like to have access to some amazing down to earth business facts then why not listen to the webinar here. and see what you think.

Opportunity 2 – David Webb – Investment Properties.

I first met David of makemoneygofurther nearly two years ago through 4Networking. Although there was no immediate business synergy over a period of 18months, and numerous cooked breakfasts, I started to help David with his client database. This led on to me creating his social media streaming and recently producing a video with regards to the investment properties and a personal video for his website.

So why, you might ask, am I highlighting these two opportunities? It’s because we all get emails arriving in our inbox day in day out and 90% of them are not relevant to what we are looking for at that particular time. However, by not opening the email you will never know what it contained or whether it was relevant to you in your present situation. It’s very easy to just “delete” because you haven’t got the time to read it but in doing so – what might you be missing?

As a networker I have met hundreds of people all who have my details – let’s face it we readily hand out our business cards when we attend networking events in the hope that someone will contact us – so why should we not expect to receive emails from them? Just because you may not have done any work for them in the past does not mean to say you won’t in the future. Likewise you may not need their services yet but you just may at sometime round the corner.

Each day I receive upwards of 20/30 emails highlighting Social Media, Email Newsletters, CRM, Coaching etc. Each one gets opened and read, perhaps not on the day it was originally received, but it does eventually. Admittedly most of them then get deleted but I am very conscious that sometimes I might be deleting something of relevance. If, for example, I had deleted the above two opportunities I would have missed out on worthwhile information relevant to me at this present moment.

I accept that everyone has their own opinions but what I find unacceptable is terseness, rudeness and lack of respect. By using services I supply as a moderator I often need to bring to people’s attention opportunities that are available through mail merge or email campaigns. The above two opportunities are no exception. The majority of people who were sent the information read and listened which was great. However, I also received some emails back that were – well to be honest -just rude. But hey ho – I’m a grown up, I’ve learned to get tough and to accept the insults, put downs and rejections.

The point of this blog? Simply this – be respectful. If you network regularly then expect to receive emails on a daily basis. If the information contained in the email is of no interest then just delete it or reply and ask to be deleted from the mailing list. If you are going to respond then take a few moments to think about what you are going to say before firing off a one-liner that probably bears the frustrations of your day rather than having any relevance to the initial email.

Email etiquette is as important as face-to-face etiquette and there is no excuse for rudeness. Good networkers try to help each other and to share ideas. And even if the ideas are of no interest then a polite ‘Thanks anyway’ is better than discourtesy. Nobody can predict where the next potential opportunity can lead to – and by sharing ideas we might not only grow our businesses – we will also grow as individuals.

I spend a lot of time both personally and as a service to my clients on Social Media sites interacting, learning, gaining useful information and soaking up as much knowledge as I can.  Each day I come across new sites, applications and news that I otherwise probably wouldn’t find.

So my question to you is this: Do you SHAG? i.e. Do you SHARE your knowledge? Just because you might think something is common knowledge I can assure you that there will be plenty of people who don’t know about what you do, the programmes you use that they might benefit from or expertise that you excel at that could help someone else.  My advice is that you should make a point of sharing at least one piece of information each day.

Do you HANG OUT on social sites at least once a day (at a minimum)? You should, because you will make on-line friends, pick up useful tips and find services that may be of use to you.

Also, make sure you have an ATTITUDE. Don’t be afraid to speak your mind, albeit in the nicest possible way.  Call me a prude if you want but personally I don’t like foul language or confrontation because I don’t think it benefits anyone. But having an attitude whereby you assist and encourage people can only be a good thing for everyone.

Finally GOSSIP – we all do it. Did you hear about “X”? How fantastic it was that “X” has secured a client – so grateful to “X” for their insight into “X” – as well as the odd bit of celebrity news that may be causing a stir!

So here’s the bottom line…

By sharing your knowledge with others not only does it help you qualify your own expertise but it helps other people too.

By hanging out and having an online presence on a daily basis means you are “open” for discussion – whether for business or for exchanging ideas.

By having the right attitude means you will become known for ‘meaning what you say’ and ‘saying what you mean’!

By taking part in Gossip means you are talking about someone or something – and that’s real life.  And gossip doesn’t have to be a bad or negative thing – someone talking about your business, or you personally, gives you and your business credibility.

So go on – I dare you! SHAG daily and enjoy!