ThinkViral - Online Business Development Services of Kansas City
Online Business Development Services of Kansas City
The 3 pillars of a successful membership site include:
1) Great Content
This is what draws people in. If you don’t have great content, then why would someone want to join?
2) Great Marketing
If you don’t know how to showcase and market your content, how will people ever know about
your site? How are you converting them into paying members?
3) Great Community
Your members are the ones keeping the membership alive. Content brings them in but a great community is what keeps them coming back.
Not having enough time to manage all the profiles, groups and ongoing conversations you have online is one of the biggest complaints people have. The key to adding yet another “to do” on your already long list is in how you think about what you’re doing online. You are NOT there to market and advertise. You are there to talk to people.
Spending time in Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook or any of the other online places should not be thrown into the “If I have time” category. They are EVENTS. If you want them to work for you, you have to see your online activity the same as you would a Chamber event, a BNI meeting, an Accelerent breakfast, or any of the other big things you attend that you deem “important” on your calendar.
Social networking IS an event. You are engaging in the same behaviors as you would at a live event, you are just doing it online instead. Talking to people, introducing people, sharing business stories, ….this is what you do at events and it’s the same thing you do online – if you’re doing it right.
Too many people look at online activities as marketing and advertising and fail to see the human networking side of it. Why are you scheduled to go to that next Chamber event? To talk to people, right? HELLO! What do you think you can do online? If you block out two hours a week to go to your online “event” and talk to people, it’s the same thing as attending a live event that lasts two hours. And it’s impossible to get in front of all the people that will be at the live event. When you post in a group, you have the opportunity to get in front of thousands of people every single week. Plus, networking online can make your live events more productive because more people will know who you are.
Think about how many business cards you are handing out at live events. Why can’t those be introductions to your sell sheets (profiles) online? What do people do with your business card anyway? They go ONLINE and send you the canned email the next day that says, “Hey great meeting you last night. Want to get together for coffee so I can learn more about your business?” They take it ONLINE anyway!
You will help yourself most if you stop thinking of online activities as marketing and advertising and schedule it on your calendar as if it were a two hour weekly networking event. Set the timer so you don’t get sucked in…just as you check your watch to get out of the live event on time! Change how you see social networking online and you will experience less stress and more success. It really does open big doors.
1) Make it Publicly Known That You Take Care of Your Customers
Almost all of our customers come from existing customers. When you take care of your customers, they become your “free” salespeople. Praise them online, post their successes, offer to showcase their testimonials in your email newsletters, etc. There are so many ways to showcase your customers and the more you do it, the more they will refer you.
2) Form Relationships with Established Businesses
If you don’t have an audience, find a company that sells something different to your same demographic and start bonding. They are already working with your existing customer base so no need to go off to events on your own where you don’t know anyone. Use Linkedin to look up reputable companies that sell to your demographic and see if you’re already connected to someone there. If you aren’t connected to anyone, someone you know probably is. Using Linkedin is really the easiest way to partner with established companies.
3) Become the Expert
Lots of opportunities come to “experts.” So how do you get that status? It’s not as hard as you think. There’s no better way to showcase your expertise than creating content others can read, review, and learn from. A blog requires an on-going commitment so if you don’t have time to blog, write an occasional article for someone who does or submit it to an industry publication. Use Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter to demonstrate your expertise with short insights, tid-bits and links to relevant articles in your field. (Make sure to build up your fan base by engaging with other Twitter users through following them, retweeting their messages, and making insightful comments about their posts.)
4) Stop Pitching
Instead of worrying about selling your wares all the time, think about teaching instead. When you post out helpful resources and information that helps your customers, you become a trusted resource rather than a salesperson. You don’t need to act like you need the business because you are too busy providing resources and “teaching” people how to solve their problems. (hopefully with your solution!) This goes back to being the expert. Experts teach. They do not need to pitch.
5) Help Others Get More Customers
One of the most effective ways to get more customers is to help other business people get customers for themselves. An introduction to the right person can go a long way and if you introduce new business to someone, especially several times, they feel compelled to return the favor by giving you a few referrals too. If you refer business to five people, you now have five “free” salespeople. It works out nicely if you can’t afford to hire a sales staff!
Do you have any great ways of getting customers we should know about? Please share!
Shocked by the image? This picture could have come from someone working at your company if you do not have a social media policy in place. If you set no parameters around what employees can and can”t do, it’s a free for all when they go online to represent your company. Images just like this can have your company name stamped all over them.
Time to get a handle on your brand and create a social media policy.
In most policies and procedures, we document what staff should do in certain situations: “If this happens, do that.” For social media, there is no way to know exactly what situations may arise – or in many cases – how staff should best handle them. Each social media network and each relationship is unique and the social media environment changes daily.
The risks are uncertain. The courts are in the process of interpreting laws in regards to social media as this is written. Until that interpretation process is mature – and this will take years – (especially for financial organizations!) many companies operate without definitive guidance.
Here are a few issues that could arise if you do NOT have a policy in place:
If you do not currently have a policy, it’s advisable to at least put a document together that includes two critical sections:
(1) Social Media Guidelines: This section should be one or two pages that summarizes how your organization can be more effective at using social media. It should NOT be about control, but more on how to use the tools effectively. It SHOULD lay out parameters around organizational and personal use. There should also be some guidelines around employees who leave the company.
(2) Social Media Manual: This section refers to your social media plan, includes best practices on using social media with specific examples. Many organizations use it as part of their training.
It may be helpful to look at what other organizations are doing and pick out the elements relevant to your company. Click Here for 57 examples of policies of all kinds!
No need to reinvent the wheel. Borrow from other policies! Here’s a good self starter tool that walks you though the general process of what to include: Social Media Policy Tool
**I want to add that writing your own policy is NOT recommended. This is a legal document so you should seek help in drafting all the details. HR Haven can be a GREAT resource for anyone navigating employee handbooks and social media policies. They draft these for companies all the time.
Hope this helps!
Sources:
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com
http://www.bethkanter.org
http://www.financialmarketingmax.com
http://socialmediagovernance.com
Are you in search of that superstar producer who can knock out 70 cold calls a day? What do you think the conversion rate of a cold call is? Compare that to someone sharing an impactful quote you posted on your Linkedin company profile. If they have a robust network of active business people, it’s possible that ten of those people will also be impacted by the same post and feel compelled to “repost” or share it. Those are called free salespeople.
Traditional “hunter” salespeople who are required to make 70 dials a day to keep their numbers up are a dying breed. Smart companies know to hire account managers who bring active online networks with them. Hiring one salesperson with an active network translates into ten or twenty free salespeople that come with him/her on the job.
You cannot share a cold call. You cannot forward a cold call. You are lucky if you can get passed the gatekeeper, which is why it’s called “cold.” A salesperson with a robust network has the ability to send out a quick “video cold call” to his entire email list. If I’m the recipient, I can choose when I want to watch the video (giving it a higher chance of being watched) and if I’m not the appropriate target, I can forward it to the correct person who can make this decision. One video cold call can be spread like wild fire through one salesperson’s social network – if they came with one in tact.
Smart companies are choosing to hire highly networked individuals rather than traditional “hunters” because it yields a better result. If you’re in the market for new salespeople this year, make sure you check out their online presence before you make the hire. All the skill assessments in the world won’t tell you how highly networked your candidate may be and someone’s online reputation can help or hurt your brand right from the start.
Tip: Check every potential candidate out on Linkedin. If they are not there, that tells you something. If they are there, what’s your first impression of their network? It will be the same impression others get when they see this person at your company.
Tip 2: Google the person’s name in quotations. Ex: “Anne Cull” When you put the name in quotes, it tells Google to find every possible thing online having to do with this grouping of first/last name only. If nothing comes up, don’t immediately let out a sigh of relief. No presence also means this person may only understand traditional cold calling. You should see that they’ve at least set up a social network profile somewhere. Ask questions about their network. It’s not only who they know but who knows them that counts. The more people know and trust the person you want to hire, the more free salespeople you get in the long run.
Happy Hiring!
It’s the end of the year. Most of us are reviewing (or should be reviewing) our business development efforts in 2011 to see what worked, what didn’t, what should be changed, etc. As you move into 2012, think about how your website has helped, or hurt, your business development efforts. Why do you even have it? What is it intended to do for you? Is it bringing you business in some way or is it just a pretty picture of your company and how great you are?
If you want new customers next year, you have to think like new customers. If they get to your website and it’s all about how great you are, there’s nothing in it for them. They don’t care about you yet. They don’t care until they actually go to buy from you. Until that point, it’s about them.
Look at your language. Ignore the bells and whistles of colorful graphics – what is your site saying to your customers? Why do they care? If they can’t relate to something immediately, they’ll hit the back button. People don’t convert because they liked the pretty pictures on your site. They convert because of the emotion they felt when they connected with something you SAID on your site. A basic 3 page website can offer more to people than a huge multi page – multi color hollywood show. And it shouldn’t cost you a fortune to change your language. Actually, you should be able to do this yourself. It doesn’t require IT knowledge.
Beyond your website, also think about WHERE your customers are. They probably aren’t on your site. They are likely hanging out where their friends, coworkers and family members are – on Facebook, YouTube, Linkedin, and Twitter. Some businesses experience the majority of new business entry from online referrals in social networks…..Not on your website as many would believe. Unless you have an ecommerce site, active blog site, or some other type of educational or entertainment based website, …or of course porn, most people would rather stay where they are in their social network than go over to your site. Even when they do go over to your site, they click back to the social network they were in as soon as they’ve viewed enough. Make your site social and speak directly to them. Think about that as you go back and read the language currently on your site. That’s who is speaking to your customers.
1. Inform and Sell – (Infomercial) – shows the viewer how to do something useful, functioning as a teaser for additional products or services you sell.
2. Educate and Sell – How-to video shows the viewer how to do something useful. Ex. If you own a tire store, create a video showing how to check tire pressure or change a flat.
3. Entertain and Sell – Entertainment videos usually show up at the top of YouTube video searches. Be creative!
4. Brand Awareness – Focus on the brand rather than individual products or services. Much like TV advertising.
5. Product Advertising – If you can use YouTube to push your overall brand, you can also use it to push individual products/services too. You can show the product in action or used as part of a demonstration or tutorial. Just make sure you include lots of close up product shots and a link back to your website.
6. Retail Promotion – Find a way to showcase your store without resorting to claims of 30% off and “this weekend only” specials. Instead, record a short store tour or interview some customers.
7. Product Support – Consider your client’s most common issues and create a video addressing those issues. This can also be used for technical support issues.
8. Product Training – You have a new product to bring to market and a sales force to train. Consider using YouTube for internal training.
9. Employee Communications – You can use YouTube for all manner of company communications. Instead of holding a big company meeting, have the boss record what he wants to say and post it on a private channel on YouTube. Employees can watch the boss say his thing right at their own desks, on the road, or at home.
10. Recruiting - Don’t underestimate YouTube as a recruitment tool for new employees. If you have a company welcome video, post it on YouTube and make it public. Think of it as a PR exercise to attract talent to your company.
What are some ways you use youtube to promote your business?
You do NOT have to accept every connection request you receive. Linkedin is a place for referrals so if you don’t know who you are connected to, there’s a good chance they don’t know you either and you will not be referred. If I go to someone with 500+ connections and ask him to introduce me to so and so, that referral is no good if he doesn’t even know so and so either!
If you see a request from someone you don’t know, simply click “Ignore” to ignore the request or save it for the future. Do this with unsolicited requests from people you don’t know who do NOT take the time to write you a personal message as to why they want to connect. No personal message is a cold call and you are going to be solicited at some point down the line. Plus they will solicit your connections. Go ahead and turn this one down now.
Make sure to check out any person’s LinkedIn profile you are not sure of and see who you know that they also know. You can also ask the person you mutually know if this is a good connection for you if you actually know all your connections!
You can reply to connection requests with a short note like this, “Can you remind me how we know each other?” or “Can you let me know why you’d like to connect? Many people are becoming more savvy and limit their networks to only people they know. If the person is really interested in connecting, he or she will write back with more information. If you never hear from them again, they probably wouldn’t have been a valuable connection for you anyway.
So what if you already have some of the wrong people in your network??
If you accept a connection request and change your mind later, you can “unconnect” from someone using LinkedIn’s Remove Connections feature. The person will not be alerted. Of course, if that person looks through his or her contacts or attempts to send you a message, you will no longer be shown as a 1st-degree connections.
A good way to know how well you know your connections is to browse through this list – it’s first/last name only so you don’t get any hints on company or with pictures. If you don’t know them by name, you might not know them at all and it’s time to reconnect or get rid of them. It’s the best way to keep the integrity of your network.
Did you know you can personalize your Facebook URL (web address) by selecting a unique username? It will appear in the location bar of your browser after “http://www.facebook.com/” when you view your profile or Page. In order to customize your username, you MUST have at least 25 fans.Once you have enough fans, you can select a username at http://www.facebook.com/username. Type in your desired username – MAKE SURE IT’S SPELLED CORRECTLY as you only get ONE chance to customize this. If you screw it up, (like I did with ThinkViral!), there’s no going back.
Select “Check availability” to check for available usernames. If the desired username is available, click “Confirm” in order to confirm your choice.
So what if the name you want is not available? You may not be able to claim a username for several reasons. Usernames can only contain alphanumeric characters (A-Z, 0-9) or a period (“.”), for example — john.smith55. It is important to note that a period (“.”) does not count as a part of a username; therefore, names like johnsmith55, john.smith55, john.smith.55, etc. all constitute the same username. Usernames also must be at least 5 characters long. Usernames are not case sensitive. Facebook also prevents certain words from being included in usernames. It is not possible to copy a username that someone else has already claimed.
If Facebook has indicated that a username cannot be claimed, you will need to select a different one. You will see a green checkmark indicating that a potential username is available before you actually claim it.
For more info on usernames, go to Facebook’s help section.
Make sure to take advantage of your username! Add it to your email signatures, on your business cards, on your social profiles, and any other place online where you can add your website or custom url. The goal is to keep spinning people around in your world – whether it’s your facebook page, your website, your linkedin profile, or even niche networks where you can be seen. Don’t go through all the effort if you aren’t going to use your new url!
OPEN GROUPS: If you are in an OPEN Linkedin group, that means all discussions will be indexed by search engines and can be shared on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter as well as within LinkedIn. An open group can give your group discussions more visibility and members will be able to share general information about the group itself on social networks. Anyone is approved to join open groups and group owners can adjust the settings to only allow members to post and contribute.
PRIVATE GROUPS: ThinkViral owns and runs several private Linkedin groups. You may request to join but must be preapproved by the owner. We are very clear with regard to who can be accepted into our LinkedIn Groups and it is well-defined in our Group Rules. Unfortunately, not everyone will read these rules but it’s helpful to be able to default to them. We have found that everyone wants to be part of something exclusive and private Linkedin groups help us filter out the spam many open groups are faced with.
Regardless of the type of group you join, it’s MOST important to know that your contributions in the group are what count. There’s no point in joining any group if you’re just going to be an inactive member. You want to position yourself as the leader in the group and in order to do that, you must lead! Empower and engage other members. Challenge them, ask good questions, ask for the opinions of others, provide your unique insight and commentary on as many discussions as you can and contribute content that is real and can spur conversations. And please, don’t go into groups and pitch. This will promptly land you under the promotions tab in most high quality groups.
