8 Best-Practices for Small Business Websites

Image via CrunchBase

Everything you “know” about social media for small business is wrong.

Small businesses—accountants, lawyers, and brick-and-mortar shops—don’t need 5,000 Facebook fans, Diggs, or blogs that are updated daily. They need business. You know, clients, customers, shoppers, or whatever you want to call them.

How do small businesses use social media to get more clients and customers?

It’s much easier than you think, and to demonstrate that, I analyzed 10 of my most successful small business clients, and discovered these 8 best-practices. Oh, and the best part is this: you can implement most of these tips in a long weekend.

Now let’s dive in…

via diythemes.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d like to dig a little deeper…

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Correcting One Thing at a Time

Corporate athletes have recently (in the last decade) been schooled in the concept of working on strengths and exploiting them to gain leverage in their careers (via such books as Now Discover Your Strengths).  In our early careers, we were likely (at least I was) told to work on our weaknesses. It was a challenge to always be focusing on the negative, to say the least.   Thusly, a strengths-based approach made sense.We know that top athletes have almost always worked on their strengths to the level of exploiting them for extraordinary gains. To be fair, they also work on their weaknesses, but when you look at sports like cycling you see climbers become better climbers, sprinters getting faster and more explosive, time trialists becoming increasing dominant in their discipline and so on.  I think that you get the point. More specifically, great athletes focus on winning at one thing first, and work on weaknesses and secondary strengths after they’ve honed their strength.

via Social Media Breakfast New North | Blog | Winning at One Thing First Correcting One Thing at a Time.

When Dana VanDen Heuvel talks, I take notes. You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’re interested in learning more…

What’s Your Killer “Technology”?

The word “technology” is in quotes because I want to expand your view of how it’s used. Businesses that get talked about do something different from other businesses. Being different is such an essential ingredient in marketing a small business.

You must also work, however, to bring that difference to the forefront of all marketing communications by developing tools that promote your point of view and your core difference.

It’s not enough to say that you’re different; you’ve also got to develop tools and materials that illustrate that difference. So in that vein, your technology could be a seven-step approach, a discovery audit, an actual technological product advancement, a coaching process, a set of tools, or proprietary software.

The key is to capture what it is that you do that’s unique and valuable and expand it into something that you can build a great deal of your educational content platform around. Think of this as your organization’s signature tool.

via openforum.com

My ‘signature tool’ is the ‘e1evation workflow’ — you can read about here…

What companies need to ask when hiring a social-media consultant

Letting an outsider influence your brand’s social-media presence can be a scary thing. You’re giving a consultant or an agency an enormous amount of power over your brand — and probably paying them a pretty penny. You know you need help to make your social-media efforts bear fruit. But how can you be sure you’re bringing in the right person?

At the 2010 BlogWorld Expo, panelists shared their takes on the social-media hiring process. As the panelists — each of whom is no stranger to the process — talked, they returned again and again to three fundamental questions that companies need to have answers to before confidently bringing a consultant or an agency on board.

via smartblogs.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article…

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Startup Strategies: Aim Your Sales Efforts

Image by GRP Partners via CrunchBase

At my first company, we had four or five sales reps who’d been around since the early days. They intuitively knew how to position the company and how to sell the products; they didn’t need (and we didn’t have) sales materials, pricing strategies, or elaborate service-level agreements (SLAs).

We then increased the sales staff to about 10, and even hired an SVP of global sales and marketing. Because he was a big-company sales exec, he was very critical of some of the missing tools at my company. He pushed for more standardization of pricing, marketing collaterals, sales processes, etc.

He told me, “There’s no standardized way for me to onboard new people. There’s no way for us to easily roll out changes to pricing, positioning relative to competitors or new sales tools. We need standardized tools to arm our sales teams with the information they need to effectively do their jobs, and we need to better aim them at the right opportunities.”

I was stuck in startup culture, and he was stuck in big-company culture. There was a chasm between us that couldn’t be bridged. But he was right about one thing: We needed to change as we grew. I think this happens at a lot of startups. Like my company did, startups get stuck in this middle ground where process and tools become more important.

This is the first in a three-part series in which I’m going to talk about some of the scaling issues startups face. In this first post, we’ll talk about aiming your sales staff at the opportunities most likely to pay off…

via gigaom.com

Author Mark Suster is on to something here. You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you like — I’ll try to be sure to capture the rest of the series…

Related articles

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20 Real Tips for Hiring a Social Media Consultant

Image by fredcavazza via Flickr

“Social media is free.  Social media is easy.  Just hop on twitter and start tweetin’!” Hmmm… how many times have we heard that? I have honestly heard social media consultants at networking events state during their 60 second pitch “social media is free, come talk to me if you want to do free marketing!”  Ouch, not the case folks.

Several business leaders have asked me lately for tips on finding a good business or social media consultant. Many have been confused by the blog posts that seem to only complain versus helping business decision makers find someone who can really help them.

I actually did a few Google searches and found very little in regard to helpful tips and skills to look for.  What I did find was numerous posts complaining about social media consultants, gurus and how to spot a bad one.  I have to admit I too have posted a few blog posts that are on the humorous side of this topic while trying to offer helpful tips at the same time.

I wanted to provide some helpful tips when hiring a consultant.  Note, what is a good consultant for Tom doesn’t mean it will be so for Betty and Jane.  Consultants, just as mentors and coaches should be selected based on personal fit with your business goals, life cycle, culture, gaps etc. The most important thing is that you do your research and talk to a few.  Don’t go with the first one you meet.

via socialmediatoday.com

I’m one of those social media consultants. You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article and then give me a call and rake me over the coals!

Social Media Marketing Bootcamp – Green Bay, December 3

I’m really excited that Dana VanDen Heuvel of MarketingSavant has asked me to join him in team teaching this Social Media Marketing Bootcamp in December. Dana’s brilliant when it comes to social media strategy and I’m not so bad at practical, tactical social media tools…

Nearly every local business can benefit from social media in their marketing, but most courses and books only tell you why and don’t show you “how to.” The Social Media Boot Camp for Local Business will teach you the why, the how-to and the practical, tactical things you can do to make social media work for your business. You’ll complete the course with complete command of the latest social media marketing tools and know how to deploy them in your business.

Folks who attend will get alot in a very condensed timeframe and if I weren’t presenting, I’d be the first to sign up…

via gbsmbootcamp.eventbrite.com

You can follow the via link to sign up via EventBrite. Here’s the outline for the course…

Social Media Bootcamp – Workshop Agenda http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf

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Does facebook matter for B2B businesses?

I’m so glad I know Kiar Olson and I love his perspective on this topic — you can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d like to read his ‘5 step’ program…

Social Networks: Going Public or Keeping Private?

Image via CrunchBase

Everything you do online is “putting it out there”—that is, putting yourself out there. And when it comes to using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and other social networks, everybody’s got an opinion on best practices—how far out there you should put yourself.

In my experience as a marketing strategist and owner of a full-service marketing firm, I’ve come to realize that just how much of your personality type and specific goals you reveal can make or break your networking success. The world of social media is disorderly and unpredictable, so knowing yourself—and managing your privacy settings and usage accordingly—leads not only your success but to your personal comfort level.

Social media is still in its infancy, but three types of user personality are emerging. There’s no right style when it comes to social-media participation, or a right level of privacy. But consider your goals and your personality type. Which social-media type describes you?

via getcurrency.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article…

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How do I get more business using social media?

Image via Wikipedia

It’s always easier to just buy an ad.  There are people that will take your money and use it to produce a commercial, tv spot or print ad.  People will see your ad and a few of them may even come into your store if your ad has a good call to action or a coupon.  There is a problem with that strategy.  There’s an easier way that takes more work.  How can something be easier and take more work?

It’s more work to…

…gather contact information for all of your current clients or members.

…communicate with them about things other than your organization, store or “sale of the century”.

…talk to individuals instead of buying an ad for the masses.

But it’s easier to…

…get information of your current clients than to get information from strangers.

…talk about what’s important to their lives if you’re listening  on their terms (Facebook or Twitter come to mind).

…talk to individuals and get a response than to buy an ad and get the attention of the masses.

As with all things worth while it’s easier in the long run if you do more work in the beginning.

Stop throwing money at the masses and start talking to individuals.

via andytraub.com

Nice post by Andy Traub. For me, it’s like Guy Kawasaki says ““If you have more Money than brains, you should focus on Outbound Marketing. If you have more Brains than money, you should focus on Inbound Marketing.” [Just in case you’re not sure, ads are outbound, social media is inbound.] One of the things I love about social media marketing is that it takes more time than money! All of us are working hard in the current economy but imho, the smart ones are channeling that effort into inbound marketing in the form of social media. Questions? Feedback?

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