Jody Raines

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Social Media And Social Networking: Best Practices And Big Mistakes For LinkedIn

Jody Raines, web marketing communications, webmarcomSocial media, especially LinkedIn, are networking tools which, when applied correctly, can potentially grow your business exponentially.  Utilizing social media channels correctly shouldn’t be difficult, yet for some reason, the people who use all social media channels to blast out the same message, will continue to barrage the wrong people with the wrong messaging.  What a turn off.  Indeed, the folks who use social media incorrectly will stop reading and continue to make the same mistakes that cause prospects to opt-out and disconnect.

If you find that you have a large number of opt-outs of your email campaigns, or you notice that your social media followers or likes are dwindling, read on…

Here are the three biggest LinkedIn Mistakes that I see over and over again… by sales and marketing “pros” who are too eager to “use” social media to generate leads.

Frankly, any of the following mistakes would result in not connecting, disconnecting or opting out.

Three BIG LinkedIn Mistakes:

First mistake – if you met someone at a networking event, chamber meeting, or family barbecue and you exchanged business cards that’s not always the best way to add to your network. When you establish a rapport with someone, and you feel that you can confidently recommend their services or refer business to them, then you should add them to your network. A great thing to do when you add someone is to mention how you met them or something from that conversation. I cannot tell you the number of times I have not accepted a request to connect because I didn’t remember whether I knew the person or how we met.

Second mistake – if the person connects with you, please, do not send them a note immediately trying to share what you do and why they should work with you. Unless that’s continuing a conversation where the person indicated that they were interested, slamming someone that way will not endear you to the new connection.

Third mistake – if you think it’s cool to send your ‘newsletter’ or ‘announcement’ to all your contacts through LinkedIn and that your going to get a ton of business that way, thing again. It’s actually somewhat disrespectful to send a blanket email to your contacts that way. No one wants to be addressed as “Dear Contact”. The power of LinkedIn is that it gives you some great information, and you have the opportunity to make the connection more personal.

Best practices – LinkedIn

Here’s a recipe to utilize the power of Linked in that can work for you. Let me know if you have other tips that work well, and we can share them.

  • Fill in your entire profile. LinkedIn represents an opportunity to share your resume online. Be complete and share relevant information that can be searched for keywords.
  • Use links to your website and change the description for SEO. The links in your profile use default descriptions for “my website” and “m y blog”. You can change these to a phrase or company name for improved search engine optimization.
  • Ask for Referrals. If one of your contacts is connected to someone you would like to know, there is an appropriate way to request a referral. Be sure to explain how you can HELP the recipient contact. If you only want to connect to sell them something, or if you do not add value, you should re-think wasting your contact’s time.
  • Connect with your former associates. Think about high school or college – each of your friends there has gone on to different organizations or companies. Adding them to your network can expand the strength of your network considerably. People you used to work with, for example, most likely have moved on to other positions within other organizations. Adding them to your network gives you the opportunity to connect with their connections or ask fro introductions… Very powerful when used correctly!
  • Join groups. A little known feature of groups is that it adds the ability to connect with other members of the group. If you want to meet people or add to your network, joining groups and participating in group discussions is a great way to get your name out there.
  • Ask questions. Withing groups and within LinkedIn, asking questions can help you to identify others who can utilize your services. A well worded question can expose motivations and vulnerabilities that you have the ability to help with. For example, a client who does vehicle wraps could ask a question regarding the top issues for wrapping a fleet of vehicles. If answered, the person has now identified the fact that they have a fleet of vehicles and that they are having a problem. Based upon the problem, this could be an amazing prospect… Think about it!
  • Connect with other group members. Other group members have networks too – and their network could be greatly different than yours. By connecting with others in your group, you now have new contacts that are just a couple of degrees of separation from you, and those numbers increase algebraically.
  • Use Search to connect with company. If you use the search function within LinkedIn, it helps you discover who, within your network, may be connected with someone at that company. Try it – it’s very cool!
    Ask for introductions. If you share how you can help the person you are requesting an introduction to, and if you have a good relationship with the person from whom you are requesting the introduction, this can be a powerful tool.
  • Post periodically. Recently LinkedIn introduced the ability to have articles posted. It’s wonderful exposure – you never know who you may reach! If your post is intelligent and has good content, you will get some attention.

 

There are many new and exciting ways to utilize the power of LinkedIn for connecting and generating new leads. What are some of the ways that you have had success? Have you tried any of these ideas? What was the result?

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Social Media Tips: How Much Time Should I Spend on Social Media?

Clients who have accepted the fact that Twitter and Facebook andsocial media marketing, how much time for social media Linkedin are great for business, have asked me how much time they should devote to social media marketing.  It’s a valid question, and one that has more than one answer.

It depends on what your goals are and what you hope to achieve.  Keep in mind that Google has admitted that social media clout is one of the ingredients in their search engine ranking formula, and having your message tweeted by others can briefly have your website listed as number one on Google.

The Internet is a dynamic environment and the old days of optimizing a website and then leaving it for a year just don’t work any longer.  We no longer can say the Internet is changing daily or even hourly –  the content is changing every second as more and more people add to the information that is available online.

If you are not adding your business or brand information to the mix, then it’s tantamount to everyone taking a step forward, and you are standing in the same place.  Even though you didn’t move, you wound up behind everyone else!

So, the first step to determining how much time you should spend on social media marketing is to determine what your goals should be.  What do you hope to achieve using social media?  Are you using social media as a broadcast device?  If so, I can already tell you, it doesn’t matter how much time you spend, you are using it wrong!

One of the things I look at when I evaluate how my client is using social media marketing – and this is a great way to determine whether that so-called “expert” really knows what he or she is doing – is to see if there is a broadcast mentality to what they are sharing, or whether there is true engagement.  I have seen these ‘experts’ with the same message sent multiple times. That’s enough to recognize that they obviously do not understand how to use social media and therefore, I wouldn’t waste any money or time investing in having them help set up a campaign.

Automated programs also are a waste of time.  That’s the same as calling and hoping to get a live person, and then become frustrated with not being able to reach a person. They can actually cause more harm than good in a social media program, and any ‘expert’ who is advocating automating should be burned at the stake!

So, how do you manage your social media and how much time should you invest?

Just as organic optimization takes time, so does your social media program. If done correctly, it will stand the test of time.  Just like “black hat” SEO techniques can have a short upsurge then have dire consequences, so can these ‘quick win’ social media plans.

So, with that being said, here is my recipe for a general social media program:

1. Post a blog at least once a week. Twice a week if possible.

2. Link your blog to your Facebook business page and Twitter and Linkedin profiles.

3. On a daily basis, check into Twitter and send out Tweets for fifteen minutes.  You can break that into three five minute intervals during the day.  You’d be surprised how much useful information you can obtain in those five minutes.

4. Post a question or observation on Facebook on a daily basis.  Ask for input or feedback on a topical issue.  Encourage interaction.  This may take another ten minutes.

5. Daily, review your Linkedin messages and respond. This may take another 5 minutes.

So, all told, excluding the time you took to write your blog, your entire social media program may take thirty minutes a day.  Of course you can spend more time if you’d like.

There are tools that can make monitoring your social media much easier, and we will address these tools in a  future post.

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How much time do you take for your social media program? Where do you focus your social media efforts?  Have you seen an increase in sales based upon your social media efforts?

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Jody Raines Shares Best Call To Action Ideas – WebMarCom (Web Marketing Communications)

Best Call To Action IdeasOne of the questions I hear frequently when doing Inbound Marketing is how to create compelling Call To Action offers. The concept of creating usable informative tools is not difficult, but can take some time to come up with offers that are enticing and interesting. It also takes understanding who your audience is, and where they are in the sales funnel.

Just like keywords, you can determine where you customer is in the buying process by the types of information that they are looking for. For example, if your prospect is downloading very general information, they are most likely in the initial states of their search. If they keyword search is more specific, or a long tail keyword, then the prospect is further along in his or her research and closer to the buying stage.

Having offers at all the stages of the sales funnel will help potential customers find you, and also give you insight and analysis into the process that your client goes through. You may find that there are commonalities with regard to the questions that are asked by your customers. By offering information that helps nurture the prospect, you are developing the lead and helping them become a customer.

There are many ways to create content for website visitors to download. Downloadable content  and offers that appeal to a target audience is a critical component of inbound marketing.

Creating a call to action is a way to help your prospects find answers to their questions, download valuable information (to them) and in doing so, self-identify as a potential customer or lead.  There are many ways to put information together for your prospects.  Here are a few of the the Best Call To Action ideas to enhance conversions:

  1. Whitepaper or eBook: You can also write a whitepaper or eBook from a previous research study or data set. Compile three (3) to five (5) blog posts that discussed similar topics and combine them into a whitepaper or eBook.
  2. Top 10 Industry Trends: Document the ten latest trends impacting your industry this year. Write a short summary on 10 new industry developments or write what you think will be the 10 biggest changes to your industry during the next year.
  3. How-To Guides: Create simple guides for your prospects to download and help them with a problem. For example, if you’re selling mortgages, create a guide to picking the right mortgage for you.
  4. Product Demo Video: Create a video that shows off all of your product’s features and benefits. At the end of the video give the lead an option to download a product tip sheet guide.
  5. Product Tip Sheet Guide: Create a product tip sheet guide that outlines how people could use your product or service to help them with their problem or need. For example, you’re selling backup software. Create a guide that outlines how people can use you’re backup software to decrease their backup costs and lower IT support time.
  6. Common Questions: Write down the 10 or 20 questions you most commonly hear and create a tip sheet or guide that answers each question.
  7. Checklist: Create a checklist of steps people could take to solve the problem that your product/service solves. For example, if you’re a moving service you could create a downloadable packing checklist.
  8. Case Studies: Show off your leading customers and share their success with future customer. Video record their testimonial for even more content and to build credibility. Offer the case study to be downloaded.
  9. LinkedIn Question and Answers: Go to LinkedIn Answers and find every question and answer that relates to your industry. Compile them together in an eBook format.
  10. PowerPoint Presentations: Use your PowerPoint presentations and turn them into compelling offers. Post the presentations on SlideShare and embed them into blog articles.
  11. Kits of Material: Compile some of your related eBooks, guides, tip sheets and blog articles into a compelling downloadable kit offer.
  12. Expert Interview Videos: Interview the experts at your company and have them answer common questions for prospects. Use the videos as a way to build credibility and a relationship with your leads
  13. Sales Team Materials: Work with your sales to determine what content they think quality prospects would like to download. This can really help you if you’re having a problem with creating

quality leads for your sales team.

The Golden Rule: Use each piece of content in at least four different ways. For example, you create a whitepaper and you promote the whitepaper by writing a series of blog articles, sending out a press release, using the whitepaper in lead nurturing emails, and adding it to your monthly newsletter

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What Is A Smart Marketing Goal? And How Do You Set Them?

smart marketing goalsInternet marketing without goals, or traditional marketing without goals is a crapshoot.  It’s throwing stuff at the wall and hoping it sticks, without a guide or way to measure whether you are effective or not.   One of my favorite expressions is the definition of insanity – you know doing the same thing over and over and hoping for a different result?  Well if that describes your marketing efforts, you should stop, take a deep breath and resolve that today is the day you are going to do something different to move the bar farward.

We used to refer to our marketing goals as Key Performance Metrics or KPI’s.   If you were rating your employees, you would put together a list of the metrics of what would constitute success in that role.  Why would business marketing be any different?  If you don’t set goals, then you have no idea whether you’ve made progress or not.

Ironically, many of the marketing agencies that spring into existance offer to help you with your social media profile or build you a website, without starting with the reasons  you need marketing in the first place – and that is – to generate business.  If you take it a step farther and start to evaluate your online business, you will see that it becomes even more important for your marketing to be held accountable to the metrics that you establish.   So, how does it happen that so many companies practice buckshot marketing and roll the dice instead of being laser focused on their goals?

I was recently consulting for a company that had a marketing crisis. They had an internal goal that a specific email campaign would be launched by a date certain.  They contacted me, and asked whether we could meet their goal.  Eager to help them, I assured them we could.  This was a mistake.  We got stuck in the tactics of getting an email campaign out the door and doing buckshot marketing, instead of defining what we hoped to achieve and then plotting the best course of action to achieve that goal.  The email went out, the results were OK, but to tell you t he truth, we got lucky.

Inbound marketing should be goal driven and a great way to remember how to define those goals is to use the Smart Marketing method.   S.M.A.R.T. is actually an acronym for remembering how to craft a goal that makes sense.   We want to be sure that our goals are:

  • Specific – The more specific the goal, the better we can define the process needed to achieve it.  Having a vague goal does not give you a target to shoot for.   The goal can target specific behaviors, such as visits, leads or customers, but there should be a target for the action.
  • Measurable – The number or percentage of improvement should be stated in the goal as well.  If the goal does not have a way to measure it, you won’t know how close you came or whether you achieved the goal or not.  It’s permissible to have a goal of 1 if you  are doing something you’ve never done before.   You may not know how many to anticipate, but when you have a history and benchmark to work from, you can set quantifiable results to be targeted.
  • Attainable – Just stating a number or a percentage increase is not helpful if that goal is not realistically achievable.
  • Relevent – If your goal is to increase traffic and the traffic does not lead to conversions, the question that raises is whether the goal of improving traffic was even relevent to the overall goal of driving conversions and sales.   If the goal cannot be correlated to something that is relevent for your business model, then it’s not a smart marketing goal.
  • Timely – for a goal to be a metric, you need to set a time frame.  Establishing a reasonable time frame based upon historical information will determine whether your goal is attainable.  Just having a goal without a deadline is not setting a standard for achievement.

The types of goals that would fit into the “smart marketing” metrics would include things like:

  • Improve site visits by 25% for the next quarter.
  • Increase leads by 10% over the next six months by adding 4 new call-to-action devices and improving landing pages.
  • Generate 3 new customers in the next thirty days for the new platform just released.

If you need help creating and defining goals, it’s sometimes helpful to evaluate your current metrics.  Often I have tremendous inspiration when working with clients and evaluating how their site is currently performing.   If we see that there are more visits than usual for certain keywords, or higher visits than normal, we then evaluate why that could be and that may lead to a new opportunity or goal.  Conversely, if we see the bounce rate on specific pages of the site is very high, we can then work to identify the cause of that bounce rate, and create new content that is better aligned with our customer’s expectations.

How do you create marketing goals?  How do you measure your progress towards achieving these goals.  Do you find goals to be helpful and motivational or demotivational?

 

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Top 5 Keyword Phrases For Best Practice Marketing Campaign Conversion

best practices keywordsSearch Engine Optimization gets traffic to your website.  Traffic is great, but it’s the conversions that become leads that are important. Marketing that converts is the best kind of marketing because you can prove a cause and effect and therefore determine a return on the marketing investment.

How do you know what the best marketing keyword phrases are, and how do you measure whether they are effective for your customer.  Believe it or not, sometimes “free” is a turnoff.  Using testing methods, you can create two seperate campaigns and test whether the word “free” or the word “complimentary” are more effective for your product.  I’ve had situations where customers will refuse something that is ‘free’ because they did not perceive the word ‘free’ to be credible.  Be sure that whatever keyword, phrase or positioning statement you are testing is believable and realistic for your brand.

Another client of mine was working on a campaign that said they were the ‘best’ at something that they had never offered.  This was a launch campaign.  Could they be the best?  It’s possible, but not probable and certainly not credible if they’ve never offered a service or product like that before.  So, before accepting that a word is terrific, consider your circumstance, your customer and your message, then evaluate whether the word or phrase is believeable.  Keep in mind that if you are promoting a sale, it should truly be a sale.  Several department stores got into hot water recently because they raised their prices, then promoted a percentage off savings.  When the “sale” was picked up by the media, it resulted in some very bad publicity for the retailers.  Especially because the marketplace is so competitive, losing credibility will result in lost revenue.  To the extent that the expose becomes viral, the resulting damage to reputation can become catastrophic.

Marketing ROI

The first key to creating a strong case for a specific keyword or keyword phrase is to understand what your marketing goals and objectives are, and establish a baseline, and lift goals.  If your CEO ever asks what the return is on his marketing investment, you should be prepared with each campaign – what the goals were, what the budget was, what the lift in sales or views or whatever the metric was and then you can calculate what the return in on the investment (ROI) would be for that effort.

As you track your marketing campaigns you will start to discover that there are certain ‘magic’ keywords that  evoke higher response rates than others.   If you do A/B testing, you can determine what words work and resonsate with your audience. The ability to continuously change, improve, enhance and evolve your content in order  to determine what works best is one of the coolest features of Inbound Marketing.  It’s similar to the way a supermarket uses a planogram to layout the store and test products at the end of an aisle.  You have the ability to manipulate words, color, photos and content to continuously improve results.

With multiple view over time, you will clearly see what  words work better than others…and what doesn’t work.  There are obviously best marketing practices and best keywords that drive conversions. Language that is tested and which resonates with your audience can be a key determinant  for inbound leads.  That includes not only quantity, but also quality of inbound leads.

Some of the best offers use what has been referred to as ‘magic phrases’ that generally are more likely to evoke a response than other phrases.  Testing these phrases is a great idea in a dynamic media like a website, social media campaign or email marketing campaign. This list of the top five keyword phrases is borrowed from the Direct Marketing industry, where the cost of printing and mailing postage has forced marketers to take a hard look at what works or what doesn’t work, and prove the return on investment for marketing expenses.

Magic phrases of direct marketing:
Some phrases and keywords will evoke greater response than others.  Here’s a short list of some of the most powerful phrases:

  1. FREE.  Yes, ‘free’ does work best.  Even if used in a way that seems redundant, such as “free gift” versus “gift”, using the word “Free” is a powerful tool for conversions.
  2. NO OBLIGATION.  When coupled with the word “Free”, this makes an offer more reassuring and less scary to jump into.
  3. LIMITED TIME.  Having a deadline for response creates a sense of immediacy.  Without a timed opportunity, the tendency may be to put the offer away to look at it more thoroughly later.  Giving a time ultimatum moves the importance to a more immediate review.
  4. NEW.  This is a great way to have people take another look.  Who doesn’t want to see what the new features are, especially if they liked or purchased before.
  5. ANNOUNCING. Another powerful motivator – people like to know that they are among the first to view something or to be int he know.  Using “announcing” triggers an early response mechanism.

What other words have you noticed that trigger action?  Are there words that you’ve used that you find important motivators?

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