How do you know what social media is right for your business?

It seems that every day a new social media platform arrives on the scene. Trying to figure out which ones work best for your business can be confusing. It does not matter whether your business is business-to-business or business-to-consumer. Here are some clues to help with the decisions.

Everyone can benefit from the mass appeal of Facebook and Twitter. There are so many people on these sites that you can use the shotgun approach to finding business. That is when you send you message to so many people, a percentage of them must be interested. You Tube also has a wide appeal, but you have to have to create interesting videos that people want to see.

If your business can show before and after” photos like home improvements, makeovers, dog grooming, etc., the more visually oriented platforms will work great. Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube and Vine are excellent ways to let the visuals do the talking. For businesses that are creative, like illustrators, photographers and web designers, the visually oriented apps are your best bet. Show off your work!

An accountant, lawyer or medical practice can benefit from using blogs. A blog can be more targeted, especially if you use appropriate bookmarking sites to spread the word. Blogs can have a mass appeal as well, especially if you have a topic that is appropriate for a wide audience. By offering tips, you let readers know you are an expert in your field.

All social media helps you get your business name in front of an audience every time you post. Conversely, if you only post occasionally, you are losing that audience. By using the right social media platforms, you will become a household name. Once that happens, people will begin to think of your business when they need to hire someone in your field or make a purchase.

The new look of Pinterest

If you are unfamiliar with Pinterest, this is a social media platform for photos. Imagine a room full of bulletin boards. You see a photo that you find interesting and you pin it to one of the boards. That is the focus of Pinterest.

That is all well and good, but you probably want to know how can it help you grow your business. If you embed your web address in the photo using photo editing software, such as Photoshop or Picasa, your website will be on that photo forever. If people repin your photo, or post it to their own Pinterest page, your message will go along with the photo. You can also simply type a message with your web address in the comment section that goes under the photo. If someone repins the photo, they have the option of typing their own comment and your comment will be gone.

You can show what your business does and then pin that photo to your board. If the comment has a call to action, a person may be prompted to email or call your business. Of course, some businesses lend themselves to this visual medium. Others do not. People in the fashion industry, a retail business, real estate agent, etc. would do well with a Pinterest page for their business. Other businesses may not benefit as much from an account. If you can show before and after pictures of a service you provide, Pinterest would work well.

Most people use Pinterest for fun and not for business reasons, which is why getting your brand and message across is a bonus. If you can post non-blurry photos that are clever, funny, awe inspiring or amazing, you can attract people to your boards. Not all of your boards have to be business related.

When I was little and my brother and I would fight, he would often slap me up high and punch me in the stomach and say, “While you are looking up here (slap!), I’ll get you down here (punch!). He is five years younger, so I guess it was acceptable back then! My point is that while you have people looking at your pretty photos, you can sneak the punch in with your brand and message.

The new look of Pinterest was made to be more user-friendly. It was purposely made to look much different than Facebook, according to CEO Ben Silbermann.

Cover photos are now larger to help get your statement across. When you view the boards, you see the cover photo and four smaller photos of pictures within that board. The profile information is now across the top of the page instead of along the side. The profile photo itself is much larger. On the right side, you can see the latest people to repin any of your pins.

Great content gets great results

Most websites are full of words, but how good is that content? Some sites have SEO (search engine optimization) articles that, while they have all the necessary keywords, the articles either do not make sense or the keywords are over used. The articles seem wordy and walk around the subject, never actually getting to the point.

Conversely, sites with interesting, interactive or unique content will grab the attention of the reader and urge them to read more. People return to those sites over and over again.

One of the easiest ways to grab attention is to change the information on the site. Of course, that is how blogs work. Hopefully, you update your blog often to keep people coming back. Giving high value content entices people to the site.

Content does not have to be words. Everyone loves a good photo or piece of artwork. Add graphics, photos or infographics to your pages, follow up by using Instagram and Pinterest to promote them. You will see more activity on your page.

By using Google Analytics, you can see what social media works for you and what does not. Just add the code to your website and you can start using this tool free of charge. If you use Blogger for your blog, there is a built-in Blogger version of Analytics that is already in use. You can find it in the “overview” section and it is called “stats.” If you use social media, you really need to make sure it is working and if not, change what you are doing.

Look beyond seasonal advertising

Every year, and earlier each year, we are inundated with holiday advertising. Bombarded, is probably a better description. Do you think this advertising works? Or, is there so much advertising, that we fog over and don’t hear any of it? Obviously, it works or no one would do it. But, it can be a little overwhelming at times. I saw my first Christmas ad of the year over the summer for K-Mart (I think) and how they brought back layaway this year.

As for marketing, it must continue year round for your business to succeed. If you only market in lean times, you will end up with peaks and valleys in your income. What happens is, people tend to stop marketing when they are busy, so no new business comes to them. Then, there is a period of time with less work. They begin marketing again and things pick up again.

If instead, you market your business steadily, work flow will remain constant. This might sounds silly, but don’t be afraid of having too much work! You can always farm out some of your tasks. Find a virtual assistant. Get someone to return calls for you. Hire a freelancer to do some parts of the job you do not like, or are not your strong suit. Then you can concentrate on what you do best and your business will grow.

Remember, having tons of work is your ultimate goal.

If you truly want to increase your business, get a plan together for what to do when work is plentiful. How will you handle an avalanche of new business? Maybe the part time worker or freelancer who currently puts in a few hours a week, will turn into your full time staff.

Keep on marketing, no matter what the season. You will discover a more consistent work flow and better financial results.

Infographics on the rise

Infographics, like the one on this page, are gaining ground on regular photos for marketing. Why not? Take your subject matter and turn it into something that is a little more entertaining than a boring photo or mere words. You do not have much time to either get someone’s attention or lose him. Having interesting artwork can make the difference.

As memes have become more popular, infographics followed along with B2B (business to business) messages. At a glance, a person can see the article’s subject matter. Then, he can make the decision to read or to move along to something else. Because my background is in graphics, I find the use of infographics a fun way to get my message to others. Because the graphic work is a jpg or gif file, the image can be pinned on Pinterest.

Often times, I take some base clipart and add my own spin. I’ve always been a huge fan of collage and taking pieces of art and putting them together in a graphic is a little collage-y. I didn’t realize I was such a trendsetter until I started reading about infographics in the news lately.

Since the beginning of this blog, I’ve been custom designing little graphics to make my point. Who knew? What I thought was a quick little flourish on my blog, is now becoming a serious marketing technique. Without getting an advanced degree in graphics, you should be able to find some clipart (I subscribe to a service) and then embellish it to illustrate your content. If not, I’m available for consultation at a reasonable price.

As You Tube, Pinterest, Instagram and memes are snowballing in popularity, the visual media is nearly as important as the written words. Make sure if you are using artwork in anything you do, like your website or blog, that you have permission or pay for the art you use. If not, you can get yourself into trouble with copyright infringements. Better yet, draw your own images or take your own photos.

It seems like every day the social media possibilities are changing or growing. As a B2B owner, freelancer or subcontractor, you have to change with the times. You only have a couple seconds to get someone’s attention or they will click on to the next item. If you have read all the way to this point – thank you!

Social media and the elections

As we get closer to the presidential election, social media is playing a huge role in the process this year. I remember back when George W. Bush was running for president and there was a row of bloggers at the convention. I had no idea what a blogger was! Oh, how times have changed.

Blogs and social media have come light years ahead since then. Obama crashed Reddit with his impromptu AMA (ask me anything) interview with the world. He also made a big splash on Google+ with a hangout where regular citizens had the opportunity to have online face time with our commander in chief. (The video is still available for viewing.)  Obama is all over social media proving to his supporters that he is hip and computer savvy.

Mitt Romney is no slouch himself when it comes to social media. He’s all over Twitter with many tweets daily about his campaign. Romney also has 6.5 million Facebook followers, and that is no small feat. He, like many other politicians, is trying to attract voters via social sites.

National candidates are not the only ones taking advantage of this method of promotion. Everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. Local candidates all over the country are making promises, badmouthing their opponents and promoting their fundraising events on every social site they can find.

The power of this promotional tool called social media is growing and changing daily. The best part of social media is allowing public figures to connect with as many individuals as possible, give opportunities to followers that were never available in past elections. Fans, supporters and opponents all feel a closer personal connection when they can respond to the candidate. Back in the day, it was a big deal when Bill Clinton showed his human side and went on late night television playing his saxophone. Now, it’s Google+ hangouts, Twitter Q&As, You Tube messages and so much more.

Everyone who has a business should take a lesson from the politicians. Check out what they are doing on social media. You should be doing the same things to reach as many people as possible. Take your message to the people and grow your business.

Analyze who views your page

Do you have any idea who is looking at your website? Do you know where the traffic originates? If you are trying to grow, or care at all about your business, you should know how people are finding your website or blog. If you do not know where you are getting customers, this is important information.

The most popular way to get a handle on your page viewers is with Google Analytics. It takes a little know-how to use this. You have to be able to add code to your page, or get someone add it for you. Google Analytics will analyze how your viewers find you, the efficacy of your keywords and there is even a section just for social media sites. Lots of information is there, but it does you no good if you are not looking at it on a regular basis. New features just came out for Google Analytics including shortcuts to the stats you use the most often.

If you have ecommerce on your site, Google Analytics can even figure out the percentage of website visitors who become customers. You can analyze individual pages, and get in-depth analysis.

If you are sharing new pages or blogs on Twitter, but you are not getting any traffic from Twitter, that is saying something that you need to know. Either you are not reaching enough people or your message is not encouraging people to click the link to your page. Making your message a call to action may improve the clicks.

Some people are not technically savvy and have no clue about how to add code to their page. I totally understand. Most of my clients don’t get it at all. For them, there is another way to figure out who is viewing their site. It’s called Stats Crop. By entering your web address, you can get a lot of information about how your site is working. Stats Crop gives each page a number score and gives suggestions on how to raise it (adding backlinks, getting the page indexed on search engines and more). Learn about your keywords. Are they working? Do you need to add more? How are similar sites doing? This can help you figure out what marketing methods are working best.

Users of Blogger can get access to how the blog is doing. They have most of the same information as Google Analytics, but without doing a thing! All you need to do is go to the dashboard page and click on the little blue graph under the name of the blog. If you have multiple blogs, there will be one for each of them. By clicking on “traffic sources,” you can see how people find you.

Somehow I’m getting viewers from a porn site. I swear, I don’t know how that is happening! I can’t imagine why someone would go from porn to my blog, but I’ll take the page views however I can get them.

A year ago, I never heard of BizSugar, and now I know I’m getting most of my page views through them. Friend Feed, on the other hand, isn’t doing much for me at all. One of my clients gets her best page views from StumbleUpon. Maybe it is how each book-marking or other social site categorizes the keywords entered when I submit the pages.

The best way to know what is happening with your clients and page viewers is to use every way possible to analyze your website. Learning who comes to the page will help you figure out more about your target market. You will learn what marketing is working, or not. If you don’t understand how to use this analysis, view the help section. It is definitely worth the trouble.