Have you researched what social media sites your target audience spends the most time on?     A lot of businesses have joined the social media marketing world and it is of great benefit to be present, but identifying who is using what medium is important.  According to a study conducted by the University of Maryland, nearly one in five small business owners are integrating social media into their marketing models.  A big part of using social media effectively is understanding your audience, much like traditional marketing methods that many of us are familiar with.

As a business owner you should have an idea of the general demographics of your ideal prospect.  Have you applied that logic to social media?  The paragraphs below dig a little deeper into who is hanging out where on the social media sites available on the web.

Where is your target audience hanging out?

According to The Nielsen Company, global consumers spent more than 5.5 hours on social networking sites in December 2009.  Compared to the 2008 study results, there has been an 82% increase of time spent on social media sites in one year.  Not only are people spending more time on social media sites, but a lot more people are using social media.  The greatest thing a small business owner can hope to tap into is where their target audience prefers to spend 5.5 social media hours.

Social sites

A few examples would be Facebook, Friendster, MySpace and Ning.  These sites can be broken down even further, MySpace tends to attract a lot of teen members and Ning has become popular for for connecting classmates and assisting is setting up reunions.  A recent study from Pew reported that 71% of the younger generation actively maintain a Facebook profile and 75% of the older generation maintain one as well.  Facebook seems to come out ahead of most social media outlets.  This site is relationship driven and people interact with people, groups and pages that they are interested in on a personal and social level.

Professional Sites

Some of the more commonly known professional sites are LinkedIn, FastPitch and Plaxo.  These sites can be used for business networking, job hunting and many people consider them to be lead generation vehicles a well.  These sites share the common objective of building a business community network and offer a means to strengthen and expand your business community.  Professional sites are fairly drilled own as far as member profiles.  You have the ability to execute very targeted marketing based on personal profiles and individual networks.  In addition, you have the ability to network and communicate with people that you have specific trade and business information about based on their profile.

Industry Specific Sites

Industry specific sites are are all too commonly overlooked.  Take the initiative to surf the Internet and find social media sites specific to your industry or industrie(s) that you serve.  An example is i-Meet, which is specifically geared towards event planners.  There is the ResearchGATE site that connects scientists and researchers for collaboration purposes.  Just to let you know how specific sites can be, check out veggppl.com, the vegetarian and vegan network.  The sites are out there, you need to determine who your audience is, what they are interested in and then look for the social media site that fits the audience.

Twitter Tweet

Twitter offers a lot of value for business owners and can be approached from different angles.  With real time search engine results, your tweets have a great chance of being found by people that are searching relevant content.  Some describe Twitter as a river of information that you dip into and dip out of at will.  People can follow you without the worry of email communication or a high level of commitment and Twitter is easy to use.  You have the freedom to create as many accounts as you want and followers are considered friends. Another advantage is that message boards or “tweets” itself can be viewable in public whether you’re friends or not, and you may include your URL as well which is a direct link to your site.

Twitter also has limitations.  There are  no applications rather than other sites like Facebook.  It does not offer groups, videos, blogs, ads, forums, and other unique and popular social networking menus.  Another challenge to Twitter is that the more you follow and the more followers you have the more challenging it becomes to manage information.

Despite the limitations, research dictates that Twitter is a social media force to be reckoned with.  Pew Internet studies suggest that 20% of 25 to 34 year old’s have used Twitter, with those 18 to 24 only 1 point behind (19%).   Online usage of Twitter is dominated by adults and has attracted far less teens to date.  Suffice to say, if your target audience is primarily teens then you may not attract prospects with Twitter.

Blogging

This is another outlet that relates to social media.  The beauty of blogging is you can create your own blog site or blog on your existing web site and target your content towards your industry.  The web is content driven and the more information and content you produce, linking back to your site, profile, etc, the greater web presence you achieve.  If you post a series of blogs with advice, input or content related to your product or service, interested parties will have an increased probability of finding you.  Another advantage of blogging is you can build a stronger community and attract prospects that are interested in content you publish relating to your industry.  If you want to start blogging, be sure to have the time, energy and creativity to commit.

Social Media Strategy

Best wishes executing your social media inventory and devising an effective and productive strategy.  Figure out where your audience prefers to congregate online and start a conversation with your prospects.  We cannot stress enough the importance of establishing a social media strategy.  Outline your long term plan and identify industry topics that you can speak fluently about.  Commit to a minimum amount of posts, tweets, etc that you will employ weekly to engage your online community.

RevenFlo is here to help if you need someone to navigate the Internet web waters with you.

Every executive, business owner, and high-functioning knowledge worker typically represents two brands: the one they work for, and themselves. Establishing personal expertise is paramount to the success of both.  Short of merely achieving notoriety, expertise in a topic or field demonstrates YOU as being both a thought leader and someone the public should turn to for answers.  Investors and venture capitalists have repeatedly asserted that they prefer a “B idea and A management team, to an A idea and B management team.” Short of an Ivy League M.B.A. or Ph.D. in your field of work, how do you establish both credibility and expertise on the web today? Read the rest of this entry »

We have written about effective business blogging in the past.  Social media marketing for small to mid-size businesses is a topic RevenFlo is passionate about and we have a lot to say.  Our unwavering belief in the power of social media compelled us to write this follow up post with Five MORE Tips for Effective Business Blogging. Read the rest of this entry »

Social Media is Omnipotent

Social media is all over the place, more and more frequently TV hosts remind us to check them out on Facebook or to reach them via Tweet (it sounds really odd from Dr. Phil).  Just this past week I took my bi-annual trip to the mega mall in our area and noticed a lot of signs in stores encouraging shoppers to look up their Facebook page and become a fan. My trip to the mall left me with the impression that social media has infiltrated the masses and is rapidly approaching it’s saturation point.

What does that mean for the small business owner that has a desire to maximize their social media presence and increase their bottom line in the process?  The good news it that it means there are more social media followers than ever which equates to more potential customers that are now in your extended Facebook network.  The reality is that when the saturation point hits you want to be well positioned with your fans in order to keep a captive audience.  A typical small business sets up a Fan page, invites their pre-existing friends and does little else to grow the fan base and add inherent value to their Fan page.

Keep Fans Interested and Grow your Fan Base

Let me start with acknowledging your willingness to tackle social media and kudos to you. Now that we are approaching “social media saturation” it is time for the small business owner to get a little more savvy in leveraging their Facebook presence.  The best way to add value to your site is timely and relevant page updates.

Here are the basics:

• Update your content with regularity and mix up the types of content as frequently as possible:  add video, photos, update your status to reflect what is exciting or new with your business.

• Elicit responses from Fans by asking for their feedback, opinions, etc.

• Post during “high traffic” times

• Use the calendar to add upcoming events

• Use the Facebook Fan Page to Twitter app if you are on Twitter as well

Find your Facebook groove

What is a Facebook groove?  Well it is specific to the company.  My general opinion is that if you do not have a retail store or an existing customer base that you can mine, it is much more challenging to engage a fan base.  If you are in the service industry or perhaps a niche market that customers seek out when they need your product or service, you may need to work a little harder.  A good place to start is to do a search for your industry on Facebook and check out other Fan pages.  Make note of what that particular company is doing well and implement in a way that fits your company.  Remember the old adage, copying is the highest form of flattery?  It applies on Facebook as well!

After you have checked out what your local and national competitors are doing there is another area you should address. Check out the Fan pages of large companies that you are  interested in.  This is a great way to see what others are doing to keep fans engaged and to add value to their brand.  I pay particular attention to companies that have marketing and advertising campaigns that I admire.  The best case scenario is that if a company runs a great ad campaign-they just might have a bangin’ Facebook page with a big time fan base.  Keep in mind large companies throw a lot of dollars towards marketing and advertising and have access to the best firms in the business.  The probability that you can learn something from the pros is good.  Let me help you out and give you a few companies that are “known” for having a great Fan page: Coca Cola, Starbucks and Volkswagen.  Go from there and take the time to check out companies that you admire and you will probably discover a few new ways to leverage Facebook.

Set up a Strategy

If you are not sure what to post-ask your fans!  That is a great way to get people involved and engaged.  If you offer relevant and interesting content you will have an active fan base and be more likely to grow your fan base.  The other thing you can do is create a master idea list for your Facebook page-generate a list of industry topics that you can post on, create pre -determined photo categories and commit to updating them with regularity.  People are far more likely to visit your page if update your page with relevant information.  Being on Facebook is a step in the right direction, using all of the exiting outlets a Fan page provides to craft a message, reach prospects and/or existing customers is good business.

RevenFlo offers monthly Web Marketing programs!

We ROCK your social media.  We can assist you in developing a Facebook strategy that helps position your company in the forefront of the Social Media Revolution!

Social media marketing is a cornerstone of RevenFlo’s monthly Web Marketing Management program. We encourage our clients to dive into the world of social media as a way to engage their clients in conversation that revolves around their needs and buying tendencies. Read the rest of this entry »

In today’s business climate, business’ are increasingly expected to have an online presence.  An increasing number of business owners are incorporating online marketing when they allocate dollars for marketing efforts.  The possibilities for online marketing are constantly evolving and can be highly effective in attracting prospects and promoting a brand.  In many cases, small businesses are putting more marketing dollars towards online marketing campaigns that incorporate social media, pay-per-click campaigns and website overhauls than more traditional advertising mediums. Read the rest of this entry »

Using Wordpress to Build your Business Website

The ever-versatile Wordpress technology continually proves to be one of the smartest tools every small business should have as part of their online marketing strategy. Primarily a content management system (CMS), Wordpress’s flexibility allows a small business owner to build an effective, robust website that is very affordable. Not only does Wordpress allow you to easily add, edit, delete information, it enables visitors to leave comments, questions, compliments, etc. —- vital elements for today’s business survival! Read the rest of this entry »

The New Year is finally here and, I don’t know what it is, but something just feels different about 2010. Everyone at Revenflo is super excited about 2010 and the possibilities that exist. I wanted to start the new year off right with a new small business-focused approach to creating content – one that addresses the core questions and opportunities about marketing on the web. I plan to make this a weekly series about marketing and the web, so if there are specific topics you want me to cover, leave a comment and I will put it in the queue.

There has been a major shift in web marketing during the past three years, brought on largely by three factors:

• Search Engines – Whether it’s Google, Bing or whatever comes next, let’s face it – most people think of that box with a blinking cursor in the middle of their screen AS THE INTERNET.

• Content Creation – Businesses are now pumping out blog posts, email newsletters, video, tweets and such for a new connected world

• Social Media – Facebook has blown up the world, and it only gets bigger from here…WAY BIGGER.

These three factors quantify How, Why, and Where people are spending their time online, and should also define – wait for it – HOW YOU SPEND YOUR MONTHLY MARKETING BUDGET.

But how do you do that? I’d like to present the six most effective tools to spend your marketing budget on, and give you an idea what percentage of that monthly total each tool should consume. It’s a sliding scale, and the precise percentage will vary between business model. But hese numbers will give you a rough idea of the cost and/or importance of each tool.

Here, then, are 6 real-world, start-tomorrow suggestions on HOW TO SPEND YOUR MONEY.

#1 Get a NEW Website…

listen, before you go any farther…make sure you are in a fully scalable system that allows you to publish content and alter your site on the fly. If not, it will take much longer for you to respond to changing factors in your industry…making the whole endeavor that much harder. It you are using a Content Management System (CMS,) then go to step 2.

#2 SEO – search engine marketing

In the plain terms that I like to talk about with tactics, there is no other place to start the conversation, because its where everyone else is starting – at least for the near term. In the coming years this will start to change, as businesses begin to receive rankings and referrals from social media, but for now SEO is the top of the heap, and the best bang for your buck. Think about it, if you don’t show up on the first 3 pages of Google, Yahoo or Bing then your website has no chance – and I do mean zero – of producing for you. Spend 40% of your money here.

#3 Blog Posts, Press Releases, Written Content for your site

This goes hand in hand with the first two recommendations. We can do so much with written content and the search engines love it. Google ranks you on many factors and almost all of them revolve around written content creation. So here is what you should do, from the very beginning: hire a company that can help you get this process under control. It would be great if you could take some time to write. It really isn’t that hard and the process can be quite relaxing after you get the hang of it. But, ask yourself, will you actually take the time to do it? Likely about half as often as your best intentions. But that’s not bad if you have a company taking up your slack when you have an important golf trip or need a mental health day at the beach. You see, Google doesn’t care about your golf trip…just that your website is producing regular content. Spend 20-25% of your money here.

#4  Automated Email follow-up

This is a fairly new concept, and it differs from just pushing out an email newsletter. It is client-specific, client-tracking, client-metrics, client-strategy, and it has just recently come down to an affordable price. Don’t contract with a vendor, pay thousands of dollars to license software, and then pay a butt-ton of monthly fees – there is a better way!

Monthly services like Infusionsoft are affordable and downright easy to integrate into your daily workflow. Get this, you set up campaigns and not only can your track the campaigns but also THE CLIENT or PROSPECT! How amazing is that? But you must strategically work through the process: creating the content, capturing your client education and buying process, and constructing a campaign. That is where you are going to spend the most money…after it is created then you will just need small tweaks and updates and an administrator can perform. Spend 10% of your money here.

#5 Social Media

In 2009, many well-known brands and large businesses stepped up to the plate, spending significant money on social media. Small businesses are just starting to get their feet wet with this form of media. One big thing to consider here is the message you are promoting. To really make a dent in social media you need a strategy and some tried and tested methods that will produce the type of conversation that works in social media. So keep your spending moderate until you are able to hammer out the details and the framework of your campaigns. The great thing about this medium is that with a little time and budget its a very meaningful way to connect with your sphere of connections. Spend 10% of your money here.

#6 Video

Video is changing how we interact with the web. Youtube is the second largest search engine. Video hardware is getting better and cheaper. More consumers are migrating to high-speed internet connections, and those speeds keep increasing. All of this is leading us into a time when business will use video to communicate regularly with clients, be it training, demonstrations, interviews, product reviews, promotion, and so on. Revenflo is delving into this area as we speak. We have an appointment later this month with our Revenflo videographer for an interview style session. Our approach will be to produce regularly scheduled, informal 3-5 minute segments of video interviews (during one video session) with the owner of Revenflo, Jason Broadwater. Spend 10-20% here.

We want to know what you think and what questions you have. Take a moment and let us know.

Earlier this week I attended a seminar/lecture at Queens College in Charlotte.  The topic was Social Media Today.  Initially the topic itself caught my eye and then I saw who the speaker was, Joshua Benton, Director of the Nieman School of Journalism Lab at Harvard.  I could not pass up on an opportunity to hear someone that is affiliated with Harvard speak about social media.

Social media is any form of online media where people are able talk, share, comment, network and bookmark online.    Read the rest of this entry »

Here is the story of a Firefox browser convert:
I recently began using a new browser to “surf” the web. I had used IE (the Microsoft browser) for most of my online life and just last year started using Safari (the Apple browser). But the switch to Mozilla’s Firefox, which operates on an open source platform, has been as useful as it has been fun for me. My online experience has completely changed and on the web today its all about the experience.

So let me ask, who hasn’t been frustrated by their browser locking up or shutting down with that same error message over and over again. I have literally felt like throwing my laptop through the window. With the other browsers there have been issues with load time, which means that it takes forever to pull up web pages. There have also been security concerns with the Microsoft product IE, like all Microsoft products it is continually being hacked by legions of people that severely dislike Microsoft. The Safari browser has been decent. I have to say that it’s never crashed on me. It is a very basic product that offers a decent experience. But…. Read the rest of this entry »

Is your website lonely? When is the last time you listened to what your website had to say? Did you talk to your website this month? You should be ashamed! JK. Most people haven’t gotten to this point yet. Asking your website questions will provide great insight about your web presence and help determine the value of your communication. Let’s take a look at how this conversation may play out.

Read the rest of this entry »