by tradesmeninsights | Oct 11, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
If you’re not on LinkedIn you should be, and if you are, when was the last time you updated your page?
Did you set goals when you first went on, but as time has passed you kind of let it slip a little? You and 120 million of your possible friends are on this site. How many are you connected with?
Let’s review some basics and make sure we’re all on track.
- Profile page – Great place to make a good impression. Have you updated your photo or are you using one from 10 years ago? How about your accomplishments? I’m sure if you haven’t touched it for a while, something good must have happened at work that you could highlight. Have any other things changed like you started a Twitter account, a blog or new website? Be sure to include links.
- Key words – SEO is king. When was the last time you looked at key words within your profile? The best place to do this is on the summary section.
- Adding to your network – It was easy when you just started to get a list of contacts linked in. But what about all those grandiose plans of adding so many new contacts each week? I’m sure you haven’t stopped taking phone calls or going to meetings? What ever happened to asking them to link in with you? At least then when you do a posting, you’ll be getting it in front of them. I admit I’m as guilty as everyone else, but I’m back on track now to add at least 3 contacts a week. What’s your goal?
- Status updates – So what good is 500 connections if you never connect? You need to be active and say something. It doesn’t have to be something original. It could be something as simple as a comment and link to a morning news story that might have some impact on your industry. Try to do at least one a day.
- Groups – This is the “holy grail” as far as I’m concerned. Search and join relevant groups. They allow you to join as many as 50. Talk about shooting fish in a barrel…where else can you find a group of like-minded individuals to hold a conversation with? A great place to build relationships and also build your visibility and credibility as an expert in the field.
Those are some of my thoughts on recommitting to using a great networking site. What are you doing to capitalize on LinkedIn?
by tradesmeninsights | Oct 6, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
Not all companies should be blogging. How do you determine if you’re one of them? Most manufacturers, unless they are making commodity items, should fit into the “do” column. If you sell through a distribution channel, there should be another check, and if you ultimately want to reach your targeted end user, put a bunch of checks!!!
Blogs are becoming more popular all the time, and according to eMarketer, blogs have increased from 16-39 percent in companies blogging for marketing purposes.
Our blog is the hub of all activity for us generating several times the number of page views than our web site. By utilizing other social media tools like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to drive more eyes to our blog by posting links on these sites, it insures that people keep coming back to the blog.
Why should you blog?
- Position yourself as an expert in your field
- Build your brand
- Use SEO to build readership
Why is a stategy is important. The main reason is you don’t want the ready-fire-aim approach to be your guidepost. Consider these points:
- Develop a policy and guidelines – This is new to everyone so someone has to set the ground rules.
- Identify topic categories and resources – Don’t think you have to be responsible for creating all the posts. Get sales customer service, engineering and of course marketing into the mix.
- Define frequency – You can start a blog and then do one post a month. That’s like trying to date and only calling the girl once a month. In order to build relationships, it takes time to get to know, like and trust people. I suggest at least once a week for a post; more if time permits.
- Define the audience – This is key so you can write to the interests and issues (content).
- Choosing the right voice – Remember, social is like having a conversation. Save the features and benefits for the sell sheets.
The key when considering blogging is that IT IS A COMMITMENT. But the upside is you can position your brand very favorably and generate lots of traffic, some of which will turn into relationships and maybe even business.
by tradesmeninsights | Oct 5, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Traditional Marketing
Email is still a valuable and productive marketing tool if used correctly. There are several factors that need to be addressed.
Here’s a checklist of things that might be helpful:
- Identify yourself – Let people know who it’s coming from.
- Attention-getting subject line – Keep it short and benefit oriented.
- Provide relevant copy – Answer the question, “What’s in it for me?”
- Keep your copy focused and short – Get to the point, use bold headlines, highlight important points and give them a call to action.
- Make sure it reflects your brand – look and feel, colors.
- Do a text version as well as an HTML version. Many privacy settings won’t allow images.
- Make sure it’s mobile friendly – Many, if not most emails are opened on smart phones. Make sure they are formatted accordingly so you make an impact.
- Opt-in list – This is the preferred list. If you can get them, make sure you personalize the message.
- Add appropriate links – While keeping the copy short and to the point, you can always give them a link if they want more information, whether it’s to your blog, website or other URL.
- Schedule your emails – Don’t inundate your audience. The only repsonse you’ll get is an opt-out.
- Timing – best days are Tuesday through Thurdsay, either mid-morning or early afternoon.
Those are my thoughts. Anyone care to add to the list?
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by tradesmeninsights | Oct 4, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
Anyone who does a blog on a regular basis know it’s a huge commitment. I try to do three posts a week and some weeks work (clients) gets in the way. But the show must go on and constistency is something I think every blogger should aspire to. So what do you do? If you’ve read other posts about blogs on this site, you know that I’m a big proponent of doing an editorial calendar and having a list of people who could help out with content.
If you’re a manufacturer, here are some tips on identifying helpers:
- Internal employees – Your editorial calender along with the topic categories you’ve decided to write on will help you identify possible contributors. Engineering, customer service and sales are three that come to mind.
- Suppliers and distributors – These folks certainly understand your product and have a motivation to spread the word. Distributors and suppliers can shed light on various other issues that are closer to and are industry related.
- Customers – They have first-hand knowledge of not only how your product solves their needs, but they can also talk about how important customer service or engineering support is.
- Industry experts – Every industry has several “experts.” Ask them to do a guest post on a pressing industry issue. They can offer their take on it and hopefully start a conversation on your site.
- Magazine editors – Editors from trade publications that cover your world are in the thick of industry issues and most would be happy to share their opinion either in writing a post or being interviewed for a podcast, for instance.
Those are some ideas of who you can tap to help out with content. Who have you been asking for help?
by tradesmeninsights | Sep 29, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
I must confess that when it comes to promoting our Facebook page, we don’t do a good job. I guess in my case for the targeted audience we’re going after, I don’t know if this is the most effective place to do it. LinkedIn, Twitter and even Google+ probably are better venues for us.
But for those of you who are focusing on building your fan page, I came across a great article by Justin Wise in a recent post on Social Media Examiner that highlighted 20 ways to spread the word on your Facebook fan page by educating your readers. Here are the ones that stood out to me:
- Put the fan page URL in your email signature – imagine that with the number of emails you send on a daily basis what kind of potential reach you would have.
- Ask others in your company to do the same – put it in their email signature.
- Ask your Twitter followers to join your fan page.
- Put a widget on you website and blog – don’t assume that people know you have a fan page.
- Ask fans to post a link – if they are truly fans, they will post a link on their personal profile.
- Put a tag on your YouTube videos – great idea and a way to get people more engaged.
What are you doing to promote your fan page?
If you liked this post you might like:
How to get the most out of your B to B faceboook page
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by tradesmeninsights | Sep 28, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
For those of you who have blogs, this will be of interest to you. We all (sometimes) are pressed for time and after writing and spell checking a post, we put it up there with the appropriate key words and let it fly.
I was reminded recently by a post by Heidi Cohen that we may be overlooking some ways to get that little extra out of each post. Her post, Does Your Content Marketing Contain These 12 Must-Have Components? had some good points we all should be using. Here are highlights of the top points that got my attention:
- Share this button – Makes sense to give your readers easy access to share your info. I normally add them at the end, but she suggests addding them up front. Good idea.
- Join email list – Seems like a “no brainer,” but if readers like what they see, they probably will want more. Give them a reason to sign up.
- RSS feed – Just another option for readers to follow you easily. It’s easy to install .
- Contact us functionality – If someone has the need to get a hold of you, give them an email address or phone number to call.
- Provide search on your site – Since your content may cause readers to want to find out more or may not answer all of their questions, allow them to seek more information.
- Supply links to related content – This is often not done. If you’ve written other posts that are relevant, why not have them at the bottom of the post for people to link to? Makes sense and it helps to keep them on your site while building your thought leadership.
These are just a few tips along with a good call to action that will help you get extra mileage out of each post. What are some things you’re doing to bolster readership?
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