A customer asked me to summarize my approach to helping people find my business (www.itgroove.net) online.
I used to do a fair amount of print advertising to build ‘brand’. But it was extremely expensive and had a short shelf life (before it hit the recycle bin). So, over the years, I’ve been bulking up on Social Network/Media outlets like Facebook, Linked In … and most importantly, for me, my blog (http://www.brainlitter.com). In fact, my Blog seems to generate more interest in our company than our corporate website does … and as my passion grew for blogging, it seems Microsoft learned to appreciate what I had to say, and awarded me with the MVP in SharePoint (my true love, besides Wendy and the kids, of course).
Anyways … babbling over. Here’s a short list of suggestions I had for the client. It is by no means comprehensive, but it is original (not just a cut and paste from other blogs out there) and may offer a short perspective on how one small IT business is reaching out to a larger (the Internet!) audience and using this as our sole marketing vehicle (ok, I lied, we have a very small yellow pages listing which next year we’ll be shrinking again and we have our name splashed on a giant sign outside of the hockey arena we work in – www.sofmc.com – but that is free too – only costs me my soul… :-).
Social Networking – Sean Style
Some Great Reference Material
- 10 Benefits of Blogging – http://www.hosting-netexplorers.co.uk/blog/web-marketing/the-10-business-benefits-of-blogging, with #8 being the one I swear by … but all are valid
-
Two books I just bought that are getting great reviews:
-
33 Million People in the Room: How to Create, Influence, and Run a Successful Business with Social Networking
-
Social Networking – An Hour A Day
-
First Steps…
Before you start, make sure you have the ‘basics’:
-
A short description of who you are and/or what your business does. I have 3 different paragraphs I keep on hand (so I don’t have to dream it up, each time – thus they are free of typos and ready to use when I am). I’ve included what I have (in SharePoint of course) in the screenshot below, in a list, so I can simply cut and paste from there, into whatever medium I am using (Face book, Linked In, or some new service that comes along – the crux being that I’m *consistent*)
- Short description – 140 characters or less
- Medium description – 1 paragraph
- Long description – whatever describes the whole business best
- A place to store all of the Social Networking Media login info – if you are going to create accounts that you visit seldom (or often), have a place to put this info, as they all may have different rules for password lengths, etc. and you won’t remember 6 days from now, much less 6 months from now…
- Have your logo handy, in various sizes, ready to upload – most sites will allow you to attach your logo (brand!) and you should do it, everywhere you can – so have it on hand, in a quality representation, raring to go, in various web friendly sizes (I keep a thumbnail, small, medium and large logo, ready to roll)
Avenues…
One size doesn’t fit all, but this is what I do, and for now, and it is enough for me.
Blogging
- Share opinions and value, but don’t turn people off
- Set yourself up (and your content) as the local expert on your topic (business) – people will be drawn to you (plus all it costs you is time, to push out your brand)
- If you don’t yet have a blog, consider Blogger.com as it is owned by Google (thus I suspect has a higher weight for being indexed). But Microsoft has some great/integrated social features too – never hurts to do both
- Make sure your company URL and your content includes ways for you to be found, if even just a footer
- Blog as often as you can. Sometimes it will be lengthy, sometimes it will be short and sweet. Whatever it is, keep doing it
- Link your blog to your website and vice versa
-
Provide expert comments on other blogs of similar content, and be sure to provide a link/URL back to your blog, so others can find you
Other Social Networking Outlets
There are so many – below are the few I care about, so far. The more you are out there, the more you will be found. But one thing is clear, create an account everywhere, so nobody else grabs your *alias*. Because someone else could choose to create a CompanyX account at Face Book and then make you look bad – get it before someone else does, even if you just sit on it.
- Face Book – Create a ‘group’ for your business and invite others to join it. Try and add content now and then. Consider Face Book Ads as well – I pay $30 a week, to reach 43,000 people in a demographic I dictate (certain age group, 25 miles from my postal code, etc.)
- Twitter – Create an alias. I’m not big on Twitter and I hope it is a passing fad, but get your Twitter ID before someone else does
- Linked In – Business to Business Social Networking – I like this better than most other Business to Business social tools
Others include Plaxo, MySpace, etc. But for me, and my time, business wise, I don’t find much value in those (or more accurately, I haven’t spent much time with them, nor do I feel I’m missing out).
Hope this helps someone…