10 Social Media Problems and Possible Solutions

10 Social Media Problems and Possible Solutions
Unofficial Facebook Page Post Ads Guide for News Feed
LinkedIn Unveils Streamlined Search
The Small Business Marketing Evolution
Tax Break Reversal: California Bills Small Business Owners, Investors
Stop Collecting And Start Engaging With Your Twitter Followers

Posted: 11 Apr 2013 02:00 AM PDT

Small business social media is a good thing…usually. Of course, this week observers in business and technology fields got a good look at how social media can also go bad.

Challenges in small business social media are inevitable. Social media tools can build your brand. But, they can also tear you down. There are many uncertainties too. Below are 10 troubles with small business social media and how to set them right.

10 Social Media Problems and Possible Solutions

Traditional Businesses Can’t Ignore It ~ BBC News

Kate Dailey reports on a hotel in Denver, Colorado involved in a $3.25 million renovation. The owners are counting on social media exposure to make their new hotel a tourist destination. Using small business social media brings its own challenges of turning clicks into customers and this one old fashioned business is focusing on creating a distinct social media voice to meet that challenge.

It’s Not as Simple as it Looks ~ The Sydney Morning Herald

Ted Rubin, social marketing strategist with content marketing firm Collective Bias, has earned a reputation as most followed chief marketing officer on Twitter. How does he do it? On a recent visit to Australia, Rubin spoke to a journalist about the secret to his success. He claims there are no tricks to his trade: just hard work, authenticity and lots of personal branding.

Your Efforts are Being Ignored ~ Dynamic Business

A recent study of Australian businesses found 70 percent offer social media channels for customer service. But only 31 percent of consumers are making use of them. Experts say the problem is outreach. Businesses must work harder to go to the social networks their customers use. They must engage as they would with any other communications tool.

There’s Too Much Noise ~ The Guardian

There is another reason small business social media is challenging. Making yourself heard above all the other social messages out there is difficult. The question becomes how to cut through all this noise to reach your customers. Small business owners should seek out areas where potential customers regularly communicate. They should cultivate customer communities that will spread the business’ brand and message to others.

It’s a Huge Time Sink ~ Forbes

Make no mistake. Small business social media takes time. That usually means time taken away from something else equally important. A professional management company gives 10 suggestions that will allow you to get the benefits you need from social media while effectively managing the time required.

Mastery Remains a Challenge ~ Penn Live

Used effectively, small business social media is more powerful than advertising and has the “power of the personal,” says business blogger John Luciew. Still, every small business is different. Luciew takes us through one fledgling entrepreneur’s journey to make social media an integral part of her startup success.

It Requires Investment ~ Post-Gazette

A recent survey shows that of 1,200 small businesses surveyed nationwide, only 20 percent plan to increase employment in 2013. But the majority of companies surveyed say they will increase spending on technology this year. That includes small business social media. Social media requires an investment. It also offers a return: more visibility, more customers, more revenue.

You Just Don’t Have the Staff ~ Charlotte Business Journal

The majority of companies may not be hiring to deal with their small business social media needs. But having someone dedicated to the task is important. Experts say one option is delegating social media chores within your company. Make it the responsibility of the advertising or public relations team, for example.

Public Relations Risks Abound ~ Small Business Trends

Last month, Jim Franklin, CEO for SendGrid Inc., lived every chief executive’s nightmare when a controversy involving his own “evangelist developer” Adria Richards, erupted on Twitter and then on Richards’ blog. The fiasco lead to the dismissal of Richards and an employee at another software company. The firings have also drawn criticisms highlighting the need for a better social media policy at the company to prevent future incidents.

It Distracts From Important SEO ~ Small Business Computing

You may already have an online presence. You may worry time spent on social media will distract your team from other important things. Your website needs SEO, for example. Tamara Weintraub, content marketing manager at ReachLocal, says there is no reason you can’t have both. Follow these 5 social media marketing tips to boost your SEO.

Social Media Photo via Shutterstock

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Unofficial Facebook Page Post Ads Guide for News Feed

Posted: 10 Apr 2013 04:00 PM PDT

Page Post Ads are like gold on Facebook. These ads help marketers engage users by pushing rich content to the center of the Facebook experience via the News Feed. Content can include photos, video, text and even links.

The following “The Unofficial Facebook Page Post Ads Guide for News Feed,” created by the folks at Ampush , provides a quick reference for creating effective Facebook ads. It also provides some comparison between Page Post Ads with Page Post Sponsored Stories, another Facebook advertising option.

[Click here for full size version]

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LinkedIn Unveils Streamlined Search

Posted: 10 Apr 2013 01:30 PM PDT

linkedin streamlined search

LinkedIn Streamlined Search has been unveiled by the social network. The update will give users more refined and personalized results.

LinkedIn Product Manager Johnathan Podemsky writes on the company’s official blog:

“We've unified the search experience so you no longer need to search for people, companies, or jobs separately. Now, all you need to do is type what you're looking for into the search box and you'll see a comprehensive page of results that pulls content from all across LinkedIn including people, jobs, groups and companies.”

Some of the new LinkedIn Streamlined Search features include auto-complete and suggested searches. Both features try to direct the user based on anticipating the intent of a search. A “smarter query intent algorithm” is designed to bring an individual, logged-on user more customized results the more searches they perform. LinkedIn began launching its new search feature on a limited basis this week and will release it globally in the next few weeks.

The new LinkedIn Streamlined Search feature will definitely depend on a user’s interactions with the social site. Matthew Toren at YoungEntrepreneur writes that there are several key steps to take to get the most from the new LinkedIn search. These include completing a full and thorough profile, joining the right groups, sharing valuable content, becoming a resource rather than just a vendor on the site and optimizing a profile for the new search feature.

Toren writes, “Make sure your primary expertise is displayed in your headline, your job function and within your job descriptions. You can see how many times your profile has come up in search, so track this before and after your optimization efforts. If needed, keep tweaking your profile to improve the numbers.”

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The Small Business Marketing Evolution

Posted: 10 Apr 2013 11:00 AM PDT

small business marketing

[Jim Cavale, COO of Iron Tribe Fitness]

You could easily liken small business marketing and digital marketing today to an old quote from Samuel Clemons (Mark Twain) about the weather in New England:

"If you don't like the weather in New England, wait a few minutes."

And it will change.

For many small business owners, just as they familiarize themselves with one marketing strategy, another one comes along claiming to trump all others. Add to that Google's ever-shifting (and mostly secret) algorithm changes and it becomes increasingly difficult for entrepreneurs to stick to a marketing plan.

I caught up with several business owners at Infusionsoft's annual Infusioncon Conference a few weeks ago to see how (or even if) they've refocused their marketing efforts in the past two years.

Bourn Creative

Jennifer and Brian Bourn run Bourn Creative, a company that helps other small businesses create websites and build their brands, so they have a thorough understanding of how marketing has shifted. Jennifer says that in the last two years, the "tools haven't changed, but the way we have to use them" has. Previously, she adds, it was easier for businesses to gain market share, and business owners could get away just doing some self-promotion.

Today, with so much information about your business readily available to your customers (both current and potential), Jennifer advises business owners to focus on branding and building a reputation for their businesses.

For their own business the Bourns say they were "greatly rewarded" after Google changed its algorithms. "Never try to game the system," they warn, and don't think SEO is a "magic pill." They advise business owners to do what's worked for them in the past two years, "Create great content and optimize it for the end user. Always put the user first." One of the best ways to do this is creating a blog. "Adding a blog to your website," Jennifer says, "creates a new opportunity for customers to find you online."

Another change the Bourns have experienced is the increased effectiveness of Twitter generating traffic to their website. To handle the load, they've turned to some third-party automation tools like HootSuite and Tweetbot to augment their real-time conversational tweets. There's so much competition online these days Brian says so you have to more directly ask for the sale and make it easy for customers to click through and buy. As for Google, he says you can't fight the changes it (and Facebook) makes so "you have to change and adapt."

One of the biggest marketing shifts in the past two years has been towards mobile marketing. Brian says make sure your content looks great on mobile devices and that you incorporate responsive design. He suggests you start with a mobile website and not a separate app.

Iron Tribe Fitness

Another entrepreneur who has experienced the rapidly evolving marketing environment is Jim Cavale, the COO of Iron Tribe Fitness (pictured above), a franchiser of gyms. Iron Tribe, which won the Infusionsoft Ultimate Marketer award last year, was launched by Forrest Walden in 2010 with a single location and today boasts 41 franchises. The company is on track to reach 300 units by 2017. Cavale opened the second gym and then teamed with Walden to launch the franchise.

In the beginning Iron Tribe's primarily used offline marketing, with about 88 percent of potential customers walking into the gym after seeing an ad. In an enormous shift, last year, Cavale says, 88 percent of its customers came from online leads. Email marketing is a more effective tool now for Iron Tribe, and Cavale attributes that to Infusionsoft's system which automates a good portion of the process.

Cavale's also noted that SEO is not giving Iron Tribe the return it once did. Today the company is much more active on social media. YouTube has proved very successful for Iron Tribe, as well as Google Local, which Cavale calls very "affordable." A lot of potential customers check the reviews on Google Local before they come in. Each Iron Tribe has a Facebook "fan page" and all locations use Twitter for customer service and support. Cavale says they actually sold a franchise from a Twitter connection.

SmallBizTechnology

Marketing and technology evangelist Ramon Ray of Smallbiztechnology.com and Infusionsoft says there's been a marketing shift in the last 24 months to "more engaging and relevant content. Just having a product or service is not enough," he adds, "business owners must feed the search engines."

Ray is, of course, using technology to focus more on existing clients in order "to create rabid customers who can turn into evangelists." And he's doing more to automate his engagement with new customers, which allows him to reach more people in a shorter time frame.

These entrepreneurs are definitely taking advantage of the rapid pace marketing is evolving. They're jumping into the fray armed with new strategies and tools to give them a competitive edge. And of course they're keeping an eye out for the "next, new thing." But as Ramon Ray says, right now the important thing is to focus "less on selling and more on relationship building."

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Tax Break Reversal: California Bills Small Business Owners, Investors

Posted: 10 Apr 2013 08:00 AM PDT

california small business

Owners and investors of small businesses in California are ruing a federal court decision that sticks them with more than $120 million in bills for back taxes.

Now, according to several reports, state lawmakers are being urged to reverse a court decision that eliminated the Qualified Small Business Stock tax break. The tax break allowed a small business owner or an investor in small businesses based mostly in California to exclude 50 percent of their income from state tax filings.

An editorial from The (Riverside, Calif.) Press-Enterprise notes that this tax break had been in place for 20 years in California and had been seen as a way for the state to promote small business growth and investments in these businesses. In December 2012 however, a federal court ruled that California’s tax break law violated interstate commerce laws and struck it down.

California went a step further and is now trying to recoup much of the money it believes it lost to the tax break, to the tune of at least $120 million. The Franchise Tax Board ruled that breaks given dating back to 2008 need to be reclaimed by the state, and it has billed more than 2,000 taxpayers for these back taxes. The average bill is between $60,000 and $100,000, according to The Press-Enterprise.

A report from UTSanDiego notes an instance in which one former investor in small business in California is now stuck with a bill higher than $250,000. That report also notes three separate pieces of pending legislation in California’s Senate and Assembly that would reverse the 2012 court decision, re-instate the tax break and expand it to include both in-state and out-of-state investments.

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Stop Collecting And Start Engaging With Your Twitter Followers

Posted: 10 Apr 2013 05:00 AM PDT

Social media marketing on Twitter is not a numbers game, and most companies don't realize this. Brands focus on collecting as many Twitter followers as they can by any means possible, even though most of these followers never engage with the brand or add any value to the social media marketing campaigns of these companies.

Companies that have thousands of followers on Twitter have very little engagement from these followers, as most of these accounts are either fake, inactive or are owned by other companies that have nothing in common with the brands.

One of the biggest mistakes a company can make is following other Twitter accounts that have nothing in common with the company or collecting Twitter followers that do not share the same interests as the company.

Instead of wasting time on collecting followers, focus your energies on improving engagement with your Twitter followers. Most small businesses have limited resources and cannot afford to have inefficient social media marketing campaigns.

To ensure that your Twitter marketing campaign succeeds, you need your followers to share your tweets and content with their followers. You want actively engaged followers who will also give honest feedback and pave the way for open dialogue between your brand and its followers. Below are a few pointers that will show you how.

Start Engaging with Your Twitter Followers

Follow the Right Users

It goes without saying that instead of focusing on the number of followers, you need to focus on the type of followers you are collecting. This is why you need to follow the right Twitter users, who will in turn follow you back, as such users will have a lot in common with your brand.

Ensure that the accounts your brand is following have similar profiles and are in the same industry. Following industry experts is a great way to gather valuable content on Twitter that you can share with your followers. This method may not give you a follower base in the thousands, but it will ensure that most of your followers actively engage with your content and brand.

Tweet Valuable Content to Your Twitter Followers

Even after collecting relevant followers, there may be no engagement with your brand if your tweets are irrelevant. You need to establish your brand as an industry expert to maximize engagement. This can be done if you tweet valuable and original content. Tweet links to your company blog posts that have relevant and interesting content.

Instead of rehashing existing articles, offer your own point of view and predictions. Your followers will find it useful and will want to retweet your tweets.

Respond to Your Twitter Followers Promptly

To continue conversations with clients and to have stronger relationships with them, you need to respond to their comments, retweets, shout-outs, questions, etc. as quickly as possible. By using the @replies feature on Twitter, you can check the “interactions” and “mentions” of your brand on Twitter and reply to questions promptly.

Also make sure to have an FAQ blog post. Link to it regularly on Twitter so that followers can follow the link if they have more questions. Always remember to thank followers who retweet, share and comment on your tweets, and use '@[Their Username]' in the tweet to give them a shout out.

You can also use direct messages to communicate with engaged followers who require more information about your brand.

Offer Fun Tweets to Your Twitter Followers

It may not always be possible to create long blog posts with valuable content and tweet them on a daily basis. In such cases, tweeting daily tips or fun facts is a great idea, as such tweets generally get a lot of engagement. Also, these posts are bite-sized and easy to read, which is always a good thing on Twitter.

You can also include behind-the-scenes images or ask interesting questions to followers.

Participate in “Follow Friday”

Follow Friday is not exactly a Twitter feature, but an event created by Twitter followers to highlight other users. Use the #FollowFriday hashtag in your tweet to place the spotlight on certain followers who engage with your brand frequently. This is a great way to reward certain followers and to appreciate their efforts.

You can also create special edition #FollowFriday events with specific themes and tag followers accordingly.

Blue Bird Photo via Shutterstock

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