Do you do business with Companies or People? Essential Social Media Marketing Lesson.

Me and Beth Schoenfeldt at Collective-E launch party

One of the mantras I learned from my entrepreneur Dad a long time ago is

“Businesses do not do business with businesses. There is always a person in a company doing business with another person in a company.”

Let me explain why understanding this is vital for your success in social media marketing.

TWO WAY COMMUNICATION

The main thing about social media marketing is that it’s not one way communication. It’s TWO way - you talk to your audience/community and it talks to you and you listen, take notes, act and that’s how you make the results!

There are several how-to-get-rich-on-social-media handbooks telling you to send auto-response notes and teaching how to do advertising on social media sites. The same type of handbooks tell you how to increase the number of followers or subscribers, how to “catch” people’s email addresses and how to build “landing pages”.

Don’t waste your money or time on those handbooks.

While learning how to make Facebook fan pages or how to really use Twitter for self-promotion is important, SEO is important and advertising is important, the most important thing about social media marketing is to learn to do two-way-one-to-one-communication, not how to blast out information to masses.

See, blasting out information is the old school way of doing things, also called “shoot and pray” - blasting out information to large quantities and praying something sticks somewhere and you receive the wanted result. The new way of doing things is to send out information to a trusted network of people who already know you.

CASE STUDY: BLASTING TO MASSES VERSUS CONTACTING YOUR NETWORK

I was recently working with a project that needed bloggers’ participation and I needed to get 5-10 bloggers involved. I contacted 10 bloggers who already knew who I was, and 10 bloggers who didn’t know me, but who blogged in the target market I was looking for. Out the first group, of ten people who already knew me, nine said yes to the project. Out of the ten who didn’t know me, nobody said yes.
Out of 20 bloggers I contacted I got 9, that’s 45% return rate on the whole group, and 90% return rate on the group who already knew me. Sadly, in this example the return rate on the “shoot and pray” method was 0% - I wonder how many unknown to me bloggers I would have had to contact to get the 9 bloggers I needed for the project.

Katja Presnal

PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS MAKES DOING BUSINESS A PLEASURE

Don’t get me wrong here - I’m not even close to suggesting mixing business and pleasure, but saying that doing business with people you like and know is much more pleasurable than doing business with someone you don’t like. Me? Frankly, I try to avoid doing business with people I don’t like.

The personal relationships matter in business, and with the social media tools people can easier find the people they want to do business. Social media sites also make referring people easy and finding business partners people who you already know recommend. The whole beauty of sites like Twitter is that you can easily jump into a conversation with people and get connected without even having to just talk business. When people know who you are as a person, they are more likely to do business with you.

Also, when you get to know a business person you like, you will want to do business with her/him and often can create something new and exciting with a company that on the first look may have seemed like the unlikely match with your company.

CASE STUDY: CROSS-PROMOTION WITH A “FRIEND” OR AN “ENEMY”

Sam’s Sandwich Shop had been open for a year and Sam wanted to do a big birthday party to get more potential customers to visit his shop. Sam sort of wanted to do cross-promotion with one of the other store-owners in the same strip-mall. A lot of customers bought both, a sandwich from Sam and a smoothie from Pete’s Smoothies next door, and it would have been a natural connection to do cross-promotion. However, Sam and Pete didn’t get along at all.

Sam mentioned this to Ashley, the flower shop owner, and since they had been helping each others out in with other business questions, they decided to do a cross-promotional campaign together. Sam’s Sandwich Shop was decorated by flowers (giving ideas what kind of bouquets work for birthdays) and Ashley hosted a “How to make centerpieces” class and served sandwiches for her clients. They advertised both events on a same newspaper ad, splitting the cost. Many people had only visited either one of the businesses before and now were introduced to another business in the same location. Both Sam and Ashley received positive feedback for their events, and received new customers for their businesses.

Many people in the social media world focus more on the word “media” and they even call it “new media” instead of social media. However, the “social” part is essential, and being the gal or guy who everyone wants to do business with is the key to success. You do not get there by just blasting self-promotional information.

When your business partners and customers become part of your community, you will have a word-of-mouth marketing network built in, and you can leverage it for business when needed. These people already know you and trust you, and know that you are not just using them to promote your business, they know they can trust you to give your helping hand for them too.

Me? I have taken social media to the next level - I am meeting people in person, like Beth Schoenfeldt, Sabina Ptacin and Katie Hellmuth from the recently launched Collective-E, a women’s networking company offering support and advice for womenpreneurs. It would be risky to take your online business relations offline, if you are not being authentic and honest online, my tip is - be yourself, no matter what.

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Is Your Copy Sloppy?

“Our handemade cards are awesome. Seriously!

We put so much work into these cards and we have sooooo many colors.

We can do custom orders to. Just email us for an estimate by email.”

I recently saw this on a web site I won’t name. The site design was eye-catching and the product was unique and beautiful, but I felt myself hesitating to order it. It took me exactly one nanosecond to figure out why. This description offers almost no information, is full of errors, and sounds like it may have been written by a seventh grader (and that is almost an insult to seventh graders).

Of course, this is an extreme example, but take a little surf around and you’ll see—there is a lot of shoddy writing floating around the intertubes. Which is unfortunate, because engaging, readable web copy is one of the most important tools you have for promoting your product or service. And it really isn’t that hard to create.

Technology has changed the way we access and distribute information, but the information itself comes to us the same way it always has—through the written word. After putting so much work into driving traffic to your site, the last thing you want to do is frustrate and annoy your visitors by burying important information in a lot of unnecessary text or misspelling the name of your own product (yep—I’ve seen that too).

Do yourself a favor and take a second look at the copy on your site.

We editor nerds talk about the three Cs when we’re working to improve a piece of writing:

Is it clear?

Can a visitor determine with a quick glance what exactly your product or service is? Sometimes when you spend a lot of time talking to other people who do what you do, you get in the habit of using short-hand phrases and insider talk that can be confusing to a newbie. Has that sort of thing crept into your web copy?

Make an outline or a bullet-point list. What are the highlights? What absolutely must be included? What kinds of questions can you anticipate visitors will have, and how can you answer them right off the bat?

Is it concise?

Does your copy get right to the point or is it a touch on the wordy side? Almost no one can write tight, clever, effective copy on the first draft. Did you spend much time paring down your words with some revision? Are you trying too hard to shoehorn keywords into sentences where they don’t fit?

The best writing is concrete, lean, and vivid. Put your copy on a diet. Cut out the fat (boring adjectives, passive voice, long or complex phrases that could be replaced with something short and snappy). Keep only the words that are doing work. You’ll be amazed at how much better the writing sounds when the ideas aren’t cluttered up with a lot of unnecessary filler.

Is it correct?

For the love of Pete, people—crack a dictionary. It was made for something other than propping up that wobbly table! Spell check is a good tool, but you can’t rely on it completely. Wikipedia, however, is a great electronic tool for grammar and punctuation questions. And please save the emoticons and chat-speak for…well, if you want to know what I think, you should save them until I depart from this planet, but that’s neither here nor there. In any case, they do not belong on a professional web site. Period.

Read over your copy before you post it. Read it out loud so you can hear how it sounds (this works like a charm to catch those errors your eye skips right over). Have a friend read it, or pay an editor for a half hour of her time. It will be worth every penny.

One final note that speaks to all three of the Cs: take a look at your design. Is your page bursting at the seams with information, images, and seizure-inducing graphics? Less is more. White space helps a reader isolate the piece of information he or she needs and digest it without getting distracted.

You work hard—represent that work to the world with professionalism and style! Happy writing, Ladybugs!

Guest Blog Post By Kelly O’Connor McNees

Kelly is a writer and editor. Check out Word Bird Editorial Services to see how she can help with projects big and small: www.wordbirdedits.com.

Want to Guest Post? Contact Katja Presnal

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Get noticed in your next trade show

I watched Big Idea with Donny Deutch a while back and he had two mompreneurs asking how they could get noticed and present their product in the upcoming trade show, without being too pushy, and how they would get people to stop at their trade show booths. Here are some of my ideas, which many of them are the same as in the show. Keep reading and you will also find an excellent real life example how one company made me really want to see them in a trade show.

1. Connect before you go. Contact prospective retailers, introduce your product, and let them know where and when they can see your line. Ask if they’d like to make an appointment at the trade show. I can not say this too many times - the personal connections make all the difference in business, start building them before the trade show.

2. If they don’t get back to you, it is OK to contact again before the trade show, and ask if they are interested in making an appointment, while announcing a new product release, other company news, or maybe a celebrity sighting (with your product) or recent media attention - something saying “others love our products, you might too” - without actually saying it.

3. Your trade show booth needs to grab attention, be inviting and be very easy for the buyers to get to know your product. Biggest fail: not enough lighting.

4. Make ordering super easy, with easy to read order sheets available. It’s always good to have these tucked inside your brochure, even for those who just get the brochure without stopping and really talking to you at the show.

5. Gimmicks are always good, but be careful not to go overboard, and that your prospective
customers will see your product, and are not just overpowered with your gimmick. An example of an excellent gimmick follows below.

6. Follow-up! There are no guarantees the buyers will make the order, until, well, they make the order. Great communication and follow up will triple your chances of getting those orders in.

Treating your retailers right is the key to successful relationship with them. Your retailers are always part of your team, like learnt from the case study.

I recently got two emails from Scandinavia Child inviting me to visit them at the trade show booth in a trade show I unfortunately didn’t have chance to go. But Scandinavian Child made me feel welcome to visit their booth, interested in their product and appreciate them as a company.

First email I got from them was about two weeks before the trade show, saying something like “people who visit our trade show booth often say how great our products are, how they like the design, but the thing we hear most is “my feet hurt from walking” and we wanted to do something about it” and the email continued explaining that they will be gicing away Dr Scholls massaging gel shoe inserts to easy everyone’s pain. Brilliant! Gimmick, yes, but did it make me want to visit their booth? Yes!

A week later, another email arrived, saying something like “Come by Booth 6845 to see our finalists in the JPMA Innovation Awards competition” and introducing their two new products, which also were finalists in the JPMA Innovation Awards competition. This time it was offering a validation why their products were great by giving an example that other people think they are great too, without actually saying “our products are the best”, which of course everyone wants to say.

Like Scandinavian Child - think what you can do for your buyers, and then think after that what they can do for you.

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Exposure for designers!

A great marketing opportunity for our LadyBosses and LadyDesigners! 

SheFinds is looking for designers and offering you an amazing opportunity to get your design work noticed and your name known. This fall SheFinds will run a promotion to raise money for Count Me In and help small designers get the word out about their designs.

Count Me In is the leading national not-for-profit provider of business resources and education for women entrepreneurs. Their mission is to promote economic independence and the growth of women-owned businesses.

SheFinds is going to feature original accessories created by independent designers this September that incorporate either the motto “Believe In You”, the Count Me In or Make Mine a Million $ Business® logos, and/or the colors into the design. The designer will need to pledge to donate a portion of the proceeds from the sale of each piece to Count Me In. You will have to design a product specifically for this purpose. Read details and requirement at SheFinds.com.

Hurry, the deadline to participate is August 1st, but they need to know as soon as possible if you are planning to participate. Please contact them by July 1st!!

Here is one great example of a participating product, a necklace from Payson & Co.

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