Become a Fan!

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FaceBook is fun, no doubt about it. You can find friends from high school, college, previous jobs…it’s a hoot to see what everyone is up to.  However, the biggest challenge business people have with FaceBook is how to draw the line between personal and facebookLogoprofessional.  I for one am a very open person – I pretty much say what comes to mind and will typically tell you more about myself than you really need to know.  However, there are some things that I don’t really want clients or colleagues or prospective clients to see – like the picture of me falling off a swing last Easter at our family easter egg hunt in the park…hysterically funny for my family, but definitely not flattering and not something I want out there in my professional life.

As an entrepreneur or business owner, branding yourself versus your business can be confusing.  FaceBook can help or hinder you in this area if you don’t use it appropriately.  You can use Fan Pages to distinguish between your personal and professional lives.  My personal profile I try to reserve for family and friends.  Professionally I try to use my Fan Page.

A Fan Page is a page that can be created by a business, a non-person who doesn’t require a profile.  This was done to allow businesses, bands, non-profits and others to have a place to gather just like with FaceBook profiles.  Individuals can become “Fans” of your page, which is completely separate from your personal profile.  The benefit for us entrepreneurs is that you can provide business related content to your fans without them seeing the picture of you falling off the swing at Easter.

To create a Fan Page, start on an existing Fan Page…you can use mine if you like (42 Rules Fan Page)  …and please be sure to remember to become a fan!  Scroll down to the bottom of the left hand navigation bar, there is a link that says “Create a Page for my business”. Click that and off you go.  You can classify your business as local or product specific.  Then you add your content:  your bio, in this case is going to be your business description, and your image will probably be your company logo and your links should go back to your company webpage.

Now you can begin telling people about your Fan Page and inviting them to “become a fan”.  You can advertise within FaceBook and target specific groups of people who would be interested in your stuff.  On your Fan Page, you want to give folks things to do, learn, try…you can create events recommended reading lists, discussion boards, videos, product reviews….almost anything you can think of.  And remember – this page is specifically for your business!  Use it to promote new services, seminars, events…offer value added information like white papers, discussions, question and answer discussions.  Whatever you find that your Fans like – remember back to our earlier comments – its always good to ask them what they might like to get from you, from other fans, etc.

LinkedIn Answers Rock!

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The feature I find the most beneficial to business people looking to expand their network or build their credibility is the “Answers”linkedin-logo feature of LinkedIn. The objective of Answers is to share your expertise and establish yourself as an expert.  Answers is a great way to interact with people…to give and get information.  It’s also a great way to make your business stand out – by providing valuable information to your network.  A huge warning….This is not a lead generation forum, and using it like one will seriously hurt your credibility.  I am going to repeat myself on this one….this is not a lead generation forum.  You will only damage your reputation if you use it incorrectly.  Provide useful, relevant answers and you will do just fine.

To get to Answers, go to the top navigation bar on your LinkedIn profile, hover over “More” and click on “Answers”.

You can ASK and ANSWER questions here.  When asking questions, keep them short and specific. You are more likely to get response if your questions are clear and on point.  For example “How have you successfully used Advisory Boards in your business?”  OR “What are your best practices for hiring a virtual assistant?”  When answering questions, remember that these folks are honestly looking for information – they don’t want to hear your sales pitch.  So if you have something to share, do…if you’re just looking for a way to get visibility…believe me this is not the kind of visibility you want as you will quickly be identified as a spammer.  Probably not what you want :-)

Create your online persona

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Regardless of the social media platform you’re using, you are going to have some kind of a profile.  It is the core to almost all social guy with blank signnetworks and communities.  Your profile is your introduction to the world, the network or community.  It needs to reflect your personality AND how you are important to your customers AND the style and tone of the community where it is posted. You are starting with a clean slate – so be creative and tell your story.  Once you have the content of your profile figured out, use itconsistently so that when someone “meets” you on FaceBook and then invites you to connect on LinkedIn, they are seeing the same person.

This can get quite tricky when you are a solopreneur, or an independent professional, where you are your business.  The notion of personal branding comes up and I get asked all the time, do I brand myself or my company?  With social media, people are building a relationship with you, and you represent your company.  So the answer is that it depends.  On what….. your business objectives

If you are a consultant and most of your business is by referral, then you probably want to focus more on yourself – as people are referring you, not your business.  On the other hand, if you run an online boutique specializing in vintage women’s clothing, or an auto repair shop, or a hair salon – people are going to know the company, not necessarily you.

Let’s dissect your online profile and make sure you have the right elements in place across all platforms.   Key elements of a profile usually include:  Picture, Bio and Links.

Make sure your picture is current – nothing is more unsettling that to meet someone online only to eventually meet them in person, at a conference, event or a meeting or something, and they look nothing like their picture.  It is like they lied to you.  Plus, the bigger advantage is that people will begin to recognize you online by your picture and they will subconsciously develop a stronger relationship with you.

You bio needs to have two versions – a short one and a longer one.  You can think of the short one as your tagline, either yours personally, or your companies.  It needs to be memorable and quickly paint a picture for people.  The longer bio provides the details and is only used when people really want to learn more about you.  Give them the details that you’re comfortable sharing publically…education, work history, associations and interests.  More importantly, make it interesting.  As a quick example….“Laura Lowell – President, Impact Marketing Group” doesn’t tell me anything.  But “Laura Lowell – 20 years building brands and businesses”  tells me a lot more, and is more interesting and will get you noticed.

Include some links to other sites.  Make sure that the links are live, up-to-date and active.  If you link to your blog, but you have posted anything in the last 6 months – what message are you sending people?  Nothing good, I can assure you.

Remember that the profiles on each type of platform will vary slightly, but these elements are common to 99% of them.

When and Where to start?

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The key to marketing with social media is that it isn’t a specific event.  It is a process, a conversation, with your customers, the megaphoneindustry, influencers….whoever you’re targeting.  You can’t walk into a party and begin shouting and expect people to react positively. The same is true with social media.  You need to have some understanding of the situation, the context and the culture before trying to be the center of attention.

You can, however, chime in, offer an opinion, ask a question…or just hang out and see what’s going on.  So many people are afraid of starting with social media because they don’t know how, they think it will take too much time or they don’t see how it relates to their business.  Frankly, while the technology can be intimidating, they have made tons of progress and most of the platforms are dead easy to use. Plus, if you think about social media as a different way of talking with customers about how you can help them – it is much less intimidating. Also, you don’t have to have everything perfect to start…

There is no wrong time to start engaging in social media.   Go ahead and jump in, hang around, watch, listen and learn the culture of each network or community.

You know – this is an important distinction that I’d like to draw your attention to.  Social networks and communities are different – they are two separate entities.  Networks, like LinkedIn or YouTube, tend to big and diverse with lots of people trying to connct and get noticed.   Communities, like FaceBook or MySpace, are usually smaller and focused on a specific topics or interest and are much more friendly and social by nature.    Where to engage is easy to figure out if you’re been listening to the conversations.  Sometimes it might be a combination of networks and communities…but usually there is one that is significantly more appropriate based on active conversations, members, quality of discussions.

What to do?

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Usually, when it comes to marketing, the biggest challenge most of us have isn’t a lack of ideas. In fact, ideas sometimes seem to come flying at us from all directions.  The biggest challenge is selecting the most effective things to do based on what your customers want, what you like to do and what will help you achieve your objectives.

The list of marketing activities you can invest in is huge, and seems to get bigger everyday as new things like Twitter, video blogs, and I-don’t-even-know-what appear out of nowhere. The big thing right now seems to be Twitter and social media in general.  What I want to help you do is to prioritize them.   Not everyone needs to be on Twitter.  Not everyone needs to write a book.  Not everyone needs to deliver keynote speeches.  You need to figure out what YOU need to be doing to 1)  reach your target audience, 2) achieve your objectives, and 3) enjoy yourself while doing it.

Try this little exercise:  List off the top of your head 5 things you would like to do to market your business that you are not doing today. It could be doing an Adwords campaign with Google, or setting up a Twitter or FaceBook account.  It could be creating a video to describe your business and post it to YouTube and your website.  Submitting articles to blogs, commenting on blogs in your field, the list can go on and on.

Now, ask yourself these questions:red question mark

1.  Do your customers use these things – are they on FaceBook or LinkedIn?  Do they even read blogs?  If so, which ones?

2.  Do you like doing these things?  If you don’t like to write, then saying you’re going to write articles and submit them isn’t going to be very much fun for you, and consequently you probably won’t do it.

3.  Do these things help you achieve your objectives?  If most of your business comes from referrals and word of mouth, then investing in search engine optimization for your website, might not be the most important thing for you to do.

What you’re going to find is that not all of them work.  Some might work for your customers, but you hate doing it. Others might help you achieve your objectives but your customers don’t like them.  This is how you prioritize your marketing activities and get down to the critical few things you need to do to attract the right kind of customers.  The things you need to do, you like to do and will move you towards your goal.  Evaluate the different activities you COULD do and decide what you SHOULD do.