Cover Photo Tricks

Posted by Camille Rodriquez on May 18, 2012 in Portfolio | 0 comments

Sometimes you may need a creative burst when it comes to your Facebook Cover Photo. Some folks are suggesting that you update your Cover Photo every week! That’s a lot of branding and creative imagery! Why not highlight your Fans some of those times?

This week’s Friday Flick is a quick trick on how you can do just that. Check out this video,  and then take note of the comment below it.

One thing to note, though, is that you want to make sure you use a good tool to take your screen shot. There are lots of them out there – Snagit, Snippet – and others, but make sure that the image you save is of a good quality so that you have a good image when you upload the Cover Photo.

Let us know if you have any questions!

4 Ways to Get Better Fans

Posted by Camille Rodriquez on May 14, 2012 in Portfolio | 0 comments

When you think over your life, you probably have some great memories of specific events and times. You may have lived a lot of days, but the great ones stand out, right? Social media has a similar principle in effect. You may desire a lot of fans or followers because that appears to make a statement about your worth as a business, but a few great fans are better than a thousand inactive ones. The great ones stand out, don’t they?

So how do you get better fans? This isn’t a question of more fans, but better fans. With better fans, you’ll likely see a growth in your reputation, customer satisfaction, and referrals. Think about it. How many businesses do you actually refer to your friends? Probably only the best ones, the ones you trust the most. To be in that inner circle of referrals, a business has to be worth it. That business has to be one that you feel personally connected to, or one that has changed your life in some way.

For business leaders then, the question becomes how do you get your customers or social media fans to add you to their list of favorites? Do you just have to have better fans? More fans? Both? Larger numbers don’t necessarily mean what you think they mean in social media, and so “more” may not be the answer. Better fans, on the other hand, is the answer. The more your fans are crazy about you, the more they will share in your marketing with you, organically.

Here are four ways to get better fans, then. Each of these will consume some of your time, and each is straightforward enough, but each is worth it. Your customers will be happier, and your business leadership will reap the rewards.

1. Be a better fan. This one is probably the most time-consuming, and so it’s the first one that most business owners leave off. To get better fans for your business, you have to be a bigger fan of your customers, vendors, support businesses, networking partners, etc. If Facebook is your thing, then you should be on Facebook, engaging with others both on your own page and on theirs. It’s very easy to overlook interaction with other businesses on Facebook, but there are some great benefits to using Facebook for networking, too! The same is true for Twitter, LinkedIn, and all the others.

2. Be personal. Part of what makes your business interesting to others is the personality behind the products. Southwest Airlines is a great example of this. There are lots of airlines to choose from, but Southwest has flight attendants that sing and tell jokes. They are committed to being the airline of “fun,” and their staff act accordingly. Social media allows great freedoms in expressing yourself honestly and showing your personal side while also doing business. Fans who connect with the personalities of your business will be more likely to promote the real people that they know on your staff than fans who see you as only having one thing on your mind – “buy our products.”

3. Be multi-dimensional. One of the biggest mistakes that many businesses do with their social media is bore their followers to death. If you tweet the same thing on Twitter every day for 2 months, your followers will disappear. Yes, give tips and resources away, yes, talk about what you do well, be helpful, AND keep your fans and followers intrigued with what you might want to talk about next. Closely related to this is to also make sure you’re giving them room to respond and interact with their own opinions. They may have come to you because they want to learn about your service, but they may not always be able to talk about it. So, give them other things to talk about with you through social media.

4. Be honest. In addition to the traits above, your fans and followers also want to see honesty. They want to know that you’re going to do what you say you’re going to do, and they want to know that if you fail, you’re prepared to fix it. That translates in a variety of ways in social media, depending on the business you’re in, but your best fans and most loyal followers will be those who believe with their heart and their experience, that you are dealing honestly with them; not perfectly, but honestly.

To build up your best social media fans to the point that they begin to refer your business to their friends, these are the things you must be. To stand out, to find more of these “better” fans, your followers will be looking for honesty, variety, personal touches, and genuine interest in others. This takes consistent and long-term time commitments, but with better fans, couldn’t you do more?

Related Articles:

The 3 Cogs of Social Media

What to Talk About

Going Wide Versus Deep in Social Media?

Friday Flick – Measuring Social Media

Posted by Camille Rodriquez on May 11, 2012 in Portfolio | 0 comments

Have you ever wondered what social media managers and social media marketers are being told about measuring ROI or social media? Today’s Friday Flick is a quick “take-away” from a meeting I attended this morning where folks and businesses just like Polka Dot Impressions were there to talk “measuring.” For the purposes of our discussion, we defined ROI as “Revenue – Costs = ROI” and the bottom line is that it varies for each business. How you measure ROI depends on whether or not you are monitoring AND measuring the things you’re doing in social media in the first place. And let’s not forget that goals are involved. You have to have some goals for your social media marketing.

After you’ve viewed this video, let us know if you have questions about getting started with effective monitoring, goal setting, or measuring!

“Would You Rather?”

Posted by Camille Rodriquez on May 7, 2012 in Portfolio | 0 comments

Have you ever played that game, “Would You Rather?” Two choices are presented to you, usually of a similarly difficult nature, and you are supposed to decide which you would prefer. For example, “Would you rather die in a tornado or a hurricane?” Social media presents this challenge to the business owner every day – two difficult choices. How you respond to them in action, not just in your published motto, can make or break your social media marketing.

“Would you rather build a business on authenticity or gimmicks?” Through social media, the business leader has the opportunity to build a solid foundation of leadership, accountability, value-driven products, and interactive behavior. However, this can cost time, money, or both. Gimmicks are a bit cheaper and get results faster, but they are far more volatile. They may or may not work in the long run, and they may or may not draw the audience the business leader plans for them to draw.

What does this look like? Did you know that you can buy Fans on Facebook or Followers on Twitter? There are service providers that let you pay them to build your following overnight, literally. As an experiment, we did this on one occasion for a “test account” to see what the results would be. On Facebook, the brand page increased its Fans by more than 500 in a 24-hour period. On Twitter, it took 48 hours, but the Follower count rose by 200. However, this gimmick produced no Retweets, no Mentions, no Shares, no Likes, no Comments, etc. over the following three weeks. In other words, these mysterious brand new Fans/Followers were completely disengaged and had nothing to say.

There are other examples – running a contest for a trendy gadget that draws Fans/Followers who only want the prize, and don’t want to know anything about your business, taking an article that you’ve written and running it through content “spinners” to generate multiple versions of the same material so that it looks like you’ve written 20 articles instead of one, and the list goes on. Business owners and marketers need to play the “would you rather” game on a daily basis. With every marketing campaign or social media posting strategy, they must consider the long-term gains before they begin. Are all Fans/Followers equal? Probably not!

Consider your goals carefully before determining what approach you would rather take with your social media!

The Core of Social Media

Posted by Camille Rodriquez on May 1, 2012 in Portfolio | 0 comments

How well can you recite or explain your own core values in business? Do your staff members know them from a plaque on the wall or by experientially “doing” of business?

These are important questions when it comes to social media for one simple reason. Social media is the most obvious and “loud” place to demonstrate your core values for your customers, clients, and prospects, and it’s the test of your own staff’s understanding of your mission.

Through social media, businesses have the opportunity to “practice what they preach” around the clock. Through social media, customers and prospects have the opportunity to see if they can identify what you’re all about – your core values in business. Not only do your posts, tweets, blogs, etc. speak to what drives you in business, but they also back it up personally – if you are using social media effectively.

We have 5 core values at Polka Dot Impressions. Based on the DNA of our business, we know what to post and talk about – topics, questions, tips, and other ways to support these core values, both for us, and for other business owners and leaders who live by any of these same core values. To demonstrate that, let’s illustrate how this works.

Our Core Values

1. Have a strategy with social media. When we engage with the various platforms, we have a specific strategy and set of goals. Those may be different from platform to platform, and we may need to revise the strategy, but all that we do in social media is centered on specific and strategic goals. For instance, on Facebook, we never sell anything. We only want to share conversations in, and through, social media. That’s it. So, our topics may be questions that seem “random,” but in fact they are just an opportunity to have a conversation with our fans and get to know them better, and social media is the vehicle for that.

2.  Make an impression with social media. This includes giving away tips and being helpful to others. It means being generous with help and advice, whether or not there’s anything in it for us. It also means showing a bit of your personal side – setting yourself apart from others by your own character and personality. Through Twitter and our blogs, we give away tips and suggestions that we hope others will benefit from when using social media for themselves.

3. Content is critical in social media. What you say better be more about inter-action than sales. Do you have something to say, or just something to sell? Social media is all about having something to say. If you have no content, you probably won’t have very many opportunities to share your products. Anyone can Google a product they need, but they’d rather have counsel they can trust because your content has proven to be trustworthy. We place a lot of emphasis on giving away suggestions via blogs and video tips for this reason.

4. Be engaging whenever possible.  To us, this means it’s more about others than you. You have to talk about and share information that others want to talk about. Sometimes that’s off topic. Sometimes that’s personal. Isn’t that the point of “social” media? If you only talk about your services, products, or latest promotion, folks will have “nowhere to go” to engage with you.  Engagement is two-way, and every social media platform that you use should be based on this concept.

5. No matter what, be a person/business of integrity. We’ve all been burned by a business or product that didn’t live up to its promises. Everyone will fail to deliver at one time or another. Own it, and make it right. We’ve also all seen companies that break the rules because “everyone else is doing it.” Follow the rules. If Facebook says no contests where a “Like” is the entry ticket, don’t do it. It’s not worth losing the platform over a contest just because others are getting away with it for now. Do it another way – the right way. Being a business/person of integrity is a huge topic, and it should permeate every decision you make, especially with social media. In fact, I would question any business that doesn’t have “Integrity” as one of its core values. Wouldn’t you?

Now we’re back to the beginning. Is your business living into its core values through social media? Do your staff members operate as if these values, whatever yours are, permeate everything they do while on your payroll?

Perfection isn’t always possible, but your core values should be clear enough to the social media user that they can figure out what you’re all about, and they can see how you’ve demonstrated your own convictions. Social media is the ideal place to live into, and through, those values.

What are your core values, and how do you demonstrate them?

Friday Flick – “Can You Help Me With My Social Media?”

Posted by Camille Rodriquez on Apr 27, 2012 in Portfolio | 0 comments

Beginning today, we will post our Friday Flick videos as blog posts, rather than just as updates to our “Friday Flick” web page. Most Fridays, we put out a free video tip on using social media more effectively for your business. We’ve talked about all sorts of topics – sometimes pretty specific, and sometimes more general, like today’s topic!

We’re often asked by folks, “Can you help me with my social media?” Our answer always starts with the approach we share in this video. What are your goals? How will you modify those for each platform, etc. Here – take a look for yourself, and let us know if we can help you take it to the next level!

To Automate Posts or Not?

Posted by Camille Rodriquez on Apr 24, 2012 in Portfolio | 0 comments

Having heard all of the arguments for and against, and based on some of my own experimentation, whether or not you automate posts through social media still gets answered with, “It depends.”  So, focusing on the 4 major platforms, let’s look at some of the variables.

The “Pros,” or reasons for using 3rd party software for auto-posting to the various platforms all include three factors. Automated posting saves time, it allows you access to more in-depth analytics than might be available through the platform itself, and it allows you to consistently take advantage of your audience’s peak time on that platform without strapping you to your computer at a certain time every day. But what are the reasons against automated posting?

Facebook
Facebook “filters” the content that users see from businesses and community pages according to a formula they call Edgerank, essentially an algorithm that determines whether or not your Fans are actually interested in what you are saying. Automated posting has been known to lower your Edgerank.*

Google+
At the moment, none of the 3rd party applications used for automated posting have been given access to Google’s API (Application Programming Interface) for creating this software. You can post from Google+ to other platforms, but not directly to Google+. Some folks speculate that by doing this, Google is ensuring that you are seeing fresh content at all times on their platform, making this one of the unique elements of Google+ for businesses.

LinkedIn
On LinkedIn, automated posts tend to look “junky” as the hashtags and bit.ly link shorteners (or similar tools like these) clutter the text of your posts. Most savvy LinkedIn users can tell the difference between a “robotic message” and a live post, and as a more professional platform, you can imagine that the more professional look is better for your image.

Twitter
While there are no penalties for automating your posts here, and no apparent reputation problems with autoposting, doing this exclusively can cause the account holder to “detach” from their own Twitter audience. By being so automated that Twitter becomes “out of sight, out of mind,” it can lead to a one way use of Twitter, rather than the two-way networking platform Twitter is designed to be.

Some suggestions:

If you decide to use 3^rd party software to automate your posts, you may not want to use it for all of your platforms. For instance, since there is no penalty for using software to post to Twitter, it may be a good idea to automate your posts to Twitter so that you can implement bigger strategies effectively and consistently. But, you should also check into your Twitter account daily to respond to any RT’s or Mentions as well as interacting with others, too!

*On Facebook however, a recent experiment has proven to me that exclusively automating your posts can be detrimental. Rather than automating posts, for all of our clients we posted 90% or more of their posts live during an experimental month. We stuck to the peak times for their audience, posted content that was similar to past posts, and only changed the variable of how the content was posted. In every case, their Edgerank score went UP over a period of one month. An occasional automated post didn’t seem to be a problem, but live posting proved to be better by the standards of Edgerank.

The obvious next question is, “Can I do live-posting to Facebook, but have it auto-feed to my Twitter account?” Yes, you can, but we don’t recommend it. All of the social media platforms have different uses, and treating them the same way is not making the best use of any of them. Not only that, but when you send out the same content at the same time to different platforms, anyone paying attention will realize that you’re doing this, and when they do, they will also come to the conclusion that you didn’t care enough about your audience to speak directly with them. This will weaken the work you’re doing to build your reputation. In the long run, it’s not worth doing this unless it’s a special announcement or current event notice, done only on occasion and only when you are trying to get out a quick update.

Time Management in Modern Settings

Posted by Camille Rodriquez on Apr 18, 2012 in Portfolio | 0 comments

The other day I stumbled on an article from 2009. It was shared in an online group I belong to, and the content was very interesting as it relates to how business gets done. While the terms used were geared to the computer programming industry, the article describes two types of schedules that people keep in business – the “maker’s” and the “manager’s” schedule.

The original article is worth reading, but it points out an interesting fact. When we set up our day, our tasks, and more importantly our interactions with others, we often assume that others are operating within the same structures we are. It can be challenging to set up appointments at times, but we tend to assume that’s because the other person is busy, rather than assuming that the other person manages time differently, or needs to make different use of time.

I know of one businessman who can literally lose a week in back-to-back meetings at his office. One will run into the other, and each one is deemed a higher priority than the others by the person who called the meeting. This business leader runs from office to office, day-to-day, and at the end of the week, his own project list sits untouched. I would venture to say his situation is not unheard of by other business leaders.

So while I was evaluating the challenge for folks who are both managers and makers, such as social media managers like me, I came to some conclusions, some new and some familiar:

• If you are the one who sets your own calendar, set it in blocks and days. Give some days over for appointments, and some days over for “creative” blocks.
• For instance, I have two “flex days” built into my calendar for outside appointments and important meetings. Usually, they are Tuesdays and Fridays, but I can change that as necessary from week to week.
• You can change the days from week to week, but “know thyself” first. If you need three days per week for creative, schedule those first! Manage your calendar like you manage your morning hygiene – disciplined, in a routine, and consistent.
• Only make exceptions to your calendar in the case of life-and-death emergencies or if the exception is going to bring in immediate revenue.
• This may mean turning off the email alert sound, ignoring or muting the phone and text tones – that’s what messages are for, and taking any other necessary measures to protect your time.
• If you don’t set your own calendar, share this article with those who do and look at collective ways to restructure your day-to-day schedules and overlapping schedules. There is a significant potential for increased productivity when everyone is operating in their best mental and creative rhythms.
• Additionally, in today’s modern world of technology, there are so many other ways to “do business” than with face-to-face meetings!
• Facebook Groups, recorded Webinars, Google Docs, just to name a few…
• IF YOU SET THE CALENDAR FOR OTHERS, and this is the biggie, consider how your team can be most productive, even if it means adjusting the way meetings are set up for your business, or allowing others to have more input on their own personal productivity needs.

Time is a gift. I have repeatedly said, “You only have this one moment, once. Then it’s gone.” If we made better use of our moments during the day, not only would we be more productive, but we would also be more creative. Both are needed in my world, and I would guess in yours, too!

Email Marketing – MailChimp vs. Constant Contact

Posted by Camille Rodriquez on Apr 12, 2012 in Portfolio | 7 comments

Which should I use, Constant Contact or MailChimp[1]? Over the last four years, I have used both of these third-party applications for email marketing. I have been passionately supportive of both of them at various times.  The distinctions between the two boil down to two issues, but first let’s look at what they can do.

Email marketing is fundamental to the way many businesses operate today. It is very, very difficult to manage emails of a marketing nature through regular Outlook, Gmail, or web-based email programs. For one reason, you cannot tell whether or not your emails are being read. You don’t have the option to see if what you are sending is relevant or not, and as a result, you risk losing interested customers by wearing them down with unsolicited, lengthy, boring emails. Both Constant Contact and MailChimp provide insights into who is actually opening your emails, what they are responding to, what time of day the email was delivered, whether or not your emails are being shared, etc. All of this data allows you to adjust your content and delivery so that your emails are seen by the largest numbers of potential clients.

MailChimp and Constant Contact also have customizable templates that let you create branded, colorful, relevant content, and they both include sharing features for social media sites. This is huge in marketing! When using web-based email, Outlook, etc. you do not have this feature. An email is just an email. With MailChimp or Constant Contact, your emails become posts, tweets, and other seamlessly sharable content that allows your subscribers to promote your products for you.

But the difference between the two comes down to price and ease of use. Upon those two issues, hang your decision. Constant Contact has a more customizable design, but it isn’t free after your trial period ends. Depending on how many subscribers you have, you could pay as little as $20-25 per month, but clearly the goal is to grow your email list, so you may pay more. And while their templates are a bit more customizable, they are slow-loading and can be a little frustrating at times. They do allow you to move things around a bit, and change out the type of “blocks” in any given email campaign, but there is a learning curve for this flexibility if you modify their templates.

MailChimp’s “Forever Free” plan is what it says, up to 2000 subscribers. There are ways around that, such as creating multiple accounts for differing products, but many people have fewer than 2000 subscribers, and so this isn’t an issue. (You would also need to make that segmentation early in your email marketing process!) The “negative” is MailChimp’s templates. There are fewer options for how you can customize them. Branding is not a problem, and there is even a fairly handing “matching color scheme” option that will match your emails to your website colors for you, but the “blocks” of content are fixed to the template you choose. If you choose a three column template, for instance, and decide that you don’t want an image on the middle column, you cannot change your mind easily and turn it into a two column format with a wide box at the bottom.

Is cost your deciding point? If so, the decision is clear – go with MailChimp. Their clever sayings and sense of humor during the design process will entertain you as automated messages appear from time to time. On the other hand, if your emails will be complicated, need special customizations, etc., and you have the ability to learn their system, you’ll want to take a look at Constant Contact to see if the costs you’ll pay will be worth it in your case.

In our case, once we settled on a template that fits the pattern we wanted for our emails, we chose MailChimp, and we’ve been very happy with it!

Facebook vs Twitter for Marketing

Posted by Camille Rodriquez on Apr 10, 2012 in Portfolio | 0 comments

Many business owners, particularly small business owners, ask me this question often. Which social media platform should I use to promote my business, Facebook or Twitter? Sometimes they are asking this because they are trying to focus on one platform at a time in order to maximize their in-house staff. Other times, they’re asking this because they are looking to hire new help or outsource their marketing, and they want to keep the costs down. Either way, more and more businesses are incorporating social media marketing into their daily activities, and this question comes up frequently.

Simply stated, the answer is, “Yes.” However, for a variety of reasons, some businesses start with only one platform and yet, there are distinct differences that you should know about when choosing options. To illustrate this, I want to share an example from one of our clients. For this client, we manage their Twitter, Facebook, and website comments. We are the sole responder on their behalf, but in the name of their company, not our own company.[1] This client has a very broad market, and they’re not limited by geography, gender or age. This makes them a perfect illustration. They chose Twitter and Facebook, as well as having a blog-based website. Over time, they have seen three separate audiences develop out of their chosen platforms. Based on what those audiences respond to, and what we’re seeing, these audiences would likely never meet, and those who would interact with them on Facebook wouldn’t do so on Twitter. Those who respond to their blogs don’t have anything to do with them on Facebook. All of the platforms are linked and cross-promoted, but the audiences have their own preferences and as such, tend to stay in their comfort zone. The only crossover we’ve seen since their launch is between Twitter and their website.

This brings us to the first question. Do you know your audience?

Where are they likely to be?  If they’re a Facebook crowd, they may not be a Twitter crowd, and vice versa. Or, on the other hand, do you have different types of folks in your current and/or desired customer base? Would one type of communication work for one segment of your customers but something else would be better for another segment?

For this client’s Twitter account, many of their posts are planned out months in advance. Once planned, they are scheduled through automated services and then tracked on a daily basis in order to engage with any Replies or Mentions or to interact with others. To some extent this pre-planning is done with their Facebook account, but those posts cannot be planned out as far in advance. This is because their Facebook audience responds well to current events and similar “timely” posts. Of course, current events can be added into their Twitter posts, but their Twitter audience may or may not be as interested in that type of information.

That brings up the second question. Do you have the ability to be flexible with your posting? 

Automated posts on Twitter are not penalized, but on Facebook, they can be. Edgerank, a Facebook ranking of how interactive your page is, responds more favorably to live posting, especially now that Timeline has rolled out.  This takes more focused attention, even daily attention, but Facebook rewards you for this level of activity in ways that Twitter doesn’t.

Another consideration for this client is the nature of the content that gets shared. On their Twitter account, this client prefers to share links to their blogs, general thoughts, and questions to make people think. While conversation is possible on Twitter, it’s often better for sharing information and resources and not as dominant for having conversations. However, on their Facebook page, they want conversations. Content is shared differently, and often on different topics. A smaller portion of their posts are meant to share blogs or information. It’s all about the conversation and the creation of a community of similar interests. On their website, they are seeking specific conversations, related to the blogs that they share. This is why the only overlap has been between Twitter and the website.  There’s more focus on the blogs in both of these places and the audiences have bumped into one another there.

Do you know what you hope to talk about or become known for? Are you focused on information only? Are you just looking to be a resource? Or, are you interested in conversations, sharing information, and creating a community? Twitter would serve the first goal nicely, as long as your audience is a Twitter audience, and Facebook would be better for the second goal, as long as you are prepared to give daily attention to creating conversations or hire someone to do that for you.

So, as you evaluate your options, consider these three questions:

• Where is your audience, and are they likely to be different in different places?
  
• How flexible can you be with your post planning and live updates?
  
• What do you intend to focus on – information dissemination, community building, or both?

This is by no means and exhaustive list, but these questions will help you get started or perhaps even help you redirect your energies appropriately.  And, if you opt for both Twitter and Facebook, keep in mind that you will likely have different audiences. Treat them differently, and stay attentive to the subtle differences between them!