Take Your FB Page To Level P

Your business has a Facebook page, you have followers, you're actively posting, and you're following the E 'rules' about posting: You are Engaging your audience, You are Entertaining your audience, and you are Educating your audience. You may have even figured out (based on your audience and followers/friends) that Monday is the best day to Engage, Wednesday is the best day to Educate, and Friday is the best day to Entertain. What can you do to take things to the next level and what on earth is the next level?

I like to call the next level 'Level P' and the reason I chose P is because, when you get to the next level, you'll find all sorts of things beginning with that letter:

Personal

Positive

Passion

Whether your page has a single administrator or several administrators/contributors, getting Personal is important. Somewhere in your 'about' section, you should explain who your administrators are. For example: This page has three administrators: Jill is our upbeat office manager who is passionate about art and puppies, she signs her posts <3 Jill. Ben is another administrator and he loves traveling, sailing, and food, he will likely be the one posting photographs of the Ocean, and mouthwatering recipes. Ben uses his initials and a smile when he signs BB :) Crystal is the creator of the page and founder of the business. She is a busy mother and is married to a dairy farmer, she will be posting pictures of cows, fields, and household tips. Crystal just posts with her name. We hope you enjoy our page and we look forward to your comments.

You'll get a Positive reaction once you start getting Personal with your page. People will see that you are passionate about what you do (what you sell, etc...)! People love People and People love People who get Personal with them in a Positive way. Take for example, Festival Foods. When you call the store, the recording says "Hi, this is the Festival Guy" it could easily say "Thank you for Calling Festival Foods" but there's something much more personal and positive about the tone of "Hi, this is the Festival Guy". Try giving a little more personality to your FB page by telling us about your Administrators, and then sign each post with the name of the poster. You'll find more people commenting, sharing, etc... and all of this creates customer loyalty. We all know that a loyal customer is the key to sustaining a small or large business in today's economy.

Enjoy!
~Crystal

Social Media and Friends

A personal and professional friend recently posted the following on Facebook:

How to start an argument on facebook:
1. Post your opinion....on anything.
2. Wait
3. Stir
4. Start typing in all CAPS to raise your voice.

This got me thinking...and I replied with the following:

Doesn't it make you wonder about the level of friendship you have with your Facebook friends? Do you know what I mean? If you were at lunch with a group of friends (which is how people once exchanged ideas before social media, right?) and you expressed an opinion about something, there would be chit chat and friendly conversing and it was unusual for anyone to get bent out of shape, raise their voice, or get offended. I don't know if social media makes it that difficult to communicate, or if we are simply extending our circle of friends to include so many people that we have confused the definition of a friend. friend (frnd)
n.
1. A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.
2. A person whom one knows; an acquaintance.
3. A person with whom one is allied in a struggle or cause; a comrade.
4. One who supports, sympathizes with, or patronizes a group, cause, or movement: friends of the clean air movement.

What are your thoughts? Are we going to far to be people pleasers? Do we accept friend requests because we want to have as many (or more) friends as some of the people in our 'circle'? Are we afraid to post what's on our mind because we don't want to offend someone?

Weigh in...there's no right or wrong answers - how are you feeling about social media and your circle of friends? Where do you see things five years from now?

~Crystal

Your Business Funnel

Whether you design, monitor, and maintain your marketing, website and social media yourself or someone does it for you, it's important to monitor how the process is working for you and your business. You likely had a goal in mind when you set up the process (ie: We want x number of subscribers by this date, we want to increase client satisfaction by x% by this date, or we want to increase referrals by x% or x#, etc...). When you set that goal, you should have had known how you were going to measure the results. Social media is just like any other sustainable project. Yes, there will be changes along the way, but knowing where your going and how you're going to get there is the key to a truly successful program.

We encourage our clients to think about social media as a funnel. Your Twitter account should not be at the base of the funnel, your Twitter account should give customers/clients and potential customers/clients a preview of your offerings and should drive them somewhere else. Only you can determine where that somewhere else is, but below is an example to give you an idea of a social media funnel.

What this funnel shows if the various ways that a particular company drives interest in their company. Their YouTube videos contain information or links to their company website, their Twitter posts may link to an article, but ultimately they are driving potential customers/clients to their company website. Just driving someone to your Twitter account isn't going to give them enough information about your business to keep their interest. Make sure that posts are keeping this in mind. It's okay to encourage 1,000 facebook "likes", but once they are 'liking' you, it's important to provide them with value added information that takes them the step further to your website. I can "like" Menards, but if I never step foot in the store, I'm not a customer and therefore not creating revenue.

You or someone in your organization (or contracted by the organization) needs to track the traffic at the base of the funnel. It's not important how many Twitter followers you have, or how many Facebook "likers", it's important how many people are checking out what it is you want to check out. In the example above, they are driving people to their company website. So, using the analytics behind the scenes on their website gives the company a good idea of what referral source is giving them the biggest 'bang' for their buck (see below)

Referrer Types	Visits	Percentage
Direct Traffic	337	56.90%
Social Network	128	21.60%
External URL	67	11.30%
Search Engine	58	9.80%
News Message	2	0.30%

Then they can dig one step further and analyze which types of social media are working hardest for them.

Social Network	Visits	Percentage
Facebook	115	90%
Linkedin	10	8%
Twitter	3	2%

In this particular example, the focus should not be on Tweeting, it should be on improving the number of people they are reaching on Facebook. They may not want to discount Twitter completely, but may want to analyze what they are Tweeting, are they using hashtags? is their information interesting? They should ask others for advice, see what's trending, etc... and make their decision from there.

It's never a good idea in marketing to continue blindly - make sure you have a schedule to analyze what is and isn't working and ask for fresh and edgy ideas to stay ahead of the competition. Things move fast in this technological world and being prepared is important, but being creative and opportunistic is even more important!

If you have any questions or aren't sure about any of the information contained in this post, let us know and we would be glad to clarify.

Sincerely,
Relax Consulting - where we do the work so you can RELAX!

Simplifying Social Medial for Your Successful Business

Well - the presentation has been used, tested, reviewed, and now I'd like to tell you it's perfect...but let's go with 'polished' instead. If you know of someone who would benefit from this particular presentation, direct them to the Relax Consulting website and I can present to them individually, as a group, or to a larger audience. Or, if you'd like a self directed study, I would be happy to email you a copy of the powerpoint presentation that you can use on your own. FREE OF CHARGE, of course - because providing value to others comes with it's own priceless reward for me too!

Let Google Help You

Let Google help you with branding and marketing your business online.

In addition to Google offers where you can offer a "coupon" of sorts (http://www.google.com/offers/business/how-it-works.html), Google has other ideas and solutions for your business. Google + offers a social platform similar to Facebook but ties it together with Google Places to help advertise locally and get the word out about your business. You input as much or as little information about your business - yes, even your hours, website, general information, and pictures - and Google does the rest by helping drive traffic to your business page and/or place page.

Your business page becomes live right away, where as a place page must be approved through Google and verified with a mailed postcard a few days after site creation. The place page doesn't become 'live' until after the verification process. I am still really pushing the Facebook business page for Relax Consulting http://www.facebook.com/successwithrelax but what I have seen from tracking hits on our website and blogs, the majority of our traffic is coming from Google as a result of G+ postings and conversations.

If you told me I had to choose a single social media, at this point it would be Google. Similarly, if you told me I had to get rid of just 1 social media, it would be Twitter - very little traffic is flowing as a result of Twitter postings. We have a lot of followers, but it doesn't seem to be a great niche for this type of business.

What are your thoughts? Do you have a Google + account or a Google Place Page? Tell us more - and if you are interested in setting up a Google Place page and need some direction or assistance, just ask and I'd be happy to help.

Happy Sunday - may your week be amazingly productive - you deserve it!

~Crystal