“Unfortunately the vast majority of websites do not do a good job converting visitors into paying customers. The key is to plan strategically BEFORE designing your website.” — Patrick Schwerdtfeger
Patrick is a passionate and dynamic speaker who focuses on delivering valuable content and highly practical strategies people can implement immediately and see actual results. His programs consistently get strong reviews and leave attendees burning to put their new strategies to work.
I first met Patrick when he discussed social media basics to a group 0f 70+ San Francisco Bay area consultants. He was so popular the group invited him to return to talk about How to Win Social Media Victories. You can view videos from both those talks by clicking on the links.
How safe are social media sites for private, confidential information?
How many social media platforms do you really need to know and use?
Seven Steps to Starting To Do Social Media the Right Way
STEP ONE: Baby Steps
Too often people attend a social media presentation and begin getting excited, but end up intimidated by How Much there is out there. The key here is to recognize the fact that you must go slowly, i.e., master one site/strategy/tool at a time. Once you have learned that one, the rest will be easier. Be happy with every minor rewarding experience whether it is simply posting or a mention or a real interaction.
STEP TWO: Don’t Expect Immediate Results
I’ll never forget one of my first clients who had just opened a Twitter account and wanted to know if she could expect five new clients in two weeks. NOT! Social Media strategies are long term, i.e. building relationships with trust, consistency, sincerity, and patience.
STEP THREE: Be Deliberate
Imagine that someone ONLY sees One Post or Update or Comment. What is the impression you want to leave with him or her? Think about that every time you write on the Global Whiteboard. What you post is there forever.
STEP FOUR: Listen
My university students regularly hear my 3 Rules to Business Success: (1) Listen Carefully; (2) Read Carefully; and (3) Follow ALL Directions. Without that critical first rule, you will miss vital information to plan future strategies. Communication is not a solo activity. Write a diary for that. With social media you want to listen to what people want and think. Then give them what they want. Remember that marketing, especially social marketing is not about you. It is about people you want to do business with, so find out how you can help. Everyone really does want to be heard.
STEP FIVE: Collaborate
This is one of the beauties of the Internet and its communication channels –social media: i.e., the ease of finding people to help answer questions, solve problems, supply materials, and team up with you on projects. Collaboration follows naturally from engaging online.
STEP SIX: Play
Too often forgotten, but social media should be fun. Social media play follows Margaret Mead’s suggestion from her work with the Samoans, i.e. Work should be Play, and then Play is Work.
STEP SEVEN: Be the GO-TO Source for Information
Here is your ultimate direction: Who you are online. This reminds me of a favorite saying: “We do not go out looking to find ourselves. Rather, we create ourselves.” Social Media provides you the opportunity to establish a yourself as a powerful influencer in your area of expertise. Take your passion and turn it into an opportunity for helping the world. Social media has that reach.
JUST DO IT!
Did I forget any beginning steps you would suggest?
Bay Area Consultants hear SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS from popular speaker Patrick Schwerdtfeger
Back by popular request, Patrick presented more detailed online marketing tactics — building from his earlier talk on social media basics delivered last fall.
Author of Webify Your Business, Patrick spoke at 127 events around the globe in 2009. He shares social media success stories and practical strategies that inspire his audiences to go home and start creating plans of their own.
Below are 14 videos taken at the 90-minute presentation — from how to introduce yourself online to maximizing the professional opportunities on LinkedIn.
First, however, read the reactions from 10 of the more than 70 entrepreneurs in attendance.
I went into Patrick’s presentation knowing nothing about social media except that someone told me I was being reviewed on Yelp and joined LinkedIn because I was invited.
The one step I decided to implement was making a video for YouTube on how to do something specific in QuickBooks and start a blog to connect to my website.” — Pamela Lyons
Pamela teaches companies to leverage technology with their accounting practices using training, part time CFO, and bookkeepers onsite or remote. She takes QuickBooks to the next level to get results on your financial information.
“I’m going to follow-up on Patrick’s suggestion that we choose one standard head-shot photo to use in all of our online media outlets, as these will become our brands.” — Steven Tulsky
Steven offers financial Expertise for the Nonprofit Sector: The Benemetrics Consulting Group partners with nonprofit executives, directors, and finance staff to develop, evaluate, and communicate meaningful financial information, enabling them to implement good decisions that assure the financial well being and mission effectiveness of their organizations.
“Patrick’s presentation showed me that “doing” social media could be easy and fun! The big thing – get started!
The best tip for me was to create educational videos for You Tube, leverage them with similar related videos, match my current branding and then, get the word out there. Patrick is a great speaker – he loves “this stuff” and enjoys sharing the information.” — Deborah Myers
An acupressurist and Health Educator, Deborah unravels the mysteries of the body, bringing health and wellness to your personal and business life.
” Patrick has a wealth of useful information on Social Media Marketing; he has a gift for simplifying and giving practical tips. I immediately put to use his tips on doing a YouTube video.” — Diane Parente
Diane’s company Image Development & Management, Inc (IDMI) is The Professional Image Resource based in San Francisco providing services and products to fit every aspect of your image from visual to verbal.
“Here is my One Tip that we will be implementing: Adding a Yelp profile for our company and asking clients to write reviews.” — Terry Gault
Terry’s organization, The Henderson Group, helps business professionals transition into high visibility roles where communication skills are critical for success.
“One powerful tip I got from Patrick’s presentation is the fact that there are 400 million users on Facebook and that I need to start utilizing that resource. As a result of hearing him speak, I plan on creating a Fan Page on Facebook to help direct people to my website.” — Carrie Cheadle
Carrie has dedicated her career to helping athletes of all levels enhance their athletic experience by coaching them on how to approach their sport with more confidence, more enjoyment, and empowering them with the necessary support and skills to achieve their goals and perform to their potential.
“Social media can be so overwhelming – lots of choices with little understanding of real marketing value. Patrick’s presentation made both sense and cents, as I feel I can better implement social media to my advantage.” — Bruce Burtch
Bruce, the Cause Marketing Catalyst, develops cause marketing campaigns, joining for-profit and nonprofit organizations, with the focus of building win-win partnerships for the greater good.
“Instead of getting overwhelmed by social media, I plan to commit to taking one step forward each week! ” — Carol Seebach
Carol’s company Executive Gears provides support for executives and boards to bring order and efficiency to organizations.
“The main idea I took away from the presentation was to be redundant on the web: Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, YouTube, all are excellent platforms for getting the word out about your business. I feel more confident about moving forward with this branch of our marketing efforts after listening to Patrick.” — William Buchanan
Bill’s 51 years of federal law enforcement experience combined with an efficient business model assure our corporate and law firm clients the highest quality of investigative services.
“I suppose I have to put my business on Yelp, which I have resisted doing for years. It still doesn’t seem to me like the kind of place people look for my type of services. (After last time, I created a Facebook Fan Page for the Podcast Asylum, though I refuse to have a personal profile on Facebook.) Patrick is a convincing guy.” — Sallie Goetsch
Sallie’s service, The Podcast Asylum, helps you podcast without losing your mind — or driving
your listeners crazy.
SOCIAL MEDIA VICTORIES – and how to win them
More and more people are searching online every single day
Driving traffic to a website is a difficult challenge
Introducing yourself online will spread your influence
Outrun your competition
It’s not difficult to outshine your online competition
Do more than them
Example: 40% of Tweets are useless babble
Raging Rivers – post info for people to find
Understand how every action online can support your business objectives
Digital Divide — embrace the new media
Centerpiece is your blog
Your website meets your customers on a different level
Examples of how “age” shapes opinions:
“If an online transaction goes wrong, I have no recourse VS. If online transaction goes wrong, I can personally destroy their business”
United Breaks Guitars — online payback for customer neglect
YouTube gets real results
Lots of things may fail, but some things really work
Conversations are Markets
Is marketing dead? Of course not, but it is changing
Find the conversation and participate
Awareness leads to interest . . . and more
Facebook — and what to do with it
Your headshot online becomes your brand
Difference between Profiles, Groups & Fan Pages
Facebook ranks really HIGH on Google
Google Juice is the SEO value of what we are talking about
Building Facebook Pages
Do people read updates?
Posting on the Walls of friends
Increasing number of companies have Facebook rather than traditional website
You can create Groups & Fan Pages for your business on Facebook
Tagging People in Photos
Successful winery case study
“That looks like fun” – Fun events to share
Get to 300 Facebook Fans
Viral effect of people engaging will grow your page
Run campaigns and ask questions to grow exposure
Interactions lead to trust
Facebook URL & stunt that “worked”
Losing friends and gaining Whoppers
LinkedIn – searchability
Stats
Excellent Google visibility
Allows for precision email communication
Go to Google: search for LinkedIn success stories
Make sure technical keywords are included in profile
Members of BACN are independent consultants who are interested in expanding their professional practices through effective networking and professional development programs sponsored by BACN. Attend a BACN meeting to become a member.
My Laney College students are participating in social media to build writing and reading skills. For many of them, however, this is a significantly new experience, i.e., creating blogs and signing up for Twitter.
What is Social Media and why is it important?
and . . . here are many of their other questions:
Where can and will SM take me?
How did Social Media get so big?
Is it possible to become famous on SM?
What percentage of SM is business?
How much time do/should people spend on SM?
Who started SM?
What makes SM important?
Why are people addicted to SM?
Can SM help better the world?
Is SM safe?
What are the most popular blogs?
Who can read my blog?
Are all SM sites free?
Why has SM become popular?
What is the average age of a person using SM?
What is the main reason for using SM?
How can you detect if someone is insincere?
Today I am conducting an introductory Social Media workshop for a Mass Media & Society course at Laney. I will begin asking them to tell me which of those questions they would most like answered.
Then I will chat and show the slideshow below.
And, finally, I will ask THEM to answer any of those questions . . . and I’ll be posting their responses.
Axel Schultze was the first social media guru I brought into my Public Relations class at San Francisco State at the beginning of 2009.
He is the founder and CEO of Xeequa Corp. a social media software company, helping businesses to create a better customer experience. In addition, he began Social Media Academy in January 2009 — as well as a number of other successful enterprises.
Axel belongs to many Linkedin groups including “Social Media Academy” where I saw this excellent response to the question:
“My questions are, then, is Social Media Marketing a viable entity, or just a “flash-in-the-pan?” Is there a need for teaching the fundamentals at the post secondary level? How does one achieve expertise in this budding possibility?” — Gregory Stringer
1) Social Media MARKETING is only one aspect of social media.
That said – it is probably the biggest opportunity for marketing leaders to have more saying in a corporate strategy if they understand and appreciate the complexity of a social business. In every successful business somebody leads the charge of whatever needs to be done. Why not the marketing group. There are several reasons why marketing may lead a cross-functional social business initiative, but I’ve also seen other departments to do that including finance.
2) A social business is an organization that leverages the ongoing changes in our hyper-connected society
— in all aspects of their organization, including product management, service & support, sales, marketing, logistics, procurement and more. Often times when I mention logistics or procurement in the context of social media I see lots of question marks and hear people saying “isn’t that too far-fetched?” Well there are examples and I was involved myself in some where the supply chain was the starting point for a social media engagement – in financially very rewarding.
3) Business people will want to learn how to practically apply social media and create a social business.
While some will be OK to explore, experiment and trying to figure it out themselves, others may want to not spend the time but learn best practices, methods, models and frameworks and just execute. As we all know, there are two types of learners: The autodidact who tryes everything themselves. That is a great way of learning and allows to make mistakes in a rather conscious manner.
Typically these are early adopters. So the ones who started in social media in 2003, like me, had to learn things on their own. Then there are the ones who rather acquire knowledge in a very compact way, circumvent obvious mistakes and go apply the knowledge. Mostly in times where the market is advanced and making mistakes is no longer acceptable.
That’s why the Social Media Academy exists.
4) Therefore the educational needs are to learn and understand the following aspects of social media:
What is it and what is it good for
Learn all about the implications of social media to business
Where and how to start
Ability to assess the situation of a company and all their respective market constituencies
Transform the assessment into a strategy
Create a strategy with and for the market
Knowing what organizational needs to consider
Develop an execution plan
Resources, budgets, financial implication
Aligning the new strategy with core business objectives
Ability to formulate goals and targets – measure model and tune
Learning how to tweet and how to brush up a LinkedIn profile or selecting the right tools are only tactical aspects after the core strategy is defined answering the question:
“What can I do to create a better, more successful business experience for my prospects, customers, partners, vendors, employees and other relevant market constituencies.”
As such it is an obvious coincidence that the Social Media Academy leadership class has exactly that at the core of its class. Axel http://xeesm.com/AxelS
Putting together last week’s post “Ten Mistakes Made by Social Media Newbies” was a rewarding experience for me, especially because the article seemed to touch a chord with many of my friends — a lot of whom are resisting the New World of Communication.
Not all of them, though.
Below is a really detailed article comment written by Kimberly Noon, one of my awesome marketing students at SFSU. Her Gen-Y insights added a lot of her own experience to the conversation, and whe agreed to allow me to share her remarks as a Guest Post.
Here’s Kim:
Shari — I love this. I think you’ve nailed everything. As a very experienced Social-Medialite, I think you’ve explained everything so well. A few comments…
Learning the different avenues of social media CAN be super overwhelming. For newbies, they should do exactly what you said. Follow the 4 steps and focus on one element at a time. Learning one (twitter, facebook, etc.) will help you learn the others. For example, Twitter and Facebook have many of the same elements and reach the same demographic, hence once you learn one it will be “easier” to learn the other.
Friends connect through Mafia Wars
Love the Mafia Wars reference 🙂 My boyfriend works for the company that supplies us with those games such as FarmVille, Mafia Wars, YoVille, etc. The point of those games is to connect friends through gaming. Back in the day, this used to be done by having family/friend game nights and playing board games. It’s the same concept, only nowadays, people are on-line the majority of their day and have less time to meet face to face. These games give people the opportunity to play games with their friends/family (be connected) and still have the same kind of playful experience.
Also, if the games are THAT popular there is probably something attractive about them… and it’s just another way to be connected, which is the point anyway.. right?
One of the best ways to learn the tips and tricks of social media is LISTENING to your peers. Watch, listen, explore, and learn.
Everyone was a newbie at one time when it comes to social media. Most social media members are forgiving and will offer help and suggestions. MOST, not all.
Be yourself when it comes to social media
Acting like someone you aren’t is bad and it’s for a whole different crowd — the cults of people who use social media as an “escape” from who they really are. The people who are there to be themselves and connect with people they REALLY know (not imaginary internet friends) see these “cult” people as creepy and spam-like.
Speaking of spam — DON’T spam. This will cause people to “unfollow” or “hide” you, which defeats the purpose of being connected through social media. There are so many people on my Facebook page that post and repost every ounce of spam they come across. I “hide” these people from my Facebook page so I never see what they post. You don’t want to be one of these people 🙂
Lastly, social media outlets are NOT your diary. Like you said, once you say something, it’s out there and you can’t take it back. If you want to post something, think about it first. If it’s something only your diary should know, write it down there and don’t share it with the Web world.
Author Tamar Weinberg is a community manager for Mashable, clearly the best source for Social Media news on the Net —
She knows her stuff AND you will, too, if you get a copy of this book, read it, and follow up by trying our just a small portion of the platforms and strategies described in careful detail . . . just one example:
There are more than ten pages just on social bookmarking sites Delicious and StumbleUpon.
Tamar’s Top Seven Reasons to be on the Web:
Establish your expertise.
Bring more traffic to your website.
Raise search engine rankings.
Increase sales.
Manage your reputation.
Enhance brand awareness.
Build relationships.
Here areNine Strategies for Social Media Marketing Success:
1) Establish goals for your social media marketing campaigns.
2) Create a strategy for executing your social marketing efforts.
3) Communicate effectively with the communities you intend to target.
4) Take charge of the conversation, even if it’s not on your website.
5) Gain exposure from participating among many social channels.
6) Utilize social media to handle a reputation management crisis.
7) Utilize blogs and bloggers to send messages to larger groups of individuals.
8] Leverage existing sites to market your products.
9) Craft content that is currently “hot” within many social media circles.
Some quotes to “get your hands around”:
“You can’t manage something you can’t measure.”
“On the Social Web, conversations happen WITH or WITHOUT you.”
“A Community Manager’s key function is humanizing an organization.”
“Strategy requires teamwork and idea generation.”
“Communities flourish because people are helping people.”
“If you consistently Listen, AND Give Back to your social media community, you will be miles ahead of the competition.”
12 different Online Reputations you should monitor:
Your name
Your company name
Your brand names
Your company executives
Your company’s media spokespeople
Your slogan or marketing message
The competition
Your industry
Your weaknesses
Your business partners
Your clients
Your intellectual property
Personally, I’ve made a list of [a] more than a dozen sites I’m going to check out in more depth, [b] a half dozen communities I’m going to join, and [c] 10 specific tips I’ve already started to adopt.
PS I really didn’t count, but I’m willing to bet there are MORE THAN 1,734 facts you’ll learn about social media from Tamar’s invaluable text.
For those of you who’ve already read it, let us know how it helped you.
