Start Increasing Your Revenue with Social Media

Inspired by Mike Stelzner’s post on his Writing White Papers blog and the positive comments on my comment, I thought I’d share on my blog how I’ve used social media to grow my business in 2008, particularly the past 3 months.

These tips work particularly well for solopreneurs and small businesses, but even the largest of companies can benefit from taking advantage of some of these tactics.

My Overall Approach to Using Social Media for Biz

The vast majority of the time, I keep my personal and professional online ‘personalities’ separate. My username for almost all of my online biz profiles is B2BMarketingPR or very similar variation like my Twitter name B2B_MarketingPR, so that followers can recognize me across all social media outlets. I use another username and separate profile for personal accounts. People interested in B2B marketing/PR want info from me directly related to that, they don’t care what I’m doing over the weekend. My friends/family aren’t into marketing, but do care what I’m doing over the weekend. Right now I only use Facebook for personal use, if use it for biz I’ll set up a separate profile.

Blog

Started this biz blog in Sept., (having great time doing it!) been great for SEO and driving traffic to my website, and sharing knowledge and resources with the community. More important, one client found me through Google via a blog post, and fellow copywriter that read my blog referred a client to me because they were too busy at the time.

LinkedIn

I have full profile including several endorsement quotes and links to my blog posts via WordPress application. Very picky re: who I connect with and send connection requests to. I send connect invites to B2B tech marketing/PR pros in my network (I did B2B tech MKT/PR in-house for many years before going solo so already had solid network) who could potentially use my services IF they accept consulting requests and I keep it light, not ‘hard sell’. Secured 2 clients by doing this, and another client found me on their own when searching LinkedIn.

Joined several groups and monitor discussions via email updates in case anyone requests copywriting help. Just yesterday I submitted links to a blog post of mine and an article I wrote to the ‘news’ section of the groups I’m in, already driving nice traffic to my blog and I’ve gotten 2 new email newsletter subscribers in less than 18 hours.

Occasionally answer questions posted to Answers section of LinkedIn, one of my answers resulted in me being quoted in an upcoming book on effectively working with clients. Didn’t know person was writing book when submitted answer, just good karma

I put a link to my LI profile on my website to encourage people to connect with me, and also include link in my email signature.

Twitter

Started using in Sept., have 300+ followers so far. I make a conscious effort to only tweet about my blog posts, articles, etc. 30% of time, 70% is sharing other people’s information I find really useful and think my followers would too. I don’t want to be the annoying person who only talks about themselves, doesn’t build trust and credibility.

Very selective about who I follow in order to only get info relevant to me and make Twitter manageable. I DON’T follow a bunch of people just to get them to check out my site or follow me back to increase my numbers.

Several followers regularly ‘re-tweet’ my tweets which helps drive traffic to my blog posts and free article downloads.

A follower who is the owner of a marketing agency in my area got in touch with me via Twitter and hired me for a project. I found a virtual assistant via Twitter who will be helping me with admin tasks I don’t have time for, helping me grow my biz.

I put Twitter button on my website which encourages people to follow me, and also include a link in my email signature.

StumbleUpon

Drives a ton of traffic to my blog and website, better quality than one might think at first. I’m ‘friends’ with 30+ people also into biz marketing, PR, SEO, social media who I send my stuff to give a ‘thumbs up’ (and they send me theirs in kind) which gets it viewed by more people. Have had one blogger link to a blog post of mine when found it via SU, which drove nice traffic to my blog and a few new RSS subscribers.

Commenting on Blogs

I selectively comment on blogs I follow, just like today’s comment on Mike Stelzner’s, making a conscious effort to give useful information, not selling my services. I’ve received nice site traffic from doing this (at least what can tell as most blog comments are ‘no follow’ links) and am not positive it was directly related but think I’ve gotten new newsletter and RSS subscribers from these efforts.

Squidoo

I made a lens re: B2B marketing, PR, social media, SEO on Squidoo which ranks highly on Google for some keywords. Link to my website on lens drives a bit of traffic, not much, but it’s highly targeted. No direct results yet but need to invest more time into lens as it’s not great.

Also using Technorati and delicious, but no results from those yet. I also did a search engine optimized press release on the Most Powerful Online Tool for Influencing B2B Technology Buyers free research report I wrote which got picked up by several blogs and MarketingVOX and MarketingCharts did articles which resulted in a prospective client contacting me.

I set aside 30 minutes - 1 hour a day to these efforts during work week, more on weekends.

I’d love to know how you’re growing your business with social media, please share your strategies and tips!

Have you ever spent days creating a webinar campaign that had

• a highly relevant topic

• terrific line-up of speakers

• finely tuned list of contacts in a very specific audience

• great email copywriting

• multiple emails deployed strategically over time

• a good amount of registrations

….but only 2 people actually listened in?

How do you increase actual webinar attendance vs. registrations?

Reminders

Outlook Calendar Appointment

In the webinar registration confirmation email or webpage, include a link to an Outlook appointment that registrants can quickly add to their calendars. Make sure you designate a reminder within the appointment so registrants will get an Outlook pop-up reminder 30 minutes, 15 minutes, 5 minutes or other time you decide prior to the start of the webinar.

It’s very helpful for registrants if you include the link to the webinar, any login/password information, and telephone dial-in instructions directly within the Outlook appointment so they don’t have to find the registration email buried in their inbox. Including a phone number or link to live chat for assistance with any problems registrants may have accessing the webinar is also a good idea.

Many people also use Google calendar, so including a link for a Google appointment may also be useful for registrants.

Some online event management software includes a feature to do this (something to look for when deciding which software solution to use), but if yours doesn’t, Chad Horenfeldt over at the Anything Goes Marketing blog created a document with step-by-step instructions on how to create an iCalendar appointment and include the link in your confirmation email or webpage.

Reinforce Webinar Value in Email 30 Minutes Before Start

Ever registered for a webinar, but when the event time came you’re buried in work and say to yourself “I don’t have time for this” and skip it?

Remember that your prospective customers have many things demanding their time and attention. In order to tear them away from those things, they need to know that the time spent with you will be worthwhile.

Reinforcing the value of the webinar - answering the all important “what’s in it for me?” - by sending a reminder email shortly before the start of the webinar can persuade more registrants to stop what they’re doing and attend. My suggestion is 30 minutes prior, as that gives registrants enough time to wrap up what they’re doing, go to the bathroom, get a drink, or whatever they need to do, but not so far ahead of time that they forget about it.

Again, include a link to the webinar and dial-in instructions in the email.

Create Pre-Webinar Excitement with Survey

Send registrants a brief email survey prior to the webinar asking what they feel is important in regards to the webinar topic, and what they most want information on. Listening to your audience’s needs not only makes the webinar content better, but helps them feel more engaged with the event and more willing to spend the time attending.

Give Compelling Reasons to Attend Live Event Instead of Viewing It Later

Most companies record their webinars and make them available on their websites for viewing after the event, or send registrants the presentation slides. It’s a very good idea to do this, but it can dissuade registrants from attending the live event. Why bother attending at the time of the event when they can just get the slides later and view it whenever they want?

Offer something only live attendees can take advantage of, such as

• live Q&A session with attendees submitting questions via chat feature or special phone number to call

• ask attendees questions about the topic during the webinar, and give prizes to first person to answer each question correctly via chat or other means

B2B marketing research firm Marketing Experiments uses a great tactic in their webinars on landing page optimization, pay-per-click advertising, and other marketing avenues. On the webinar registration confirmation page, they offer the opportunity to submit your materials for live review by several experts during the webinar and receive feedback that you can immediately employ afterwards.

It’s great information for all attendees, but if someone has submitted materials then you can bet they’ll be more likely to attend the live event and find out if their materials will be reviewed.

What techniques are you using to increase attendance?

By the time the U.S. Presidential election is over, the two candidates will collectively have spent close to a billion dollars on the largest, most complex political marketing and PR campaigns in history. Although most of us will never have the huge budgets and manpower behind these campaigns, here are six valuable tips business-to-business marketers can take away from the election campaigns that can be applied regardless of the size of your company or budget.

1) Find Smart, Trustworthy People to Advise and Help You

One of the first things McCain and Obama did when deciding to run for President, well before they announced themselves as candidates, was surround themselves with exceptionally talented, passionate people with proven track records of success in their respective areas (yes their choices of advisors is debatable, but the concept is solid).

If you’re like many marketers I know, you’re smart, talented, hard-working, and capable of forming effective marketing strategies and tactics and implementing them. But trying to do everything yourself (or not being able to rely on your colleagues or staff) means you’re making decisions in a vacuum, not necessarily based on the best knowledge or information available. An outside perspective can be very valuable in making decisions objectively. Also, being able to focus on your core responsibilities allows you to perform at your best, while other capable people handle other details.

Who can you turn to for help?

• Marketing/PR consultant

• Virtual assistant (to aid with administrative tasks and campaign details)

• Industry associations and interest groups such as MarketingSherpa, MarketingProfs, Business Marketing Association for third party research and professional opinions

• Partner with other companies and utilize their expertise

2) Multi-Channel Marketing/PR Strategy is Best

Most voters I know don’t just view, listen to, or read one source for information on who they’re going to vote for, and the Presidential campaigns certainly know this and take advantage of the available communications avenues: TV, radio, Internet, blogs and social media, telemarketing, direct mail, signs, bumper stickers, word-of-mouth, you name it.

You may be thinking, “If I had the huge budget that the candidates do, my company could do that too.” But it doesn’t have to take a huge amount of money to make multi-channel marketing effective for any business, and it’s necessary as your customers, just like when their ‘voter’ hat is on, gather information about solutions to their problems (i.e. what you’re selling) from many sources. Using a mix of traditional and online marketing and PR tactics ensures you’re reaching your key audiences.

However, it is possible to do too much marketing, which leads me to my next point….

3) Don’t Wear Out Your Audience

I live in Virginia, and if you’ve been watching the news you’ve maybe heard it’s one of the states both candidates most need the electoral votes from. For the past 3 months not a day has gone by that I haven’t received a direct mailer from one or both candidates (and local election candidates as well), much less seen them on TV, Internet, etc. At least 15 campaign volunteers have visited my door in the past 2 weeks alone, and the telemarketing calls are endless. I care deeply about the election and the future of my beloved country, but ENOUGH ALREADY!

Your customers and prospects will begin to feel this way if your company is over-marketing, particularly when it’s outbound marketing such as emails, phone calls, and direct mail. It’s been proven that it takes multiple encounters with your company and/or your products or services before someone purchases, but if you ‘interrupt’ your audience and demand their attention too often, you become like the boy who cried wolf and your audience will either ignore you or be irritated. When they are ready to buy those negative feelings may carry over and prevent them from contacting you, because they don’t want to be marketed to even more frequently if they do.

Some signs you’re over-marketing:

• High rate of recipients un-subscribing from your email campaigns
• Email recipients reporting your emails as SPAM (even if they opted-in to your list)
• Low rate of subscriptions to newsletters
• Telemarketing campaigns contact same people repeatedly in short timeframe

4) Embrace Social Media

Both candidates used social media marketing via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs and several other outlets to “reach younger voters,” but many older voters have also caught on to the value of social media to stay up to date on the candidates and campaigns.

Using social media for B2B marketing is valuable on its own (see my blog post re: use of industry peer blogs and RSS to influence B2B technology buyers), but using it to support your other marketing efforts makes it twice as effective. For example, if you’re launching a new product or service to a specific market, posting about the problem it solves on your blog, discussing it on other industry peer blogs, using videos on YouTube to demonstrate it, and using Twitter to drive like-minded followers to your blog or website are effective, low-cost avenues of promotion.

5) Face-to-Face is Effective and Valuable

There is a reason Obama and McCain spent so much time traveling the country to speak to groups in person and rally supporters – it works. Both candidates and their campaign advisors are well aware that trust is a big factor in deciding whom to vote for, and one of the most effective ways to gain and maintain trust is for voters to see them up close, to listen to them live, maybe shake their hand and have a brief word. Although the vast majority of people that go to campaign rallies and events are already supporters, they need to be reassured that their candidate will meet their needs once the candidate is in office. The actual number of voters who attend rallies is very small compared to the total number of voters registered, but the ‘hard core’ supporters are usually the most vocal and will carry the campaign message to others.

A similar scenario plays out in the business-to-business world. When comparing products and services of similar type and cost, people are much more likely to buy from (and continue to buy from) people they trust and like. The ability to meet your prospective and current customers in person at some point in the sales cycle and/or after the sale gives your company a big leg up in gaining and keeping their trust and confidence and subsequently a steady stream of repeat sales.

How do you meet your customers face-to-face without breaking the bank:

• Several regional or local events hosted by the sales team responsible for that territory, instead of one big annual event

• Attend industry conferences and events, you don’t have to sponsor it to enjoy the great networking benefits. Let your customers know what events you’ll be attending, they may be attending as well (via e-newsletter is good option). Gather those you meet and take them to dinner or drinks after the event is over for the day.

• Since your top 20% of customers normally produce 80% of your sales revenue, concentrate your efforts on them first before reaching out to meet with others

6) Help Your Supporters Help You

As I mentioned above, the biggest supporters of each candidate are the most likely to vocalize their support and actively campaign on their behalf. Each campaign has many regional and local offices, special websites, and a multitude of other tools used to ‘mobilize the troops’ and make it as easy as possible for supporters to use offline and online means of convincing others to vote for their candidate.

Does your company have particularly happy customers, partners, industry analysts, media, or other fans of your products or services? Make it as simple as possible for them to pass along your information to others, and most people are happy to do so.

Some simple ways to accomplish this:

• Post a ‘referral toolkit’ on your website, or better yet your customer intranet site if you have one. It can be as simple as a .zip file containing your company brochure, a couple of customer case studies, and a white paper or article. It enables supporters to easily email the information to others.

• Ensure you post a press kit to your website and send it (ask permission first) to industry analysts and media you know are fans

• Encourage your website and/or blog readers to share the information posted by using widgets that enable them to quickly share it with others via social media or email

• During a customer feedback survey, provide the option for them to write a brief testimonial quote (if they wish to be named)

• Include a ‘forward to a friend’ button in your e-newsletters and ask readers to pass it along to non-subscribers who may be interested

• Always give out 2-3 business cards to contacts you meet, one for them to keep and some to share

What marketing or PR lessons have you gleaned from the Presidential campaigns? I’d love to get your thoughts.

You Can’t Make This Into Filet Mignon- Ditto for Your Website

Oh. My. Gosh. The writing on this website was terrible.

Run-on sentences galore. Rampant misuse of punctuation forced my eyes to pause after every third word. The same few words and phases repeated over and over. And what the heck does that paragraph even mean?

It was a case of SEO copywriting gone horribly wrong. No wonder the site wasn’t converting visitors into quality prospective customers. Once visitors got to the site, they couldn’t understand in 3-5 seconds why they should be there!

The person in charge of the poorly written website was a marketing director who had been charged by the V.P. of marketing with increasing the ranking of the site on Google to attract more visitors, which they thought would lead to increased volume of prospective customers. In an effort to save money, the

marketing director hired a cheap copywriter through eLance. In a case of ‘you get what you pay for’, the site was packed with keywords and vague, overblown copy but little else. When I asked why they accepted the copy, she said, “My boss thought that’s what SEO copywriting was supposed to look like.”

When I asked how I could help, she said, “Can you just tweak it a little so it sounds better and put in some keywords?”

As much as I wanted to say yes - no, I can’t. And that’s because you can’t take ground chuck and make it into filet mignon. Translation: If the copy is already bad, “tweaking” it won’t help. The only thing you can do is scrap it all and start over.

I understand why she was afraid of a total website re-write. The site was on the first page of Google for their keywords and driving OK traffic. Her first concern (which makes sense) was “if we change the site, what happens to our rankings?” But, getting rankings is just one piece of the search engine conversion pie. A top position means nothing if the website doesn’t drive high conversion metrics.

Wondering if your website falls into the “ground chuck” category? Here are some things to check:

• What do your site analytics say? Are people staying at your site, maybe going to several pages per visit – or leaving mere seconds after they arrive?

• Are your rankings OK, but your conversions are non-existent?

• Do you know deep down in your gut that the copy is bad? (It’s OK to admit it. We’ve all been there. The first step to recovery is admitting your problems.)

To eliminate your ground chuck status, your only help for salvation is action. There are ways to re-write the copy so the rankings aren’t ruined. In fact, that’s the easy part (more on that in a future post.) A smart copywriter can easily craft new copy that maintains your keyword positioning.

Will re-writing your copy be painful? A little. Yes, you will be spending time and money. But, like all things worth having, the pain is definitely worth it. Although a SEO copywriting overhaul sounds overwhelming, it will more than pay for itself in increased conversions. Besides, once you’re at the bottom the only place to go is up, so the sooner you take action, the sooner your visitors regard your website and company as “filet migon” and start asking how they can get some!

During the summer of 2008 I visited the websites of 300 business-to-business technology companies looking for one thing: RSS feeds.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a Web feed format used to publish frequently updated information such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video in a standardized format. Website or blog visitors may subscribe to RSS feeds through a widget button on a site using Feedburner (recently acquired by Google) or other free service.

I found that 70% of B2B technology companies are not using RSS at all, and of the 30% that are using it, only 10% are using more than one feed in order to offer targeted information updates.

What’s the big deal about RSS? MarketingSherpa and KnowledgeStorm surveyed over 3,000 B2B technology decision makers, asking them “How important is RSS in helping you stay up-to-date on technology information?” 8% responded that it was a “necessity”, 24% responded that it was “important”, and 39% said it was “nice to have.”

While only 16% of the general public uses RSS feeds, 71% of technology buyers assign at least some value to their RSS use. By not offering this option, most B2B tech marketers are missing out on a valuable opportunity to influence this audience.

According to Rok Hrastnik, author of “Unleash the Marketing and Publishing Power of RSS,” the problem with most RSS marketing plans is that the marketer doesn’t go beyond providing a simple RSS feed for all of their online news or blog.

Marketers need to correctly plan their RSS marketing strategy, starting with deciding how RSS content will be delivered. Mr. Hrastnik recommends providing individual RSS feeds for:

- Individual target audiences

- Types of content

- Content topics

Want step-by-step instructions on how to best implement RSS? Get your free copy of my research report The Most Powerful Online Tool for Influencing B2B Technology Buyers

A KnowledgeStorm research report found that 53% of B2B technology buyers had already been influenced by blog content at least once when making purchase decisions.

Industry peer blogs differ from a vendor’s blog or industry analyst blog because the information and opinions offered are perceived as being from an independent source not influenced by any particular company or organization. Technology purchasers consider these blogs to be similar to word-of-mouth, with the blogger leading the discussions and other peers volunteering information and opinions on the topics.

Examples of popular technology industry peer blogs include TechCrunch and Scobleizer, but there are a variety of peer blogs discussing various B2B tech niches including Customer Relationship Management,Enterprise Resource Planning, Service-Oriented Architecture, Business Intelligence, and Software-as-a-Service.

Want to know how a B2B software company uses industry peer blogs to drive a 30% product trial conversion rate? Get your free copy (no registration needed) of the full research report: The Most Powerful Online Tool for Influencing B2B Technology Buyers

The Big Mistake 90% of Marketing Directors Make When Engaging Bloggers

A great way to use industry peer blogs to influence tech buyers is submitting a public comment on a particularly relevant post that all readers of the blog can view (comment settings are different for every blog, some require blogger approval before comment is public). Most blog systems enable you to enter your name, e-mail address, and website along with your comment, providing other readers (and the blogger) an opportunity to go to the website you entered. It’s a terrific opportunity to increase your credibility with your target audience while driving quality website traffic.

However, according to professional blogger Darren Rowse of the ProBlogging blog (#27 on Technorati’s
list of Top 100 blogs), many comments left on some blogs are for shameless self-promotion purposes only and aggravate both bloggers and readers, and many are made by marketing or sales personnel.

Instead of adding value to the ‘conversation’ and knowledge exchange, comments that blatantly have no other purpose than advertising only serve to ruin your credibility, brand image, and chances of having bloggers link to your website or blog.

Discover the Top 10 Blog Comment Sins and How to Avoid Them

In the short time I’ve been blogging, I’ve already seen the tremendous value in driving traffic to my blog by posting useful, actionable comments on industry peer blogs - I highly recommend it.

Pictures Say 1,000 Words - Make Them Relevant

If you’ve been on a business-to-business company website or read a brochure, white paper or other collateral lately, you’ve seen them. The stock photos of good-looking, smiling people (both genders and multiple ethnic groups represented of course) dressed in suits in some kind of office environment or in front of a white background.

Although I don’t claim to be a master graphic or website designer, I do know irrelevance when I see it. What purpose do these images have, other than adding a visual element to break up the text? In fact, these types of images are detrimental in that they make a company’s marketing completely unremarkable and they blend in with their competitors.

Pictures are worth 1,000 words, arguably more in marketing, where you have about 3 seconds to capture your audience’s attention. Making the images in your marketing relevant to the information being presented and engaging to your target reader is imperative if you want to clearly communicate with and persuade them.

Explain your Product or Service Visually to Reinforce the Key Points

I’ve found graphical explanations of products and services to be effective, for example the image below used in a case study I did for a software company. The image quickly communicates the message on the page and resonated well with the non-technical purchase decision makers the case study was intended for based on feedback from the company’s sales team.

Thumbnail Images Work Great on Landing Pages

For landing pages promoting a white paper or other marketing collateral for download, thumbnail images of the document quickly let the visitor know what the page is about and intrigue them by offering a ’sneak peek’ at the contents. I used a thumbnail image (created with Adobe Photoshop) of a white paper written for a software client on a landing page I did for them. After doing A/B testing of two versions of the landing page in which we tested which image worked better, the image below was the winner.

I’m not saying don’t use stock images. There are many terrific ways to use graphics and imagery available on sites like iStockPhoto.com to get your message across in a meaningful and interesting way. I use stock photos (see the goldfish on my website home page Flash for instance), but always choose unique images that directly reinforce the messaging in the written copy.

With so many creative visual ways to express your message, resist the urge to play it safe with standard images. Your sales team will thank you when the leads start rolling in