About My First Teleseminar
If you weren't on my Ten Step Social Media Plan teleseminar last week, you really missed something! It was my very first time hosting a telephone conference call. Seventy people signed up, and about 15 people were on the call. Those who signed up, but couldn't make it, got a recording sent to them later.
If you weren't actually there, you missed a hilarious glitch (one that I edited it out of the recording!) where I muted everyone to keep the sound down, but also muted myself (mistake). I kept talking for a few minutes and thank goodness for text messaging, and someone had my back and sent a text before I went on talking to myself for too long!
We had a good laugh and the rest of the call was great. I don't have a problem with public speaking, but something about all the moving parts and pieces of doing it online for multiple people was a bit nerve wracking. Now that it's over, I say it was a piece of cake and I'll do it again soon.
Get Over the Fear of Messing Up
When I told someone about the glitch at the beginning of the call, he said, "That must have been embarrassing!"
It really wasn't. I think it made everyone feel more comfortable, me included. You see, I am encouraging people to use new tools and technologies that they may be uncomfortable with. I think it it important to show that everyone, me included has to be a beginner at all these new things sometime and that we make beginner mistakes. I comes with the territory. Pick up the pieces and move on and you actually get through that beginner place rather quickly.
So what was the call about? I thought you'd never ask....
Lately, I have been talking to people who have small businesses who say they are just exhausted. They are complaining that they don't have time to do anything with all of the marketing they need to do. So I did a little deeper. "What are you doing for marketing?" They reply with a litany of events, networking opportunities and trying to get in the right place to get interviews on radio or magazines. Basically, I am exhausted after listening to all of their running around.
I ask sweetly, "Well, how's that working for you?" The reply, "hem haw...not so much." So, I ask about their website and social media activities. The immediate answer, "Oh I have no time for social media!" I find out two things, either thy have an old static website that is just sitting there with old info on it, or they may in fact have a WordPress website but they are letting it just sit there without working it.
Head shaking sadly, "It just doesn't have to be that hard." I am just sayin, you don't have to run all over town getting the same lame results over and over again. The game has changed and to get your word out there and compete for the business you need to know the new game and how to play it. We all have some amazing tools at our disposal that we didn't have ten years ago or even five years ago. These tools have leveled the playing field for regular people to have a huge audience for their products and their ideas. You know how newspapers and magazines have all but gone by the wayside? That is because people are getting their news and their product reviews from a different source, yes the Internet.
I see people have pieces of the puzzle in place to do online marketing but they are not using the piece systematically to produce results. The thing is they don't have the big picture and don't know how to put it together with some automated steps that will allow them to have a secret weapon at their disposal. Playing this game and combining it with strategic face to face marketing will not only bring sanity into your business it will increase your chances of finding your "right" clients and the type and amount of business that you want .
I am not saying not to do face to face marketing, but these days you have to be strategic about it. And spending time and money attending big networking events may make you feel productive but it seldom is without a plan and a mission.
Ten Step Social Media
I went into more detail on the call which you download and listen to here. But these steps are the 30,000 foot overview.
1. Create a WordPress website.
2. Make sure you "claim" your business on Google Local Business, Yelp and any other free service that is out there. Fill out the profiles completely, adding photos and links back to your website.
3. On your website, make sure you have social media link icons showing up after each post so people who read your posts can share it with their friends on Twitter, Facebook and/or e-mail. Try the WordPress plugin, Sexy Bookmarks.
4. Make sure you have your own Twitter account and Facebook page (in addition to your Facebook personal profile).
5. Put links and icons to your social media sites on the sidebar of your website so people can follow you there. Try using the WordPress Social Media Plugin.
6. Go into Facebook and link your blog to your Facebook "Page" by using the Facebook app, RSS Graffiti (do not link it to your personal page). All of your posts on your WordPress website will automatically appear on your Facebook page with the photo and a blurb, saving you from having to keep up with adding content to your Facebook Page.
7. Go to LinkedIn and link your blog to your LinkedIn profile. Your updates will appear there without you having to ever go to LinkedIn. Your contacts will also see that you have a new post each time they get notified by LinkedIn.
8. Open a free HootSuite account. Create different columns (streams) with each of your social media accounts showing up. Set it up so that you have your Twitter followers showing up in the first stream, your Twitter @mentions in the next column, your Twitter direct messages in the third column, your Facebook page in the next column and finally your LinkedIn stream in the next column. You can use this as your central control panel by visiting it 10 - 20 minutes a day. Find interesting people in your niche to follow, read their Tweets, comment on them, retweet them, and generally engage with them. When you write a blog post, go to your HootSuite account and create a Tweet with a little lead in as to why someone would be interested in your post. Do it in 120 characters or less, to leave room for someone to retweet it to their followers. HootSuite allows you to send an update to any of your social media accounts, but only send your blog post update to your Twitter account followers (it will have already gone to Facebook and LinkedIn automatically from steps 6 and 7, so you do not need to send it there).
9. Create a new blog post at least once a week.
10. Check your WP Stats on your website's dashboard. You will see a big spike on days you post. It should be evidence that the more active you are, the better.
If you get the system set up correctly and are consistent with this little 10 - 20 minute a day system, you will be more effective then running all over town doing marketing and networking events. That indiscriminate running around will wear you out. Often you are singing to the choir going places where your competition is, rather than your clients. I am not saying that Face to Face marketing is bad. On the contrary. It is just that I see people that are not making great decisions about their time. If three people from a garden club in Minnesota ask one of these folks to speak, they'd be on the next plane, and they'd do it for free and then say they don't have time for social media.
It is important to be you, to be strategic and make your "in real life" marketing count. And if you do what I have suggested above, you can get on the radar of people, fall into the "complementary and not competing" category and people will refer to you and when you meet them IRL they will already "know" you and they will know where to find you when they need your services.
Here is the link to the recording of the call.