Ten Tips for Getting Started in Social Media

Social Media is here to stay and should be an important component of your overall marketing strategy. I recently ran across some of these tips on a blog I follow called www.simplemarketingnow.com and wanted to share it. I know a lot of business owners feel overwhelmed and have no idea where to start, so here is a simple guide that anyone can benefit from:

1. Start small and steady. Commit to 15 minutes per day exploring, learning and getting engaged with social media.
2. Pick a topic you care and know something about. It can be work-related or not.
3. Explore that topic on Google Blog Search, Alltop and Technorati. Check out as many blogs as you can and experience firsthand several valuable resources for discovering blogs.
4. Experience what makes each blog that intrigues you unique. Is it the tone of the article? Is it the images used? What do you notice in the sidebar? Are there interesting links to other resources? What kinds of comments do you notice?
5. Pick five blogs and subscribe to them. You can do so via e-mail updates or RSS (or Really Simple Syndication) in a feed reader, such as Google Reader.
6. Leave a comment. When you receive your updates, click on the title link that takes you back to the source blog and leave a comment. Ideally, your comment should add insight to the blog post (often referred to as the conversation).
7. Explore your topic on YouTube. What do you find? Pay attention to the titles and the descriptions of the videos that come up in search results.
8. Explore your topic on Twitter using http://search.twitter.com. What do you find? Click on the links to evaluate their worth. Click on the pictures to learn more about the person “tweeting.” Which words generate useful results?
9. If you have an account on LinkedIn, see if your topic comes up in LinkedIn Answers and LinkedIn Groups. What do you observe?
10. If you have an account on Facebook, see if your topic comes up in Facebook search. What do you observe?

Rinse and repeat until you feel comfortable.

How to Become an Inbound Marketing Expert (Part 2 of 3)

Last month, I wrote about inbound and outbound marketing and how what once worked in the offline world is no longer effective today. The key points were:   
• Shopping Has Changed…Has Your Marketing?
• Your customers use the Internet to shop and gather information.  
• Your customers are searching for you every day. Do you show up?

Thanks to the Internet and web-based tools and technologies such as blogs, YouTube videos, Podcasts, Facebook, Twitter and other online platforms, companies have an unprecedented and enormous opportunity to engage with customers and prospects.  

By producing great content, you attract customers to you instead of chasing after them. By producing really great stuff, they will share and disseminate your message for you.  

So how do you produce really great stuff?  

1. Focus on generating amazing content first. Too many companies get caught up in trying to generate more traffic (more fans, more followers) instead of converting the traffic they have by providing them relevant, remarkable content.

2. Provide content that solves your customer’s problems or pain points. If you don’t know what those are, spend some time asking them. Or, talk to your sales and customer service team. They know.

“Remarkable content shares a resource, solves a problem, helps your customers do their jobs better, improves their lives, or makes them smarter, wittier, better-looking, taller, better-networked, cooler, more enlightened, and with better backhands, tighter asses, and cuter kids. In short, it’s of high value to your customers, in whatever way resonates best with them.”  (Ann Handley, Content Rules)

3.  Don’t just think of content as the written word. Think variety. Here are some examples of types of content you can create:
• Blog articles – short, informal written thoughts on topics related to your industry.  
• White Papers – education oriented papers on a trend or challenge.
• Videos – keep them short, less than 3 minutes.
• Webinars – live or recorded presentations on a hot topic.
• Podcasts – audio interviews with industry experts.
• Webcasts – video shows viewed online.

The great thing about these different types of content is they can be re-purposed multiple ways. A blog post can be a video which then turns into a webcast. A webcast can be turned into three to five short articles combined in an ebook. I bet you have plenty of content in your office or on your computer just dying to get out into the world and be seen by others.

We are living in such an exciting time to be in business. Big budgets and glitzy TV ads no longer win. We pay more attention to companies that tell a compelling story that resonates with their target audience. And the best part, it is a fun and more rewarding way to market and win!

Which quadrant are you living in?

We recently missed some key project deadlines in my company so we scheduled an urgent team meeting to figure out what had happened and how we were going to ensure it didn’t happen again.  Consistently honoring our commitments to our clients is vital to what we stand for so I viewed our recent misses as catastrophic. 

Here is what we uncovered: 

We had deviated from our process on how we manage projects.  We had received several new projects all at once and rather than “plan the work” and then “work the plan”, we just started working as fast and hard as we could.  We delved into how we had gotten off track and determined because we were so busy, we weren’t taking the time organize our projects in our project management system.  We quickly acknowledged that planning is not another task.  If you don’t do it, you fail.  It’s like breathing.  This led to a bigger, productive discussion about the four quadrants we operate in illustrated below:

 

You have probably seen and used this grid before.*  But very few of you have ever structured your life so you consistently spend most of your time in Quadrant 2.  If you have, I would bet that you are running a very successful company, career and life.  In fact, multiple studies have shown that the most successful companies and people spend 80% of their time in Quadrant 2. 

We realized that a big part of our team was spending 80% of their time in Quadrant 1 where everything is urgent and important.  Now you can also have a successful company if this is your management style or company culture but it comes with a cost:  first it’s not much fun to live here on a daily basis and two you will never win long-term against your competitors who spend the majority of their time in Quadrant 2. 

Not having fun and being vulnerable to our competitors was not an option in our culture.  We drew a line in the sand and committed to spending 80% or more of our time in Quadrant 2.   We started identifying what quadrant everything we spend time on falls into.  For example when a meeting is being scheduled, each agenda item has a quadrant assigned to it.  This is a quick way to move things off the agenda, even the whole meeting sometimes!  We do it for our phone calls and emails too. 

It’s simple time management – organizing and executing around priorities.  But as with everything, you have to develop the mental muscle to do it day in and day out to generate results. You also have to make sure everyone in your organization is also developing this mental muscle and you are giving them the tools to do that.  Not as another fad or new initiative but as a way of being that is consistent with what you are up to in business and in life. 

*If you are interested in learning more about the Time Management Grid, I recommend 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.  Habit 3 covers this topic in detail.

5 Steps to Make 2011 a Triumphant Year

By the time you are reading this we will have already entered the 3^rd month of 2011.  That means there only 10 months left in the year.  I bring this up because I’ve noticed increased activity in the business community lately.  When I ask someone how things are going, I’m consistently hearing “Busy”, “Crazy”, “Awesome”, “Overwhelmed”. 

Peter Drucker is quoted as saying “You cannot manage what you don’t measure”.  It seems obvious yet when business get’s busy, we often put measuring and analysis on the back burner until there is time.  Given that 2011 appears to be starting out nicely for most, I want to make sure we don’t lose ourselves in trying to make up for lost time and repeating some bad habits from the past.  So I’ve put together 5 steps to ensure you end up where you want at the end of 2011. 

1)       Identify your company’s Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) – Quantifiable measurements that reflect the critical success factors of your organization.  I like having no more than 5 but depending on your business you may need more.  Examples of some KPI’s include:   # of new customers acquired in the last 30 days, %  increase is Internet marketing conversions, increase in average size of project, etc.  The list is endless so choose the ones that matter most.  If you try to measure too much you’ll end up measuring nothing.

2)      Identify who will be responsible for each KPI  – Make sure one person has ultimate accountability for measuring and reporting the KPI.  Determine the frequency it will be discussed.  Monthly is a good place to start if not weekly.    

3)      Make sure there is a simple process for measurement.  – Don’t just assign someone the responsibility of measuring a KPI without making sure there is a simple process.  If it’s too time consuming either figure out how to simplify it or pick something else.

4)      What does it mean?  – Don’t just report it.  Data means nothing if you don’t learn something from it.  Discuss it, use it to grow from, create action steps as a result.  Even if your KPI reveals something negative, it’s always a positive because now you know and can do something about it.    

5)      Do It Consistently –   Develop the discipline to review, discuss and learn from your KPI’s however frequently you determine is right for your business.  Things will come up that make it easy to skip a week or month, so don’t let that happen.  If you do 1 – 4 correctly, this one will be the easiest to do because you will very quickly determine the value it creates in your business.

It’s very easy to get caught up “being busy” vs. “being impactful”.  Especially when so many companies have had too much quiet time on their hands the past few years.  Don’t let the excitement of growth get in the way of making sure you take advantage of what is shaping up to be a great year. 

Wendy Lieber is the president of Athena Marketing, a trusted marketing advisor and resource to companies interested in the growth and success of their business.  Wendy can be reached at 954.294.6467 or wendy@athena-marketing.com.

Seven steps to creating an exceptional customer experience

I had a conversation with a good friend of mine who told me about a new strategic partner he had just hired to help propel his business forward. He felt super excited about the initial meetings they had and the possibilities they created for his company. But, his enthusiasm started to dim when I asked him what the status was. He said, “Well I hired her, and I haven’t heard a thing since then.”

I initially assured him that a lot of work was probably going on “behind the scenes” and that he needed to be patient. It had only been a week and a half. I could hear myself starting to get a bit defensive. But why? The more my friend kept talking, the more uncomfortable I got. It forced me to ask myself some questions: What is my customer’s experience when working with my company? Do we set the expectations up only to disappoint? I realized we sometimes get so focused on doing the work we’ve been hired to do and the results we are trying to achieve that we overlook a critical element: the customer experience. I felt like a huge idiot and a fake given the business I’m in. I should know better. It has been an unbelievable wake-up call and opportunity for my company, and I’m happy to report it’s now a topic we think about constantly and, more importantly, act upon.

We created these seven simple steps to create an exceptional customer experience:

1)     Manage customer expectations: Make sure everyone understands their roles and responsibilities and how often they want a progress report. We use a great project management system called Basecamp (www.basecamphq.com) which allows our customers to check in anytime, and even better, we can give them assignments.

2)    Check in early and often: Ask your client every so often how things are going. What could be improved upon? Don’t be a stalker about this, but touch base every so often.

3)    Develop a communication system that works: Make it easy to share information and feedback. Some of our clients love Basecamp, but others like a weekly conference call, while others love e-mail.

4)    Do what you say you are going to do – EVERY TIME!: Be relentless about keeping your promises.

5)    Put yourself in your customer’s shoes: Ask yourself, “If I were them, would I be ecstatic?”  If the answer is less than positive, figure out what it would take to get it back on track…and fast.

6)    Be willing to say no: When you care intensely about your customers, it is easy to fall into the trap of saying yes to everything. Big mistake. Say no, and provide an alternative solution.

7)    Maintain a human touch: Get eye to eye every so often with a face-to-face meeting.

Bottom line is if your customers don’t appreciate what you provide them, then it doesn’t matter how hard you work behind the scenes. Make 2011 “The Year of the Customer.” You can’t go wrong when you have elated customers. Go create some!

8 Key Lessons I Learned in 2010

Happy New Year!  In honor of a New Year and a New Decade, I wanted to share some key learning’s I had this past year that had a dramatic impact on my business results that I hope will inspire you in some way.  I hope you enjoy!

1. Take actions even if you aren’t sure they are the right ones.  Having the results you want all comes down to taking actions.  It’s better to execute the heck out of an imperfect plan than wait until you’ve got it perfect and never execute.  Taking actions every day that support your priorities will generate results!
2. Stick with your commitments.  Sometimes we want to give up right before we have success.  I had this experience with an event I started earlier in the year called BIG Breakfast .  Luckily I have a great partner, Chris Roehm, who is willing to have tough conversations with me (see #5) so we could address what was in our way and make this an amazing event that continues to thrive!
3. Do one thing at a time.  Focus completely and intensely on what you are working on for a set amount of time.  Whether it is for 15 minutes or 2 hours, turn off the phone, stop checking email incessantly and get present to what you are working on.  Amazing things will happen.  My good friend and business colleague Valerie Snow  is a great mentor to me regarding this.   
4. When something or someone hits your hot buttons it’s YOU not them.  When I start making someone else “wrong” I realize that I’m missing an opportunity to have a breakthrough in my performance. This is a fun one to explore and learn from.   
5. Be willing to have tough conversations.  Every time I’ve been brave enough to deal with “what’s in the way” unbelievable outcomes that I never could have predicted occurred.  Stop having the conversations in your head and have them with real people.   
6. Say what you want out loud.  When you let other people know what you are up to, you become accountable and more likely to do what you say you are going to do.   
7. Get comfortable being uncomfortable.  If you aren’t doing something scary or challenging that makes you uncomfortable every so often you are missing an incredible opportunity to grow.  Scott “Nametag Guy” Ginsberg inspired me to pose this question to myself daily and more importantly take actions.  (see #1)  “If you aren’t failing, you aren’t growing.” 
8. Read as many books as you can.  Rob Slee, author and founder of http://www.MidasNation.com shared an impactful story with me recently.  He interviewed author and historian, David McCullough and asked him what characteristic he thought separated our Founding Fathers from our current leadership and David answered, “The Founding Fathers were all prolific readers.”  Cutting out one hour of TV a night and using that time to read will change your life.  Try it. 

 What learnings did you have this past year that made an impact on your results?  Share something!

Are “Nice Customers” Ruining Your Business?

I’m visiting my parents for Christmas and ran across on old book of mine called “How To Win Customers and Keep Them For Life” published in 1989. It’s one of those timeless classics.  Below is an excerpt that I thought was especially relevant:

“I’m a nice customer. You all know me. I’m the one who never complains, no matter what kind of service I get.

I’ll go into a restarurant and sit quietly while the waiters gossip and never bother to ask if anyone has taken my order. Sometimes a party that came in after I did gets my order, but I don’t complain. I just wait.

And when I go into a store to buy something, I don’t throw my weight around. I try to be thoughtful of the other person. If a snooty salesperson gets upset because I want to look at several things before making up my mind, I’m just as polite as can be. I don’t believe rudeness in return is the answer.

The other day I stopped at a full service gas station and waited for almost five minutes before the attendant took care of me. And when he did, he spilled gas and wiped the windshield with an oily rag. But did I complain about the service? Of course not.

I never kick. I never nag. I never criticize. And I wouldn’t dream of making a scene, as I’ve seen some people do in public places. I think that’s uncalled for. No, I’m the nice customer. And I’ll tell you who else I am.

I’m the customer who never comes back!”

The difference today is that “nice customer” can and will easily share his or her experiences with 100′s or even 1000′s of friends/fans/followers with a click of a button by posting it on Facebook, Yelp or Trip Advisor amongst countless others.  This can and will ruin a business overnight.  Exceptional customer service is still one of the most important competitive advantages a company can provide.   Yes technology has changed the way some of that delivery is provided but it has not changed our expectations. 

I’m a big believer that if you take great care of your employees they will take exceptional care of your customers.  Easy to say not always easy to do unless you have a strategy that is focused on this.  So beware of those “nice employees” or “nice customers” that may be ruining your business!

How to win Customers and Keep Them For Life by Michael LeBoeuf, Ph.D.

Demystifying Social Media – What it isn’t and what it is!

One of the biggest mistakes business owners make when it comes to social media is convincing themselves that it’s not for them and not educating themselves on how these new tools can play a valuable role in their overall business and marketing strategy.  Here is a quick guide to help you understand what it isn’t and what it is. 

What social media is NOT about?

• It’s NOT about selling
• It’s NOT about generating the most fans or followers
• It’s NOT about posting/sharing anything that crosses your mind

 What social media IS about?

Listening – Social media is an excellent and easy platform for your customers to write what they think about you, comment about a recent experience with your product or service, or express praise or criticism.  Here’s the thing – they can share with or without your participation.  They can go to Yelp, Facebook, Twitter and dozens of other sites and write whatever they want.  They don’t need your permission.  Why wouldn’t you want to LISTEN to what they are saying and have systems in place to monitor and more importantly respond to their comments?  An easy way to do this is set up a Google Alert account which notifies you anytime your company name gets mentioned.  This leads to my next point.  

Interacting – Social media is a great place to interact with your customers and prospects.  You can ask questions, get feedback, handle a complaint, express appreciation for a praise and much more.  You can also learn about your fans and follower and get involved in things important to them which help strengthen your relationships. 

Sharing – Social media is a great vehicle to create and share remarkable content about your company, your industry, and the problems you solve for your customers.  Different from selling, sharing is an unselfish act where you are delivering something of value without wanting anything in return except to delight your fans and followers.  This could range from providing the secret recipe for a favorite dish at your restaurant (for all you restaurateurs), sharing recommendations for best dental products out there (hint to dentists), providing end of year tax or financial planning tips (wake up accountants, financial planners, insurance agents).  Get the picture?  Every business has valuable, unique knowledge that there is an interested audience for. 

Social media is here to stay so my recommendation is embrace it and start carving out 10 – 15 minutes a day listening, interacting and sharing with your community and within no time you will start seeing the benefits. 

If you would like to receive a FREE Social Media Audit with specific recommendations on how your business can use social media to connect with your customers and prospects email me at   wendy@athena-marketing.comor post a comment below.  

 Wendy Lieber is the president of Athena Marketing, a trusted marketing advisor and resource to companies interested in the growth and success of their business. 

5 Ways to Get your Business Focus Back

As business owners, it’s easy to get distracted and off course from our business strategy and start doing things we shouldn’t.    

Why does this happen?  Running a successful business day in and day out is about implementing the heck out of a simple strategy and relentless execution of the same key priorities over and over again.  To the ambitious business entrepreneur, this can often feel boring and monotonous.  What typically happens as a result is new strategies get developed instead of implementing the ones we already have.  New projects get created instead of finishing the ones in the works.  This usually leads to lackluster results and a frustrated team which turns into thinking another new plan is needed, a new tagline, new packaging – NEW SOMETHING. 

Over time the organization is multi-tasking like crazy yet ignoring the one thing that made the business successful in the first place.  THE CORE (i.e. what you live on).  Instead of focusing on making sure the business core is strong and relevant, everyone is working on all the things around it.  It’s similar to making beautiful frosting for a cake that is crumbling.  We think the frosting makes up for the fact that we don’t have a solid, delicious cake underneath.  Worse yet, sometimes we don’t even see the crumbling cake because we are mesmerized by our own frosting.

It all boils down to this:  It takes relentless focus and discipline to run a business day in and day out rather than constantly starting new projects and ventures.  It takes a mindset willing to drown out all the noise and temptations coming our way to keep working the simple, some might even say boring, strategy. 

Here are 5 simple ways to get your focus back:

1. Identify your core product or service.  This is your bread and butter.  What you are known for.  What you live on.  Why your customers choose you.
2. Create a simple strategy based around your core offering and stick to it.  This strategy is as simple as answering two questions:  How will you make money?  How will you stay ahead of the competition?   
3. Develop something proprietary in your offering.  Something that can’t be easily copied by your competition.
4. Evaluate your core and make sure it is in sync with the marketplace.  Reinvent it; fill in where there are gaps.  Make sure your customers love it!
5. Communicate your strategy every opportunity you get!  Every day, in every meeting, every time your team gets together.  Everyone in your organization should be so sick of hearing it that they don’t think they can stand it anymore.  This means they are just starting to get it!!! 

It’s the simple stuff executed day in and day out that make all the difference.  You know this already, the question is do you have the focus and discipline to do it? 

BONUS:  First 10 emails or comments to my blog about this article will receive a FREE copy of the newly launched book The Greatness Zone by Jay Forte.  Email:   wendy@athena-marketing.com Blog http://wendylieber.wordpress.com/ 

 Wendy Lieber is the president of Athena Marketing, a trusted marketing advisor and resource to companies interested in the growth and success of their business. 

New Reality Show Announced – Wendy’s World

I sometimes get sucked into watching Reality Shows.  One that tends to get my attention, I’m ashamed to admit, are the Real Housewives.  I don’t know why I like them or waste time watching them.  I have so many great things I could be working on.  Much more productive things yet I will gladly waste time and energy watching other people live their lives getting into petty arguments, gossiping about each other, drinking a lot of wine and everyone once in a while doing something interesting.  I was thinking about this earlier this morning and it occured to me that in none of the episodes I’ve ever watched is there ever anyone sitting around wasting time watching Television.  Now it could be that they just don’t show those parts or it could be that when you are being filmed you rise to a higher level and don’t do those shameful things we don’t want captured on film.  What if I started living my life as if I was on a Reality Series?  Hey it could even be called Wendy’s World?  It would be all about my interesting journey as an entrepreneur making BIG things happen.  Alright so the networks won’t be texting me for exclusive rights but that’s not the point.  What changes would I make if I thought every move I made was going to be observed, judged, blogged about and commented on around the world?  Would I waste as much time watching Realty TV as I do?  Would I eat that extra Dove ice cream bite?  Would I waste time browsing around on the Internet instead of working on my own projects?  I bet, actually I know, I would amp up my performance a hell of a lot if I knew I was getting to get a grade every day by comments from viewers.  It sounds like an interesting idea.  I think I’m going to try it and see what happens.   So maybe watching all these reality shows has finally served a valuable purpose for me.  They caused me to get my own – even if it is only in my imagination.  Stay tuned!