Due to the government shutdown, the Small Business Administration will not process loans back by the company. Over a billion dollars goes to small businesses all across the country. Unfortunately these loans cannot be funded because there is no one to process the loans.
Also, the government shutdown also affect those businesses that have government contracts.
How has the shutdown is affect your business?
Questions you should ask yourself when Creating a Social Media Marketing Plan
1. Who should set up and maintain my company's social media account? If you have a large company, designate someone from your marketing department.
2. How often should I post to my social networks? At least 2 to 3 times a day. Stagger your post throughout the day.
3. Which social networks should I use? You can always start out with Twitter or Facebook. Until you find out what works best for your business.
4. What is my goal for using social media? To convert likes into customers. You want to attract and engage your customers. Most importantly you want to expose your brand.
The biggest mistake you can make is not to have a Social Media Plan. So build a plan (or let us build one for you) and stick with it. Once a month you will have to go back and evaluate what works and what doesn't work.
Building a mobile app can be a little overwhelming. Before you build an app you must ask yourself four questions.
1. Who is your audience? Identify whom you're building the app for. Will your app be used by an external or internal audience? External- for customers. Internal-for employees.
2. Should you build a mobile site or a mobile app? Actually your company should have both app and a mobile site.
3. Should the app be built in-house or outsourced? It maybe smarter to outsource the initial development. Then set up a team in-house to do maintenance and updates.
4. Will my app lie within the company guidelines? Will your mobile strategy be in lined with your company goals and objectives.
Think carefully before you proceed.
A fundraiser trend for building capital for small business is on a rise. Lately, I've seen a few social media advertisement, commercials and emails regarding Crowdfunding. What is crowdfunding? Getting small donations of money from a large group of people. This is a case of your story not your credit score.
Websites such as Indiegigo, Crowdfunding Start up and Kick Starter walks you through steps of setting up your profile. Majority of these sites have a group of non professionals investors who will invest in your business depending on your story. The key to success is attracting people's attention.
Tips for Successful Crowdfunding
1. Include a video in your pitch.
2. Be active.
3. Have money set aside already.
If you have already raised money successfully through crowdfunding, please share your story. Give us some tips.
We all hate rude comments, but we have to face them. When a customer leaves a rude comment on your Facebook, Twitter, Blog or other social media channels our first instinct is to delete it or not respond to it. Not responding to customers comments takes the personality out of your brand.
If someone leaves a nasty comment, getting to the bottom of is the comment is what is important. If the customer chooses to continue to leave one nasty comment after another. Respond one time in a respectful manner. After that let it go.
If your company does something wrong own it in a public way but be careful what you are apologizing for. Be specific when apologizing. If not, it can be used against you.
So lesson of the day:
1. Respond to negative comments
2. Don't delete negative comments right a way but remove it after a period of time.
3. Be professional.
4. Be specific.
I found this picture on Google +. I thought it was cute. Which one describes you?
Happy Monday everyone! Hope you're week started off good. Today, I was talking to one of my clients about a business plan. He's has an established business, but the demand for his products are going down due poor marketing. This guy makes a great deal of profits off of his products and services; never had to do much marketing. At least that's what he thought. He came to me today inquiring about a marketing plan. I gave him the The Right Ingredients to a Marketing Plan. Never heard of it...
The Right Ingredients to a Marketing Plan:
Be Prepared to Write. Before you start writing, collect all your information. When you gather your information before hand you avoid interruptions. Make sure you have information such as; Financials, Market Research,Competitors Analysis, Detail description of your product or services.
Know you Market Situation. Know your standing in the marketplace. Provide a clear and concise description of your company. Match up your products and services against your competitors products and services. How well do you stack up? Inlcude: What your products and services are. What geographical area you sell to. Describe your audience (provide demographics. Who are you competitors?
SWOT Ananlysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Threats & Opportunities). This section focus on the good and bad implications of the entire marketing plan.
Executive Summary. The executive plan summarizes e final part of the plan. The most important part of the plan.
Writing a blog is so much rewarding when you know people are reading and sharing your work. If you are managing a blog as part of your business; increasing you subscribers is an important task.
Here are some fairly simple tips you can implement to help boost your subscribers.
1. Decrease your loading time. Slow loading times means a 7% drop off rate. Slow loading times is a sure way to lose visitors to your blog before they get to read your content. Slow loading times can also lead to lower Google search rankings.
2. Offer Exclusive content for your subscribers. Give aways can give your readers an extra push to sign up for your blog.
3. Add Sign-Up Forms. If you only have sign up forms in one place (at the bottom of the page) you can lose a potential subscriber. Add your sign up form to the side bar. The more places the better.
4. Use pop ups to capture email addresses. Most blogging platforms will allow you to set up one.
A few tips to keep mind:
Pinterest
Avoid using human faces. Images gets repinned 23% more.
Facebook
Provide links. Drive your fans to your website, blog site, etc
Positivity. Positivity is definitely more appealing.
Provide valuable information.
Google Plus
Tag people. Encourage people to comment on your post.
Include images.
I get so many questions on Social Media. When is the best time to post? What should I post? What Social Media sites should I use? How can I get more followers or more likes?
I wish there was a secret formula to all of this, but there isn't. Each Social Media site is different. Each brand followers/fans have their own preferences.
The key is to find what Social Media site works best for your business. In order to find that out you have to know where your market is.
Remember the more Social Media sites you use the more time you have to spend maintaining them. Find at least three sites to use. For instance; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.
