Building Your Business with Social Media Tools & Traditional PR Skills

When you S.T.A.C.K. the Deck in Your Favor you’ll have a stronger strategic marketing plan, and can better ensure that the hand you are playing is a winning one.

• Strategy
• Tools
• Audience
• Content (& Connection)
• Keep is Simple

STACK is the acronym I’ve created to remind myself and my clients of the elements needed for an effective integrated marketing plan. While the order of the steps isn’t exactly right in the word, these are the main elements that are needed.

Audience:

1) Research your Audience. Identify what messages resonate with them (what three to five challenges/problems do they have that your service or product can help them solve). Discover where they go to get their information – and not where you THINK they go – find out if they read newspapers, or blogs, and/or magazines (and even which ones if possible), or which of the social networks they participate in. What tools do they use, if any, when researching products/services like yours, or what colleagues/friends might they ask? Find the demographic stats for various publications and social networks, survey your current customers/clients/prospects – these are just two ideas to help with this process.

Strategy:

2) Develop an Effective Strategy. Too many small businesses jump into marketing and public relations activities with out creating a strategy and goals, especially when it comes to online or social media. You wouldn’t build a house without a plan, why promote your business or non-profit that way? An effective strategy lays out the approach you plan to take in reaching your market and goals.

Once you have researched your current and potential audiences, decide what your goals are in reaching out to them. What actions do you want them to take, what “call to action” will you use, what next steps along the way to a sale do you want them to take? Are you in a business that can create a quick one-touch sale, or like most businesses, do you need to build trust in the company or a rapport with your sales staff before they choose to buy from you.

The tools you select to use below, and the content you develop, should support the strategy you build from the answers to these first two questions.

Tools:

3) Select the right tools. Once you’ve identified a strategy (based on the above steps) then you can select the tools that fit your needs. An example strategy: to help customers/clients (and prospects) keep your company in mind when they replenish product stock at month’s end or engage new services, you plan to have your business touch base with them, where they “hang out*” several times a month – *you’ve identified the places online or in print that they read/visit etc. Also identify the resources and people within your company who will learn to use these tools.

You’ve found that your clients do read e-newsletters (if they provide useful how-to information, and are only sent to once a month), and they use one or two social networking sites to gather information before they buy products like yours – some use LinkedIn and others use Twitter, two of the most prominent sites. You have also found that your most loyal customers, and prospective customers like them, also read two specific trade publications – most read one publication’s online edition, the hard copy of the other trade magazine is more read than their website – and they also read a few industry blogs.

This research allows you to select and/or refine the right tools you will use to reach your customers. Research the best e-mail/e-newsletter software “tools” or programs/services, preferably one that includes built-in options to promote your email communications* via social media sites (* this might be an online newsletter,  or an e-news or e-blast as they are sometimes called – short useful news or tip-based emails for example). And a service that has customizable templates – to make sure your emails don’t look generic, and that makes it easy to add a sign-up box right on your existing website.

You also plan to begin to build a presence on LinkedIn and Twitter – after first learning the dos and don’ts or getting the “feel” of each site – each social networking site has a different culture.  Just like local in-person events can have an unwritten dress code, and at some, handing out business cards is appropriate, while others it is frowned on – online sites take a bit of listening/learning before you jump in full throttle. These networking sites may be newer tools, but they still work in similar ways – helping to connect people with information and with other people, they are not advertising platforms. There are plenty of consultants and coaches out here who can help you and your company get up to speed more quickly.

Traditional advertising models don’t work well on most social media sites for most products – sites run on guidelines more like – “people by from people,” and “you’ve got to give to get.” That is – share information and expertise, be helpful, build trust first, and interact with people, participate…then occasionally refer to your own products or services. Remember those executive golf outings, you wouldn’t bring up your new product just as your client is teeing off, nor would you talk about it non-stop – it’s all about balance. One specific idea that works on most sites is to provide the type of “how to” info you’ve discovered in your research that your customers and prospects like to know about. How do you do this: ask and answer questions on LinkedIn, participate in groups; on Twitter pass along links to good industry articles/news, and answer questions people have, also pass on good info from others on Twitter (called retweeting or RT).
You can also decide if you want to use advertising as a tool – either in the online or hard copy editions of those trade publications or on one or two popular industry blogs. Another tool is traditional PR – submit editorial copy to the publications. Have a selected staff member write an article, or pitch a feature story/interview of a staff member who invented a new product that will make a reporter or editor’s reader’s jobs easier.

Phase two might be to tweak and improve your existing tools – your website, and even to launch a how to-based blog, once you have the feel for how your customers and prospects are responding to your new marketing strategy. Done carefully, these additional tools above can make it easier to bring readers to an on-site blog – this brings customers back to your site more frequently, and can be an effective community-building and lead generating tool.

Content & Connection:

4) Develop content to match the interests and needs of your audience. Don’t just pump out company press releases or product info, but craft your strategy so it meets your customers/clients needs and expectations. Use your content to build customer trust in your company, a relationship with your sales force or staff, or build a community that comes to your site for information and solutions – so that when it comes time to buy, they buy from you or recommend your company to friends/colleagues.

Another “C” that fits is Connection: You can’t adopt a “build it and they will come” attitude. There is a lot of competition out there. Build connections with your audience (customers, clients) that provide them with value. As I noted before – people buy from people they like/trust. Give them content that fits their interest and needs, and finding ways to engage with them directly is crucial in today’s interconnected marketplace. If your clients/customers and even competitors are using social media, you will need to add it to you PR / marketing mix sooner, rather than later. But as I cautioned above – don’t just jump in, research and move effectively. Your competition may be on Facebook, but your best customers, the 20% that buy the most, might be using LinkedIn, or visa versa.

Keep It Simple:

5) Simple Plans may be Best: By this I mean that you don’t have to use every tool in the tool chest. Once you’ve followed the steps above, put your strategy in place using just one or two of the tools that most effectively reach your existing audience or potential customers. Then build out from there. I’ll use a building analogy – don’t build a mansion if you only need a house. Start with the plan; gather the materials, tools and your team; build the framework; then the roof, and interior and exterior work; then furnish the building. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither are sound strategic marketing plans.

This scenario I have laid out can used for B2B (business to business) product-based companies, and can be easily adapted to a B2C (business to consumer), non-profit, service-based companies, or even to the entrepreneurial start-up or solopreneur.

So my advice is: STACK the Deck in Your Favorâ„¢ – Strategy, Tools, Audience, Content & Keep is Simple – will help you build a winning hand and be more effective with your promotional, public relations, and strategic marketing process.

Cathy Larkin is a PR professional with 20 years of experience who is having a blast (when appropriate) incorporating social media into the mix as she helps small businesses and non-profits, individuals and solopreneurs learn to create and execute integrated marketing strategies.

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This is post number three  in the Better Blog November Challenge, or #BtrBlogNov that I declared a few weeks ago. Twenty plus people have signed on to this free project because we all want to improve the quality/quantity/range of our blogs and blog posts. This is the second set of info & exercises: Honing Your Message.

Link to #BtrBlogNov intro post: http://bit.ly/jmSOM

Link to #BtrBlogNov Week 1 Exercises: http://bit.ly/dffN5

Link to Twitter list of people who re giving it a try: http://bit.ly/4iLz2Z

Reminder of main monthly BetterBlog November goals:

To over one month, create a better blog – Focusing on ways to:

1. Create better quality blog posts

2. Increase the quantity of blog posts

3. Either increase the Range or the

1. Diversity of blog posts or

2. The focus of our blog posts, depending on which our site needs most

Today’s exercises are the second step in putting the basic structure behind your blog, that will help improve your blog posts . I promise – after this one, the rest are all about blogging directly. If working behind the scenes isn’t your cup of tea, please give it on more shot – it’ll probably only take a half  hour.

Closely aligned with reviewing your blogging goals, is the questions of audience/readers/community:  who are you writing for? This question is really two parts – the first is who are you hoping or trying to write for – who do you want to read your blog. The second is who is actually reading your blog. So the next task is to review our audience, readers, the community we are perhaps trying to build. Who is reading our blog, and are they who we had hoped to attract, or who we hope to attract in light of our refined blogging goals from week one.

We may need to adjust our blog posts to both meet those goals and reach the audience we want. Just like with our goals, you may find that you have several audience/community segments. Again, just like the goals, you may feel the need to prioritize them.

For some of us, our audience may be small, in this case a shift is fairly easy. For others, who have either been blogging for quite a while, or who hit a popular topic and promoted it quickly, that can be more complicated. Some folks may have begun blogging about one aspect of a subject, and either became very specialized and focused, or became very diverse – writing about all aspects of a subject, or even strayed far and wide from your core topic. Neither one of these realities is necessarily bad, if your audience loves it, and it is meeting your goals – keep doing what you’re doing. Others may find that their new goals may not match their existing audience, some may never have thought about who they want to read their blog, others may find the fit between goals and audience/community works just fine.

So the exercise Part one:

• Take a few minutes, review your blogging goals and in light if that, jot down a few bullet points about your intended readers, audience and/or community.
• You may find that they are perfectly aligned with your goals. You may find the goals and audience are way off. If this the case, and the audience is strong – perhaps you need to reevaluate the goals – you may have found niche audience that you didn’t mean to attract – but if they are there – I would take them into account.
  

I can hear some readers asking how do we figure out about our audience. One measure is comments and social media mentions.So the exercise Part 2:

• Are you getting comments on your blog, and do they reflect who you thought would be commenting.
  • If you are not getting comments, it may not be because your blog writing isn’t strong or focused, it may be that your promotion of your blog has not been effective, or your topic has a lot of competition. DO NOT DESPAIR: These are issues we will tackle later on in this series.
  • If you have comments, are they consistent? Do all of your posts get them, or only a few? Are there any patterns – does one type of post resonate more with your readers than others. Ar e there some post that get many comments
  • Looking at discussions on social networking platforms that you participate in is another form of audience. Do your posts get retweeted on Twitter – take a look at who retweets them; or do you get comments on Facebook? Do client prospects read your blog posts on LinkedIn and then contact you for business  (which has happened to me)?
• Do you ave an analytics package on your blog – either google analytics, WP stats etc. If so, take a look. See if you can find out how people are finding you. What kewords are they using to find your posts. Are they coming from another person’s blog, or from Twitter or face book. Looking at your statistics can help tell you somethings about your audience. Are your blog posts being picked up by Google? Do people find your posts through organic searches.
• Have you set up your RSS feed and allowed people to sign up or subscribe to receive your blog posts via RSS, and via email. If so, have you looked at Google’s Feedburner (or other program) stats? Again, if you don’t have many, don’t despair. It’s not about numbers, it’s about starting somewhere and building on what you have today. For those who don’t ‘get’ RSS readers – it is a free service that allows people to sign up and receive your blog posts as they come out using a free piece of software called a feed reader – kind o like a magazine rack our on the internet (or via email if you set it up that way too).

Extra Credit Exercise number one: Review your Blog Assets. In light of defining/refining your blogging goals and your audience, take a step back and look at your blog as a whole. Does the blog itself support these goals and work to attract your intended audience.

• Does your blog header and tagline reflect your goals and will it attract the audience you want?
• Do your blog post categories also reflect your goals and will it attract the audience you want?
• Do the static pages on your site, if you have them, reinforce those goals and work to attract your audiences or build that community?

Better Blog November Resources and Extra Credit number two: If you are hankering to get on with the blogging part of things, which will come on Wednesday, take a look at Chris Brogan’s list of 100 blog posts I hope you’ll write. As you read his list, use your new blog ideas  file and/or notebook (from week one) and jot down ideas that occur to you that will fit your revised blogging A goals and your renewed audience appreciation.

Note: In my first Better Blog November post I mentioned a character who often gets in the way of our blog post writing, her name is Resistance. Between a busy week and fighting an oncoming cold, I let Miss Resistance step in the way of my second post last week. But, as I also mentioned in my intro post, if you fall off the Better Blog November wagon, just hop back on board. So I am taking my own advice and ignoring her, even if I’m a little late. Thanks for hanging in there!

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