They are not the only small business to miss the potential that social media has to build sales, says Rebekah King, principal of ReBiz Works in Irvine, a one-person shop that specializes in social media marketing and training.

Social media sites, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and online communication tools, such as Twitter and the content-update utility Ping.fm, could raise TNT’s profile, introduce it to new customers and provide an easy way to keep in front of its growing community. Also, content on social media sites is counted in search-engine results and can move a business higher in result rankings.

To be effective, a business needs a plan.

“Any social-media program has to have a focus, a purpose,” says King, who works with small businesses and advertising agencies. “They want to book more business. Social media can show people who they are and help drive potential customers to their website.”

Check out the article on latimes.com for the full step-by-step program we outlined for TNT Dunk Squad

Marketing.

Walking up and down main street talking to people whose opinions you may (or when it comes to progress in a small town – you may not) care about spreads the word about your business. Today you’re talking to Sally the hairdresser and Tom the barkeep, tomorrow Sally is chatting with her knitting girlfriends about your new bookstore while Tom is telling everyone buying a beer you: this crazy kid who came in with a new business idea.

These days it may not be Sally the hairdresser. For the family dentist in a larger community it may be participating in a parade, or a local kids fair. For the pizza parlour owner it’s sponsoring the two little league teams closest to his location. For the private school it’s doing kids events in combo with local high-end businesses. Whatever your business, getting involved in your community can make a big difference in your business’ bottom line. Here’s a few of our tried and true tricks for getting the bottom line to move in the right direction:

1. Stay close: whatever group or school or business you are going to team up with should be the closest one of it’s kind to your location. Don’t make your ideal client drive past all your competition on their way to your door unless it’s for a BIG payout. If you count on repeat business you must be easily accessible.

2. Keep it Simple: your logo can be a picture of you. Your flier can be 1/2 a page. Don’t over-explain what you are trying to do or what you want to have happen. Say who you are, what they get, and what they have to do to get it. No more (and no less – this just frustrates people).

3. Don’t be GIMME: if you are doing a program that involves “donating your services” DON”T make people GIMME a lot of information to get the program. People will think it’s a GIMMICK designed to obtain their contact info for Spamming – and you won’t get invited back. Be upfront with your community and they will respect you for respecting their intelligence.

Want to find some good community outreach programs in your area? Just ask your customers: the people who live close enough to come to you for services are the same people you want to market to.

Technology is always advancing, and as it does can either improve the value of marketing, or make it even more difficult to get an effective marketing program across to the target audience.

Are you sending SPAM emailing or a valuable newsletter?

Does anyone read your emails?

Does your brochure actually help people want to hire you, or give too much information (the average person doesn’t even read)?

Are the networking events and luncheons and trade shows you are going to actually generating new business?

Does your website bring you customers? Do you even know who reads your website? Have you ever seen a traffic report on your website?

These are all very important questions that a marketing professional must ask, and that an owner or CEO must always balance against the daily needs of running the business. What we specialize in is using technology to economize these activities – to provide a higher level of accuracy in reporting, adaptability to alter course in days instead of weeks should a program be ineffecient, and the experience to know what usually works better than most practices.

How many times have we sat through a marketing workshop that told us we needed to use some new gizmo to reach a trillion new people, only to go through the implementation process, the learning curve, and the complete headache of creating staff policies – only to find out 3 months later we saw no new business, got no new clients, and all in all wasted our time? If it’s not your ideal client you are talking to then there’s no point in talking at all – save your breath, your energy, and your time for the clients and colleagues that make your business and your profession better for the effort!

At the end of the day no one knows your business as well as you do, you’ve been doing it for years and you know your clients better than anyone. Our job is to bring the best practices from a variety of business climates to your doorstep and make it possible for you to reach new heights with new technology at your feet.

1. YOU MIGHT BE A SPAMMER IF: you compulsively send strangers connection requests and not jut the people you met once, but the folks you’ve never ever met…

Yes, LinkedIn is a place to connect with colleagues, references, past co-workers, and prospective clients – but stalking people has never been a pleasant experience for the stalk-ee. If you are reaching out to someone you don’t know for a good reason, then tell it to them. I’ve reached out to many people I didn’t know, for work purposes or client projects, but in the subject line will say “you don’t know me, found you on LinkedIn” and start off the message by saying why I’m emailing. The result? About 4 times more responses.

2. YOU MIGHT BE A SPAMMER IF: you join lots of groups and post your sales pitch in them over and over and over and over and over..

LinkedIn Groups is your destination to find and join communities of professionals based on common interest, experience, affiliation, and goals. Stay in touch with organizations, schools, and companies that you are and were a part of, network with professionals with similar interests and goals, and collaborate in a professional community online.

Groups are typically organized around a company (IBM or Apple), a trade organization (AIGA or APA), or a special interest group (Mac Users, Blackberry Users). You apply for membership and the group owner can either accept or decline your request for membership. Once accepted, you have access to discussion boards, job boards, news feeds, and the ability to submit news articles to the group. Being involved in the community (posting answers to questions, sharing news articles relevant to the community) is a way to increase your visibility, credibility, and esteem within the community. Trouble seems to be – this takes time. Rather than spend this time, many seem to post their sales pitches as discussions over and over again…. my guess they think this visibility makes people think of them – and it’s true… but thinking of you as an intelligent authority or just the pain-in-the-keester newbie?

It’s totally appropriate to get out there and try new things – try the groups, try posting comments, try inviting connections – but if no one posts comments, and your invitations aren’t accepted take the hint that you may be coming on too pitchy and not enough of a human being. People like people, much more than salespeople….

The Definition: Social media is simply a buzz word for any type of media that has a social component – sharing, posting, commenting, messaging, discussing etc. These are social practices you would be more inclined to see at a group gathering, or coffee shop, than you would traditionally have seen online. The media used in these communities can be primarily text, video, or photos, but the most engaging are typically using all three.

The Tools: When someone talks about social media we often think about tools like Myspace, Facebook, and LinkedIN, but there are over 80,000 different social media platforms around the world. Ning, Xing, Bebo and Orkut or a few examples of different social media tools. Typically it’s easier to get started on the more common applications, but the most strategic marketing plans focus on reaching out to the niche communities that best match our client’s target audience.
EXAMPLE: Tony Columbini @ Egge Machine & Speed Shop doesn’t do much on Facebook/Myspace/LinkedIn, but is extremely active in car enthusiast communities. They’ve seen a direct relationship between sales and this online community involvement.

The Business: Many social media platforms make their money from display ads on different parts of the site, or by charging people for advanced access or communication ability. One of the basic tenants of social media is the most simple membership be free, so many people can join – to create the community and bring enough people together to keep the site engaging to the audience.
EXAMPLE: LinkedIN charges for advanced communication, like InMail or number of introduction requests. Twitter is often a topic of conversation, because to date the founders do not have a revenue model for the tool, leading many to believe it may not last forever.

You can find Loic Le Meur at www.twitter.com/loic and his product at www.seesmic.com

But, I digress. My tangent is distracting us all for the point of today’s rant.

Pointless, cheezy, salesy, uninvited emails via facebook.

I recently received this from someone in one of my groups:

When Britains Got Talent start Susan Boyle took the stage in front of the three judges, it was all the audience could do to stop themselves from laughing. In front of them stood a 47 year old woman with an unpolished appearance who was certain to humiliate herself in front of millions. Then she did something extraordinary. She sang “I Dreamed a Dream” from the West End musical Les Misérables so beautifully that she received a standing ovation and is the talk of the UK. Her audition which has since been put on Youtube has received tens of millions of views.

So what business lessons can Susan teach us?

1) Don’t judge a book by its cover.

Susan was written off before she’d sung a note. But not everything is always as it seems, sometimes it’s worth giving people and services a chance before writing them off. They may just surprise you.

2) A book is always judged by its cover.

The audience’s reaction to Susan was hardly surprising. Were we all being cynical? Well yes, but that’s human nature. Even though your product or service may be outstanding, people tend to make quick judgements. Is your website, packaging or marketing conveying the right message?

3) Be extraordinary

Susan isn’t a huge hit because she sang the best version of” I Dreamed A Dream”, there are better versions around if you care to look. She’s a huge hit because people were not expecting her to be so good. The fact that she exceeded everybody’s expectations made her performance extraordinary and something that people want to talk about. Is your company creating things worth talking about?

Finally a big congratulations to Susan who will continue to chase her dream. Something we should all be doing.

DO YOU SEE HOW LONG THIS IS?

And it’s not even from a friend. I don’t know who any of these people are. This some yodle esposing yodle-um for (who’s exactly?) benefit. I don’t get it.

1. FACEBOOK IS NOT A BLOG

your blog is a blog. posting a link to your blog is cool. I can read it if I want. It doesn’t clutter up my facebook page. that’s cool.

2. FACEBOOK IS FOR FRIENDS

I have friends that ask me questions about my business on facebook. I answer them.  That’s it. if it’s more than one paragraph I call them or email them offline. Every business owner I know and respect handles this the same way, so you might want to also.

3. FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS SEND SPAM

And you shouldn’t either.

R

Sending Announcements
In response to overwhelming demand from group managers, we have created the ability for you to send group announcements directly from your LinkedIn group to your members, via email. Your announcement will also automatically be posted as a discussion within the group so members can comment on it together.

As membership in LinkedIn groups continues to explode, we hear increasing concerns from our members about how their privacy is protected. Now that we have the Announcement feature, and in response to these concerns, we have removed the ability to download or view member email addresses.

RSS Feeds into Groups
Posting news items into groups has become very popular in the past couple months. So we’ve made it even easier for you to spark discussions around news and other Web content by enabling you to add RSS and Atom feeds to your group. You can pick up RSS and Atom feeds from your favorite sites around the web. News items from your feed will automatically show up under the News tab.

Managing Job-Focused Discussions
Group managers now have full control over whether to enable the jobs discussion capabilities within your group. The jobs area enables members to discuss job opportunities in these difficult economic times without cluttering the main conversation, and like all discussions it’s free.

LinkedIN’s made all email addresses private in groups – good for the group member but not so good for the group owner, especially if you were merging that group into your newsletter databases. The other thing we’re missing is the geographic management – I’ve got a colleague who has one group for her entire association – regardless of chapter preference – so now we’ll all get eachother’s notices… because she can no longer filter “only orange county” like she could in her email marketing platform. As is the case with upgrades, once they start they rarely stop, so I’m sure we’ll see more over the next few weeks…

Rebekah

It doesn’t matter what it is; a newsletter, postcard, fun picture or a sample of your work, sending anything out to your address book on a semi-regular basis is good for business. Let’s be clear: I am NOT advocating sending out a digest of boring crap that you think is important. I am NOT cheering for the rights of the cheezy sales guy sending me a 3-page long “regular priced 199 but for you it’s 99 (if you order in the next 10 minutes)”. I am ABSOLUTELY NOT endorsing the emailing of a daily quote that will be the first thing I curse at every morning….

What I am always encouraging of is the sharing of your brand and your personality in a way that betters the lives of those around you. If you are a online video company send me one of your coolest videos (if you have cool videos… if you don’t then just make one that’s funny) every month. If you’re a celeb photographer send me something no one else has seen yet. Are you getting the drift yet?

The trick to a great newsletter/eblast/marketing thing is

1. Be consistent with your personality.

If you are funny then your email should be funny. If you are overly stuffy then your email should be funny. If you are boring your email should be funny. If you are nerdy (like me) then it wouldn’t hurt to share something that will make everyone else feel a little more smart than they did before (I share my tech love of the month). Just don’t over-educate people – keep this short and entertaining!

2. Give the audience something that matters to them.

I know you want to sell your widget. Or talk about how cool you are. Restrain yourself. Think for a minute about who your ideal client is – a CFO? CEO? Small Biz Owner? IT guy? What really matters EVERY DAY for this ideal client of yours and what could you give them that would help this? Is it a coupon to the mac store, or the inside scoop on a new product (that has nothing to do with your products, but is consistent with your brand as “smart techie person”). Maybe your contacts would like to know about an upcoming charity event, or a community day at the park. Giving value doesn’t necessarily mean giving a discount on your product – but giving value always means make your readers day better than it was before your email.

3. NOT trying to “trick” anyone into something

If you are giving a coupon away, just give it away – don’t make people fill out a survey or give you their email addy – you already had it to send them the email with this amazing coupon!!!!! I know some sales coaches that tell you a 3 sentence “sales tip” at the top of their newsletter, and then go into 3 pages about how super-fantastic-incredible their coaching services are. I even know a girl that sends out “quotes of the day”… every single day… and I love her sweet heart, but it’s an automatic service that she doesn’t send every day – she pushes a button once and then forgets about it… while I get ANOTHER email in my inbox that I don’t HAVE TO read… it’s rather tragic.

So if you can take these 3 tips to heart I think you’ll shortly be a part of this wonderful newsletter family I find myself in – welcome to a world where people are happy to hear from you and ask to be on your mailing list.

R

*Author’s Note*

Please don’t think I hate email. I love love LOVE email. I just greatly dislike junk email. I also really really REALLY like saying hi and keeping in touch with colleagues. I just greatly dislike junk email. Notice a pattern?

Here’s why: anybody +everyone = nobody

If you cannot give me an example of the perfect person to refer to you, then I am unable to mentally search the roster of 2000+contacts I have to find a great potential client for you. If you the business owner cannot narrow your focus, how can I the colleague that wants to help you out, do it either?

So try a few suggestions that will help you to not only craft the perfect 30-second commercial, but also better enable me the faithful referr-er to send you gobs of business leads:

1. Pick 1 or 2 “sample customers” to talk about. Maybe one is a really “successful business” example, and the other is less so (if you walk around telling everyone your ideal client is pathetic, who would want to admit they need you?).

2. Think of 1 or 2 of your best clients from recent years. What did you do for them that was so spectacular and how did it make their lives better for working with you? The happy ending stories are what people want to hear – doom and gloom marketing doesn’t make people want to hang out with you.

3. Pick 1 or 2 companies that you want as your client and ask everyone you know to introduce you to them. Even if the room your talking to doesn’t have that referral, they will think of a company just like your sample and want to help you with a connection. trust me.

4. Don’t be afraid to focus. A little focus will go a long way in building meaningful relationships. On a business management level, focus in a particular industry or market segment can help you to measure results, and then you can have an educated understanding of whether or not the selected industry or market segment can work for you. I’ve worked with dozens of people who thought their ideal client was xyz, but discovered they had the best working relationships with abc… but they didn’t know either way until they focused on each segment and measured the results.

5. You are forgettable. So am I. If we don’t make an impact and give our audience(s) something to associate with us as business, as a business owner, or as an individual, we will be forgotton. Focusing on 1 or 2 examples gives a cornerstone for people to remember you by. This is why taglines are so useful. Try a few out and see what people respond to. I’m the marketing maven because someone teased me once and called me a maven, I used it a couple of times and people remembered me, and so now it sticks. I didn’t pick it, but it helps people remember me, so I’m sticking with it regardless.

Now that you know these tips and tricks – please share them! Let’s kill the “anybody” and “everyone” schpeal, for everyone’s sake!

-pun intended-

R