Social media is where it is at!

If your small business is not blogging and marketing on WordPress and Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn and Pinterest and Stumbledupon and Digg and Reddit and Delicious and … the ridiculous list goes on.

Even if your job consisted of nothing more than producing content for these modern-day monsters you would be hard pressed to keep them satisfied. But, if you are not connected online and everyone else is, won’t you lose out? Will your small business be forgotten?

Well there is a way to blog and tweet and stay LinkedIn without losing your life or your business to social media.

Here are seven ways you can be connected online without living online.

7. Blogging for more business

Writing a blog produces new content for Google to use to push your website up its rankings. To get blogging done well but fast:

• Use your own life

Finding ideas for blogging can be tough, but using your own experience is an inexhaustible supply of new ideas. We are not very interested in what you had for lunch, but your experience of customer service good or bad in a particular restaurant could be just the dish best served warm.

• Allocate some time

Set a time limit and use a timer (like a kitchen timer). 30 minutes should be enough to get your blog written

6. LinkedIn for more sales

If you have a profile on LinkedIn that’s a start but  do you also join groups where you clients hang out? If you do, you can find out what they are interested in and share your expertise with them through your posts into their groups. It’s a fast track to getting to know your prospective clients.

5. Twitter to find clients

Twitter can drain your entire day if you let it run you, but if you grab Twitter by the wings you can be in charge.

Fall in love with that kitchen timer from #7, and set yourself just 7 minutes in the morning and 7 in the afternoon/evening. You can keep up with what is going on in your sector, schedule at least 7 tweets and retweet 7 things during these 14 minutes.

4. Facebook brings your more than friends

If you are selling directly to consumers, Facebook is where it is at.  Same principle as Twitter applies – use that timer to stop you getting too involved in cousin Jan’s cool photos of kittens.

3. Google plus – adds value

Google gets over 2 million searches every single minute of every single day and Google is looking for new signals that your content is popular. By sharing your content on Google plus, (the clue is in the name) and if your contacts re-share it, then you are getting votes for your content. Add a Google+ button to your browser bar and you can +1 anything you read on the fly.

2. YouTube is enough to give you goggle eyes

Also owned by Google, YouTube gets 4 billion video views every day. A really fast way to share your content is to upload your own videos. It doesn’t have to be super-polished.

Gary Vaynerchuk http://tv.winelibrary.com/2010/06/  built a multi-million dollar wine business from his opinionated, some would say obnoxious, video blogs. Every time I upload a Bizfix video to YouTube it is shows high rankings in Google search almost instantaneously: it’s a very fast way to get your company noticed.

1. Keyword research is not just for the nerds

Keyword research is probably the most important and most under-used tool for speeding up your online marketing.  If you don’t do keyword searched before you name your company, name your product, write blog posts, or write content for your company website, you are missing the bullet train to getting found on Google.

There’s a seriously sharp free guide to how on the SEOMOZ site.

So now you have seven ways you can do online marketing for your small business in minutes per day, not days per week.

What’s your top tip for marketing your business online without wasting time?

Guest author Chris Markham of Bizfix, the Cambridge business advice and support company, is on a mission to get more science, evidence and fact into local business support.  You can find more of his small business writing on his blog.

Email Chris or call 01223 851 161

The information provided in this blog illustrates my opinions and experiences, it does not constitute advice and I do not accept responsibility for any actions taken or refrained from as a result of reading this post.

If you found this post interesting/useful please share it with your social network and/or bookmark it.  Also, your comments are always valued and will help me to write new posts that are relevant to readers of this blog.

Media Trust, a function of the Community Voices program at Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), was organised to provide charities and volunteer organisations across the UK with resources, training, and assistance with communications and the distribution and broadcast of their current events news.

New Grant Program

Their new £250,000 grant program aims to inspire, engage and support disadvantaged and isolated communities to get their voices heard through digital media, and promises to be a boon to the many wonderful efforts of a wide variety of social enterprises.

The initiative offers grants from £1,500 to £61,000 for such assistance to programs based in England.

Two-Phased Approach

The two-phased approach begins with grants offered during the next few weeks ending 28 February 2010, and continues toward the end of this year with a second phase of funding. A total of 27 grants will be offered as of this writing.

At the launch of the program, Media Trust Marketing and Communications Services Director Gavin Sheppard said:
We are extremely excited to begin the process of allocating grants to communities where a fully interactive and inclusive digital project could have a real impact on the lives of individuals and on the wider communities in which they live.

Enhancement of Communications in the 3rd Sector

Funding will advance Media Trust’s vision that everyone should have a voice and the opportunity to be heard, and their mission to work with media organisations and charities to enhance their communications and enable communities to find their voice and make it heard. CAF, Community Voices and Media Trust can all be found at Facebook and Twitter.

This post was written by valued twitterbuddy Nathalie Allard of Raspberry Frog.

 The information provided in this blog illustrates my opinions and experiences, it does not constitute advice and I do not accept responsibility for any actions taken or refrained from as a result of reading this post.

If 2009 had one defining moment it was Social Media moving from buzzword into the mainstream conscious, with everyone from celebrities to politicians embracing the power of social content and conversation to drive actions.

Big brands were of course at the forfront often driven by a desire to have a first mover advantage in the press or reacting to some PR disaster that overtook their traditional PR and Marketing teams.

For my mind the big winners of 2009 were not the politicians or the big brands but charities small and large right across the world who were able to get awareness of their campaigns or services in front of a whole new Social Audience people who love to talk about and share the work of good causes with their own audiences.

Social Media has create an explosion of good will, from Pro-bono services to fundraising all driven by the open lines of communication created by sites like Facebook and Twitter.

The Social Dynamic Duo

There’s no denying that Facebook and Twitter have become the must use Social Age tools and should form the core part of any Social Strategy, together they create a powerful team and can feed each other and reach into different demographics creating unique social interactions.

Ask and you shall receive

In the Social Age asking for help is more than acceptable it’s expected, got a cool new project and need an expert to give you some advice? Ask your Social Supporters on Facebook and Twitter if they can’t help,they will usually pass the message along or flag it to their community if they can’t help personaly.

This dosen’t stop at just pro-bono services but also fundraising if you have positions to fill on events, ask your Social Networks to help fill the spaces.

In the social age the conversation is king.

The organisations that find the most value and worth from Social Media not to mention create the most powerful social actions are the ones that talk, and not necessarily about just their own cause.

Go off topic from time to time, talk about the weather or TV events that have captured the public imagination, shows like Doctor Who or sporting events (Olympics, World Cup) that cut across the usual demographic divides are a great way to build relationships with existing supporters and bring in entirely new supporters to your cause.

Team up with other organisations on Twitter and Facebook that have broad or similar goals to your own, cross promote each others social messages to encourage supporters to cross the divide.

Don’t look at others orgs as competition instead look on them as a way to build even more relevant networks and share in Social Success.

2010 is the year for your Charity / Non-profit to embrace Social Media and become part of the age of Social conversation, make a start today and setup a Facebook Fan Page and a Twitter Profile

With thanks to valued twitterbuddy and BullyingUK ambassador, John Carnell of TechnicaVita for allowing me to reproduce this post.

The information provided in this blog illustrates my opinions and experiences, it does not constitute advice and I do not accept responsibility for any actions taken or refrained from as a result of reading this post.