SSS for Success (Simplified Social Media Solutions) Blog and Podcast Series

The Social Media Planning Process (Part 2)

02/09/2011 by sss4success 3 Comments

As stated in “The Social Media Planning Process (Part 1)”, I typically like to map out a Social Media Marketing Plan that shows how social media will be utilized to build a brand online. The first part of the process is creating and updating social networks profiles, and the second part measures the effectiveness of your Social Media Marketing Campaign by monitoring your Social Media Marketing Analytics by some specific metrics. Namely:

The number of web hits to your company website and/or blog.
The number of emails collected on your company website and/or blog for your email marketing campaign.
The number of Facebook Fans, Twitter Followers, LinkedIn Connections, and YouTube Subscribers acquired.
The number of people that attend special events advertised through your social media networks.
The number of referrals from social media fans, followers, connections, and subscribers.
The number of new units sold/leads generated.
The number of units sold/new leads generated from existing customers.

The final component of the Social Media Marketing Plan is monitoring the long-term effectiveness of your company’s social media marketing strategy, as it is key for identifying new customer markets, gaining additional customer feedback, as well as assessing what social media marketing avenues are working best. In this stage, assessing marketing effectiveness occurs by utilizing a collection of online market surveys and/or customer feedback questionnaires, and thoroughly monitoring the analytics of your company’s website, blog, and social media networks, and periodically analyzing the information received for emerging trends and industry shifts.

Social media initiatives can be time consuming, but if done right there can be a great payoff.

So, with that in mind: Where are you in your social media planning process?

Kindra Cotton, Small Business Survival Specialist

The Social Media Planning Process (Part 2)

The Social Media Planning Process (Part 1)

02/08/2011 by sss4success 2 Comments

Typically, what I like to do at SSS for Success is map out a Social Media Marketing Plan that fits squarely within the overall marketing plan of a company. Specifically, the Social Media Marketing Plan highlights how social media outlets will be utilized to:

1) Drive traffic to your company’s website or blog,

2) Generate interest in the site’s content,

3) Generate sales or leads for new customers, and

4) Provide ways of keeping existing customers actively engaged in the company’s brand through its website, blog, or other social media outlets.

In order to accomplish the goals set forth in this Social Media Marketing Strategy, I usually take a company through the process of creating and updating their profiles on various social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Youtube. Then I delve into more specific strategies intent on acquiring more Twitter Followers, Facebook Fans, LinkedIn Connections, and YouTube Subscriptions through a series of mindful updates that are relevant to each of these communities and ultimately help your company build that brand recognition among the users who frequent these communities.

For those that have already created many of these accounts, I step back and analyze the medium in question in relation to the overall marketing goals of the company. Everyone doesn’t need a Twitter account. Now, it is always a good idea to register your brand name just in case you need it for future use, but just having a Twitter account and sending out random, sporadic, or spammy messages every now and again only promoting your brand, doesn’t do you any good. So part of the Social Media Planning Process is accessing which avenues are going to work best for your brand message to reach your core customers. What that means is if you’re using these outlets now, but not using them well, then you may need to discontinue them, or perhaps change the direction so that it fits better into your online marketing strategy.

With this in mind, can you firmly state Why You Need Social Media in your small business?

Kindra Cotton, Small Business Survival Specialist

The Social Media Planning Process (Part 1)

Why You Need A Website: The 5-Page Starter Website

02/03/2011 by sss4success 2 Comments

A website in today’s business world is the equivalent of a Yellow Pages Ad 20 years ago: It’s a must if you want to be found by potential customers!

There are several different varieties of websites available on The Internet. Some function as an online version of your business card or latest company brochure, and others provide an entirely interactive online experience, complete with moving objects, pictures, video and music.

Your choice for the type of website you have will be based on the size of your imagination and budget. At SSS for Success we specialize in 5-Page Starter Template-Based Websites designed to take you from “no website” to “a web presence”.

Our Web Design & Technical Consulting expertise can also help you build the website of your dreams, and provide you with a Small Business Survival Specialist who has the experience to ask the right questions to insure that your site doesn’t just look nice, but also gets found in search engines.

Here’s How a Website Can Help…

A Restaurant:

Add your menu and give your site some flair by promoting your best dishes through pictures and video testimonials from satisfied customers.

A Dry Cleaners:

Promote exclusive offers and deals to site visitors to get new customers and obtain repeat sales.

A Clothing Store/Boutique:

Make your store hours easy to find and advertise sales while promoting your brands and new season additions.

A Salon:

Showcase your portfolio of satisfied clients and promote your contributions to style in the online world.

One of the things I’ve found interesting when I went out and did my “cold calling” earlier in my business going door-to-door with local area small businesses, is that most people that don’t have a website, apparently don’t feel they need one.

This was somewhat shocking to me, but then I had to think about those businesses and what their long-term visions were. For people that aren’t interested in increasing their revenues, or getting more new customers, or better connecting with their current customers, a new website probably doesn’t benefit them at all. Especially since a good number of them had previously had websites that they paid much too much for in the early dot-com days, and they’re now completely jaded on the whole thing.

So, for those people, I don’t blame them for not having a website. If you have a surefire way of getting folks to walk into your business, and can’t use the increased revenues of more customers, then you probably don’t need a website. For everyone else, I’d suggest the 5-Page Starter Website. And, I don’t just recommend it, because I sell it, and to prove that to you, if you go and do a little search for it, you’ll find that Yellow Pages is now offering 5-Page Starter websites, most likely to the customers they already have that are still paying for Yellow Pages Ads. Honestly, for them, getting new customers is like shooting fish in a barrel, because chances are if you have a Yellow Pages Ad in this day and age, you’re probably VERY resistant to change, and clearly don’t mind overpaying for products and services.

Do you feel like you need a website? Why or why not?

Kindra Cotton, Small Business Survival Specialist

Why You Need A Website: The 5-Page Starter Website

P.S. Feel free to Contact SSS for Success for help getting your small business online.

An Introduction to the SSS for Success Blog and Podcast Series

02/01/2011 by sss4success 9 Comments

Before creating this blog, I took my own advice and did some planning. I’ve done a bit of blogging before, and writing online content in various places, but I wanted to make sure that when I wrote for the signature blog for my SSS for Success brand, that I not only did a great job, but that I created the kind of content that was reflective of me, my philosophy and the message that I hope will forever resonate with the brand: Small Business Survival Specialists: Social Media Covered!

For those that don’t know, SSS for Success (Small Business Survival Specialists) is actually an offshoot of the EASY Brand Marketing Program where it operated as a tertiary service within the program’s “S” step of “Securing the most effective ways to build and maintain customer relationships using technology”. The overwhelming response to the Technology and Social Media portions of the program, coupled with the true need of many Middle Tennessee business owners to bring their business into the 21st Century, made SSS for Success the Small Business Survival Specialists they are today, specializing in preparing small and medium-sized organizations to take advantage of the free and low-cost marketing avenues that exist in the online arena.

As part of my planning process, I followed my own tips for creating a blog calendar, and have subsequently outlined what I’ll be blogging about for the next few months. My goal is to begin with the Social Media Planning Process, and take you through the steps of integrating social media effectively within your company’s marketing plan.

I read a lot of business books and tips on how to improve your business and carve out your own niche and make sure that your message gets delivered to the right people. During this time, I’ve somewhat struggled to clearly define who my “niche market” is, based on these seemingly rigid terms that demographics-based questions bring to the forefront. I now know that my “niche market” or target audience (whichever language you prefer) are small business owners who don’t want to waste their resources (neither time nor money) on social media tactics that don’t work. I’m interested in people who know that social media and technology is an ever-changing field, but that they continually want to evolve and continue to grow their business by capitalizing on the fertile ground that lies therein. My ideal customers are people won’t know that they don’t know a lot about social media, but they’re open-minded enough to learn. I try my best to make technology not as intimidating as it’s often perceived, and I hope that over time people began to realize this.

Now, I want to share a little bit about me, to put this out there, and maybe answer some lingering questions that there may be about the blog’s design, and the design of my company’s website. I take a lot of flak for not focusing more on the “bells and whistles” of a graphics-heavy design that provides lots of eye-candy for readers. This is intentional. I’d much rather spend an hour putting together two awesome blog posts and a podcast, than I would sitting on the phone with a graphic designer trying to explain my vision, or understand their concepts.

I’m essentially looking to cut pass the fluff, and get to the heart of the things that people need to understand in the Web 2.0 environment. For me, this is about “survival mode”. And in “survival mode” you’ve got to master the basics. And that’s pretty much it for an introduction. Plus, I’m already past my own self-imposed 400 word blog post limit, so I’ll end this here by encouraging you to let me know: How can I help you today?

Kindra Cotton, Small Business Survival Specialist

An Introduction to the SSS for Success Blog and Podcast Series