Mobile and Social Media – A Love Story?

Once upon a time mobile and social media were a couple of young kids worlds apart each looking for a bright future. Over the years they grew up and the products and services they created began to work better when they worked together. Location Based Services like Foursquare, Yelp and Facebook Places work better when used by mobile users. Twitter conversations happen in places like sports arenas, courtrooms, and restaurants because of mobile. Mobile extends social media and makes social media truly engaging because people can communicate with their communities everywhere they happen to be.

This symbiotic relationship between mobile and social media has grown into a love affair as both mobile and social media provide unique benefits for consumers and marketers. However, this love affair is not accepted by all marketers as many small businesses shun mobile in favor of social media. Constant Contact’s Fall 2011 Small Business Attitudes & Outlook Survey reported that 72% of small businesses haven’t incorporated mobile in their business. Furthermore only 13% of small businesses surveyed have created a mobile website.

The mobile audience is huge, which leaves opportunities for businesses targeting mobile users.  Your business can create a differential advantage by taking action now!

Here’s a quick synopsis on how the mobile market has grown:

There are 5.3 billion mobile subscribers (that’s 77 percent of the world population). Growth is led by China and India. Source: International Telecommunication Union

90% of text messages are opened within 4 minutes. Source, Opus Research |mobithinking.com | Mobile Data Association

Consumer time on mobile apps surpasses time on Web. (Flurry)

• US Smartphone users now total 95.8 million
• 324 million smartphones were sold through 3 quarters of 2011
• Just on Dec 25, 6.8 million Android and iOS devices were activated
• 242 million apps were downloaded on Dec 25, last Christmas it was 150 million
• Number of apps in apple store –600,000; number of apps in android store –500,000
• Number of app downloads in the last week of December – 1.2 billion worldwide with almost half from the US

81% of smartphone users have used their smartphone to browse or look for products or services and 50% have made a purchase with their smartphone, according to research from Prosper Mobile Insights. Additional marketing-based activities are even more popular, including receiving special offers by text message (54%) or scanning a QR code, about 58%.

Mobile looks sexy to marketers because mobile devices are close to the point of purchase. PewInternet recently released a report that showed “More than half of adult cell phone owners used their cell phones while they were in a store during the 2011 holiday season to seek help with purchasing decisions.” That makes many mobile shoppers one click away from buying. That may be one reason why mobile movie sites convert ticket sales much higher than desktop websites. Mobile is also location aware, which is important when personalizing your service/product offering to a targeted group of mobile users.

Now is the ideal time to launch an integrated mobile social media campaign for your business. Launching now will allow you to see how effectively mobile & social media can build your brand and fill your events.

The upfront cost of implementing a mobile marketing campaign currently cost less than most traditional marketing campaigns. The lower cost reduces risk and allow for higher R.O.I.s.

Mobile tools are abundant and each mobile tool have unique strengths that are increased when used with social media. Mobile provides your business with additional opportunities to Listen, Converse and Publish with your social media communities. You can see many of the mobile tools our clients use at our mobile website.

Now is the perfect opportunity to join in the love affair of mobile and social media. Research how mobile is being used, investigate mobile tools like SMS Texting, Mobile Coupons, Mobile Poll Voting etc. and get started NOW! Because if you wait your competition will adopt mobile and reap the benefits.

If you an Event Planner or Event Producer we have a brand new FREE eBook for you titled “The Mobile Social Guide To Great Events.” This eBook discuss what’s working in mobile social media for events and how mobile is being us. I also created a mobile social media plan for an event so you can adapt to your event marketing plan. You can download the eBook by clicking on the button.

Fans & Followers are Worthless Without Word Of Mouth

This past holiday season I watch my wife sell 4 people on purchasing a Nook while she was in the Barnes & Noble store at Union Square. My wife is a teacher and she does not work part time for B&N. However, a couple of years ago when she wanted an eReader for Mother’s day she did her normal online research, then she went to the stores and played with a few eReeaders before deciding on the Nook.

She loves her nook and the two are inseparable. So it was no surprise to watch her one Saturday talking to strangers in B&N and convincing them to purchase a Nook. My wife’s satisfaction with the Nook product and her positive experiences with B&N turned her into a Brand Ambassador for B&N. If you approached my wife today with a question about eReaders, she can tell you the pros, cons and benefits or each eReaeder device and in the end she is going to recommend the Nook. My wife is what every company desire to have thousands of Brand Ambassadors recommending their products/services without compensation or what is better known as Word of Mouth Marketing.

Word of Mouth marketing is a powerful form of marketing because the recommendation comes from someone who has experience with the product or service they are recommending. When we purchase based on a recommendation we feel less stressed because someone we came into contact with had positive things to say.  Professional sales people know that selling is a transference of feeling and when someone really likes what they own they exhibit their passion and enthusiasm through their recommendation. The receiver of the recommendation feels the that passion and enthusiasm and gets excited about making the purchase.

Watching my wife led me to understand that the number of Facebook Fans or Twitter Followers or people in your Google+ don’t mean squat if these people do not recommend your product/service in their social media conversations. Every day thousands of people are asking and receiving recommendations for products/services on every social media platform from LinkedIn to Tumblr. The question you should be asking is “Will my fans and followers recommend my products/services and if not why?”

Using social media to create Brand Ambassadors require that you interact with them not market to them. On Twitter do you follow back people who follow your brand? If not again WHY? How can you interact with someone if you won’t at least follow them. You may feel that your search analysis on locating people who mention your brand or your industry is enough however, follow some people back and have some real conversations and maybe they’ll mention your brand more and ReTweet y0ur content more.

Data from EdgeRank Checker shows that Facebook pages are only reaching 17% of the page’s fans and most fans never go back to a Facebook page after they’ve initially liked it.  To be successful you have to get your posts to show up in your fan’s newsfeed and cultivate more likes and comments on your posts. Facebook provides a feature on your posts that informs you how many people have seen and talked about your posts.  See the image on the right.  If the numbers are small then you need to increase the amount of content you share and maybe even a strategic shift in what you post.

Generating Word of Mouth recommendations will require that you create excellent customer experiences at every point they touch your brand including social media. If you aren’t getting the social media love from your fans and followers then its time to change your focus on how you interact with them.

Developing a Sense for Social Media Success

How in tune are you with your senses? Every day we are bombarded with so many messages and media distractions that its possible for our senses to become dull.  So many marketing strategies and sales actions are placed on autopilot that we keep responding to the same stimuli and doing the same things over and over regardless of the marketing platform we’re using.

If you’re looking to achieve success in social media then you need to heighten your senses. Expand your vision, sharpen your hearing and sensitize your ability to feel. Social media today is part science and part art. The science portion is not difficult to master. It requires us to look at the data of what is happening in social media. There are a lot of tools for measuring you and your fans/followers activities on social media  platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube and others.

The artistic part of social media is knowing how to apply the data so that you meet your social media goals. Ponder this example. Your data from Twitter reveals that you have the most followers online and retweeting during the hours of 3pm – 4pm. So you schedule your juiciest content to go out during the 3-4pm hour focused on reaching the most people who can spread your content. On the surface that looks like a good strategy. However, the data may not provide the full story. You know when you have the most followers online but are these the followers you want to influence?  You may discover that even through you have the largest amount of followers online in the PM, the group of followers you want to influence is on Twitter in the AM.

Developing your social media senses requires that you look deeply into the data and see where taking action is in alignment with your social media goals. You will need to develop your sense of sight to see into the data you accumulate to make decisions that will lead you toward your goals. Posting content when the majority of your fans/followers are online should not be the entire strategy. Enhance your focus to posting when you can reach the highest number of people of influence.

Improve your sense of hearing to do more than use keywords to find potential prospects. Use your sense to engage people who have an interest in your industry and provide them good information to change those individuals into Brand Ambassadors who will speak great things about your business. Brand Ambassadors can lead more prospects to your door than keyword listening.

There are other ways you can go beyond the art of reacting to the data and developing a deeper sense of how to achieve your social media goals. My number one suggestion is to trust your instincts and use the Force.

12 Business Tips You Should Implement in 2012

Regardless of how well your company did in 2011 you have the opportunity to make 2012 a better year for your business. To help you accomplish the best year ever for your business here are our 12 Tips to Implement in 2012. We implemented every tip listed last year except for our 1st tip which we started this year.  The result was we saw increases in new business and increased business with our existing clients.

Our top 12 Tips:

1. Visit your clients NOW! – In the past we sent out end of year surveys to our clients to find out what we did well and what areas we could improve upon. We saw the same clients filling out the survey and providing the same answers. This year we decided to visit with all of our clients around the country and talk with them about what worked, what didn’t work and what are their goals and focus for 2012.

The result: We start 2012 with new business from 22% of our existing clients. This came from actual conversations where our clients talked about what was on their minds and we offered solutions.

2. Conduct a SWOT analysis – I have mentioned in the past about how important a SWOT analysis is for your business.  This is the perfect opportunity to see what opportunities are available for your business to take advantage of.  A SWOT analysis is also a great way to uncover threats that may rob your business of profits and customers.

To carry out a SWOT Analysis, download this SWOT Worksheet provided by Mindtools and write down truthful answers to the questions in the SWOT worksheet:

You can get more information on digging deeper into the SWOT analysis and using the information to build your marketing plan at Mindtools.

3. Learn something new – Make a commitment to learn whats new in your industry. Furthermore make a commitment to read other Blogs, whitepapers and case studies to keep abreast and ahead for your industry. People do business with experts and the best way you can be perceived as an expert is to keep acquiring knowledge.

4. Publish Content – In academia there is a saying called “Publish or Perish.” The same holds true for growing companies.  You are considered an expert when you publish something. It can be a whitepaper, an eBook, a case study but make a commitment to publish and share your knowledge.

5. Plan less and act more – Planning is great however, if you’re planning for the right alignment of stars, resources, money etc. you will never launch your great idea and someone else will beat you to it.

The perfect book, movie, song, software etc. will never be produced as long as people wait for everything to be perfect. There are success stories in good economic climates and bad economic climates. So why are you waiting to launch your great idea?

 6. Let prospects sample what you sell – The best way to ease the anxiety of a new purchase is to let prospects sample your product/service before they make a final commitment. The software and online industry successfully use this model of letting you download a free trial of the product so you can test the product. Simply put it works and we use this same model with prospects and we achieve higher closing rates than when we didn’t offer the sample our service option.

7. Grow your network – I firmly believe in using my network to increase my net  worth. View the calendar of events for your local business chambers and other business organizations and make a commitment to attend one new event each month. As you meet new people ask to connect with them on social media platforms especially LinkedIn.

8. Discover a new niche – There are industries large and small that have a want, need and desire for what you sell, you only have to research and uncover these niches. We like to market to specific niches because we can tailor our expertise to assisting those companies achieve their goals. One of our most profitable niches is providing mobile][social media services to unions. We research their industry and developed best practices on the ways that our services can assist the unions and their members.  There are other niches that we focus on and we ensure that we’ve built expertise in a niche before we direct our focus to another niche market.

9. Give Back – I remember during the 90s recession when a local dry cleaner was cleaning business suits for men and women who were unemployed and job hunting for free. I also remember the feeling that if I was in his neighborhood that would be the place that cleaned my clothes. We support volunteering and working with non profits because we believe the best use of our blessings is to give them to others.

Giving back can lead to positive PR and new customers who want to do business with you because you care more about being a good citizen than making a dollar. Even if you don’t get PR you will get new business and the thanks of people who lives you made a positive impact upon.

10. Get healthy or stay healthy – Being an entrepreneur is stressful and a recent study by Manta revealed that small business owners are forgoing health for wealth. There is no way you can enjoy wealth if you have bad health. So commit to taking time to exercise regularly whether from your home office or a gym.

Another reason to exercise is that when you workout you become more creative. You can work through nagging issues just by having  a good workout.

11. Develop new processes – It’s said that failure is the refusal to give up that which does not work. Holding onto a process for doing certain things because its comfortable is the best reason to develop a new process. We really learn when we are faced with uncomfortable situations. However if you consistently do things a certain way because its comfortable then you are not learning anything new and you will consistently get the same results.

Innovation comes from the quest to change how things are done to create new and better processes, products and services. Get out of your creature comfort zone and do things differently.

12. Don’t make a resolution – Everyone of these tips can and should be implemented now. See number 5. You can choose today to make a difference by making a commitment to change not a hollow resolution that will be broken in 14 days or less. If you need help ditching the resolution and taking action now, our friends at Discover Leadership Training have a whitepaper on the subject titled “Running to Gain.”  The whitepaper is free and it discusses some of the underlying issues that interfere with keeping resolutions and achieving desired goals.

That’s our Top 12 Tips for 2012. If you have other tips please share them with our readers.

From all of us at RDZ Media Group, LLC we wish you a Healthy & Prosperous New Year.

DIY the Small Business Killer?

Recently I started re-designing our website. For me website design is easy since I designed my first website in 1996 and even owned a business designing websites for other companies.  However, as the design started taking place I stopped and realized that I was not using my time correctly.

Just because I can design and build websites doesn’t mean I should.  I get paid for producing apps and mobile marketing campaigns, not building websites and I like so many other small business owners thought that I was saving money by doing it myself.  Yes I came down with an attack of Do It Yourself (DIY) and it could have proven fatal if it wasn’t caught in time.

I have several projects on my board in different stages of completion and 3 upcoming events and here I am working on a website because of DIY.  DIY has robbed so many small business owners of their time, creativity and cash.  The figures aren’t known but I’m certain that DIY has  been the cause of thousands of small business deaths.

DIY is tricky and once you catch it the symptoms may not be recognizable for months.  Here are some of the known symptoms of Do It Yourself (DIY).

• You don’t understand the true value of other people’s work so you make yourself believe that you can do it cheaper and better.
• You own several “_____ for DUMMIES” books.  If you have more than 3 in your possession you are in the critical stages of DIY. The only cure is to recycle the books and locate professionals to take on those duties.
• You used to do this back in the day but it’s not what you do today, so you think that by still performing these tasks you are saving your business money.
• You constantly tell other professionals that their job is so easy a caveman can do it.

DIY is serious, it robs you from working on the tasks that actually makes money for your business by diverting your attention to tasks that are best suited for other professionals to handle. You can learn to avoid DIY by starting every day with a checklist of your tasks and list on top the ones that bring in income upon completion.  Any task on your list that does make you money upon completion you should look to outsource it to someone else.

I beat DIY by outsourcing the re-design of the website and now I have more time to spend on those areas where I earn money.  I have so much more energy and time since I beat DIY.

Here’s what you can do to beat DIY:

Be honest with yourself. How could you better spend your time if you had a professional working on projects that you don’t derive income from.  If you believe you can’t afford a professional look to barter.  Google barter for bartering organizations where you can exchange services and possibly gain new clients.

Stop wasting valuable time and energy on DIY projects, focus yourself 100 percent on the tasks that you really make money from.  If all small business owners practice this every day we can beat DIY and stop it from killing another small business.

A public service announcement from RDZ Media Group, LLC.