13 Social Media Tips for Start-Ups in 2013

The social media landscape has changed quite a lot over the last one year. While there are many start-ups that have yet to embrace social media, you should gear up, anticipate current trends and include social media into your overall marketing plan as soon as possible. To develop a powerful social strategy, however, you’ll also need to abide by some essential guidelines and best practices.

Given below are thirteen tips that start-ups should use to get the most out of their social media marketing efforts in 2013.

#1. Go Beyond Facebook and Twitter

What, exactly, is a Relationship Manager?

There are almost as many definitions of Relationship Manager as there are for ‘social media‘ or ‘sales enablement.’  The term used might be ’customer relationship manager’ or ‘business relationship manager’. Some RMs work with deals, some generate income. Some bring in new customers, some cross sell to existing clients. Some manage ‘new client onboarding’ whatever that means. And then there are the group of sales folks who stopped calling themselves ‘Salespeople’ and began calling themselves Relationship Managers just cuz it sounds like they care.

The term gives the seller a good feeling about themselves. It offers the possibility – the hint –  of offering  the client better quality time, more consideration, more attention. But does it offer the buyer anything substantive? I am having a problem with the term, frankly.

Social Media Risks Are Real, Not Managing Them is Irresponsible

Social Media Risk Management is a Neccessity for Regulated and Publicly Traded Companies

For many companies the barrier to adopting social media or expanding their digital marketing strategy is risk. These are not small risks; these companies have come face to face with a reality that many of us can’t even fathom. Social media could literally destroy their companies, it could lead to huge regulatory fines, compliance issues and a variety of other issues that can put a choke hold on how many marketers would consider approaching a social media strategy. But the reality is that all risks can be managed if we look them straight in the eye.

While it may not be sexy, social media risk management is a necessary part of every social media strategy. It is important to understand the potential risks social media can bring to any company and put together a plan that mitigates that risk. There are a few common types of risk that need to be considered. 

Is B2B Social Media Marketing Behind B2C?

The Perception

There seems to be a general perception that social media is better suited for B2C versus B2B marketing.  This view is supported by a general lack of easily accessible social media success stories in the B2B space; on the Internet and at conferences.  But it is a misconception.

The Reality

How To Run a Successful Contest

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How to Run a Successful Contest

Bryan Haines: What is Contest Domination?

Travis Ketchum: Contest Domination is the most effective way to run a contest, and it's dead simple to use.

Bryan Haines: What is the purpose of Contest Domination?

Four Online Tools to Help You Be More Productive Online

When you are a social media marketer or just spend a lot of time on the internet, there are several tools you can use to make the work you do much more productive. In some cases, if the tool is saving you a lot of time and energy, it is worth paying for. Peace of mind and higher output levels are usually worth the cost, especially if they are going to be used every day.

Buffer

Review of VerticalResponse Social Media Platform

Create Amazing Social Media Campaigns Fast and Professionally

Does creating social media campaigns give you a headache? Or maybe they simply just aren't getting done because of the time it takes? You should check out the Social Media Platform by Vertical Response - the email marketing company.

Social Tool Profile: Costs $18.00 per month (less if used with their other services) and allows for up to 300 posts per month. Social networks are managed under one account and posts are easily created for one or all of your connected networks.

Creating a Post Using The Social Application

Inside Sales – 5 Steps to Use Social Media to Access Decision Makers

In past articles, we’ve talked about the benefits of getting direct dial numbers for decision makers in order to increase contact ratios. Well, here’s another tip to help boost your contact ratios and avoid gatekeepers:

Contact the decision maker via social media (LinkedIn, Twitter or Google+ specifically).

It may seem like an indirect form of interaction, but if done correctly you can build a relationship through social media that raises you up their trust ladder (read more about the trust ladder in this blog by Ken Krogue, here).

Here’s the process for reaching decision makers through social media.

15 Social Media Mistakes that are Strangling Your Success

While it’s not new, I’m often surprised by the way bloggers use—and mis-use—social media.

Each of us has our own blogging journey, and we use different tools in our own unique ways. Yet there are still quite a few very common errors that I continue to see bloggers making as they work with social media.

These mistakes have the potential to make your social media experience a struggle—if not put you off it completely. But if you persist with them over time, they have the potential to do significant harm to your brand and your blog.

Think about it: social media is a very public space, perhaps even more public than your blog. Although we might not be conscious of it, every time we make a status update on a social network, we have the potential to reach a huge audience of people we don’t know through others sharing our messages.

That can happen whether the messages are good or bad, for better or for worse.

Take a look at these 15 mistakes, which definitely send the wrong message. Then, let me know in the comments if you’re making any of these errors.

Using social media monitoring to find where your influencers are

Social media monitoring is a complicated industry, populated with hundreds of different tools, varying from the dirt cheap to the shockingly expensive.

The versatility of these tools also means that there are countless uses for them, and keeping track of just which tool you would want and why is understandably a headache for many.

To help you navigate this maze, I’m going to lead you on a journey through some of the key ways employing a monitoring tool can help you and your business.

Identifying influencers

7 Ways To Build A Strong Online Presence Through Social Media

There is no getting away from the fact that social media and its marketing uses are essential for any business seeking to establish an online presence. With Facebook and Twitter having more than 1 billion different users combined, it is clear that failure to take advantage of this market is tantamount to closing a bricks and mortar store six and a half days a week.

You will be missing out on an incredible number of potential customers. Fortunately, it is easier than ever to use social media to establish your online presence and if you continue reading, you will discover 7 ways to establish a strong online presence with social media.

Corporate Social Media Marketing Strategy Checklist for 2013

As we enter a hopeful new year, I thought it would be helpful to deliver my top five items in a corporate social media strategy checklist for 2013. And, as we also enter a new year of Google changes to the ever-important search algorithm, I will include, as any smart marketer will do, a review of SEO from a social standpoint. OK, so let's go…

Checklist Item 1: Internal Team on Board

Before you enter the brave new world of mobile and tablets leading the way of content consumption, quality checks all over Google, and global adoption of lightning-fast broadband with any social media strategy, you will want to make sure all key stakeholders are on board with your goals. As a key performance engine for client/customer engagement, social media activity takes into account all organizational activities that affect those relationships. And so, your sales teams, marketing teams, social teams, creative teams, brand ambassadors, and C-suite all need to be on board with the direction of your social strategy. The smartest way to move on this is to appoint one ringmaster within your organization to lead the way and be accountable to both your social media marketing goals and communicating any movements to the internal teams. If you represent an enterprise-level organization, having directors of important teams connect and agree on the direction and goals is a must.

3 Reasons Your Social Strategy is Failing (And What to Do Instead)

"Social tactics are not meaningful sales drivers", according to Forrester's latest research report.

They analyzed primary sales drivers for eCommerce, and concluded that less than 1% of buyers were from social visitors.

There's a few possible explanations for this.

The first (and most important) is that social aids the buying process indirectly, and is difficult to track -- which leads companies (and research firms) to under-appreciate and under-invest.

What social media should your business use?

In social media there is only one rule: there is no rule. So of course, I could tell you that you should be on all networks. However, who has the time to run 78 different social networks? So you have to make a choice.

A study from LinkedIn claims that people operate differently on their personal networks versus their professional ones, but this premise isn’t accurate. Why?  There are no such things as personal and professional networks, only networks that you use in different ways. As a business, it’s critical to remember this because the types of conversations and interactions need to be more personal in social communities.

5 simple steps to finding new clients with social media

Have you met any business people lately who weren’t interested in finding new clients?
I certainly haven’t.
But I have met more than a few people who don’t actually get how social media can help them with this challenge.
And often enough, even among those who do have a sense of the potential of social media for lead generation, there is lack of understanding about just how to go about tapping into this opportunity.

How To Work Your Social Media Network

Unless you have been sleeping under a log for the last six or seven years you know that social media has changed the sales world.

Last Friday, I outlined why the size of your social network doesn’t matter and today I wanted to look at how you can leverage your network into actual sales.

You can have thousands of people in your social media network but unless you actually work that network you are wasting your time.

How Social Has Changed The Way Customers Shop – And How It Hasn’t

There’s a theme I’ve been hearing from brands and retailers lately. The time has been spent, the vibrant fan base has been built, and it’s time to generate some real return on our social investments – but how?

Well, we know it’s not a question of volume. After all, there’s no shortage of content being created by brands of all shapes and sizes. Most have someone in-house managing social media full-time, and they’re tweeting, posting and pinning with the best of them.

It’s not an “information overload” question either, contrary to what many experts have been suggesting. In fact, according to new research, “the high volume of information available these days seems to make most people feel empowered and enthusiastic”.

Top 10 Movies That Ran Successful Social Media Campaigns

For big companies that have deep pockets, using social media for reach and profit is the new ‘guaranteed’ success they’ve been looking for. I’m going to look at the top 10 films that made it using social media for promotion and viral marketing in real time.

1: The Hunger Games

Continuing with its overnight fame from the books, the Hunger Games movie launched a thorough social marketing plan that worked. They funneled fans from Facebook and Twitter to a website where they could register as a citizen of the make believe-world. You’d also be able to share your profile images across your social sites, and interact with other fans.

4 Tips to Avoid Work-From-Home Email Scams

It’s no secret that jobs that allow you to work from home are on the rise, but as their popularity grows, so do inventive ways to dupe job seekers. Get-rich-quick offers and promises of lots of money for very little work should immediately put your guard up. If you haven’t already, familiarize yourself with what a standard job posting looks like.

Legitimate jobs are looking for specific skill sets and job requirements, and do not over-promise. Too many “$$$$” or “!!!!!” should forewarn you it’s not likely a trustworthy opportunity. As you pursue your dream of a “shoes optional” position, keep an eye out for these sneaky tactics.

Five Simple Steps for Using Social Media to Find New Clients

Have you met any business people lately who weren’t interested in finding new clients?

I certainly haven’t.

But I have met more than a few people who don’t actually get how social media can help them with this challenge.

And often enough, even among those who do have a sense of the potential of social media for lead generation, there is lack of understanding about just how to go about tapping into this opportunity.