Choose and Establish Social Media Profiles
Obviously, not all social media platforms are created equal, and many companies mistakenly believe that they should simply start with Facebook because it is the largest. This isn't always the case as B2B businesses have found that Facebook targeting doesn't provide as healthy returns as some other social media sites. However, if you're marketing directly to consumers (B2C), Facebook could be an excellent choice.

Here are some useful stats on some of the top social networks.

• As of January 2016, Facebook has 1.55 billion active monthly users. The site now has more than 40 million active small business pages. According to eMarketer, more than 85 percent of U.S. companies with 100 or more employees are using Facebook for marketing.

• Twitter has 320 million active users, yet half a billion people visit the network each monthwithout logging in. eMarketer's survey reports that more than 67 percent of U.S. companies with 100 or more employees are using Twitter.

• Instagram is one of the fastest growing social networks, now with over 400 million active monthly users. 90 percent of Instagram users are under the age of 35, and 32 percent of U.S. teens cite Instagram as their favorite social network. eMarketer's latest survey reported that 48.6 percent of marketers were expecting to use Instagram in 2016, up from 32 percent last year.

• Pinterest has 100 million active users, many of whom are women interested in such things as fashion, beauty, fitness, food, and home decor.

• LinkedIn also has 100 million active users, who are professionals in their field and are looking to network. 39 percent of LinkedIn users pay for premium accounts, and more than 25 million profiles are viewed on the site daily.

What these numbers mean to your business?
Based on your target market and these social media profiles, you should be able to determine what the best online platforms would be to begin your efforts.

For example, if you are marketing to a younger audience, you'll want to concentrate your efforts on such sites as Instagram, Facebook, and possibly Twitter (check out Snapchat marketing as well). If your target audience is primarily women, Pinterest and Facebook might be better choices.

Finally, if doing B2B marketing, LinkedIn and Twitter usually provide the best returns. It's important to remember that every audience is different and what works for one company may not work for another. Also, it's never a good idea to put all of your social media marketing eggs in one basket. Be sure to spread the love amongst several networks.

Engage Your New Audience on Social Media
Most companies fail to understand that successful social media marketing is built on relationships, which takes a degree of patience as well as time to nurture.

Here are three simply strategies for building and engaging with your new social audience.

1. Find and engage with industry influencers on each social media platform. Use tools likeFollowerwonk and Traackr and to identify and track influencers in your field. Engage in conversations with them. Do not try to steal their clients through self-promotion. Rather, comment and provide your viewpoints on their posts. With persistence, you will be noticed and appreciated as a new industry influencer and build your own following.
2. Post your own engaging and relevant content on a consistent basis. Your followers will come to expect it and will begin sharing it with their audiences on various social media sites. Your content should always add value to the conversation, and you'll want to continue to participate in the online discussion as you obtain feedback.
3. Social media is a two-way street, so it's wonderful that you post content, but you must also remain accessible and responsive. As this can be time-consuming, enlist your employees and even a few ecstatic customers to be social media ambassadors on your behalf, posting answers to questions, product and service reviews, and addressing potential concerns.

When you follow these steps, you'll be sure to find success in locating and engaging your target audience on social media.

In today's connected world, a business without a social media marketing strategy is foregoing profits and leaving customer choice up to chance. Leveraging social media is one of the best ways to reach and engage both existing and potential clients, allowing for a business' continued growth.

Source: http://www.business.com/social-media-marketing/finding-the-right-social-audience-for-your-business/

When customers need help, they expect companies to offer it quickly and through multiple social media channels — but most companies aren’t set up to do that. Some companies increase their social media staff to offer live responses during big events like the Super Bowl or the Grammys, but then they return to predominately one-way social media or content marketing. Since 2013 the number of customers who expect a response through social media has doubled, according to research from Sprout Social, yet seven out of eight messages to companies go unanswered for 72 hours.

Complicating matters further, consumers expect one brand account to contain responses to all kinds of needs, including marketing information and customer service. But marketing managers simply are not trained to deal with questions or complaints about service, product performance, or other nonmarketing requests.

To be more effective at building relationships with consumers online, companies need a cross-functional social media team, one where marketing works together with other departments. Distributing social responsibilities to relevant people across the organization can be efficient, be effective, and help make one-on-one customer engagement scalable.

Cross-functional social media teams can leverage the stages of the buying cycle, connecting the right employees with the right customers at the right time. Consumers’ needs change when they are in the prepurchase, purchase, and postpurchase steps of buying, so different employees are more useful to customers at different stages.

How can an organization create a cross-functional social media team? First, research and analyze existing social media. Who controls the official brand channels? What systems, policies, and employees are responsible for monitoring social media? From this research, organize a new system. Here is a simple process from my book Social Media Strategy, Marketing, and Advertising in the Consumer Revolution.

1. Develop a social care team that can address all areas of social information efficiently and effectively. Identify policies and software systems needed for implementation.
2. Organize departmental responsibilities in the social care team. Clearly define roles and responsibilities among marketing, customer service, public relations, sales, corporate communication, human resources, etc.
3. Assign specific employees from each department to social media tasks. Set up social media accounts and give employees access to social media systems.
4. Create brand guidelines for standards, tone, and style of social media communication. Ask legal and human resources to provide a list of do’s and don’ts for real-time consumer engagement.
5. Define specific goals based on key performance indicators such as response time, sentiment analysis, engagement, views and shares, and other important metrics.

When companies implement a cross-functional team well, the results are powerful.

In 2014 Hertz shifted from a marketing-centered social media strategy to a cross-functional system built around customers’ needs and expectations. Previously, the marketing department had controlled social media accounts. Marketing staff would publish brand content, but they also received customer complaints. They forwarded the complaints by email to customer service agents, who would then process the requests and email them back to marketing to post on social media. Social media response was limited to Monday through Friday.

For the new 24/7 cross-functional team, Hertz partnered with software company Conversocial to easily connect customer service agents to the software that marketing staff uses to monitor social media conversations. The multidepartment system has enabled Hertz to respond within 75 minutes to more than 1,000 individual customers per week. The company that responding to customers in real time through social media has increased customer loyalty, contributing to customer lifetime value.

The gourmet burger chain Five Guys, too, utilizes a cross-functional social team through social media monitoring software Hootsuite and a process that empowers local franchises and frontline employees. Each of the over 1,200 Five Guys locations has its own social media accounts to market local promotions, new products, and events to its community. Individual locations also provide customer service, responding directly to customer feedback. For them, monitoring on the local level is more efficient, making one-on-one consumer social media engagement scalable, personal, and sincere.

Today’s consumers expect more from companies. They increasingly look for brands that engage with them online and organizations that do reap real benefits. David Packard, of Hewlett-Packard fame, once said that marketing is too important to be left to the marketing people. For social media, that statement is as true as ever.

Source:  https://hbr.org/2016/04/social-media-is-too-important-to-be-left-to-the-marketing-department

This has been out in the open air for discussion over the last few months. Everyone knows that Snapchat is the “thing” to be on and that there’s attention there for those who can earn it (and find ways to entertain and consequently keep it).

Now, the only dilemma to figure out is… how the heck do you use it for business!?
Well, maybe it’s not the ONLY dilemma, but you can learn the interface and all the Snapchat secrets and tips in our Snapchat Mastery ecourse. Easy Peasy.

You see the thing is, that you can’t just broadcast your posts or products in Snapchat and expect to gain any sort of traction. It’s just not the culture.
In fact, most social medias don’t do well with businesses just “pushing” their content to their followers.

There’s a native culture and content specific to each social media platform.

Think of it like visiting a foreign country.

To get the most benefit ideally you’d want to know the language (natively) to understand all the cultural implications. This would give you an edge in understanding the culture and providing and gaining value—over non-natives.

Snapchat is a language and has its own culture.
Now, it’s probably not nearly as challenging as learning something like Japanese, but with a great attitude and desire for understanding the platform, you can totally do it, without hassle.

I hear you… “okay, Emelina we get it, but seriously how do we use this ghost thing in business!?”

Gotcha, let me fill ya in on the low down, pronto.

What using Snapchat in business comes down to, is how business is conducted with any platform
.
Whether you’re frequenting chamber mixers or doing all your marketing through Facebook groups--success is found in relationships.

Use Snapchat as a mechanism to scale building deep relationships with as many individuals as you can manage.

And yes, it’s all about DEEP relationships over many shallow ones.

Allow me to give you some context. I’ll compare Snapchat to a traditional business scenario to which you’ll probably relate.

In traditional business, the system is this…

• Go to chamber mixers, professional mixers and any other local networking events
• Meet as many people as possible while sipping on a cocktail. I used to get at least 12 business cards (meeting that many people) at every mixer.
• Communicate your message—what you’re here to change, create or a problem that you are solving with your business
• Go home, and send emails to each contact, thanking them for chatting and ask if they want to get coffee sometime to see if you could help each other mutually in business.
• Meet over coffee for an hour, see if you’re “interested” in each other (meaning any sort of personality compatibility where you’d be interested in building a dynamic business relationship
• Exchange relevant leads or referrals and agree to meet again
• Next month, meet again for coffee, discuss any other ways you can help each other in business
• Perhaps actually do business with each other… rinse and repeat

This scenario is definitely effective. But… what if you could scale it?

Instead of investing a few hours every month into ONE person… what if you could scale it to handle TEN people at once?

That’s the beauty of Snapchat. It’s incredibly scalable.

Rather than networking SO MUCH one-on-one (meaning a 3-hour mixer here, a 1-hour coffee meeting there, another 1-hour coffee, a 1-hour consultation, etc) you can carry on short, sweet conversations with multiple people at one time.

It’s kind of like networking on steroids.

Allow me to give you some context. This is what the business or networking system looks like in Snapchat.

In Snapchat, the marketing system looks like this…

• Create fun, authentic and engaging snaps that contribute to someone’s life (this can be relevant business education, motivation, humor, entertainment and more—not sure where to start? Read this article on finding your audience)
• Be visible. Show up on others’ accounts for “Snapchat Takeovers” and in Blabs, other social medias, etc.
• Be consistent with your snaps—snap daily if you can
• Communicate your message—what you’re here to change, create or a problem that you are solving with your business
• Watch peoples’ snaps in the community, comment and show that you care
• Engage with your followers—find out who they are, what they do, and what’s important to them—talk to them! Snapchat is a messaging platform… think of it as a mix of email and voicemail
• Chat back and forth with your followers, and other influencers creating deep relationships
• Plan webinars, Blabs, podcasts, Snapchat phone calls, animated gifs to chat, and online Skype calls to network one-on-one with Snapchatters. The beauty of these interactions is they are often shorter than traditional networking. Five to ten minute Skype calls is not uncommon as opposed to the traditional 60-90 minute in person coffee meeting.
• Find out if you can help others get more exposure, visa verse.
• Perhaps actually do business with many people, to scale… rinse and repeat

Snapchat is a dynamic and creative messaging platform. This makes it a natural marketing platform too!

Marketing is a combination of being visible, knowing your message, and building deep relationships that matter.

Snapchat’s native messaging platform then, is natural for marketing yourself!

Snapchat is an EASY platform to market on—if you know your messaging (what you’re here to share and say), you’re willing to put yourself out there AUTHENTICALLY 150%, and you’re open to making friends and building relationships.

Snapchat is just like any other business platform in that way.

• Know Your Message
• Be Visible
• Make Friends and Relationships
• Have an Awesome Product or Service
• Be REAL (authenticity matters)
• Sell by Proxy

I hope I’ve at least tickled your senses.

Ultimately, Snapchat is an incredibly scalable networking and storytelling platform.

Personally, from my experience, I believe that building relationships and telling authentic stories are the most powerful (and SUSTAINABLE) methods to market yourself or your business.

Now, all you have to do is figure out how the heck to use that crazy interface!

Snapchat isn’t THAT hard, but it’s unlike anything else. If you need help learning the platform and would love step-by-step tutorials, enroll yourself in our new ecourse, Snapchat Mastery.

There’s over 3.5 hours of video tutorials, workbooks and over 4 hours of interviews with Snapchat influencers. You’ll learn all the interface tips, tricks, and secrets to improve your storytelling ability. There are hours of videos on how to maximize your time in Snapchat, how to build a crazy-engaged community, and tell stories that engage and make marketing yourself a breeze.

You can find all the epic details, and grab a copy of the course for yourself, here. It’s just about time to Master Snapchat. Stop guessing, start getting real results, and supercharge your following.

Want a 30-day Snapchat checklist to start growing your account? Download a free worksheet checklist, here.

Source: http://www.business2community.com/social-media/use-snapchat-marketing-platform-01518546#jO7ZMlh8JVqkoBz1.97

Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/blog/2016/04/4-simple-ways-to-integrate-video-into-your.html

One of the biggest problems we face as video marketers is competing with the 300 hours of YouTube footage that’s uploaded every minute. There’s a lot of competition out there – and considering viewers are bombarded with ads every day – it’s hardly surprising that people switch off when another business video appears on their screens.

But don’t give up hope just yet! Video marketing is an awesome tool that will bring customers to your business:

In fact… 76% of businesses told us that video has significantly improved their ROI.

So what you need to do is focus on your video strategy, and that’s why I’ve put together 6 examples of businesses that are killing it with video marketing, to see what we can learn…

#1. Dropbox

This is a company that is known for spending very little on advertising, yet it’s reported to be worth $10 billion!

So how have they done it?

In addition to their user-friendly product, Dropbox is a great example of a company that knows good video marketing. Check out their YouTube channel and you’ll find a great combination of different types of videos that set out to achieve different goals.

For example, they create simple explainer videos that help viewers understand how to use the platform, testimonials that build trust amongst potential customers, and cover various events that showcase the face behind the brand.

Take a look at this explainer video example of how Dropbox works. It’s simplistic style helps to convey the benefits of the platform, whilst teaching the viewer how to use it.

#2. LyftEver

Ever since it raced onto the scenes back in 2012 as a direct competitor of Uber, Lyft has taken over the driving world and is today worth an incredible 5.5 billion.

Lyft has fast become a solid content marketer, especially when it comes to their videos. They’ve recently adopted an interesting strategy in which they collaborate with celebrities to produce ‘undercover’ videos to drive along with customers and prank them, which makes for a really fun shareable piece of content.

One of the great things about Lyft is that the company manages to create content for both their drivers, and their customers. They use the power of User Generated Content to produce videos that show drivers sharing their experiences, they create tutorials on how to use the app, and they introduce new products using videos.

This ‘Community Portraits’ video is a great example of how the company speaks to both audiences. It highlights the benefits of what Lyft can do for a driver, and it builds trust for customers wanting to use the service as it gives insight into the world of a Lyft driver.

#3. Linkedin

This social network started 13 years ago and in 2015 pulled in an impressive $2.99 billion in revenue! As you’d expect, their video marketing has a huge emphasis on connecting professionals with careers, and their videos are nothing short of inspiring. Check out this one below as the perfect example…

#4. Airbnb

Just last year it was announced that Airbnb is worth $25.5 billion which is pretty good going considering the company practically came out of nowhere and took over the travel industry.
As a business that essentially brings strangers together to stay under the same roof, one of their biggest challenges is getting people to trust the hosts of Airbnb. They’ve managed to overcome this problem by coming up with various video marketing campaigns…

They produce short 30 second ads to encourage people to use the platform, videos that capture the stories of Airbnb hosts, and videos that showcase behind the scenes footage at the Airbnb office.

They’ve even produced a series called #onelesstranger that encourages people to do a random good deed for a stranger, check out the video below to see...

#5. Buzzfeed
Buzzfeed is a social news and entertainment company that’s worth $1.5 billion and video is a main focus of their marketing efforts.

In fact, video is so prevalent in their activities that they have an entire Buzzfeed Video channel dedicated to it. One of the most notable things about Buzzfeed is that they truly understand who their audience is.
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They market to young people and their videos tend to be fun and entertaining, so for example they post challenges, taste tests, and humorous skits. They’ve also not long launched a channel called Proper Tasty that features how-to videos, teaching the viewer how to create various tasty recipes.
These videos are short, easy to follow, and highly shareable across social — which is possibly why they’ve built 8.8 million followers on their Proper Tasty channel alone.

#6. HubSpot
​HubSpot is an inbound marketing provider with a recorded revenue of $115.9 million. The company is highly respected in the b2b marketing space as they have positioned themselves as a leader in what they do, and video has played a big part in that.

Check out any one of their online channels and you’ll find a variety of different themed videos including office culture, HubSpot platform tutorials, success stories, and product launches. As you’d expect, HubSpot is a company that knows a thing or two about good marketing, which is why they regularly create educational videos like this one below.

No matter how you slice it, there are only three things any small business owner wants — to get more customers, keep more customers and make more money. It’s simple. But it isn’t easy.

Don’t worry, I’ve pulled together the latest and greatest new sales and marketing books that have either come out or are just about to be published. All of them are focused on your favorite topics of sales, marketing and customer engagement.
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As you read through the summaries, notice the intersection of basic fundamentals evolving into new strategies in response to the fast paced changes we’re seeing in technology and consumer demographics.

​I’ve given you my list of new sales and marketing books, now I’d love to know what you’re reading and why.  Have you found a new sales and marketing book that has impacted your business?  Please share it in the comments below.