What is Social Media For?

Posted on May 7, 2012 | Leave a comment

This is the great debate:  is social media a sales tool or a tool to develop relationships?

The smart businesses do both, and they start by building relationships.  The rookie mistake, in my opinion, is when I see a business that only posts about their special offers.  Never do you see them giving their prospects any information.

I don’t care if you are big business that everyone knows or small mom and pop shop.  People like to get information.  Whether it is about your business, your employees, even your clients.  Giving prospects information is important to create your image on social media.  If they don’t have a well rounded view of you, they will not do business with you.

Engage your prospects.  Ask questions, post information about your products and services.  And yes, every once in a while you can post an offer.  Just don’t let the offer be the only thing we see, when we are looking at your page.

What do you think?  Is social media for sales or for building relationships?  Let us know what you think below.

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Posted in Branding and Social Media

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Out with the Old, In with the New

Posted on April 30, 2012 | Leave a comment

Professional image RoxanaThe first thing I want to do is apologize to any and all readers of this blog.  For one thing, I had not noticed that I was accumulating a series of comments on my blogs that were actually spam and for some reason, where approved without me seeing them.  The second reason for the apology is that if you left a comment, I just went through over 2,000 comments and I honestly just deleted all of them.  In the beginning I was reading all of them, and when I noticed I still had over 1,500 to go, I just deleted all of them.  If you had a comment or question, I apologize and I encourage you to ask me again.

There were quite a few that seemed to be from humans but had some offensive language and that is a big no-no for me.  Those were erased automatically.

Now that we dealt with the old, we go to the new.  I start a new project on May 7th, a project that is going to take an average of 11 hours a day, and it is taking most of my concentration.  Having said that, I want you to understand that I am still going to be here, just consolidating some things.

The website is going to change as the time goes and I free more time.  The big priorities for me at this point are to create a header that is uniform for both the website and the Facebook timeline, as well as the image on the youtube channel.  I am also going to blog once a week for now.  This might change in the future.  The only post I will guarantee is the one on Monday mornings.

I am also consolidating the options on Procrastination Princess to once a week.  What I want you to understand is that AviddivA will have a post every Monday morning, and Procrastination Princess will have a post every Thursday afternoon.  AviddivA will continue to provide information on the business side of things, mainly about branding.  Procrastination Princess is all about my personal triumphs over procrastination and hopefully inspiring you to put yourself first for one and get moving.

As usual, I appreciate your support and I hope you will leave real comments and questions on the section below.  Thank you.

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Posted in business model

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Be Specific

Posted on April 9, 2012 | Leave a comment

One of the most important things that people forget when figuring out their brand and their marketing campaign is simple, not easy.  You must be specific.

We can’t be all things to all people.  That is just not going to work nowadays.  Now, when you look at your clients, you might have people with very different descriptives:  some might be in their 20′s or 40′s, you cater to women but you have some men, you are looking for college graduates but high schoolers like your stuff.  There is a difference between your audience and who ultimately purchases from you.  Keep them separate.

When you are defining your brand and your marketing strategy, stick to one brand, that is very clearly defined.  If you make wigs for cancer survivors and all of a sudden celebrities start shopping from you, that is irrelevant.  Your core audience is cancer survivors and their issues are different from those of celebrities.  Although the ultimate need – self esteem, is the same, the reason behind it could be different.  Keep your efforts centered in your core audience until you have built your brand and then you can start a separate campaign for your new audience.

As usual, I would love to know what you think.  Is it to hard to keep your brand and marketing campaing simple and specific?  Give us an example, let’s talk about it.

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Posted in Branding and Marketing

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Good example, Marie Forleo

Posted on April 4, 2012 | Leave a comment

As I work the idea of branding and marketing your product or service, I want to offer you example of what I consider to be good and bad examples.  The first good example I want to use is Marie Forleo because it will help you identify commonalities that will be useful.

I first came across Marie Forleo a couple of years ago, and without knowing, a lot longer in another life.  You see, Marie used to be a Crunch Fitness instructor and I had seen her in videos before.  I did not put two and two together until much, much later.

The first time I read her blog, she had a small mishap with her dog and I immediately felt a connection.  I liked the fact that she was willing to talk about herself and about her business.  I also liked that her social media efforts clearly want to create a relationship with you before you buy anything.

If you read her About Me page, you will discover that we have something else in common.  She, like me, believes that wealth is more than just money or the toys you own.  This to me is very important.  I want my business to be more than just about making money.  If you’ve read any of our previous posts, you know we want to do good while working for you.  We want to add value to you and to others.  We believe it is not about the money, it is about the experience too.  That does not mean we are cheap, in fact, we are not.  What that means is what we do with the money helps many people including you.  I believe Marie shares this point of view.

What do you think Marie’s branding is?  What do you think the message is?  Is it uniform in all her material?  Leave your answers in the comments section below.

 

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Posted in Branding Case Study

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What Message are You Serving?

Posted on April 3, 2012 | Leave a comment

Yesterday, we talked about the first question you must ask yourself, Who are You.  Today, we expand by asking you what message are you serving?

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but everyone seems to have a presence on social media now a days.  Many companies put all their ads on Facebook and Twitter hoping that you will click and shop.  Others are smarter and deliver awesome content that helps you and gives you the opportunity of getting to know them before you invest in their products.

My question for you today is what approach are you following?  If you are new, do you want people to shop or do you want to create trust?  The answer to this question is really important.  Why?  Because social media should not be about what’s in it for you.  Social media, as the name says, is about creating connections and building relationships.  If you use it to advertise all the time, and you don’t build relationships, you will quickly be unfriended and your efforts will be for nothing.

Go ahead, serve some great content.  If you sell products, teach people how to use them.  If you provide a service, explain the benefits of it.  Don’t assume your customers know everything about you and your company.  Create a brand that is worth following and use social media to cement those relationships.

If you have any suggestions on how to use social media to build relationships. leave your suggestions on the comments section below.

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Posted in Branding and Social Media

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