Ch. 9 of the Comprehensive Checklist for Growing Your Business: Get #Instafamous

You probably stumbled upon this article through another site like LinkedIn, Reddit or Facebook. That in itself is proof that social media is prevalent and crucial as a source of retrieving information. In the small business world, there’s a stigma around social media marketing that leads business owners to focus their efforts elsewhere. “I can’t gauge how many people are reading this,” and “I pay for ads but don’t see traction from it,” are common frustrations when you’re trying to get your name out there.

In our previous post, we mentioned The Rule of 7, which states that it takes 7 impressions or touches on a customer before they make a purchasing decision. Social media platforms can be a very heavyweight fighter in being one (or more) of those touches. Here are some tips to keep in mind about managing social media for your business.

1. Understand Who Your Audience is.

Before diving into this any further, identify who is looking at your posts. If your business is blindly posting content that isn’t relevant to your audience, your efforts won't yield positive results. Understand their lifestyle, know why they’re interested in you, and cater your verbiage and content around this information. This also differentiates a bit further on different platforms. For instance, LinkedIn followers expect more, “professional” information than let’s say, Instagram followers. That being said, Instagram followers might expect pretty, visual pictures and videos that inspire. This means your content has to get creative in different formats but consistent messaging is key. Which leads me to my next point…

2. Be consistent, everywhere.

Plan a well-defined message that you want your customers to know about your brand and/or business. Then relay that throughout all of your social media platforms. If your business is pushing out a lot of different messages, it’s a guarantee that your content will get lost in the noise, and might just confuse your customers as to what you're trying to say. Instead, hone in on one aspect of your business and drive it through all the way. A great starting point in figuring this out is asking, “What’s my company mission/belief that keeps me in business?”

Although each social media platform looks different in layout, keep your logo consistent, and your branding similar everywhere. This way, your customers can quickly identify your business and it’s a more professional way of representing your brand. It’s a good idea to have a light and dark version of your logo for the instances where the background differs. Consider having a strong accent color for your business and neutral tones to complement it. 

3. Get Viral

When you offer content and information that is relevant to your consumers, they would feel inclined to pass along your marketing message. The impact of creating viral content is explosive in the world wide web and can put your business in the spotlight of many potential new customers and leads. Viral marketing involves more crafted content than normal. When brainstorming for viral content, just remember that it has to be unique, inspiring, and driven with emotion in order to get people to repost it. In a statistic reported on KissMetrics, viral content can get 500-1000 times more of a reach than neutral content.

4. Track and Analyze

We asked LA based Social Media Superhero, Nicholas Mar to share best practices for tracking a business' success online. He says, "using multiple platforms to track analytics help us really figure out how our audience reacts to our content." Using management platforms like Hootsuite or Sprout, in conjunction with Facebook Insights or Twitter Analytics, paints a very detailed picture that guides the content of future posts.  Facebook insights provides helpful information about the demographics of your audience, as well as high-traffic times for when your customers are looking the most. Squarespace lets you check how many people visit your page, where they’re coming from, and what pages they fall off on. Frequent the analytics page of your platforms to find a goldmine of information. Then, craft your page and schedule your posts accordingly to maximize the potential of your content.

To keep it short and sweet, social media marketing can strengthen your brand image and will convert into concrete sales when done right. Keep your messaging and branding consistent, and offer relevant, unique content. Lastly, assess often how well your posts are doing with information offered to you and craft your posts accordingly.

5 Platforms to Increase Efficiency for Your Small Business

We get it, entrepreneurs! Time is like gold to you. It’s hard to manage it efficiently when there’s a constant flow of incoming emails, phone dings, and alert beepings, on top of just having to simply work. It’s also hard to let loose the reigns of your business and trust a platform that will better your productivity, instead of sucking away the little time you already have. We’ve compiled a short and sweet list of platforms that we can first-hand say, is f@#$ing awesome. Here we go:

Start with the core of the business. You and your team members need to know what to do. Here’s two of our favorite task management tools.

Trello

We like Trello because it’s a visually-focused way of organizing a project. You can assign different boards for different topics and build a list of things that need to be done within that topic. Trello allows you to assign responsibilities and set deadlines for when they need to be completed by. The interface also allows users to click and drag boards in different orders to prioritize.

Asana

Asana’s approach to task management is a user-friendly list view of projects and tasks. Create tasks, assign them to one or more people, and set a deadline for the job. You can leave notes on each job, attach files and start a discussion. The fun thing about Asana is that it triggers this endorphin kick to get things checked off your list - when things are checked off, you might just see a flying rainbow unicorn - really. Lastly, they are on top of sending you reminders via email so you don’t forget.

Keeping an open line of communication between members of your business makes for a more streamlined, efficient team. One word, Slack.

Slack

We are in love with Slack. It’s a versatile team communication platform that allows you to do more than just that. Create different topics of discussion, (called channels) and invite people to join it. Slack supports a long list of different file types that you can send and allows users to privately message other teammates. Integrate other apps into Slack such as Twitter and Lyft even, and send a tweet or order a ride via commands.

Here are two of our top email management tools to help stay in touch with your leads and existing customers.

MailChimp

MailChimp simply said, is a great email management platform that allows you to easily design engagement templates, and is versatile for all business types, small or big. You can run reports and see how successful your emails are. MailChimp lets you send better emails to the right people by filtering through different targeting options.

Active Campaign

It’s a great tool for creating different email templates. Do you find yourself sending out the same email and drafting it a million times already? Create a beautiful template as you need it, save it, and send it out when you need it. Staying in contact with your leads is the lifeline of your business and Active Campaign makes it simple.

Social media management is often overlooked to maintain when there's more pressing matters to tend to - especially when there's so many avenues to maintain and track. Here's two platforms that make it simple.

Hootsuite and Spredfast

Both of these platforms lets you schedule social media posts so that you don’t waste your time having to log in and post across all your different channels. Hootsuite allows you to use their service for free with up to three different platforms before you need to upgrade. These both work in similar fashion as you can see analytics and insights of your posts so you can better communicate with your audience.

How much time are you wasting creating schedules, collecting payment, and marketing your business? Our all-in-one business management platform saves countless hours in your work week.

Handlr

How nice would it be to wake up, sit back, and see your business run on its own? Handlr lets you do just that. Handlr is a mobile business management software specifically designed for small businesses to become bigger businesses. Upload your list of services, create open availability, and watch customers schedule themselves with you. Handlr lets business owners and their team members chat directly and share photos with customers. Team Members can check-in to services and you get paid instantly upon check out. That’s just the tip of the iceberg!

Business Spotlight: Tranquil Home

This week's Business Spotlight is Tranquil Home based out of San Diego, California! Nicola is co-partner of this home cleaning service that has been using the Handlr mobile business management platform for 5 strong months. We asked her a few questions on her journey of starting this business.

1. How did you start your business? Bootstrapping, I started literally with zero resources and used only what I could obtain through either trade, or doing the work myself to get started. Seven months in, I asked my childhood friend Erin if she would like to partner with me. Erin and I then bootstrapped together, and slowly but surely established a solid business.

2. What was your biggest struggle in the process? Finding the appropriate business model for Tranquil Home, and just learning dozens and dozens of tiny lessons that all were road blocks but now we use that knowledge to grow faster and more efficiently.

3. What’s your favorite inspirational quote? "Forget past mistakes and forget failures. Forget everything except what you are going to do now and do it." -- William Durant

4. Which historical person do you most look up to?  The one that sticks out in my mind is Joan of Arc. The film, "The Messenger" about her is one of my favorites! I admire people that have enormous amounts of conviction like that. Granted she was leading people to war, which I don't condone - but you kind of have to stand back in awe at that level of passion. Plus the fact that it was 1492 and managed to get a man, let alone hundreds of them to follow her into war is pretty amazing.

5. If you could be an animal, what would you be and why? Definitely a bird, preferably one that doesn't get prayed on much so I would say maybe an Eagle. I love the thought of flying around free, it sounds so liberating and non-stressful.

6. What does your typical weekday look like? It varies day to day, however usually a minimum of 5 hours work starting at around 9am. I try to get in a work out at least 3 x a week.

7. How many hours do you spend on marketing, sales, scheduling, employee/contractor management, customer communication, accounting, business development, other? 25-40 hours a week on a combo of all the above. However, my business partner Erin focuses more on the accounting side, and I try to work day-to-day on at least hiring, and or marketing/tweaking our website in addition to editing our calendar, customer service, answering phones, following up with clients, etc.

8. What’s your favorite business hack? Working when I’m in the mood. I really do well with late night working. My brain has slowed down by the end of the day so I can focus easier.

9. What does your morning routine look like? Well, I would like to say its a morning jog, followed by a healthy smoothie but honestly it's not. Most days, it involves rushing out the door.

10. Where do you see your business in 5 years? I see it becoming easier and much more profitable. We learn so much every month. In 5 years, I think we will really have our act together. We are aiming for 1MM in sales this year, so to have a sales revenue of over 2-3 MM in 5 years would be a great goal.  

11. If you could do anything right now, what would it be and why? Vacation for sure, maybe a drive up the coast. I love the feeling of returning home after a vacation, refreshed and ready to work.

12. If you could go back and change anything when you first started your business, what would it be and why? I would take advice from other successful people but maybe not as seriously. No one knows your business better than you, and while, yes, other successful people can, and do have great advice I wish I didn't take  it as gospel. I would have joined an, "association" related to my business earlier. I also would not have let fear of breaking every tiny rule be the main motivator behind hasty decisions. I would have also read the E Myth earlier!