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.

Ch 6. of the Comprehensive Guide for Growing Your Business: Modernize and Invest in Your Brand

It is mission critical to have a logo that conveys your brand’s look and feel. According to smallbusiness.chron.com, the company logo is, “the single most visible manifestation of the company within the target market.” We couldn’t agree more. For this reason, it is heavily important that you brand your company in a position that aligns with your target market. It’s a visual first impression to your customers so, make it count. Another astonishing stat from ConversionXL says, “visual appeal can be assessed within 50 ms” (Laja). That’s a fast assessment! Where does your logo stand on the eye-catching meter? Graphic trends are ever-changing but we do know that resorting to ClipArt, gradient heavy graphics, and busy elements in a logo add noise when you’re trying to break through the clutter. Seek for a clean, easy-read symbol for your company.

A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself if you logo is a clear read if it is shrunk down to a 1-inch area. Often times, many businesses strive to include tiny details in their logo that unfortunately, get lost when it’s printed on a business card or other small marketing materials. If your logo needs a bit of a facelift, there are many platforms available to you to solve your problem. You can hire a local graphic designer to create branding and marketing materials for you. 99designs or Canva for Work is commonly used to instantly get a few designs created. Moo.com and Vistaprint.com are great options for cost-effective and high-quality marketing materials with a fast overturn rate.

If you have employees, it’s not a bad idea to have matching team shirts made. Even having branded marketing materials like table cloths and tents can help strengthen your brand image amongst customers and team members both. Having a cohesive and unified look across your company on all platforms goes a long way. Paying attention to small details and cleaning up the look of your company positions your business in a better spotlight in consumers’ minds.

Ch. 3 of the Comprehensive Guide for Growing Your Business: Guidelines

Why Guidelines?

Guidelines are crucial to maintaining consistency and excellence in your business. McDonald’s and every other franchise of the world have detailed guidelines and protocols in place to ensure that services are performed the same way, every time. Employee Handbooks and Business Guidelines (even if it’s just for yourself) are important to make sure that your business can run without you and that quality is guaranteed every time.

Guidelines are there to set the company’s tone that you see perfect for your business. It explains the core mission/standards of your business and covers all aspects of your business you can dream of, going beyond the protocols. From team member benefits, team member work behavior, or the specific conditions of what constitutes an absence, tardy, write-up, citation, or termination. It’s a great resource/reference to have for you and your team in uncertain situations.

Read the E-Myth and the 4-Hour Work Week to change your life as a business owner.

Gerber offers insightful strategies and tactics to conquer having your dream business. He walks you through the cycle of a business, from, “entrepreneurial infancy, through adolescent growing pains, to the mature entrepreneurial perspective” (Amazon). The E-Myth is considered mandatory reading from us for anyone looking to start a small business.

4-Hour Work Week

From an entrepreneur himself, Timothy Ferriss shares a common problem all entrepreneur encounters. The work overload and no life balance what so ever. He introduces a new acronym, (also the names of the chapters): DEAL (Definition, Elimination, Automation, and Liberation). It’s so easy to get caught up on the hamster wheel and before you know it, running a business means working day in and out endlessly. Read the 4-hour workweek and seek the balance you want in your live/work life.

It’s a Bonsai Tree Thing

If you already have your guidelines in place, be sure to revisit them and update/edit any changes once in awhile. Owning a business is a constant learning process and as you grow, your guidelines should become more detailed and fine-tuned as your business changes.