Are you in the process of planning your latest social media campaign?

Without a proper strategy in place, execution will prove extremely difficult. You won’t have any guiding directives to keep you on course.

You can “wing it” if you want to, but pretty soon you will discover that your campaign isn’t anywhere near as focused, consistent, or effective as it could be.

Here are several reasons why you can’t run a campaign without an effective social media strategy.

Without A Strategy, You Won’t Know What To Post & When

If you know what your end goals is, and what you’re trying to achieve with your campaign, you can take actions that are in alignment with your objectives.

Conversely, if you haven’t thought everything through, and you’re not entirely sure what you have to gain from running the campaign, you’ll just post at random, not knowing whether or not what you’re doing is getting results.

You need to give some thought to what to post, at what times, and how often. This keeps your campaign organized and focused. It also makes your workload far more predictable.

You should also have a pretty good idea of what your audience is going to respond to, or have the flexibility to tweak as you go based on what the stats are showing.

Without A Strategy, You Won’t Know How To Interact With Your Followers

For example, let’s say that you publish a post that’s a little controversial. Pretty soon, your followers are adding their thoughts and opinions to the discussion. This can get out of hand if you’re not careful.

If you had a proper strategy (and policies) in place, you would know when and how to respond. You would know which users to block, and how to moderate and maintain a sense of peace with your following.

But if you never even considered that your followers would be interacting with you in the first place, and you didn’t make it a part of your plan, you may not know how to respond, or even have the awareness that you should.

Even some basic guidelines will go a long way towards helping you maintain a sense of consistency across all of your channels.

Without A Strategy, There Is No Beginning, Middle & End

Do you know what your campaign is for? Is it to drive attention to your social profiles and grow your following? To promote a new product or service offering? To create awareness for your contest or giveaway?

“Campaign” is a nice term to use to describe a concerted promotional initiative, but if you just leave it at that, you might have your team fooled into thinking it’s more than just an ad hoc marketing scheme.

Without a clearly defined plan, you don’t really have a campaign. Your campaign won’t have a beginning, middle or end, and campaigns always have a beginning, middle and end.

If your campaign isn’t measurable, then it won’t do you much good. You need to be able to look at the results and determine the return on the investment so that you can make tweaks to it and figure out what you could be doing better in the future.

Final Thoughts

If you’re getting ready to launch a new campaign, then make sure to start with a well thought out plan. This will ensure that you and your team will remain consistent in the message that’s being shared, when it’s being shared, and how often.

The results of your efforts will also be more predictable. This is important, as it allows you to plan future campaigns more effectively by making small tweaks to your strategy.

Are you looking for help with your social media strategy? If so, we look forward to hearing from you. Please get in touch to find out how we can help.

There’s something you should know about posting to social media, especially as an ecommerce business: you can’t just keep posting your own content and products hoping to drive up engagement.

This will certainly be a part of your strategy, but another piece you need to add to the circulation is curated news items.

A fashion brand might link to a story and a photo of a celebrity wearing an unusually gaudy attire and ask for feedback from their followers.

A tech seller could link to a press release for a new Apple product and ask for thoughts from their community.

If you make an effort to keep the “social” in social media, you’ll keep your followers engaged for longer, and you’ll convert more sales too.

But the question is, how do you find relevant content to share? How do you stay on top of the stories and the trends to find something of value?

Here are several simple ways to streamline your social curation efforts.

Use BuzzSumo To Find Popular Content

Do you have a list of sites you frequently visit for industry-relevant news? If not, this is a good place to start. Find a few sites that consistently offer great, up-to-date content.

Then, you can enter these sites into BuzzSumo to find the most shared content from that particular website.

If you’re looking for more recent content, however, you need to filter the results. On the upper left hand side, you will see radio buttons under the heading “Filter by Date:”. Click on “24 Hours” or “Past Week” to find the latest stories.

Use feedly To Track Your Feeds

feedly is a tool you can use to track your favorite blogs and websites. All you have to do is add sites to your newsfeed, and pretty soon it will be populated with the latest content from the various sites you subscribe to.

For example, if you’re in the tech arena, you could subscribe to TechCrunch, and by monitoring your feedly newsfeed, easily find the latest, most interesting news items (about gadgets) to share with your audience.

The main thing to remember is that you will have to get into the habit of checking your feeds on a regular basis. You may even want to make it a part of your daily routine. Also create a process for saving your links for later, because simply looking at the latest news items won’t do anything for your social strategy.

Set Up Google Alerts

Are there specific news items you want to keep an eye on? Are there topics, categories, or product updates and releases that you should be monitoring?

This is where Google Alerts can prove very handy. You can create alerts for any keyword of your choosing, and have email notifications sent to you when new, related content appears on the web.

The only downside is that the Google Alerts technology isn’t perfect, and won’t necessarily send you notifications for every new thing that comes along. Nor will it always deliver the most relevant results. Combined with other methods already described, however, it can prove very useful.

Final Thoughts

When you’re curating content, remember to:

• Add your own thoughts to the news piece. This gives your audience permission to comment on it with their own take.
• Be choosy. Low-quality content adds value to no one and cheapens your company’s image.
• Stay focused on your followers. It’s okay to share about your company – just remember to have a good mix of original and curated content.
• Attribute sources. Let your audience know who the original content belongs to.

Don’t forget to keep things simple. Have fun, and engage your audience. Create meaningful interactions between them, and keep them coming back for more.

Are you looking for help with your social media strategy? That’s what we’re here for, so get in touch with us to find out how we can assist you.

A strong online presence is quickly becoming a must-have for politicians.

When you have a website of your own, you can rank for your name in search, and make sure your message – not someone else’s message about you – is the first thing being seen by your visitors.

Similarly, setting up social media profiles enables you to foster interaction with your community. Voters can check out your Facebook and Twitter profiles, get a better sense of who you are, ask questions, and even donate if they have the desire to.

But if you want to get more donations from social media, you have to be strategic. You can’t just spam people and expect to get their support.

Here are three ideas for getting more donations from social media.

1. Offer Regular Updates

This seems obvious enough. Every politician should be striving to share the latest updates with their followers.

What may not be as obvious is that consistent updates build trust with your followers. It shows that you’re a real person, and that you’re actively engaged in your campaign. It makes it easy for others to talk about you, as they can share your updates with others who might resonate with your message.

Updates need not be complicated. You can share quick text content, or even photos and videos from your latest interview.

In addition, let voters know how they are making a difference. Show them that they are appreciated, as this can also build credibility.

Don’t forget to share your donation page from time to time too. Although your primary focus should be adding value to your audience, your following can’t donate unless they know where to go to do it.

2. Direct People To Your Social Media Profiles

People may not even know that you have a social media presence. You need to build awareness everywhere you go.

Take print materials with you. Hand out business cards. Include social links on your pamphlets. If you’re giving a presentation or a talk, encourage attendees to join you on social media (if it is appropriate to do so). Include your contact information in PowerPoint presentations and videos.

You need to use your offline presence to promote your online presence, letting people know that you’re regularly blogging and sharing updates on their favorite social networks.

Whenever you are connecting with your supporters, they should be hearing about your blog, Facebook and Twitter profiles. Building your following is the first step to encouraging more donations.

Once supporters and prospective backers start following you, work to earn their trust. Welcome new followers and reach out to them personally. Again, share updates and your campaign message on a regular basis, and remind people where they can go to donate.

Don’t forget to thank your followers often.

3. Host Q&A Sessions

As a politician, you are likely used to answering a lot of questions, whether it’s through interviews, debates, presentations, or otherwise.

Social media also happens to be a great platform for Q&A sessions. You can let your followers know that you’re going to be on Twitter at a particular time (for an hour or two) answering all of their questions.

A Google+ Hangout might be another great option if you feel more comfortable on camera.

Of course, do be cautious in how you respond to people. You’re not going to be able to take anything back, so don’t say anything that could be taken the wrong way. Be honest and transparent, and clarify your position if you have to, but don’t be overtly controversial.

Regular Q&A sessions can really help with engagement, ultimately earning you more followers and donators along the way.

Final Thoughts

It has often been said that social media engagement can’t be translated into dollars.

But many marketers have found the exact opposite. Building a following and earning their trust can have incredible long-term rewards attached to it.

It does, however, take time. Social media followings are not built overnight.

If you’re looking for help, you’ve come to the right place. We encourage you to get in touch with us so that we can start building your social media presence right away.

A great speaker exudes a variety of qualities that makes them unforgettable.

The good news is that anyone can cultivate these traits. The not-so-good news is that it might take time and effort to develop them.

But as with anything else in life, if it’s worthwhile, it requires hard work and persistence.

Here are seven traits of memorable business event speakers.

1. Authenticity

If you want to be a great speaker, you have to be true to yourself. You can’t pretend to be something you’re not.

Event attendees are going to appreciate your willingness to lay it all out on in the open, warts and all. This makes you more relatable.

You might have a polished and professional presence, which is very important, but not quite as important as your willingness to admit to your faults and mistakes.

2. Empathy

An effective speaker always knows who they’re speaking to and where the audience is coming from. They have a good sense of what the attendees are looking to accomplish, and how to help them.

If you’re finding that you’re often speaking to people you can’t relate to, you might have a bit of a branding problem, or you’re just not being booked for the right kinds of events.

But this doesn’t take away from the need to study and research the events you’re booked to speak at. Always make sure you’re looking at things from the perspective of the attendees.

3. The Ability To Simplify The Complicated

Many speakers have a tendency to fill their speeches with topic-specific jargon and overly complicated language, sometimes without any awareness that they are doing it.

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that an expert in their field might have a broader vocabulary and a wealth of experience and knowledge to draw from that onlookers may not have.

But a good teacher always knows how to simplify. Use language that your audience is likely to understand, and talk to them without talking down to them.

4. Passion

Do you care about your industry or speech topic? If not, it will probably become obvious to onlookers, sooner rather than later.

Sometimes it can be hard to exhibit passion day after day, night after night, especially if you’re speaking on the same subject or even giving the same speech at every engagement.

So you better make sure it’s something you care about in the first place. Otherwise, you could burn out all too easily.

5. Storytelling Skills

There’s nothing that draws people in and builds a sense of connection like story.

If you want to emphasize a point in your talk, tell a story. If you want to entertain, educate, be vulnerable and authentic, tell a story.

Punctuate your speeches with story to capture, hold, and relate to the attendees.

6. Entertaining

If you want to give a great presentation, you can’t just focus on relaying information. Although it’s important that your audience walks away armed with new knowledge, it isn’t enough to cite stats and share relevant data.

Your speeches need to be engaging. This is all the more true in an age when people have such short attention spans.

Tell stories, use humor, and let your personality shine through.

7. Vulnerability

It’s in our vulnerability that we make strong connections with the people we’re interacting with.

It’s normal to have fears attached to being so open. Fortunately, worst case scenarios rarely if ever manifest themselves.

In most cases, you will discover the exact opposite. People will start connecting with you and will give you praise for your talks because of your willingness to be vulnerable.

Final Thoughts

Content matters, but it certainly isn’t the only thing your audience is looking for in a speaker.

Although they may not be able to put it into words, they are also looking for the traits already discussed here.

It can be summed up this way: be human. We are all human, and your humanness is what connects you to others.

By the way, if you’re looking for help with your social media strategy, we want to encourage you to get in touch with us. We look forward to hearing from you.

Writing a book is a massive achievement unto itself.

But you can’t bask in your accomplishment for long, because the harder part is just around the corner – marketing your book.

As a business owner, you no doubt have some knowledge and experiencing in marketing, and fortunately much of what you’ve already learned can be applied to promoting your new book as well.

But it’s important to realize that your publisher probably isn’t going to be of much help, and any false notions of going from stage to stage – book store to university, university to stadium – on a book tour should probably be done away with as early as possible. That only works for authors that already have a dedicated and loyal following.

So, what can you do to drive up more sales for your new book? Let’s take a look.

Define Your Audience

If you have a successful business, it’s probably because you’ve identified your target customer.

In the same way, you must determine who the target audience is for your book. This is the most critical step to getting the rest of your marketing figured out. Are your customers your target readers, or is your book for a different kind of person entirely?

It’s safe to say that you’re not going to be able to get everyone in the world to read your book. If your book is about podcasting, for example, then entrepreneurs and small business owners might be your focus.

Try to narrow it down as much as you can, and start going after the right people.

Book Speaking Engagements

Once you know who your target audience is, you can start booking speaking engagements at events and gatherings where they like to hang out. As you can probably guess, it is much tougher to book the right kind of engagements if you haven’t figured out who your book is for.

Speaking anywhere and everywhere may have some benefits, but if you want the greatest ROI on your effort, then you should be speaking to people who have the most to gain from reading your new literary work.

Promote It On Social Media

There are plenty of social networks out there, and it’s up to you to determine which ones are best for reaching your audience. In most cases, Facebook and Twitter are safe bets, but sites like LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest and Instagram could also prove invaluable to your marketing efforts.

When it comes to sharing on social media, the best strategy is consistency. Although you can hit it hard and fast, you could end up turning people off with your constant spamming. You probably don’t need a refresher on the value of massive action, but there is a difference between taking big steps towards your goal over time, and trying to cram everything into a week or two.

Coordinate With Your Readers

Amazon sales and reviews can make a big difference to the overall visibility of your book. The more you can get in a condensed timeframe, the better off you will be.

Plan a marketing drive. Let your readers know that you want them to buy and review your book on a certain day, and watch your book rise to first place in its category.

Podcast shows listed in iTunes work very much the same way. The more reviews and subscribers you can earn in a short period of time, the more visible it will become in the iTunes store. And, in case you’re wondering, yes, podcasting can be another great way to spread the news about your new book.

Final Thoughts

Do you feel better equipped to market your book now?

There are plenty of other strategies you can use, including PR, content marketing, advertising, and more.

But few channels are as effective and inexpensive as social media over the long haul. If you’re committed to building an audience, you can foster a lot of organic growth.

If you need help figuring out your social media strategy, we hope that you’ll get in touch with us. We look forward to hearing from you.

Most established speakers don’t have to come up with a new speech every time they’re asked to present. Oftentimes they can cruise along on the same presentation for a year or longer.

But if you’re just getting started, and event planners expect you to pick a topic that’s right for their gathering, you might be thrown for a loop.

“You’re the speaker”, they say, “I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”

That doesn’t narrow things down at all. Now you have a virtually unlimited set of topics to choose from, and you have no idea how the audience is going to react to any given speech. Or, at least, so it seems.

But the reality of the matter is that there are a few factors you can examine to narrow down your topic with ease. Let’s get into it.

Your Expertise

Does it really make sense to talk about something you know nothing about?

Of course not. So let’s start there. Regardless of who you’re speaking to, you should pick a topic that you feel comfortable discussing.

There is almost always a way to tie into the spirit of the event and what people are expecting to hear. But if you try too hard to cater to the audience, your speech could fall on deaf ears. It will be obvious when you don’t know anything about a topic, as you probably won’t be able to answer audience questions.

Start by making a list of topics you know something about. That list could be short or long, but don’t worry about shortening it just yet. The subsequent factors can be used to further refine your list.

The Audience

How much do you know about the audience that will be attending the event?

If you answered “nothing”, ask the event coordinator. If that still doesn’t give you enough to go on, check to see if there are any pictures or videos from past gatherings. Do some Google searches to learn more about the club, company or organization.

This should help you to eliminate certain topics from your list. Don’t be too quick to cross off subjects you feel you know the most about, because you might be able to draw certain parallels between your experience and what the audience is interested in.

The key thing is to add value to the audience. Start refining your topic list based on your best judgment.

The Event

You’ve considered what you know and what you’re good at. You’ve given some thought to the type of people that are going to be at the event. Now what?

It’s time to take a look at the culture of the event itself. Are people going to be showing up in suits, or is it going to be casual? Do the attendees hold up certain morals and values as vital to their existence? Are there other presenters or performers, and if so, what are they going to be sharing with the audience?

It’s time to do a little more homework. The reason this is important is because you don’t want to offend the audience. You might have a great speech prepared, but if you say something that isn’t in alignment with their highest values, it’s not going to go over well.

A little bit of advance planning can help you choose a topic that’s going to resonate with the audience, and help you to present yourself in the best light possible.

Final Thoughts

Do you know what you’re passionate about? As a speaker, the things that you love should be prioritized above others.

You should certainly think about your expertise, the audience, and the culture of the event itself, but more than anything else, your love for a topic will win over attendees.

Finally, don’t over-think speech topics for your next speaking engagement. Get back to the basics.

Did you know that you can also use social media to help you determine presentation topics? If you’re looking for help, make sure to get in touch with us. We’re eager to hear from you.