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In today's business world, having a social media presence is a large part of the marketing game plan.  Millions of people are logging in to their social media profiles (Facebook, Twitter, etc) and scrolling....and scrolling....and scrolling.  It only makes since that businesses take advantage of this and go where the people are located. That being said, just like joining a networking group or a local chamber, simply showing up will not lead to referrals. You have to build relationships. This means that setting up some profiles and putting links to your profiles will not magically increase the bottom line. There is still work to be done. Filling out the profiles completely, posting, replying back to comments are vital to having a true social media presence. Imagine a company that didn't maintain their presence. This would be similar to a farmer planting a bunch of seeds and that's it...no watering, no cultivating..nothing.  All the crops would..well..die.  So back to the social media campaign left for dead.  You open your web browser, search for a product or service, then click on the website.  Then you notice social media icons at the top or bottom of the site and click on the Facebook icon.  Then you notice that there has not been a post since 2012.  What thoughts might cross your mind? Did they go out of business?  Did they fire their social media guru?  Did they just stop caring and give up? Who knows!  Believe it or not people research ALL aspects of a company's online presence.  Small businesses can benefit from this research without even knowing it's happening.  If your social pages rock, that is how you can "close the sale" without anyone ever telling you why they chose to do business with you.



1. Credibility:  Consumers and potential clients expect businesses to be active on social media. They at least expect us to be on Facebook.  It's strange in today's market place when someone asks a business owner what their Facebook or Twitter page is and they don't have one.  The confused looks they must get! Simply having social media accounts (and links to them from your website) will give you a "leg up" on the competitor that does not.  "How can I connect with you on social media?" is the new, "where is your office located?" or, "what is your website url?".


2. Posting Regularly: When people click on our social media accounts and they see that we are active and they see us engaging with other accounts, we look like a real, live, breathing company.   Sometimes people go with a company (or choose another company) based on this click through.  They know that if they have a question or concern, they can easily and quickly connect with you.  Believe it or not, people would rather send you a Facebook message or a tweet than pick up the phone and call. If they see you responding to comments, they know you're a business that will cater to them.  Conversely, when a page looks like a ghost town, they may feel like they are no longer in business or too busy to keep up.  They may think, "If they are too busy to update their social media accounts, how could they possibly keep up with giving great customer service?" or "do they even care?". What's scary is that either way, a potential client may never tell you about this.  They'll just go with someone else and you won't know why.

3. Shared/viral posts: As a social media marketer I would love to prove every single referral, but that is just impossible (bad news for me, but great news for my clients). Here's why: Check out this photo below. This happens every single day:



check out this awesome post!!
















When we show someone a helpful, informative or funny post and now they are exposed to that brand or company.  This is not trackable but still amazing!  Have you ever gone through your news feed on Facebook and saw a post or a page simply because your friend "liked" it? Happens everyday. Same with retweets on Twitter and repins on Pinterest.  Now here's what's really cool: Someone that follows your page will have a friend ask them if they know a good (insert your industry). That friend will say, "yes, call (insert your company name)." When this friend of your follower calls you and you ask how they found out about you, they will say that they heard about you from their friend.  The fact is, it was really your social media presence that "sold" your follower and had them refer their friend.  Pretty cool! Now this is what gets business owners really excited: Most people know about 20-30 people really well so you can multiply the number of followers you have by 20 and that's the true number of people you influence on a daily basis.


Building a reputation on social media does not happen overnight. It takes time, planning, and work.  Once you establish a presence, the referrals and sales will start to roll in, even if you can't always trace it back to social media marketing. You just have to know it's working and people are indeed watching.  To keep up with changes to social media and daily tips, please like our Facebook page.

Click here----->MarketWithMario

Your comments are always welcome below as well!
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Imagine having a conversation with yourself in public.  It feels a little bit like that when we post on social media platforms and no one comments or replies. It can be a lonely feeling.  Let's dig a little deeper to see what kind of content gets people talking and engaging with our content instead of scrolling to the next post.  Keep in mind that even the most "perfectly" crafted post (in our opinion, of course) can sit there with crickets chirping.  It's also important to point out that some people are more private and just don't want to put themselves out there. Basically meaning that they may love the post, but not actually engage with it because they want to enjoy from the sidelines.  Here are some tips to help get people from "stalking" to talking.



1. Ask questions:  Asking questions is a great way to get an audience to engage, but it has to be the right kind of question. For one, it needs to be a question that an audience is interested in.  For example, an auto repair shop could ask, "what was your first car?".  Secondly, it needs to be a question that only takes a few seconds and a few words to reply to.  If an answer requires a ton of thought and time to respond, chances are, your followers will move on.  Another tip: I've had a lot of success with either/or questions, "Do you prefer cloth or leather seats?".


2. Fill in the blank: This goes along the same theme as asking a question.  If you are going to use a fill in the blank post, be sure it's easy to answer and shoot for one word answers.  A Realtor could say, "Fill in the blank: In my dream home, the most important room to me is the _______________".  The fun part here, is that you can keep the engagement going by asking questions on top of the comments.  When someone responds, "kitchen", you can reply back with, "Great! Would it be an open kitchen or galley?" or something along those lines.


3. Relate to your audience: One of the easiest ways to get to know your audience is by using analytics that are provided to you.  We can learn more about who our audience is as well as when they're online.  Take some time  to go through your Facebook page's insights to learn valuable information that will help you connect with your fans. This particular page (picture below) that we manage is dominated by women that are between 35 and 44 years old so our content needs to be appealing to them mainly. This will create the most engagement.











4. Stay Current: A powerful way to get more people interested and engaged with our content is to stay up to date on current events. Note: It's best to avoid polarizing topics such as politics, religion etc.  It is good to talk about events that would resonate with your audience.  This could be anything from a drastic weather change, to local events and award shows (The Oscars or Grammys). A hot topic this summer was The World Cup.  This created a ton of buzz for all of the pages we manage.  Staying current shows your audience that you have a pulse and are "real" instead of just pushing products or services.


When it comes to social media, it's mainly about being...well...social!  Hopefully these tips will help you get some more people to stop down and give you a "like", a comment, or even better, a share!  If you think these would help your social media profiles, but you don't know when you would find the time to do these things, please check out our management package and we can do it for you.

Click here: Social Media Management Package:

Good luck and "see" you on the next post (be sure to subscribe at the top so you get them automatically). Take care!
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When it comes to marketing, exposure and impressions (basically eyeballs on our brand or business). It is important, when building online communities, to not just make it about us and our business. If we just scream, "look at me!" all of the time, our followers will grow weary and unfollow quickly.  There are some ways to draw attention to ourselves without being overbearing.  Be sure to add these 5 tasks to your social media strategy:


1. Comment on posts: Commenting on Facebook and Google Plus are great ways to get exposure without calling attention to yourself.  Everyone that sees the post will now be exposed to your page and you're giving value to the page that your commenting on. Like this:



























2. Like/ +1 posts:  Liking and "+1 ing" (a Google Plus equivalent of a like) is another subtle way to get impressions on your pages. In this example, with a click of a button, I was able to get our logo out in the Google Plus universe:









3. Change profile/cover: Simply changing our profile picture or cover picture is a great way to hop in the newsfeed without really saying anything.  The real estate alone on the cover photo, will draw some attention and you'll even get a few likes for it.

Here's what it looks like in the newsfeed when you change your cover photo:















4. Comment on blogs: Commenting on popular blogs in your industry will get exposure to your brand quickly.  The key is to find articles that you actually agree with and add value to it with your comment. In, other words, just saying "great blog" isn't adding much value. I like to comment and point out something specific in the article to show that I actually read it.  Like this:







5. Reply to popular tweets:  This is one of my favorite strategies.  First, be sure you are following popular,local accounts as well as leaders in your industry.  The Dallas Observer has about 51,000 followers, so there's a good chance that by replying to this tweet, we'll have some eye balls on our logo. A little tip here is that (see arrow in the pic) by adding a period (or any characters) before mentioning another account (@) your followers will also see the reply.  If you do not add anything before the "@" only you and the other account see it.  Also, a bonus, any of their 51,000 that clicks on this tweet will see my reply.






















All of the strategies above will result in more exposure for a brand or company, but keep in mind, it takes consistency and reputation for this to work and result in more followers and referrals.  Just doing it once won't cut it.  If you think these are great tips, but don't think you would have the time to execute them, please check out our social media management package, and we'll do it for you so you can focus on your business!

Click here: social media management

If you think these tips will help someone else, please use the share buttons at the top. Thanks
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Social media is a great way for small, local businesses to get exposure, but the bottom line is....the bottom line.  The goal of any marketing campaign is to generate revenue for the business.  Way too often I see, "like us so we can get to ______ likes!" or "we really want to get _____ followers so please please help us out".  No one really cares about helping us get to a certain number of likes, fans, or followers.  We are human and we have a "what's in it for us?" mentally.  The problem with going after numbers is that is all you will get.  Just empty numbers.  If I could pay my vendors in "likes" I would! Unfortunately, they request actual dollars.  So how do you make money on social media? By attracting people that would actually buy your product or service or refer someone to do the same.  Don't get me wrong, we still need a healthy number of fans to make a difference, but here are a few reasons why it's all about the quality of followers rather than the quantity when it comes to building a social media campaign.



1. Quality fans can actually use your service:  When I say quality, I mean qualified or targeted.  For example a roofing company that services McKinney would benefit from having home owners in the McKinney area liking their Facebook page.  It would not mean much if they had people that did not own homes that lived in another state to like their page.  So basically, for them, 20 local likes from homeowners would be better than 1,000 likes from renters in New York.  Sure the "1,000" looks cool, but the "20" could actually write them a check.



2. Quality fans will engage your posts:  In this example, let's use a med spa in Frisco,TX.  A targeted user would be a women in her late 20's to 40's or 50's that lives in the Frisco area that has interests in spas and beauty (and yes Facebook knows these things) . There could be 2 strategies to obtain followers: Target everyone in Frisco or target the women previously mentioned.  The number of people in Frisco is obviously larger, but the med spa would benefit monetarily from the smaller number of women that have interests in spa services. Social media is all about engagement and if your posts "speak' to a very specific audience, your audience is more likely to comment on, like, and share your statuses.  The more they share and engage and the more exposure you get.



 3. Quality fans will stick around: When fans follow us because they actually like us or like our product/service then they will be there long term (assuming we provide great content and do not hard sell them). When fans follow our page due to a contest or "like" us just to get to a certain number of likes then there is no genuine vested interest to for them to hang around (especially if they aren't really into the brand or niche anyway).


Think about this analogy: We have TONS of names and numbers in our phones.  Hundreds! But if you really think about it, we only engage and communicate with a small fraction of those contacts.  Think of our social media platforms in that same fashion.  Are we just piling up contacts or are we attracting people that we can actually communicate with on a daily/weekly basis?

It truly doesn't matter how many followers or fans we have as long as they are the right ones.  If you need help finding more qualified followers, please do not hesitate to let me know.  Good luck in your social media efforts and please share this with anyone that it might help. Thanks!
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If you look at the homepage of this website on the right hand side, you'll see my Twitter feed.  Watch this quick video (after you follow us on Twitter, of course) to see how to add it to your website in just a couple of clicks:










Please share with anyone you think this may help and thanks for watching!