What Can You Do with an Email Service

What Email Service Is Right for You

Have you thought about using an email service to stay in touch with your customers and prospects? I’m sure you have, if for no other reason than the intensive marketing being done by Constant Contact.

Before You Select a Service; Know What You Want to Do

The truth is that all email services are not created equal. Some have features that others do not. Some charge based upon the number of emails sent and others charge based upon the number of subscribers you have.

How Many Subscribers Do You Expect?

Knowing how many subscribers you will have and how often you plan on contacting those subscribers can make a huge difference in the cost.

How Many Email Lists Will You Have?

Another factor is how many email lists will you have? Will you have both a list of active customers and prospects? Will it be a single list? Will you have a list for customers of each type or category of product or service you offer?

Are You Going to Do Email Campaigns?

Maybe you are asking what is an email campaign, so I will give you a brief overview. A campaign is typically a series of emails sent to subscribers.

The campaign starts with a letter of invitation to join the list (usually an opt-in or double opt-in) process to make sure you have the correct person.

Following the opt-in there is an immediate follow-up with the additional promised information. A few (7-10) days later there is another follow-up to ensure that they received the information and provide a second promotion. 12-14 days later there is another follow-up typically with some type of incentive to sign up. That may be it or 60 days later there could be one last follow up. It’s really up to you.

Some email services support email campaigns, some do not, and others only limited email campaigns or a limited number of campaigns.

To Opt-In or Not; or Will You Spam

Opt-In basically says do you want to participate and lets the reader know that they can opt-out at any time.

Do you want an opt-in or double opt-in process where the people signing up must go to a sight or respond to an email and confirm that they want to be on your list. If you don’t have an opt-in some, maybe many will report you as spam and can get you blacklisted; opt-ins are preferable to blacklists. Unless you are closely monitoring the service you won’t know that your emails have been blocked.

If the service isn’t offering an opt-in option that can be a problem. Maybe you don’t irritate the users but that doesn’t mean that someone else using the service won’t irritate their recipients and the backlash can hit you!

Opt-ins protect you as much or even more than they protect your recipients.

Will You Have Mini-Memberships?

A Mini-Membership has people sign-up typically paying a fee for a limited-term-membership (compare it to a four – 12 week class and sometimes up to one-year). Each week or month they will have the next part of their course delivered to their email box.

Some email services support this and some do not. Some will support several limited-term-memberships and others will support only one.

Before you select a service know what you services you are expecting them to provide.

———-

Tom Staskiewicz speaks and coaches on Social Media/Social Networking topics helping businesses, organizations, and individuals establish and manage their Social Media presence. Your Social Media presence doesn’t just happen and will not take care of itself. Tom helps you with those processes so your Social Media efforts will work for you.

Putting Power into Your Reviews and Testimonials

Negating the Negatives

Negative Internet Reviews

If you are like many businesses today you have experienced the negative review on Google, CitySearch, Yelp, or a plethora of other sites. In the process you have most likely noticed that these reviews hide behind an alias. The reality is that they, the reviewers, are cowards or even worse competitors.

To top it off Google, CitySearch, and the others make it difficult and costly to respond. This may be a good thing, because your immediate response would be a “knee-jerk” reaction and probably end up hurting your more than helping. You must remember that you are in the age of the Internet and the person who wrote the review will NOT be the only one reading your response. In your attempt to respond you may end up hurting future business from the eves droppers.

What Do You Do

One of the best ways to counteract a negative review is to get a good review; but not just any good review. Get one where the individual writing the review is willing to give their name and their city and state. You want credibility behind the review!

Get Credible Reviews

When you have credible reviews and someone points to Google, CitySearch, or whomever and it is a review that hides behind an alias; you can point to your reviews (good, just okay, or even bad) and say that YOUR reviews have quality. You can say that these are people you can talk to and they will answer your questions honestly. These are people that have nothing to hide.

You can, with the writer’s permission, use these reviews in your marketing and sales materials as testimonials of the work that you do and they way your customers/clients/patients feel about you, your business, your products, and your services.

———-

Tom Staskiewicz speaks and coaches on Social Media/Social Networking topics helping businesses, organizations, and individuals establish and manage their Social Media presence. Your Social Media presence doesn’t just happen and will not take care of itself. Tom helps you with those processes so your Social Media efforts will work for you.

Facebook – Posting from Your Page to Another Page

I Want to Post as My Page on Someone Else’s Page, but the Posts Show They Are from Me

I get this comment or the question as to how one Page can post on another all the time. Obviously the ability to promote your page on someone else’s Fan Page would be great. What an opportunity that would present for going viral.

Posting from My Page to Another Page

After some serious thought and testing on the issue I came up with a way to do it. It is not 100% fool proof by any stretch, but it can work.

What you need to do is use ShoutOuts! You may wonder what’s a shoutout. It’s the practice of posting something on your Page that includes the name of the Page where you want your post to display and prefacing it with the @ sign. For instance if you post includes @upproach; it will show up on my Page.

Here are the caveats.

1. You must be a Fan of the Page where you want to post.
2. The Page where you want to post must allow Posts by others.
3. You can find out if this is enabled by going to the Page and clicking on the Options button on the upper right corner of the Wall.
4. If you see Posts by Page, Posts by Page and Others, or Just Posts by Others; things are looking good and the @ option will work.
5. If the Page defaults to Posts by Page and Others all the better; your message will get more visibility.
6. Even though the Page allows these Posts; administrators do have the ability to delete your Posts.
7. You cannot reply to a Post on the Page. Your post will be a new post.

So there it is. I have tested between my own Pages and found this to work.

———-

Tom Staskiewicz is a Social Media/Social Networking Coach helping businesses, organizations, and individuals to establish and manage their Social Media presence. Your Social Media presence doesn’t just happen and will not take care of itself. Tom helps you with those processes so your Social Media efforts will work for you.

Your Fan Page Needs Your Friends

Do My Fans Need to Know I Administer the Facebook Fan Page

Here’s the deal. You created a Fan or business page under your personal profile; that makes you the administrator of the page. Unless you post something on the Fan Page that gives it away as to who you are; your Fans cannot tell.

Two Steps to Better Hide Your Identity

If you are still worried the best way to hide the details about yourself is through the security settings on your personal profile. What you want to do is manage the information that you want to share with everyone, your friends, and your friend’s friends.

The other protection is deciding who you will accept as a friend. You can control this and if there are people that you do not want to have access to your personal information do not send a friend request or accept a friend request from them.

You can also classify your friends using the FB “list” process and create lists and then assign your friends. When you post you have the option to select the lists that you want to see the post you are leaving. That provides an additional method of restricting who sees what content.

Why You WANT the Two Connected

The last thing is that your business reputation and brand come for most of us from our personal reputation. What role does your personal reputation play in your business and how much do you count on your friends for referrals. The more restrictive you are the fewer the referrals you will receive.

———-

Tom Staskiewicz is a Social Media/Social Networking Coach helping businesses, organizations, and individuals to establish and manage their Social Media presence. Your Social Media presence doesn’t just happen and will not take care of itself. Tom helps you with those processes so your Social Media efforts will work for you.

Can Your Business Really Have an Identity Separate from You?

Can You Really Separate Yourself and Your Business?

I do not think you could ever truly and completely separate yourself from your business. Today, I am thoroughly convinced that any attempt at separation is even more difficult than ever. In fact, the attempt to separate may be a death knell to your business as you attempt to establish your brand.

Businesses have always been tied to the owners/proprietors from the earliest shopkeepers to some of the largest single purpose corporations. The owner/proprietor was responsible for creating and building the brand.

Social Media/Social Networking Makes Separation More Difficult

Social Media/Social Networking offer incredible opportunities to build and promote your business and your brand. The problem is that many business people want to separate the two and that is extremely difficult, if not downright impossible.

I constantly receive emails and posts from people that want to separate themselves from their business. I am never told why they want to separate the two, just that they do.

Why is that? Are they afraid of something? Do they think that is how all big businesses became big businesses?

I have my business, UP^PROACH, but the reality is that I cannot separate it from me. UP^PROACH may be the name, but people know that it is my business. Whatever name I chose or will choose; the initial reputation and the reputation that the business will have for a long time is based upon my reputation and what I bring to the table.

I have worked many years to establish my reputation and brand; why wouldn’t I want to bring those efforts to my business? Why do I want to start over creating a new brand?

Proctor and Gamble, Colgate, Ford Motor Co

We can all agree that Proctor and Gamble, Colgate, Ford Motor Co, etc are all large companies. Where did they get their names? A little research shows you that these are the surnames of the people that started the business. Just like your business; these businesses got their start based upon the reputations and even the surnames of their founders.

Microsoft, Apple, IBM

Again these are all large companies and although the company names are not the last names of the founders; the reputations of the founders were critical to the initial acceptance of the businesses. We know the names and backgrounds of these company founders. We also know that the initial reputations for these businesses came from their founders.

The truth is that our personal and business reputations are intertwined and if you think that is not so; you are only fooling yourself.

Social Media/Social Networking Sites Present Challenges to the Idea of Separation

For sure Social Networking Sites present challenges to the idea of separation. It is increasingly difficult for owners to keep themselves separate from their business. A quick search on Google, Bing, Yahoo, or other search sites will quickly connect you to your business.

I believe that many of these people want to maintain the separate identities because they want the freedom to express themselves as they see fit in their personal life. While keeping those activities separate may be the desire or goal; the fact is the Internet may not allow that to happen. That would be great if you could do it; the reality is that the chances of truly pulling that off are slim to none.

The reality is that who we are and what we are is all over the Internet. Maintaining any semblance of privacy and controlling what people see is a figment of our imagination. Some people think because they have not established themselves on the Internet that they are therefore not on the Internet and even that is foolish thinking.

———-

Tom Staskiewicz is a Social Media/Social Networking Coach helping business, organizations, and individuals to establish and manage their Social Media presence. Your Social Media presence doesn’t just happen and will not take care of itself. Tom helps you with those processes so your Social Media efforts will work for you.

Your Circle of Communities Are Your Key to Going Viral

The Key to Going Viral

Everyone wants their Fan Page or business for that matter to go viral, but for most it is a huge challenge to make that happen. This is especially true for local businesses. How do you get your word out?

For your Fan Page or business to be successful it must go viral to your target market. So what is your target market? Have you defined it? Do you know your target market?

Local Businesses

For the brick and mortar business – which includes businesses like restaurants, salons, medical practitioners, etc. – your target is your local community. The people that will be using your service are local and therefore you need to reach out to people within your community.

When I talk about your community; it is actually your collection of communities. You have many communities where you participate. There is the community at large where there may be some relative awareness of who you are; within that community, however, there are many smaller communities where you are well known.

Your Circle of Communities

These are the areas you must penetrate to be successful. These communities include your church or synagogue, your school where you or your children attend, your sports activities where you or your children participate, your work and volunteer efforts, etc.

All of these communities are important to your business objectives when it comes to a brick and mortar entity. This is where, as Malcolm Gladwell says in “The Tipping Point“, your connectors, mavens, and salespeople exist.

Connectors, Mavens, and Salespeople

Your connectors, called that because they have lots of connections, put you in touch with the people you need or want to know. The mavens are those that spread your word far and wide. Your salespeople are those that promote your product or service to others.

As you successfully reach into your Circle of Communities and they become your fans; you need these contacts to be promoting you to the friends in their Circle of Communities.

The Power of the Ask

This is where the “power of the ask” comes in. You need to ask these friends to “like”, comment, or share what you have shared with them. You need them to be reaching out to others if you want your message to go viral!

Here is my power of the ask… If you like this Blog; please share it with your friends and others that you believe would benefit. Thank you.

Check us out on our Facebook Fan Page the UPPROACH Support Center and take a look at our Fan Page How Tos and Webinar schedule while you are there. Whether you are looking for the basics or advanced features we have or can have the webinar for you! Let us know what you would like to see.

You are welcome to use this information in your newsletters or Blogs, but please extend the professional courtesy of referencing UP^PROACH as the source. Thank you.

Copyright © 2010, UPPROACH

Does Your Social Networking Answer the WIIFM Question?

What’s In It For Me?

The reality is that people are always looking to understand how they will benefit from any activity or action undertaken. They may be totally supportive of an idea or a plan, but their own interests will eventually come into play. With that in mind do you have the WIIFM answer for your customers and prospects?

Does Your Offer Answer Your Customer’s WIIFM Question?

If you can answer that question for them and answer it repeatedly with a benefit that they perceive has value and is of interest; you will get their attention. We are all bombarded with information constantly and one of the easiest ways to weed through the information is by looking for those messages that quickly tell them what is in it for them and make if very clear what they have to gain.

They will take that information and then weigh it against their cost. If the benefit out weighs the cost, they will be interested and act. If the perceived benefit does not outweigh the cost, they will move on to the next offer.

Do You Struggle with the WIIFM Question for Yourself?

So whether you are promoting yourself, your business, your service, or your product; you must be able to provide your reader with an answer to the WIIFM question. If you can’t or you don’t it is wasted effort on your part and you then need to look at the WIIFM question for yourself.

If you don’t want to put the work into your own activities then YOU must be failing your own WIIFM question. For whatever reason you do not feel that putting the effort into your own activities is worth the benefit you will receive.

———-

Tom Staskiewicz creates networking strategies that help you build your individual and business brands. Ask him how! Check out the UP^PROACH website.

Social Media.. What Site or Sites Are Best for My Business?

Few Companies Take the Time to Select the Social Media Sites that Will Be Best for Them

I don’t know how many times I have read purported experts telling organizations that they should have a presence on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Plaxo, Friendster, MySpace, etc. I have heard them specify up to 10 sites that they state are critical to your business. Do they really know? What is their proof?

If you go looking for sites on your own you will see that Wikipedia lists over 190 different Social Media sites. On top of selecting your Social Media sites; businesses are told they must be blogging and oh, by the way, you should do podcasts in your spare time.

The reality is that there are way too many options and no business, regardless of how well staffed they are, can effectively participate in all these sites or even 10 sites. To make it worse many so-called Social Media consultants or experts spend little or no time understanding your business or helping you develop a strategy. My experience is that their interest is to get you involved in Social Media Sites far more than helping you achieve Social Media success.

What Do You Hope to Accomplish with Social Media and Why?

Before you jump into any site you must first understand or determine what you are attempting to accomplish. You must be able to answer these questions:

• Who do you want to talk to?
• Where do members of your audience spend their time?
• What Social Media sites serve your audience?
• What is interests your audience?
• What information can you contribute to meet their interests?
• How often do you want to talk?
• What of quality or value do you have to say?
• What action do you want your audience to take?

I am sure you can come up with other questions that will help to narrow your focus and evolve your strategy.

When you can answer these questions you are then prepared to start evaluating which Social Media sites will best serve your purposes. Certain sites lend themselves better to one objective or another and none are a one-size fits all solution.

The mistake that you do not want to make is to spend time in places where you will not find your customers and prospects or where you have nothing to add to the conversation. My friend, Neal Shaffer, wrote the blog post 5 Reasons Why Your Social Media Strategy Isn’t Really a Social Media Strategy.

Your Social Media Strategy Must Be Evolving

Your Social Media strategy must be evolving. Social Media sites will come and go, customers will redefine their interests, and/or you will change your strategies. You must be prepared to adapt and change as your needs change.

The reality is that businesses must pick and choose their Social Media sites with care. Just like you take care in selecting your product or service lines you must be using the same care in selecting your Social Media sites.

Social Media Has Much to Offer Businesses, but They Must Do Their Homework First

If you take the time to do your homework; your chances of success will increase geometrically.

Begging for Facebook Fans

Are You Looking to Build a Following for Your Facebook Fan Page?

There are lots of fan pages out there and many, if not most, go begging for fans. Interestingly I see many posts of people saying “Be my Fan”, “Follow My Page”, “Click on This”, etc. That may work with some people, but you will never gain a quality following using that process. That is unless you are a celebrity and people are ready to jump at anything you say or do.

To Be Successful Facebook Fan Pages Need Fans

Without a doubt your page will be far more successful when you have 100s or 1000s of fans; but you will never reach that goal by begging. You must be providing value to generate fans. There are many different ways to provide value or otherwise encourage people to follow you; but you must be providing something in exchange for their clicking “Like” and becoming a fan.

What Do You Have to Offer?

Obviously one of the first things that you can be offering is valuable information. For instance if you are reading this article; you obviously believe that there is value in the information. Providing information that is helpful and can add value to your readers can be the enticement necessary to get them to become your fan.

Some pages gather fans by offering specials, using coupons or other pricing incentives, running promotions, and other activities to encourage participation. All of these actions can help in building your following. Along with those activities you need to be regular in your postings and activities. People are not interested in Pages that stop and start.

On my page UP^PROACH I offer Fan Page tips. This is gaining me a following and therefore people must believe that there is value in what I am saying. If I can do it, so can you.

Make your Fan Page appeal to readers by giving them quality!

Why Businesses Must Blog

If You Are Not Blogging You Are Missing One of Your Best Marketing Tools

I frequently hear people say that they do not have the time or inclination to Blog. That is a mistake! Blogging can be one of your most effective marketing tools you have in your arsenal. It is your opportunity to get you message out to a lot of people.

If You Think You Don’t Have Time You Are Missing the Point of Blogging

Many business people say the do not like to or do not have time to write Blog articles. While I can understand where they are coming from; the reality is that they are missing the point; they do not understand the power that is at their fingertips. Blogging is your opportunity to get your information out to as large an audience as possible. Blogging is the lead in to syndication and syndication is when you really get the viral nature of things rolling.

The Power of Blogging Lies in Syndication

Whether you like Larry King, Rush Limbaugh, Bill Handel, Ellen DeGeneres, Oprah, or anyone else you have to admit the power of their message is in the size of the listening audience and the quality of their message. Without a large audience they would still be a relative unknown. How did these individuals build their audiences? I can assure you it was not by knocking on doors or calling their friends to tell them to watch or listen. Although some of that most likely happened at first, it is not the way that they became as popular as they are.

They have succeeded through the power of “word of mouth”; Friend telling Friend telling Friend. When you start getting the word out things slowly start to roll. It doesn’t happen overnight normally, but it can. The speed depends on who you start with and what you have to say.

Using Celebrities

Businesses use celebrities to speak on behalf of their companies and products; there is no reason you cannot do the same thing with your Blog. Using a celebrity can be a jump start to your viral efforts.

What if you were able to get a Larry King or a Michael Jordan to comment on your Blog? It would be incredible because these individuals are followed by millions and where the celebrity goes; so go their minions. Now take that a step further. When you advertise on television or radio your viewer or listener may be impressed by the celebrity, but they must take action at some later point in time. If you advertise on the Internet with a powerful message, endorsed by a celebrity, all the viewer must do is click a link to get to your site or product. How much more simple can it get.

Don’t miss the opportunities; get with the program and get BLOGGING!