engaging | | Canadian Small Business Women

Mar 21 2016

Keeping it Consistent on Social Media

With millions of people to reach online, spread over hundreds of Social Networks, how do you keep up engagement levels with your fan base for your small business? The simple answer is: consistency. The more consistent you are in posting, liking and commenting through your business profiles on social media, the easier it will be to break through all of the online noise with your message.

Finding Consistent Content

Quality content is the most important commodity in the online world today; it is also the most time consuming to create. Don’t worry – the good news is that you probably have more to share than you know of. Answer these questions to look for existing content in obvious places and as a starting point to help you to start thinking of what you can post, share and create:

How many previous blogs, social media posts, videos or reviews can you repurpose?
Do you have daily/weekly sales or specials that you can share routinely?
Can you talk about any problems or concerns that your customers have that is relevant to your business?
Start thinking of your content as the voice of your business – What is your business passionate about?
If your business had an avatar, what would their personality be and how would their voice sound?

Posting Consistent Content

Once you have good content, it’s important to be posting it regularly. Social Networks function person-to-person, so be social! In order to be seen on busy social networks you have to be active, just like in real life. Posting content once a week just isn’t going to cut it. Ideally, brands need to be posting multiple things daily.

How does this work in practice? For example, if I have a daily special, then I might put a post about that special online each day at 8AM. If you publish a blog, make sure that you are posting that blog at the same time every week or month. Building around that single consistent daily post you can start to plan when (2-3x daily) and where (1-2 social networks) online you will share the rest of your content. Just don’t get so stuck on the plan that you don’t allow for any spontaneity in your posting!

Scheduling Consistent Content

Keeping up with this demand for visibility can be a huge challenge – content planning calendars are perfect for this. Using either a digital or paper planning calendar will help you to plan out what content you want to post, at what times and on what networks. It’s a good idea to stick to a basic posting schedule that allows for 2-3 posts daily.

Planning out 2-3 posts (or more) daily across multiple social networks can be a full-time job in itself (just ask me!), so busy businesses need to ensure they are not spending too much time each day thinking about planning their social media posts. You can save time by using apps like Buffer or Hootsuite to manage your social networking content calendars and pre-schedule posts for an entire week or month at a time. Additionally, there are many other Apps that work with specific platforms (ie. Tweetdeck for Twitter, Latergramme for Instagram, etc.) and Facebook has it’s own build in “schedule” for Facebook Business Pages. By pre-planning content, you can spend as little as 10 minutes a day online responding to comments and engaging with other brands.

The most important thing to remember is that an abandoned online presence is worse than no presence at all. You have real people waiting on the other end of “the internet” that want to hear what you are saying, so don’t let them down!

Teach Me Social owner Kelly Farrell has been helping empower Canadian Small Business owners through social media for over three years. Her team now offers services ranging from training sessions for small business owners and their teams, to full-service social media account management. Visit teachmesocial.ca to learn more about our service offerings or to contact us today for a no obligation consultation, including an audit of your existing social media channels.

Jul 10 2015

Why Your Business Model Needs to Evolve OR it will perish

When no risks are taken, there is no chance for a reward to be achieved. For a business model to continue seeing success, it needs to evolve over time because people evolve over time. Technologies are continually improving. If a business gets stuck in a world where they keep doing things because “that’s the way we’ve always done things,” then that is a journey which will inevitably lead to failure.

Target Canada is a prime example of this. In just two years of operation, the 133 store chain has decided to leave the Canadian market for good. It’s mistake? Assuming that operations in Canada would be similar to that of the United States. During the announcement, Brian Cornell stated that Target Canada had lost money every day.

More Marketing Doesn’t Save a Business

Many executives have a theory that goes something like this: maybe if we spend more money on marketing and make ourselves attractive to [fill in your favorite customer demographic], we’ll be more successful.

Unfortunately this thought rarely creates success. More marketing is not a substitute for ineffective business practices. If you’ve already got customers coming into stores like Target Canada had and they aren’t buying things, what will happen with more marketing? You’ll get more customers into a store that are still choosing not to purchase anything.

Sometimes going on social media is the approach. Engaging customers is a great tactic to use, but it also comes with a certain risk. People generally talk about the negative experiences they have with a business online and rarely talk about positive experiences. Businesses are expected to provide a positive experience. Engagement usually creates some feedback that is difficult to hear, which means it is ultimately ignored.

Social media must be part of a holistic approach. You’ve got to change the actual dynamic. You must choose to innovate. Once that happens, then you can begin a new marketing effort

Businesses Choose Whether or Not to Become Innovators

Change means risk. There is a chance that a risk may not pay off. Circuit City discovered that the hard way by losing over $100 million on their DivX product. Sometimes ideas are ahead of their time, like Microsoft’s tablets, which came out a decade before the iPad. Even looking at the struggles of McDonald’s right now show how quickly a company can begin to decline when changes aren’t received as well as expected.

Small businesses are not immune to the need to change. Failing to innovate and change is one of the top reasons why small businesses fail and die. Innovation has to be a component of change, which means change cannot happen without risk. It is a choice that every business makes, whether they realize it or not. Avoiding a risk is a choice to not evolve or challenge history, tradition, or the other roadblocks that might stand in the way.

How to identify places where innovation can thrive can sometimes be difficult. Adapting new technologies into traditional routines inevitably creates growing pains. Throwing more marketing at a problem, however, doesn’t make that problem go away. It just means more people become aware of it. This creates a negative spiral that inevitably ends in failure.

Evolving your business model can be uncomfortable, but it can also create enormous success. That’s why change, not more marketing, is so important.

Karima-Catherine is the co-founder of Red Dot Digital, a digital agency that strives to deliver top-notch solutions to various clients. Red Dot Digital drives real, meaningful, quantifiable business outcomes for companies. Karima-Catherine is also the co-moderator of #MMchat, a Twitter weekly forum which focuses on business, marketing and social media.

Connect with Karima-Catherine:

karima@reddotdigital.net

Website, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest

Apr 29 2015

The Biggest Mistake Made When Networking!

A few months ago I attended a networking event where someone walked up to me, and the first thing they did was give me a business card, spoke barely a few words and walked away, and I noticed they did the same with others, distributing their business card. I was at another networking and business event, where someone brings out a BIG bundle of business cards to give me one, and this left me speechless, but with a strong desire to revisit the art of networking.

Considering the amount of information out there on effective networking, one could be forgiven for assuming the art of networking would be common knowledge. The biggest mistake that unfortunately is still happening is when people see networking as an opportunity to ‘sell’, ‘promote’ or ‘get’ as much possible to their benefit.

Networking can be described as the process of interacting or engaging in communication with others for mutual assistance or support. Note the word ‘mutual’? When networking is done properly, its benefits can be endless, and includes making business contacts, establishing new friendships or relationships, or seeking advice and information.

Networking is not a race to distribute as many business cards or get as many cards as possible. Yes networking is effective for building your professional career or business, and I can testify to having great results from networking, but this happened when I was being present in the moment, being authentic, and interested in the other person.

From my own experience, trainings attended and reading done, one key point that cannot be overemphasised is that ‘Networking is about building Relationships’. Only in getting to know someone and vice versa can a need be met effectively. We need to change our mindset from focusing on not just what we can get, but to also what we can give. The law of nature and reciprocity has proven that in giving we are bound to receive.

How to Network Effectively

Prepare beforehand by having a positive attitude and think of what you would like to achieve from attending i.e. meet two new people today. However, keep an open mind at the event, which could open you to receiving more than you expected.
Have your elevator pitch/speech ready on how to introduce yourself effectively; short, to the point and effective.
If you feel lost, nervous or struggle to join a group that is already in conversation, find someone on their own and introduce yourself.
Develop the art of small talk; start a topic in relation to the event you are presently at, a related current affairs topic or admire something about the person you want to start the conversation with. Some simple conversation starters include ‘great event…’, ‘Is this your first time here…’
Listen and focus your attention on who you are talking with, imagine how you would feel if you were talking with someone and they are constantly looking around or at their cell phone.
Use open-ended questions that will help keep the conversation flowing, as opposed to closed-ended questions that solicit a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer.
When you receive a business card. Write a note on it to help jog your memory for the next time you look at the card.
Make sure you follow up after events; it could be call to say hello or how well you enjoyed meeting them. This helps to create a connection that you can work towards building.
Networking does not start and end with formal events, you can also network effectively at social events and online on social media.

We are constantly faced with opportunities to network in the many facets of our lives, and what you do with your opportunity has the capability to positively and significantly impact your life or not.

Share some of your networking stories or tips with us below. What do you think of Networking?

To learn about Yvonne’s latest book on Changing your Mindset for greater results, visit http://www.oliveblue.com/changeyourmindset/

Yvonne is an Author, Speaker, Change Consultant & John Maxwell Leadership Coach who is passionate about working with Individuals, Entrepreneurs and Organisations to help implement change they want and achieve their goals.

She can be reached at: www.oliveblue.com . www.facebook.com/oliveblueinc . www.twitter.com/oliveblueinc.www.youtube.com/ChangeYouWantTV

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