TOP 5 social media tips for Social Media Week from Social Media Week’s Personality of the Year!

The launch of Social Media Week reminds me of 2 years ago, 2012, when my fans voted me Social Media Week’s Social Media Personality of the Year…

I had some fun making that happen… put a few noses out of joint… made me smile… let’s reminisce a little on this, Social Media Week launch day 2014 >>>

When I first got involved in email marketing back in 2001 most Marketing Directors I spoke to would both struggle to see the value of email marketing and be reluctant to put their reputation on the line.

They wouldn’t get into trouble for doing what everyone else did by spending £10k on a postal mailshot that would produce minimal response but unsure how an investment of £1,000 would go down, they’d do nothing!

These days Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn & Google are parting corporations with their branding pounds, dollars and yen with Marketing Directors falling over themselves to get the top spot believing the 100 success stories they’ve heard, unable to evaluate the 1,000,000 failures that didn’t get posted online, that they’d be silly to invest it elsewhere.

Corporations can afford to take the gamble, invest a few million and then change tack… SMEs don’t have that luxury, they need to invest wisely and so here are a few suggestions for what they’re worth…

1. START A BLOG – invite your contacts to follow you, invite them again… real life means you open your email and look at the last 10 emails to come in… enjoying a nice virtual snack… more than that tends to give you indigestion!  So you need to invite folk 6 times for them to see it once… pick different days & times to send the invites.  Once they are signed up they will probably look at 1 in 3 of your emails and 1 in 3 of those properly… so regular blog posts maximise the chance that people truly understand what you can do for them.

2. ENGAGE ON LINKEDIN – start by engaging in the groups… learn how best that resonates with others… then start your own group… it’s not about numbers, it’s about them coming back and joining in conversations. I have the Business in Berkshire LinkedIn Group, my pal Mark runs “Let’s talk here” which has a 5th of my members but twice / three times the comments.

3. TWEET WITH CONFIDENCE – Twitter is a powerful channel… especially for those who prefer to use a few words… don’t ignore it but also don’t assume everyone listens to all your tweets… only a fool ignores the 1% rule 😉  People are not going to be reading your timeline but they will be picking up on #hashtags so use them… and sending people a @personal tweet is a great way to say hello to someone… the best way to get ignored is by setting up an auto tweet which says “Thanks for the follow… now follow us on Facebook!” It is rather passé…

4. EMAIL WEEKLY – knowing that only 10% will open and 10% of those will click… which means that your blog is way more powerful, sending each story in full to the email account of your fans… as people used to enjoy reading papers, many will still enjoy getting emails but other channels are more powerful in 2014… your blog being the most powerful.

5. TALK TO REAL PEOPLE IN REAL TIME – It’s not what you say to people that matters, it’s how you make them feel that they remember according to those that know their a,b.c’s 😉 So party on dude… get out and press the flesh and use your social media channels as the marketing platforms they are, reinforcing your greatness once folk have felt your magic 😉

Enjoy Social Media Week #SMW14 #SMWLDN and let me know which events you enjoyed below >>>

Thank you.

Jon