5 Best Uses of Google Hangouts!

Now this is next level engagement!!
           
    No matter what business your in or whether your just trying to reinforce yourself as a brand or go to source for information the best way to stand out is to STAND OUT! Utilizing Google+ Hangouts is perfect for engaging your followers or your prospecting clients. With Hangouts your able to conduct live conversations with yourself and up to 9 people which you could use to show off your expertise and/or demo your product all the while getting real-time input from the rest of your group, the video can be broadcasted live or posted later to be shared to the masses! Using Meta Tags you can make the content searchable and in turn engage a new audience with fresh information, giving them the opportunity ask questions about the video in the comments and if they love what they see they will share it too!

Google+ Hangout Features!

1. Video Chat with up to 9 People!

       *Establish yourself and others in your business as the go to source for information by scheduling public conversations about different aspects of your expertise. Appoint a moderator and make sure you begin with an arranged agenda and then provide the added value of the Hangout by allowing the audience to chime in with questions and let the audience steer the conversation with the information they are looking for and they will come back for more!
       *You can schedule your Hangout with a Q & A session for example and engage directly with your core audience or conduct a conversation with other experts to convey your message with in depth analysis.
       *Brainstorm publicly or privately about potential new services or products and get an immediate market response to what the public would like to see in such a product or service and even how they would like it marketed!


HINT:      ITS NOT A VIDEO- IT'S A CONVERSATION! Engage the audience for input on the topic. The end goal is to get engagement by making it fun, informative and appealing!

2. Demo your Product and/or Share documents, media or other files with members of the group!

         *We all know that some products are simply better demonstrated than explained.  Schedule a

"workshop" or demonstration of your product/expertise or both to add value to yourself and the brand or product! Show the many uses of the product beyond the typical ones that most would not think of to add even more value to the broadcast, your product, your brand and yourself.
          *Use Give-A-Ways to promote your Hangouts! I'm sure you can think of something! If your in business you surely have some overstock, if your an expert in a field you can generate some useful memes or info-graphics, etc.

HINT: Run a graphic to announce the Hangout instead of simply just announcing it on your blog or other social media. Its ok to to be personable and make small mistakes during the broadcast, your viewers will appreciate an honest representation.

3. Watch Videos on YouTube or other mediums together and chat about it!

        *It's a great idea to engage your clients with a tour your YouTube videos and other media with the client to add another level of engagement to videos and media you have already created.


4. Share your Screen with the others in the group!
   
          *Demonstrate your technical expertise by showing off! Allow the viewer to see your screen as you navigate menus, create files and graphics, or answer technical questions through demonstration. Add value by showing your audience everything that you can and will do for them!

HINT:  Build trust by pulling back the curtain! When can you really show off your skills to the client? its a lot easier to appreciate the final product when they can see all of the hard work they usually couldn't see!

5. Broadcast your chat live or record it for later! 


       *If your going to do a LIVE Q & A, post the topic nice and early this way the viewers can post questions regarding the topic and you can be more prepared to give a well thought out and detailed response.
       *Those watching your broadcast live can post comments and feedback, use this opportunity to engage the audience by replying as they come in.

HINT: After the conclusion of the broadcast be sure to post a summary of the conversation on your thread in case someone misses it. They can see in your thread if you touched on the topic they are interested in and add value to the missed broadcast by engaging someone new to be sure to catch the next one!

   

7 Steps to a Successful Facebook Content marketing Strategy

            So you have a local business and everyone said you just have to have a Facebook page! Now you have one but the only likes you have are from friends and family and maybe a few loyal customers… What did you do wrong? Isn’t it supposed to be automatic? Should likes, followers and leads just be pouring in by now? Having a facebook (or any social media page) is a marketing campaign all by itself and so it requires a specific marketing strategy like any other campaign. You need to know who your looking to reach, how to reach and engage them and just as importantly-A COURSE OF ACTION! This blog will give you the general strategy that will guide you from setup to upkeep and everything in between!

7 Steps to a Successful Facebook Content marketing Strategy

1.                   

                  Determine your image and or message and stick with it! You will have to generate content on a regular basis to keep your followers (once you find them) interested, reading and sharing your content. DO NOT JUST POST PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL! Your readers do not want to see one coupon or ploy after another which is the most direct route to get dropped! 2:5 should be the formula you follow, for every 2 posts of promo you do 5 more of other content you think your readers would fancy. Use humor and wit if appropriate, but keep it in some way related to what you want your businesses image to resemble. 2:5 should also be followed when determining how often you should post, you need to constantly add content to remain relevant so be sure to post around 2 times every 5 days.

2.       

                   Design your Facebook page! DO NOT ALLOW YOUR PAGE TO BE GENERIC! People aren’t interested in boring pages, it makes you look phony! Put the time, energy and money into the page and it will return the favor. Make it look professional and follow a specific color scheme with your cover image and your profile image. Choose a template that is intriguing and KEEP ON TOP OF YOUR CONTENT!

3.      

                   Integrate your Facebook page! Integrate your Facebook page (and campaigns) into ABSOLLUTELY EVERYTHING! Put FB posters up in the storefront with the Facebook page prominently displayed, use QR codes to make it easy for them to find you, incorporate links on your homepage, digital ads, add the FB Page to your business cards and promotional material (if you have old promo material without the FB page-it would make great kindle for the fire!), initiate marketing campaigns to encourage followers with promotions.

4.       

                    Use the Facebook ad tool! The Facebook Ad tool is so incredibly easy to use but TAKE YOUR TIME WHEN SETTING IT UP! You do it wrong and not only will it be an expensive mistake but most of the money you just spent will be wasted (not to mention you won’t know where you made the mistake and will most likely chock it up to the tool itself and not the tool that set it up!) Facebook has by far the most information on each of its users than any other ad or marketing firm so use it to your advantage! You can set the demographic by interest, location, age, gender, relationship status, employment, etc. Go thru the campaign with a fine tooth comb and be sure to set up your key audience carefully. You can also set up your ads to show at specific times, so if your key demographic is for school children for example you obviously don’t want to run the ad before 3:00 pm or after 9:00 pm. It provides apps for contests, giveaways and other incentives to build your following-use them! Be smart about it and you will love this tool!

5.       

                   Utilize the Promoted Posts! Once you have generated a decent following (a few hundred followers/likes) start to use the promoted posts on both the promo posts and the “puff” material. Facebook uses an “Edge Rank Algorithm” which will automatically limit the views of your posts by itself so of the 2-3 posts you generate a week most of your followers will probably only see one of them and you won’t know which one so the promoted posts is a good tool to use once in a while to be sure the message is received.

6.       

                 Add Media to your page! It is a proven fact the media (images or video) will be shared and commented on the most so whenever possible add short videos of you and your staff or professionally produced marketing material, images of your products or services and also like I mentioned earlier other media that is NOT promo material. Use “puff” media as well to engage your following, people aren’t going to share everything you post-they may not share any of it, but if you post something worth sharing make sure there is a link back to your facebook page with it!

7.     

                                    KEEP UP ON YOUR PAGE! Use analytics to see what works and what doesn’t. Reinvent your page every few months, regenerate new ads every few weeks, and add new content every week! Keep referring back to this list and consistently keep your FB image fresh! Change your profile pics/cover photo once in a while and try new things! You will most likely not nail the campaign off the bat, it will need to be fine-tuned constantly but if you follow these tips you will see the growth!

NOTHING GOOD COMES EASY! You can do this if you are smart about it! Who knows… once you see the power behind FB, sharing and social media with a good return you may just be ready to hire the big boys! Check out my last blog post on Empowering your product with Blogger Outreach for another efficient and cost effect way to engage your prospective clients! 

5 Steps to Brand Empowerment Using Blogger Outreach!

          Right now there are thousands of products out there waiting to be discovered and most are waiting for that special blogger to send them over the top! Not convinced a blogger has that kind of influence? According to Chief Marketer Research- 1 of 5 Niche businesses not only utilize Blogger Outreach but thrive on it! Chief Marketer Research also indicates that display ad spending will hit $15.4 billion in the US this year, climbing to $26.7 billion by 2016 which demonstrates their primary focus on ad spending for most companies to be increasingly digital. While Nieche business, in most cases, do not have the kind of money to compete in such a market they can get far more bang for their buck by utilizing Blogs! A blogger can empower a product or business simply by providing content thru their blog which will get picked up by their users, shared with their users “friends”, increases organic web presence thru web crawlers which will read said content and display your product in search engines thru relative terms!

           IMAGINE for example you own a local flavored nut company which offers a wide selection of flavored nuts. You’ve been in business for a year and while you are content with the local business you get, you have the web and social network pages (AND UPDATE THEM CONSTANTLY!!) but you KNOW you can do better! But how? PPC campaigns get incredibly costly, TV and Radio ads are running but you know that will really only generate a few new local customers and print is a waste of money…. What’s a cheap and EXTREMELY effective way to generate buzz? You guessed it! BLOGGER OUTREACH!

     

HOW TO GET STARTED WITH BLOGGER OUTREACH IN 5 SIMPLE STEPS!

1.       Research to Find your Bloggers! You want to consider the factors that are specific to your business. For example the Local Nut Company; you’re a local small business so look locally for your blogger! Local bloggers have an incredible influence on local customers not to mention they have an already founded local following that you should be looking to take advantage of!  After you have found your niche bloggers make sure you read their blogs! Know your contact, KNOW THEIR BLOG!

2.       Engage your Bloggers! You probably won’t get every blogger you contact so be sure to cast a wide net! Send out several emails but be sure to write each one specifically! DO NOT SEND A UNIFORM EMAIL TO SEVERAL BLOGGERS! They can smell them and if they even get opened at all I would be surprised! Show them that you made the effort, compliment their posts, ask them questions about their opinions and make specific references so they know you know who they are and what they post!

3.       Work with your Bloggers! They will not know your business, your product or your goals if you do not tell them! Let them know what you wish to accomplish with the campaign, be their go-to source for any and all questions they may have and make it very easy for them to get answers. Offer to send them a free sample of your product to review or even a few that they can send to their readers. Offer a guest blog post directly from you the owner or a member of your staff to give a more personal appeal to the readers. INCLUDE CONTACT INFO AND LINKS!!!

4.       Develop a plan for your Blog Campaign with each Blogger! Who do you want to reach? What kind of message do you want to send? What kind of information do you want to be sure to convey? What kind of image do you want to project? Do you want to offer discounts, give-a-ways or other kinds of promotions? Be steadfast in having a core message and specific goals! Your bloggers are a lot busier than you think and odds are they’re working with other local businesses as well so be sure to keep your blogger hooked with more than just free samples. Offer compensation based on conversion if you can.

5.       Track your progress and develop a compensation plan for your Blogger! Nothing is free, if you get a blogger to dedicate his/her time to writing a post for your business for a single bag of nuts than more power to you, but even if you do- how good is that review going to be compared to a compensation plan that completely depends on the traffic the blogger can generate? All internet traffic can be mapped with ease, it would be a cinch to assess how much traffic to your home page, social sites and even calls that result directly from the campaigns you have set up with each blogger.

The Digital/Human Connection

           Isn't it nice when a stranger smiles to you on a crowded street and for no discernible reason it just brightens you on the inside, you can't help but smile right back. And isn't it awesome how that same smile is so contagious that all the passersby that see that smile on your face get the same butterflies, sending infectious bliss rippling through the crowd. That's the human connection that you just can not define or explain. There is no compromise, there is no replacement or supplement for that human connection. Give me unlimited posts with unlimited characters and let me spill my heart to you a million different ways in text, but there is no emoticon for heartfelt emotion, not one for friendly sarcasm or to demonstrate real and true jest. Everyone says we should connect more, that we "need" to connect more. It makes us more efficient, it enables communication, it bridges gaps, allows us to network, evolve, etc. etc. etc... Honestly those sound more like the desperate cries of an addict pleading for another hit of connectivity from a digitally dependant population, rather than "real" people actually wanting to connect for altruistic reasons.
           To further yourself and your communities is what the true objective is when you connect in the "real world." School, church, extracurriculars, book clubs, beer pong tournaments all have one real thing in common, real people sharing real connections. Not one person has ever heard anyone ever say that all of this added connectivity makes us more human, if anything you hear the exact opposite but there is just too much money in the new mediums to ever go back. We have to be able to progress with the digital age without losing that human connection in the real world. You can build all of the online communities you want, create all the new and innovative applications and portals to keep in touch you want but you can never create a real community; a civilization with true human feeling, care, compassion and even forgiveness for your fellow man . The fact is in the digital medium- it just does not compute. You can have your one hundred million apps with 3 billion users and all the friends you can possibly fit into that handheld device of yours, I'd rather have a hug.
            Take the 2012 Summer Olympic Athletes Michel Morganella and Voula Papachristou as a perfect example of human emotion not transferring to the digital medium, these and all of the other Olympic athletes are performing on a such a global stage that they are icons, they are almost god like, so does that mean we hold them to a different standard? Absolutely we do, they are idols to us all but they are human like all of us and we all make mistakes. Both athletes were dishonorably dismissed from their respected teams for what was interpreted as racist messages posted on Twitter by each of them. You can't feel a persons true intent without reading their body language, your can't sense a friends displeasure without hearing the disappointment in their voice and you can't judge a persons core values in 180 characters. While I personally believe Morganella's comments to be at least slightly racist, I don't believe Papachristou's to be more than a bad joke, but regardless they both were judged and sentenced in the public eye. As a red blooded American it should sicken all of us, we all have our day to defend our actions, where was theirs? At this level of competition everyone of the athletes that are even considered have a level of heart that most can't even fathom. In the heat of competition sometimes you say things you will immediately regret, you can never take it back and it may not be forgotten but in the real world and on the field this level of excitement is understood, expected and even occasionally forgiven. Online there is no such empathy, it's typed into plastic keys but etched in stone. Those 180 characters now define them, their life long dreams-irrelevant, their dedication to their country- forgotten, themselves permanently branded as less than human because for one second their emotions got the better of them. What is this medium that it has such dominion over how the real global community judges one another?
         Often there are some things posted in one forum or another that does have the potential to add a next level of alliance between two or more users, a level that was impossible to generate in the digital world not too long ago. These events, whether they are posted videos, status updates blogs or tweets allow users to think that creating that real digital community is not only possible but inevitable, the thought is noble in its purest intent but frankly its just not feasible. There is just too many X factors in the human experience that can not be digitally replicated.  Recently, another Olympic reference, there was a video posted to youtube of the entire women's swim team singing and dancing to a popular song that gave a the viewer a more tenderhearted look into an Olympic team, adding a personal look at a group which are usually portrayed to be all work and no play. Because they were able to show that they can share a common interest in a popular song, and dance around like a couple of goofs (the way we all do when no one is looking), the result of the video gave the viewer a feeling of a next level of connectivity and made them feel involved and connected which added an even greater level of excitement and anticipation to the tournament. As nice as that is, it's incredibly rare to truly duplicate. It was dynamic and expressive as well as stimulating and full of emotion but so were the Tweets of Morganella and Papachrisou.  I'm not saying that the Olympic committee were right or wrong in their judgements, only saying that letting your emotions run free online will generally have the same result as drunk dialing, the next day most likely your gonna wish you could take back everything you said! My advice to everyone; including future athletes and anyone in the public spotlight that wants to stay there; as much as you want to share your success with those who have supported you, don't. Always be on your "A" game and be professional. As much as you want to share your emotions with your fans, friends and family, don't. People who don't know probably don't understand you and won't even if they met you, why give them an opportunity to judge you? Just a thought...