3 Tips to Grow and Enrich Your LinkedIn Network

Posted on May 26, 2015 by Laurel Lindsay

Having a strong LinkedIn network is very beneficial to your professional career. It can help you land a job, learn new things and make new connections that you never thought would be possible. Although many professionals have a LinkedIn profile, many are still not taking full advantage of the social network. The following are three proven ways to grow and enrich your network on LinkedIn:

1. Go to Events & Take People for Coffee (Add people in the moment)

The most fundamental way to grow your LinkedIn network is also the most old school, but going to events gives you a chance to meet unique individuals with many different backgrounds. Instead of bombing out random add requests on LinkedIn, make real human connections first, before adding anyone. Once you’ve made the initial interaction, consider taking the new connection for coffee. Even if the individual doesn’t work in your field, bring a list of random questions as there is still likely something to be learned or another networking opportunity may present itself. An under-utilized strategy for events and coffee meetings is bringing out your smart phone and adding people with the LinkedIn app on the spot. That way you won’t forget, or have to remember cards or emails.

2. Engage with Your Network (comment, like, share, endorse or recommend)

Similar to all other social networks, you cannot expect anyone to engage with you if you aren’t engaging first. More active members of your network will likely share original composition posts which are great for commenting on with your thoughts, or sharing the post with your network. These posts will allow you to get your profile out to more people, in a shorter amount of time. Less active networks will share trending articles, memes, videos or inspirational messages and liking or commenting on these types of posts will show your support for the author but it can also open up the opportunity for other LinkedIn members to see your profile and connect. If you’ve worked directly with a connection for some time, consider endorsing one or a few of their skills and if you’d really like to show your support, write a personal recommendation. These are all ways to ensure your profile stays active and relevant.

3. Share Original Content

Once you feel comfortable with the size and engagement of your network, it’s time to start
sharing original content. The best way to share your ideas is with LinkedIn’s publisher feature. Don’t focus on the length so much as the content on the page. Write about topics you have first hand experience in and do your best to provide real world value that can be applied by anyone who has the drive. Adapt your content overtime as you may notice that some topics tend to be more popular than others. Interviewing a colleague or friend is a great place to start if you can’t come up with any unique ideas to write about. If you already have some writing experience, you can use these posts to showcase your knowledge, expertise or unique skills, all of which will show well to your network.

In a world where “who knows you” is often more important than “who you know” growing and enriching your LinkedIn network can take you a long way professionally. With a few simple steps, you’ll see your network grow exponentially and over time the engagement will increase and the possibilities for the future will be endless.

“There’ll always be serendipity involved in discovery.”
– Jeff Bezos

3 Simple Ways to Help your Blog be Found and Read

Posted on May 12, 2015 by Laurel Lindsay

The societal shift towards instant gratification in our media has completely altered the way we think about producing and digesting the written word, with online blogs in particular being a major force in the changing habits of both writers and readers.

When people say they want to read an epic blog post, they’re no longer talking about the length. As sad as it might sound to those with dreams of grandeur, unless you are a specially talented wordsmith or raconteur, the 2000 word wall of text you wrote for your digital marketing blog is unlikely to engage many people.

People want quick fixes of pleasure to get them through the gruelling fifteen minute bus commute to work, lists of easily digestible facts that go well with a coffee, and bite-sized nuggets of information they can devour with their fries on their lunch break.

If you’re regularly producing content for your digital marketing blog but finding the amount of either traffic or interaction is lower than you’d hoped, it might be time to rethink what you thought you knew about your desired audience.

Plan for the scan

The first thing to understand when producing content for your digital marketing blog is that even those who read it probably don’t really read it. When digesting web content, people scan, and the way your blog posts are formatted will be a bigger factor in people reading and interacting with them than even the content itself.

Because your digital marketing blog may live or die by the format, it has to be clear. We all know the importance of a good headline, but subheadings are just as vital in breaking up your topics into easier to swallow chunks, and even helping the reader to decide if they can skip to the next paragraph.

Using keywords in the subheadings is a very good idea too. Not only does it help with SEO, but it will also reinforce the relevance of the article to your reader’s interest if they have found it through an organic search.

To boldly go

To help the reader of your digital marketing blog pick out the information they are looking for, making bold the key points will cause them to jump out from the page.

Using this technique benefits yourself as much as it does your audience. While you may like to think they care about every line in your posts as much as you do, and want to spend time taking everything in, they probably don’t.

So while guiding them to the parts they want to see and showing them what to skip over by making bold the important points might sound counterintuitive for those wanting all of their content to be read, your reader is actually more likely to read more of your other digital marketing blog posts if you’re making it easier for them to find and digest the information.

Words and pictures

Whether images or video, using multimedia in your blog posts is vital to stimulating your reader into taking the action you want them to take.

As well as providing a break from the words, and being another effective way of breaking up the wall of text, images and video can get across messages in a way plain text never can.

The important thing to remember is to keyword your multimedia, usually by renaming the file before uploading, to give your digital marketing blog another chance to be found on Google.

People are increasingly going straight to Image searches to find what they are looking for, but your multimedia will not show in the results if it still has a generic, alphanumeric title.

Because most people scan articles on the internet rather than reading them, making your digital marketing blog easier to digest by breaking up the wall of text with key worded multimedia, subheadings, and with the important points made bold is vital in allowing your audience to find you, and in keeping them coming back.

For a look at our One Minute Tips and more on this topic, check out our Youtube page here:

Tweet like a Rock Star – 3 tips for easy Twitter Marketing

Posted on May 8, 2015 by Laurel Lindsay

Since its genesis in 2006, Twitter has become a global stage that anyone can step onto, grab the mic, and sing to their own audience. Thanks to the potential for easily reaching such a wide array of fans, it has become an integral part of most small business marketing campaigns today.

The only problem is, with so many voices vying to be heard, how can you make sure you don’t become just another brick in the wall?

Being middle-of-the-road means getting drowned in sound, your voice left unheard along with anyone else who only seems to sing for themselves. If you want to get noticed, you have to leave the world of MOR, and concentrate on leaving people wanting MOAR.

This means escaping the road to nowhere and learning how to tweet like a rock star. By following these three simple tips for your Twitter marketing campaign, you’ll soon be well on the way to headlining your own gigs.

Plan your setlist

The best rock concerts are the ones where it seems anything can happen. Of course though, the band do know exactly which songs to play and in what order to hold the show together.

In much the same way, the tweets you send out as part of your marketing campaign can be prepared, put down into a list, and scheduled to automatically go out in sequence and at specific times.

By using a service such as Buffer or Hootsuite, you can easily schedule a whole list of tweets that will be sent out whenever you choose. The benefits of this are twofold, giving you more free time by allowing you to schedule all of your tweets for the week ahead in one session, while also ensuring they are sent out at optimal times, when more people will see them.

Collaborate with your peers

Going solo is a career move that has worked for many rock stars, but doing so on Twitter is one of the worst strategies for your marketing campaign.

Giving a shout out to people, be they your fans or people in the same industry, will make them like you a whole lot more as they appreciate the effort you put into acknowledging or promoting their content too.

Every time you mention somebody or re-tweet their post, they’ll receive a notification, which gives you a chance of being mentioned or re-tweeted in return, with the latter being a big deal if they are a bigger influencer or have a wider audience than yourself.

Perhaps more importantly than receiving reciprocal Twitter activity however is the fact that by appearing in their notifications, you are keeping yourself at the forefront of their minds, which is the best place to be for your marketing campaign.

Hold live shows

As recently as a few weeks ago, Twitter acquired and launched Periscope, a live streaming video app that is looking to add a major string to the social media giant’s already impressive bow.

Downloading and installing the app will allow users to stream and view live videos on their Twitter profiles, increasing the options for creative new ways to bring your marketing campaign to your growing audience.

The live streams also take up more screen real estate than text-only tweets and engage the user for longer than a single image will, helping your content and name to stick in the mind for longer.

For a marketing campaign to have the desired results, standing out from the crowd on Twitter is a must. By following these three tips, you’ll open the doors to tweeting like the rock star you’ve always wanted to be.

Why Your Facebook Reach has Bombed and How to Fix It

Posted on March 24, 2015 by Laurel Lindsay

Since its inception around a decade ago, Facebook has grown and evolved into something far bigger and far different to anything the creators could ever have imagined.

Beginning life as a social network exclusively for Harvard students, the site has since expanded globally to become what is essentially the world’s largest database of potential customers for those wishing to advertise to them as part of their digital media marketing. In a manner of speaking, Facebook has left school and gone to work.

For enterprises of all sizes, from the multinational to the sole trader, having a Facebook business page has become almost a prerequisite. As one of the most successful companies of all time though, Facebook has of course recognized the power it possesses in controlling both the advertising platform and the audience.

Unfortunately for those with fan or business pages, Facebook has recently made changes to take advantage of this power, which has meant these pages’ organic reach have plummeted. If you’ve found this happening to your own page and affecting your digital media marketing, read on to find out why and how you can fix it.

Pay to play

Companies as successful as Facebook don’t often leave money on the table. If you’ve seen your Facebook digital media marketing efforts bringing increasingly worse returns, it will be due to the site changing their regulations and, more importantly, their algorithm.

From now on, business page posts will no longer show up in people’s news feeds in the way that personal updates do. The reason your engagement has bombed is because nobody is seeing your posts; and if nobody is seeing them, what is the point in even posting them?

There is however something you can do, and it goes back to Facebook not leaving money on the table.

Every time you post, you have the option of boosting it. Boosting a post is essentially paying to advertise it, either to people who already like your page or to the wider Facebook community as a whole. The typical cost works out to be around six dollars a day, but there really isn’t any way around it. Now, if you want to play, you have to pay.

What to boost

It’s no secret that visual posts tend to get more engagement than those featuring text and links only, so it follows that these are the best type of posts to spend your money on boosting.

Facebook however does set guidelines that all advertisers using the platform for their digital media marketing must follow, with the 20% rule in particular concerning the amount of space in an image that is taken up by text. By overlaying a 25-box grid over your image, Facebook can see how many of these boxes feature your text. Any more than 5 means you will have violated Facebook’s 20% policy, which will prevent your post from being boosted.

Ensuring your posts are more visual than promotional is vital if you want to remain in Facebook’s good books.

Who to boost to

Although Facebook has begun to charge money to allow you to reach its massive database of users, the good news is that the database itself is still there, and Facebook’s boost options allow you great flexibility in who you want to see your boosted posts. The ability to target posts and adverts with such precision is a dream come true for those involved with digital media marketing, which is why Facebook is so confident in its recent algorithm changes.

Depending on the nature of your posts, you can boost those about new products to people who already like your page, boost posts introducing your company to friends of those who like your page, and even tailor your boosts to certain geographical locations, age ranges, gender, and general interests.

The ease with which Facebook provided a world of potential customers for free to those in digital media marketing was never going to last forever, but by knowing why your engagement has been worsening and knowing how to set it right, you can steal a march on those who may still be unaware of the recent changes.

http://bit.ly/Facebook-Grid-Tool-1

Marketing Strategy: Have A Blog? Become A Publisher on LinkedIn

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Brooke Boser

Do you write a blog for your business? Have you ever wondered how to get more exposure for your blog and/or website? Do you want to expand the reach of your message? For the sake of your marketing strategy and growing your business you should have answered ‘yes’ to all of these questions. That’s why it’s worth learning more about Pulse, which is LinkedIn’s Publishing platform.

In 2013, the social media platform LinkedIn purchased Pulse, a news reader app, for $90 million. At first, LinkedIn planned to use this app on its platform as a news aggregator and make LinkedIn a one-stop-shop for both networking and catching up on industry news. LinkedIn even compiled its own list of “Influencers” who wrote on specific industries and topics, and who could be followed individually by LinkedIn users. For over a year the only way you could become a contributor to Pulse was if you were one of these named influencers or if you wrote for a major news source.

However, the rules changed in February 2014 when LinkedIn opened up contribution to Pulse to all LinkedIn users, and essentially created it’s own blogging platform. This is BIG news for business owners. “Why”, you ask? Well, consider this: LinkedIn’s latest active user count is now northwards of 347 million users. While your published article may not come even close to reaching that many eyes, it’s still exciting to think about how many new eyes you can reach, and how reaching those people can help grow your business.

Still not convinced? Then consider these 5 additional benefits to publishing on LinkedIn:

Reach A Wider Audience & Create More Leads

Remember the 347 million? LinkedIn Publishing allows you to expand your reach beyond just your connections. It connects you to everyone. Take advantage of reaching this different, but wider audience in order to attract new business.

Increase Brand Awareness

Unfortunately, a lot of times people may be unaware of your company or brand. Especially if you are new to the game or operate in a smaller niche market. Publishing on LinkedIn can help you with this, as it will allow you to expand your network and share your story with more people. It will allow you the opportunity to be seen by new eyes, and potentially new clients.

Drive Traffic To Your Website

Like any blogging platform, you can add images and links to your article. This gives you the perfect opportunity to drive traffic back to your website. You could be talking about a product or a service, or just asking people to connect with you if they want more information. Any way you look at it, adding links to your article that drive people back to your website doesn’t just add value, it’s savvy marketing.

Build Credibility & Become An Industry Influencer

Share your industry knowledge and experience with your audience. Show them what you know and how you can help. Add value by giving them facts & figures, tips & tricks. Become the voice that people want to listen to and you will be well on your way to becoming an industry influencer, and a trusted source of information.

Create Engagement With A New Community

When you publish a piece of writing on LinkedIn, people are already geared up for engagement. That’s why they’re there! They want to connect and create conversation. That’s why you shouldn’t be surprised if you get a comment or two on your articles. And if this happens, be prepared to comment back. This is the perfect opportunity to create discussion and show your human side. Let people connect with the face behind the business.

There are many benefits to publishing on LinkedIn. However, as when writing to your blog, remember who your audience is. Remember that LinkedIn is geared towards business professionals, people who want to gain industry knowledge, or those who want to grow their connections. Keep your audience in mind, and also the purpose of your writing. Short articles can do well on LinkedIn, as long as they provide a clear and engaging message. Long articles can also do well, it’s really up to you and your writing style. The point is that it’s an additional platform for you to get your message across and to reach an audience that you may not have necessarily reached before. It’s a great opportunity for you and your business, and for your marketing strategy, it’s a no brainer.

If your business serves homeowners, you need to know about Houzz

Posted on March 18, 2015 by Laurel Lindsay

If you’re a designer, contractor or professional that provides services to homeowners, you need to know about Houzz- the new social media site specifically for homeowners to connect with providers.

This article will give you all the info you need to know about marketing your business on Houzz to get more customers.

Who uses Houzz?

Currently, Houzz has over 15 million monthly unique users – 90 percent of which are homeowners.

What is Houzz?

It’s a website where you can create an account and showcase your work. One of the biggest features to Houzz is the ability to add pictures of your past projects.

Users of the site can read reviews, see samples of your work and compare contractors before they choose the right pro for their project.

One of the reasons it’s become so popular is that it offers an ideabook, where homeowners can create a virtual scrapbook of images from contractor’s past projects.

Similar to the popular site Pinterest, Houzz is more effective in connecting contractors to homeowners because it allows direct connection, not just image collection.

Should my contracting business be on Houzz?

If you are a designer, architect, building contractor, or a professional that provides services to home owners—then Houzz is a great social media site for your business!

It’s important to know that before you sign up, that like any marketing initiative, Houzz will require time to properly build a strong profile.

As long as you frequently add images of your work, use keywords on your captions, and get your business involved in online discussions and reviews—a presence on Houzz will be a great marketing tool.

How does Houzz work to get me more customers?

Simply put, Houzz will help you get new customers by increasing your exposure to those searching for what you sell.

Not only do you get in front of Houzz users searching for service providers in your area, but Houzz profile and images can display in Google search results, giving you huge exposure to people searching for what you sell

How do I create my Houzz account for best results?

Create and complete your profile: Make sure you have a profile picture, a description of your company, and contact information.
Add pictures: The more images your company profile has the better. Provide descriptions that include your keywords with your images so other users will be able to find you through their searched keywords.
Spy on your competition: It’s a good idea to follow others in your industry to see what others companies are posting.

How do I use Houzz to get new customers?

Putting your contact information up, adding some pictures, and calling it a day really isn’t enough. Here are 5 ways to get maximum results from your Houzz marketing efforts.

Use the idea book feature:

Here’s where you can incorporate your keywords in a short description, and your website information.

Add past projects:

Here’s where you can add in the city where your project was completed to help you rank on local google search.

Tag every image with keywords:

Instead of uploading photos and leaving it at that, make sure you’re using the tagging feature to ensure your images can be found by users searching for those words.

Answer questions:

Make sure you’re checking in regularly to answer questions and engage with the homeowners that are in contact with you.

Integrate it with the rest of your marketing:

Add your Houzz profile link to your website and email signature. You may even want to mention it on your voicemail.

Maintain your account:

Be sure to add new images and projects regularly. Schedule time each day to check into your account and engage. The more activity you have, the higher you rank in search results.

If you want to discuss how to get Houzz marketing working for you, drop me an email to chat.

Social Media is Your Friend – Treat it Like One

Posted on March 17, 2015 by Laurel Lindsay

From humble beginnings, social media has grown from being a way for friends to share and stay in touch to become an integral part of corporate marketing plans for the majority of today’s businesses, and some of the most successful social media campaigns in the past have transformed their respective company’s fortunes.

Unfortunately, many companies still don’t understand the key elements of good social media practices, perhaps thinking instead that merely creating profiles and sporadically updating them is somehow enough.

It isn’t.

If you’re finding your social media efforts are falling short of what you’d hoped for, you need to be thinking about why that is. While the various platforms are now used for business, we should never forget where they came from. With that in mind, and to help analyze where you might be going wrong, ask yourself this: would I want to be friends with my business social media account?

It’s all me, me, me

You’re at a party, and you meet someone new. They’re attractive, and you get chatting. Ten minutes later, they’re still chatting, and you’re still listening. Suddenly, they’re not so attractive anymore. Social media is no different. Constantly talking about your own company, products or services is a surefire way to receive zero engagement on your profiles.

Successful social media campaigns are built on likes, comments and, ideally, shares. It’s the modern day version of word of mouth. This means interacting with other people, commenting on their content, re-tweeting, sharing, and making them feel good.

Then, like meeting someone at a party and having a two-way conversation, they’ll start checking you out too. If the like what they see, they’re going to tell their friends all about you.

The boring friend

It’s not nice, but it’s a fact of life. We probably all have at least one friend who, while being really nice and a great person, is just a little bit boring. In real life, it can be hard to keep making excuses when they invite us somewhere every weekend. With social media, ignoring them couldn’t be easier.

To keep your audience engaged, at least 80% of what you post has to be entertaining, inspiring, or informative. If it isn’t, people won’t need to think up a reason to not interact with you; they will simply stop listening, and find someone who does amuse, charm, or interest them. Successful social media campaigns do this as standard.

A little less conversation

Some people just know how to hold a great conversation. They’re knowledgeable, witty, informed, and entertaining. It’s a pleasure to talk to them, and you usually look forward to their company. Occasionally though, you have to go out and find stimulation in other ways: A walk in the countryside. A movie. Rock climbing.

Successful social media campaigns will always offer more than just words. Visuals like images, infographics and videos all capture the attention more effectively than text updates ever will. They take up more screen real estate, and are eminently more shareable than simple words too.

Investing in a stock image license or making your own videos is a surefire way of getting you closer to your dream of emulating those successful social media campaigns you admire so much.

I’m washing my hair

When friends organize get-togethers, the first people that are invited are those who usually say yes; those that are consistently there. Those who often say no, who spend as much time out of the circle as they do in it, begin to lose some elements of the friendship enjoyed by those who are always there.

Social media is the same. If you want to keep your friends, your audience, you have to always be there.

Inconsistent posting leaves your profile looking half-hearted, as though it’s only updated when you have the time or inclination, and is not a priority for you. And if it isn’t a priority for you, why should it be for anyone else? Consistency builds trust, which is key in successful social media campaigns, so a regular posting schedule should be devised and stuck to. If you can’t post every day, even once a week is better than a flurry of posts together and then nothing for the rest of the month.

Start caring about what others think

If you’re going to remain friends with people, it’s important to know what they really think of you, and to know that your efforts in the relationships are being reciprocated.

Social media is no different, and tracking the results of your activity is vital if you are to learn how to improve your engagement. There are tools that enable you to check what sort of activity your social media posting results in on your website. Do visitors from Facebook stick around or bounce? Are people checking multiple pages? How much time do they actually spend on your site once you’ve managed to get them there? What types of social media posts get the best reaction?

Checking these metrics is essential for all successful social media campaigns. Only by knowing and then acting on this information can you hope to improve your relationships with your social media audience, and hope to one day turn them into friends of your business.

Put your LinkedIn Profile to Work for You Today

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Laurel Lindsay

The world of online sales is constantly changing, constantly evolving, and constantly becoming a more competitive and crowded market for sellers who are all trying to catch the attention of the same group of potential buyers.

A good social media plan should be a part of any online marketing campaign, but even with the usual suspects of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram, the message can still come across as being a touch faceless.

Fortunately, there is one social media platform that is perfect for making personal connections with potential customers. Unfortunately, it is often overlooked by sellers who may not understand the real value of spending time on their profile, networking, and content.

LinkedIn was designed specifically to connect professionals in a suitable, dedicated online environment, and top sellers know this. That is why they may spend up to six hours a week on LinkedIn. It’s part of their social media plan, and here are some tips to help make it part of yours too.

Look your best before your guests arrive

You never get a second chance to make a first impression, and nothing looks worse on business social media than an incomplete profile. Like any platform used in your social media plan, the single most important thing to make sure of on LinkedIn is that your profile is 100% complete.

A photograph is essential, as nobody will want to deal with a profile without one. Remember also that LinkedIn is a business site, and you picture should reflect that. Professional headshots work better than a picture of you waterskiing.

Add a summary with all of your previous work history, including volunteer work and internships, and anything else you think might make a potential customer want to work with you. LinkedIn will even tell you on the right hand side how close to being complete your profile is.

Once you’re sure you’re looking good, you can invite anyone you know to connect with you. LinkedIn allows you to import your entire email contact list, which saves you the time and effort otherwise spent looking for them.

On LinkedIn, content is still king

Just like any other platform that is used in a social media plan, uploading content is a surefire way of being noticed on LinkedIn. Video or relevant images work well, as does linking to articles that you think will be valuable to your potential customers. They could be useful pieces you’ve seen elsewhere on the web, or links to your own company or personal blog. Sharing your own content should of course be another part of your social media plan.

If you have something to say but nowhere else to say it, it’s possible also to publish long form articles straight onto LinkedIn and have them show up in a very large sphere of LinkedIn members. Doing so can help you get recognized as an authority figure on a certain topic, and at the very least be a way of getting more eyes on your profile.

Whether posting links, long form articles, or just short status updates, remember to always add media. Even a simple image will be more eye-catching than just text, and will be far more likely to be shared into circles that you might not yet be in.

Professional social network is social

Despite being designed for professionals to connect with each other, LinkedIn is still is a social network, and that means you should be using it to be social.

This doesn’t mean taking vital time away from everything else you have to do in the working day. As part of your overall social media plan, just seventeen minutes a day spent liking, commenting on, or sharing your prospects posts will make them notice you, and encourage them to return the favor with your content too.

This has two main benefits; you will remain at the forefront of your prospects’ mind, and your content will be seen by people outside of your own circle, with a personal recommendation by proxy from your potential client.

Another way of interacting with people in your community is to make sure you give as many recommendations as you truthfully can. Similar to liking and sharing content, people will return the favor, and more recommendations for you will mean more credibility, increasing the likelihood of prospects taking you seriously.

With other social networks, it can be difficult to add a personal touch to business profiles without losing the professional message. For salespeople, LinkedIn is the perfect way to promote yourself personally as a respectable businessperson, and should be included in any relevant social media plan. Just make sure you follow our tips to maximize your LinkedIn potential.

Systems Aren’t Sexy, But Freedom Is. Why Documentation is Critical for Growth.

Posted on February 13, 2015 by Brooke Boser

Your business is expanding, which is a wonderful thing, but the more you expand the more you find your time being taken up by training and answering questions. This defeats the purpose of expanding in the first place, doesn’t it? Wasn’t the point to bring in help in order to free up your time to work on the business?

Before you go blaming the poor person you hired for this, take a step back and look at the systems you have in place. Do you have a shared calendar where they can see you have blocks of time booked off for focus work? Do you have a task management system in place where everyone knows what they are responsible for and when it is due? Do you have documentation available to show rules of engagement, processes, procedures, and templates?

Systems aren’t sexy, and taking the time to put them in place isn’t a whole lot of fun, but in the end, freeing up your time is well worth it. In fact, it’s critical if you want to keep you business growing.

Here are 9 steps you can take towards documenting your important business procedures:

Create flowcharts to show how a process should sequentially flow in order to reach an endpoint
Implement checklists to ensure all steps of a procedure are taken
Use screenshots where possible in order to give the person a visual representation of what is asked of them
Keep text in documentation short and to the point
Involve others in your office in the development of this documentation, in case they have suggestions or improvements
Clearly explain why they need to follow the process and what may happen if they do not
Keep all documentation in a central, accessible place so that people don’t have to search for it
Create a clear folder / taxonomy structure so that finding documentation is intuitive and quick
Review documentation at least once a year to ensure it is still relevant and up to date

In the end, the better the documentation you have in place, the less questions that will be asked of you, and the more time you will be able to spend on continuing to grow your business. Just think short-term pain for long-term gain, and believe that in the end, freeing up your time is worth it!

Learning from Successful Social Media Campaigns

Posted on January 21, 2015 by Laurel Lindsay

An ancient Chinese proverb advises ‘to know the road ahead, ask those coming back’. While it’s a safe assumption they weren’t talking with successful social media campaigns in mind, the sentiment remains.

For anyone wanting to develop their own campaign, analyzing and learning from what has worked before is an invaluable part of the preparation. Successful social media campaigns of course need imagination and originality in what the audience will see, but the philosophy behind the scenes contains some staples that have been proven to work time after time.

Plan your assault

Previous successful social media campaigns have all had one thing in common: a clearly defined goal. If you don’t know what you are trying to achieve, how will you know when you’ve achieved it?

Identifying your goals also helps you to tailor a campaign best suited to them; offering a free e-book download in exchange for an email will attract more subscribers if that is your goal, while spreading the word about a limited edition offer can increase sales, and a contest requiring the entrant to like, share, or use a particular hashtag can be great for raising your brand awareness.

Knowing your audience and the social media platform they tend to frequent is also essential.

Spread the word

If your social media campaign is to be successful, people are going to need to know about it. For those that already have a high number of loyal and enthusiastic followers, this is going to be far easier than for those just starting out.

If you are part of the latter group, there are still ways you can get your campaign in front of the eyes of people who may have never heard of your company before, and paid advertisements are an easy way to get your message out.

It is also a good idea to contact influencers in your field who may be willing to help you promote your campaign. If you can give them enough reason to share your campaign, it could be reaching thousands of their followers; thousands of people who listen to what this person has to say.

Ensuring that people are going to want to share your campaign is also vital, as is making it easy for them to do so. Incentives and prizes can help, but the most successful social media campaigns have always had more to them than that; they have gone viral due to people buying into the campaign itself, and whether the tone is fun or serious, generating an emotional attachment will always lead to a more successful campaign than any prize will.

Keep it simple

The vast majority of successful social media campaigns have been lessons in simplicity. If people are confused in any way by what you are asking of them, they will quickly move on to the next thing on their timeline. Simplicity comes in many forms, but the most important one here may be the action you are asking your audience to take. The easier it is for them to get involved, the more likely they are to do so.

Simplicity also extends to the design of your campaign. Keeping words and images consistent across the board will help people to recognize it, and if you’re offering a competition prize, making sure it is relevant to your campaign or your company will also help to keep the message clear.

Break new ground

The final thing we can learn from previous successful social media campaigns is that copying them will lead to failure. Nobody will buy into an identical campaign that is simply being rehashed by a different company to the original.

Everyone is looking for the freshest content online, and successful social media campaigns are often what they find. Learn the foundations from the masters, and use your own originality to make yours stand out from the crowd.