Is the secret of your small business success linked to the secret of Facebook’s success?
Facebook recently announced financial results that blew expectations out of the water and its stock shot up on the news. But if you’ll dip into your medium-term memory for a moment, you’ll recall that a few years ago Facebook stock was hitting new lows not long after its IPO. This turnaround is, of course, based on exploding ad revenue and tied up with that fact is good news and (maybe) bad news for small business owners along with some very important lessons. Let’s start with the lessons that Facebook’s success is teaching us, especially in light of the question of whether or not to advertise on Facebook. Facebook ad revenue is up 45 percent over last year and – Get ready for it! – 78 percent of that growth comes from mobile ads. I don’t think there’s any other single statistic I’ve seen recently that does a better job underscoring the importance of mobile marketing in your small business. Advertise on Facebook? If you’ve been wondering whether you want to advertise on Facebook, you need to consider the question from the mobile marketing perspective. Let me point out another lesson that the financial success of Facebook advertising teaches us and it’s one that isn’t immediately obvious. I’m talking about the death of the Internet as most of us have known it. Consider this: Facebook is booming in both advertising revenue and users, and this growth is coming in the mobile sector. With that understanding, let me ask you a question: Are users accessing Facebook via mobile browsers, or the Facebook mobile app? I think far more users check Facebook via the mobile app than do via their mobile browser. This reflects a growing trend, especially among the younger demographic. Mobile users prefer using apps over navigating to websites using a browser. Is the Internet on its way to becoming just a pipeline to fuel mobile apps? Probably not entirely, but it’s certainly easy to picture a day when mobile users have a handful of mobile apps they rely on and scorn having to deal with the clumsy navigation delivered through the browser experience. Need a mobile app? This is pushing small business in a couple of directions. You should carefully assess your need for a mobile app and you should also consider advertising with Facebook, or another social media platform that gets a lot of mobile users. This leads us to why Facebook’s good news should also be good news for your small business. If you look at Facebook’s ad revenue growth curve, it goes up dramatically. It couldn’t grow this strongly if advertisers weren’t getting a decent level of success from the ads. I don’t think advertising through Facebook is a “slam dunk,” but I believe that if you are smart, or work with someone who has proven success on the platform, you can achieve your goals. In the shorter term, this might help you avoid developing your own app; reach your customers through targeted and tightly budgeted Facebook ads. (By the way, most of the easiest and fastest app development services charge monthly fees, so the cost model isn’t too different from the way you budget for ads. I looked at some DIY app services earlier.) The bad news, or at least the no-so-good news, is...
read moreThis Week in Small Business: Rob Gronkowski’s Winning Marketing Plays, and more
Rob Gronkowski has scored his share of touchdowns for the Patriots. He is also a winner on the modern marketing playing field. Tearing a page out of his marketing playbook is the subject of just one of the excellent articles in this week’s small business curated content. Leadership, management and productivity Google analytics is key to managing your small business website, and you must have it installed. But once you do, do you know how to understand and deal with your bounce rate? A major part of small business success today correlates to becoming a thought leader. This podcast will put you on the path to becoming a thought leader. Marketing and sales Are you good at marketing? Are you Rob-Gronkowski-good at marketing? Find out. Despite everything, Facebook is still critical for small business success. You need to understand how to leverage targeted advertising. But if you don’t want to pay for ads, you really need to know how to maximize your organic reach. And since we’re discussing organic reach, here are eight SEO techniques to boost your website traffic. Your blog is useless for content marketing if your titles don’t grab readers. Here are some good attention-grabbing strategies. If you think you’re having trouble ramping up your mobile marketing, you’ll feel better after you read about the headaches some legacy retailers are suffering. Discover how you and your employees can sell more by using mobile technology on the way to meetings and during meetings. If you’re planning a social media marketing campaign, here are six principles to carefully consider. See how 25 social media pros went viral and then swipe their ideas to go viral with your content. Entrepreneurship, startups and innovation This article details four resources available for veterans who want to start a small business. If that’s not you, forward the info to an interested vet! Opening up the crowdfunding platforms for non-accredited investors may change the face of small business funding. Here are the details you need to know. We’ve seen the sharing economy come to lodging and transportation. Is the legal profession ready for it? Politics, government and the economy Good news or bad? U.S. small business optimism unchanged in October. Believe it or not the economy in Washington D.C. – despite all the money that funnels through there – isn’t in all that great of shape, and it could be cause to worry… Maybe the best way to take advantage of the current economy is to be in the business of selling luxury...
read moreTune Up These Four Areas For Online Holiday Sales Success
This post is sponsored by Samsung. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Although none of the big greeting card companies have yet to market a card for Cyber Monday, it’s one of those special “named days” that virtually everyone knows about today. In fact, online shopping for holiday gifts has grown so much over the last several years, that retailers don’t limit their strategies to just Cyber Monday any more. Today, the entire five-day stretch from Thanksgiving Thursday to the following Cyber Monday has been dubbed “The Cyber Five.” With that importance in mind, let’s look at ways to make the most out of this intense shopping period for your business, as well as over the weeks that follow. 1. Social media You have probably fallen into certain patterns with your social media posts throughout the year. Now is the time to do some rethinking and targeting. If you don’t have an editorial calendar to finish off the year, start one. (And, by the way, continue the practice after the holidays are over.) Examine your merchandise and inventory along with your packing and shipping schedules. For example, if you have some items that have special shipping requirements that delay delivery times, you want to feature these products early in your marketing to prevent customers from getting excited by them only to be told that they can’t be delivered on time. Or, be prepared if you have items that are only offered during the season. Those “limited” items will be of high demand, so keep in mind how you are planning. If you have excess inventory, you might want to promote those items heavily throughout social media and offer instore promotions, discounting them dramatically to draw in customers. You can also use the social media, and customer reviews on sites like Amazonto discover the concerns and priorities prospects have regarding the items you sell. Review buyer comments on Amazon with an eye toward features they like and problems they’ve had with items like yours. Use this information in social media posts and blogs to persuade prospects. You can also search Twitter for posts containing keywords that relate to your merchandise. If you have a brick-and-mortar store, you can narrow your search down by location using Twitter’s advanced search. You could tweet directly to people who express interest in items you sell and even offer discounts codes or coupons. 2. Online advertising Take time to adjust your online advertising tactics. If you use Adwords, for example, thoroughly review your keywords and their corresponding bids. You probably want to rework some phrases to include holiday-related words. Being more aggressive with your bids is also warranted. In the same way, balance your bids with your shipping schedule. You don’t want to be paying a premium for keywords and sending people to your website when you know you can’t fulfill their orders in time for the holidays. Rewrite your ad copy to give it a holiday flavor, and don’t forget to change it after the holidays are over! Also, offer gift wrapping to support your customers. 3. Newsletters The holiday shopping season is a time when you can get away with sending additional newsletters to your email list. Plan your sequence with the calendar in mind. Encourage early shopping with discounts. Boost later...
read moreA small business pricing perspective: Higher is better
To get a perspective on small business pricing, let’s first take imaginary strolls through the aisles of two retailers: Walmart and Saks Fifth Avenue. Both are leaders in their markets, so this isn’t a criticism of either one. We’re taking this stroll to observe human behavior and psychology. If we walk through Walmart at almost any time of day, we’ll see a lot of people shopping, but if we hang out long enough and are observant enough, we’re going to notice a few abandoned shopping carts as well as some clothing that has been picked up as if to buy, but set aside randomly throughout the store. The folks at Walmart do a pretty good job picking up these discards, but they happen. If we do a similar stroll through Saks, we’ll find that they don’t have shopping carts, but that’s not really the point. What we’re looking for is clothing that has been picked up with the intention of buying it, but the customer changed her mind. Did you find any abandoned purchases in Saks? Me neither. The point I want to make is that psychologically, it’s much more difficult for people to abandon a high-value item after they have taken the initial steps to buy it. Smaller purchases are more inconsequential; we really don’t have a problem of saying “never mind” and moving on. Inexpensive items don’t have the same connection to our hearts and minds as do the more pricey items. This is important to understand when you set your small business pricing. Bigger items deliver bigger value and it’s difficult to turn our backs on adding sigificant value to our lives, both personally and professionally. I bring this up because I think some small business owners undervalue their products and services. I see this all the time in small business pricing. In a recent article on how to reduce stress in your small business, I suggested decreasing your workload by increasing your prices or order size. However, I understand if some small business owners are reluctant to ask for more money. There are a various ways to increase pricing in your small business. First, you can just start increasing prices across the board. Don’t be afraid to do it. I know a couple who once owned a small inn. The husband was always reluctant to boost prices. The wife wasn’t…and she usually won the arguments. The husband soon became a believer, however, because they never lost business with a price increase. Another way to hike your small business pricing is by providing more value. If you’re in a service industry, bundle together services and create higher priced options for your clients. Once you have significantly increased your average order size, I think you’ll find that it becomes easier for you to close sales. Fewer customers or clients will string you along and then balk at the last moment. So not only will your revenue increase, you’ll spend less time pestering your prospects. What do you think? Let me know how you have adjusted your pricing to get the best overall...
read moreYour first Tweet chat: What you need to know to be successful
I’ve participated in a number of Tweet chats and they are a great way to gain followers, establish your authority and both interact with and learn from others. Tweet chats are quite popular and if you plan on being a Twitter power user and leveraging it to become a recognized influencer, you need to jump in and get involved. If you don’t find yourself being invited to participate in the Tweet chats of other users – yet – start your own. If you’ve been wondering how to start a Tweet chat, here’s what you need to know to get going: Create a unique, short-as-possible, easy-to-type hashtag. Make sure your hashtag has not been used. It’s best if you establish a regular Tweet chat schedule so people catch on. Check for scheduling conflicts. Here are resources: Tweetreports has a twitter chat schedule (can also schedule your chat). Twubs has a list (can also schedule your chat). Calendar where you can view by topic/category. Chatsalad lists chats that are about to start or are in the near future. Schedule guests/cohosts who have significant Twitter followers. That allows you to leverage their promotional powers. Create a static web page that has all the details on your chat and how a Twitter chat works. Create promotional graphics, videos for your Tweet chat. Include date, time, hashtag to use and a subject for the chat. If it is a reoccurring chat, make sure to let people know that and then regularly update the information to reflect what will be discussed each week. Summarize your Twitter chats on your blogs. (They can give you a lot of ideas and direction for your blog posts and other social media.) Get participants’ feedback, input on the Tweet chat and future topics for chats. Analyze your sessions to find the most influential participants. Here’s a Twitter archiving Google sheet. It would be great to know if someone who participated in your chat had 100k followers, for example. Various Twitter clients can be used to participate in a Tweet chat. Streams or columns can be added to Hootsuite and Tweetdeck to follow the hashtag. Tweetchat.com makes it very easy to follow and participate in a Tweet chat session. To keep Tweet chats moving, you need to give your guests a list of questions that you will discuss. Without some advance notice, it can be very hard to compose responses within the 140-character length that Twitter requires. Do you have any recommendations to help people stage or participate successfully in a Tweet chat? Share them...
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