How social do you think you are?

Are you using your teenage daughter’s Facebook to get the word out? Are you hounding your staff about Tweeting on the job? Was your website built by your sisters son’s best friend’s cousin? Don’t just play Mafia Wars or Retweet because he’s your buddy. Use the tools for a purpose.

It’s time to take control and face reality: social media plays one of the largest roles in marketing today. Do you have a social media plan? You should. It’s as important today as a business or marketing plan is. Everyone uses social media today or at least those who are social do. But to do it right takes time and effort to learn what the tools mean.

Things to consider:

Try to post positive tips more than self-promotional ones, at least four or five times more. One of the top reasons people unfollow is because of overwhelming marketing, boring or repetitive posts.

Retweet an article because it makes good business sense to you and your clients. Make sure the offering is sound. Link it to your Facebook page or latest news from your company blog.

Spread your posts out so that when your followers log in, they’re not inundated with only your posts. It’s a sure way to get unfollowed.

Always try to put a link in a post for more information. You can only say so much in Social Media. Use simple and positive language. Remember that it is ‘social’ media. Include an action phrase to motivate your followers like saying ‘please retweet or please like. Research shows that more LIKES are made on posts at the end of the week, so make the ones on Friday count. Be polite. Thank your followers for retweeting or mentioning. It’s all about relationship-building.

Remember that when sending email newsletters to customers and prospects that they need to benefit from the message or they’ll opt-out from further mailings. It’s not just about you.

If you can keep these basics in your head, they’ll help you become more social. The Internet’s not going away, so leverage it’s power and grow your business!

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Franklin Beecham is a visual artist. His paintings are collected internationally. He is also the Founder of markhamartcollective.com an online visual art resource.

Website:  http://www.beecham.ca

http://www.markhamartcollective.com  

Embracing the Power of the Internet

As a visual artist, I have noticed a lot of traffic in recent years to my website. The Internet is a powerful communications tool that is essential to promotion and awareness not just for big business, but also for the individual.

Due to my expertise I have been able to get my site ranked high in search engines, and because of this I have ‘met’ some interesting people and been involved in many positive  online activities. Each year I have been interviewed by university fine art students from across North America wanting to know what its like to be an artist from a philosophical standpoint to the technical. They are so appreciative of whatever knowledge I can offer. I have also been contacted by artists requesting ways to improve their own professional web experience. If I can point them in the right direction, I will. The world is a big place and there’s plenty of room for all of us. Most of my paintings have been acquired by collectors through the use of the Internet, from across the USA and Canada, and as far as Asia. This certainly brings the world community closer to home.

All it takes is a website and a little bit of knowhow. You don’t have to be a pro to do this. I have an artist friend who, without any prior skills, has her own website, blog, Twitter and Facebook accounts. The key is to be consistent and up-to-date. Its one thing to do local art shows, but its another to garner sales from the other side of the planet! Join as many user groups as you can and learn from what experienced artists have to say.

Don’t be scared of the Internet. There are some great no cost services that can get you started. WordPress offers great free blogging tools. Twitter and Facebook are free. You can even take credit card sales via the secure PayPal service.

If you want to stay far away from the technical side of marketing yourself, its best to hire a professional rather than use cousin Joe’s best friend’s brother-in-law.

Contact me or my colleague, John Stephenson. We’ve been doing this for a long time!

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Franklin Beecham is a visual artist. His paintings are collected internationally. He has also created branding solutions for the Markham Arts Council and the York Region Arts Council.

Website:   “http://www.beechamcanada.com” www.beechamcanada.com

Web log:  “http://www.markhamartist.com” www.markhamartist.com