November 30, 2012

Guest blog: Jenna Dalton writes about productivity

By JaneFrankland | Lifestyle, Mindset, Sales | No Comments

My 90:5 rule to double my productivity

I’m an entrepreneur.

Translation: I always have a million and one things on the go and I need to stay focused to get it all done.

The problem is that I’m a bit of a workaholic. I love my business. I love creating. And I love organizing, planning and brainstorming.

But I was beginning to notice that my work was starting to suffer because I was working for hours at a time without stopping.

I would get on a roll and figured, “I’ll take a break once I finish this” or, “It’ll just take me another second, then I’ll take a break.”

But before I knew it, two, three, four… hours would go by and I’d literally have to peel my eyes off of my computer and get up to go do something else because my head hurt and my eyes were exhausted.

Know the feeling?

Well, I have good news! I found a solution that I truly believe has more than doubled my productivity.

I call it the 90:5 rule. I work for 90 minutes, take a 5 minute break, and then go back to work for another 90 minutes and continue the cycle.

Why? Well studies suggest that our productivity starts to go south after about 90 minutes. We have a tough time focusing and our brains are too tired to give us all they’ve got.

So, instead of pushing through and exhausting myself, I take a 5 minute break every 90 minutes. What do I do? I dance.

Yup, I actually put on some music and dance.

At first I did feel a little ridiculous dancing by myself – I made sure I went to my bedroom with the blinds closed – but now I absolutely love it!

And trust me. I’m not a professional at this. I have absolutely no background in dance (other than the one class I took as a kid which just reaffirmed that I wasn’t meant to be a dancer!), but it doesn’t matter.

The point is to get up, get moving and get away from whatever I was doing so I can come back fresher and ready to tackle another task.

Why does this work? Because I’m giving my brain a total break. I’m not reading emails. I’m not reading a book. I’m not thinking about something else. I’m not taking a “break” from one task and doing another. My brain gets to just completely relax and reboot.

Now, I totally think you’d love it too if you adopted the 90:5 rule. But that doesn’t mean you need to dance. You might work in an office and not want to explain to your co-workers why you get up and dance every 90 minutes (unless they’d wanna join in on the fun!)

If you don’t want to dance, that’s cool. The key is to just do something that you don’t really need to use brain power for. You aren’t reading anything, and it’s something where your mind gets a total break. A bonus would be if you moved as well – go for a walk, take the stairs a couple times, walk over to the break room and grab some tea.

By taking breaks like this, I’m positive it’s more than doubled my productivity because I’m able to get more quality work done. Sure if I plowed through I could probably get just as much work done, if not more. But by taking breaks, I make sure that the work I do, do is actually good.

It helps me stay focused too. I set goals for what I want to get done in 90 minutes and work hard to get it done. It works because I know in a little while I get a break and can celebrate my great work with a dance off!

At the end of the day I feel like I’ve accomplished so much more since starting this habit. I’m also not so bagged that I can’t enjoy my life outside work either!

So, if you’re ready to give your productivity a boost, give it a try. I’d love to hear how it works out for you.

About Jenna Dalton

As a former Personal Trainer and Nutrition Consultant, Jenna Dalton quit her job and built a coaching practice for women who know they should exercise, they just have a tough time actually doing it. Using her background in psychology, she continues to study how to be successful – for life. She now helps women turn “I should” into “I have” by using simple shifts that lead to big, lasting change – no deprivation diet or make- you-wanna-die workout required. You can find her at JennaDalton.com where you can get email updates on having the body and life you crave – for free!

Website: http://JennaDalton.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jenna-Dalton-Health-Life-Coaching/282110061831248
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DaltonJenna
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKxRUNx3mAjBGeKqsLSG7Hw?feature=guide
Email: [email protected]

If you've enjoyed this post, in the comments below, tell me how you're getting on with the daily challenge of productivity. I'll be trying this technique out to increase my productivity. I might even set an alarm on my iPhone to make sure I do it, as I suffer from the syndrome i.e. workaholic that Jenna discusses. Let me know what action you'll take as a result of reading this post too. I'd love to hear.

Thank you, as always for reading and contributing here. If you found this useful, please share it with your friends!

With love and gratitude,

November 27, 2012

5 ways to solve the ‘no time for social media’ challenge

By JaneFrankland | business start ups, Established business, Marketing, New business, Sales, social media | 4 Comments

Social media for sales and business growth

I rarely make a bet, but now I’m going to. How many of you at first glance, thought that using social media wouldn’t take up much of your time? I bet the vast majority. Most people start with either Facebook or Twitter, so I'd wager that at some point you thought, ‘surely sending a few Tweets can't take long can it? The posts are limited to just 140 characters, right?' WRONG!!!

Social media is a very time intensive process if you don’t handle it in the right way. The main problem with it is that social media happens in real time, like a conversation. Individual items might not take much time, but they happen all the time. As much as multitasking is applauded (especially by women, who use it the most), continuously going back to social media throughout the day can seriously hamper your overall productivity. Check out my post on multi-tasking for the low down!

So what’s the solution? Well it’s actually quite simple, and I genuinely speak from experience. You see, I too have suffered from social media overwhelm. And in order to get a grip on it, I've had to look at it in a very strategic and process orientated way. I know those words may sound too formal for many of you, but it's true. In order to avoid social media overwhelm and maintain productivity, the solution I found was to automate my social media marketing as much as possible. By taking care of my postings all at once, I freed up the rest of my day to work on other things. Then all I had to do was to check in at scheduled times so I could engage and respond to my prospects and customers, in other words – YOU!

So here's my advice. In order to ensure that you’re not spending all your time on your social media marketing, there are a few steps you should take:

1. Decide on your objective. Agree upfront what you want to achieve by using your chosen social media platforms. Only by setting the objective, can you measure the results and determine whether the campaign has been effective.

2. Develop a strategy. Start by determining which social media platforms to use, and how to use them. Each social media network has its own personality and its own function and you’ll need to decide which is the best for your market. You’ll want to focus your efforts on the social media platforms that will deliver the best return on your time investment. Sadly you can’t just copy the same content to every social media site without being penalized. You'll need to understand the merits of each platform and what makes them unique. Once you’ve got this sussed you can then decide when to post.

3. When to post. You’ll be scheduling your social media posts in advance, so you’ll need to set them for times when they’ll be most effective. You’ll therefore need to research when your followers are most likely to be online and engaging with your social media.

4. Choose the right automation tools. There are a number of tools that allow you to automate your social media marketing. Many are free, or at least offer basic functions for free with the option of adding more features through a paid account. Hootsuite is by far my favourite and you can use it to manage multiple social media platforms.

5. Consider your ability to engage and respond. Social media is a social platform and so you really don’t want your social media efforts to look automated or robotic. Social media is still about interacting with people so make sure you only schedule posts when you’re available to respond. Set up notifications to let you know when someone does reply to an automatic post so you can respond in a timely manner. This will set you apart from the crowd and enhance your relationships.

I know that by following these steps you can manage your social media marketing to full effect without suffering from social media marketing overwhelm.

As many of you know, I'm experienced in start-ups without capital, but please tell me about your experiences with social media marketing, as every business is unique. I'm so interested to hear how well you're doing with your social media. Please share your experiences and feedback on ways to solve this issue as so many face it in the comments below as I’d love to hear. Finally thank you, as always for reading and contributing here. If you found this useful, please share it with your friends and check out another blog I have on ways to build your authority for your brand using social media including how to generate a lead.

With love and gratitude – as always,

November 23, 2012

How much does it cost to generate a lead?

By JaneFrankland | Marketing, Sales, social media | 2 Comments

The secret of effective lead generation

How much does it cost to generate a lead is a question that is so often NOT asked. When someone asked me recently, I felt embarrassed to say I didn’t actually know how much it was costing me to generate a lead. Oops! And, I’ve been in business a long time – and sales! I'm used to tracking all costs, including cost of sale, but like I said, I was embarrassed to say I didn’t know what it cost to generate a lead. When I asked my peers though, many of whom work for large global brands in sales and marketing departments (as Directors) they too were unable to answer the question. Quite frankly I was horrified as this really is, in my opinion business basics 101. Why then are so many business owners not tracking this statistic and metric for lead generation?

Well one of the reasons could be because many business owners buy in leads or data and are not proactively working to generate a lead. The other reason could be because they already have a database to work from. Despite these possibilities, in my opinion it doesn’t explain why so few are tracking, monitoring and analysing the costs to generate a lead.

These days there are many ways to generate a lead for your business. For example you can use traditional ways such as telemarketing, direct mail, PR, blogging, and trade shows, or go down the social media and online route. Having built businesses and sales teams for 18 years, I know from first hand experience that the costs for these channels have continued to increase year-after-year. And, for starts-up without investment and capital or small creatives these costs are just not fathomable.

In the case of direct mail, the cost for printing and postage continues to increase and because of this so few can actually afford to do it. Whilst email marketing is far from dead, many are still not opened or are binned before being opened. Likewise, telemarketing and PR are time-intensive and sometimes equally expensive processes that can be ineffective if not done strategically. Trade shows have been getting more expensive to participate in for years and when you calculate the cost of travel, elaborate exhibition booths, and branded promotional materials it often works out as a no brainer in terms of not doing it.

What are the best lead generation techniques?

As a result of this, many creative businesses and start-ups have turned to the Internet as a means to generate a lead in a more cost-effective and productive way. Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, Google + and Linkedin have proved very viable methods for obtaining clean data from an authentic audience that’s engaged and interested. To me that’s exciting as many business owners and marketers have yet to experience the online marketing benefit of their blog and social media platforms (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.).

When done right, these social media platforms can play vital roles in enhancing your company’s search engine rankings, brand positioning and for generating a lead. It’s easy to position your company as an expert within your industry and also to convert website visitors into qualified leads and prospects who are interested in learning more about your product or service! And, once you’ve identified your cost to generate a lead, you’ll then be able to lower your cost per lead.

As many of you know, I'm experienced in start-ups without capital, but please tell me about your experiences with this, as every business is unique. I'm so interested to hear how well your marketing efforts are performing and how you're leveraging the lead generation power of your blog and social media. Please share your experiences and feedback on ways to generate a lead in the comments below as I’d love to hear. Finally thank you, as always for reading and contributing here. If you found this useful, please share it with your friends and check out another blog I have on ways to build your authority for your brand using social media including how to generate a lead.

With love and gratitude – as always,

November 20, 2012

Colour psychology: an interview with Bernay Laity from in:colour

By JaneFrankland | Established business, Marketing, New business, Sales | 3 Comments

Colour psychology and its affect on sales

I’ve read an awful lot of articles on branding and picking colours but it was only when I met Bernay Laity, Creative Director of in:colour that I felt I truly understood colour psychology. Until then I’d understood the significance of colour for branding, but what I hadn’t grasped was actually how much colour psychology influenced sales.

So now I fee stupid!

But I ask you, how many of you have ever considered how colour psychology affects your brand? Or whether it can turn off prospective customers and clients to your product or service? Or even how it affects your romance and dating, or the place where you work, chill out or think!!! Probably only a few of you have.

The big retail brands certainly know this and that's why they play to it – strategically. They often spend years surveying their market to discover their values, beliefs and attitudes towards colour. And, they design their retail outlets with this in mind. Recently I heard of an international hairdressing brand that took two years to find out about colour psychology and how it affected their customers buying attitudes. They then went on to launch and sell with increased success – as you'd expect!

So how does colour affect our buying decisions? How can understanding colour psychology help us to sell more? Well as someone who loves selling, these are questions I had to find the answers to. Thankfully, Bernay Laity from in:colour, a consultancy that specialises in colour psychology was there to help me. She took the time to answer my questions on colour psychology, human behaviour and buying. And, as a former textile designer I was loving it!

She started with an explanation of the application of colour psychology in our world. Science informs us that colour is a vibration of light but that it's more than just visual. Colour affects us on all levels, even if we appear unaware of it. Our life may be ‘coloured’ by pleasant and unpleasant experiences creating strong likes and dislikes of colour, but there is actually much more to it than casual preference.

According to Carl Jung, colour is the mother tongue of the subconscious.

Unbeknown to me, we use the language of colour to interpret what we see, and we relate to it at an instinctual level. In our natural environment colour signals to us the changes of season; what foods are safe to eat, and warns us of any likely danger.

The key to colour psychology is harmony i.e. everything has a relationship. In the natural world we see harmony and organisation in the variation of colour from season-to-season. Each season has its own specific qualities and characteristics of colour. It has distinct hues and tones that operate ‘in harmony.'

Our sense of colour is strongly linked to our emotions, and like a language we use colour to express how we feel – whether consciously or unconsciously. Colour psychology teaches us how to understand the effects of colour on the personality and then how to use it to enhance the interior environment and improve communications. It goes far beyond “use red to convey passion, or aggression or creativity.” It looks at the tones, the hues and the colour families all in accordance with personal beliefs of the individual or brands values of the business.

Bernay Laity discusses colour psychology

Look out for the advice on colours to wear for dating and the out-takes at the end!

To find out more about Bernay and the amazing work she does on colour psychology visit in:colour, at www.incolourconsultancy.com.

Click the link to learn more about finding your perfect brand colour.

Now I want to hear from you…

So finally, my questions to you are:

How are you using colour psychology in your branding, workspace and home?
Have you ever changed a colour in your home or workspace and seen a difference to the way you approach work, think or relax.
Have you noticed how your mood is affected by colour? If so, what colours turn you on or off?
Or have you ever considered seeking an expert colour psychologist for this or to improve sales?

Please let me know as I'd love to hear.

Thank you, as always for reading, watching and contributing here. If you found this useful, please share it with your friends!

With love and gratitude – as always,

November 17, 2012

6 reasons why you need a Facebook Page for business

By JaneFrankland | Marketing, Sales, social media, Uncategorized | One Comment

Facebook Page vs Facebook Profile

Why do I need a Facebook Page if I have a Facebook Profile is a question I get asked a lot. It’s a good question too! So let’s start right at the beginning. Most people know that Facebook can be a really effective way to generate leads for your business if you use it the right way. This particular social media platform continues to consume more and more of our time and thanks to mobile devices it's always accessible. However, if you don’t have a Facebook Page, you may be missing out on not only traffic to your website, but dropping the ball with your customers and prospects. Facebook Pages gives you a chance to engage with your customers and ultimately promote your brand.

Before diving into the reasons why you need to have a Facebook Page for your business in addition to your Profile, I want to be clear about the two.

A Facebook Profile is for personal, non-commercial use only. It represents individuals and must be held under an individual name. A Facebook Page is for professional or official use, and allows an organization, business, celebrity or band to maintain a presence on Facebook. You may only create a Facebook Page to represent real organizations of which you are an authorized representative.

Now, that we’re crystal clear on that, here are the top reasons why you need to have a Facebook Page and not just a Facebook Profile.

1. Facebook could delete your Profile if it’s used to market your business

Using your Facebook Profile to market your business is actually a violation of Facebook’s rules and many people are unaware of this. What this means is that after spending a lot of time building up a large amount of friends Facebook can simply delete your Facebook Profile if you’re in breach. Facebook make it clear in their Terms and Conditions that your Facebook Profile is for personal and non-commercial use only.

2. You’re limited to the number of friends you can have

Facebook limits the number of friends you can have on your Facebook Profile to 5,000. So, why spend all that time building a base of prospects and customers on your Profile only to be limited? If you’re building a serious sustainable business then you’ll have more prospects than that over your business’ lifetime. With my last business, after 13 years we had a database of 12,000 prospects. Start as you mean to go on!

3. You need to know what your prospects and customers want

Facebook gives marketers and business owners a powerful tool called Facebook Business Pages – Successful B2B Case Studies: A study on maximising social traction that allows you to see (on a post level) how your customers and prospects react and engage with your content. Profiles don’t have this tool, only Pages do. Facebook users (on Profiles) don’t analyse how their friends react to their status updates but those of us in business care very much about this as we can post content that’s appropriate for our market and how to influence sales. You see, whether you have 255 or 22,500 likes, the only way to really profit from a business Page is to motivate your prospects, clients and customers to click, share and, eventually, act, by buying a product or signing up for an event. And, the only way to do this is by using a Facebook Page strategically!

4. You can add applications to support your business

I always tell my clients to think of a Facebook Page as another website. It’s simply a tool to help you generate revenue so why not use it? Applications or apps are a bit like the drop downs you find on your website menu bar. Without going into the technical details of what they are and how they work, the most important thing for you to know about is that they’re used to facilitate any number of content sharing or interaction functions between your Facebook Page, your website, and your prospects and customers. Apps can include games such as FarmVille, but also business apps such as the app to showcase your website, your ebook or any other promotion, your LinkedIn Profile, Pinterest, Twitter or YouTube channel. You can set up your auto responder to link to these too, which makes them very powerful tools.

5. You can grow your prospect list faster

The best way to do this is through advertising. On a Facebook Profile you can't really advertise, whereas on a Facebook Page you can. Advertising through Facebook is simple, effective (providing you set an effective strategy and objective) and it's still relatively cheap. Facebook ads build a list just like any other form of traditional marketing. On Facebook, you see other fans of a business or product too. You see when your friends like them. These things matter and make for more effective marketing. And, if you advertise on Facebook you'll get access to more options and data than any other online marketing channel. For example you can target your advertising demographically and pyschographically. This means that you can target an ad to editors that work at a particular company, or target an ad at hiring managers for another company. You can target people in your ZIP code that love a particular fashion store or brand or hobby. The options are endless. With this information and ability your business can gain access to marketing gold and relevance!

6. People want clear boundaries

A friend request is very different from asking someone to like your Facebook Page. If you’re sending friend requests as a Facebook Profile, you’re asking the ‘friend’ to allow you to see their photos, their friends list, their address, their phone number and perhaps their relationship status. Even if you customise your posts, by not allowing them to see this information it’s not great. When you ask someone to LIKE your Facebook Page, however, this is very different. You’re being completely clear from the start that you’re forming a business relationship and are there to engage on a business level. Friends can get tired of hearing about business related posts on your Profile too, whereas on a Page, that’s what they expect.

I know that when Facebook marketing is used strategically to build a database of genuine prospects and generate sales it's an incredibly powerful tool to support the business. But, what are your thoughts? Are you a believer in Facebook marketing as a business development strategy? Have you got a Facebook Profile and a Facebook Page? Please share your experiences and feedback in the comments below as I’d love to hear. Finally thank you, as always for reading and contributing here. If you found this useful, please share it with your friends and check out another blog I have on ways to build your authority for your brand using social media including a Facebook Page.

With love and gratitude – as always,

November 9, 2012

Being present in the moment: here’s a quick way

By JaneFrankland | business start ups, Established business, Lifestyle, Mindset | 2 Comments

Who wants to be present in the moment?

Being present in the moment is something that I've heard bantered around so much lately. Interestingly I even had a riding lesson on it, with the wonderful Cindy at CW Western Training. Anyway, with the concept sunk in, it got me thinking. How often have I eaten a meal and not really tasted it, chatted with my kids without actually hearing them, got from A to B without knowing how, or completed a project without really thinking about it? The answer is far too many times! More often that not my days pass me by whilst my mind is elsewhere. How sad! And, having spoken to others about this, I know I'm not alone. As a generalisation we all spend far too much time thinking about what was and what could have been, and on projecting into the future and wondering about what may happen.

Whilst no one can actually live in the moment all the time, some people, with practice, can learn to live in the moment for longer periods than others. By doing this, it enables us to stop being miserable by worrying about the future or even thinking about the past. It enables us to live as much as we can in the only moment that we'll only ever really live in, and control. The moment is right now and it is all there ever is, was and probably ever will be.

So here's what I've learnt about living in the moment. When you live in the moment you'll benefit from:

Clarity: You'll have much better focus, and creativity will come more naturally.
Calmness: You'll feel centred, relaxed and whatever you do will come more easily. Because you're not projecting into a possible future or reflecting on a previous experience there will be little fear holding you back.
Positivity: Since there's little fear, there'll be fewer negative emotions when you're in the present. You'll move around on positive part of the emotional scale.

Being present in the moment and how to do it

1. Focus on what’s right in front of you, around you, or on you. Use your senses – feel – smell – hear – taste! Just look at what’s right in front of you right now. Listen to the sounds around you. Feel the fabric of your clothes. Smell the snow on its way and taste the rain as it falls on your tongue! Leave behind previous experiences. You come to the moment fresh, as if for the first time.

2. Focus on your breathing. Practice deep breathing and focus your mind on your inhaling and exhaling. This will align you with the present moment once again.

3. Focus on your inner body. This is a bit similar to focusing on your breathing. In both examples focus on what’s inside you rather than the outside.

4. Pick up the vibe from present people. If you know someone who's more present in the moment than others then access his/her vibe of presence. It's a similar experience to picking up positivity or enthusiasm. If you don’t know someone like that then watch DVDs by Eckhart Tolle. Whilst his books and MP3s are great, DVDs are the best medium as the biggest part of communication is voice tonality and body language.

5. Surrender to the emotion that's already there. It’s easy to get stuck in the past. Even if you want to move away from those memories there's a feeling there that brings them back over and over. The only way to reduce the power that feeling has over you is by surrendering to it. When you accept the feeling, surrender and let it in, you literally stop feeding it energy and it vanishes.

What are your thoughts? Are you guilty like me of not being present in the moment for much of the time or have you found a way to accomplish this? If you practice living in the moment, what was your wake up call or how did you come to do this? Please share your experiences and feedback in the comments below as I’d love to hear. Finally, thank you, as always for reading and contributing here. If you found this useful, please share it with your friends!

With love and gratitude – as always,

November 7, 2012

Comparison is it a good or bad thing?

By JaneFrankland | business start ups, Established business, Mindset | No Comments

Is comparison the thief of joy?

“Honest gov, I went looking, but the idea was to get inspired.” “Yeh right,” I hear you say! Whether that was really the case or not I feel compelled to make a point. I’m competitive, a high achiever and hands up – yes, I’m guilty as hell for comparing my work to others’. For me, it’s how I stretch myself, improve and measure my progress. It’s the way I was brought up too – at home, in school, university and the workplace. The problem I have with this approach though, is that whilst I know there are some advantages to it – in terms of advancement, I know how unproductive and destructive it actually is.

[box]Comparison is the thief of joy – Theodore Roosevelt TWEET THIS[/box]

It’s so easy to spend time keeping track of what other people are up to, but what a waste of time and energy it actually is. I speak from experience and it’s taken me a long time to learn this lesson.

There’s a saying, isn’t there? “Why compare yourself with others? No one in the entire world can do a better job of being you more than you.” ~Unknown

However, in my experience this couldn’t be further from the truth. The problem lies in the fact that by comparing ourselves to others, we just end up judging ourselves. And, let’s face it – there’s no one worse to judge and more mean a critic! It doesn’t matter how many people are on your side and cheering you on – if you can’t get on your own side, you’ll never get past go!

So, the real truth of the matter is that there’s never a winner. For the most part we compare ourselves to someone whom we perceive as being better than us, and whether that's true or not, if we perceive it to be it means we lose every time!

Our minds do want to quantify, to rank and to organize information in order to know where we fit into the scheme of things. So we need to give our minds something to do. I read an article recently where the advice was to redirect the comparison to a past and a present self—and keep the comparison within. However, I completely disagree with this suggestion. We are not the person we were from former years. By continuing with the comparison, we are perpetuating the crime!

So instead, why not learn to accept that we all came in different. There will always be people who are better than us, as they will be those who are not as good. We are growing through life’s experiences all the time. We are not the people we were yesterday, so it’s not right to compare ourselves to that person. We need to avoid the trap of comparison by building and maintaining a positive self-image and rather than comparing ourselves to others or ourselves, it's better to focus on things that make us feel better about ourselves and our life.

As Michelangelo said, “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it”.

So I challenge you to begin to discover what’s truly important to you. By doing this I guarantee you’ll have more time and energy to devote to your own creative journey and you’ll feel far better about yourself. You’ll be able to look back on those energy-draining feelings of jealousy and inadequacy and instead be able to be inspired by others’ work rather than dragged down by it.

In the comments below, tell me whether you think comparison is a good or bad thing. What has your journey been like so far with it? Do you have any tips or insight you can pass on to us? Let me know and also what action you'll take as a result of reading this post too. I'd love to hear.

Thank you, as always for reading and contributing here. If you found this useful, please share it with your friends!

With love and gratitude – as always,

November 2, 2012

Social media marketing and how to spot a faker

By JaneFrankland | Established business, Marketing, New business, Sales, social media | No Comments

Social media marketing outsourcing

Following on from my last post on how to establish your authority by using social media marketing, I wanted to concentrate on what to look out for when you're outsourcing your social media marketing, or employing someone to do this as part of your team.

Today, more and more businesses are looking to social media as a way to grow their business, promote their brand and engage with their clients.

However, businesses often have little experience with this new technology and consequently don’t really know how to tell if they're engaging with the real deal or a fake social media expert.

With the growing demand for expertise in this field, unfortunately there’s not enough supply of real talent. Gary Vaynerchu recently commented that 99.5% of social media marketing experts are clowns and sadly from what I’ve seen I’d have to agree. Not everyone who claims to be a social media expert is one. So, it’s important to be able to identify who’s a fake and who’s competant. So, here are some key indicators to help you.

Social media marketing experts are…

Social media experts are experienced and active users of social media. In my opinion it doesn’t matter whether they’ve been consulting, training or managing social media for years. Let's face it, it's a new technology and not even a decade old. However, what does matter is that they're active users, engaging with their networks, and getting results.

You'll want to see if:

They've updated their profiles
They've completed their About page and it has hyperlinks
They're adding fresh, unique content daily i.e. posts, Tweets, pins and blogs
Their branding looks professional and isn’t breaking any of the social media platform rules
They're up-to-date with the latest social media trends
They're using the latest and most appropriate tools
They're engaging with their network promptly.

How to check engagement…

On this point there are a few ways to check. For example on:

Facebook, see how many fans are talking about their page. It will say this next to their profile picture.
Do they have apps installed?
Are they branded professionally?

On Twitter, you can see from their Tweets.

How often are they Tweeting other people’s content?
How often are they Tweeting unique content?
How often are they replying? (Look for the @ sign)

On YouTube, check to see:

How many views they have
What's going on with their comments

On LinkedIn:

How many people are they connected to?
Have they set up user groups?
Are they a publisher that's publishing good quality content?

Social media marketing fakers are…

Social media fakers are well connected but lack quality connections. Whilst they may have lots of Facebook Likes or Twitter followers, they lack relevant followers and actual clients. They chose volume over quality every time.

On this note, it's worth knowing that you can buy hundreds and thousands of connections for as little as $5. You can also buy services to follow or add fans that are automated.

Social media fakers are poor at engagement. They don’t connect or get back to their fans. They're still operating push marketing strategies. They're inexperienced at converting prospects into ‘fans' and clients. And, they often lack a niche and insight into their clients. As a result they don’t have the knowledge to meet their clients needs.

To wrap this up…

Social media is a powerful tool for business development. However, it's not the only strategy that should be used for business development. Social media marketing should always be complemented by other elements of marketing. It doesn’t replace traditional marketing methods. Instead, it’s used to enhance them.

Always be wary of those claiming it’s the right strategy for every business. Whist there are many merits for employing social media as a tool to develop the business, especially for exposure, influence and ranking, determining whether it’s the right strategy requires careful analysis of the business and the context in which it operates.

Unfortunately it’s so easy for people to jump on the social media marketing bandwagon and say they’re experts when they’re not. Fakers give social media marketing a bad name and as a result many in business simply render the use of social media ineffective. However, when social media marketing is used strategically it's an incredibly powerful tool to support the business' commercial efforts.

Now I want to hear from you…

What are your thoughts? Are you a believer in social media as a technology to drive your business development forward? Have you fallen victim to a faker or been lucky to engage with an expert who knows their trade? What makes someone a social media marketing expert in your eyes?

Please share your stories and experience here, and if you’ve got a question, just pop it down here. If you want to contact me for a strategy call click here.

Thanks for being a sport and participating!

P.S.

Finally, if you know someone who'd LOVE the insight from this social media for business post, please send them a link. You’ll find business owners, consultants and yes, even sales and marketing managers who manage people who'll be interested to hear about this.