There are no shortcuts in building a business. That’s why those insidious “instant success” stories are dangerous to real, working businesses. Here is one of those stories – and my reaction to it.
Medium for Business: The Benefits of Social Blogging
Medium has a ready-made audience and a algorithmic feed mechanism to get you in front of an audience that’s different than your own blog. Here’s how to coordinate the two – your blog and Medium – into a coordinated and effective strategy.
Facebook Ads for Business: Taking Your Social Strategy to the Next Level
A lot of businesses are using Facebook – but not a lot of them are using Facebook Ads. With the right strategy, you can get a huge awareness boost for your product or service, targeted to the right audience. Listen to the episode for some starter strategies and other considerations.
Pinterest for Business: Are You Missing an Opportunity?
Pinterest is still one of the most popular social media platforms, and it has been evolving into a great marketing tool for small businesses. Here’s a “starter strategy” to get you up and running and taking advantage of their new business-friendly features.
Instagram Stories vs. Snapchat for Business
Instagram and Snapchat are each powerful social platforms that can help you construct a visual narrative around you or your business. But each have specific limitations as well. Here’s a quick comparison so you can make a decision for your business.
Snapchat for Business: How to Nurture Your Audience
“Should I be on Snapchat?” It’s one of the most frequent questions I get from small business owners. There’s a lot of excitement about this new and unique platform—and a lot of hype. Let’s look at the considerations so you can make a good decision for your business.
Instagram for Business: Brand Storytelling with Images
Instagram is evolving quickly, and becoming more and more business-friendly with analytics, ads, and more. But is Instagram right for your business? In Part 6 of the Social Media Strategy Series, I look at some of the factors to consider and offer some basic strategies to get started.
Respect Your Audience
Your audience will come to you. Give them time. When it’s their decision, it will be a stronger bond between brand and consumer. Are you willing to give up some control for a deeper relationship with your customers?
YouTube for Business: Where the World Goes to Learn
YouTube is still the king of video, despite powerful challenges from Facebook and Snapchat. In Part 5 of the Social Media Strategy Series, I talk about how YouTube might fit into your overall content strategy, including how to monetize the platform.
Facebook for Business: Optimizing for Organic Reach
Just because today’s Facebook is an advertising platform doesn’t mean that it’s the only method to get success out of the platform. Let’s look at how Facebook’s algorithm works and how to optimize for as much “organic reach” as you can get – without paying for ads.
LinkedIn for Business: Taking It to the Next Level
LinkedIn is the focus of this week’s episode of The Social Media Strategy Series. Are you getting the most out of the platform, or are you still treating it like an online resume? Now that LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft, should that change your strategy with the platform?
Twitter for Business: Is It Right For You?
Is Twitter right for your business? Only you can decide whether or not it’s worth the effort. But to help you make a good business decision, here’s a rundown of the strategies that I use as a part of my own content strategy.
Social Media Marketing: Choosing the Right Content
Social media marketing is an optimization problem. You want to focus on the right activities, in the right channels, to maximize your impact. But none of this will happen without the right content. There are three considerations in finding the balance between 1) what you can produce, and 2) what your audience wants.
Social Media Marketing: 4 Strategies for Channel Selection
Getting the most out of your social media marketing efforts starts with channel selection. In this episode, let’s look at my four basic criteria for picking the right channels for your business.
It’s Not Content Strategy Without Planning
The goal of content strategy is to do much more than drive awareness. It’s about creating a narrative and making sure that all of your content is contributing to that narrative. It’s also about planning smart so that you can actually create your content with that in mind.
Episode 50: How to Get to 50 Episodes
In celebration of my 50th episode, I’d like help those of you who are thinking of launching your own podcast. This episode serves as an overview of my experience so far. I share a quick timeline of my launch plan, stats and rankings, strategies and tactics, and successes and failures. Hope that it helps you!
How to Find Your Superpower and Focus on the Right Stuff: Interview with Katy Tynan
The world of work is changing quickly. It doesn’t matter if you’re an employer or employee, starting your own business, or freelancing. Everything’s different, from the way we work to our expectations of what work should be. Katy Tynan talks about the trends and how they will affect your career.
Taking Your Social Media Strategy Seriously
If you’re still deriding social media as a shallow waste of time, it’s time to get with it. Other businesses are getting a lot out of it, forming real relationships with real customers. Are you leaving this opportunity to your competitors, or is it time to start taking your strategy seriously?
Converting Your Customers Into Advocates
Word-of-mouth marketing can happen on its own, but you don’t want to leave it to chance. Here’s how to make your customers are a part of your overall content strategy.
Getting Your Customers Involved
It’s a missed opportunity if you don’t give your customers a seat at the table early on. First, if the customer has no effect on product development, you’ll probably get the product wrong. Also, the right customers have the potential to be your best sales reps, if you handle it right.