Tag: #BeAwesome

#GiftYourBusiness – Gift of Budget

There are new social media tools being created every day. Many of these tools make the process of curating and scheduling content more efficient and less time-consuming. When it comes to running your own business, saving time is one of the most important aspects of becoming profitable. Therefore, one of the best ways to gift your business this holiday season is to sign up and incorporate some free social media and online tools into your daily routine. Here are recommendations for some of my favorite free social tools.
Canva
Since visual content is so important to social media, a tool like Canva is invaluable. Canva allows users to create social media and marketing images quickly and easily. These high-quality, easy to design images can be used anywhere. Not everyone is a graphic designer or has access to photo editing software. Canva eliminates the need for either of those and makes image creation simple and amazing.
Buffer
For those maintaining a presence on Twitter, Buffer is a fabulous free tool. Buffer allows users to track their follower activity and gives suggestions as to the best time to post or schedule tweets. It has built in scheduling and analytics. The analyticsmeasures all major engagement statistics for posts on the major platforms.
Hootsuite
If we were to log into social mediaevery day, all the time, nothing else would ever get accomplished. However, it’s important that our brands remain reliable and visible on each of the social platforms to maintain our following. Hootsuite is a widely known and popular tool for scheduling out content. It has also RSS feed capabilities and allows users to interact on various platforms via one place.
Commun.it
Another tool that is nearly essential for Twitter users is Commun.it. This tool is based on the need to stay on top of relationship management within the platform. It tracks all the major interaction on your Twitter account and automatically works to nurture and engage fans and followers on the site.  The tool monitors what others are saying about you, your brand and your business. It also shows who is linking to your site, discovers new leads for you, tracks who follows and unfollows, and reports back on community engagement. There are options to auto-engage people who follow, mention, post or retweet your content. This helps keep Twitter accounts relevant on a platform that moves very quickly.
Paper.li

This tool provides an area online to automatically curate and organize content based on chosen topics. It is displayed in a visually appealing newspaper format. These newspapers are a great place to gather together content into a readable feed. Feeds can be organized by topic or by type of media. Users can create multiple newspaper feeds at a time and can follow people, lists, and hashtags. It also has the capability to follow Twitter lists without actually following them via your own Twitter account.
These are just some of the tools available to make life and work easier for business owners and marketers. All of these tools offer a paid upgrade option with additional features in case you stumble upon one you just absolutely love and want access to additional benefits. However, each of these tools can be incorporated into your company today at no cost to you. So, give your business the gift of both time and money this holiday season by finding tools that make you more productive.  Use all that extra time you now have to come up with even more ways to #BeAwesome!
~ Social Media is changing the way people do business.  Don’t get left behind ~ 


Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere, of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn,FacebookTwitterBlogGoogle+ , YouTube,Pinterest, Instagram  and the tools to manage them. 

Click here for her 
Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars.

#GiftYourBusiness – The Gift of Clients

This week we are going to talk about another way you can #GiftYourBusiness for the holidays. This is, traditionally, a pretty slow time of year for a lot of businesses. Retail aside, many consumers are more focused on the hustle and bustle of the holiday season than they are about anything else. Here are some tips to help you keep filling that funnel anyway. Give your company the gift of new clients!
Find Your Audience
When you just begin to generally market your business, you are hitting a lot of people that simply are not the right audience for you. That’s just a waste of time, money and effort. In order to maximize the potential of generating quality leads and winning new work, you have to spend time narrowing down your focus.
With online marketing, the goal is to figure out who your target audience is and where they are most likely to spend their time. There are a lot of social media platforms and online communities out there. However, just because one of them is a big name doesn’t mean they are going to be a hot ticket venue for what you do.  The key is to understand what each site excels at and then determine if that is a good fit for your business. Don’t dilute your efforts by trying to be everything to everyone. You’ll just get overwhelmed and that’s not productive.
Become Your Client
Take some time to really consider your ideal lead. What do they search for online? What hashtags would they use on Twitter? What groups would they join on Facebook or LinkedIn? What influencers would they follow? What type of events would they sign up for?
These questions will help lead you to places where people are already in the right frame of mind to listen to what you have to offer.  It will also give you a much better insight on the keywords that will work best so you can incorporate SEO into everything you do online.
Now Engage
Once you now where to find your prospects it’s time to start engaging. However, don’t just go in there guns blazing. Promoting yourself too heavily or coming off too strong is the best way to push leads away. Start small. Start liking posts, sharing, or re-tweeting. Leave a comment on something they’ve posted to start a conversation. Team up with some influencers and collaborate. This will establish your expertise in the field and give you more credibility.  Do some prospecting and make some connections.
Then, once you’ve dipped your toes in the water, start sending a few messages. Don’t overdo it. If you work this process well, interested potential clients will reach out to you.  This is not only more effective, it saves you time.
Track Your Progress
There are plenty of different tools available to track your effectiveness. Most of them are free. Use them. Just because your gut says Facebook is the place to be doesn’t mean that the numbers will agree. This will allow you to continually fine tune and adjust your plan. There is no point wasting effort on a site that just isn’t producing results.
Follow Up
Often, this is where many businesses drop the ball. Yes, it is time consuming to input all of these leads into your CRM database. Developing a landing page or an email newsletter list involves investing up front. However, all of the progress you’ve made to this point is a complete waste if there isn’t adequate follow through. If you don’t have time to make it happen, hire someone who does.
Yes, it seems like a lot of work. However, if you are doing the preparation on your own it could not cost you a thing. Unlike traditional methods of marketing and advertising, there is no budget required. Just time. And if you effectively utilize some of the time management techniques from our last blog post, you could free up the time to really go out there and sign up new work! 
It can be easy to get buried in the day-to-day tasks and projects of running your business. Take some time this month to really think about how you can best #GiftYourBusiness and make next year the best one yet! And remember to #BeAwesome.
~ Social Media is changing the way people do business.  Don’t get left behind ~ 

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere, of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn,FacebookTwitterBlogGoogle+ , YouTube,Pinterest, Instagram  and the tools to manage them. 

Click here for her 
Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars.

Social Seven: Tools of the Trade – Commun.it

Social Seven – Social Media Podcast

With Erin Cell of Socially Powered and Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor




What is the primary function of Commun.it? It is a Twitter tool used for scheduling and managing this social media platform. It can be used to stay connected with new followers, to stay engaged, and to monitor clients and mentions. Users can follow/unfollow and track who is following and unfollowing them on Twitter right within the tool. It will send a reminder to let users know when it’s time to reconnect with someone. Commun.it also offers suggestions on accounts you might like to follow.
We do tend to get really busy and lose track of the last time we connected with someone within our communities. It’s social media. It’s meant to be social. That means stepping outside of your box and actually having online conversations with people and engaging with them frequently. It’s not just a matter of pushing content out. Acknowledge when someone shares something of yours and when you get mentioned. If someone asks you a question, you should at least respond.
Commu.it includes some canned responses that can be used to immediately reply to specific types of engagement. Try not to overdo it, as real engagement is more valuable and effective than automated responding. However, this can be a way to stay on top of the fast pace of Twitter.
These tools also include worthy analytics that can be used for tracking effectiveness and then submitted to clients.
Using Hootsuite, Buffer and Commun.it combined is a fabulous way to optimize your social media content management. Commun.it is an easy to use tool, that is simple, and worth checking out. These tools will help you increase your online engagement, which will help to organically grow your audience.
It’s social people; let these tools help you remain social!

Think Commun.it might help you with scheduling content and staying on top of your social media? Follow us on social media to find out when our Social Seven podcast is streaming live!


Learn how to use social media to grow your business online with our video series!

  • Learn the fundamentals of social media
  • Learn how to build better brand engagement
  • Learn how to enhance your visitors' experience
  • Learn how to grow your business using social media strategies.

If you want someone to break down aspects of social media to get more clients and build your business using social media, this is the program for you.


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