Advice for Small Business Owners » blog

Social Media is Not a Strategy, but you need a Social Media Strategy

Elie Kochman — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 11:45:57 +0000

Trying to trace down the origin of the saying “Social Media is not a strategy” was more difficult than I expected, though I have been able to confirm that it’s been around since at least 2004. Some businesses get this – social media is a tool, just like radio is a tool, and sandwich-board men are a tool. A marketing strategy makes use of tools, but tools do not create a strategy. That is, throwing together a bunch of tools does not create a coherent strategy.

Social Media is even less like radio or TV, in that there are many aspects to social media, each of which is a tool on its own. Perhaps this is where the confusion arises – does the creation of a Facebook page, a blog, a Twitter feed, some presence on Linked In – do those add up to a strategy?

As many business people I know who utilize Social Media heavily in their marketing efforts will tell you, using the tools does not make a strategy, though a strategy uses the tools. A coherent Social Media strategy understands the role each of the tools can play, the type of work needed to balance the various aspects to Social Media against one another. The strategy involves more than just the tools, but also how they will be used.

Will the Twitter feed be used to showcase products, or will it be for chatting with the target market?

Will the blog focus on issues internal to the company, or external to the industry?

Who will manage the Facebook page?

The answers to these questions, and many more besides, result in the creation of a sound strategy, one which has an objective, and shows how the various tools will be used to bring the goal closer to fruition.

For example, my strategy with my blog here is not to promote my own work, or my business. It’s to help showcase my expertise by talking about issues relating to my target market. While occasionally I will talk about my business, it’s not really about that – it’s about issues potential customers might want answered. Ultimately, some of the readers of this blog may choose to work with me, but only because I’ve already established credibility with them through my writing (over 170,000 words to date).

Strategies don’t need to be complicated, but they need to involve more than just a tool, or set of tools. Social Media is a set of tools – not a strategy.

Site Review: Alltop

Elie Kochman — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:00:00 +0000

I recently had my site added to Small Business on Alltop (scroll down to the bottom – I’m not the last site on the page, but close). This got me thinking about the concept of the site itself, and what it represents.

First, for those of you who don’t already know, Alltop is essentially an online magazine rack that displays the latest 5 posts from each magazine (a.k.a. website or blog) in the selection. Those sites are organized by category, and there are thousands available to choose from. You can make a custom page that includes those sites that you’re interested in from the selection available, so that you don’t have to keep searching for them.

In some sense, you might call Alltop a big RSS reader with twist – each feed has been manually reviewed to ensure that it fits within the scope of the site. Yes, you could build your own, and it might not even be that hard – but Alltop is already there, someone else’ responsibility to keep it working, and works really well!

What’s the revenue model? It’s actually quite simple – advertising. Alltop is ranked just over 2,700 according to Alexa globally, so they have more than enough traffic to make this a viable model. There are over 750 topics, each with its own page with available advertising. On the Small Business page, for example, there are 2 large advertising blocks currently populated. A quick look at their advertising page reveals that they accept two sizes of ads, but no pricing information.

Unfortunately, at the moment you’re limited to seeing sites that have been already approved for Alltop in your personalized page. However, you can always submit another site for consideration, and the current selection is quite diverse.

The one other feature that seems to be missing is the ability to search for a particular site. For example, despite the fact that the title of my blog is listed as “Elie Kochman on Business and Networking”, searching for Elie does not turn up any results.

All in all, a great website, with a couple of additional features that may eventually make their way into the site.

The Quick (but not Dirty) Guide to Online Marketing

Jason Clegg — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:00:13 +0000

Jason Clegg is an entrepreneur with over 5 years of experience building business and marketing on the web. He manages a full service Internet Marketing firm and writes about entrepreneurship and business topics at www.JasonClegg.com.

If you know absolutely nothing or very little about marketing your business online, I’m here to help. I’ve spent the past 6 years studying online marketing methods for small business owners and, frankly, I know what works. The truth is lots of stuff works. There are endless opportunities for bringing more people to your website.

Fortunately for you, I’m not going to waste your time in this guest post. I am going to focus on just one tactic that you can start today and do absolutely free (or very cheaply) if you do it right.

As Elie has already pointed out on this blog, personal branding is absolutely critical for today’s small business owner. In the online world, you create trust through one primary means – content.

Blogs are a testament to this fact. Look around you. Anyone and everyone is blogging. Why? It’s simple: Blogging helps you control your personal brand and builds more credibility with your existing and your potential clientèle.

But everybody’s blogging. (I hope this includes you, of course!)

The strategy I want you to follow is sort of like blogging but, in some ways, even better. It’s called article marketing.

Article marketing allows you to build a higher degree of trust and credibility by leveraging the already existing power and authority of very large content websites.

My absolute favorite is EzineArticles.com — this is the best of the best because they have a great relationship with Google and a very clear system for evaluating and publishing only the best content.

How to Start Article Marketing

In the steps that follow, I’m going to show you exactly how you can make use of EzineArticles.com to build your personal or business brand. And here’s the good news — it’s not going to cost you a dime.

Step One – Setup Your Free Account

Go to EzineArticles.com and start your free account. You don’t have to pay anything to submit content to their website. You just have to follow the rules.

Step Two – Write an Article for Your Niche

If you’re selling dog training products, write an article about that. If you’re a Public Relations expert, write an article about that. Whatever it is that you do, create some content. Just be sure that your article is 100% new and unique and is at least 400 words long.

Step Three – Publish Your Article at EZA

The process for submitting articles is easy. Just login and click “Submit New Article.” Then copy-and-paste your content into the fields. Choose a category, add a brief summary, and voila!

Oh, just one more thing. Be absolutely sure you make the most of that box they call the “Resource Box.” This is where you’re going to include a little info about you and/or your business. More importantly, this is where you get to include a link to your website.

Hit submit and you’re done. The article reviewers will take a look at your submission and your article should be live within a few days. If you have to make changes, they’ll let you know exactly what to change so you’re not left in the dark.

(NOTE: The *really* quick method for doing this is to hire someone to write your articles for you. You can even pay a full service firm to submit too.)

Why Articles Are So Effective

Using EzineArticles.com is great because their articles rank high in Google. These days it’s pretty tough to position a new website without using strategies like this to drive traffic. In some cases, it’s basically impossible in the short-term.

But the greatest value you will take away from this process is an increased level of credibility. By the time surfers click through to your website, they will have already established a relationship with you. The chances of these visitors making a purchase or initiating contact on your website are much higher.

Give it a try. I’m not saying article marketing is going to transform your business overnight, but it is without a doubt one of the fastest ways to get more exposure for yourself and your brand online!

Blogging Guide

Elie Kochman — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 13:00:48 +0000

Actually, this document is titled “The Income Blogging Guide” and contains a mix of text, audio, and video. It’s free, and was sent to me by Robb Sutton. Considering that Robb generally sends few links, and he gave his recommendation for it, I figured I would give it a look.

To get your copy, go to the book’s site and enter a name and an e-mail address. Within a few minutes, you’ll have access to 95 pages of instructions, videos, detailed images, and all the information you need to get your blog up and running.

You can watch a video of Matt Cutts from Google giving a talk at WordCamp 2008 in San Francisco.

Not sure how to set up a website? Click-by-click instructions are included (along with screenshots to help you).

Wanted to know how to find good keywords? What to do with those keywords? The answers are all there.

Best of all, the authors, Andrew Rondeau and Joel Williams, aren’t charging you for this information – because it’s not a trade secret. This is how information about blogging should be distributed – for free, because the answers are all available for free already. In the process, they save you time performing searches of your own, collecting all this information on your own.

So check it out, it can help you get up and running as fast as you can read!