Monday, November 29, 2010
7 Ways to Build Your Personal Brand Without Releasing a Sex Tape | Rosetta Thurman
7 Ways to Build Your Personal Brand Without Releasing a Sex Tape
(as published on http://www.rosettathurman.com) and written by Rosetta Thurman
Unless you’ve found some way to completely avoid stupid celebrity gossip, you’ve probably heard about how world-renowned actor Laurence Fishburne’s daughter is breaking into Hollywood…via sex tape. 19-year-old Montana Fishburne is going to star in a porn film and it’s interesting to hear her reason why.
“I’ve watched how successful Kim Kardashian became and I think a lot of it was due to the release of her sex tape.”While it’s true that Montana’s idol – reality TV star, model and now business mogul Kim Kardashian – has skyrocketed to celebrity, I wouldn’t count on Montana’s personal brand achieving the same effect. Sure, she’ll get her 15 minutes of fame (and the clock is ticking), but a good personal brand requires much more than one bootleg movie. Here are 7 better ways that you can build your personal brand…without releasing a sex tape.
Start a Blog
Yup, you knew this one was coming. There are a lot of reasons why every young professional should have a blog (hell, every professional!) but one of the biggest benefits to having a blog is that even if you’re not a bigshot CEO of your company, blogging can allow you to become well-known in your field. Need help getting started? I got you. Last week, I announced my new project, Blogging for Branding, a resource to help you with all the aspects of blogging in order to build your personal brand.Get Your Own Business Cards
This is one of the most important things you can do for your personal brand (especially for jobseekers). Ever since I was 18, I’ve had my own business cards. And even when I was working a full-time job, I kept a stack of business cards in my purse to let people know about my blog and where to contact me outside of my 9 to 5. My favorite place for business cards is Vistaprint. I’ve used them for the past 10 years because of their low cost, easy-to-use website and quick delivery. And when I say low cost, I mean low cost. New customers get 250 premium quality, color business cards free! (You just pay for shipping.) Click here to order yours.
They also have a ton of professional business card templates, but I always keep mine very simple. (If you can’t see the images below, click here.)
And don’t be afraid to tell people how you want them to interact with you. For instance, the backside of my business cards say “hire me” pretty prominently. People always comment on how bold it is. But you have to remember that marketing yourself is a lot like marketing a product. You have to tell people what action you want them to take after they see what you have to offer.
Attract Fans and Followers
If you want to build your personal brand and you’re not on Twitter by now, I don’t know what is wrong with you. You can get started using my Twitter 101 guide if that helps. Once you’re on Twitter, you should be following other people in your career field or niche as well as tweeting insights about those specific topics. If you have a blog, you should also set up a Facebook fan page for yourself in the “writer” category and link to it from your blog so people can keep up with your updates. Don’t forget to put your Twitter and Facebook names on your business cards!Get on YouTube
People like TV. People like movies. People really like to connect with other human beings by face, so it makes sense that millions of people watch YouTube videos everyday. Yeah, you could wait until you get interviewed on TV, but in the meantime, the best way to let people get to know you by your face and voice is by posting video updates on YouTube. It’s easy and free! Pick a topic that you can share your expertise and opinion on and post a brief video about it every week or every month. It’s up to you. Just be sure to spread your videos far and wide once you take the plunge into YouTubeland. Need inspiration? Look no further than Kim Love. For the past year and a half, the natural hair enthusiast has used her YouTube channel, KimmayTube, to share her expertise with the world and recently leveraged it to launch a successful retail business.Think Local
Chances are, your personal brand is never gonna be world-famous or even nationally-known, and it probably doesn’t have to be. If you want to become well-known in a particular career field, for instance, it’s probably more useful for you to connect with those in your immediate community instead of trying to be too broad, too soon. Blog about how local issues tie into your niche and introduce yourself to influential people in your city and state that can help you build your professional reputation. Samuel Richard does this very well and has built up a great reputation for himself as a young nonprofit leader in Phoenix.Network With a Purpose
Networking is such a misunderstood term that we took some time to define it on our recent Twitter chat for young nonprofit professionals. @ShannonRenee put it this way:Networking is meeting people to develop a mutually beneficial professional relationship.
Sounds good to me. The only problem I see is when people go to happy hours and conferences without a purpose in mind. They go, they drink, they go to workshops and then they go home without ever exchanging a single business card. Why go to an event in your industry and not connect with the very people who can help you further your career and vice versa? Remember: you don’t really need to work the whole room, just the parts of the room that apply to what you want to be known for in your niche or career field.
Dust Off Your Email List
Chances are, you don’t email people outside of your workplace as much as you could. Yes, it’s nice to post updates on Facebook and Twitter, but alas, everyone is not on those social networks, and even if they are, you can best believe that they don’t read every single update you post. So, take a couple hours every few months to use email to update your network on what you’ve been doing with your career and what your future goals are. Give them a reason to sing your praises or connect you with people in their network who may be doing similar work. I guarantee that there’s someone on your email list that will be interested in your progress or willing to help you get to where you want to go.What are some other ways that young professionals can build their personal brands…the respectable way?
7 Ways to Build Your Personal Brand Without Releasing a Sex Tape | Rosetta Thurman
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Social Networking: Technology: REALTOR® Magazine
6 Realities of Doing Business on the Social Web
How can you maximize your exposure on the Web? Here's how.
By Brian Summerfield | September 2009
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about online networking is the wide range of reactions it stirs up. Some real estate professionals swear by it. Others say it's a diversion at best—and an utter waste of time at worst.
Somewhere between these extremes is the reality of how the social Web is changing the profession. While it might not be a good fit for everyone, millions of people are using it to communicate and its popularity shows no signs of fading.
If you've filled out a profile at Facebook or LinkedIn but are wondering what to do next, here's some advice from practitioners and experienced social media users who know how to do it right. When used correctly, they say, blogs and social networks are powerful tools that can help broaden your real estate knowledge, strengthen your reputation, and ultimately expand your clientele.
Reality 1
You have to be a great agent first.
One of the biggest mistakes that real estate pros can make in approaching the Web is to think that the simple act of creating an online presence—whether through a blog, a Facebook profile, or a fancy Web site—will in itself bring new business.
In reality, to see results, you must already have strong business fundamentals and a solid marketing plan, says Matt Dollinger, a real estate performance coach who helps practitioners integrate new technologies into their business. "If you're not a great agent, don't worry about social media right now. It's not the silver bullet for your business," says Dollinger, who works for @properties in Chicago. "If you're a bad agent or even an average agent, you won't be able to fake it on the Web. People will be able to see right through you."
Part of being a great practitioner requires knowing what type of communication resonates with your customers, including when it might be better to use offline marketing vehicles. Even with the power of social media at your fingertips, be wary of using it for messages that are still best conveyed through personal or other means. John Morley, a real estate professional with the Morley Real Estate Group in Huntsville, Ala., and one of REALTOR® magazine's 2009 "30 Under 30" honorees, enjoys social media but still gets most of his business from phone calls and TV and radio ads, he says.
"April 2009 was our best month ever in terms of new listings and sales contracts, and I found myself spending a tenth of the time that I usually do on Twitter and Facebook during that month," Morley says. "It's fun spending time on those sites, but that's not where my business is coming from."
Even if you can increase your prospecting efforts through the Web, that won't mean much if you aren't able to get deals done and generate real profits. "You get leads because you're on social media," Dollinger says. "You close the transaction because you're a great agent."
As St. Paul, Minn., practitioner Teresa Boardman aptly puts it, "Finding clients and selling real estate aren't always related."
Reality 2
Using social media is like riding a bull—getting on is the easy part.
When Arizona real estate practitioner Jay Thompson started a blog earlier this decade, he wasn't sure what he was getting into. Having just left a corporate job in engineering, he was entering the real estate business at around the same time that social media were gaining mainstream appeal. Seeing an opportunity, he thought he'd give blogging a shot.
"I didn't have a strategy," he says. "I'd always been interested in writing, so it just made sense to combine my love of writing with real estate." He soon discovered that writing was just one of many ingredients required for a successful blog. He spent months learning about things like search engine optimization and researching topics that would provide value to his target audience. He also had to devise a schedule for posting content to his now well-known blog, The Phoenix Real Estate Guy.
"In the beginning, I was only posting once a week and nothing was really happening," he says. "I realized that I had to do it more often so search engines would notice me."
Thompson now devotes about two hours a day, four days a week, to blogging. That includes visiting other blogs and making comments. It's all part of his strategy to build his brand and drive traffic to his blog. Apparently, it's working: His blog had 380,000 visitors and 1.4 million page views in the first half of 2009.
"Blogging isn't just researching and writing," he says. "It's also reading and engaging with other sites."
It's this kind of dedication that produces real business results online, says Boardman, who says she is contacted several times a week by prospects who've learned about her through her St. Paul Real Estate blog.
"People who fail at it are those who think it's some gimmicky, get-rich-quick technique," she says. "You have to think of it as a job. If you don't have that kind of discipline, it's a waste of time."
If potential clients come across a blog that hasn't been updated in more than a month, they might conclude that it is inactive—or that the author isn't on top of his game. Also, for the blog to place highly in search engines, it should be updated frequently.
That's why Morley has held off on blogging. Although he wants to blog, he doesn't have time right now to research and write about local real estate issues and market trends. "If I can't do at least three articles a month, it could do more harm than good," he says.
Creating a strong following on Twitter, Facebook, and other sites also requires a big time commitment that can't be outsourced. Even though some elements can be updated automatically, it will be no secret to other users if you're not personally interacting with the sites on a regular basis.
Reality 3
You don't have to be a tech whiz to participate.
The last thing that should stop you from leveraging the business tools, information resources, and networking opportunities on the Internet is the technology itself.
Some people may find the concept of an online social network intimidating, but the applications and platforms are typically intuitive and easy to learn. And for real estate practitioners, who tend to be naturals at networking and forming community connections, social media seem to be a perfect fit, says Peter Kim, a former analyst at Forrester Research who is now part of a team that's developing social software startup Dachis Group in Austin.
"The Web isn't something people should be afraid of," Kim says. "On one hand, it takes time to learn about the technology and the interactions. But once that's done, social networking should be no different from the work [real estate professionals] are already doing—researching, networking with customers, and marketing. It's just using a new technology to get there."
Thompson says many of his colleagues are reluctant to try social media, but he thinks it's usually because they aren't familiar with the tools. For instance, the head of his Century 21 office was initially skeptical about blogging, and still doesn't consider it a serious business-building strategy, Thompson says.
Yet Thompson says he gets the vast majority of his business from people who've gotten to know him through his Internet presence, mainly his blog. "A lot of people think it's just an online diary," he says. "That's what we have to get past."
So how does a social media novice get started? Through experimentation, suggests Dollinger. Join Facebook, join LinkedIn, read blogs, and ask your peers what sites they find most valuable.
Dollinger jumped in with both feet a few years ago, spending a day and a half joining every social network mentioned in a Time magazine article. "I just started signing up and playing around on the sites," he says. The experience made him more familiar with the various platforms and tools and helped him narrow his focus on those he liked best and found most useful.
Reality 4
The Web is in constant flux.
You have to keep up with it.
Having an experimental, early-adopter attitude is a big advantage for anyone who wants to make the most of the ever-changing Web.
Take Twitter. A couple years ago, this microblogging platform was practically unknown, but today it gets about 55 million visits every month, making it the third most trafficked online social network, according to Compete Inc., a Web analytics company.
Or consider that since the beginning of this decade, three very different social networks each have enjoyed the "most popular" status in the social media universe. In 2003, Friendster was the hottest social network, showing up on magazine covers and getting millions of members in a matter of months.
In 2005, the mantle passed to MySpace. And less than a year ago, Facebook began overtaking MySpace in terms of members and site traffic.
So while the Web is here to stay, don't get too attached to any one social media platform or site, Thompson says. Although he gets most of his business from blogging, at press time Thompson had one listing, one buyer under contract, and three active buyer clients who were generated solely from Twitter.
You have to be willing to try out new things and keep up with the latest communication trends.
Reality 5
You can't fake it.
As you venture into the new world of online communication, it's important to remember that every interaction, as anonymous as it may sometimes seem, is a representation of you and your business.
Although your goal is to project a positive and professional image to prospects and clients, you should not attempt to create a new persona that you think customers would desire, Dollinger says. Rather, you should be the same person that you are in your everyday, face-to-face interactions.
"You need to be authentic," Dollinger says. "Don't think that people want to work with a particular type of agent, and then try to fill that mold. Just be yourself."
On social networking sites such as Facebook, authenticity should carry over to your personal profile—which is one of the first things that prospects, colleagues, and friends see when they visit your page.
While some people may wince at letting their professional and personal lives collide on the Web, many practitioners say that sharing photos and tidbits about their family, pets, and hobbies can actually create a stronger bond with customers. It is "social" media, after all.
The same goes for blogging, Thompson says. Being willing to write openly about issues that are important to you and your customers builds trust with readers and enhances your reputation as a real estate expert. Boardman agrees, saying that the genuineness that comes across on her blog works to her advantage in forming connections with prospects.
"Some people may not have a lot of respect for real estate agents," she says. "But when they read my blog, they see I'm a person like them. They meet me and say, 'You're exactly like your blog.'"
Establishing that personal bond is part of Boardman's overall strategy of lead generation, which emphasizes quality over quantity.
"I don't generate a huge number of leads and then spend time following up," she explains. "I generate a smaller number, and my conversion rate is over 60 percent. It's a different way of running a real estate business."
Reality 6
The Web is so much more than a prospecting tool.
As Thompson and Boardman prove, a well-planned social media strategy can generate clients, but what many practitioners find most valuable about the Web is its capacity to teach.
"I think [the Web is] the best learning platform available," Dollinger says. "Every time I talk about social media, I always come back to the learning element. There's nothing else out there today that allows you to learn more quickly or with a more laser-beam focus on particular topics. Learning, collaboration, and sharing are what it's all about."
Many real estate pros don't necessarily realize this immense value, he adds, because the connection between getting new information and earning money isn't always apparent.
"Part of the problem is that there's money associated with prospecting, but there's no direct association between money and learning," Dollinger explains. "Some people understand that when they get to be a really smart agent, the money will come, but that's a long-term thing."
Not surprisingly, the Web is also the best place to find information about successful online marketing and prospecting strategies.
"If someone's out there just killing it, generating real business on the Internet, I want to know about it. And that kind of information is really easy to find," says Morley, who uses Google Reader to track blog posts about hot industry issues and selling techniques.
Social media in particular can serve a business purpose that should be obvious to any practitioner: market intelligence. These online networks are like a window into the minds of consumers.
"Set up a strategy that includes spending a certain amount of hours per week on Facebook identifying who you might connect with, reading what your Twitter followers are reading, using Google Reader to read blogs, and developing valuable, pertinent information to reach clients through social media," Dollinger says.
By developing an understanding of consumers and interacting with them online, you can generate business using what Dollinger terms "the law of attraction"—that is, pulling clients to you by sharing valuable information, rather than the more traditional strategy of pushing yourself out to them.
"How can we engage people? How can we build trust? How can get them communicating with us? That's what we should be asking," he says.
Make Sure It's Time Well Spent
As the old business saying goes, anything that can be measured can be improved. Yet measuring your return on investment in the world of social media can be a bit more challenging than other marketing or networking activities.
For starters, the initial investment isn't purely monetary—most social media tools are free. However, they do require a substantial investment of your time before you start seeing tangible results in the form of new clients, higher search engine rankings, or whatever your goals may be.
So the question for many practitioners is: How much time should I be spending on this, and how do I know that it's working?
Mariana Wagner of the Wagner iTeam with Keller Williams in Colorado Springs, Colo., says it's best to start small. "The first six to nine months that I was involved in any of this, I never replaced any activity that was currently bringing me business," says Wagner. She would squeeze in social networking at the end of the day or during stints of downtime. "I do a lot of short sales, and I'm on hold with banks for a long time," she says.
Eventually her blog posts would pop up first when key real estate terms were entered into Google, and leads started rolling in daily from people who found her team online. "Once I saw that I was getting results, I would spend more time on it."
You may not be looking for the same types of results as Wagner. Maybe you want to increase your contact database or simply boost your visibility. It's smart to define those goals up front; that will help you evaluate your progress.
Just don't give up too quickly, says Todd Carpenter, social media manager for the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Social networking is all about building relationships, and that doesn't happen overnight, he says.
"If you're going to commit only three months to it, it's not worth doing. Like any traditional networking activity, it's going to take longer than that for it to pay off."
Read the original post:
Social Networking: Technology: REALTOR® Magazine
How can you maximize your exposure on the Web? Here's how.
By Brian Summerfield | September 2009
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about online networking is the wide range of reactions it stirs up. Some real estate professionals swear by it. Others say it's a diversion at best—and an utter waste of time at worst.
Somewhere between these extremes is the reality of how the social Web is changing the profession. While it might not be a good fit for everyone, millions of people are using it to communicate and its popularity shows no signs of fading.
If you've filled out a profile at Facebook or LinkedIn but are wondering what to do next, here's some advice from practitioners and experienced social media users who know how to do it right. When used correctly, they say, blogs and social networks are powerful tools that can help broaden your real estate knowledge, strengthen your reputation, and ultimately expand your clientele.
Reality 1
You have to be a great agent first.
One of the biggest mistakes that real estate pros can make in approaching the Web is to think that the simple act of creating an online presence—whether through a blog, a Facebook profile, or a fancy Web site—will in itself bring new business.
In reality, to see results, you must already have strong business fundamentals and a solid marketing plan, says Matt Dollinger, a real estate performance coach who helps practitioners integrate new technologies into their business. "If you're not a great agent, don't worry about social media right now. It's not the silver bullet for your business," says Dollinger, who works for @properties in Chicago. "If you're a bad agent or even an average agent, you won't be able to fake it on the Web. People will be able to see right through you."
Part of being a great practitioner requires knowing what type of communication resonates with your customers, including when it might be better to use offline marketing vehicles. Even with the power of social media at your fingertips, be wary of using it for messages that are still best conveyed through personal or other means. John Morley, a real estate professional with the Morley Real Estate Group in Huntsville, Ala., and one of REALTOR® magazine's 2009 "30 Under 30" honorees, enjoys social media but still gets most of his business from phone calls and TV and radio ads, he says.
"April 2009 was our best month ever in terms of new listings and sales contracts, and I found myself spending a tenth of the time that I usually do on Twitter and Facebook during that month," Morley says. "It's fun spending time on those sites, but that's not where my business is coming from."
Even if you can increase your prospecting efforts through the Web, that won't mean much if you aren't able to get deals done and generate real profits. "You get leads because you're on social media," Dollinger says. "You close the transaction because you're a great agent."
As St. Paul, Minn., practitioner Teresa Boardman aptly puts it, "Finding clients and selling real estate aren't always related."
Reality 2
Using social media is like riding a bull—getting on is the easy part.
When Arizona real estate practitioner Jay Thompson started a blog earlier this decade, he wasn't sure what he was getting into. Having just left a corporate job in engineering, he was entering the real estate business at around the same time that social media were gaining mainstream appeal. Seeing an opportunity, he thought he'd give blogging a shot.
"I didn't have a strategy," he says. "I'd always been interested in writing, so it just made sense to combine my love of writing with real estate." He soon discovered that writing was just one of many ingredients required for a successful blog. He spent months learning about things like search engine optimization and researching topics that would provide value to his target audience. He also had to devise a schedule for posting content to his now well-known blog, The Phoenix Real Estate Guy.
"In the beginning, I was only posting once a week and nothing was really happening," he says. "I realized that I had to do it more often so search engines would notice me."
Thompson now devotes about two hours a day, four days a week, to blogging. That includes visiting other blogs and making comments. It's all part of his strategy to build his brand and drive traffic to his blog. Apparently, it's working: His blog had 380,000 visitors and 1.4 million page views in the first half of 2009.
"Blogging isn't just researching and writing," he says. "It's also reading and engaging with other sites."
It's this kind of dedication that produces real business results online, says Boardman, who says she is contacted several times a week by prospects who've learned about her through her St. Paul Real Estate blog.
"People who fail at it are those who think it's some gimmicky, get-rich-quick technique," she says. "You have to think of it as a job. If you don't have that kind of discipline, it's a waste of time."
If potential clients come across a blog that hasn't been updated in more than a month, they might conclude that it is inactive—or that the author isn't on top of his game. Also, for the blog to place highly in search engines, it should be updated frequently.
That's why Morley has held off on blogging. Although he wants to blog, he doesn't have time right now to research and write about local real estate issues and market trends. "If I can't do at least three articles a month, it could do more harm than good," he says.
Creating a strong following on Twitter, Facebook, and other sites also requires a big time commitment that can't be outsourced. Even though some elements can be updated automatically, it will be no secret to other users if you're not personally interacting with the sites on a regular basis.
Reality 3
You don't have to be a tech whiz to participate.
The last thing that should stop you from leveraging the business tools, information resources, and networking opportunities on the Internet is the technology itself.
Some people may find the concept of an online social network intimidating, but the applications and platforms are typically intuitive and easy to learn. And for real estate practitioners, who tend to be naturals at networking and forming community connections, social media seem to be a perfect fit, says Peter Kim, a former analyst at Forrester Research who is now part of a team that's developing social software startup Dachis Group in Austin.
"The Web isn't something people should be afraid of," Kim says. "On one hand, it takes time to learn about the technology and the interactions. But once that's done, social networking should be no different from the work [real estate professionals] are already doing—researching, networking with customers, and marketing. It's just using a new technology to get there."
Thompson says many of his colleagues are reluctant to try social media, but he thinks it's usually because they aren't familiar with the tools. For instance, the head of his Century 21 office was initially skeptical about blogging, and still doesn't consider it a serious business-building strategy, Thompson says.
Yet Thompson says he gets the vast majority of his business from people who've gotten to know him through his Internet presence, mainly his blog. "A lot of people think it's just an online diary," he says. "That's what we have to get past."
So how does a social media novice get started? Through experimentation, suggests Dollinger. Join Facebook, join LinkedIn, read blogs, and ask your peers what sites they find most valuable.
Dollinger jumped in with both feet a few years ago, spending a day and a half joining every social network mentioned in a Time magazine article. "I just started signing up and playing around on the sites," he says. The experience made him more familiar with the various platforms and tools and helped him narrow his focus on those he liked best and found most useful.
Reality 4
The Web is in constant flux.
You have to keep up with it.
Having an experimental, early-adopter attitude is a big advantage for anyone who wants to make the most of the ever-changing Web.
Take Twitter. A couple years ago, this microblogging platform was practically unknown, but today it gets about 55 million visits every month, making it the third most trafficked online social network, according to Compete Inc., a Web analytics company.
Or consider that since the beginning of this decade, three very different social networks each have enjoyed the "most popular" status in the social media universe. In 2003, Friendster was the hottest social network, showing up on magazine covers and getting millions of members in a matter of months.
In 2005, the mantle passed to MySpace. And less than a year ago, Facebook began overtaking MySpace in terms of members and site traffic.
So while the Web is here to stay, don't get too attached to any one social media platform or site, Thompson says. Although he gets most of his business from blogging, at press time Thompson had one listing, one buyer under contract, and three active buyer clients who were generated solely from Twitter.
You have to be willing to try out new things and keep up with the latest communication trends.
Reality 5
You can't fake it.
As you venture into the new world of online communication, it's important to remember that every interaction, as anonymous as it may sometimes seem, is a representation of you and your business.
Although your goal is to project a positive and professional image to prospects and clients, you should not attempt to create a new persona that you think customers would desire, Dollinger says. Rather, you should be the same person that you are in your everyday, face-to-face interactions.
"You need to be authentic," Dollinger says. "Don't think that people want to work with a particular type of agent, and then try to fill that mold. Just be yourself."
On social networking sites such as Facebook, authenticity should carry over to your personal profile—which is one of the first things that prospects, colleagues, and friends see when they visit your page.
While some people may wince at letting their professional and personal lives collide on the Web, many practitioners say that sharing photos and tidbits about their family, pets, and hobbies can actually create a stronger bond with customers. It is "social" media, after all.
The same goes for blogging, Thompson says. Being willing to write openly about issues that are important to you and your customers builds trust with readers and enhances your reputation as a real estate expert. Boardman agrees, saying that the genuineness that comes across on her blog works to her advantage in forming connections with prospects.
"Some people may not have a lot of respect for real estate agents," she says. "But when they read my blog, they see I'm a person like them. They meet me and say, 'You're exactly like your blog.'"
Establishing that personal bond is part of Boardman's overall strategy of lead generation, which emphasizes quality over quantity.
"I don't generate a huge number of leads and then spend time following up," she explains. "I generate a smaller number, and my conversion rate is over 60 percent. It's a different way of running a real estate business."
Reality 6
The Web is so much more than a prospecting tool.
As Thompson and Boardman prove, a well-planned social media strategy can generate clients, but what many practitioners find most valuable about the Web is its capacity to teach.
"I think [the Web is] the best learning platform available," Dollinger says. "Every time I talk about social media, I always come back to the learning element. There's nothing else out there today that allows you to learn more quickly or with a more laser-beam focus on particular topics. Learning, collaboration, and sharing are what it's all about."
Many real estate pros don't necessarily realize this immense value, he adds, because the connection between getting new information and earning money isn't always apparent.
"Part of the problem is that there's money associated with prospecting, but there's no direct association between money and learning," Dollinger explains. "Some people understand that when they get to be a really smart agent, the money will come, but that's a long-term thing."
Not surprisingly, the Web is also the best place to find information about successful online marketing and prospecting strategies.
"If someone's out there just killing it, generating real business on the Internet, I want to know about it. And that kind of information is really easy to find," says Morley, who uses Google Reader to track blog posts about hot industry issues and selling techniques.
Social media in particular can serve a business purpose that should be obvious to any practitioner: market intelligence. These online networks are like a window into the minds of consumers.
"Set up a strategy that includes spending a certain amount of hours per week on Facebook identifying who you might connect with, reading what your Twitter followers are reading, using Google Reader to read blogs, and developing valuable, pertinent information to reach clients through social media," Dollinger says.
By developing an understanding of consumers and interacting with them online, you can generate business using what Dollinger terms "the law of attraction"—that is, pulling clients to you by sharing valuable information, rather than the more traditional strategy of pushing yourself out to them.
"How can we engage people? How can we build trust? How can get them communicating with us? That's what we should be asking," he says.
Make Sure It's Time Well Spent
As the old business saying goes, anything that can be measured can be improved. Yet measuring your return on investment in the world of social media can be a bit more challenging than other marketing or networking activities.
For starters, the initial investment isn't purely monetary—most social media tools are free. However, they do require a substantial investment of your time before you start seeing tangible results in the form of new clients, higher search engine rankings, or whatever your goals may be.
So the question for many practitioners is: How much time should I be spending on this, and how do I know that it's working?
Mariana Wagner of the Wagner iTeam with Keller Williams in Colorado Springs, Colo., says it's best to start small. "The first six to nine months that I was involved in any of this, I never replaced any activity that was currently bringing me business," says Wagner. She would squeeze in social networking at the end of the day or during stints of downtime. "I do a lot of short sales, and I'm on hold with banks for a long time," she says.
Eventually her blog posts would pop up first when key real estate terms were entered into Google, and leads started rolling in daily from people who found her team online. "Once I saw that I was getting results, I would spend more time on it."
You may not be looking for the same types of results as Wagner. Maybe you want to increase your contact database or simply boost your visibility. It's smart to define those goals up front; that will help you evaluate your progress.
Just don't give up too quickly, says Todd Carpenter, social media manager for the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Social networking is all about building relationships, and that doesn't happen overnight, he says.
"If you're going to commit only three months to it, it's not worth doing. Like any traditional networking activity, it's going to take longer than that for it to pay off."
Read the original post:
Social Networking: Technology: REALTOR® Magazine
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Support Small Business Saturday
How will you be spending your upcoming weekend? If you’re like me and millions of Americans, you’ll be embarking on the annual ritual that is holiday shopping, picking up presents for family and friends.
This year, however, why not take the action to a smaller scale, and join with us to support the first-ever Small Business Saturday on November 27.
While Black Friday and Cyber Monday both drive sales to national chains and larger retailers, Small Business Saturday, a national campaign sponsored by American Express OPEN, recognizes the importance of small, independently owned businesses to our national economy and local communities.
If you’re a small business, we don’t have to tell you about the impact you have on the economy. But here are just two examples:
- Research conducted by the 3/50 project suggests that for every $100 spent in locally owned independent stores, $68 returns to the community through taxes, payroll, and other expenditures — far greater than the amount from national chains.
- According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, an estimated 27.5 million small businesses operated in the United States in 2009, and they created 65 percent of net new jobs.
When you bypass the shopping malls and choose to buy from your local retailers, or eat at an independently owned restaurant instead of a chain, you do more good than you may realize. That’s why we believe it’s so important to support small businesseses, this Saturday and always.
Want to get involved in the Small Business Saturday movement? Here are four ways to do so:
- Spread the word about Small Business Saturday with the sharing tools found on facebook.com/smallbusinesssaturday and smallbusinesssaturday.com, and through Twitter using the hashtag #SmallBusinessSaturday.
- Give shout-outs to your favorite local shops and restaurants so the people in your social networks help the businesses you love.
- Small business owners can download a number of social media tools and promotional materials to create buzz for their business through Small Business Saturday.
- If you’re an American Express card member, the first 100,000 people to pre-register their card and then spend at least $25 on Small Business Saturday at a small, independently owned small business will receive a $25 credit on their next billing statement.
And of course, choose to make your holiday purchases where it matters: At your favorite small business. While you’re there, ask the manager if he or she has an email list you can join, or a social media account you can be a part of.
Will you be shopping small? Are you a small business offering a special promotion this Saturday? Tell us all about it by posting a comment here or on our Facebook Page.
Small Business Saturday … It’s going to be huge.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
HOW TO: Get the Most From a Small Business Social Media Presence
(Via Mashable by Scott Gerber)
Today’s reality is that your business needs to be on social media, but the mere existence of your business on sites like Facebook and Twitter doesn’t guarantee a single sale, or even a single referral. In order for businesses to succeed in the social media space, they need to be properly educated on what works and what doesn’t. More importantly, business owners need to have realistic goals about what they’ll get out of social media.
When the right tools are used effectively with the right motives in mind, social media can have a huge impact on small business marketing and customer service efforts. You just have to understand how to properly determine and assess the return on investment you’re looking for.
When the right tools are used effectively with the right motives in mind, social media can have a huge impact on small business marketing and customer service efforts. You just have to understand how to properly determine and assess the return on investment you’re looking for.
I asked a panel of successful Gen Y entrepreneurs how small businesses can go about getting the most out of their social media marketing and how they can convert more of their existing social media followers into paying customers. Here are their responses.
“Facebook and Twitter shouldn’t be used as marketing platforms, but rather one-to-one direct communications mediums with customers, potential customers, journalists, and other stakeholders. As the population of Twitter increases, and people start following thousands of other people, your message gets lost. Facebook’s news feed algorithm stops marketers from using their Fan Page as a loudspeaker because fans that aren’t engaged won’t see their content anyway.”
- Dan Schawbel, founder of Millennial Branding, LLC
“Social media is first and foremost about building relationships. It takes time and consistent effort to see any meaningful results, but the time and effort you spend are worth it in the long run – if you do it right. While it’s great to have a large following on Twitter and Facebook, the value of your followers list is all about quality, not quantity. Think of it like this: if you had an ice cream shop and a thousand people a day walked through the door, but 950 of those were lactose intolerant, your high foot traffic wouldn’t be making you much money. To convert your social media followers into paying customers, remember ‘WIIFM’ (What’s In It For ME). In other words, you have to give your followers a reason to want to do business with you, and that reason has to be a benefit to them. Contests are one great way to engage followers, and if you tie them in with your business and give [a prize] that means something to your target audience, you can see results fairly quickly.”
- Adam Toren, co-founder of YoungEntrepreneur.com
READ THE REST OF THE STORY ON MASHABLE ---> HOW TO: Get the Most From a Small Business Social Media Presence
Today’s reality is that your business needs to be on social media, but the mere existence of your business on sites like Facebook and Twitter doesn’t guarantee a single sale, or even a single referral. In order for businesses to succeed in the social media space, they need to be properly educated on what works and what doesn’t. More importantly, business owners need to have realistic goals about what they’ll get out of social media.
When the right tools are used effectively with the right motives in mind, social media can have a huge impact on small business marketing and customer service efforts. You just have to understand how to properly determine and assess the return on investment you’re looking for.
When the right tools are used effectively with the right motives in mind, social media can have a huge impact on small business marketing and customer service efforts. You just have to understand how to properly determine and assess the return on investment you’re looking for.
I asked a panel of successful Gen Y entrepreneurs how small businesses can go about getting the most out of their social media marketing and how they can convert more of their existing social media followers into paying customers. Here are their responses.
1. Experiment With Social Networks
“Facebook and Twitter shouldn’t be used as marketing platforms, but rather one-to-one direct communications mediums with customers, potential customers, journalists, and other stakeholders. As the population of Twitter increases, and people start following thousands of other people, your message gets lost. Facebook’s news feed algorithm stops marketers from using their Fan Page as a loudspeaker because fans that aren’t engaged won’t see their content anyway.”- Dan Schawbel, founder of Millennial Branding, LLC
2. Quality, Not Quantity
“Social media is first and foremost about building relationships. It takes time and consistent effort to see any meaningful results, but the time and effort you spend are worth it in the long run – if you do it right. While it’s great to have a large following on Twitter and Facebook, the value of your followers list is all about quality, not quantity. Think of it like this: if you had an ice cream shop and a thousand people a day walked through the door, but 950 of those were lactose intolerant, your high foot traffic wouldn’t be making you much money. To convert your social media followers into paying customers, remember ‘WIIFM’ (What’s In It For ME). In other words, you have to give your followers a reason to want to do business with you, and that reason has to be a benefit to them. Contests are one great way to engage followers, and if you tie them in with your business and give [a prize] that means something to your target audience, you can see results fairly quickly.”- Adam Toren, co-founder of YoungEntrepreneur.com
READ THE REST OF THE STORY ON MASHABLE ---> HOW TO: Get the Most From a Small Business Social Media Presence
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
How Starbucks Builds Meaningful Customer Engagement via Social Media
How Starbucks Builds Meaningful Customer Engagement via Social Media
written by: Mikal E. Belicove
Comedian Lewis Black jokes about walking out of a Starbucks and seeing another Starbucks right across the street. Yes, Starbucks has developed an incredible brand presence wherever it has chosen to set up shop--across the country, around the world, on the web, and in just about every social media venue on the internet, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and even via internally "owned" properties such as MyStarbucksIdea.com. Starbucks' ability to engage community and foster customer loyalty is nearly unmatched.
To discover the company's secret, I recently attended a conference in San Diego, where Starbucks' social media team presented the 10 philosophical precepts that drive the company's social media efforts:
1. It's about relationships, not marketing.
Building meaningful relationships is key. Starbucks' marketing efforts focus less on traditional marketing and more on giving texture to the brand in fun, engaging formats:
At Starbucks, social media is not a separate and distinct entity. Various departments collaborate online and offline to develop and implement plans designed to fully engage the community.
One such effort was Starbucks' Love Project. Starbucks teamed up with several groups--including Playing for Change, Dave Matthews Band, John Legend and U2--to create the "All You Need Is Love CD." With every $15 purchase at participating Starbucks locations, customers received a free CD and an invitation to participate in a mass sing-along by uploading their own video to StarbucksLoveProject.com, which thousands of people did. One dollar from the sale of every CD was donated to the Global Fund to Help Fight AIDS in Africa. Starbucks customers could also create a Love Drawing online and Starbucks would contribute an additional five cents per drawing to the fund for the first 1 million drawings submitted.
Starbucks could have simply offered the CD for sale, but it gave the project more dimension via the website, mass sing-along, Love Drawings, and special Love Drawing cups for sale in the store.
3. Make it clear where to start.
Starbucks believes you need to focus where customers start so people know where to find you on various social media venues. As a result, all of the company's vanity URLs contain the brand name "Starbucks" (Facebook.com/starbucks, Twitter.com/starbucks, www.YouTube.com/starbucks, and so on). For each vertical (jobs, deals and so on), Starbucks launches a separate account, such as Twitter.com/starbucksJobs, which focuses exclusively on generating leads for jobs at Starbucks.
4. Look around the corners.
Starbucks may be full of surprises, but the company does not like to be surprised. Starbucks looks around the corner to attend to all the little details and address any issues that may arise. The company looks ahead to see how customers will reach the page, how they will navigate the site, and how a customer's experience may change five months from now. It also tries to anticipate and plan for incidents in which someone doesn't like a particular product or project and takes them to task for it. In other words, the company plans for all scenarios.
5. Be authentic.
Rule No. 1 in social media is to be genuine and transparent, so this precept is not breaking any new ground. What is crucial here specifically for Starbucks is that they remain true to the brand--they started with a coffeehouse culture, so the social media team is expected to be coffeehouse-like when engaging through social media.
6. Build coalitions.
Internally, collaboration is key in inventing, planning and executing any projects or campaigns. Every department--including legal, the call center, communications, PR, managers and executives--must be on board. Starbucks' digital strategy team couldn't have pulled off the Help Haiti campaign and leverage it via social media without coalitions in place throughout the company. The magic of social media is that you can recognize the opportunity quickly. The challenge is in responding just as quickly. Without a coordinated effort and buy-in, you quickly lose momentum.
7. If it doesn't matter on Twitter, it doesn't matter.
To see what's going on with your brand in real time, plug in to Twitter, says Starbucks' digital media team, where things tend to go viral fastest. Real-time monitoring increases your response time to what people are saying about your brand, negative or positive. In addition, it provides early notice of any opportunities that arise--any given second, any given day.
8. Focus on the four responses.
Whenever Starbucks identifies a problem or opportunity, it responds in one or more of the following four ways:
Starbucks' social media team was scrappy, savvy and confident from the very beginning. It succeeded by asking for forgiveness, not permission, and by "being mostly right." If you're transparent and do mostly right, the social media space is very forgiving, as is senior management within your own company.
10. An economic meltdown is a terrible thing to waste.
When things are going down, appetite for trying something new and different, like social media, grows. In 2008, Starbucks' stock price was headed downhill. Since then, it's on the rebound. The company started its social media campaigning when things were down, and while the social media team cannot take credit for the upswing in the stock price since social media was launched, it certainly hasn't hurt the brand.
Mikal E. Belicove is an Entrepreneur magazine columnist and business strategist specializing in content development, market analysis, and messaging/positioning for individuals and businesses of all sizes. Belicove's latest book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Facebook, will be available in June 2010, while his current title--2009 Internet Directory: Web 2.0 Edition--is available now at fine booksellers everywhere. You can read Belicove's monthly column on social media marketing and website promotion, management, usability, and design in Entrepreneur magazine. When he is not working, Belicove can be found musing about the world on his blog, Belicove.com.
To discover the company's secret, I recently attended a conference in San Diego, where Starbucks' social media team presented the 10 philosophical precepts that drive the company's social media efforts:
1. It's about relationships, not marketing.
Building meaningful relationships is key. Starbucks' marketing efforts focus less on traditional marketing and more on giving texture to the brand in fun, engaging formats:
- Last year Starbucks took advantage of April Fool's Day by announcing that it had cracked the code for delivering fresh, hot brewed coffee through the internet tubes and a USB plug-and-pour device.
- With Starbucks Mobile App, customers can enter their Starbucks card number to transform their iPhone into their Starbucks card. They're then able to check their balance, enjoy rewards like free coffee refills and two hours of free Wi-Fi per day, and find the nearest Starbucks. In some markets, you can even use your phone to pay for your order!
At Starbucks, social media is not a separate and distinct entity. Various departments collaborate online and offline to develop and implement plans designed to fully engage the community.
One such effort was Starbucks' Love Project. Starbucks teamed up with several groups--including Playing for Change, Dave Matthews Band, John Legend and U2--to create the "All You Need Is Love CD." With every $15 purchase at participating Starbucks locations, customers received a free CD and an invitation to participate in a mass sing-along by uploading their own video to StarbucksLoveProject.com, which thousands of people did. One dollar from the sale of every CD was donated to the Global Fund to Help Fight AIDS in Africa. Starbucks customers could also create a Love Drawing online and Starbucks would contribute an additional five cents per drawing to the fund for the first 1 million drawings submitted.
Starbucks could have simply offered the CD for sale, but it gave the project more dimension via the website, mass sing-along, Love Drawings, and special Love Drawing cups for sale in the store.
3. Make it clear where to start.
Starbucks believes you need to focus where customers start so people know where to find you on various social media venues. As a result, all of the company's vanity URLs contain the brand name "Starbucks" (Facebook.com/starbucks, Twitter.com/starbucks, www.YouTube.com/starbucks, and so on). For each vertical (jobs, deals and so on), Starbucks launches a separate account, such as Twitter.com/starbucksJobs, which focuses exclusively on generating leads for jobs at Starbucks.
4. Look around the corners.
Starbucks may be full of surprises, but the company does not like to be surprised. Starbucks looks around the corner to attend to all the little details and address any issues that may arise. The company looks ahead to see how customers will reach the page, how they will navigate the site, and how a customer's experience may change five months from now. It also tries to anticipate and plan for incidents in which someone doesn't like a particular product or project and takes them to task for it. In other words, the company plans for all scenarios.
5. Be authentic.
Rule No. 1 in social media is to be genuine and transparent, so this precept is not breaking any new ground. What is crucial here specifically for Starbucks is that they remain true to the brand--they started with a coffeehouse culture, so the social media team is expected to be coffeehouse-like when engaging through social media.
6. Build coalitions.
Internally, collaboration is key in inventing, planning and executing any projects or campaigns. Every department--including legal, the call center, communications, PR, managers and executives--must be on board. Starbucks' digital strategy team couldn't have pulled off the Help Haiti campaign and leverage it via social media without coalitions in place throughout the company. The magic of social media is that you can recognize the opportunity quickly. The challenge is in responding just as quickly. Without a coordinated effort and buy-in, you quickly lose momentum.
7. If it doesn't matter on Twitter, it doesn't matter.
To see what's going on with your brand in real time, plug in to Twitter, says Starbucks' digital media team, where things tend to go viral fastest. Real-time monitoring increases your response time to what people are saying about your brand, negative or positive. In addition, it provides early notice of any opportunities that arise--any given second, any given day.
8. Focus on the four responses.
Whenever Starbucks identifies a problem or opportunity, it responds in one or more of the following four ways:
- Amplify: As Starbucks identifies trends or something its customers seem to like, Starbucks amplifies whatever it is to help bring it to the surface and increase visibility and enthusiasm.
- Context-ify: Back in 2004, an e-mail was going around claiming that Starbucks had refused to supply free product to GIs serving in Iraq. Many people believed it, got pretty angry and forwarded the message to all their friends. Unfortunately, the message was false. By context-ifying the message, Starbucks revealed the other side of the story--check it out yourself on snopes.com.
- Change: If it's broke, fix it. MyStarbucksIdea.com actively solicits constructive criticism and ideas to improve its business and gather suggestions for products, services and projects.
- Ignore: You gotta respond? No, sometimes it's best to ignore, especially when it appears you're being provoked into a response or fight. It's easier to ignore things when you can put them into their proper context; for example, if your primary critics are a Facebook Group with 82 members out of the 400 million-plus Facebook accounts, you have little to worry about.
Starbucks' social media team was scrappy, savvy and confident from the very beginning. It succeeded by asking for forgiveness, not permission, and by "being mostly right." If you're transparent and do mostly right, the social media space is very forgiving, as is senior management within your own company.
10. An economic meltdown is a terrible thing to waste.
When things are going down, appetite for trying something new and different, like social media, grows. In 2008, Starbucks' stock price was headed downhill. Since then, it's on the rebound. The company started its social media campaigning when things were down, and while the social media team cannot take credit for the upswing in the stock price since social media was launched, it certainly hasn't hurt the brand.
Mikal E. Belicove is an Entrepreneur magazine columnist and business strategist specializing in content development, market analysis, and messaging/positioning for individuals and businesses of all sizes. Belicove's latest book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Facebook, will be available in June 2010, while his current title--2009 Internet Directory: Web 2.0 Edition--is available now at fine booksellers everywhere. You can read Belicove's monthly column on social media marketing and website promotion, management, usability, and design in Entrepreneur magazine. When he is not working, Belicove can be found musing about the world on his blog, Belicove.com.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
