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This Is What Happens When Your Small Business is on Social Media

June 13, 2019 By Carol Stephen Leave a Comment

This is what happens when your small business is on social media

The best thing that can happen when your small business is on social media is that you look like a big business. And, of course, you can move faster without having a huge sit-down meeting with all the board members. When it’s just a few of you (or maybe just you), you have the authority to post whatever you’d like, whenever you’d like. That can also get you into trouble if you’re not careful. Here are some ideas to keep you on the straight and narrow.

Your Voice Is the Voice of the Business

You don’t have to have a million followers when your business is small. In fact, having fewer but more dedicated followers is often even better. The most important thing with social media and your small business is engagement. By the way, if you missed it, you might like This is What Happens When You Write a Book, which is about my book, 21 Ways to Total Social Media Engagement (That Will Make You Look Like a Pro).

Get Hyper-Local

With social media, your small business can focus on local clients and customers. That’s not to say that you won’t find others (or that others might not find you), but people in your immediate area are the most important people to connect with for those with a brick-and-mortar. And even if you don’t have a brick-and-mortar business, sometimes it’s good to connect in person. For instance, you can promote check-ins through Facebook, use lists of locals on Twitter, or find leads on LinkedIn, according to this article about How to Connect with Local Customers via Social Media.

Look Bigger Than You Are. Photo by Val Vesa on Unsplash

You Can Look Bigger Than You Are

Do you want to look like a big company? Often, startups want to look bigger. Or any ambitious business that wants to grow wants to appear like they have a huge staff. You may only have one or two people on staff, but you’d like to expand eventually. Don’t be like some startups, get started, and then have a sad, sad social media graveyard. If you’re that startup, then give me a call!

Get Your Name Out There

Social media is really good for name recognition. People might not remember how they found you. Was it on Instagram? Twitter? Or was it during a conversation at a party? Sprout Social has an excellent article on 12 Ways to Boost Brand Awareness on Social Media. And there are some good real-life examples. See the tweet from Moon Pie, for instance. Wonderful stuff! And as they point out, you only have a few seconds to grab someone’s attention.

Content Creation Will Make You Insane If You Let it

June 6, 2019 By Carol Stephen 4 Comments

Content creation will make you insane if you let it.

So many people have been talking about content creation lately. But do they ever talk about the daily grind of what happens when you have to churn out content on a daily basis? Mostly, content creation is glorified as something easy and simple that anyone can do. How much work goes into the creation of content, though? Like so many things in life, the answer is: it depends.

Who’s Your Audience?

Your audience is made up of at least two parts: those who actually visit your webiste and read your posts, and the little bots that roam around Google visiting your site. Having new content on a consistent basis helps your site rank higher so that both the people and the bots are satisfied. Of course, your human audience should come first. You don’t want your words to sound like they’re written for bots!

Photo by James Jordan

The Problem is Consistency

Coming up with one or two or even ten blog posts isn’t the problem. The problem is sustaining your content creation for months and maybe years. Will you ever get tired of writing? What if no one reads your writing, or you don’t just don’t feel like blogging any more? Will you be able to continue writing even if you don’t want to? If you’re feeling stuck, you might like this article: Content Creation: How to Make Your Writing More Fun! And, once you’ve read that and followed it, you could also share that blog post four (or more) different ways.

Content Creation: Be a Tortoise, Rather Than a Hare

Creating content for your readers puts you in the camp with the tortoises, not the hares. That is, you need to have steady progress and keep at it. Someone told me something a long time ago, and it stuck: Apply the seat of your pants to the seat of the chair for success. So sit down and write something–anything–even if it’s bad. Write one sentence. Then write another one. See where it takes you.

Photo by Colin Remas Brown

Wrangle Those Words

Keep at it, even if you don’t feel like it. Because sometimes you’ll change your mind as you start writing. It’s like going to the gym. Put on your gym shoes and get yourself there and fake it if you have to. One thing that helps me write more is to read my words out loud. Try it and let me know how it goes! And don’t go insane in the process.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: blogging, blogging consistency, content creation, writing

Can Social Media Be Used for Social Good?

May 30, 2019 By Carol Stephen Leave a Comment

Can Social Media Be Used for Social Good?

Of course, you already know the answer to this one: social media can absolutely be used for social good. But here are some examples that are really positive. Because who doesn’t like good news? By the way, here is an article you might like: This Is What I Really Really Love about Social Media.

Animal Rights

Actor Ricky Gervais, while not a huge fan of social media, mentions how animal rights petitions can be signed online, changing things quite quickly. There are countless examples of reversals in policy due to people demanding animal rights. People can quickly collect money for a necessary operation for a beloved pet, and they can post about animals available for adoption online, too. The ASPCA recently showcased an article about the positive effect social media has had on animal shelters and rescues.

Human Rights

Like animal rights, human rights can be influenced by social media. Take this article from Amnesty International about how social media is transforming human rights monitoring. Since the emergence of social media, elections are being monitored more than ever. Journalists cannot be everywhere at the same time, so citizens tweeting and posting can fact check and witness what is happening around the globe at lightning speed.

Organ Donation Awareness

During the past ten years or so, organ donation awareness has been mentioned more often, with living donation increased. My good friend Amy Donohue donated her kidney as the result of a tweet she saw. She’s working on “Social Media Stole My Kidney.” And she took a trip across the U.S. to raise awareness. Follow Amy on Facebook.

Land Trusts

One of my favorite ways to use social media for social good is raising awareness. Land trusts can connect with donors, host events where citizen scientists are invited to participate, thank volunteers, and so on. Land trusts help to preserve the places that we love. There are many land trusts all over the country–simply type in land trust and your location to see some local to you. I really like Sempevirens Fund, which protects redwoods near where I live. Do you have a favorite?

Photo by elpinto007

Giving Campaigns

Giving campaigns, such as Giving Tuesday, allow nonprofits to establish channels for donations to favorite causes. Giving Tuesday allows nonprofits to discover new donors, as well as raising awareness. Giving Tuesday has been successful largely due to social media.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: social media and animal rights, social media and human rights, social media and organ donation, social media and social good

How to Share a Blog Post Four Different Ways

May 23, 2019 By Carol Stephen Leave a Comment

How to Share a Blog Post Four Different Ways

Everyone talks about working smarter, not harder, but what does that actually mean? If you’ve been wondering about what that looks like, stick around, and you’ll get some ideas.

Content Creation: How to Make Your Writing More Fun: https://t.co/TwQsHzybeQ #marketing #contentcreation pic.twitter.com/16oKU7KMtu

— Carol Stephen (@Carol_Stephen) May 16, 2019

Your Time is Valuable

Do you really want to sit down and create an entirely new blog post from scratch? No! How, then, can you take the same post and share it all over the place and make it look entirely different? Ah, that’s the secret. For this exercise, I’ll use my own blog post, Content Creation: How to Make Your Writing More Fun. Take a look at the original blog post so you can see what that looks like–that is, with the top image shared. Remember, not everyone is going to read your excellent writing, no matter how great it is. So the original is the first one shared.

If you're trying to make your blog post more fun, the Images may be even more important than the writing itself (but don't tell your writer friend that!). https://t.co/ND1SbXRpvZ #ContentCreation #Writing pic.twitter.com/rDibfdpXuN

— Carol Stephen (@Carol_Stephen) May 20, 2019

Use a Different Image

The image is probably the most important part of your article, even above the title of your blog post. So make it beautiful! Or make it something that will make your audience say “hmm…I wonder what the heck that is!” Maybe that happens when I use my own pictures. I imagine people squinting with puzzled looks on their faces. So rather than rewrite that blog post, I could change the image. Take a look.

"To fully appreciate bad writing, you need to pick up something at the airport before you get on a plane." Content Creation: How to Make Your Writing More Fun: https://t.co/ND1SbXzO7p #ContentCreation #Writing pic.twitter.com/tmyLm7x8Pz

— Carol Stephen (@Carol_Stephen) May 21, 2019

Change the Quote When You Reshare

No doubt, you’ll have a few different quotes that you can pluck from your blog post. So choose one or two, put those into quotes, add the title, the link, and a hashtag or two, if needed. Of course, you don’t have to change the hashtag or the shortened link, but you could reach a different audience (at least with different hashtags). And using a customized link does look fancier.

One Post Four Different Ways

Customize for Social Media Platforms

The post above was shared on Facebook. It looks similar, but with a different quote, different image, and no hashtags. You could do something similar on LinkedIn. You might want to share the same post but on a different day.

Bonus Idea

Another way to change up a blog post is to write a completely original quote–it’s kind of “meta,” but why not add something about what was happening the day you wrote it? Or some sort of context about the article itself?

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: blogging, how to share blog post, recycling content, writing

Content Creation: How to Make Your Writing More Fun

May 16, 2019 By Carol Stephen 4 Comments

Content Creation: How to Make Your Writing More Fun

Sometimes work can be a real drag. On those days when you start looking at the clock before lunch, you know it’s going to be longer than it needs to be. The solution? More fun, of course! But that’s easier said than done. Here are some ideas to influence your writing, which if you’re a writer can, in turn, make your day more fun.

Add Colorful Images

Images may be even more important than the writing itself (but don’t tell any writer that!). As Neil Patel writes in his excellent article 11 Best Practices for Including Images in Your Blog Post, “What you need to understand is that your audience is lazy.” That is, they want to get the information as quickly as possible. And images can make your readers smile or laugh, too, while getting them more information. Yes, visual information counts.

Appreciate Bad Writing

Bad writing has its place. And if you’re someone who writes for a living, writing badly is probably difficult for you. It would be like asking someone with perfect pitch to sing something off-key. Reading bad writing may be something that hurts your teeth. You know what I mean, you writers out there! To fully appreciate bad writing, you need to pick up something at the airport before you get on a plane. And you must read it while enjoying those miniscule pretzels you get with your orange juice. If you appreciate bad writing, then you’ll notice the difference when you see good writing. You might like Content Creation: What Are the Best Habits for Writing?

Automatic Writing

Do you ever write without any end in mind? That is, just fill a notebook with a page of whatever’s on your mind? At first, the words may seem like gibberish. But you may notice after a while that there’s a topic or two in there that could be expanded. And those topics that you happen upon accidentally can be even more fun. Automatic writing works really well in the morning for me, but you can take a try any time of day. The important thing is to turn off the editor who lives in your head and keep going.

Combine Two Unique Topics

This is probably my favorite way to write. Combine two topics that you wouldn’t usually see together. For instance, What Nikola Tesla Said about the New iPhone Will Blow Your Mind! probably isn’t an article or blog post that you’re going to see very often. That’s what some might call a long, long, long tail word. So you might think about combining someone in the news along with another topic and see what happens. At the very least, you’ll have fun writing!

Write for Yourself

That is, don’t worry about what anyone else will think. That’s a good way to start. Of course, if you have an audience, you need to keep them in mind. But if you don’t have anything written, you can’t go back and edit later. You need to have something on the page so you can go back and change it, after all.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: automatic writing, content creation, make writing fun, more fun content creation

What’s the Best Social Media Site for Discussions?

May 9, 2019 By Carol Stephen 6 Comments

What’s the Best Social Media Site for Discussions?

Maybe you’ve joined all kinds of social media sites in order to share your own content. And now you’re saying now what? Maybe you’d like to have conversations and some engagement on those sites. Maybe you’d like an actual discussion. Where would you begin? By the way, you might like my article on engagement: For Better Social Media Results, Focus on Engagement.

Lines Are Blurring Between Sites

In some ways, the lines between the different sites are blurring. Facebook looks a lot like LinkedIn (and vice-versa) these days. You can scroll, like, share, etc. And video is becoming more popular across all sites.

Smaller Sites Offer Discussion

Some lesser-known sites offer opportunities for discussions, such as Quora and Reddit, but then again, are your customers and friends there? If they are, then, by all means, join them. But if they’re not, maybe it’s better to go where the people are. The 21 top social media sites for 2019 (from Buffer) are those with the most users. But wait! That doesn’t necessarily mean you should be on Snapchat!

Larger Sites May Be Better for Discussions

If you’re looking to connect with more people, the larger sites tend to attract more people. Here are some of the benefits of each:

Twitter is very good for chatting with a group, focused on a specific topic. Tweet chats are plentiful and seem to be making a comeback. I’ll be writing more about Twitter chats, and started writing a TweetChats: Your Complete Guide. Here is Part One.

On Facebook, you can have a discussion, and it’s a bit easier to follow threads. You may want to start the discussion at a particular time (when your audience is online) by checking your analytics.

On LinkedIn, you can also follow threads, similar to Facebook. On LinkedIn, it’s good to post at times when your audience is online, too. Early in the morning is good, and so is right after dinner time.

YouTube is becoming more and more popular, and is the largest search engine, after Google. How-to videos, in particular, do very well, and there’s plenty to discuss there.

If you market to Millennials, and especially women, Pinterest is a great place to be. 80-90% of Pinterest’s users are women. Recently, Pinterest went public and has been doing well.

Do You Have a Favorite Place for Discussions?

Maybe you like to comment on blog posts! Or maybe you like Facebook. Do tell!

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Best Social Media Site for Discussions?, where to have discussions on social media

TweetChats: Your Complete Guide, Part One

May 2, 2019 By Carol Stephen Leave a Comment

Your Complete Guide to TweetChats

Part One: Do You Really Want to Host a Tweetchat?

In this series, I’ll go through a step-by-step process for everything you need to know about tweetchats, starting with hosting tweetchats–maybe even more than you want to know. It’ll include structured versus unstructured chats, how to choose a name, how to promote, ways to extend your reach, how to measure your success, and more. If you’re 100% positive that you want to host one, though, skip this post. In Part Two, there will be information about how to get started. I’ve already written a few articles about tweetchats which you might enjoy:

Challenges of Hosting Tweetchats

Tweetchats are a lot of work. If you’re hosting a tweetchat, some of the things you must decide are:

how to name one
how to promote yours
deciding whether or not to have a co-host
how much time it will take
whether you have the time
what it will do for your business
what happens if you go on vacation
how will you promote your tweetchat

They are a commitment and to create a good one will require lots more time than the 30 minutes or one hour of the chat itself. People can hijack your hashtag and promote their own agenda, so be prepared for that. Also, you’ll need to come up with a weekly or monthly topic (though some are very loose).

Pluses of Hosting Tweetchats

There are lots of positive reasons to create a tweetchat. Social Media Examiner has a good list of reasons and steps to hosting a successful Twitter chat. Although it’s from 2012, there’s still a lot of good information there.

A tweetchat can:

give you credibility
help you connect with your followers at a deeper level
bring you more followers
establish you as an expert
entertain you
help you easily meet new friends by providing a topic of conversation
bring you new business.
surprise you. Sometimes a big brand will chime in and you’ll be surprised by that. You may get offers of sponsorship, money, or free cars (just kidding about the cars…checking to see if you’re still with me).
be highly entertaining! And if you’re like me, and work alone a lot, you may enjoy the company.

Questions?

If there’s anything you’d like to know about leading a tweetchat, leave a comment, and I’ll try to answer your questions within the blog. And thank you.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: hosting tweetchats, how to host tweetchats

Is Social Media the New Foundation of Friendships?

April 25, 2019 By Carol Stephen 2 Comments

Recently, there have been more articles about people being lonelier, and especially millennials. There seem to be fewer ways to meet people, with more of our shopping done online, and even classes being online these days. So what’s a person to do? How do you go about meeting people? By the way, if your loneliness leads to depression, you may want to see a professional. Here are some ideas for dealing with loneliness.

Hobbies Explored through Social Media

For me, my hobbies have often turned into friendships. I’ve talked before about knitting (in the context of boredom), and how that has opened up into another world of friendships. Stick with me for a minute here. So I found out about local knitting classes on Instagram, invited a couple of girlfriends to go with me, then met a whole bunch of other knitters with whom we now share wine, knitting, and details of our lives. With a new hobby (perhaps it’s a different hobby for you), you might also know people within your circle who already knit or photograph or like to hike, and reestablish those connections.

Online Classes

Even if you are in a class that’s online, sometimes people want to meet in person. And those meetings can blossom into friendships. Years ago I took an online class and am still friends with the woman who taught the class. I discovered the class through Twitter.

Meetups

Another way to meet and make friends is through meetups. There are many meetups for all kinds of interests, and if there isn’t one for your interest, you can easily create your own. For instance, I’ve met many people through a meetup that I used to attend on the Law of Attraction. Although many classes are only available through Meetup, some of them announce their meetups through social media. That may be indirect, but it’s a good way to meet people, too.

Photo by Ignite New Zealand

Have You Met People Online and Then In Person?

How did that go? And are you still friends? Leave me a comment! And thank you.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: social media foundation friendship, social media friendship

How-to Secrets to Business Blogging to Fire You Up

April 18, 2019 By Carol Stephen 4 Comments

HOW TO SECRETS TO BUSINESS BLOGGING TO FIRE YOU UP

Everyone may say that there’s one secret to business blogging, and there are some shortcuts, but really the best secret is there is no secret! That said, there are a number of hints that may help. Here are a few.

Get off Your Buts

You know what I mean. Stop procrastinating and set yourself in a chair and get started. Once you get started, the cobwebs will start to dissolve. My friend Bridget Willard covers the subject of procrastinating in her excellent article: Are you busy procrastinating? If you suddenly have to clean the house before you can get started on your business blogging, you may be a procrastinator! Or if you have to “get ready to get ready,” that’s another sign.

Photo by MuseumofWorldCulture

Have a Series of Topics on Which to Write

Sometimes the toughest part about writing is knowing what to write about. So when you’re at your peak creativity, why not create a list of topics your audience might want to know about? If you like this idea, here are more details: How to Come up with a Year’s Worth of Blog Content. You may think you can magically come up with ideas in the moment, but it’s not really that easy. It’s much easier to have just a little structure before you get started.

Ask Your Friends for Ideas

Often your friends will have even better ideas than you have yourself. Or while they’re talking, you’ll suddenly have an ‘Aha!’ moment. Ask them what sorts of business blogging you should do, and you’ll definitely be surprised by some of their answers. You know more than you think you do, and sometimes knowing too much can keep you from seeing an opportunity that’s right in front of your face.

Have a Deadline

Give yourself a deadline, and see if you can make it. If you can’t do your business blogging once a week, how about once a month? Write about something that inspires you, bothers you, or that you can’t get off your mind. How about setting aside a 15-minute block of time to work on that important goal? Then talk it out and make it into a blog post. Or you could do a short video. This is more of a time hack than a deadline, but still.

Write about Something New in Your Business

Is there something in your business that you’ve just started doing? Is there something you’ve expanded upon? Is there something you’ve stopped doing? There are three topics for your business blogging right there. You could word them like so:

How My New Business Opportunity Benefits You
Why the (fill in the blank) Part of My Business is Expanding
Why I No Longer Do Free Consultations (or whatever you no longer do)

Hire Someone

If you can’t handle business blogging yourself, hire someone to help. Or hire someone to help you brainstorm topics or to get you started. There may be someone you know personally who can help you. You never know. And here’s what happens when you hire a professional blogger. Hiring someone doesn’t have to be forever. You might want to hire someone for just a few months.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: blogging, business blogging, how to blog for your business

Made up Holidays Social Media Managers Will Absolutely Love

April 11, 2019 By Carol Stephen Leave a Comment

Made up Holidays Social Media Managers Will Absolutely Love

Have you noticed there are more and more holidays these days, each one of them more ridiculous than the last? So I figured, why not a few for social media managers (“SMMs”)? After all, we’re the unsung heroes and heroines of the internet. Cats get all the credit, and of course, it was they who invented the internet. But we SMMs do have to wrangle with people each and every day. And no cat would willingly do that. By the way, you might like How to Use Social Media for Holidays.

Buy a Social Media Manager a Drink Day

Let’s start here. It doesn’t have to be an alcoholic drink, either. It does have to be very, very large, however. And it will need a fruit garnish, too. And maybe an umbrella. Also, an hors d’oeuvre on the side would be nice. Something festive, of course! Since it is a holiday. By the way, Buy a Social Media Manager a Beer Day is a whole separate thing.

Free Donuts for Social Media Managers

This is actually a weeklong event. Make that a yearlong event. And that includes sprinkles, too. And also, we don’t want to hear any of “you shouldn’t be eating that” or “that isn’t low-carb, is it?” comments during this event. Since it lasts the entire year, that means no mean comments ever!

Hug Your Social Media Manager Unless They’re an Introvert Day

Oh, too bad! Most social media managers are introverts, so you’re out of luck. The ones who aren’t are the ones who like to make videos of themselves. So that’s only a few of us. And even then, please ask before coming in for a big bear hug.

Community Manager Appreciation Day

Hey, this one is real! It’s on HubSpot’s blog: The Ultimate Social Media Holiday Calendar. So there. It’s in January every year. By the way, “Just Because Day” seems like a really good idea. It’s August 27th, and if you want more information about Just Because Day, here you go. And we can also celebrate Just Because Day, while we’re at it.

Celebrate Your Awkward Social Media Moment Day

Don’t we all have these, every day? Or else someone else has them and we happen to be there, witnessing the awkward moment? They’re just as awkward for us, social media managers, as they are for everyone else. It’s just that–we see more of them because we’re watching you (and everyone else) on Facebook, Twitter, and everywhere else you happen to be sharing your awkward moments. Sometimes we even see awkward moments by other social media managers, and that is doubly awkward. So if you’ve had one of those moments, this day is to celebrate your awkwardness! If that sounds like you, you might like How to Deal with Awkward Online Conversations.

What Holidays Would You Like to See?

Did I forget one or more holidays? Let me know in the comments! And thank you. P.S. Please don’t hug me.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: fake holidays, fake holidays for social media managers, social media holidays

Your Voice Is the Voice of the Business

Get Hyper-Local

You Can Look Bigger Than You Are

Get Your Name Out There

Who’s Your Audience?

The Problem is Consistency

Content Creation: Be a Tortoise, Rather Than a Hare

Wrangle Those Words

Animal Rights

Human Rights

Organ Donation Awareness

Land Trusts

Giving Campaigns

Your Time is Valuable

Use a Different Image

Change the Quote When You Reshare

Customize for Social Media Platforms

Bonus Idea

Add Colorful Images

Appreciate Bad Writing

Automatic Writing

Combine Two Unique Topics

Write for Yourself

Lines Are Blurring Between Sites

Smaller Sites Offer Discussion

Larger Sites May Be Better for Discussions

Do You Have a Favorite Place for Discussions?

Part One: Do You Really Want to Host a Tweetchat?

Challenges of Hosting Tweetchats

Pluses of Hosting Tweetchats

Questions?

Hobbies Explored through Social Media

Online Classes

Meetups

Have You Met People Online and Then In Person?

Get off Your Buts

Have a Series of Topics on Which to Write

Ask Your Friends for Ideas

Have a Deadline

Write about Something New in Your Business

Hire Someone

Buy a Social Media Manager a Drink Day

Free Donuts for Social Media Managers

Hug Your Social Media Manager Unless They’re an Introvert Day

Community Manager Appreciation Day

Celebrate Your Awkward Social Media Moment Day

What Holidays Would You Like to See?

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