Not sure how to integrate the two for your business? Here are 3 ideas to get you started on the right path:

Use traditional media to promote your social media presence. It takes 7 “touches” before a typical audience receives the message you’re trying to get out. Some ideas:

~QR code in a print ad directing them to one of your social media platform pages (FB fan page, Google + page). This is great if you’re having a contest.
~Put your Facebook page URL on your billboard/print ad.
~Don’t forget to add all your social media accounts to your invoices, service agreements, etc.

Test out a new product on your social media followers to get feedback before advertising through traditional media outlets. This lets your social media audience feel like they have a special voice in your company.

Promote changes you’re making in your product/service/company due to social media conversations with customers. This tells your customers that their opinions matter and you use social media to build relationship.

As with any kind of marketing strategies, you have to follow through. If you are going to tell your customers that “we’re listening to you!”, then you better go above and beyond that.

I hope these ideas start generating thoughts that are specific to your business culture. I’d love to hear how you are using both medias to reach your audience!

Gaston Glock – He was doing a pretty good job selling his new gun design in Austria, but wanted to branch in out into the US. Gaston was not a salesman. He knew his limits and chose to partner up with someone who excelled in what he couldn’t do. Carl Walter was already selling guns and ammunition in the US. With the help of Carl’s salesmanship and marketing skills & Gaston’s excellent design, the Glock is used more than any other gun in the US.

James A Folgers II– James’ father founded Folgers in California and was the first roasting company to introduce bulk buying and various levels of roasting. He had a great business mind, but he needed someone to sell it outside of where they were located. James hired an energetic salesman, Frank P Atha to cover the North Beach. Soon Atha came to James and said, “I need more room! I can do so much more for Folgers if you send me to Texas.” Atha opened and managed a coffee plant in Texas and as the saying goes, and in all reality…the rest was history.

In both those case, the original founders of these products knew how to make the products the very best it can be, but they also knew their limitations. A great partnership and team works this way. No one person has all the answers. But if you put key players, with their individual expert background, in place you’ll have an incredible team!

Look at the employees at your company. Examine the peers in your BNI. Evaluate your team in any other group organization. Are you all suited to help hone each others skills? Is there a gaping hole in your well-oiled suit of armor? Your customers will see it, I promise.

Sometimes a hard-to-say “no” now, will save you from a painful and expensive “no” later.

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Every business should have their own creative ideas and goals. Customer service should be your business and your services or products is how to you serve them. With that in mind here are four basic, bottom-line strategies that all companies should keep in mind:

1. C-suite / Upper management must believe…not just be “on board”. If a CEO is saying, “Sure we should use that social media…stuff,” they aren’t getting it. You’re going to spin your wheels running back and forth between implementing strategies and convincing your boss that it’s the right thing to do. Digital media marketing is time exhaustive as it is. Trying to justify what you’re doing to someone who doesn’t believe in it’s effectiveness will kill you.

2. Goals and strategy above tools. I have a friend who is deeply in love with her new iPad. The only problem is she doesn’t understand how to use the iPad for anything other than her apps. After six months, she’s just learned how to lock her screen. Using almost every social media tool out there but not having any idea of your SM goals is just about as silly. Do your research and find the tools that will help you reach your goals efficiently.

3. Build relationships! Please remember that SM marketing is about building customer loyalty. It’s not a big billboard in the sky for you to push your products/services on your audience. Talk to your customers and potential customers online. Build a rapport with peers in your field of expertise. Be a service provider for your audience.

4. Take solid measurements. Ok, so you took the time to build up a strategy and it’s been 6 months. How do you know what’s working and what’s not, if you don’t measure your steps? What are your stats telling you? Maybe you should stop blog posting on Monday and Wednesday and move it to Tuesday and Thursday, because that’s when it’s getting more hits. What kind of tweets are getting retweeted the most? These are the things that will tell you if you’re on target or if you need to change your strategy.

Social media is the constant, ever-changing beast. Make sure you know WHY you shouldn’t feed it after midnight or get it wet!

Downloading all your information from Facebook is actually very easy:

1. While at Home (your update stream is showing), scroll all the way down to the bottom until you see a bottom menu bar. Click on Privacy.

2. On this page, one of the options is Interactive Tools. Click on this link.

3. Download all your information. A window will pop up that says they will be emailing you when the download is ready. It took about an hour for me to get that email.

4. Click on the link in your email. It will ask for your password for security reasons. Then download to your computer (facebook-username.zip)

It downloads anything you have ever put on Facebook. I’ve never had any issues with Facebook losing my information, but I know of other’s that have had to battle this with Facebook…and we all know the great customer service that Facebook extends. (!)

Cheers!

Community-a-holic

People-person

So many trendy titles, but the bottom line is do you care about people? Whether you “get” something from them or not?

Somewhere along the line I have almost grown a chip on my shoulder over businesses that don’t make their clients a priority. The lack of good, old-fashion service has been lost. It’s in the little things, really. That’s what makes the clients smile and feel just a bit more loyal to you.

At Boundless we try to focus on the little things that make a difference. Even something as small as turning off the nofollow attributes to this blog.

It became the norm to have nofollow as a part of your blogs makeup to put the kibosh on so many spammers trying to get linky love. Akismet has done a fabulous job on staying on top of it so we are turning the nofollow attributes off. We want to encourage discussion here and giving some Google love  never hurt anyone!

I look forward to chatting with you all on here, Facebook or Twitter!

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I’ve highlighted some of the most misunderstood aspects of using social media in business:

1. It’s free! While a lot of the tools are free, the act of engaging various social media platforms is time-intensive. This is not just a one-time campaign…it’s a process that should become another foundational part of your marketing strategy.

2. I don’t need it. You’re right…if you want your company to grow stagnant. There are plenty of other businesses that want to build a relationship with your customers through social media. Are you willing to give them up?

3. Once it’s set up, I’m good to go.  See #1. An inactive social media account is a dead social media account.

4. This is another great way to sell my product. Yes and no. What social media is not: big billboard in the sky for ads, megaphone for yelling deals, replacement for email marketing. What social media is: a great way to service your customers, listening devices to hear what is being said about your company, engagement tools.

5. I still think that Social Media is just a fad.

Facebook: launched February, 2004
Twitter: launched July, 2006
LinkedIn: launched May, 2003
YouTube: launched November, 2005

Most fads don’t last 5 years or longer.  Those are just some of the top social media sites.

If you’re not ready to jump in with both feet, I would suggest at least listening to what is being said about your company within social media realms. In 2011, your company’s reputation depends upon it.

Zemanta: I use WordPress for all my blogs and I really like the Zemanta plugin. This will bring up a sidebar in your post development page. You can type in a keyword to search for that right image or just start typing and it will pick up keywords and start showing images. If you choose one, it will automatically be added to your post with credit linking back to the right site.  I know…very cool. Of course Zemanta is so much more than just this function. I suggest playing around with it.

Compfight: I’ve heard a mixed reaction to this one, but it works for me. Compfight is a site that will go out and pull Flickr images that fit your keyword search. So why not just go to Flickr for your search anyway? Compfight uses the Flickr API to pull it down in a more visually stimulating way. I can mouse over the images and it gives me the size and if I click on the image I want, it takes me directly to that Flickr account so I can credit them properly (Be sure to use the Creative Commons filter in the left sidebar).

It depends on your needs as to which one is more useful for you but please remember to always credit (link to) the person who placed the image online. It’s not only good etiquette, but it’s the law.

1. Did you know you can take a screenshot of your iPad? Clicking the home (large button at the lower part of your screen) and sleep (top edge) button at the same time will give you a screenshot. You’ll know it ‘took’ when it gives a slight flash to the screen. It saves the pic in Photos for easy transition to a computer.

2.  I’m an app junkie. Organizing my apps into groups is the only thing keeping me sane. Most people know that if you hold your finger on an app it will allow you to move it from screen to screen.  If you grab the app and hover it over another app, it will group the two together. I have groups for Business, Organized, News, etc. Makes it super organized! (Kudos to my buddy, Kevin, for showing me this one!)

3. Keyboard shortcuts are a must. There are a lot of shortcuts that you can find online. Some of the ones I use the most are:

• By double spacing at the end of the sentence, iPad will automatically add a period, space and capitalize the first letter to your next word.
• When you’re using the built-in keyboard on the iPad, apostrophes can get cumbersome. Most of the time, you can leave the apostrophe out and auto-correct will fill in the blanks for you. When that function isn’t available, hold your finger on the !/’ key and the apostrophe will come up so you don’t have to go to the number screen to get it. (Most of the symbol keys have extra keys available if you hold that key down.)
• On that note: keeping tweets down to minimal characters can be challenging when you’re a ellipsis user. (Guilty!) If you hold your finger on the period (number screen), on the iPad built-in keyboard, it will highlight an ellipsis key which only counts for one character vs. three.

What must-have shortcuts do you use on your iPad?

It’s not SuperMan…it’s Digital Media!

Everywhere you go people are scrambling to stay on top of the latest app, WordPress plugin (Jetpack!), or greatest marketing strategy.

Unfortunately that means people are jumping in feet first and finding themselves up to their knees in digital quicksand. As simple as this list is, it’s worth keeping in mind as you research whether using QR codes is for you:

1. Who is your audience? You will have a better success rate on your ROE (Return On Engagement) if you target a particular group of people. Don’t go so broad on your scope of reach. You want it scalable.

2. What is your call of action? Don’t just put up a QR Code in your latest e-blast just to say you’ve done it. Give your call of action some meat. Instead of asking your audience to scan the code and check out your site, send them to a page that is a current campaign. When the campaign has reached it’s goal, that code can still be used for potential clients.

3. Where are you putting the QR codes? If you put it on a t-shirt people will have trouble scanning it because of the material. If you’re putting it on a slide, make sure the screen is flat and not an old fashion pull down – it can distort your code. Hint: using a URL shortener will allow a visually smaller code. Extra Hint: Please test the code before you make it live.

4. When should you use a QR code? Remember using a QR code is just another way to reach out to your audience and entice them to come to you. It’s a resource. Use them for campaigns, business cards, presentations, expo events, parties, etc. Be creative and fun!

5. Why should you add QR codes to your strategy? According to IDC, the growth of smartphone usage is expected to increase by 49.2% during 2011. There are stats upon stats that are staggering when it comes to potentional customers using smartphones like laptops.  So do you want to reach them where they’re at or not?

I love hearing all the various ways that companies are starting to use QR codes. I’ve heard Real Estate firms that are putting them on the For Sale signs on properties. Clothing stores are encouraging their customers to scan in-store to save a percentage that day. Restaurants are are doing the same. I encourage you to be creative to stand out and get noticed!

HOOK: Catch the reader’s interest with a brief story or shocking statement (“After last week, our company will never be the same.”)

BOOK: State your key point with details (“There are several reasons why Company XYZ isn’t ready for social media. The first one being…”)

LOOK: Present the overall idea with practical applications and tips (“Here are 5 steps on how to serve your company better.”)

TOOK: Close with an action statement. Challenge them with the wrap up. (“Successful customer service starts from the top down. C-suites, does your employees know what customer service means to you? And is that part of the problem?”)

When you leave just one of these out, the post tends to feel incomplete even if the information is outstanding and helpful. There are many bloggers that have this formula down pat: Tamara and Amber from Brass Tack Thinking and Margie Clayman are just a few.

Try it for a few posts and see how it works for you. I think you’ll be much more satisfied with your writing.

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