By Hillary Mineer

“I don’t have OCD, I have CDO. It’s like OCD, but the letters are in alphabetical order as they should be!”  That statement is 110% me through and through. I value organization and fully believe that everything has a place, whether it’s books, toys, or files! If there is an order, things are easily completed and your long to-do list doesn’t appear as daunting. However, being a social media community manager can definitely create added stress if things aren’t managed properly.

Handling Social Media Marketing

If you are a social media community manager/social media specialist, you can bet I relate to your daily responsibilities. You have posts to update, schedule, and respond to, followers to engage with, events to promote, blogs to write, newsletters to send, pictures to upload, and so on and so forth! This doesn’t include your other responsibilities you may have like emails and research, and it definitely doesn’t mention whether these are done for multiple clients! How do you handle everything? It can be done with a successful editorial calendar!

In managing an online community, it can be easy to make plans but can also be difficult to stick to them! Events and milestones come and go;what happens when the excitement is gone and you’re stuck with “writers block”? You’re sitting in front of your computer without any thought on content to keep your community engaged! This can happen to anyone.

Developing and utilizing an editorial calendar is crucial to a successful social media marketing plan. It can also help you stay focused by giving you a clear plan over a set period of time. You can benefit from using an editorial calendar because it helps you break down larger concepts into much more manageable tasks. Here are a few other benefits of using an editorial calendar:

1. Relieves stress – successful editorial calendars can help keep your stress level down by making sure you are staying on top of your tasks.
2. Create campaigns/themes – this calendar can be used to plan weekly, monthly, and/or quarterly campaigns/themes for your community to increase engagement and sales, based on your goals.
3. Easy to manage – editorial calendars are a simple and familiar layout. They will clearly display your to-do list and make it easy to cross the task off when it’s completed.

Do you have an editorial calendar in place? If not, contact us today and we’d be happy to help you get started!

By Chad N.

What is an Identity Package?

When starting a business or even if you’ve been around for a while, it is important to consider your business’s identity package. An identity package is the print and web materials that showcase your company. This includes any print collateral, business cards, websites, web ads, letterheads, logos, etc. While a small business may not have marketing on every platform, it is a good idea to keep in mind some guidelines for at least your logo. Larger businesses may start setting up guideline documents for each medium so designers will know what rules to follow. In both cases, this can help ensure a consistent look and feel for your company.

The Importance of an Identity Package

With an identity package, a company can begin to have an established brand that shows customers and potential clients what they are all about. Setting the basic guidelines of what colors, font, and placement of just your logo is only the beginning for setting up your company’s identity. A website’s placement for your logo might differ from your company’s letterhead. A postcard print ad has much less space than your full page magazine ad. In any situation, even the font can play an important role in how you are represented.

Basics of an Identity Package

For most small businesses, you can start with a logotype, letterhead, and business card. For business cards or letterheads, you can download templates at Vistaprint.com. For your logotype, set up rules for the space around your logo, font, background colors, optional logo colors, and greyscale or black & white color rules. Once you have established these rules, you can ensure that no matter what you place your brand on, your logo will have a consistent feel.

While a letterhead may seem like something even a web based company may never use, consider that companies still use invoices through Google docs and Word. With a simple set up, you can produce a quick letterhead that brands any word documents to your company. While the logo rules apply, do not forget to include contact information and copyright information. Also, if the document is for internal use or for a specific company, consider placing that information within the footer. You can easily save time by having these templates prepared for your company.A business card is probably one of the hardest things to create for your identity package, second to your website. While there are numerous templates and designs out there for business cards, these are one of the few pieces used as a first impression outside of your brand itself. Not only does the design on the card make a statement, but so too can the paper type, style, shape, and orientation of the card itself. While a traditional business card design is recommended, consider what a clear, metal, or cardboard card may look like.

If you have any questions about your logo or any design, be sure to give us a call!

Ask an entrepreneur what SEO is, and unless they have a background in eCommerce or digital marketing, they will likely be clueless. Unfortunately, for most entrepreneurs, SEO can make a world of difference in the success of their business and often be the difference between success and failure.

Nowadays, if you want your business to be found by possible customers, you need a website. Web searches have all but eliminated the telephone book and a great online presence can be far more effective and cost-efficient than print advertising. But it doesn’t end there. In order to get potential customers to find your website, you need to have a comprehensive SEO strategy that covers everything from your site’s structure, keywords, and content  to off-site linking that brings traffic to your website.

Keywords

Finding the right keywords for your site depends entirely on your ideal customers: what are they searching for? Using keyword tools such as Google Adwords, you can research what your customers are looking for and determine the keyword phrases you need worked into your content to bring traffic to your site. To have a comprehensive list of keywords, a great deal of research is involved.

Content and Structure

The content and structure of your site work hand in hand to rank the site in search results for your chosen set of keywords. Your site content should be enriched with keywords, but they should not be overly used, as this could cause your site to be penalized (Google calls this “keyword stuffing”). The site content should also be interesting and engaging – once the potential customers arrive at your site, you’ll want to keep them around. Your site structure depends on the type of business you operate: if you sell a variety of products, you will need several web pages for each product as well as categorization and other necessary pages. Your page titles will need to reflect your chosen keywords. If your business involves only a few products or services, your site will require fewer pages.

Off-site linking

Off-site linking can come from a variety of sources – blogs, social media sites, YouTube videos, and much more. Besides simply leading traffic from other sites to yours, link building improves your site’s placement in the search engines, which will also lead to additional traffic.

Keywords, content, structure, and off-site linking are just the beginning when it comes to building the presence of your business online. As an entrepreneur, you need to focus on running your business and make sure you get the most for what you put into it. MCM can help! Contact us today to help get your business started on the path to an effective SEO strategy that will give your business great online presence and ultimately lead you to a successful venture!

By Heather Long

Yesterday, February 29th, Facebook released the ability to turn your Business Page into a timeline, similar to personal pages. March 30^th, all business pages will be converted into the Timeline feature. There has been outcry as to people not liking this format, but like it or not, it’s headed your way. So let’s embrace the change and make it work for your marketing!

Over the next 30 days, or today if you are feeling motivated, here is what you need to do in order to transition your Facebook page smoothly and smartly.

Revisit your Facebook Strategy

For the most part, the purpose of Facebook in your marketing strategy will not change. The design changes make your Facebook page more picturesque, but the strategy behind it shouldn’t alter too much. Although if your plan hasn’t been providing the results you are looking for thus far, now is a good time to revisit and overhaul your marketing strategy and make the design work for you.

Also, keep in mind that there will no longer be a default landing page, so if your strategy included having a default tab asking new fans to “Like” your page, then you will need to make adjustments. Consider using landing pages, or just tabs now, for promotional and informational purposes. Perhaps offer a specialty item, discount code or piece of advice only available to fans on your Facebook page.

If your concern with landing tabs disappearing is the first time visitor experience also lacking, then you may like the idea of pinning posts. You can pin a photo, welcome post, or even create a welcome video to the top of your timeline. Rest assured there are many ways around the fact you can’t default fans to a tab. It’s all about creativity!

Timeline Design – Avatar and Cover Photo

The best part of this timeline, in this graphic designer’s opinion, is all the pretty pretty space you can make your business page your own. Sure, before hand you could utilize the larger avatar and code out a landing page to brand Facebook for you, but now, no matter what, your fans will always get to view your cover photo and it is glorious!

So what’s different with the avatar? Before you could create an avatar that was 180 pixels wide and up to about as long as you would like. Now it is limited to 180 x 180 pixels, so a nice compact square. This is okay! It gives you the opportunity to create a nice image that will show up in feeds. I would recommend using your logo, but you can be creative if you’d like. You may need to re-format your logo a bit to fit into the dimensions, but as long as it doesn’t veer off to far from your original logo, your brand will stay intact.

Now for the Cover Photo. Since landing pages are now considered “so 2011”, you can create a large photo that sprawls across your business page. The dimensions for this are 851 x 315 pixels. You can use a regular photo that is at least 399 pixels wide, but keep in mind that it will stretch to fit in the space allotted. You would be better off to crop a picture to the correct dimensions or designing a custom image. I’m going to insist on using your imagination for your cover photo. Keep it branded and within guidelines, but make it your own. Also keep in mind Facebook’s guidelines when creating these cover photos.

Cover Photos cannot contain (source: Facebook Help):

• Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”
• Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s About section
• References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features
• Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”

And finally, just to remind you, you will no longer be able to choose a default tab for new fans to land on. If you have a welcome tab, I would adjust it so that it doesn’t say welcome to the page or to like your page. It will look irrelevant. Another thing to consider is that the tabs will be wider (going from 520 px to 810 px wide – woohooo, real estate baby), so you will need to recode the tabs to fill the space. For the time being, Facebook will center your tab in the space, or you can remove any tabs until you have a chance to revisit their purpose and their look.

Clean Up and Edit your History

With the timeline, you can now enter in important milestones! You can add the day you were founded, the first dollar you made, a new service added, new locations; whatever it is that is important to your business! Remember, Social Media is about making a personal connection with your customers, so sharing your important moments with your fans just makes you that much more personable. Tell your story!

When All Else Fails

Don’t panic. We at MCM are here to help you out. Give us a call and we can walk you through the changes! There’s time to make sure it is done right and get you on the Timeline Bandwagon with confidence and with smart marketing strategy!

By Jenn Maggiore

It may sound funny to some, thinking about a brand “crisis” unfolding on Twitter or Facebook, but if you’ve ever had an angry customer rip on your product or a rogue employee make a hateful comment then you know that planning for a social media crisis is no laughing matter. Read on for a couple quick tips on handling a social media crisis, then head over and check out Hillary’s detailed post on managing social media crises.

4 Tips For Handling a Crisis:

1) Don’t Ignore the Issue: Own Up and Move On
Did you put your foot in your mouth? Make a silly mistake? Did an employee use poor judgment and make an insensitive or tasteless joke or comment? Don’t delete it and don’t ignore the backlash – be present and accountable, most importantly apologize and let your followers know what you intend to do to prevent it in the future (sensitivity training, development of new guidelines, etc). In minor cases you may be able to make a light joke and move on; post frequently to push the post in question down.

Larger issues may need professional help. “Big deals” are like icebergs, you often only see the top of it sticking out of the water. If you feel things are going sideways, don’t hesitate to contact a social media or PR professional – it may turn into something bigger and timeliness is crucial in calming a crisis.

2) Don’t Post Angry
At times, the best outlet for an angry customer could be on your social media platforms. When you receive an complaint online consider  if there is validity to customer complaints? Respond honestly, quickly and regularly, give your social media team the authority to resolve small problems quickly. If there seems to be no way to please your angry customer, offer to call or email them to discuss – this takes the conversation off of social media. And again, post frequently to push the complaint down – do NOT remove your customer’s post.

3) Know who has access to login to your social media platforms and how to shut them down.
If a disgruntled employee or ex-employee has access as admin on your sites, this can turn ugly quickly. Make sure you have a plan in place to quickly remove admin access to any employee, even if they leave on happy terms, off any social media platforms you utilize. Keep a list platforms handy so that there is no platform left with access.

4) Always keep a cool head.
Don’t freak out. Follow your crisis plan. Oh wait, don’t have a crisis plan? You should – outline what kinds of comments should be addressed, how they should be addressed and by whom. Regularly monitor social media activity and practice what your employees should do in the case of an actual crisis.

If you need help, call us today at 480-374-5343, we can create a custom set of social media guidelines to decrease the likelihood of offending your audience, and what to do when your audience turns into an angry mob

Resource: check out this set of guidelines from Facebook on addressing a social media crisis.

By Hillary Mineer

We noticed quite a few social media “disasters” in 2011, from large companies like Chapstick and McDonalds; we know it can happen to anyone. With more and more social media crises breaking out, you would think brands would be better at handling and resolving them! If your business were to experience a social media “fail”, what kind of plan do you have in place to help resolve the situation?

In an article by Jesse Stanchak, it said that if a social media public relation crisis were to hit your brand tomorrow, 63.81% of people said they have the capacity to respond, but have no formal plan in place. If you’re part of this 63%, let MCM help you out! Here are three ways to feel more prepared for a less than perfect social media situation –

1. Create a social media strategy
   When your team is prepared with a strategy, everybody knows their role and what’s expected of them.
2. Form a crisis management Team
   This team should include monitors and responders.
3. Develop a response strategy
   It’s important to know where and how you will respond. If a situation breaks out on Facebook, it needs to be resolved on Facebook. Your response needs to reach the maximum amount of eyes and ears as possible.

Don’t let your business get stuck in a social media crisis; even the little ones can unravel into a huge mess! Let MCM help, contact us today to create an efficient plan to keep your business booming!

By Hillary Mineer

Small-business owners face a lot of pressures; it comes with the job! So what’s the best way to relieve some of the pressure? Hiring the right team! Your employees are essential to your business being successful. Happy employees work harder and are both healthier and more creative. Keeping your employees happy allows them to project a better image of your company, treat your customers better and spread excellent word of mouth.

Ways to Keep Employees Happy

1. Pay and Benefits – Make sure you are paying your employees what they’re worth. Chances are you’ve found a team who is creative, hard-working, strong-willed, and passionate about what they do. Not to mention, they kick ass while doing it!
2. One-on-one communication – With a busy schedule, it can be tough making time for employees individually. Client, creative, and status update meetings are always good to have, but it’s just as important to save some time for one-on-one communication with your team members. It lets them know you are available and showing compassion.
3. Recognition – When a team member does a great job dealing with a client, planning an event, bringing in potential leads or handling difficult situations, praise them for it! They want to hear congratulations, as it tells them you are paying attention to what they’re doing. It will also boost their ego a bit
4. Fun and comfortable work environment – Don’t coop up your team in a tiny closet without windows. They are your peacocks;
   

   From left: Lauren, Hillary, and Chad

   you need to let them fly! (“The Other Guys” reference, anyone? ) We have a great “community table”. Each of us has our own desk, which allows us to communicate when needed and most importantly, we can listen to great tunes!

I’ve been with MCM for almost two years and I’m very happy and comfortable here! The environment is fun and the people are great.

Why do you love your job? In what ways does your boss make sure you are happy? Share with us on our Facebook page!

Do you know Presenta Plaque? They are a family owned and run business located in Tempe. Their origins began in Long Island, New York over thirty years ago. “It was the birth of a grandson in 1993 that resulted in the founders relocating the entire business and their household to Arizona.” Presenta Plaque is a friendly bunch, and we very much enjoy working with them.

Presenta Plaque wants to make it as simple and rewarding as possible so show appreciation to the people in our community working hard to make it a better place for everyone. Presenta Plaque has an incredible campaign going on right now that allows you to nominate a person, group or community for their strength, dedication and benevolence. Back in September 2011, Presenta Plaque caught wind that Amy Donahue would be presenting at Social Media Breakfast, so they awarded her a plaque for donating her kidney to a friend she met through Twitter. Are you familiar with “Tiny Fab Kidney”? You can read about that here.

You can read more about the campaign and nominate someone today, just check out their blog!

By Jenn Maggiore

Since 2005 when I founded Maggiore Consulting & Marketing, I’ve worked with many personalities and learned a lot along the way. There are many reasons that people seek out consulting; they need some direction, they need to know available options and they need assistance with creating a plan. Often times though, people seek out consultants for the wrong reasons.

Consulting is extremely difficult, and I think different than what many people expect they are going to get. I’ve channeled this experience into clearly defining expectations with new clients, especially with those who have never worked with a consultant before. I let clients know ahead of time that they are going to hear things that they don’t want to hear- we’re going to let you know that some of the things you are doing with your marketing are spot on, some other things are counteracting your good work. If you’ve hired my company to perform an audit of your company’s marketing, you have already established that something isn’t working. We don’t come back with audit results to hurt feelings or to make any of your employees feel inadequate. The intention is to find out where the wheels are falling off, and to fix it.

It is also our responsibility to look at the whole picture and find the easiest and most cost effective way for you to get from point A (having a product or service to sell) to point B (connecting you with the people most likely to need your product or service). More times than I can count, clients ignore these recommendations. That’s part of the job and I understand it– sometimes we suggest something outside the comfort zone, or we don’t have the resources to fully realize a campaign. But other times it isn’t discomfort or lack of resources, it’s a client that wants us to fulfill a list of marketing To Dos. They want something very specific done, they have a vision for where they want to be (which is great!), but sometimes this group is so focused on that vision that they are unwilling to see other possible options (not great!). They want someone to take their order.

It makes me feel like a bit like a waitress, “What can I get for you today? Ok, clean up your email database, design a flyer and start a Twitter profile. We’ll have that right out for you”. When a business owner or executive is that clear on what he wants, he is really saying that he needs an employee with the time and skills to execute his plan. These are the clients who become frustrated at what they are paying us (it does cost significantly more to work with a company comprised of experienced experts than an individual that can fulfill job duties), and are annoyed when we suggest something outside of the plan. It’s understandable – we charge a premium because we look at the entire situation (does it even make sense for you to be on Twitter? Why are we cleaning up an email database right now when we don’t yet have a place for it in your strategy?). Think of me as the Iron Chef who jumps into the kitchen, and based on what you have on-hand, surprises you with a satisfying meal that you wouldn’t have thought up. It is frustrating to pay a premium for the Iron Chef and then use her only to walk the plate of food from the kitchen to the table. So ask yourself, do you need an Iron Chef and are you willing to let her whip something incredible up, or do you need an order taker?

Consultants come to the table (it’s a pun, like that?) to look at a challenge and develop a set of solutions. Do you know what your organization needs to successfully market itself? If the answer is no, a good consultant that brings clarity and answers will be well worth the investment. If the answer is yes and you simply don’t have the time to implement the plan, or you just need to find someone who knows how to insert meta data or use Photoshop, then you’re looking for an employee to follow your recipe.

You don’t even have to leave me a tip- this one’s on me

By Chad N.

Almost every business and company has created a Facebook page, but not every one of them has established themselves there. Facebook has allowed a lot more customization over the past few years helping companies differentiate themselves. While you still have to work within Facebook’s limitations, you’ll be surprised at what you can do for your page to help show your company’s persona.

Probably the most important thing is your profile picture and avatar. When switching between pages on a Facebook page, these are always visible by viewers. In the past, you were restricted to a small box no matter what picture you placed there. Now, you can create a profile picture with a maximum size of 200 pixels wide and 600 pixels tall. Keep in mind that when you post a status update, your avatar will come from your profile picture. Some good examples of company branded pages include University of Phoenix, Dunkin Donuts, Dr Pepper, and the NHL. In the case of Dunkin Donuts, they update their profile picture as a contest and feature a new fan each week.

Next to your profile page, you have a photo strip, which usually consists of photos you’ve been tagged in, or photos you’ve recently uploaded. However, as an admin, you can control what photos show up and how they show up. This can be a little more work considering you now have to monitor tagged photos and such, but the results can be quite interesting. For a great example of a page utilizing this function correctly, visit Manchester Library’s Facebook page.

A very common misstep in branding your Facebook page is your Facebook url. This not only makes it easier for you to tell someone how to find your company on Facebook, but also helps when someone is searching on the web as well. If you go to your account settings, you can change your username to practically anything as long as someone else has not taken it. Make sure if you’ve branded yourself by an acronym, you do the same for your Facebook url, as it makes it not only easier to tell someone, but it can also be easier typing it. Best examples are any of the national sports leagues, as none of them type out their full name on their Facebook url.

Your welcome tab is also important when branding your page. This is the tab you want new viewers to see when they first come to your page. Sure, you could stick with your wall, but that may not fully answer their questions about who you are. Instead, you can redirect them to a welcome tab, which can not only showcase who you are, but can also drive traffic by linking to your website, newsletter, and/or other social networks.  If you’ve noticed from the previous examples, almost all of them directed you to a welcome tab (unless you’ve already liked them) and if you look back at the Manchester Library, you will notice on the left there is a tab set up for a welcome page.

As you can see, creating a company Facebook page is always the first step, but making sure it’s branded correctly sets you apart from your competition and gives your brand a better first impression for new visitors.