Red Elixir

How to Gain Instant Trust on Your Website

Red Elixir — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 16:20:31 +0000

According to a study done at Missouri University of Science and Technology, it takes less than two-tenths of a second for a potential customer to form their first opinion of your company.

It takes another 2.6 seconds for that viewer to reinforce their initial beliefs about your business. Potential customers have short attention spans which means that you have just seconds to make a good first impression before they leave your site and forget you exist.

Why do you need to build instant trust on your website? To encourage your potential customer to take action – like calling you and writing that check for your product/ service.

Ways to establish instant trust on your website:

Showcase social proof: According to Google , 70% of Americans look at product reviews before making a purchase. An iPerceptions study found that 63% of consumers indicate they are more likely to purchase from a site if it has product ratings and reviews. This is no different when it comes to providing services to B2B clients. The thought process a potential client goes through is this: if other people are doing it, and I trust those people, that’s confirmation that I should also be doing it.

Elevate the status of your brand by becoming associated with bigger names. Research shows that “pairing a non-famous face with a famous face results in a higher fame rating than pairing a non-famous face with a semi-famous face. The fame attached to the famous people was misattributed to their non-famous partners”. This also works for brand logos. Take advantage of this by creating an “as seen or quoted in” section. Getting publicity sounds overwhelming but it doesn’t have to be!

Add a partial client list/ testimonials with client logos/ faces. Research suggests that images placed adjacent to written claims make the content appear more believable.

Showcase tweets and Facebook posts that say pleasant things about you and your business.

Showcase your community. Do you have a sizable Facebook or Twitter following? Show it off with a widget. See the awesome examples bellow.

If you or anyone you know needs a website that will generate business. Give us a call right away and we will hook you up!

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How To Get High Quality Free Publicity in Just Minutes a Day

Red Elixir — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 20:58:24 +0000

Are you interested in some high quality free publicity? Of course you are… you would be crazy not to be!

We have been using a handful of very helpful online PR tools for a side project. So far our efforts have resulted in our project being featured in 5 major industry blogs and publications in just the last month!

SCORE!

These tools make getting free, high quality publicity a breeze in just 15 minutes a day. Here is a list of the tools we use:

Help A Reporter: Website where media and journalists (everyone from The New York Times, to ABC News, to HuffingtonPost.com and more) pay to find sources. You can sign up to be a source for free. You will get three e-mails daily (Mon-Fri) full of media publications looking for sources on various topics.

Blogger LinkUp: A free tool that sends out 3 weekly emails (Mon, Wed, Fri). These emails will list bloggers looking for expert sources, requests for guest posts, bloggers and web masters offering guest posts, PR reps, and others seeking reviews of products.

Good Morning Bloggers: Free service that connects blog owners with content providers and vice versa. They promise relevant and original content that your readers will enjoy.

There are plenty of people/ organizations on Twitter providing similar services. I started a Twitter list incorporating my favorite PR opportunities on Twitter. Start by subscribing to my list HERE.

We will be publishing a guide on “How to Use Social Media to Generate High Quality Free Publicity in Just Minutes a Day.”

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How to Find a Shitty Guru

Red Elixir — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 18:42:32 +0000

On Saturday, social media enthusiasts around the world will be celebrating Mashable’s third annual Social Media Day. The event was created in 2010 “as a way to recognize the digital revolution happening right before our eyes”. As social media continues to transition from a novelty to a staple, the world is happy populated with more and more “experts”.

These days, everywhere you turn, there are handfuls of social media know-it-alls hawking their “invaluable” services. There is no shortage of self-described gurus, experts, mavericks, mavens, divas, queens, kings…etc. They are a dime a dozen.

We frequently meet with businesses that request a social media second opinion because a local “guru” they heard speak at their favorite networking meeting promised the moon, delivered no results, and stopped answering the phone. Anyone can learn how to sell something, especially if the buyer knows little about the service and buys into the hype. Just because someone can semi-intelligently discuss social media in front of a group of people, it doesn’t make them successful practitioners. This reminds us of college where half of the business professors didn’t spend a day in the real business world but were somehow “qualified” to teach business specifics.

To help diagnose the resulting failures, we do research on many of the self-proclaimed social media “gurus” that gave the original advice each time we offer a second opinion. And you know what? We have discovered a trend!

I recently met a social media “maverick” with a loaded resume that claimed to have decades of internet marketing experience. Three websites were listed on the individual’s LinkedIn profile. All three corresponding blogs were last updated in 2008. I will be the first to tell you that not everyone needs a blog BUT, as a social media marketer, one should know that having a grossly outdated blog makes you look BAD. I’m not even going to get into how outdated all three of the websites were. I can list examples like this one all day long.

So here it is- How to find a shitty social media guru:

1. Don’t bother checking to see if the person you are about to fork over your limited resources to has a decent website.

2. Don’t check to see if the “gurus’” blog is at least semi-frequently updated with valuable information. They will be helping you with your blog and e-newsletter but why would the guru need those?

3. Don’t check any of the “gurus’” social networking channels to make sure that they walk the walk not just talk the talk. They promise to set up your social networking channels and run them but there is no need for you to see if they can even market themselves via the methods you will pay them to use.

4. Don’t bother checking to see if the “guru” cross-posts the same information on all of his/ her own networking channels. The “guru” is too busy managing other people’s social media to put any effort into his/ her own.

5. Don’t wonder why your “guru” uses a generic e-mail address like “guru@yahoo.com”. They say they are all about creating a cohesive message, so it shouldn’t bother you that they don’t have one themselves.

5. Why in the world would you waste your time asking for examples of work and testimonials?

6. Pay attention to the individual’s Klout score. A high score must mean they are a sphere of influence and therefore know what they are doing. (Take with a heaping spoonful of sarcasm).

Now that you know how to find yourself a shitty social media “guru,” go out and find a couple. OR, you can ignore these 6 steps find a qualified expert.

Happy Social Media Day!

photo credit: seanrnicholson via photo pin cc

How You Are Making Yourself Look Foolish and Ruining Your Reputation on LinkedIn

Red Elixir — Fri, 25 May 2012 19:27:33 +0000

“You know what really grinds my gears?”

When people auto post Tweets to LinkedIn (or Facebook, or anywhere else they don’t belong). Stop It! For those of you that do it “selectively”…ok, I can get over it. For the rest- shame on you!

In case you don’t get why this is a big deal- posting tweets to other networks is like playing a radio commercial on the TV.

I get it, you “don’t have enough time” to post the proper way on LinkedIn or Facebook so you send your tweets there thinking that no one will know your dirty little secret. Well, we noticed! Not only that, but this practice makes you look lazy. There are several great social network management tools available to you for FREE (i.e. Hootsuite) that can help you efficiently spread the same message across multiple networks the correct way. Don’t even get me started on the fact that maybe you shouldn’t be consistently posting the same exact message on all of your networks because your audiences may be different, and different social networks are meant to do different things.

Hashtags don’t belong anywhere other than Twitter!

If you truly don’t have enough time you should consider hiring someone who will help you or cut down the amount of social networks you are participating in. At the end of the day, it comes down to quality communication, so if you put garbage in all you can expect is garbage out. On top of that, you make yourself look bad and incompetent. Wouldn’t you rather achieve quality results in one place, rather than spreading yourself thin everywhere and achieving nothing or worse, make yourself look foolish?

What bothers me even more is when a “social media” professional does this! They SHOULD know better. If they don’t, they are misadvertising their skills.

-L

Quit Begging Me For Likes! How to Get More Fans Without Having to Grovel

Red Elixir — Mon, 14 May 2012 20:19:56 +0000

Today the amount of advertising we are being exposed to has reached epic proportions.

“We’ve gone from being exposed to about 500 ads a day back in the 1970s to as many as 5,000 a day today.”

Jay Walker-Smith,Yankelovich Consumer Research

This clutter often results in even more noise because people assume that if they scream the same message everyone else is screaming, but louder, they will finally be heard. It’s not about screaming louder, it’s about offering something unique.

I am personally fed up with people begging others for Facebook likes and Twitter follows. They are desperate for likes because they are under a false illusion that more likes will sky rocket their business. The problem is that many of them are providing little or no value to their potential followers. Everyone and their dog (literally- there are tons of pets on Twitter and Facebook including Mark Zuckerberg’s own dog Beast) are begging for our attention. What makes you special or unique? Why should I follow you? How are you going to add value to my life? I can’t stress this enough: people go online for entertainment and education. So when you are inviting me to follow you, please show me how you will entertain me and what I can learn from you.

Entertainment + Education= VALUE

Some Facebook pages bribe people for likes by offering incentives such as coupons or product giveaways. This can be a good strategy for the right company with the right goals. However, remember that when you bribe people in this way, you can expect a certain percentage to unlike you or tune you out once they receive their bribe.
If you find yourself unsure of exactly what value you provide via Facebook (or any other social networks), it’s a good indicator that you don’t have a carefully designed social media strategy built into your overall marketing efforts. This is the time to examine why you are on Facebook collecting likes: refer to # 5 Here.

PLEASE, stop begging for likes and follows and instead provide your target market with a reason to want to follow you. If you are stuck, please contact me with your questions: lyuba@redelixirsolutions.com

photo credit: Ksayer1 via photo pin cc

Common Misconceptions about Social Media: This stuff makes my eyes roll so let’s clear up confusion once and for all!

Red Elixir — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:15:42 +0000

First and foremost its imperative that you, the business owner, understand this one simple fact: Prior to the birth of social networks, consumers craving information, products or purchase advice had to go out and find all the information themselves. Today, with the help of various social networking channels, consumers spend less and less time looking for information, products and advice. Instead the information finds the consumer.

Still skeptical of the impact social networks have on consumer purchase decisions and therefore your businesses’ health? Take a peek at the latest stats:

Now on to the Common Misconceptions about Social Media… Finally!

1. Social Media = Social Networking

No.

Social Networks are the tools we use that connect people. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+….(If I listed all of them, the list would be longer than this blog post).

Social Media refers to all of your online communication activities starting with your website (by the way, if you still don’t have one, you don’t exist) blogs and social networks you participate on.

2. Social Media is here to replace the rest of my marketing activities. Sweet!

Wrong.

Social media is a newer tool in your marketing tool box. It’s not meant to replace your other marketing efforts but supplements them. If you pay thousands of dollars to Yellow Pages, you are not a hospital and don’t see any returns, you might consider repurposing that part of your marketing budget to something more modern.

From our favorite online comic The Oatmeal

3. You have to be everywhere.

If a Social Media Guru told you that you need to have a blog, be on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube and two other social networks for a successful social media campaign, no wonder you are hyperventilating!

Also, if I hear “I’m going to be on Facebook because that’s where everyone else is” or “My business needs to be on Facebook because Facebook has the most users” one more time, there is no telling what I might do.

This is really simple. Ready?…

Step 1: Define you target market (you should already know this- since you are running a business)

Step 2: Find out where you target market spends their time online

Step 3: Hang out where your clients do. Ok, so you aren’t actually “hanging out”, you need to develop a social media campaign that aligns with your overall business goals and current marketing activities.

4. You need A LOT of followers to succeed with social media.

Sometimes clients ask: “How may followers can you guarantee me in 2 months?” My answer is always: As many as you want, if I don’t hit that number, I can buy 1,000 fake, non-existent fans for $39.” Though having many followers to spread your message doesn’t hurt, I’d rather have 100 dedicated fans that worship my brand then 10,000 duds that will never interact or buy anything.

I don’t like re-inventing the wheel so, you can read more on this topic HERE

5. Social Media efforts are not measurable and the “What’s my ROI?” argument.

“The ROI of Social Media is that your business will exist in five years.”

Its true that in some cases social media Return On Investment is easier to measure than in others. It all depends on your goals. For example, if you started social media efforts out of the need to feel included, you don’t have any goals and therefore can’t complain about ROI. If you joined Facebook to gather qualified leads for a house you were selling, you can run a contest and at the end of the contest you will know how many qualified prospects you gained. Sometime down the road, you will know how many of these people purchased something and voila you got your ROI.

Can you tell me what the exact ROI of your business cards is? No? Well then why do you bother? Why not just scribble your info down on a napkin and hand that out?

6. Not enough time.

You find time to “network”, you find time to sell, you found time to read this insanely long blog post. You can find time to market your business.

Its essential to your existence! If you don’t find time and you are overwhelmed, give us a call and we will do it for you.

Getting 1,000,000 Facebook Fans

Red Elixir — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:41:14 +0000

Most businesses which have embraced Facebook by now are busy trying to get themselves as many Facebook fans as possible. There are obviously numerous benefits, right? After all, why else would everyone from Coca-Cola to Lady Gaga gather millions of them?

Whenever anyone approaches us about social media, the conversation quickly turns into an FAQ session on how to get more followers. Frequently we see small business owners driving themselves crazy by trying everything they can to increase their company page’s fan count. Actually, when it comes down to it, very few small businesses we come across can explain why they want Facebook fans, or what they expect to gain from Facebook in the first place. Before we tackle the fan count, let’s look at realistic goals.

As with every business undertaking, you need to have measurable goals when you take on Facebook. If you expect to measure direct ROI in dollars and cents, your expectations will not match reality. On the other hand, if you want to put up a business Facebook page and collect followers because you see everybody and their dog doing it, you are wasting your time. Realistic goals can range

anywhere from creating awareness about your brand, to collecting leads in your targeted market. The goals should be dictated by your overall marketing strategy and will vary depending on your type of company, industry, etc. As a word of caution, social media should supplement your marketing strategy, not replace it.

Now, what does the fan count mean to you? Fans aren’t sales leads in the traditional sense. They are simply people who like your brand, and are willing to listen to you. The fan count in itself doesn’t mean much. It is a simple metric which is often talked about because it sounds sexy. Frequently, social media companies will claim to gain a fixed amount of followers for a business but this is deceptive. For example, it is much more beneficial for your company to have 500 fans which will listen to you, comment, and share what you put out there, then 5,000 fans who don’t care about your brand and sit idly by. What you probably haven’t realized was that companies can actually buy followers. These aren’t real followers and more often than not, do nothing more than pad your numbers. In fact, most of these purchased fans are just empty accounts with no humans behind them. They are “real” in that sense that they are existing accounts, but they are generally worthless. The going rate is about $50 for 1000 fans, but seriously, outside of padding your fan count they do NOTHING for you.

The worthwhile ways of gathering quality fans all start with one thing: Providing your fans with value. Your fans will want to hear more from you and share if you provide them with content which is interesting, educational, entertaining, and relevant. The general rule of thumb for Facebook is 9 value adding posts to 1 self-promoting one. Think about it, even if you like a brand, you will quickly tune them out if they post a sales pitch multiple times a day. By talking about topics which interest your fans, you will quickly establish yourself as a leader in your field, and when your fans or their connections need the services or products you provide, your company will be the first thing that comes to mind.

We have just scratched the surface on what Facebook followers mean, and what types of things you should be posting. Obviously there are many more considerations when it comes to Facebook, but if I got you to at least think about how some of these things relate to you or your company, I have done my job.

Sexy Email Addresses and You

Red Elixir — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 18:51:51 +0000

If you are a small business owner, you will agree that email is one of your lifelines. Need to thank a client, send a contract, contact multiple people at once, or you simply hate the infernal fax machine? Email is the obvious answer.Now what does your email address look like? If your e-mail address looks something like this: ‘Gertrude’s_Company@Hotmail.com you are doing it WRONG! Take a closer look at that address. Does that really look as professional as it can? And just think of the havoc you are reeking on your company’s overall branding strategy! It’s not a personal address so why give people the impression that your company might be shady or run out of your mom’s basement? Your e-mail address should look like this: Gertrude@Gertrude’s_Company.comYou can purchase additional emails from your hosting company (ex: Godaddy). If you were one of the lucky few, you might even have some free ones thrown in with your hosting plan. That means that you have to log into your hosting company’s website and use their archaic interface to check your email (unless you use Outlook). But guess what? Google strikes again!

You can get up to 10 free custom email addresses from Google Apps for nothing. Not only will your email addresses look beautiful and professional, you also get to use Gmail’s awesome email interface along with a suite of other very useful Google apps. You can claim your new e-mail addresses here: http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/group/index.html
You will then need to verify your domain ownership with Google. Google will give you a detailed set up guide but since some of the guide is written in a “foreign language”, we strongly suggest that you consult you favorite Computer Geek (we use that term lovingly of course).

There you have it! Now you have no excuse, go get your custom e-mail addresses! Feel free to shoot me email at ALEX@redelixirsolutions.com if you have any questions. Happy Holidays!

-Alex from Red Elixir Business Solutions

Why You Should Care About WordPress

Red Elixir — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:00:41 +0000

By this point, you have probably heard of WordPress around the proverbial water cooler. Now, is it used for blogs, websites, businesses websites, or personal pages? Actually, all of the above. WordPress is an online publishing platform and a content management system which can be used to create highly customized websites and blogs. According to Tech Crunch, close to 15% of the world’s websites use WordPress. Sure, you heard that the geeky kid down the street uses it for his Star Wars fan club blog, but did you know that Ebay, Sony, UPS, CNN, and GM use it as well?

So why is it so popular? Let’s explore.
Wordpress is far more versatile then most people realize. It can be set up to look like a standard blog, or like a typical website. Chances are, many of the websites you view daily use WordPress to some capacity, but because they look nothing like blogs, you simply can’t tell. On top of its visual customization, almost everything about the way a WordPress site acts is customizable.
There are literally thousands of different WordPress themes which can be switched in and out easily to change the look of a website. There are hundreds of free themes, and premium themes typically cost $20- $70 and can be used to make a website visually appealing. Because of the large number of WordPress users, there are thousands of themes and layouts specifically designed to work on mobile devices and across all platforms.
Next we have plugins, which are basically additions which can be added to a WordPress site at any time. Anything from social media integration, to unique photo galleries can be added through the use of plugins. More complex features such as newsletter capabilities and visual effects can be added as well. Currently, more than 15,000 WordPress plugins exist and dozens of new ones are created each day. This means that almost any feature someone would want on a basic website is available. Just like that, the possibilities are endless.
Because WordPress is free to use and features a relatively simple management system, having a WordPress site professionally created requires a fraction of the cost of a traditional website. You can even try it out for yourself, although some features will require at least a basic understanding of code, and the platform in general. If your company doesn’t have a website or needs an updated one, WordPress is an excellent option with which a customized website may only cost a few hundred dollars. Redelixirsolutions.com was built by us in this same way. We have actually built a number of sites using WordPress. Dfranck and Associates, and Alka Flooring are a couple of interesting ones that come to mind.
Now you are more aware of the WordPress platform! Let us know if you have any questions, and be sure to tune in next week for more great tools and tips.

- Alex from Red Elixir Business Solutions

Why Your Business NEEDS a Website

Red Elixir — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 03:00:52 +0000

I recently read two somewhat disturbing articles from the Business Insider and Entrepreneur Magazines which mentioned that nearly 50% of all small businesses had no website. As savvy consumers, we love having options, and we pride ourselves on doing at least basic research on products and services which we plan on using. According to the statistics, if we needed our cars detailed, kitchens redone, or business cards printed, half of our options would be undiscoverable to us on the internet. It is obvious that less and less people use phone books, which means that if your business isn’t on the internet, in the eyes of many potential clients, IT DOESN’T EXIST!

To get a better understanding of this, ask the nearest twenty something year old. They will tell you that they do almost all of their research on the internet. Even if a service or product was recommended to them by their peers, they most likely went online to look at pricing, product details, and public opinions. Chances are that if they’re unable to find a business’s website, red flags come up right away. I realize that twenty something year olds may not be in your target market, but I use them as an example because they were some of the early adopters of the internet. Older and less tech savvy adults as well as business people are increasingly following the same thought processes, which make this very relevant to your business!

This is where you typically hear one of two excuses:

1. My business is B2B and I mostly get work through referrals so I don’t need a website.

2. It is expensive and difficult so we can’t do it at this time.

Even if you have a B2B business and you work with referrals, you know as well as we do that almost all of your potential clients will at the very least Google your company. It is your job to provide them with the best information they need, which in turn will help influence their buying decision.

As for expense and difficulty, there are various options available with which a small business can have a professional customized website created for as little as a few hundred dollars and minimal effort.

This brings me to another important point. You probably don’t wear a clip-on tie to business meetings or give people makeshift business cards handwritten on paper scraps because you know how important it is for you to look professional and knowledgeable to potential clients and business acquaintances. Your website shouldn’t be any different. If your company has a website which hasn’t been updated in a few years, or one that isn’t easy to navigate or isn’t aesthetically pleasing, you NEED to have it updated. Not only is a website a place for your existing and potential clients to get information and research your company, it is also the face of your business online.

Tune in next week to learn about a fantastic option which can help you get a customized professional website built for your company at minimal cost and effort from your end.