Google Plus for business?

Ain’t nobody got time for that!

I know that’s what you’re thinking, because for a long time that’s what I was thinking.

“No one is on Google Plus! No one updates their pages!

There’s no reason for me to be on there!”

Those were all the things I told myself.

If you’re not currently using Google Plus that’s probably what is holding you back as well.

Well something incredible happened to me recently.

I’ve become a believer in using Google Plus for business.

I see the value in it and I think it’s very important for more businesses to use it. That’s why I’m writing this post.

Google Plus has some very powerful benefits that the other social networks don’t offer. The best part is that it doesn’t require nearly the time commitment of networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Of course, the more you put into it the more you get out of it, but you can still get plenty out of it without sacrificing a ton of your time.

In this post I’m going to explain exactly what turned me from being a Google Plus naysayer into a believer.

Then I’m going to show you three extremely important ways you can benefit from using Google Plus for business.

How I Went From A Google Plus Naysayer To A Believer

Like many others I rushed to join Google Plus shortly after it was introduced. I was ready to experience everything it had to offer, but unfortunately there wasn’t much.

There were many impressive features at launch, and the network grew to millions of members in no time, but the problem was no one was posting anything.

Another problem was that it wasn’t friends and family who were joining Google Plus. It was social media pros, marketers and tech enthusiasts.

The people who grew large followings on Google Plus were people who already had huge social media followings to begin with. If you were just a regular user it was hard to get even a few dozen people to circle you.

Before long it felt like a ghost town and I wrote off the network as anything that was worth investing my time in.

Then Google Plus rolled out a few new updates to get people interacting more.

Google phased out Google Places and introduced Google Plus Local Pages to get people engaging at a local level.

Google Plus Authorship was introduced, which added added your G+ profile picture next to your articles in search results. It has become a lot more important than that though.

More on these two things later. They were great additions, and made me give Google Plus a second look, but they’re not what reeled me back in.

It wasn’t until the addition of Goole Plus Communities that I started getting real value out of this network.

My website traffic went way up, my articles were getting +1′d more than ever before, and most importantly I was finally growing my Google Plus network by connecting with hundreds of engaged users.

I’ll go into detail about how I did this and explain how you can reap the same benefits for your business and website in the next sections.

What Google Plus Can And Can Not Do For Your Business

Before I tell you about what Google Plus can do for your business, let me tell you a little bit about what it can not do.

I don’t want you to set your expectations too high or feel like you’ve been mislead in any way.

What G+ Can Not Do:

• It is still not the most ideal network for direct communication with customers.
• It is not the most ideal network for connecting with local customers.
• It is not a network where you can advertise.
• It is not a network where you can blast sales messages to people (no social network is good for that).

What G+ CAN Do:

• It can boost your website traffic.
• It can improve your search engine ranking.
• It can build authority for your brand.
• It can improve the visibility and distribution of your content.
• It can connect you with other engaged professionals and influencers in your field.

If these benefits sound appealing to you, keep reading to learn how you can achieve them!

The 3 Things You Need To Do To Grow Your Business With Google Plus

These are the most important things you need to do to grow your business, establish authority in search engines, and gain a ton of traffic with Google Plus.

These are all relatively easy to do and I promise they won’t take up much of your time.

#1. GET A GOOGLE PLUS LOCAL PAGE FOR YOUR BUSINESS
To get your business page on Google Maps you used to have to register your business with Google Places.

Well, they’ve phased that out and now it’s all about Google Plus Local Pages.

Not only is it integrated with Google Maps, but it’s integrated directly within the search engine results pages (SERPS).

Here’s what it looks like:

Science North is the biggest tourist attraction in my city (Sudbury, Ontario). This is what you get on the right side of the page when you search for it in Google.

Since they have a Google Plus Local Page you get all this information about them on the first page of search results.

You get pictures, directions, hours of operation and reviews all in one place.

This immediately grabs attention, establishes authority and pre-sells the customer before they click on the website.

Or they can click on the Google Plus page to read the reviews from other customers.

That might be even more important since customer reviews have been shown to be the most influential factor in how a customer feels about a business and ultimately whether or not they will make a purchase.

Once they’re on the Google Plus page they can also check-in and leave a review of their own after their visit.

The more check-ins and reviews you can accumulate on your G+ page the more influential it will be to other visitors.

Here’s everything you need to know about setting up your own Google Plus Local Page.

The next thing on this list has a lot to do with SEO, authority and influence as well.

#2. SET UP GOOGLE PLUS AUTHORSHIP ON YOUR WEBSITE
If you create your own content and publish it on your website you absolutely need to care about Google Plus Authorship.

Authorship creates a connection between the content published on your website and your Google Plus profile.

When something you’ve published shows up in search results it will have your name and photo attached to it.

Like this:

That’s what one of my blog posts looks like in a Google search.

Since I have a Google Plus profile with authorship set up on my site, Google recognizes who wrote the content and attaches my name and photo to it.

See how much that stands out compared to other results that are just plain text?

Your name, photo and how many Google Plus circles you belong to helps establish authority and credibility when people find your content in the search results.

A link like this is way more likely to get clicked on.

Not only that, Google Authorship also enhances search engine optimization (SEO) with Google Author Rank.

This means if you have a history of writing content that other people like it will show up higher in search results.

How does Google determine whether or not people like your content?

This is determined by several factors. First you need to link your Google Plus profile to the content you create.

Then your Author Rank is determined by how socially engaged other Google Plus users are with your content.

This is determined by how many +1′s, shares and comments your links get from other users.

The more you build up your Author Rank the more your content will be prioritized by Google in search results.

How do you build up your Author Rank and ultimately drive more traffic to your website?

That will be covered in the next point.

#3. START ENGAGING WITH GOOGLE PLUS COMMUNITIES
If you’re caught up with the first two points so far, this is where you’ll start seeing the full power of Google Plus.

Remember, Communities are what turned me into a believer.

At first I started engaging with communities because they were a place to chat with cool people about subjects I was interested in.

Then I found out that sharing my own useful content with the community drove a ton of traffic to my blog and built up my Author Rank with +1′s and shares.

Here’s an example of something I shared on a Google Plus community recently:

That post got me 19 +1′s, 5 shares and 10 comments. Google absolutely loves those kinds of social signals.

Not to mention all the traffic I got from it, and continue to get because it shows up well in search results.

As you can tell from some of the comments, people enjoyed my post because it was useful to them.

That’s the key. The content you share has to provide value to the community. Even better if the content you share sparks a conversation.

You can’t just drop a link and leave. That’s link spam and most communities will delete a post like that.

Here are some more best practices for engaging with Google Plus Communities:

• Read the community guidelines. Every community has their own set of rules.
• Contribute to the community beyond just sharing your own links. Engage in conversations, +1 other peoples’ content and so on.
• Share useful content. Content that is too self-promotional or something that leads to a sales page will almost always get deleted.
• Get to know the community before sharing your own links. If your first post is a link to your website it’s pretty obvious what your intentions are.

It’s called a community for a reason, don’t join a community for purely selfish reasons. A Google Plus community can be very beneficial to you and your website, but you have to give something back in return.

Here’s everything else you need to know about G+ communities, and where you can go to browse all active communities to find one that’s relevant to your business.

Wrapping It Up

As you can see from this post, using Google Plus for business can benefit you in ways that other networks can’t. It doesn’t require nearly the time commitment of other networks either.

There are some clear distinctions between what Google Plus can and can’t do.

With Local Pages you can get found by customers through better visibility in search results. With Authorship you can establish authority and credibility with your content and improve your SEO. With Communities you can engage with great people, drive traffic to your website and get the social signals you need to build your Author Rank.

These three things combined will turn your business into a Google-dominating, traffic-generating powerhouse!

If you have any questions about anything I just covered, or about Google Plus in general I’d be happy to answer them if you ask me in the comments section below.

Just because your small business is not a big brand doesn’t mean it can’t compete like one.

Let that sink in for a minute.

Stop thinking marketing your small business online is not possible because you don’t have the budget.

A big brand rarely becomes successful solely from sinking money into a marketing campaign.

Big brands become successful because they’ve developed a winning strategy.

A large budget is nothing compared to the right strategy.

Any small business has the ability to market itself online, which means it’s more possible than ever to compete at a high level.

You just have to know where to start.

You also have to have a little humility in understanding where your online marketing efforts may be lacking.

If your small business isn’t the competitive force online that you’d like it to be I’m going to try to help change that for you.

With this post I want to help you understand what the big brands are doing right, and how you can use these tactics for marketing your small business online.

The Top 3 Areas Where Your Online Marketing Efforts Are Lacking

As you’re reading through this section please keep in mind that I’m making generalizations based on my experience of working with small businesses.

All of these points may not apply to you specifically. I’m not trying to say you’re doing everything wrong!

But it’s more than likely at least one or several of these points apply to your small business and there’s something you can learn from them.

1. LACK OF A SOLID STRATEGY WITH DEFINED GOALS
A solid strategy is like a road map for success. Without one you’re just navigating through the web aimlessly.

A lot of small businesses just get themselves online because they feel pressured to do it. Regardless of whether or not they have any idea what to do once they get there.

Start with a little market analysis:

• What demographics are you trying to reach?
• Why do they want your products and services?
• Who are your competitors?
• How can you do something better, or different, than what your competitors are doing online?

These are all questions that need to be answered before you even think of launching a website or establishing a social media presence.

Also, setting goals is absolutely essential. You have to know what you want to achieve with your online marketing efforts.

Knowing who your audience is and having some goals to focus on is a great start to getting more competitive.

2. POOR OR INCONSISTENT BRANDING
Something that you may notice about all the successful big brands is that they all have unified branding. The logo, colors and fonts are all the same everywhere you look.

This is one of the easiest things your small business can start doing to look and compete like a big brand.

Your business probably already has a logo. If not, that’s step one.

The next thing to consider is what colors and typefaces best represent your business, then stick with those everywhere your business has a presence online.

Your website should be designed with a consistency between colors and font choices, which should extend to all of your social media profiles as well.

These all help form an identity and a personality that make people feel a certain way when they interact with your business.

Working with a design agency might be key in this step. When you consider the importance of first impressions, and realize that most peoples’ first impression of your business is its website, it’s a small investment that will pay off for years to come.

3. NOT DRAWING ENOUGH ATTENTION TO YOUR ONLINE PRESENCE
Don’t trick yourself into thinking that just because your business is online people will find it. Certainly don’t be shy to draw attention to your website and social media profiles.

It’s important to drive traffic to your social media profiles and your website whenever possible.

Think about the big brands and how you see their website address, Facebook URL and Twitter handle on just about everything. To compete like them that’s something you need to start doing as well.

Any interaction a person has with your business should come with an invitation to connect with you online.

4 Things Your Small Business Needs To Do To Be More Competitive

Now that we’ve talked about where your online marketing efforts are lacking, lets shift to a positive note and talk about what you can do to get more competitive.

These are not quick fixes, but they are all well within the means of any small business.

The only investments you might need to make are of course time, and possibly enlisting the expertise of a consultant depending on your comfort level with online marketing.

But as far as budgets are concerned, there’s nothing here that’s going to break the bank.

1. START WITH A CLEAN, MOBILE-FRIENDLY WEB DESIGN
The main idea of the web is, and always has been, making information more accessible.

If your website design isn’t clean and easy to read on mobile devices then you’re not accessible to myriad users who are browsing the web on smartphones and tablets instead of desktops and laptops.

It’s hard to find a big brand these days that doesn’t have a responsive website design.

If you don’t have the money to hire a design agency to redesign your website to be mobile friendly, there are plenty of highly customizable responsive website templates available for you to choose from. All are very affordable.

One thing is for sure, if you want to have a seriously competitive online presence you can’t afford to neglect mobile users.

2. MAKE BETTER USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
You’re probably already using social media for marketing your small business, but chances are you’re not using it to its full potential. There’s always room for improvement.

With a bit of time and expertise you can market yourself just like any big brand on social media.

I believe in this so strongly that for the past few years I’ve been maintaining this blog full of tips and advice for how small businesses can use social media more effectively.

First you can start by following these best practices, then get yourself on track with this sample social media marketing plan.

It may also be motivating to know that your small business even has an advantage over big brands on social media in certain areas.

Social media is one of the most powerful and cost-effective ways for small businesses to market themselves. If you need to know how to get more out of your social media efforts just keep following this blog.

3. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)
What good is a website that never gets any traffic? How effective is it if it can’t be found by people who are looking for your products and services?

SEO is the art of getting your website found by your target audience for its most profitable keywords.

With a mobile friendly website and strong social media presence you’ll be on your way to great rankings in the search results.

The next step is to look into SEO best practices and optimize your website accordingly.

Adding a blog to your website that provides people with insanely useful information and driving traffic to it will boost you up even higher in the search results pages.

Plus the blog content will give you something to share on social media. It all comes full circle.

Mobile, search and social are the keys to staying competitive in today’s marketplace. They all complement each other and all make your online marketing as effective as any big brand’s.

Wrapping It Up

Your small business can be as competitive online as any big brand. It starts with refining your strategy, unifying your branding and drawing more attention to your online presence.

Through focusing your online marketing on mobile, search and social you can compete just like a big brand even without their big budgets.

Do you agree that small businesses have the ability to market themselves online just like the big brands? If not, what’s holding them back? I’d love to hear your opinions in the comments section below!

There’s a saying we have in the social media marketing world called field of dreaming it.

For example, you’re field of dreaming it if you build a Facebook page and expect it to get noticed just because it’s there.

This is otherwise known as the “if you build it they will come” mentality.

With so many Facebook (and other social media) pages fighting for our attention you have to drive traffic to yours any way you can.

You can’t rely on the idea that people love your business so much they’ll go out of their way to find it on social media.

You have to let people know it exists, and you have to repeat the message over and over again until it sticks.

Every business wants needs more follows, likes and plus-one’s on social media. Driving more traffic to your pages is the most effective way to achieve that.

Recently I shared some strategies for using social media to drive traffic to your website.

Now I’m going to bring it full circle by sharing some strategies for driving traffic to your social media pages.

It’s time to stop field of dreaming it and start growing the audience your business deserves!

Why Your Social Media Pages Need More Traffic

More traffic to your social media pages is beneficial to your business in a variety of ways. Such as…

MORE TRAFFIC MEANS MORE SOCIAL PROOF:
More traffic usually means more likes, follows, plus-one’s and so on. This all helps generate social proof. Social proof tells others that your business is as great as you say it is because you have other people backing you up.

Think about how you feel visiting a Facebook business page with few likes and few people talking about it, versus a competitor’s page with thousands of likes and hundreds talking about it. Obviously the competitor’s page seems more appealing.

The social proof makes you look like the leaders in your industry even before people know anything about your products and services. The social proof will almost always get a potential customer to pay closer attention to you.

MORE SOCIAL MEDIA TRAFFIC MEANS MORE WEBSITE TRAFFIC:
Social media shouldn’t be your business’s home on the web. It should just be a means to market yourself, interact with customers and drive traffic to your website.

Your website is where business gets done. After reading your bio and checking out your most recent posts or tweets, the next thing most people do is look for a link to your website.

The more traffic you can bring to your social media pages the more your website traffic will increase as a result.

A BIGGER AUDIENCE MEANS MORE POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS:
The greater the audience you have, and regularly engage with, on social media the more people you have to potentially convert into customers.

Selling to people shouldn’t be your primary focus on social media, but engaging with a large audience day in and day out means more people will think of you next time they need something you offer.

People don’t usually go on social media to look for something to buy. But you know where they do go for that? Search engines.

Having a strong social media presence means that your business’s pages will rank high in search engines when people are looking for something you sell.

So while you shouldn’t be using social media to hard sell to customers, you can still be found by people who are looking for you when they are ready to buy.

How To Drive More Traffic To Your Social Media Pages

Now that you know how your business can benefit from more traffic to your social media pages, let’s talk about what you can do to get that traffic.

ENGAGE REGULARLY
The most important thing you can be doing to build traffic to your social media pages is to engage with your audience on a regular basis.

Engaging regularly on Facebook is proven to increase the reach of your posts, which extends beyond people who already like your page. This means that the more frequently you post engaging content the more frequently you will show up in the news feeds of people who don’t already like your page, which increases the possibility of them checking out your page.

Engaging regularly on Twitter is proven to help build a targeted following. Through people searching on Twitter for what you’re talking about and people retweeting your awesome content you’ll drive new users over to your page.

The same principles hold true for Google Plus, Pinterest, LinkedIn or whatever social media page you want to drive traffic to. The more active you are on these networks the more likely people will be to view your page and recommend it to others.

DRIVE WEBSITE VISITORS TO YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES
After engaging with your audience regularly, the next most fundamental thing that you should be doing is including links to all of your social media pages on your website.

But don’t just stop at including links, have several calls to action for people to connect with you.

At the end of your blog posts invite people to connect with you on social media. On your contact page invite people to contact you on social media.

Try to include social media icons somewhere on your website that is constantly visible. Such as in the header, footer or sidebar.

Ideally anyone visiting your website should be able to find you on social media without looking too hard.

INCLUDE SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS IN YOUR E-MAIL SIGNATURE
Being in business you most likely send a lot of e-mail throughout the day. Every one of those e-mails should be inviting people to connect with you on social media.

Underneath your name and title in your e-mail signature include links to any social media accounts you use regularly.

Another suggestion here is to use text links rather than image links, because a lot of people have their e-mail set to not display images by default.

INCLUDE SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS IN YOUR OFFLINE MARKETING MATERIAL
Don’t just stop at targeting people online and driving them to your social media pages, target people offline as well.

Depending on what kind of business you’re in this could include anything from in-store signage, brochures, pamphlets, direct mail materials, packaging, menus, trade show banners and so on.

Anywhere you might have your company logo and contact information, make sure to also include the links to your social media pages.

This absolutely means business cards as well! If social media is a serious extension of your business, not just something you use once in a while, then it deserves a home on your business cards next to all of your primary contact information.

PARTNER UP WITH OTHER BUSINESSES IN YOUR AREA
If there’s one thing we know about social media it’s that there’s strength in numbers. Don’t go at it alone if you don’t have to.

Find other small businesses in your area who are using social media and be friendly with them (as long as they aren’t your competitors). See if you can help each other out once in a while by recommending each others’ pages and sharing each others’ posts.

My local area has a strong community of downtown small business owners. They all have each others’ backs on social media, which is something I absolutely love to see.

They recommend each other, share each others’ updates, comment on each others’ posts and so on. This strategy is working very well for them.

If a customer sees a business they know and trust vouching for another business there’s instant credibility, it has the same effect as word of mouth.

Wrapping It Up

Driving traffic to your social media pages is important for enhancing social proof, increasing website traffic and giving you a large audience to potentially convert into customers.

More traffic can be best achieved through simply engaging with your audience regularly. Having social links highly visible on your website, e-mail signature and offline marketing material is also important. Another tactic to consider is teaming up with other businesses and driving traffic to each others’ pages.

Do you have any experience with any of these tactics? Do you have any other tips to add for driving traffic to social media pages? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section!

One of the best things about social media is having the ability to connect with people you might otherwise not have had the opportunity to meet.

Such as high-profile or influential people in your field.

Networking on social media is more effective than any chamber of commerce meeting, for example, when it comes to building relationships with the right people.

Most importantly you can do it from wherever you feel comfortable.

You don’t need to waste your time awkwardly standing around while carrying an armful of brochures and business cards that people practically throw at you.

But the key is knowing how to connect with and get the attention of people without being disruptive.

If you’re blasting them with unsolicited e-mails or spammy tweets then you’re doing it wrong. There are much better ways to build relationships.

Building relationships takes more work than that. It requires taking a genuine interest in what they’re doing, having conversations with them, and getting to know who they are as people.

There’s a right and wrong way to network online.

In this post I’m going to discuss the best practices of connecting with influencers online, getting their attention, and building relationships that extend beyond social media.

Optimize Your Profiles To Make People Want To Connect With You

The first thing you have to do is make sure your social media profiles are compelling enough for people to want to connect with you.

Think in terms of keywords and key phrases. Think about what type of content the people you want to connect with are interested in.

Think about what type of people they’re might be interested in connecting with and revise your profiles to reflect that you’re that type of person.

Think about what makes you want to follow and connect with people on social media. If you stumbled on your own profile would you want to connect with yourself?

That probably sounds silly, but if you wouldn’t even click the follow button on your own profile then chances are other people don’t want to either.

Here are some tips for improving your Twitter profile that you can apply to other social networks as well.

Also, most people would rather connect with a face than a logo. If you’re using a logo on your social profiles here are some convincing points for why you might want to use a photo instead.

Follow Them Wherever You Can

Now that your profile is more compelling for people to see, identify the influencers you want to connect with and start following them wherever you can.

Comment on their updates, like their statuses, retweet them, join in on conversations they’re having. They might not notice and respond to you immediately, but persistence is key.

The more they see your name and photo in their social feeds the more they’ll recognize and start paying attention to you.

The important thing is to be friendly, not annoying. Think about it like dating without the romance.

When there’s someone in your life you want to date you don’t start by throwing yourself at them and pestering them every chance you get. If you do you’re probably not getting very far.

You start with small gestures, which leads to small talk, which leads to getting a phone number or e-mail address, and then you’re texting back and forth like there’s no tomorrow!

Professional relationships on social media are much the same. Start small, build trust and familiarity, and then get down to business.

Write About Them On Your Website

Having a blog on your website is great for so many reasons. One of them is helping you connect with influencers.

Think about how you can mention the influencers you want to connect with in your next blog posts. Including a link back to their blog or website is also key because some people get a notification whenever their website is linked to.

Write something favourable about them, of course. Once the post is published make sure to notify them through social media.

Just send them a quick note to say that you wrote about them and you’d appreciate it if they checked it out. Nothing too pushy.

Most influencers love to be written about, and having another blog link to them is great for their SEO.

Chances are they’ll appreciate you taking the time to write about them, then check out your post, and suddenly you’ll be on their radar.

I’ve gotten several follows from influential people by writing about them consistently on my blog, so I can tell you from experience that this works!

Comment On Their Blogs

If the influencers you’re trying to connect with have a large social media following then it might be hard to get their attention there.

One place they’re almost sure to notice you is in their blog comments. Especially if you comment consistently.

The same rules about relationship building apply there as well. Be conversational, don’t spam, and add something valuable to the discussion.

Leave a comment that lets them know you’ve thoroughly read what they wrote and you’re genuinely trying to add something insightful to the topic.

As a blogger myself I can tell you there’s nothing we love more than getting well-thought-out comments. They’re like gold to a blogger and are sure to leave an impression.

The problem is most people comment once and are never seen again. If you can make a habit of leaving great comments on every post there’s no way for them to not notice you.

Participate In Twitter Chats

If you’re not sure what a Twitter chat is, they’re scheduled meet ups on Twitter to discuss a certain topic using a defined hashtag. They usually happen weekly and they’re full of influential people.

You can find Twitter chats about any topic and you can even find them centralized around one location if you’re a local business. If your local area doesn’t have its own Twitter chat then you have a perfect opportunity to build your reputation by starting one.

Participating in weekly Twitter chats are extremely beneficial for making connections with the right people and generating more business.

Some people have even launched a new career thanks to Twitter chats.

Find one that fits within your schedule. Find one that you can dedicate time to participating in weekly and start making those connections!

Introduce Yourself In Person

Think about how awkward it is introducing yourself in person to someone you’ve had no previous connection with.

Think about how much less awkward it would be introducing yourself to someone in person after you’ve chatted with them on Twitter, commented on their blog posts and shared their Facebook updates with your friends.

With social media you can get to know someone before you even meet. There are plenty of people I’ve gotten to know like friends through social media before we’ve so much as shaken hands with each other.

Taking the time to build relationships with influencers on social media makes it less daunting for you to walk up to them next time you see them at a business event, conference, or just out and about.

You’ve already made the connection, so it’s not like you’re a stranger walking up to them. You’re simply taking your professional relationship to the next level by connecting with them face to face.

Wrapping It Up

Social media is more powerful than any networking event for connecting with influencers in your field.

Start small by following them and writing about them. Grab their attention through tweets and blog comments, then slowly build that relationship up to where you can do business together in person.

Do you have any experiences you’d like to share about using social media to connect with influential people? Do you have any advice to add that I didn’t include? If so, please tell me in the comments section below!

Using humor on social media is a dangerous animal.

If you use it wrong it could totally flop.

If you use it right it could go viral.

Well don’t worry.

I’m not going to sit here and be one of those gurus who tries to tell you there’s some kind of formula for going viral.

But I at least want to help you find a happy medium between going viral and using humor that totally flops.

Let’s call that being entertaining.

It’s possible to be entertaining on social media even if you’re not not typically the funniest person at the party when you’re offline.

On the other hand, if you have a reputation as being the funny friend offline that doesn’t necessarily mean your style of humor will translate well on social media.

The online world has its own style of humor, and if you’re going to use humor on social media it’s best to become familiar with what the Internet finds funny.

You’re probably wondering why bother trying to be funny if humor is not something that comes naturally to you. Well, in this post I’m going to go over the benefits of using humor on social media.

I’m also going to go over the intricacies of the Internet’s style of humor and show you where to find some examples to use as inspiration.

Finally I’m going to wrap it all up by showing you how to put it into action.

Ready to learn how to use humor in social media? Let’s go!

The Benefits Of Using Humor On Social Media

Before going into how to use humor effectively, let’s talk about why you would even want to use it in the first place.

Humor is great for a number of things:

• It gives a personality to your business.
• It grabs attention.
• It helps lighten the mood in between your more serious updates.
• Humorous updates are memorable.
• Humorous updates are highly shareable.
• Humorous updates are more likely to get commented on, liked, retweeted etc.
• Getting likes and comments improves your EdgeRank on Facebook, which gets your posts higher in the news feed without paying to promote them.

These should be compelling enough reasons for you to want to at least add humor once in a while to your updates.

Think about the stuff you see getting commented on, liked, shared and retweeted on social media most often.

It’s usually updates that are insanely useful, uniquely interesting, or something that makes people laugh.

You need to have a combination of all these things in your social media marketing to keep your audience engaged. If you can agree with that, then let’s go on to the differences between online and offline humor.

The Internet Has Its Own Style Of Humor

Internet humor is something that takes some time to wrap your head around.

If you don’t spend a lot of time browsing Reddit, 9gag, Tumblr or 4chan then you might not be totally familiar with what the Internet finds funny.

You might have no trouble getting people laughing when in a room full of your offline friends, but online that same joke or quip might totally flop.

It’s worth it to take some time to grasp Internet humor because that’s what tends to really go over well on social media. The following sections are intended to be a guide to that style of humor.

What Does The Internet Find Funny?

The internet loves visual humor. A witty tweet is great and all, but when it’s accompanied by a visual it’s way more effective. Same goes for a Facebook update, Google Plus post, and especially a pin on Pinterest.

The Internet Loves Memes!
Not sure what a meme is? I guarantee you’ve seen them floating around social media but just didn’t know what they were called.

Lately I’ve been adding a meme to all of my blog posts because it makes the post more shareable and stands out in a stream of links with boring stock photos.

So, a meme by definition is:

A virally-transmitted cultural symbol or social idea. A meme (rhymes with “team”) behaves like a flu or a cold virus, traveling from person to person quickly, but transmitting an idea instead of a lifeform.

Source: About.com

These days what memes have evolved into look something like this:

This meme is called grumpy cat. You’ve probably seen it a bunch of times.

It’s quite popular and started just how most memes start.

Someone found a funny picture and added a caption to the top and bottom.

Then other people started adding their own captions and it spread like wildfire.

Memes are pretty much centered around one character that has a distinct tone of voice and personality.

The humor is added with bold text captions on the top and bottom. There are extremely easy ways to create these, which I will show you a little later in this post.

I’ll also show you where you can find more types of memes for inspiration, but first lets go on to more types of Internet humor you can use on social media.

The Internet Loves GIFs!
Gifs are huge on the Internet. They’re basically animated images that last a few seconds and then loop.

Unfortunately you can only really share them on Twitter because the other social networks aren’t well equipped to display gifs properly.

But that’s ok, because Twitter is a big enough social network for you to get some pretty good mileage out of sharing gifs.

Take this one for example:

There are so many situations where you could use a gif like this. I can think of one right now…

That moment when you finally realize how to use humor on social media.

Put that in a tweet, followed by a link to the gif, and bam! Retweets everywhere.

Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit, but whenever I share a well-placed gif I’m sure to get at least several retweets out of it.

I’ll show you some resources for great, shareable gifs further on in this post.

The Internet Loves Interesting/Unusual Things Found In Real Life
This sounds pretty vague, but people are taking pictures of funny things they come across all the time and sharing them online.

There’s no harm in re-sharing them if they’re appropriate to the type of business you’re in.

Here’s an example:

I found this while browsing Reddit one day.

I’m in the business of social media consulting, so I shared it as an example of a restaurant with a great social media strategy.

People loved it. We’ve all seen way too many Instagram pictures of food.

It clicked with them and they liked/commented/retweeted the hell out of it.

There’s no doubt funny stuff like this out there that’s specific to your business and resonates with your audience.

I’ll show you some great resources for these kinds of images further on in this post.

The Internet Loves Ironic E-Cards
Ironic e-cards are designed like greeting cards but contain messages you wouldn’t expect.

Here’s one as an example:

Look familiar? You’ve probably seen these around before. They’re huge on Facebook and Pinterest.

If you’re a bar owner who uses social media that would be a particularly awesome e-card to share.

You can make some for any business you’re in if you just get creative. I’ll link you to where you can do that further on in this post.

Where To Find Funny Stuff To Share On Social Media

This is one of the most important sections of the whole post because it’s where I’m going to reveal all of my sources.

These are the places I go for inspiration and to find all the hilarious things I share on social media.

Reddit is a must. Within Reddit there are tons of sub-reddits. Here’s one for funny images, here’s one for memes, and here’s one for funny gifs.

After Reddit, Tumblr is my next source for cutting edge Internet humor. Here’s a link for all posts tagged as funny.

Compared to Reddit and Tumblr, Pinterest is usually a little late to the game when it comes to funny stuff. But it’s still worth paying attention to. Here’s a link to the humor category.

A site a lot of people love, that I’m not a big fan of, is 9GAG. I hardly ever go there because they just curate stuff found elsewhere, and the humor tends to be a bit juvenile. You can still find some gems once in a while though.

If all you want to look at is ironic e-cards, then you can get your fix right here.

Where To Create Your Own Funny Things To Share On Social Media

If you’re feeling brave enough to use your own sense of humor on social media, rather than sharing someone else’s, here are the places to do it.

If you want to create your own memes, go to Quickmeme. It couldn’t be more simple to create your own memes and share them directly from that site.

If you’re really getting the hang of memes and want to create them on the go, there’s an iPhone app I love called Meme Creator. It’s 99 cents but it’s much better than any of the free ones. Sometimes I get a great idea for a meme while I’m out and about and that’s how I get it out into the world.

If you want to create your own ironic e-cards then that’s done on the same site I linked you to before. On that site you can also find links to iPhone and Android apps.

Have fun!

Wrapping It Up

I’m not kidding around when I say that I’ve told you everything I know about Internet humor and how to use humor on social media in this comprehensive post.

Together I want us to make social media a funnier and more entertaining place to spend our time.

But most importantly I want you to take what I’ve taught you and use humor effectively to give your business some personality, grab the attention of your audience, and skyrocket your social media engagement!

I can’t wait to see what you create. If you’d like to share some of your creations, share some other funny stuff you found or add more tips for others then please do so in the comments section below!

Getting real, tangible results with social media marketing begins with having a solid plan.

Poor planning is most often what you can point to for the lack of success with social media.

Sometimes businesses jump in without thinking it through at all.

You can just imagine how far that gets them.

The problem is most businesses don’t even know what a social media plan is, what’s involved in it, or what one looks like.

They’ve never had an experienced social media consultant walk them through the process.

Working directly with a consultant is the best way to go because they can develop a long-term strategy for your business.

They’ll get to know you and your business, what your specific goals are, and figure out what you can do to achieve them.

The best consultants will even create a content calendar for you to take the guess work out of what to post on social media day in and day out.

But I’ll do the next best thing for you in this post.

I’m going to provide a sample social media plan for your business to follow.

I’ll show you the steps that go into creating one, where to start and the amount of work involved in being successful with social media.

The idea here is to get your business on the right track!

Step 1: Determine Where You Are

Where is your business currently at with social media?

Assess your business’s level of experience and previous success. Be completely honest with yourself about it.

This is your starting point.

If you don’t use it at all then ask yourself why not. If you do use it, be honest in asking yourself how you have been doing with it so far.

Through this honest assessment you’ll find opportunities to grow and improve. This is what you’re going to work towards.

Step 2: Determine Where You Want To Be

What would social media success look like for your business?

If you have been using social media during the previous year think about what it has accomplished for you. This will give you an idea of what’s working and what’s not.

Has it increased revenue? Improved customer engagement? Enhanced the reputation and awareness of your business?

Think about why you started using social media in the first place and if you have been achieving what you set out to do. This will give you a better understanding of what your priorities should be going forward.

Step 3: Find Your Key Performance Indicators

Key performance indicators, or KPIs, is fancy marketing speak for measuring success.

Where do you need to raise the needle to determine whether or not social media marketing is successful for you?

Some common measurements of success are an increase in website traffic, enhanced awareness and reputation, better rankings in search engine results, and of course things like sales through social media referrals.

Figure out what is most important to the success of your business and measure it closely.

Step 4: Listen And Communicate

You need to spend at least as much time listening on social media as you spend updating your profiles. The more listening the better.

Keep up with the conversations people are having around your business and your industry in general.

Through listening to your target market you’ll understand how to better communicate with them. You’ll know more about what their wants and needs are and how to satisfy them.

The more you know about your customers the more you can effectively retain their business.

Step 5: Diversify

If you’re posting the same old stuff all the time, stop!

Don’t stop posting, just change it up a little.

Updating your social media profiles with a wide variety of content keeps your audience engaged and interested.

Post updates about your business once in a while, but also share interesting news related to your industry that your audience might like to hear.

Engage your followers with questions, contests and giveaways.

Also make sure to vary the type of content you’re posting. Use a combination of text, links, pictures and videos.

This all helps to keep your audience awake, so to speak. We’re living in the age of short attention spans so you don’t want them to get bored with you.

Step 6: Make Time To Respond

The absolute worst thing you can do, and it’s something almost every business does, is not respond to customers.

Just as you have to make time for updating your profiles, make time for monitoring them and responding when necessary.

There are all types of people in this world, so it helps to think ahead about how you will respond to each of them.

By that I mean think about how you will respond to people asking questions, how you will respond to criticism and complaints, and how you will respond to people who just want to give you a compliment.

These people are all equally worth your time, and something as simple as responding to them will give you a serious advantage over your competitors.

Step 7: Simplify

If you find social media is taking up too much of your time, look for ways to simplify it.

There are plenty of free and paid tools out there to make social media management easier and more efficient.

There are tools for managing multiple profiles with one application, tools for scheduling updates, and tools for measuring analytics. They can all make your life a bit easer.

There are also mobile apps for managing your social media on the go!

It might take some time to find the right tools for your needs, but once you do you’ll be glad you did. You’ll save a lot of time in the long run.

Step 8: Never Stop Learning

You can never know everything you need to know about social media. Things are always changing.

Sometimes new networks catch fire and sometimes old networks fall out of favour.

Not to mention new tools are being introduced almost every day.

If you want to really get serious with social media marketing you need to keep up with it, at least to some extent.

One of the best ways to do that is to read some of the industry’s top blogs. Here’s a bunch of great ones.

There’s also a ton of books being published regularly that are worth reading. I keep my sidebar updated with the latest books I’m currently reading if you need some recommendations. I never stop learning either.

Wrapping It Up

As the old cliche goes: if you fail to plan you’re planning to fail.

How successful you are with social media is largely dependent on how well you plan ahead. These 8 steps will definitely set you on the right track.

If you’re unsure of where to go next, working directly with a social media consultant to develop a strategy specifically for your business will help take you even further.

Do you have any steps to add that you think have been left out? Do you have any experiences with social media planning that you’d like to share? It would be really awesome of you if you could add them in the comments section below!

Social media success begins with defining what success means to your business and then deciding how to measure it.

One measure of social media success for businesses is how much traffic it drives back to your website.

Your website should always be your home base with any online marketing strategy.

That’s where you educate prospects about your products and services, get new subscribers for your mailing list, and of course make sales.

Other than search engine optimization (SEO), the best driver of website traffic is social media.

Your goal every day should be to have at least one call to action leading people from social media, such as your Facebook page, over to your website.

The key is to do this without coming across as annoying and spammy.

There’s no better way to lose people’s attention than to be constantly blasting them with links.

You get, and keep, people’s attention by offering something of value.

Your social media fans and followers need incentive to stop what they’re currently doing and go visit your website.

In this post I want to teach you how to drive traffic to your website using the types of calls to action that people are most likely to respond to.

Start With Offering Insanely Useful Content On Your Website’s Blog

Does your website have a blog? If so, great!

If it doesn’t, you really need to start one.

People on social media need incentive to visit your website.

If every time they go to your website they see the same old content that never gets updated, there’s no reason for them to go back.

Ideally you want them to keep coming back again and again. A regularly updated blog will give them a reason to do that.

A blog that is updated with insanely useful content gives you something to share on social media that will capture your audience’s attention.

Most importantly it gives them a reason to click on the link to go to your website.

What Makes A Kick Ass Blog?

A business blog should serve to satisfy one simple thing: helping customers.

In your business there must be common questions that you get asked on a regular basis.

Write blog posts answering these questions to demonstrate your expertise while providing useful information to your customers.

You could also consider writing posts that teach your customers something new or educates them in some way about something related to your products and services.

Customers will begin to see that you actually care about them and you’re not just trying to sell to them.

Other businesses in your industry probably aren’t even taking the time blog and be a great resource for their customers.

This gives you the opportunity to stand out. Customers will appreciate that you’re going out of your way to solve their problems.

After You’ve Written Some Kick Ass Blog Posts, Share Them!

The goal here is to drive traffic to your website right? Well don’t be shy about sharing those blog posts on social media!

In addition to getting traffic from your followers, there’s also the possibility of your links getting shared by others creating a ripple effect.

If people find your content useful they will then share it with their followers and your traffic will continue to grow beyond just your network.

So how do you get people to click on your links?

Posting a headline followed by a link is good once, but gets repetitive after a while. You want to share that content multiple times, so you need to get creative with your calls to action.

Here Are Some Tips For Great Calls To Action

Once a link is shared it typically takes only 70 minutes for people to stop caring.

So the idea is not to write a blog post and just share it once.

To drive the most traffic to your website you need to share it again and again.

That means reeling in your audience with various calls to action.

These are some of the best ways for sharing links multiple times and getting the most clicks.

• Share summaries, quotes and teasers instead of headlines.
  Pick out the best parts of your blog post and chop them down into shareable bits of information. Interesting facts and stats are usually the most intriguing. Post this stuff followed by a link to get people to go to your website for the full article.
  
  
• A little ego-bait is always good.
  If you specifically talked about, quoted or credited anyone in your blog post then give them a good old-fasioned shout out. Share your link while tagging or @-mentioning the person in your post. This will at least get them to check it out and hopefully they’ll share it with their audience as well.
  
  
• Share your post with people directly.
  Instead of sharing your post to your whole network, share it with a few people directly. You probably know a few specific people who will most appreciate the information in your latest post. Tweet at them or share the post on their Facebook wall while letting them know why it would be of interest to them. They’ll probably be so happy you thought of them that they’ll tell their friends about your great post.
  
  
• Be an opportunist.
  What I mean by this is look for people talking about something related to your latest blog post and swoop in with a link. This could be in Facebook conversations, Twitter chats, Google Plus communities, Quora and so on. If your post is useful then there’s people looking for that information. Look for a way to jump in and direct them to what you’ve written about the subject.

Other Tips And Tricks

Beyond posting a link with a call to action, there are other tips and tricks you can use to drive traffic from social media to your website.

One thing I do for just about every Facebook page I manage is install a tab that redirects people to a website. You can adjust the settings so that when a user clicks on the tab they instantly get redirected to your website. Simple as that!

If you have a bit of money to spend you could always take advantage of targeted Facebook advertising.

And last but not least, make sure to include a link to your website when possible on every social media profile you have. This is so basic you might think it’s not even worth mentioning, but you wouldn’t believe how many Facebook business pages I go to that don’t even list their own website.

Wrapping It Up

One of the best measurements of social media success is how much traffic it drives to your website.

To entice your social media audience to visit your website you have to provide some incentive in the form of insanely useful blog posts.

Regular sharing of your posts with creative calls to action will get the traffic snowball rolling and you’ll start seeing some tangible results with your social media marketing.

Do you have any tips to add for driving traffic from social media to a business’s website? I’d love to hear some more in the comments section below!

Facebook is the largest social network in the world, with more daily active users than anywhere else on the Internet.

It’s also the most difficult place for your business to get its updates seen.

Unless you pay, that is.

Paying Facebook to promote your posts to the top of the news feed will ensure they get seen by as many people as possible (within the parameters you set).

Otherwise your reach might be frustratingly low compared to the number of likes you have.

If this is the case then you’re probably left wondering why your updates aren’t getting seen by more people.

What if you don’t want to pay to promote your posts? Are you just plain out of luck?

Absolutely not!

You’re not out of luck. You just have to work a bit harder.

It all starts with understanding how Facebook ranks certain posts above others.

There’s a formula to it, and I want to teach you how to take advantage of this formula to consistently achieve a greater reach for your Facebook posts without paying to promote them.

Just Being On Facebook Is Not Enough

Being active on Facebook is about more than just having a page, it’s about creating ongoing engagement within that page.

Having a page for the sake of having a page, meaning you’re not updating it or monitoring it, is worse than not having a page at all.

If you’re fed up with your posts not reaching enough people and you’re ready to start taking Facebook seriously, you have to understand an algorithm called EdgeRank.

I always explain EdgeRank during workshops and seminars, but when most people hear the word algorithm their eyes gloss over and they stop paying attention because they think I’m talking about math.

Math has nothing to do with social media, so it must not be important right?

Wrong! And you don’t even have to be good at math. I was a solid C student in math and even I’ve been able to get a firm grip on this equation. Most importantly I’ve been able to use it to increase the reach of Facebook pages for myself and my clients.

EdgeRank Is The Most Important Thing You Can Understand About Facebook

EdgeRank is important because it’s the algorithm Facebook uses to populate peoples’ news feeds.

Facebook uses this algorithm to determine what posts are most relevant to each user and gives those greater visibility over others.

It makes all the difference between lots of people seeing your posts, or hardly anyone seeing your posts.

I’ve written a pretty detailed post about EdgeRank here, but it can be simply broken down like this:

EdgeRank = Affinity x Weight x Time Decay

Affinity measures the relationship between users and the pages they interact with. Getting people to regularly interact with your page will bring this value up.

Weight is measured by how many individual users have engaged with a specific update by liking, commenting on or sharing it.

Time decay just means that the newest stuff is the most relevant and loses relevancy over time.

See, that’s not too complicated!

Think about it as Facebook rewarding engagement. Getting a lot of people to engage with your updates on a regular basis will increase your EdgeRank and bump you up higher in the news feed.

But Wait, There’s More To It Than That

One of the goals of your business page should be to get your updates into the main news feed that people see as soon as they open Facebook.

So, how do you do that?

One solution is to create engaging updates that lots of people like, comment on and share.

Telling people how much you want them to buy your stuff won’t accomplish this!

Asking open-ended questions or starting a discussion about something timely and topical certainly will.

I’ll give you an example with something we did recently where I work.

It was big news that actor Ryan Reynolds was in town shooting a movie and social media lit up with people talking about how much they wished they could meet him.

So we decided to have a little fun by taking a picture of us in the office and obviously photoshopping Ryan Reynolds’ head onto one of our bodies and saying he stopped by for a visit.

Everyone immediately got the joke and it ended up being one of our most successful updates.

The post went viral within our local community and exposed our business to a lot of people who didn’t know about us. All without having to pay a single dollar!

Here are some tips to keep in mind:

• Pay attention to what people are talking about on social media, especially within your local area.
• Create updates around what people are already talking about, rather than being disruptive.
• Be interesting, helpful, or funny. This gets peoples’ attention, not hard selling.
• Be first. If you have an idea for an awesome Facebook post make sure you get it up there before your competitors do!

Whatever You Do, Don’t Ignore Anyone

Another solution to get into the main news feed is to actively engage with people who comment on your updates, because most businesses aren’t even doing that.

In fact, only 5% of businesses respond to customers on Facebook.

As a small business, one of the most effective things you can do to gain an advantage over your competitors is to respond to everyone who takes the time to comment on your updates, write on your wall or ask you a question.

Show people that you’re listening.

If people take the time to engage with you and you ignore them they likely assume you don’t care about them, so why should they care about your updates?

You won’t get to the top of peoples’ news feeds by ignoring customers.

The more you can get people commenting on your page the better it is for the visibility of your posts. So respond quickly and keep the conversation going as much as possible.

Wrapping It Up

Having a Facebook page is pretty useless if you’re not keeping it active.

If you’re frustrated by your lack of reach then chances are you aren’t engaging enough. The more activity on your page the more your updates will get priority in peoples’ news feeds.

You don’t necessarily need to pay to get more people to see your updates you just need to listen, respond and give people something to talk about!

Do you have any tips to add about how to improve your visibility in the Facebook news feed? I’d love to hear about your personal experience in the comments section.

You might be wondering what an article about some of the world’s top executives is doing on a small business blog.

Well just because you own, or work for, a small business doesn’t mean there’s not a ton you can learn from someone who runs a large corporate enterprise.

They had to start somewhere, and several on this list came from humble beginnings.

Not to mention most CEOs and Presidents of large corporations don’t even understand the importance of social media.

So there’s a lot to be said for the ones that not only embrace it, but use it to grow their company.

This post is meant to celebrate four of those who are, in my opinion, the most likeable CEOs and Presidents. As well as the accomplishments they’ve made in regards to social media.

Above all I also want to illustrate how you can learn from their accomplishments and apply some of what they’ve done to your business.

The first in this list is a personal favourite of mine…

1. Dana White, President of the Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC)

Dana White is the face of the UFC, both on-screen and online.

He’s also one of the top decision makers in the company.

Under his leadership he managed to take a failing underground fighting league and turn it into a mainstream international enterprise.

One of the strides he made in going mainstream was fully embracing social media, starting from the top down.

Meaning that he took it upon himself to get involved in social media.

He also made sure every single fighter under UFC contract has an actively updated Twitter account.

Often times you’ll see Dana White tweeting more frequently than any of his fighters. He even responds directly to fans and runs UFC-related contests right from his personal account (just search for the hashtag #hunt4ufc).

Sometimes he could exercise a bit more restraint in what he says on social media, but most of the time he’s pretty damn likeable!

What You Can Learn From Him:
Don’t just use social media for your business, embrace it as part of your company culture. Become a social business.

Get your business on social media, but also get yourself and your employees on it as well. Instead of running a social media “campaign” make it a part of your daily operations.

What you can also learn here is that social media is not about advertising your business 24/7. It’s about interacting with your audience. It’s about responding to their questions and comments. It’s about keeping them engaged with contests and giveaways.

These are all things you can apply to your business without having a brand as big as the UFC.

2. Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks

While Howard Schultz may not be on social media himself, you can be sure that he was instrumental in getting his company involved in it to the extent that it is now.

Starbucks saw a sharp decline in sales when the recession hit in 2009. What Howard Schultz did to make the company profitable again is well documented in his book, Onward (affiliate link).

Among the many decisions he made, one of them was to make more of an effort to listen to his customers.

He realized that to win back customers, Starbucks had to give them more of what they wanted. To find out what they wanted he took to the Internet and social media.

In addition to engaging on Facebook and Twitter, one of the most brilliant ideas he came up with was to launch My Starbucks Idea. With this online platform he invited customers to provide feedback, submit their own unique ideas, or basically say whatever was on their mind about Starbucks.

While I’m sure not everything being said was positive, some of their most profitable new products came from the minds of customers.

They continue to take and implement new ideas through that platform, in addition to actively engaging with customers across all major social networks.

This makes Starbucks one of the most likeable brands out there, thanks to Howard Schultz.

What You Can Learn From Him:
What you can learn in this case is how to exercise humility. Realize that you might not always have the right answers. Sometimes nobody knows your business better than your customers do.

Don’t be afraid to reach out and get feedback from your customers. One of the greatest benefits of using social media to build relationships with customers is how much you can learn from them along the way.

Most businesses wouldn’t exist without customers, and their needs change over time. The best way to keep on top of what their needs are is to communicate with them directly. That’s what social media is all about!

3. Mark Cuban, Owner of the Dallas Mavericks

You may also know Mark Cuban from TV’s Shark Tank.

In addition to being one of the most likeable sharks on TV he’s also one of the most likeable CEOs on social media.

As I mentioned earlier, it’s rare for a CEO of his stature to even give social media a second thought.

He has not only thought about it, but he decided to dive in headfirst.

His tweets don’t go through a PR guy, he doesn’t outsource them to a social media agency, he’s right in there getting his hands dirty and publishing his tweets all by himself.

You can tell, because they’re all written in his unique voice. Sometimes they include pictures of what he’s doing at the moment. Sometimes they even include the verbal tirades he’s famous for.

He’s not afraid to say what he feels for fear of what others might think of him or the brands he represents, and that’s what people love about him.

He doesn’t try to intentionally offend anyone or rub anyone the wrong way, he’s just himself. And it turns out he’s one of the most likeable guys out there.

What You Can Learn From Him:
Don’t be afraid to let your true personality shine through on social media. There’s no point wasting time and energy trying to be what other people expect you to be.

People can tell when you or your business is being fake. You’ve seen them, we’ve all seen them. There are way too many fakes out there on social media.

That’s why when you’re authentic people take notice and start to listen to what you have to say. If you don’t want to get lost in the noise don’t try to be like everyone else out there. Be yourself and you’ll get much better results.

4. Dave Kerpen, CEO of Likeable Media

The most important skill in social media, in business and in life? Listening.

— Dave Kerpen (@DaveKerpen) January 23, 2013

You can’t think of likeable CEOs without thinking of Dave Kerpen.

He’s synonymous with the word “likeable.”

Dave Kerpen wrote the book, literally, on what it means to be a Likeable Business (affiliate link).

He’s also the owner of Likeable Media, an award-winning social media marketing agency with clients around the globe.

If you follow him long enough you start to get the feeling that he cares just as much, or more, about other peoples’ success as he does his own.

Not a day goes by where he’s not trying to lend a hand and help people over social media. His social media accounts are definitely not “me, me, me” all the time, they’re all about how he can help other people reach their goals.

If you’re running a client-based business you’re only as successful as your clients are. Dave Kerpen realizes this and goes above and beyond to demonstrate how well he can help people through social media and his company blog.

Ask anyone who’s read his books and they’ll tell you he knows exactly what it means to be likeable.

What You Can Learn From Him:
You can learn a lot from reading his books, but the most important lesson to take away here is to help other people as much as you help yourself.

Helping clients and customers without always expecting something in return is a fantastic way to build trust. Try to find me a person who wouldn’t prefer to do business with someone they know and trust.

If you’re just looking to make a buck all the time people will realize this and eventually stop doing business with you. Show you care about your clients and customers by lending a hand every now and then.

Wrapping It All Up

Being likeable on social media is all about making it a part of your company culture, listening to customers, showing your true personality and helping others.

There’s plenty to learn from these four Presidents and CEOs that you can apply to your small business and become that much more likeable.

Are there any CEOs that you admire for their use of social media? If so, I’d love to hear about them! Please mention them in the comments section.

One of the most enjoyable parts of my job as a social media consultant is delivering workshops.

During these workshops I get to help people set social media goals for their business.

Achievable goals of course, because I want you to be successful with social media.

So I’ve developed a 14-step process for setting social media goals for businesses.

This process covers the first four phases of social media strategy development.

What follows is the exact template I use in my workshops for setting setting real, attainable social media goals and objectives.

This 14 step goal-setting process is broken down into three major categories:

• Knowing your business,
• Knowing your audience, and finally
• Defining your goals and objectives.

Please note that this is a lengthy article. In fact, it’s the longest article I’ve written for this blog to date. If you can’t get through it all at once, that’s ok. Just bookmark it or save it to your favourite reading app and come back to it later.

Setting Social Media Goals For Your Business

Step 1: Gather And Analyze Information

The first phase of goal setting for social media strategy building deals specifically with gathering an analyzing information about your business and your audience.

The basis of effective communication is self-awareness. Before building a strategy you must have a thorough understanding of your business–its performance, its reputation and its structure. The first phase of goal setting involves a public relations audit, an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of your business.

A traditional marketing method is called a SWOT analysis, because it considers the businesses strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Typically, a SWOT analysis would look at each of these from two perspectives: internal and external.

It’s important not to let your mind get clouded by the idea that your business is strong and that all weaknesses come from the outside. What follows here is a more elaborate analysis that focuses on three aspects of the organization: its internal environment, its public perception and its external environment.

Before moving on to the details of the analysis it’s important to point out that openness is key. To create an effective strategic plan you must be honest in identifying the weaknesses and limitations of your business, as well as its strengths.

If your business is second best, admit it to yourself and proceed from there. Don’t pretend your business is something its not. No effective social media strategy has ever been built on fabricating the truth. It also does you no good to overlook flaws and shortcomings.

Step 2: Internal Analysis

The second step in the goal setting process involves looking at your business’s performance and structure, and any internal impediments to success. Here is an overview of each:

Performance
This includes the quality of goods and services provided by your business, as well as the viability of the causes and ideas it supports. This audit looks at the quality both as it is now and as it was in the past. It also considers the level of satisfaction that the leaders of the business have with this quality.

Niche
A niche is your business’s specialty–the function or role that makes your business different from similar businesses.

Structure
This is specifically a review of the purpose or mission of your business as it relates to the situation at hand. This audit also considers business resources that can be utilized as part of the strategic plan, including personnel, equipment, time and budgets. No commitments are made here, you’re just identifying available resources.

Internal Impediments
Here you consider any impediments or obstacles within your business that might limit the effectiveness of your plan. For example, many practitioners have expressed that the education in their field did not prepare them for the lack organizational support, the need for continuing vigilance and the amount of political in-fighting that goes on within some businesses.

Bruised egos, shortsighted executives, company favourites, and other barriers must be considered as you develop your plan.

An impediment is not an insurmountable barrier, it’s more like a slow-moving truck on a country road. You can allow the truck to set the pace and remain behind it, or you can carefully and safely pass the truck and continue on your way.

Step 3: Analyze Public Perception

What people think about your business is the key focus for this section. This perception is based on both visibility and reputation.

Visibility
The extent to which an organization is known is called visibility. More specifically, this includes whether people know about your business, what they know about it and how accurate this information is. Social media marketing can do a great deal to affect the visibility of your business.

Reputation
Reputation is based on your business’s visibility, which deals with how people evaluate the information they have. It is the general idea and feeling people have towards your business. Reputation is based on words and actions. It’s based on the verbal, visual and behavioural messages, both planned and unplanned, that come from your business.

You may think of reputation as a single perception, but it can be inconsistent from one public to another and from one time to another.

Generally speaking, the stronger your business’s visibility the more positive the reputation. On the other hand, low visibility suggests the need to create more awareness. And a poor reputation calls for efforts to improve your public perception. Social media marketing can help enhance, protect and create a consistent reputation for your business.

Step 4: External Analysis

The analysis of your business concludes with an examination of its external environment. Specifically, this analysis looks at supporters, competitors, opponents, and other external barriers. Here is an overview of each.

Supporters
Every business has a group of supporters–the people and groups who are likely to help your business achieve its goals. What groups share similar interests and values?

Competitors
Every business also has competitors, people or groups who are doing the same thing as you are in essentially the same market.

Additionally, the mere fact that another business is doing roughly the same thing you are doesn’t make them a competitor. Proximity is important as well. For example, a business in Espanola may have competitors on Manitoulin Island or even in Sudbury, but likely not as far as North Bay.

Businesses doing similar things in different areas might be better considered as colleagues, and as such can be valuable resources for information and perhaps assistance.

Opponents
Another important aspect of the external analysis is to consider the nature of any rivalry that may exist. Opponents are people or groups who are against your business because of something it says or does, or even because of its very existence. There’s a big different between an opponent and a competitor.

Consider a store that specializes in selling coffee, for example. A competitor would be another store in the same area that sells coffee, while an opponent might be someone against your store for not selling fair trade and/or ethically sourced coffee.

The other store just wants to sell its products, while the opponent wants to disparage your business. Consider the various types of opponents and the potential impact of social media communication when you are analyzing this aspect of your external environment.

• Advocates: may oppose your business because they support something else, and you appear to stand in the way of it. Their tactics are mainly vocal. Through public communication, such as social media, you may be able to find common ground for discussion and maybe start seeing eye to eye.
  
  
• Activists: are similar to advocates, but they want more than discussion. They generally seek change, so their opposition to your organization may be a by-product of their goal. Communication might reveal and promote a common basis for at least limited cooperation. But realize that activists, by definition, seek something specific and tangible, so talk alone won’t move them.

Step 5: Recognize External Impediments

Additionally, it’s important to consider external impediment.

Things like social, political or economic factors outside of a business that might limit the effectiveness of a social media marketing plan.

Employment rate is a particularly relevant external impediment that should be taken into account right now.

Step 6: Understanding Your Audience

The ability to identify and analyze publics is the cornerstone of an effective strategic plan. The two elements of this include identification and analysis. First the planner needs to address the right groups of people. Then the planner must carefully examine each public in order to develop a strategy to communicate effectively.

What Is An Audience?
An audience is a group of people that shares a common interest with an organization, recognizes its significance and sets out to do something that benefits it. Such as purchasing its products and services, or recommending it to others. An audience is made of of publics, markets and audiences.

• Public: A public is like your family. You don’t pick them, they just are. Publics may be helpful or annoying, friendly or not, but a business must deal with them regardless. Publics exist because of their interaction and interdependency with your business.
  
  
• Market: A market is more like your friends. You pick them and they pick you. Most people selects friends based on shared interests and common values. Businesses develop their markets among those publics with whom they intend to conduct business or generate support from. Markets include people with characteristics (age, income, lifestyle etc.) that can help the business achieve its bottom line.
  
  
• Audience: Audiences are merely people who pay attention to a particular medium of communication and receive messages through it. A business’s relationship with an audience is usually brief, such as the length of time it takes to read an article or listen to a speech–much more temporary that its relationship with a public.

Step 7: Identifying Your Publics

Good strategic planning calls for the identification of a business’s various publics. There is no such thing as a general public. Rather, each public is linked with the business in a unique relationship. There are four categories of publics and they include: customers, producers, enablers and limiters.

Customers
The most obvious type of public may be customers who receive products or services of an organization. Such as current or potential consumers, purchasers, clients, students, patients, fans, patrons, shoppers, parishioners, members and so on.

Producers
This category includes publics that provide input to the business. These include personnel such as employees, volunteers and unions. This also includes producers of the needed materials such as suppliers, and producers of the financial resources such as backers, donors and stockholders.

Enablers
This category includes groups that serve as regulators by setting the norms or standards for the business, such as professional associations and government agencies. This also includes opinion leaders with influence over the potential customers, such as stockbrokers and analysts. Other groups include allies, which the organization may be able to work with on cooperative projects.

Limiters
This category includes publics that in some way reduce or undermine the success of a business, such as competitors, opponents.

Step 8: Focusing On Key Publics

Having just identified the major categories of publics, the next step is to look at them in more detail. By more narrowly focusing our publics we can understand them better.

For example a University starting a recruiting campaign can’t just consider students as their public, that’s too broad of a category.

There are so many different kinds of potential students. You would want to narrow that down to high school graduates, adults seeking to upgrade their credentials, current students at competing Universities and so on.

You also want to eliminate from consideration groups that are not publics, having no present or potential future relationship with your business. For example, students would not be an ideal public for a luxury vehicle dealer.

The best advice in dealing with groups that are not publics is don’t deal with them at all. Don’t waste time and money trying to communicate with people who have no relevant relationship with your business and no interest in your products or services.

Step 9: Selecting Key Publics

Based on the information and insights about your various publics, select several that warrant particular attention. These become your key publics.

While all your publics may be important in various situations, not all warrant your attention.

This is the point in your planning process where you weed out the less important publics, concentrating instead on those few that have particular relevance to the success of your business.

Step 10: Write A Benefit Statement

Conclude the analysis of your publics with a benefit statement that briefly indicates the benefit or advantage your product or service can offer this public. How can you help satisfy their needs or problems better than anyone else>

As an example, the benefit that a gourmet restaurant might offer their key public could be written as:

“This gourmet eatery serves unique dishes to satisfy the most eclectic tastebuds, guaranteed not to be found anywhere else in town.”

Step 11: Defining Goals

This step is about looking inwards and deciding what you want to achieve. To better understand this step you need to understand the dual concepts of goals and objectives.

What Are Goals?
A goal is a statement rooted in your business’s mission or vision. Using every day language, a goal acknowledges what you want to achieve and how you hope to achieve it.

A goal is stated in general terms and lacks any kind of measurement. The difference between goals and objectives can be summed up like this:

“Goals provide the direction, while objectives pinpoint the destination.”

Communication goals can be categorized as relating to three different types of management situations:

• Reputation management goals: These deal with identity and perception of your business.
  
  
• Relationship management goals: These focus on how the business connects with its publics.
  
  
• Task management goals: These are concerned with getting certain things done, such as driving sales or generating more leads.

Please bear in mind that it is unlikely, even unnecessary, that every campaign will have each type of goal. You can mix and match these however you deem appropriate for your specific campaign.

Step 12: Defining Objectives

What Are Objectives?
An objective is a statement derived from your business’s goals. It is a clear and measurable statement, written to point the way towards particular levels of awareness, acceptance or action. An objective is a milestone that measures your progress towards a goal.

Standards For Objectives

• Goal Rooted: Objectives are based on your business’s overall goals. Objectives are responsive to a particular issue that your business has recognized as important to its success.
  
  
• Public Focused: Objectives are linked firmly to a particular public and are based on the wants, interests and needs of that public.
  
  
• Impact Oriented: Objectives are oriented toward the impact they can achieve. They define the effect you hope to make on your public, focusing not on the tools but the intended accomplishments.
  
  
• Linked To Research: Good objectives aren’t just pulled out of thin air, they are tied to research. For example, if research shows that 40% of your key public is familiar with your business’s products or services, your objective might be to increase that to 50%. Not because 50% is a magic number, but because it represents a reasonable ambition based on the current situation, as revealed through research.
  
  
• Explicit: Objectives are explicit and clearly defined. There is no room for misunderstanding. Don’t use vague language like “educate, inform, promote or encourage.” Instead, use strong action verbs to state your objective specifically. For example, one of our clients sells solar panels and they might be inclined to state an objective saying they want to “enhance knowledge of solar panel technology.” A more explicit goal would be stated by saying they want to “increase residents’ understanding of the benefits of solar panel technology by 25%.”
  
  
• Measurable: Objectives are precise and quantifiable, with clear measures that state the degree of change being sought. Avoid vague language like “appropriate” or “reasonable.” Instead, using solar panels as an example again, state that you want to “effect a 20% increase in use of solar panel technology over the next six months.”
  
  
• Time Definite: Objectives include a clear definition of a timeframe. Such as January 1st, within six months, during Q4 and so on. Avoid vague language like “in the near future” or “as soon as possible”.
  
  
• Singular: Objectives focus on one desires response from one public. Don’t state, for example, that you want to “increase awareness and generate sales.” You may be successful in the first effort but unsuccessful in the latter, making it difficult to evaluate your effectiveness. Most strategic plans will have multiple objectives, but each should be stated separately.
  
  
• Challenging: Objectives should stretch your business a bit and inspire people to take action. Don’t aim at too safe a level of achievement or you might find that you haven’t really achieved anything worthwhile. Set your sights high.
  
  
• Attainable: Though challenging, objectives also need to be attainable according to your business’s needs and resources. It’s not realistic to aim for 100% of anything. Don’t set yourself up to fail by creating unattainable objectives.
  
  
• Acceptable: Objectives need to be understood and supported by your entire team. The value of objectives is not that they are written, but rather that they are used. They need the strength of your entire team in order to be useful.

Step 13: Understanding The Hierarchy Of Objectives

There’s an ordered hierarchy among communication objectives. They grow out of a logical progression through three steps of persuasion: awareness, acceptance and action.

Awareness begins the process, increasing gradually. Interest then builds in stages and customer attitudes gradually change to find your business an acceptable choice. Then physical and verbal actions take place like purchasing and inquiring.

Awareness Objectives
These focus on information, providing the thinking component of the message.

These objectives specify what information you want your publics first to be exposed to and then to know, understand and remember. Awareness objectives particularly deal with message exposure, comprehension and retention.

They are appropriate for transmitting purely functional information, communicating on noncontroversial issues, and during the early stages of any communication campaign.

Awareness objectives are also useful for publicity and impacting what people know about a business and its products and services.

Acceptance Objectives
These deal with the feeling part of the message; how people respond emotionally to the information they received.

Acceptance objectives are useful in reinforcing existing interests and attitudes, and changing existing positive or negative attitudes. These are important in the midst of controversy and in persuasive situations.

They impact how people feel about your business and its products and services.

Action Objectives
These take aim at expression and conduct, providing the behavioural element of the message.

These objectives offer two types of action: opinion (verbal action) and behaviour (physical action). Action objectives may attempt to create new behaviours or change existing ones, positively or negatively.

They should be focused on your business’s bottom line; such as customer buying, member retention, donor giving, fan attendance and so on.

These objectives not only serve to suit the needs of your business, but they’re also objectives for building consensus and enhancing the relationship between your business and its publics.

Step 14: Writing Solid Objectives For Your Business

In defining objectives, keep your language simple and brief. Avoid jargon. Use everyday language and strong action verbs. Objectives are not meant to be presented publicly, so don’t worry if they begin to sound repetitive.

The guidelines we’re about to go over will help you deal with each important element of a well-stated objective.

Public
Indicate the public to whom the objective is addressed.

Category
Indicate the category of objective: awareness, acceptance or action.

Direction
Indicate the direction of movement you are seeking. That is, to create or generate something that did not exist before. To increase or maximize a condition, to maintain effects or reinforce current conditions, or to decrease or minimize something.

Specific Effect
Indicate the specific effect that you will address. If you are writing an awareness objective, the specific effect should deal with receiving the message, understanding it and perhaps remembering it. If you are focusing on acceptance levels, deal with generating interest, reducing apathy or fostering attitudes. For action objectives, focus on evoking a particular opinion or drawing out a desired action.

Performance Measure
Indicate the desired level of achievement in terms of measurement. Raw numbers or percentages usually do well here. The number you come up with should reflect baseline research and/or desired outcomes.

Time Period
Indicate the desired timeframe, either within a single period or multiple stages. Here you can be specific (January 1st) or relative (within six months, at the end of the first quarter etc.)

Example Of A Perfectly Worded Objective:

Please note that this is an example of a real objective for a real client after going through this entire 14-step process together.

To have an effect on the action of Northern Ontario residents, specifically to generate leads through requests for consultation via website contact form (100 leads during the first two months of the campaign; 400 leads within six months)

Wrapping It All Up

If you look carefully, the example of a perfectly worded objective at the end of the previous module comprises all of the 14 steps I just laid out for you.

Writing several of these for your business after going through the full 14-step process will provide a clear direction for your business going forward. I hope this has been helpful and I wish you the best of success in reaching your goals and objectives!

Also, I would like to thank you very much for making it to the end of this. It’s the most work I’ve put into a single blog post and I sincerely appreciate any feedback you could leave in the comments section. Or just sharing this post would be great as well.