I’m sure I’m not the only one who has found challenges with this shelter in place (SiP) order and seem to be more easily distracted when the deadlines are fewer and far between. In fact a lot of people are just furloughed altogether so what do you do in these unprecedented times?
Perhaps now is the time to look at ways to sharpen the tools you have. Facebook advertising doesn’t work. At least that was the claim from someone I was talking to who had spent $12,000 and gotten almost no results. Wow. No wonder they felt that way! But I asked them to see what they had done and I’m not surprised that they didn’t get the results they were hoping for. While advertising with the social media giant may not work for everybody or even be a good idea for all businesses, there are many industries or destinations for whom Facebook might be the best deal out there. Done correctly, Facebook ads can be quite a bargain and highly effective. What’s your policy on eye contact? Do you have one? You should. I’ve been working with a company recently who contacted me because they were concerned that their customers are frequenting a close competitor more than they had in the past and it’s showing in the bottom line. As such I went into this business and just looked around. Using photos is one of the best tools a business has to tell a story. Yet I see a lot of people doing an exceptionally bad job with their photos. And others using photos with great success. With today’s smart phones, there is no excuse for bad pictures. So why are bad photos such a common thing? What is it, where did it come from?
The internet is in love with the Woman Yelling At A Cat meme; the phenomenon even made its way into a few Halloween costumes. But what is the cat vs. women meme and how did it become so popular? And who are the women - and who is the cat in the meme? As with so many memes on the Internet, this came out of serendipity as the images were each already being used as memes to start with. However, once they got together it became Internet gold. I’m late. I fact I’m quite late. And I’m late for a reason.
One of the cool things about my weekly email blast on Monday mornings is that I get people who ask me to help them with various things like websites, social media and other ways of getting their voicing out to the world. If you don’t get the Monday Morning Marketing emails you can and they’re free. I was working with someone recently on their social media campaigns and they were very stressed. They were absolutely killing it on Facebook with an engaged audience and strong return on their time investment. So what’s their issue? They weren’t on Instagram or Twitter or any other social network for that matter. And they had the Fear Of Missing Out, or FOMO.
(Insert dramatic musical effect here) I’ve talked about social media being a conversation and that’s exactly what it is. While there are tons of people who waste tons of time studying social media, it’s basically a conversation about mutual interests. The reason so many Facebook Pages just disappear in your feed is that people don’t interact with the Page and Facebook assumes they’re basically not interested in what the Page saying. If you’re having a conversation with your Page’s followers and they’re responding, you’ll find that social media is highly effective. I have a number of Pages that I follow on social media whose content is of big interest to me so their comments and content keeps showing-up prominently in my feed. After all, the job the social media providers like Facebook and Instagram have is to keep you interested so you see their ads so they make more money. Simple. So the more you’re engaging with things on social media, the more likely it is that they’re going to show it to you. I build a lot of websites for people but I also hear a lot of people who tell me that they can do their own site, thank you very much. Tools like Wix, Weebly, SquareSpace and even WordPress absolutely offer a very simple way to create a very beautiful website that does have a lot of good features and looks terrific. So what’s the problem? I have personally partnered with SquareSpace to do the vast majority of the websites I do because you can create a great website very quickly that looks great and tells your story effectively and beautifully. In fact I once had a discussion with a restaurant owner about his needing a website and he was so insistent that it was a long difficult process that, by the time lunch was over, I showed him his new site. Lunch was on him. Like cans of gasoline in the hands of that “one uncle,” using automation to help spread your word can have unforeseen consequences. I don’t think automated marketing systems are necessarily a good thing, especially in some implementations. While there are great tools for helping to automate your marketing, great marketing still starts from a passion about your product or service. Period.
Now, do I use automated marketing tools? You betcha! You might be one of thousands of people who get my Monday Marketing newsletter delivered conveniently to your inbox through a mailing program. If not, you can remedy that here. |
Tony BarthelTony Barthel is passionate about great marketing for small businesses Get Free Weekly Marketing TipsCategories
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