I get to manage a lot of calendars as part of my life and there’s something I see people doing consistently to really hurt attendance of their events. From car shows to community events, people are truly limiting how effective their messaging is to the people they’d like to attend those events. But how do you spread the word about community events so that people will find them in the first place? Let’s face it - there are so many ways to deliver messaging nowadays that telling the world about your event is something that can very easily get lost. Even if you get to the right people, it’s still entirely possible that they will forget about your event when it rolls around. As human beings our journeys around the sun on this big blue marble trigger all sorts of events. For example, many of us try to lose weight come January 1. Others place huge significance on the anniversary of our own arrival aboard this vehicle. In these United States we celebrate those who have passed away in active military service on this day. This can also be a trigger for our businesses. Every day our customers and prospects are critiquing our advertising and messaging. Some are responding, others aren’t. For those who don’t it could be that what we have isn’t what they want or it could also be our messaging. So I propose that, at least twice a year, we look at what we’re doing to woo our customers and make adjustments. We all know that one guy who wonders why things aren’t going so well but tells us, “well, I’ve been doing it this way for 20 years!” Times change, customers change and, most importantly, competitors change. Did you know that Facebook Groups can be managed by Facebook Pages? Did you know that Facebook Pages can create Groups? Did you just say ‘so what?’ For some organizations, a Facebook Group can actually make a lot of sense. For example, clubs, trade organizations and that sort of thing. Recently I took a Facebook Page and made a Group with it that was only slightly related but makes a lot of sense. I created a Page, Road Trip Reviews, which is related to a travel blog and created a fan club under that Page for a specific brand of RV. The fan club has grown faster even than the Page with a very, very lively discussion allowing members to share tips, challenges and journeys. For lots of businesses it would not make sense to dilute your brand with a Group but, for some, this can be an invaluable resource. There are a lot of businesses that I work with who are vehemently opposed to creating a presence on Yelp and TripAdvisor. The argument these businesses have is that they know that people write bad reviews. And some people even write spiteful or inaccurate reviews. All of this is true. Surprisingly a lousy review be good for your business? Honestly. For any business proprietor who owns their presence on review sites it can be a tense few moments after you get a notification that you have a new review until you read it. And, when you get a negative review, the first thing you want to do is figure out who wrote it and determine the quickest way of insulting their family for several generations back. Understandable. Lessons learned from United AirlinesIf you happened to be out hiking in the wilderness for the past week, you may be the one American who hasn’t heard about United’s brush with a public relations disaster as team members forcibly removed a passenger from the plane after they had oversold the seats and needed to move a crew to a new location. What’s the lesson for all businesses here? Simple. In many ways, George Orwell’s 1984 predicted a reality that we live with today. Oh, not a dystopian world scenario. Just that everything you do as a business can and may be shot on video and shared with the world. And when you do something really, really egregious it may become a viral video. How do you market a small business in these modern times? I attended a three day marketing conference called Social Media Marketing World to gain insights on today’s trends in the small business and tourism marketing world. With over 120 speakers and 3,000 attendees from all over the world gathering for three days I have notes upon notes, references and ideas but I wanted to sum up the Conference on the latest in digital marketing in one article. Here’s what I learned. Effectively, you can sum up the whole conference very simply with the acronym “LIKE.” I coined this because I’ve heard so many of my clients wanting more “Likes” on their Facebook Pages. But, as written previously, Facebook “Likes” are only one step in the whole process - sort of like having plates and a fork in time for dinner. What we really want is a balanced meal. Surprisingly, those who have followed my blog for an length of time will not be surprised by this information. So what did I learn? One of the worst marketing things I can see a business do is put up some sort of sign that reads, “Like us on Facebook.” Sometimes people even put the URL for their page. This is a big mistake. Why? We all know who Facebook is - at present they have over a billion and a half users and that kind of pool of people can be a huge temptation for any business owner. I even believe that a Facebook Business Page often is a solid component of a small business’ marketing arsenal. But a Facebook Page is only one component and only a part of a solid online presence. We’ve all been faced by the challenge of tackling something we’ve never done before such as light a water heater, installing a garbage disposal or that pesky brain surgery. It used to be when there was a new challenge on the horizon the first place I’d head was to the library. The library used to be the source for any information I wanted. This was especially useful in my college days when I was buying and selling old cars and needed to know how to fix a whatsamawidget on a 1954 Hooptie Pile-O-Matic. But the library was also a huge source of frustration at the same time because you’d go in, search for something and then have to look in the book and hope their information was great, which it often wasn’t. Because of the ridiculous number of Facebook Pages I manage I get a lot of people who ask me about their own Facebook Pages. One of the things I get asked a lot, especially lately, is why their Page has suddenly lost its momentum and traffic has dwindled. It’s almost always the same answer. First, let’s talk about what Facebook is. You would never just go up to someone and ask for $50. But asking for someone’s email address is almost the same thing, which is why so many people are reticent about sharing their email addresses. Even worse, much of the email we all get is a huge waste of time. No wonder so many people have “throwaway” email addresses that they never check. So why would you want to be an email marketer?
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Tony BarthelTony Barthel is passionate about great marketing for small businesses Get Free Weekly Marketing TipsCategories
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