Author. A Little Background and History. Steve Welsh

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2 Author 3 A Little Background and History Steve Welsh is the foremost Social Media Strategist & Management Consultant in Berkshire, Hampshire and Surrey. Having managed and marketed businesses from medium sized to international companies for over 24 years, he has started, nurtured, developed and built his own successful businesses in Graphic Design, Commercial Printing and Promotional Merchandise. Steve s ethos in business has always concentrated on developing teams and managers to embrace the bigger picture, focusing on responsibilities, performance and clear communication within the organization. Some of his core strategies have involved building and training teams of sales and marketing executives for motor industry manufacturers. He has spent 7 years trouble shooting underperforming businesses within the manufacturers network and undertaken transition management for motor dealerships. Steve started to embrace the possibilities of the digital world in 2010 and has worked online full time since early 2011 after having joined Facebook in 2007 and Twitter in He provides Social Media: Strategy Setup Training Management Marketing and Advertising services to SME s and medium sized companies, drawing on over 24 year s experience in a sales and marketing environment, marketing businesses, social media, website design, Blogging and search engine optimization (SEO). A firm believer in if you do the same as everyone else, at best you re average, he embraces differentiating yourself from your competitors and so removing the price comparison barriers. Steve s belief is that it every business owner s duty and responsibility to ensure they take FULL advantage of technology today. Steve has embraced Social Media Marketing as part of his own business model and is constantly researching the effect it has on driving sales to businesses, to improve his advice. Social Media Marketing is the effective use of technology and Web 2.0 platforms to engage with prospects, cultivate trust and drive traffic to your business Steve Welsh

3 Content 4 Author 4 A little background and history Introduction 5 What reading this ebook should achieve 21 Reasons Why Your Business Needs Social Media Today 6 FAQ 9 Conclusion 11 Understanding the Benefits And my Thanks go to 12 Social Media Delivered 13

4 Introduction 5 What you will achieve reading this ebook The purpose of this ebook is to give you, as a business owner or manager, enough information and knowledge to be able to make an informed decision on whether Social Media Marketing will enhance your business and more specifically make you more money. There are 21 reasons why I think you should get your business on social media. You can then decide if they are valid to your business, and whether you can get the required return on investment. There is no mistaking the fact that social media has taken the major marketing focus of businesses and brands worldwide. Everyone has heard the buzz, (unless you re living under a rock) from sole trader SME s to multinational companies & brands. It s a bit like where Yellow Pages were some 10 years ago, every local and national business had to ensure they were included, that s where they spent a large chunk of their marketing budget. The success of this type of advertising launched other local and national directories. When the Yellow Pages arrived at your doorstep, it needed a forklift to deliver it, now it s a small booklet in my area! That s why Yell has concentrated over the last 7 years on their online directory and selling space and advertising there, whilst spending their own marketing money on PPC to drive traffic to the directory. Question: If the traditional offline directories and newspapers are moving online, what s the reason? Question: What percentage of those SME s and companies above still advertise in yellow pages now? So, the fact is it s always easier to sell when you go where the people are. And that s where social media comes in. Social Media connects people locally & worldwide, this allows them to socialize. Done right, it can be extremely valuable in growing your business. Done badly it can sap your time and harm your reputation

5 21 Reasons Why Your Business Needs Social Media Today 6 1. Flag Customer Service Issues: Customers will broadcast their complaints about your company on Facebook or Twitter, even if you are not on these platforms - they expect you to come find them. By listening carefully on social media to your customers and community, you can easily catch customer service issues as they emerge, even on fast- moving sites like Twitter. 2. Track Industry Trends: You can listen to the discussions happening in your industry. Not only can you understand your share of conversation within the discussions you want to be part of, but you can also learn valuable information about emerging trends, crises, or issues of interest to your community and prospects. 3. Build A Community: By making yourself available, reaching out to customers and sharing information, you strengthen your community. You form new connections, allow community members to meet one another, and create a deeper dialogue by increasing the number of voices. 4. Highlight Your Product: Social media offers an additional avenue to show off and talk about your product in a friendly and informal way. You get to highlight what you offer and what makes you awesome in normal conversation without coming across as pushy or too promotional. You also have the opportunity to answer questions, show features and offer how to to help people get to know you a little better and demonstrate what an expert you are. 5. Tell Your Company s Story: People like to do business with people they like and know. We like being introduced to the voices behind the logo because it helps us to feel a part of the company. By telling your company s story on social media and sharing that with users, you create a personal feeling and make people invest in your success. 6. Social proof: Consumers are better educated about who and where they purchase products from and nowadays everyone takes the time to research online before making a purchase. By having a social media presence that is both engaging and engaged, it helps reassure clients that your business is reputable and can be trusted. 7. Develop Better Ideas: Through social media you are able to get feedback on ideas before you spend any time developing them. You ll see what works, what people hate and what they want more of, so you can produce more of what interests people and less of what puts them to sleep. 8. Rub Shoulders With Influencers: There is a saying We are the sum of the company we keep Well, social media lets you be friends with the people your customers most look up to, helping to increase your authority by association.

6 9. Network Faster: Find future partners, mentors or just really good people to share resources with. Through social media channels you can track clients, find clients and network faster. 10. Keep Tabs on the Competition: The social web has brought a new dimension to competition analysis, and put a wealth of information out there for the taking. Being able to track traffic and actions, also the ability to monitor everything that moves via social channels, you can keep up with your competitors marketing as it happens. 11. Generate Leads: The purpose of all activity in marketing is to give a return. Social channels with the use of mentions and # allow you to discover opportunities for your business and start the process of lead generation, without sales pressure, at the perfect time. 12. SEO Benefits: Google counts social sharing when ranking your site or page. When many different people on social media refer to your content, your website, your articles, or your video it means that those individual people find your content useful, entertaining, informative or all of the above. When this happens, the search engines pay attention and in return use this as a factor to provide better search engine placement for your content. 13. Target Your Market: Facebook has more than 850 million Facebook users worldwide and over 32 million in the UK alone. It s obvious that your target market is likely to be using Social Media on a very consistent basis. With targeted social media advertising and engagement, you can target your marketing to the right people. 14. Users Are Comfortable on Social Media: Because of how much time is spent on the networks and how often users login to Social Media they are naturally comfortable on the networks. They may not be comfortable on third party sites they do not already know about however. 15. Create Greater Exposure: Social Media is not like a website, where you set it up and leave it. Social Media requires daily actions including Status Updates. Carefully thought out, this can allow you to be always on your target market s mind, so when they are ready to purchase they think of you first. 16. Word Of Mouth Marketing: As a business owner, you know that word of mouth marketing can be the best form. Social Media networks make recommending or sharing companies, products and services extremely easy. We often refer to Social Media as, Word of mouth marketing on steroids. 17. Educating Your Customers: Educating your target market on why you re needed is a daily task for some businesses and for every business educating their target market is always beneficial. Social Media can be an extremely powerful education tool by sharing articles, videos and testimonials with your Fan and Follower s base. 7

7 18. Drive traffic to your website: Social media is a great way to drive traffic to your website with the use of special offers, promotions, product information, etc. Using the platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+ can funnel people to your website signup or contact page. 19. It helps Customer Retention: A potential customer may not buy the first time they visit your website, so directing them to your Twitter or Facebook page is a good way to get them to follow your business, and hopefully buy from you at a later date. 20. It Expands Your Reach: Even an established brand may be missing out on potential customers. Through social media, you can find out what to which online communities your existing customers belong. These places can become portals to a larger audience for your products and services. And don t forget that your customers can spread the word for you to these communities. Interest them with compelling and useful content, contests and giveaways, etc - they ll soon be telling their friends and colleagues to check you out. 21. It Lets You Share: Through social media, you can create all kinds of content and post it in one place. Make videos; write articles, and post blogs and podcasts to your pages, where everyone can access them. You can communicate in fun and inventive ways because there are no rules on how best to reach your audience, so you can mix it up and appeal to everyone. Sharing also gets people to share back, and gives you access to resources and links that could become invaluable to you. The aim of writing this ebook started out at 21 reasons why your business needs social media today I hope that I have been able to achieve that. However if you re still not convinced, r that social media can increase your sales, here are some statistics that might sway you. When you read the stats just think: How could I use that traffic and engagement in my business? Million Users Million Users The Graph on the left shows the total number of registered users on each platform at the time of writing Facebook Twitter Linkedin Google+

8 FAQ 9 Sales via social commerce are expected to reach of businesses are using social networking for business objectives. $30 billion within 5 years. of online adults are connected to one or more social media platforms. 76% of CMO s believe they ll tie social media efforts to hard ROI this year. of People visit social media sites. Of marketers researched said social media helped in closing business. are starting to look beyond sales goals and web metrics to identify the value of social marketing efforts. of marketers are integrating social media into their marketing plans. of users say they check social media every day.

9 FAQ 10 of social media users are comfortable providing credit card information. say a promotion or brand mention by a blogger influences a purchase decision. respondents are likely to follow a brand because of a socially enabled online advert. of recruiters use LinkedIn to find candidates for job vacancies. The average social network user spends of surveyed respondents say they have hired through social media On Facebook alone each month Retail sites with video increase conversion rates by of consumers say that product videos help to make purchase decisions.

10 Conclusion 11 Social Media is here to stay. It s not a gimmick, it s not a one trip pony but it s a marketing environment that allows you the privilege of selling to users. Don t get me wrong - it is not the start and finish to all your company s marketing, it is a pillar of marketing amongst other marketing pillars. So don t suddenly cancel all your marketing and divert all of the funds to social media just yet! Consider this Scenario: If you invested in 10,000 leaflets, paying for the design, the offer, the call to action and distribution. And then did nothing! Your return would be less than 0.3%. However, if you also followed up over the next few weeks with more leaflets showing different offers to the same people, several times, you could achieve a much higher return. Take it to the next level; if you had a data capture system in place when someone took the call to action, you can now market those people directly. Don t get upset, but the fact is most businesses will invest with a knee jerk reaction to marketing. They ll have the leaflets designed, printed and boxed and then put them in a cupboard at the back of the office and then complain that leaflets don t work does this sound familiar? GET THIS RIGHT: It isn t what you do it s the way that you do it, that s what gets results So, the moral of the scenario above is whatever marketing you undertake for your business you are wasting your money unless you do the following: BE CONSISTENT MAKE THE RIGHT OFFER FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS NOT YOUR BUSINESS. DATA CAPTURE CUSTOMER INFORMATION AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY HAVE A REASON AND FOLLOW UP AT LEAST 5 TIMES. ASK THE QUESTION DO YOUR PROSPECTS WANT WHAT YOU ARE SELLING? In conclusion, social media marketing allows you to do all of the 21 things I have listed, it also allows you to monitor, measure and control your activity and engagement with your clients, building trust. At which point you are in a great position, having been given permission to sell to them like crazy. DONE RIGHT SOCIAL MEDIA CAN SUPERCHARGE YOUR BUSINESS!

11 With Thanks 12 Thank you for taking the time to read this ebook. I hope you have enjoyed the contents and feel you are now in a better place to see how social media marketing can help your business. If you think this ebook is worthy of sharing, please share the link below to the page: 21 Reasons ebook Would you like more information on Social Media? There are lots of resources on our web site: please visit: Steve Welsh Social Media Website Ready to join in? I would be honoured to connect with you on any of the platforms below, just click the logo: To your Success Steve Welsh Click on a button below to connect with me: