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In Social Media Marketing For Your Business: Part 2 we discussed branding your profiles and getting started with content. Now we’ll move on to navigating interaction on social media.

Interacting On Social Media

Social media can be a great tool for your business, but like any other marketing tool, it needs to be approached right to make sure that it is a productive use of your time, as well as making sure it draws positive attention towards your company. When you’re interacting on social media, there are some good rules to follow:

• Keep Your Account Active – The best way to gain followers and keep followers is to have a reason for people to visit your profiles. Create a regular posting schedule and stick to it.
• Don’t Overdo It – The best way to annoy followers is to overload them with way too many posts, or with low quality information. If you’re filling up timelines and boards with an overwhelming amount of posts that they don’t find interesting, it’s possible they will just unfollow your profiles all together.
• Focus On Quality – Your social media profiles should be a tool to enhance your marketing, not a trap you get stuck wasting time in. Use your accounts to give quality information and create genuine interaction.
• Be Responsive – If legitimate profiles and potential clients and customers follow you, follow back. If followers ask questions, leave comments, or promote you, it’s good to respond, comment back, and thank people for their promotion. It shows you care about customer service and your clientele.
• Keep It Professional – One of the downfalls of social media is that people don’t always maintain a high level of respect towards each other. Always remember that you are representing your business and it’s important to take the high road and maintain a professional attitude. With things like negative comments, either give a neutral and intelligence response, ignore, or delete. Don’t get caught up in reacting negatively or engaging in arguments. As Mark Twain once said, “Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.”

Get Going!

So it’s really not as daunting as it may seem….

• Select your accounts.
• Establish your profiles.
• Post quality information.
• Interact Professionally.

If you follow these basics, you’ll see that social media can be a productive path to take on your journey to success.

In Social Media Marketing For Your Business: Part 1 we introduced you to social media and the available networks. In part 2 we’re going to discuss branding your profiles and getting started with content.

Branding Your Social Media Account

Here are some basics to branding your social media profiles:

• Profile Photo – Have a profile photo that is eye catching and related to your business.
• Logo – Include your logo within your profile so that your profile is immediately recognizable.
• Customize Your Profile – Customize your theme with a custom background, header, or profile colors.
• Descriptive Info – Fill out any “About Us” sections or description areas so that people get an introduction to, and summary of your business.

Posting On Your Social Media Accounts

After you have created and customized your accounts, you may be wondering… “What do I do now?”. The purpose of your accounts is to connect to people and spread the word about your business, so here are some examples of the kinds of posts that create success in social media campaigns:

• Company News & Events – Keep people up to date with what’s going on with your business, promote any events you’re taking part in, encourage people to take interest in your company as a whole. Have new members been added to your staff? Has your business received any awards? Have you opened a new location? Are you going to be appearing at a community event? These are the kinds of things that help people “get to know” your business, which can help build trust, and set yourself apart from your competitors.
• Deals, Sales, Coupons, Discounts – Promoting any kind of deals, sales, discounts or coupons on social media is a great way to attract new customers and clients. Saving money, or being offered something “extra”, is often the little bit of encouragement that turns potential customers and clients into actual customers and clients. These opportunities can also encourage customers who have maybe drifted away to come back, and if you offer various deals on a regular basis, they can keep people coming back. Your social media accounts are a great way to get the news out about your deals, and a great way for people to share them with others.
• Website Updates, Blog & Article Postings – Has your website had a redesign or a new addition? Let people know. Are you blogging regularly? Post notices about all your new articles and blog postings. Your social media accounts should eventually bring people back around to your business website.
• Industry News & Events – There are many companies that post and tweet and reblog about anything and everything to try to draw attention. While this may draw in people to some extent, it can water down your message, and your brand can get lost in the abundance of information. It’s good to periodically post about and discuss things that are happening in the world around you, but it’s most effective to a. stay focused on topics that relate to your business and industry, and b. make sure you use these types of posts to bring the topic of discussion back around to your company.

Part 3

Now that we’ve discussed establishing your social networks, check back next Monday for “Social Media Marketing For Your Business: Part 3”, where will go over some tips for interacting on social media.

Your social media accounts are an extension of your business, so it’s important to have them represent you accurately and portray your business in a positive light. While the social media world can be overwhelming, it’s something every business owner can learn to navigate with a simple plan of attack.

Selecting Your Profiles

In the past 5 years or so, social networks sprouted up everywhere like weeds. While it’s important for your business to have a presence in social media, it needs to be a manageable part of your marketing. It’s not possible to be on every social network in the world, so it’s best to create accounts on a focused number of networks that appeal to your business demographic, and consistently nurture those select accounts. You can check out Wikipedia’s List for an idea of what’s available, but most businesses will want to select their accounts from the top ten social networks. Here is a quick rundown on some of the major social networks that we find helpful to businesses:

• Facebook – The current mainstay of social networking. It’s a general site that is essential for any business.
• Google Plus – Another general site that’s good for any business, and helps with establishing a solid brand presence in Google.
• Twitter – A mainstream site that’s good for promoting short and quick pieces of information and is highly oriented around current events and media trends.
• LinkedIn – Business and professional networking. It’s good for keeping it touch with actual quality business connections.
• YouTube – All videos, great site for businesses to upload commercials, seminars, video blog posts, “how-to” and informational type videos, and promotional clips.
• Pinterest – Very consumer oriented site. Great for companies with products & services to find ways to creatively promote themselves and have others spread the word. Users respond to topics like “fitness tips”, “diy” or “home improvement”, “recipes”, “fashion”, and “family activities”.
• Tumblr – Mainly a photo reblogging site. Great for businesses with exciting or beautiful photographs such as photographers, artists or travel companies.

Part 2

Now that we’ve introduced you to the social networks, check back next Monday for “Social Media Marketing For Your Business: Part 2”, where will discuss establishing your profiles and give tips on social media posting.

And so it goes with marketing. Which brings me back to my Marketing 101 class in college and one of the most important P’s of marketing: Product.

As obvious as it seems, it’s easy to forget while we’re all chasing social media, SEO, email campaigns, etc. etc. etc. that great marketing begins with product. I’ve been thinking alot about this lately. When you start with a bad product, the rest of your marketing become a complex effort of smoke and mirrors to distract from your product’s downfalls or present an image that is not a reality
Abra has been fortunate in that we work with clients who really have great products and services. This makes for really exciting marketing because when you start with a great product, marketing becomes a process of peeling back the layers between your prospects and your product to reveal all the great things it has to offer.

When you have a great story to tell, the challenge is finding unique ways to get the complete story to your audience. This past year, this has lead us to explore new marketing opportunities that allow us to tell more of our clients’ stories – to really get into the ‘layers’ of who they are and what they have to offer. Of course we’re still driving our efforts with traditional media and online efforts, but expanded messages have included a half-hour show on local tv, a feature on In View with Larry King, and even creating a short documentary film.

So start with Product:
Do you really have a great product?
What do people love about your product?
What are its shortcomings? How can you fix them?

Ask yourself: When my customers are talking to people about us, what are they saying? Are you happy with what the answer would be? If not, map out what you need to do to fix it.

With social media and online review venues, this is more important than ever. We all know people are more likely to complain than compliment. And now that feedback is going out to hundreds or thousands or even many more people AND staying there online for years to come.

So before you plan your next campaign, look at your product. If it’s broken, hopefully you’ll be able to fix it. If you’ve got a great product, focus on what people really love about it and that will help you design a better campaign as well.

The marketing we’ve provided for this project is a great example of the concerted range of marketing activities Abra can bring to supporting a project’s success. It’s also another example of our love for making the world a better place through marketing.

Great Marketing Begins with Defining the Product
Abra was first introduced to this project when we were hired to develop an online health record. This initial project never saw fruition, however, Abra later re-connected with 3 of the original partners about moving forward with a related project.

Given the challenges of meeting HIPAA requirements, Abra made the suggestion to focus the project on developing a health record system for pets. This gave us an exciting opportunity to develop a product to help people care for their pets, while avoiding having the project bogged down by navigating the legalities of HIPAA.

What is Petrific?
The basic concept of Petrific is that most vets offices have antiquated medical records systems for pets. Everything is in paper folders and if a pet owner needs access to their pet’s information, it’s a cumbersome process to get it. It’s even more of a nightmare if they move and need to get their pet’s health history to a new vet.

The other side of Petrific is focused on giving veterinarians an electronic medical record system that makes it easier to update pet’s health records and provide access to this information to the owner. This is especially important if a pet is lost or gets hurt or sick while traveling. A vet anywhere in the world can get access to the pet’s record to treat them based on the most accurate information. (Learn more about Petrific.)

Abra Marketing created this fun, lo-fi video to help introduce people to Petrific and all it has to offer.

Marketing for Start-ups
There is so much that goes into helping a brand-new company succeed, and Abra loves being a part of it. With Petrific we’ve wanted everything to be just right to help fulfill the vision of making the world a better place for pets, their owners and vets.

In addition to helping shape the direction of the company to focus on pets, Abra Marketing provided.

Naming
A name is the anchor of the brand and is critical to the success of a company. Naming is no easy task, requiring a mixture of creativity, science, and somehow just “getting it right”. I’ll tell you it can be a maddening process, but when the right name hits you, you know it and it’s an awesome feeling. For Petrific we wanted to give a hint of what the company was about (pets) and also capture the excitement of the product we were developing. As with all naming, we wanted something short and memorable. Petrific combines “Pet” and “Terrific” to create an anchor that captures the company’s passion for pets.

Domain Name
Petrific.com was already taken when the name was selected, but noticing it was not in use, Abra began a vigil to monitor the domain’s status and when it came available, we successful navigated an arduous bidding process to win the name, making it our primary domain in addition to the .net, .biz and .org domains we had already acquired.

Branding
Abra worked closely with the partners to develop all branding components, including the trademark (logo), tagline, position statements, style sheets, and other elements that define the brand. I should add that this is an ongoing process that we revisit regular to constantly verify we are on course and making efforts to mature our brand as the company grows.

Website and Online App Development
Abra provided all development of the website and online functionality. I won’t go into all specifics, but Petrific contains hundreds of hours of programming to provide user registration, the ability to manage accounts, incredible attention to detail in user-friendliness and fucntionality, payment processing, and a powerful Administration area with reporting systems in the backend.

Marketing and Online Marketing
Abra’s team leads the efforts to build Petrific’s users. This is an ongoing process that is refined monthly as we see the results of our efforts. Our marketing toolset currently includes:
– online advertising
– social media
– SEO
– advertising in national and regional pet-related publications
– direct marketing to veterinarian offices and organizations
– publicity

Mobile App Development
We are still in the early stages of this project and our marketing efforts are constantly being refined. We’ve found it’s especially important in a project like this to stay closely tuned to your customers. The core of all marketing of course if starting with a great product. A critical part of our efforts is contacting current users directly every month to get their feedback on Petrific. It is incredible what this insight has given us and we are constantly refining Petrific based on that information.

Partially based on customer feedback, we have begun development of a mobile app to make it easier and more fun for users to engage with Petrific on a regular basis.

Abra Loves You, Petrific
Marketing of a start-up is such an exciting process. We’ve been able to help take an idea in someone’s head, make it a reality, and slowly, but surely build it into a working business that provides rewards for owners and users equally.

In fact, Abra has been so excited about Petrific, that we became partners in the company from early in its inception.

If you love pets, check out Petrific!

One of the great things about being based in Northern California has been having such easy access to so many outstanding marketing resources over the years.

Most of all this conference was a great validation for the work we’ve been continuing to do for our clients. The message from Google was that they intend to not just be known as a search platform but as a provider of knowledge. As they succeed on this vision, the importance of search engine optimization and search engine presence will only continue to be more and more important, and we believe the foundations we have been building for our clients will only be more critical to their success.

Two seo strategies that we’ve been focused on were especially validated:

1) Focusing search engine optimization on quality content vs. gimmicky tactics (like link-building)
2) Building “long-tail” keyword presence, that is building presence across a long list of relevant keywords instead of just a few core industry terms.

Ultimately Google wants to see quality sites with quality content connected to the people searching for that information. We’re proud to have been on that track already and the conference has energized us to increase our efforts and also sparked new ideas to better serve.

Nor-Cal Think Pink is a non-profit 501(c)(3), volunteer-driven community organization dedicated to raising awareness of the importance of early detection in the fight against breast cancer. Think Pink was started by a small group of healthcare professionals in Redding, California in 1997 and in 2011 celebrated its 15-year anniversary.

I believe it was in 2007 when Melody Christenson, one of the founding members of Nor-Cal Think Pink communicated with us about an idea to light the Sundial Bridge in pink as part of the annual Think Pink Day. Immediately we thought this was an incredible marketing opportunity, both to further promote Think Pink’s within the community, but also draw more attention to these efforts from beyond the immediate vicinity of Redding. We were dumbfounded when this idea was rejected by the “powers that be.”

Fast-forward to 2009, and with some changes in leadership, the idea came up again in discussions with Melody and with her and Nor-Cal Think Pink’s approval, Abra embarked on a series of efforts to present the Pink Sundial Bridge event to decision-makers at the City of Redding along with Nor-Cal Think Pink’s then President Nichole Wilder and Dr. Michael Figueroa, another one of Nor-Cal Think Pink’s founding members. Although resistant at first, the event was ultimately approved by the City and Redding celebrated the first Pink Sundial Bridge on Think Pink Day, October 2009.

To support promotion of the event, Abra donated a complete redesign of the website. We also set up social media, including Nor-Cal Think Pink’s Facebook page and Twitter accounts. We were able to grow followers of these accounts to over 1000 by the event.

We also created a photo module that allowed people who attended the event to upload photos of the Pink Sundial Bridge. This feature was a great success – with 250 photos loaded – that created a way to connect with people who attended the event beyond the event itself.

Through this module we created an ongoing interaction with members of the community, both by having the ability for them to participate in the website and by having contests where people could vote on their favorite photos.

Winning photos were featured in a North State Parent magazine.

Abra also has donated graphic design services to Nor-Cal Think Pink as well.

We are very excited that in 2011, the City of Redding approved the Pink Sundial Bridge event for the next 5 years. With people showing up dressed as Stormtroopers sporting pink ribbons and bicycles lit in pink, it was clear at the 2nd Pink lighting event in 2010 that the community was embracing the Pink Sundial as an event of its own.

Looking forward to seeing how the Pink Sundial evolves in the future.

Here’s the answer:
Back when I started the company in 1999, I wanted something short, easy-to-remember, and that would be high in the alphabet so we’d always be at the top in directory listings.

I met my wife around that same time and Abra came to me on one of the weekly 3-hour drives up over the mountains to see her (she was in Redding and I was in Santa Rosa when we met).

While I don’t like tying it to ‘abracadabra’, I do like the subtle reference to magic because I’ve always been fascinated by what an incredible difference really effective marketing can make. Before Abra I was Marketing Director at a small record label. Take a game-changer like American Idol and you have a marketing vehicle that launched entire careers for people who might never have gotten anywhere otherwise.

It’s worked out well because Abra actually does a lot of naming and the name meets all the criteria we follow:
• Short
• Unique, Easy to Remember
• Non-Generic
• Your Name Should Be Your Nickname
• Captures an Essence of Your Company

If you’re interested in more about company naming and choosing business a name, read my article The Essentials of Naming.

Abra is a partnered in a number of start-ups, providing our expertise in branding, marketing, and web development. It’s really exciting to be a part of a complete project like this where we get to be involved in every facet of seeing an idea go from literally notes on a napkin to – in some cases – actually profitable online businesses.

One of these projects is an online photo and video-sharing website called FamilyBook.

One of the partners had shared the site with some potential new users and received a laundry list of new features they thought should be added to the site.

Below is my response. I think this will also give insight into anyone taking a look at their own brand.

When running a project like FamilyBook, all sorts of suggestions from users will come in.

Once we have clear answers to these questions, we’ll have a stronger message to promote the site and also assess how it should evolve.