Rogers Talk – Maximize your small business social media to get better results in less time
Date: July 20, 2016
Name: Rogers Talk – Maximize your small business social media to get better results in less time
Presenter: Mhairi Petrovic
Social media is an important tool for small business entrepreneurs. Moreover, social media can help entrepreneurs to reach their audience further than before. Rogers Talk invites Mhairi Petrovic, the Founder of Out-Smarts Marketing, to discuss her insight of utilizing social media on small businesses. Mhairi Petrovic will breakdown the level of strategy on social media. In addition, entrepreneurs will discover the usage of social media and transfer the strategy onto their current businesses.
Mhairi Petrovic is the Founder and Chief Marketing Orchestrator for Out-Smarts Internet Marketing. She is also Certified Marketing Executive and Certified Sales Executive with distinction. She moved up from Account Executive from Speedware Corp to Account Manager from MicroStrategy. Her passion towards helping clients with online strategy promoted her to create Out-Smarts. Her knowledge and expertise are recognized by many entrepreneurs. In addition, she was a Board Director for SMEI.
Mhairi Petrovic defines social media as websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. Based on stats, over 1.65 billion users are using Facebook and over 310 million people are active on Twitter. Petrovic believes the key question for entrepreneurs is not whether or not they are doing social media; in fact, it is the question of how well entrepreneurs can do it.
Entrepreneurs must have a social media plan. They need to know who to follow, which tool they will use, what are their competitors doing, what to post, when to post, and how to measure success and goal. Importantly, entrepreneurs need to remember their social media should line up with their business plan. The business plan must include these 7 elements.
- Search Engine Marketing
- Website Optimization
- Internet Advertising
- Social Media Marketing
- Measuring and Reporting
- Email Marketing
- Digital Marketing
Entrepreneurs must know their social media goals. Goals can be build awareness, drive traffic to website, connect customers, enhance relationship, share knowledge, or reach more audience.
There are many social media tools entrepreneurs can use. The rule is to use the ones customers use and also use the ones that showcase what they do. LinkedIn can reach business people. Facebook can reach potential consumers. Twitter can impact the community. Snapchat appeals to younger audience. Active Rain is good for real estate industry. Houzz is for interior designers and TrustedPros is for home improvement industry. Petrovic suggests entrepreneurs to concentrate only 3 to maximize the tools.
Entrepreneurs need to find their tribe. They can follow their existing customers, people in their hood, potential new clients, partners, suppliers, influencers, and other media. Entrepreneurs need to lookout for opportunities. Petrovic recommends entrepreneurs to check and reply comments daily. They can follow the influencers in their industry for clues. Tools, such as Google Alerts, Social Mention, Hashtags, Hootsuite, and Twitter Lists, can help entrepreneurs listen to opportunities.
Petrovic believes in order to make use of the digital time, entrepreneurs need to stay focus, set boundaries, schedule social media time or even use automated tools for posting. By creating content calendar, entrepreneurs can prioritize their goals and actions on social media.
Petrovic suggests some timing for entrepreneurs.
- 1 pm for the most Facebook shares
- 12 pm to 6 pm for the highest impression and clicks on Twitter
- Evening is best for Pinterest
- Monday is best for Instagram
- LinkedIn works best first thing in the morning
Contents with photos and videos work the best for entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs should interact with audience by asking creative questions. Contest or giveaway can attract audience. Moreover, entrepreneurs should make the content current and timely. Entrepreneurs should always add value on social media. The rule is 80/20 for promotions. Social media is for entrepreneurs to share their knowledge and they should never post anything in the heat of the moment.
Audience can use social to find entrepreneurs’ stories. Social media can help entrepreneurs distinguish their uniqueness. The benefits and personality can reflect from social media. Petrovic suggests entrepreneurs to use first person and avoid business speak. The important key is to start conversations.
Entrepreneurs can use Google Analytics to measure their website traffic. The follower count can help them build network and interactions can help them monitor their presence. Petrovic shares a list of tools.
- Buffer, ScoopIt, LinkedIn Pulse, and FlipBoard for content
- Hootsuite for scheduling and management
- Freedom for time out
- Tweepi for adding or dumping Twitter followers
- Canva for creating images.