Storm Dawg Marketing

Ok people… this is HUGE!
( &  yes I still owe you all a review of the Twitter tools…it’s coming…until I get you mine…check out this great video review of Hootesuite and some other complementary Twitter tools done by G4

Very recently (a week ago) my father a restaurateur who is almost 70 asked me to help him set up a Twitter and Facebook for his business.  I was totally floored.  First and foremost because, well this is my dad we are talking about.  He doesn’t usually ask me for advice.  Like EVER.

He is one of my mentors when it comes to all things small business, including the marketing of small businesses.  I usually bounce ideas off of him to get his feedback.  Though most of his feedback finds me disagreeable (sorry Dad) …it’s really his experience that I am looking for and learning from.

He doesn’t really know what I do for work…I actually don’t even think that he knows that I write for a Blog.  For the expressed reason that he will tell all of my relatives and they will all leave comments on my posts like “Good job honey,” and “Can’t wait to see you at Sunday Dinner.”  It’s not Facebook… I don’t invite them here. Sheesh!

So for all of you who said “of course he would ask you about Twitter; you write about it and use it”.  You would be wrong.  He has no idea.  And with my dad I’ve learned not to offer suggestions.  It’s better to wait until my opinion is asked.  And boy was it ever!  So here is my chance to explain to my dad “this is how you can use Twitter for your business.”

So I asked him 3 Things:

1.  Why do you want to be on Twitter?

2.  What do you want to get from Twitter?  (New customers, return business, to connect with your clientele…what?)

3.  How are you going to measure the effectiveness this has on your business.  (Site traffic, foot traffic…what?)

I was surprised by what my dad said, though looking back I don’t know why….

His Answers:

1.  Well I know that by being on things like Twitter and Facebook I can improve my natural search rankings.  (How does my dad know this?)  I can reach my customers in their homes and on their phones with little cost besides “sweat equity” on my part.  (Jeez he is freaking amazing me here!)  Is this the cool new thing?  I thought I was ahead of the curve.  (That you are Dad…that you are…but not that far ahead, so we’ve got to move QUICK!)

2. I want new business.  (Totally saw that one coming!)

3.  Well measuring foot traffic is never really something I’ve done…  Site traffic is something I will for sure measure.  But my measurement will be in increased revenue.  (HMM…well ok….but how will you know what is driving this since I know you are doing other marketing?  Of course I didn’t ask him that!)

With his first answer surprising me…the other two are for the most part what I expect any other businessman to want from their social media efforts.  After all, business owners aren’t doing this for the “fun” of it.  They’re there to make money.

To Be Continued…..
For the suggestions I gave my dad please check out my next post.

Thanks
Christina Kudym

Yes, social media can be time consuming but it’s worth it. Like anything worth doing, it’s worth doing well. And to do it well, it may take you a little time.  Thinking of not investing the time?  Ask yourself this:  Can I afford not to invest the time?  I know, “Time is money”…trust me, I know!  Let me explain why I think you should invest your time.

Unless you are a huge brand like Coke that had a “fan” create their Facebook fan page for them - imagine that…their customers taking the time to do their social marketing for them…and people talking all day about how they love their product…whoa – you will need to devote some time to figuring out a social media strategy.

Maybe you’ll start with a Facebook ad or Fanpage…Maybe a Twitter account…maybe all three.  Whatever you do, have a “game plan.” Look around and see what other businesses like yours are doing. I’m not saying you should copy them, but you can certainly learn from them.  Play around with Tweetdeck,  Seesmic,  HootSuite and other free services that help you organize your online presence and engagements.  Find the one that suits your needs and makes sense for your business.

Think your customers aren’t talking about you online?

Think again! Not only are they talking about you, they’re also sharing their opinions with their friends, relatives and total strangers.  Can you afford not to listen to what they are saying? Wouldn’t you like to be able to thank the people saying nice things about you…and have an opportunity to turn an unhappy customer into a happy one?

More and more small businesses are running targeted ads on Facebook, developing fan pages and keeping customers happy on Twitter. Why? Because that is where their customers are!  So that is where you need to be.  Not should be…NEED to be.  Did you know that Comcast, Southwest Airlines, QWEST and Verizon all use Twitter for customer service?

Here is a great article that gives you seven cases of businesses using Twitter to service customers.

Engagement is key. As most of you know, when you make a connection with a customer, they’ll keep coming back to your store.  They come in because they like something about you or your store.  They will tell you by their reactions to your small talk or smile what level or type of engagement they want.

What people who use SMS (Social Media Sites) are telling us/you is they want to engage on these sites and expect to be engaged with before they make a purchase.  Here is another great article that will give you some insight into how small businesses are using social media to compete with large brands.

There is a new breed of consumer coming…really they are already here.  If you don’t understand where they are coming from, you aren’t going to know where to look for them,  and more importantly, how to sell to them.

So…do you have time for social media?

Next week I will give you my thoughts on a few of the free tools I mentioned today -  Tweetdeck, Hootsuite and Seesmic for starters.

If you have any questions on anything you see here, just leave a comment on this post…I will be glad to help you out.

Until next week,
Christina Kudym

Every small business knows that Facebook is the most popular social networking site on the planet. Every SMART small business knows that if they’re not on Facebook yet, they’re missing out on a huge opportunity to connect with customers and grow their business.

What small business owners may NOT know is that they need to get started RIGHT NOW.

Ireland’s LaCucina Limerick has a simple recipe for success that any small business can replicate to get their business on Facebook TODAY and start seeing results TOMORROW! The Simply Zesty blog featured them because they were able to use Facebook to:

• Connect with 2,000 people, the majority of which were local and their best prospective customers
• Ask questions, post pictures, and p interact with her customers and prospects (a simple status update of “Pineapple on pizza?” got more than 60 comments)
• Leverage the popularity of restaurant frequenters, such as the Munster rugby team, by posting stories and pictures and helping the team’s fans become their own
• And have fun with their products with a great give-away – “Tag the Pizza” (they post a picture of their pizza, ask fans to “tag” themselves in the photo for a chance at a freebie, spreading pictures of their food throughout their fans’ friends)
• (Click here to learn more about how they’re using Facebook.)

You cannot afford to wait any longer for success like this. If you don’t get your business on Facebook RIGHT NOW, then your customers won’t be talking about your business at all…or worse…they’ll be talking with your competitors.

Click here to get your business on Facebook RIGHT NOW. Then, leave us a comment below with your business’s name and a link to your page. (We want to become your fan, too! )

Does your business already have a page on Facebook? Leave us a link as a comment below and share your success!

We’ll follow up next week with some great tips on what to do with your page, and who knows…we might just feature YOUR BUSINESS!

Bryan D. Jennewein

Agents & brokers alike are jumping on the social media train.  It is abundantly clear that in this economy it is important to get more exposure in social networks if you are a small business.   Realtors have figured this out and are learning quickly the advantages.  A survey conducted by the NAR found that 84% of it’s agents use SMS (Social Media Sites) for business purposes.  I’m sure that you may have seen this at one time or another and not realized it…  Your friend telling you on Facebook that their home is for sale…and inserting a link to their realtor’s site.   It’s Social Media at it’s best.  Word of mouth Social.  So not only are realtors doing it…their clients are as well.  Imagine how much faster you can sell a house when you put it on your facebook wall….your clients puts it on theirs and between the two of you, you have 300 friends.  Those friends then share it with their friends…and so on.  Well now you’ve just gone viral with your listing and it didn’t cost you a thing.  Please see the attached research from our friends at ORC Guideline.  There are some great stats that you should see.

If you have any questions or stories about using Social Media Sites to get word out about your business please write in and share them!  I’d love to see what you are doing.

Have a great week!
Christina

Hey all,
Sometimes there seems to be so many things going on that it is hard to concentrate on anything in particular and so everything gets done halfway. There is work, family and friends and social obligations that pop up almost every minute of everyday, and they are all important. That is the real challenge, keeping them in balance.

For me, if things get out of balance for very long, my performance starts to suffer in aspects of my life. I realized awhile back that unless I make time to take care of myself, both mentally and physically, I could lose everything in a heart beat.

Man, I am into some pretty heavy stuff for a Monday morning. To me it all boils down to taking some time out to have fun and if you do, you will be energized to take on the world.

Writing this blog is one of ways I am having fun at work. It is so amazing to me how connected we are and how things work. This week we saw stormdawg.com really go viral. Here is an example of what can happen.

These guys entered the September contest for the StormDawg stimulus package. The ironic thing is they are promoting each others entry. Nicholas Seltzer is promoting Keith Fix’s entry, and posted it to his Facebook account and look what happened.

Keith posted to his wall… 572 friends (impressions)
Nicholas posted to his wall… 154 friends (impressions)
Bret Masterson comments on both posts… 302 friends (impressions)

Grand total… 1,028 StormDawg impressions on Facebook amongst these three people alone.

I am not sure how all of this will play out but I can’t wait to see what happens next. I have a couple of speaking engagements this week where I am talking about social networking and social media to a group of marketing students and to a conference of small businesses. The real message I have is to jump in and get started and you can figure it out as you go.

Take a little time out, take care of yourself and have some fun. You will be a lot more productive if you do.

Don’t work too hard!

StormDawg

Hey all,

The past couple of weeks have been pretty different around my house. On July 5th my wife, Kim, left on a mission trip to Galveston, Texas. She went with the pastor and two other adults from our church and 10 teenagers to help with the ongoing clean up from last summer’s Hurricane Ike. Like she said, “I guess somebody forgot tell them how hot it is in Texas in July.” After that long week, I was going to take her on a long weekend in Colorado.

Then just before she was about to get home, I talked to her sister Karen from Austin, and she told me she was coming to see us on Wednesday. She planned on staying with us for few days but her real purpose was to plan and work a party for her friend’s mother’s 90th birthday. My first reaction was, “when are you leaving,” because I was trying to figure out how all this would work out with the trip I planned. In the end, I postponed the trip, and we spent that weekend with Kim’s sister. It was actually pretty enjoyable.

Kim, Karen and I had an interesting conversation about her employment situation. She was recently laid off from her job and is trying to renew her teaching certificate so she can go back to teaching. In the meantime Karen was thinking about what else she could do to augment her income. She thought about becoming an event planner and was wondering how she could get her name out there.

We talked about putting small advertisements in the local newspapers and maybe contacting the golf club near her house in Lakeway. But it seemed to me that the real way to promote this endeavor would be to get in contact with some of the people she had worked with when she was an event planner at the Driskill Hotel in Austin a few years back. In this day and age, social networking seems like a perfect solution. If she contacts even a handful of folks and they recommend her to their friends on their Facebook page or on their Linkedin account, she would be all set. She would probably have to turn business away.

It occurs to me that this is an opportunity to make lemons out of lemonade. During tough times, people have to be creative, and as they say necessity is the mother of invention. People can focus on what they love to do and figure out how to make some money at it. Karen loves to do event planning, so she should give it a try. What does she have to lose? I’m going to keep an eye out for Karen and help where I can.

Tell me your story about starting up a business on a shoestring budget, and a little passion in your heart.  Maybe I’ll decide to sponsor a marketing plan for you… you never know!

Don’t work too hard!

StormDawg.

Hey all,

I am sitting here trying to figure out how to use all this social networking stuff. I wonder if I can make it work for marketing, for communicating with my friends, my family, or people that are interested in the same things that I am. I wonder if I can make money out of it, or if I even should?

How do I think it should be used?

Duh! To solve problems of course! My daughter used Facebook to solve a fairly complex problem in 30 minutes. Ok, it seemed pretty complex to me!

My daughter Sam was planning to leave for Semester at Sea. They were to disembark from Halifax, Nova Scotia for a 9 week trip around the Mediterranean studying and earning college credits along the way. She made all the arrangements, plane tickets, travel, visa, passports and all of that, (I just wrote the check). She had one last task; she didn’t have a hotel room in Halifax for the night before departure. She decided to try and find somebody to share a hotel room with and that person should have a last initial as close to D as possible. Using Facebook, she was able to find what she wanted in 30 minutes. She found a girl that had a hotel reservation with extra room. Her parents couldn’t make it, so she was looking to share the room and the cost, and her last initial started with D. Sam solved the problem and saved me money at the same time, (I love that)!

If you want to know how you should be using the social media to make money, ask your kids. Chances are, they already know.

Don’t work too hard!

StormDawg