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Is Google Plus Dead?

Originally launched in 2011 Google Plus (Google +) was set to be the next big thing in social media with the expectation of overshadowing Facebook. We’d seen it happen before when Facebook overtook MySpace in the social media popularity contest so it was possible it could happen again.

My first introduction to social media was MySpace. Whoa…I think I just aged myself a little bit there but I digress. Anyway, MySpace was the place where you could change your background settings and songs and make your page uniquely you anytime you felt like it. You could shuffle around your top 8 friends daily depending on your mood! How could it get any better? Introduce, Facebook.

Since the inception of Facebook in 2004 the platform has undergone huge changes. While some have been skeptical we all know the only thing constant in life is change and Facebook has never shied away from making changes good, bad or otherwise. So how did Facebook overtake MySpace in social media popularity? I’m glad you asked. According to former MySpace CEO Mike Jones, MySpace was just the introduction to social media while Facebook works to perfect the social media world. One of the biggest differences noted was that MySpace didn’t allow users to use their real name but rather a pseudonym while Facebook encouraged users to post their real names to better to connect with others.

When Google Plus was launched, Facebook had already been active for 6 years with millions of users worldwide making them a formidable social media opponent. There were now personal and business pages, sponsored ads and groups to join. So where would Google Plus fall into the mix? Initially Google Plus was designed to integrate all Google services to allow the users to be more transparent with the people they communicated with the most through a variety of ways including Hangouts and Circles which are currently still active. The idea was that you could arrange your circles to communicate with certain people through posts, videos or blogs etc.

Similar to Facebook, with Google Plus you can check into a location and let your followers know where you have been or what you have been up to. One of the most popular uses was Google photo’s which has since been separated from Google Plus and is its own program. So, in a nutshell, why is Google Plus still active and is it worth it to spend time and energy on?

In a word, yes. While Google Plus may not be the most active social media site the hidden perk is SEO. Search Engine Optimization. When you post on Google Plus you increase your SEO on Google and increased SEO is always a good idea. Key words, photos and tags will help direct traffic to your posts which if linked, will direct back to your website or whatever you are posting about. Talk about a win-win. Facebook may be the leader in being social, but Google Plus is the winner for SEO. According to a Stone Temple Consulting study, 90% of users with a Google+ profile have never posted to the network. So you may wonder, how can it work, how is it beneficial if people don’t post to it? From a study conducted by Statistic Brain 70% of brands have a presence on Google Plus proving that for business purposes it is a useful tool.

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Building the Bike while Riding it

While in a meeting with one of my favorite clients working on several big projects – all of which have multiple moving parts – my client exclaimed “I feel like I’m building the bike and riding it at the same time!”.

Translation: He felt as if he was figuring out the project while actually doing the project. He was a tad overwhelmed but had a sense of calm that he was made the right decision.

Life isn’t always perfect. We don’t always have the time to plot and plan every detail before we start a business, take on a new client or begin a project. Sometimes life hands you an amazing opportunity and you just have to say, “I’m in – and I’ll figure it out as I go along”.

So how do you know when to risk it and when to back away? Well, there isn’t an easy answer and I am the queen of the risk takers – but here is how I do it:

1. Do I actually have the skill set to do this job/project/business and can it be successful?
2. Do I have the time? What are my personal resources that I can commit?
3. Do I have good resources? Who can help me – where can I pull in the troops?
4. Can I make money?
5. Have I done ENOUGH due diligence and market research that tells me this could work if the stars align?
6. Am I emotionally ready for the challenge of the unknown? This kind of goes back to #2

In the end – it really comes down to you and what you are willing to commit and what are you willing to outsource. You know the saying “You will miss 100% of the shots you do not take” – so sometimes you do need to build the bike while riding it.

What’s the worst thing that could happen if you say “Yes”. If the answer to that is within your comfort zone and the answers to the 6 questions above are “Yes” – build and ride. If not – take a pass, you won’t enjoy the process and in the end the money won’t be worth it. You won’t have the emotional fortitude to survive the ups and downs.

The next time your organizational OCD kicks in and you have the urge to say not in my lifetime to an opportunity – step back for a second. You wouldn’t want to pass up the gig of a lifetime!

Do you have a great bicycle story? We would love to hear it!

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Do Adults Need Recess?

Recess – (noun) temporary withdrawal or cessation from the usual work or activity.

Some adults are five-year-olds in disguise and they absolutely need recess, but do the rest of us fairly normal middle agers need a break? YES.

Baby boomers are born workaholics. (I’m dating myself now – don’t tell) We were taught early on the no pain no gain thing, and that you don’t get anywhere in life unless you put the time in, push through the pain to achieve the goal. I’m not poo pooing hard work at all, I am saying that at some point your brain, and you become grossly inefficient after only a couple hours.

Take my world. I do a lot of writing, thinking about strategies, meeting with clients and my brain has a hard time “shutting off”. I am far more efficient if I take a break every hour or so and do something “else”. In the warmer months, I go play in the dirt – I weed flowers, plant flowers – harvest some veggies. Being outside in the sunshine clears my brain. I also go for runs in the nicer weather – I’m not into bundling up and running in 4 degree CT winter weather.

When the weather isn’t so promising, I’ll take a break and cook or my delve into my latest hobby- painting. I’m no Monet but it sooths my soul and I really enjoy it. The point is I’m doing something that isn’t work related – I’m taking a Cindy recess from my crazy work schedule. You know what – it works. Now that I stopped feeling guilty about taking a break, I am far more efficient.

I used to sit and stare at my laptop screen waiting for the words to come. Eventually I would “take a break” on Facebook or Twitter only to feel not satisfied because it was just wasted time that I wasn’t really enjoying, then I felt guilty AND I still didn’t get my work done. Now I do something that brings me joy and I look forward to it. I tell myself I’ll write for an hour –then I get a 15 or 20-minute break. If I’m going for a run – I allow myself an hour.

Life is so much better with recesses. I know every company can’t afford to give their team recess –especially manufacturing type settings or call centers. But you can get creative – have something fun in break rooms, put in a gym or a reading room. Someplace where employees can get away for a bit during their scheduled break time. Trust me, the results will be Amazing!

For all you crazy entrepreneurs who like me, tend to always be “working” – find your inner Monet, put on your running shoes or go play in the dirt. Give your brain a break – it will thank you over and over again.

Here’s to being a 5 year old in an adult body!

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Become a Social Media Master in 20 Minutes a Day

Are you a social media master? Do you spend hours creating a powerful intro, put together the perfect plan, and then post at exactly the right time? Have you conquered Facebook, brought Twitter to your heel, and gotten LinkedIn under control?

At RBC, we live, breathe, and eat social media (yes, our meals are mostly differing shades of blue logos…) And we know that one thing business owners don’t have much (read “any”) of, is spare time. So, here’s a super simple guide on mastering your social media marketing in less time than it takes to cook a delicious Facebook soufflé.

Plan your social media ahead of time. At the start of the month, you’re going to plan what you’re going to promote on social media. Look, we know it’s more fun to wing it, but trust us on this. Look through all of the content you have — Blog posts, articles, videos, image galleries — All those things you’ve put time, effort and a little love into creating. Decide on the marketing themes for each part of the month, and the main points you want to get across.

Put together a social media calendar. Once you know what you’re going to promote, you need to work out the when and how. That means you need a social media calendar. On each day plan out:

  • What you want to promote.
  • How you’re going to promote it.
  • The channel(s) you want to use.

The trick is to strike a balance between posting enough to build momentum, and not posting so much you’re over saturating. The best way to do this is to post your own stuff and also share other useful articles, links, and content from others. That could be through retweeting, sharing, repinning, etc.

Write your social media posts.This one is key — Write your social media posts ahead of time. You can be much more consistent, use similar language, and get into the right mindset to get all the important information across. Remember to slightly repurpose your posts for the social media network you’re using. Your LinkedIn posts are probably going to be a bit more formal than your Facebook ones. Twitter means you’ll need to limit yourself to 140 characters.

Automate your social media posts. You don’t want to sit at the computer waiting for a specific time to post your content. Use an automation suite like Buffer or Hootsuite to automate your social media for you. Now, you shouldn’t completely rely on automation, so switch it up with some personally curated and posted updates as well. Engage people in conversation, and help others feel involved. Make sure you respond to @mentions properly.

Track your social media results. You’ll want to know where you’re getting the most visibility and traction. This means looking at when visitors are coming to your website and responding to your social media marketing. Use Google Analytics and similar tools to see what’s working for your audience, and tweak your marketing approach.

Get a social media expert to help you out. This probably doesn’t come as a surprise, but here at RBC, we’re experts at this stuff. If you don’t have the time, let us do the hard work for you. We’ll audit all your content, put together the perfect social media calendar, promote the heck out of your products and services, and get lots of lovely visitors over to your website.

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Is Work and Life Balance Really Achievable?

Here at Red Barn Consulting, we absolutely love our jobs — What could be better than working with fantastic clients, building a team of fearsomely good people, and sharing what makes your business brilliant with the world?

But, even we know you can have too much of a good thing. It’s why there’s no end of articles on work and life balance — Trying to spin the plates of work, home, friends, family, and commitments simultaneously, without losing your mind.

Honestly — we’re not sure that’s the very best approach. That’s why we think about work life balance a little bit differently (big surprise)!

Balance = Flexibility – To us, it’s all about flexibility — Knowing what you want to do and getting rid of what you don’t. It’s not about jumping the “work” hurdle and then the “life” hurdle, but about making those hurdles smaller. Then you don’t need to waste time worrying that you might stumble.

Why do we think this way? Well, employers are demanding, especially if that employer is you! (Yep, the self-employed are probably the worst at separating work and personal life…) Because of those demands, you probably will check email after 6 PM, work late to get the presentation out the door, and crunch through the weekend to put the proposal together.

For good or bad, it’s what’s expected — But think about this in terms of flexibility and removing the time-wasting stuff, and things get much easier.

If you’re an employer, be flexible in how you let your team work. If they need to work from home occasionally, give them the opportunity. If they’ve worked late and need to leave early to watch their child in a school play, give them the time off with your blessing. Provide your employees with autonomy and let them manage their days — They know what they need to do and when they need to do it, so build trust by letting them decide how.

As an employee, it never hurts to ask. Demonstrate to your boss how you’ve made their lives easier through the work you’ve put in. Ask about flexible working arrangements that will let you spend quality time with your family. If you can demonstrate good work, your employer will probably be open to your suggestions.

Remember, working is a give and take relationship — If both sides respect one another, it becomes less about work and life balance, and more about what works best for employer and employee.

Second to flexibility is getting rid of the stuff that’s just wasting your time. You’ve probably heard of the “Pareto Principle” — That 80% of results comes from 20% of actions. It’s time to find that 20% and cut out as much of the other stuff as you can. Keep a log of what you’re doing on a daily basis for a couple of weeks and ask yourself “Is this making the business better?” If it’s not expanding the business, making things more efficient, bringing in greater revenue, or enhancing how you work, get rid of it.

Be ruthless — Talk to your colleagues and your boss and get them to take on the same mindset. Look at the waste in the business — The processes that could be improved, the way that you and others work. Then, make a conscious choice to change, and encourage others to change with you.

And that’s really it — There’s no big secret to work and life balance, other than approaching it differently. Think of it as flexibility, and not some magical target you have to reach, and you’ll be much happier (trust us, we know!) Cut out the stuff you don’t want to do, be awesome at what’s left, and there will be no stopping you.

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It might be time to fire your salesperson

No-one likes to talk about firing people. Modern business is all about giving staff opportunities, helping them excel in the right role, and incentivizing your employees to do their best. But, sometimes, despite your strongest efforts, they just aren’t stepping up to the plate.

When that happens you need to make a tough decision — Do you continue to provide opportunities in the hope they’ll change, or do they get the pink slip? One area where it’s vital to make that decision fast is in your sales department. It’s your sales representatives who create your revenue, so when they’re underperforming, you need to take decisive action.

Here’s how to tell if you should show them the door.

Look at the sales metrics of the salesperson. There’s nothing like hard data to help you make a decision. Look at the evidence on how your sales teams are doing. Explore the individual measurements and performance data for specific employees. Review this information in context — How do they compare to other individuals or teams? What are the industry averages and benchmarks? This data is the first step in identifying weak performers.

Read through one to ones and personnel reviews.Your business should be holding one to ones and formal reviews with your employees. Take a look at their feedback reports, how their peers and managers view them, and how they present themselves. Keep an eye out for warning signs and indications they’ve been offered previous opportunities to improve.

Talk to their sales manager – or have a chat with yourself if it’s you! The next step is to speak to their line manager or team leader. Find out what they think of the salesperson and whether they have the potential to improve. Learn about the subtext of conversations they’ve had in the past. Find out if their lack of performance is due to their attitude and approach, an absence of skill and training, or for some other reason.

Summarize the key factors behind poor performance. Following your review process, establish the main cause of their poor performance, it could be for one (or more) of several reasons:

Attitude and approach – They just don’t have the right interpersonal skills, autonomy, or approach to be a good salesperson.
Lack of experience — They don’t have enough history and related experience with sales to be able to close deals.
Lack of skill — They may not have the correct level of training to make the most of any natural talent they might have.
Process issues — They don’t have a proper understanding of the sales process in your business.
Issues with other team members — There might be friction in your teams with other people or interactions that are impacting their ability to sell.

Speak with your HR department – or this may be you again! When you know the background for the poor performance, it’s time to speak to HR. Learn if there are potential steps you can take to improve performance, or if they’re simply a “lost cause.” In some cases you might just need to provide more training and support, in other cases, the best thing to do might be the dismissal process.

Make sure you follow the dismissal process. You likely have strong policies and procedures around dismissal. Make sure you follow them to the letter and get HR support in place so you meet all your commitments as an (ex) employer.

If you\’re experiencing a decline in your sales figures, it might be down to one or two individuals. It’s important to take a rational, objective approach to learn what’s going on and why. If you do find out it’s due to individual performance, ensure you understand the background and context. Then, you can involve HR and make sure you treat both your employees and your business needs fairly.

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The one thing your business MUST have – but many go without…

You guessed it…Ah, the humble employee handbook — How little it’s appreciated. I’m often surprised when I begin working with a company and I ask to see their employee handbook and I get the “Yea, it’s on our to-do list – we are a small company though so it doesn’t really matter…..does it?”

It does.

Forget the obvious – you don’t have PTO days or holidays structured and in writing, there’s no written policy in case of harassment issues, or what the lay of the land is if an employee should leave or break a rule (that may or may not be written in stone).

Many companies that have an employee handbook, updated by HR every three years, given out in the introduction pack for new starters, and seldom referred to again, it leads a small and solitary life — It doesn’t have to be this way.

Used well, the employee handbook can become a vital resource for the way your business does things. Imagine having a living, breathing document that:

• Lays out reasonable, agreed upon policies in an easy to understand way.
• Shares the best ways to work to keep everyone productive.
• Has hints and tips on best practice.
• Keeps everything clear and consistent across your business.

That sounds pretty great, right?

And….you don’t have one. It’s o.k. we aren’t here to judge (not really) – we’re here to help you get started!

So, how do you go about creating this wondrous thing? Glad you asked…

Involve everyone in creating and rewriting the employee handbook. The best way to get people to care about your employee handbook is to involve them in writing it. Ask your employees about what they want it to cover, get feedback on your policies, put together a focus group. Let your teams know it’s a way to get invested in how they work day to day — They can have a direct impact on doing things better.

Talk through and get feedback on your business policies and procedures. Your policies and procedures impact everyone in your business. Encourage your employees to discuss and suggest improvements. That will encourage them to read through and understand your procedures and policies and help them feel accountable for any changes.

Make your employee handbook easily accessible to everyone. Save the trees! If you print out your handbook, it will just end up in the back of a desk drawer, gathering dust. Put your handbook online, on your intranet or a private website. Make sure it’s properly hyperlinked, has access to other resources and is easily searchable. Include a direct link to it on the front page of your intranet. Make sure that all of the language in the handbook is easy to understand and avoid jargon.

Ensure it’s about more than just policies and procedures. The best way to get people to use the staff handbook is to make it useful. Rather than just being about how you do things, how about having links to online training, best practices, explainer videos, or discussion groups? Make the handbook itself interactive — Get people to share their experiences and successes.

Regularly reference your handbook in communications. When you send out emails and other communications to your teams, reference the staff handbook. Highlight it as the central resource for your employees to source their information. Make people rely on it, and it will become their go to.

Your employee handbook is one of the best ways to influence your employees and encourage them to work better. When you use plain language, involve them in writing it, discuss policies and procedures, and make it truly useful, it’s better for everyone.

Oh, and yes we still believe employees should sign something that says “Hey, I read the handbook”. It might come in handy one day.

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Secrets to building your health care practice…

Word of mouth is one of the best ways to organically build your healthcare practice. People are naturally cautious about who they share their medical needs with, and getting recommendations from friends and family helps to build trust.

The problem is, word of mouth has diminishing returns. You can build up a stellar reputation as a health provider, have overwhelmingly positive people who advocate for you, and bring in new patients, but at some point that’s going to tail off. When that happens, you need some other ways to reach out and let others know how awesome you are. Fortunately, we have just the thing…

Here are some tried and tested ways of marketing your healthcare business to bring new patients through the door.

Provide exceptional healthcare advice in a public setting. Some of the medical advice you provide is crucial. It helps potential patients gauge if you’d be the right doctor or healthcare provider for them. Use this to your advantage by providing great advice in a public setting. Attend health fairs and other events, speak at gatherings, and share your knowledge.

This doesn’t just need to be limited to strict medical information — If you have a nutritionist, physical therapist, or other healthcare expert on staff, they can provide advice in related fields and expose you to a whole new audience.

Give 150% when it comes to the customer experience. With so many options today, patients are being quite critical of their patient experience. How can you stand out? Have a comforting and comfortable waiting area with refreshments – it makes a difference! Doctors running late? Ensure you have a way to contact your patients and offer them a reschedule. Busy day of appointments? Make sure your staff doesn’t rush patients through the process but spends time ensuring their questions are answered and their needs are taken care of. Every little touch point matters. Not sure how you are doing – survey your patients and find out! PS – when you have a stellar customer experience it will differentiate you from others – market it as a perk!

Partner with other local businesses. One of the most powerful forms of local marketing is partnering with similar businesses. If you have a local gym, provide a class on exercising safely. If there’s a sports team, get involved with them by giving talks on recovering from sports-related injuries. If your town has large student population, give advice on good nutrition and diet. Involve yourself with retirement communities on medical care in later life.[/cs_text]

Build up a better medical referral network. Healthcare providers thrive on referrals. Network with other medical businesses in your local area and demonstrate your authority and expertise. As your reputation grows, use this to build mutually beneficial relationships with other specialists.

Offer free or low cost physicals, preventative tests, and vaccinations. Prevention is better than cure. Get healthy patients to your practice by providing physicals, preventative tests, flu shots, and other vaccinations for free, or at a significantly discounted rate.

Enhance your online, local SEO marketing. Local search, especially on mobile devices, is one of the main ways people discover your medical practice. Create a great website with useful, practical content. Make sure all of your local search profiles and listings are consolidated and accurate.

Stay on top of your customer reviews. Reviews should be another key part of your marketing strategy. Encourage your patients to review and rate your services, as higher reviewed businesses are better placed in search results.

Use the power of social media Monitor the social media around your brand and business. Interact with people through social media and share genuinely useful information and content. Answer questions to demonstrate your expertise and build trust in your advice and approach.

It’s time to look beyond word of mouth marketing, and here at RBC we’re ideally placed to help you do just that. We understand what healthcare providers need, and we provide awesome marketing and strategy services to help your business thrive.

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Want to increase your commercial banking sales?

It’s easy to overlook the humble email. When you’re serving your commercial banking customers, that doesn’t leave much time. So, there it sits, one line in your inbox. In the flurry of new ways of marketing — Social media, viral content, video, interactive entertainment, the email seems like an “also ran.” That’s a shame, as we’re big fans of its simple beauty (and you should be, too).

Used well, email is an elegant way to market to large numbers of people. If you’re providing financial services, it’s also a fantastic method for building trust with your commercial banking customers. Here at RBC, we think the email is something to be celebrated and enjoyed, so let’s explore using it to market your commercial banking operation.

Why the email is more than just something to delete… So, why do we love the email so very, very much? Glad you asked.

It’s a low-impact way to get attention. The email is one of the more innocuous ways to grab attention, and it can be one of the most useful. You only need to craft a great email once (and hey, we can help with that). Then you can land this wondrous creation in people’s inboxes and enjoy the responses it brings. Email is less “in your face” than other types of promotion or advertising, so it’s perfectly suited to commercial banking, with its sensible and sober approach to managing money.

You can share really useful stuff that matters to people. Emails aren’t all about selling. In fact, if you make them too “salesy,” there’s a good chance they’ll get caught in a spam filter or simply deleted. No, the art of the great email is to build trust over time, and you do that by adding real value.

When you’re marketing to commercial banking customers, they need information and support. Give them insights into their industry, provide financial calculators and favorable terms. Share advice on good financial management and business admin. Providing tools and other useful services means they’ll think favorably of your bank. That really helps when it comes to trust and brand recognition.

Emails are great for embedding messages and links. A good email is never “just” an email. It likely contains engaging imagery and links to further useful information. You can make emails interactive and fun, provide access to your commercial banking products and services, share news and online information, and showcase everything your bank does.

They’re really (really) cheap to send. The cost of sending an email is, effectively, zero. This makes them one of the most cost-effective marketing channels. Yes, you’ll need to pay to develop really good email copy, but that’s likely to be much less than the cost of other types of marketing. And once that copy is created, it’s there for you, whenever you want to run your next commercial banking marketing campaign.

You can reach lots of people. When you’ve been building an email list over time (and you are building an email list, right?) you’ll have thousands of people you can contact. With clever mail merging and personalization, you can tailor your email to each individual business recipient, increasing the chance they’ll open and interact with it.

Now, we know the email isn’t perfect. People get far too many emails, so yours needs to stand out, and that means influencing your readers to open your messages. We can help with that — A combination of the right content, delivered at the perfect time, with a compelling subject line can significantly enhance your open rates and help you sell more commercial banking products.

Get in touch with us today, and let us start a quiet revolution in your bank. We’ll change how you think about and use email to spread the word.

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Managing Social Media — Why Can’t It Be A Little.. Easier?

Many businesses see social media as a “necessary evil” — Something you have to do because everyone else is doing it. After all, if you’re not using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest etc., you’re missing out. While that’s true, it gives us a sad face every time we think about businesses seeing social media as a chore, because, done right, it can be easy, and powerful.

It’s all about having a plan — Now, before you click away in disgust at having to plan something else, it’s not a big plan. We’re not talking a high-fallutin’ plan for a Rube Goldberg-esque style machine, just a simple, common sense approach to make things easy, and, perhaps, a little more joyful.

Don’t believe us? Read on…

Who’s going to have the responsibility for social media? First things first, who do you want to handle your social media accounts? Now, that could be one of your people who have a great understanding of the right approach, tools, and techniques to use — Or, you could outsource it to a creative marketing agency who has your brand\’s best interests at heart. Like… Us, for example? (we aren’t always subtle)

Anyway, you need to have someone who is going to have responsibility for your social media, who can review and post everything you need, and who can speak with your company’s voice. They need to understand and love your customers.

Where do you post? Different types of business will get the most advantage from different social platforms. You probably won’t find much of an audience for your recipes on LinkedIn, and folks on Pinterest probably aren’t going to be thrilled by your course on chartered accountancy. But, once you can match your message to your social media, that’s when things get real interesting.

  • Facebook — Pretty much everyone uses Facebook — Over 20% of all pages seen on the web are on Facebook. You need to be there, simple as that.
  • Twitter — With millions of people using Twitter, and the opportunity to easily go viral with the right message, Twitter is also pretty much essential.
  • Pinterest — Do you have a visually appealing product, service, or brand? If so, Pinterest is a great place to get traction.
    Instagram — Like Pinterest, Instagram is perfect for pretty products.
  • LinkedIn — Marketing more to professionals and business people? This is your natural choice.
  • YouTube — Although not seen as a “traditional” social network, YouTube gets billions of hits every month. Make an amazing video and watch your views skyrocket.
  • Google Plus — Yes, there are still people and businesses using Google Plus, don’t disregard it and ps. it could help with your Google ranking.

When should you post? You know where to post, but do you know when to post? Once you understand when your customers are likely to be using social media, you can take advantage of that, and share delicious bits of information, just when they need it. They’ll be wowed by your ideas, share them on themselves, and suddenly you’ve got a viral social media presence. Nice!

Get to scheduling. One of the main pains businesses have with social media is having to send out all their posts manually, to all the different platforms. Well, good news, friends. There are some great scheduling tools out there to make posting and sharing a breeze. Two that we love are Hootsuite and Buffer. Both are awesome at letting you queue up posts, then setting things off and letting them post on your behalf.

Be careful though, lots of social media is about reacting, responding, and posting in real time — That’s what gets you engagement. So, don’t just rely on scheduling tools, build them into your overall social media approach.

And there you have it, the basics you need to get in place for easier social media success — That wasn’t so bad now, was it?

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