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Social Media Marketing

I have a bit of a blind-spot about social media. I was an early adopter back in around 2008 as I did a course with the now defunct StomperNet, one of the most notorious Internet marketing companies.

Then I watched it become the “new big thing” in the mainstream and I watched plenty of social media experts suddenly burst into prominence. I thought it was very time consuming.

Here is a video produced by Sandler Training Worldwide. [continue reading…]

in 4 – Lead Generation, 5 – Lead Conversion

Social Media Marketing Workbook by Jason McDonald

The full title of this book by Jason McDonald is

Social Media Marketing Workbook: 2017 Edition – How to Use Social Media for Business“.

In my review at Amazon.co.uk, I gave the book a Four Stars rating. This means I consider it to be good to very good.

Here is my book review.

A very good, action focused guide to the main social media websites

I’m a social media sceptic when it comes to using the websites as marketing media. It works very well for some types of business but not others. It’s a great way to play, while justifying the time spent as working on marketing and promoting your business.

This book is so good that it makes a significant step in converting me from a sceptic to a believer. [continue reading…]

in Best Business Books

The full title of this book by Jerry Banfield and Michel Gerard is

Facebook Marketing and Advertising in 2016: What works for my Facebook page with 2 million likes?“.

In my review at Amazon.co.uk, I rated the book at the Four Stars level. This means that it is Good.

Here is my book review.

A good, practical guide

This is a good, practical guide to promoting a business on Facebook in mid 2016.

The author admits that he has learnt from bitter experience after making plenty of mistakes but he is finally extremely successful on Facebook. [continue reading…]

in Best Business Books

Facebook: Master Facebook Marketing by Grant Kennedy

The full title of this book by Grant Kennedy is

Facebook: Master Facebook Marketing – Facebook Advertising, Small Business & Branding

In my review posted on Amazon.co.uk, I gave it Three Stars.

Here is my review.

A nice introduction but you’ll need to know more

This is a nice, easy to read introduction to promoting your business on Facebook.

It places a big emphasis on the idea that Facebook is a very different kind of marketing media compared with more traditional ways of making contact with customers. [continue reading…]

in Other Business Books

Does anybody care about your social media marketing tweets?

Why don’t you get more reaction?

How I Feel About Twitter As A User

I must admit that I definitely blow hot and cold on my views about Twitter.

me on twitter

I’ve never taken the view that I’m going to automatically follow the people who follow me.

In fact I see the two groups as enetirely different which is why my twitter statistics are very lopsided (as at 20 April 2013).

I think I’ve been around a 1,000 followers for years.

People follow me, hoping that I’ll follow them. I don’t so they unfollow me.

That seems a strange way to work to me.

I don’t expect the people I follow to be automatically interested in me, especially if we don’t have any kind of relationship.

Why should people expect me to follow them?

Instead of an engagement tool, as social media was originally intended, it has become a numbers game.

People blast out information to people they don’t know but would like to influence.

But how can anyone following 10,000 people pay any attention to the tweets they receive?

It’s not possible to be interested in that many people.

It’s certainly not possible to be interested all the time.

It occurs to me that there is an awful lot of noise on Twitter and very little is relevant most of the time.

It doesn’t deserve attention.

So we’ve all learnt to ignore most of what we see.

Just like we ignore most of the advertising we see.

I go through phases where I will log into to my Tweetdeck account for Twitter on my smartphone and read what people are writing several times a day.

Things that I see and I think people who follow me (small business owners mostly) will be interested in and are good, I will retweet.

But I’ve stopped retweeting stuff that goes to a website that isn’t mobile friendly.

And I rarely tweet stuff if people don’t occasionally reciprocate or thank me.

I’ve given up on Facebook (although I think my tweets are linked). The website irritates me for some reason.

I haven’t got my head around Google Plus.

LinkedIn irritates me.

Perhaps I’m not very social but it seems to me that there are only two groups who really like social media:

  • people who are friends and genuinely interested in each other
  • social media experts who are hyping up the opportunity and are particularly active and keenly followed by other people who are believers in social media.

What do you think?

Do your social media habits as a recipient match up to what you want as a broadcaster?

Or are you as guilty as the rest of us for creating more noise than value in social media channels?

If You Want To Get Better Use Out Of Twitter

This article looks useful as it has 9 lessons for better tweeting.

Who Gives A Tweet

in 4 – Lead Generation

Valuable Content Marketing

My friend Sonja Jefferson is writing a book on Valuable Content Marketing with her colleague, Sharon Tanton.

See the book on Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

Sonja asked me

“What is your top tip for companies to consider when creating content for their customers?”

I checked whether she wanted content for customers or prospective customers and thought about it for a couple of days.

This is what I came up with…

“Valuable content to attract potential customers needs to be a triple punch that leaves the prospect wanting “more, more, more”. It needs to be keyword driven to attract, curiosity based to encourage email opt-ins and relevant, practical and interesting to build the relationship.”

I’m pretty pleased with that and wanted to create my own note so that I can refer back to it.

Hopefully it will appear in Sonja and Sharon’s book on Valuable Content Marketing because it always feels good to have your ego stroked.

You can find out more about the book on Sonja’s Valuable Content blog.

in 4 – Lead Generation, Internet Marketing