Grow My Company

My favorite things I learned at PodCamp Western MA 5

PodCamp Western MA 5 was this past Saturday, and as always, it was wall-to-wall fun, excitement, learning, sharing, and laughs. It’s great to actually see in person so many of the people with whom I correspond daily within my social media circles.

My two favorite sessions occurred in the afternoon. One was called Social Media Therapy, lead by Jaclyn Stevenson. I was too curious about the title to not go, and I’m sure glad I did. It was essentially a brainstorming/problem solving session for people who make a living doing social media.

The other was the second annual Productivity Tips and Tricks session hosted by yours truly and Lesley Lambert. We had about 50 people in a big room sharing ideas about apps and tips that make them more productive and help them get through their days. These included things for business as well as personal life.

I was a very enthusiastic tweeter and retweeter throughout PodCamp, and I went through my tweets to compile a list of apps and tips that I want to try. I’d like to share that list with you below:

 

• Use Siri to create a note and then you can add to Evernote as needed! Great for ongoing "to do" list!
• Flashit: app to flash messages like "Stop Tailgating.”
• Out of milk: app to create shopping lists by store – I have installed this one already, and I love it!
• Remember the milk: app for task management
• Cam Card: scans business cards and ads to contacts
• Comet Docs: new free PDF converter and simple doc manager
• Owncloud: open source option to Dropbox
• Google Drive: can work collaboratively on documents and store them in the cloud. 5 G storage free vs 2 G on Dropbox
• Evernote Clear: strips out ads and junk on a page, so you can read or send a clean version to your Evernote.
• Animoto remains a popular picture collage to video program
• Picassa has collage feature. I have to check that out!
• Picstitch for photo collages
• Picmonkey for photo edits
• CanStockPhoto for good quality cheap photos
• Wordle.com: to create word clouds (we learned about this one last year, and it came up again)

• Flickr: still a great place to find photos with creative commons license for blog posts

• Feedly may be best transition from Google Reader. Seamlessly move all your feeds. I must check this one out.
• Netvibes: open tabs with search strings/hashtags

• LinkedIn for journalists Group: free training. Attend and get free LinkeIn Executive membership for a year.

• Pocket.com

• Bufferapp.com

• Bundlepost.com

 

Those last 3 came up fast, so I just tweeted out the names without an explanation. I can’t remember what they do, so if you’re curious, check them out.

- Christine Pilch Mancini 

Image credit: Seth Kaye Photography

Please follow me! - The wrong way to gain Facebook Page followers.

I am a LinkedIn Open Networker, meaning that anybody can send me a message. I recently received the following message from a stranger on LinkedIn:

 

Hello.... I wanted to take a moment to ask you to help me build my FB Business Page audience. Please click on the following link and "Like" my page. 

Facebook Page Link was here

Thank you for your support and I would be happy to return the favor by "Liking" your page as well. 

Enjoy your day! 

 

Oh boy, this request is just so wrong, so let's start from the top.

1) This is an unwelcome interruption 
I don't know this person. Individuals become LinkedIn Open Networkers to make it easy for potential clients to reach them, not for people to use this as an opportunity to spam them with unwanted solicitations.

2) What's in it for me?
Everybody is busy, and we are assaulted thousands of times daily by marketing hype, so why would I want to do this favor for a stranger? What is interesting or special about her page that would benefit me? I don't even know what it's about, and I shouldn't have to go there to find out. Why should I take a moment of my time and give it to her? She has given me no reason to even look at her page. There is no perceived value to me.

3) Quality vs quantity
I guess this person isn't interested in quality likes from people who are actually interested in her content. She only cares about volume. In my opinion, this is a flawed philosophy. I'd rather have just 10 eager and interested people, who have the potential to become clients one day, reading my Facebook Page than 1,000 people who are just going to ignore or hide my content from their newsfeed. So her offer of a reciprocal follow is meaningless to me.

 

The bottom line is that followers and fans are earned on social media. Good pages grow organically because of the value they offer. Begging for followers is useless unless you don't care about the quality of your audience.

 

- Christine Pilch Mancini 

QR Codes: Where to use them and where to skip them

QR codes are becoming more mainstream now. Most people have at least seen them, whether or not they understand what they do. They connect the non-electronic world with the internet via a smartphone and a 2 dimensional link that can be scanned to go to a webpage. QR codes are appearing more and more, and some of the applications are perfect. Others, however, are not.

So how do you know when to use a QR code? Well, here's a little cheat sheet:

Yes, use a QR Code:

Print:
In print applications like magazine and newspaper ads, on marketing materials that are mailed, on product information, registration cards, warrantee info, etc.

Billboards:
Yes, use on a billboard is fine, but keep the rest of the ad copy at a minimum, make the QR Code large, and don't expect drivers to scan them. 

TV:
Sure, you can use them in a TV ad, but make sure they are on screen long enough for a viewer to open their app and approach the TV. That means, for probably all :30! 

Do not use a QR Code:

Websites:
Good grief, the user is already online. Just add a text link and be done with it. 

Blogs:
Again, the user is already reading your blog via an electronic device, and the point of a QR code is to make it easy for a user to get online.

Emails:
No, since a user already has the capability to click a link and go to a webpage, a QR code is redundant here as well. 

Anything electronic: 
Since a QR code bridges the gap between the non-electronic world and the internet, an electronic application of a QR Code is silly. 

One more thing, QR codes must link to a mobile optimized site. Little is more frustrating to a user than a QR code link that lands on a site full of tiny print, extra information, and pictures, all of which they are viewing on a 3-4 inch screen. Don't bother using QR codes until you have mobile optimized your site.

 

- Christine Pilch Mancini 

 

 

Dos and don'ts of email marketing

Do you send out an eZine, eNewsletter, email blast, or whatever else you want to call it? If so, is your communication welcomed or a source of irritation to its recipients?

Below are some tips about creating a must-read eZine as opposed to antagonizing those on your list.

 

 

 

Dos 

Prominently display unsubscribe info at the top of each message:
If you have a clean list, you should not be afraid of people unsubscribing, and it’s best to make it easy from someone to go away. If they want to unsubscribe, they should not have to search for the means to do so.

Stay on topic:
Pick a narrow topic and stick to it. Maybe you’re a landscaper offering tips for homeowners to keep their lawns healthy. Perhaps you’re a tax accountant offering tips about reducing taxes. Whatever your topic, stick to it, as subscribers read your eZine for that specific reason. Straying off-topic will cause people to unsubscribe.

Make sure your content is interesting and has value to your readers:
People will not read your communications if they don’t perceive a return on the investment of their time. Keep your content fresh and interesting to deliver value on a regular basis.

Keep it brief:
Everybody is time poor. Don’t stretch out a 60 word blub to 300 words to impress your readers. Condense as much as possible. If you have trouble with this, hire a good editor to do it for you.

Use a email service like Constant Contact:
Such email services are cleared for delivery throughout the email system and typically do a pretty good job of making it through spam filters. They also have templates and other tools to make it easy for you to create, send, and track your messages.

Create a regular delivery schedule and stick to it:
People are creatures of habit and they find comfort in predictability and regularity. You can help build anticipation by delivering your content on a regular schedule.

 

Don'ts 

Don’t be a spammer:
All unsolicited email is spam, no matter how valuable you perceive your message to be. If your recipients didn't give you permission to send your message to them, you are a spammer.

Don’t disguise or hide list sign up by bundling it with anything else:
This includes email communication, contact form submission, or help requests from your website. Make sure that subscribers understand and give you permission to add them to your list.

Don’t buy a list:
Build your own email list of people who actually want to receive your information. Paid email lists are full of email addresses pulled from websites and compiled from random sources, and the recipients generally do not want your message. On the contrary, they are commonly annoyed that you are bothering them. Remember this: a clean list of people who sign up to receive your information is much more valuable in that these people have the propensity to actually become customers one day.

Don’t subscribe anybody unless they gave you express permission to do so:
This includes business cards you collect, people who contact you via your website, people you are connected to via social media, and people you meet. Simply knowing someone or introducing yourself to them is not permission to email them information that they have not agreed to receive.

Don’t make it difficult to unsubscribe:
I’ve seen unsubscribe info in tiny print that links to a form that makes the user enter their own email address and answer questions, and then displays a message that the unsubscribe process may take up to 10 days. Are you kidding me? I’m already irritated that I’m receiving junk from someone who doesn’t have permission to email me in the first place, and they’re making me work to get off the list. That’s just wrong. Don’t be so disrespectful of your list members.

Don't use Outlook or any other personal email system:
Sending your email blast from Outlook is the kiss of death. It screams unprofessional and will likely get you blacklisted, thereby preventing you from sending any email out of your ISP at all.

Don't let recipients see each others' email addresses:
This is another common Outlook email blunder. Using a professional email service prevents all recipients from seeing everybody else on the list, and it protects the integrity of the list and privacy of its recipients.

So, the next time you receive spam from someone, feel free to send them a link to this blog post. 

 

- Christine Pilch Mancini 

Image credit: Micky Aldridge

 

 

What's the difference between marketing and sales?

Someone asked me recently: "What's the difference between marketing and sales?"

My answer: "In a nutshell, marketing is the education you do to create desire for your product or service in your prospect. Sales is the process of converting prospects into customers."

Marketing sets up sales by educating prospects about the benefits and features of a particular product or service. It’s an introduction of sorts that is intended to generate interest.

Marketers and sales people are very different animals. Marketers love using various techniques to get a message distributed to its constituency. They love educating and crafting messages.

Really good, successful sales people typically love the close more than anything else. They thrive on it and live for the high. Remember Richard Gere’s character’s famous line in Pretty Woman when he punched Stuckey at the end, “It’s the kill you love, not me?” That perfectly depicts a great salesperson. They love to be out selling and can barely stand the monotony of being cooped up in an office.

So, marketing is education and sales is closing business. Many companies confuse this and combine these departments. I think that’s dangerous. Now, marketing and sales must work closely together, but a marketer and a sales person are not necessarily the same.

If you have sales people in your organization, and leads are a little thin, maybe it’s time to talk to a marketer. Just sayin’.

 

- Christine Pilch Mancini 

 

5 social media personalities that you don't want to be

A while ago, I posted this on my Facebook Page:  

Tip: When you're annoyed about friends' social media posts, remember that you're in their space. If you don't like it, hide, unfriend, unfollow, but don't expect them to change.

Fortunately, social media is a completely permission-based platform. It's not like junk mail, telemarketing calls, or spam in your inbox that you didn't ask for but are forced to receive. On all social media platforms, you choose who to follow, pay attention when you want to, and unfollow when you choose to do so.

But we all surely have a friend or two who uses their social media accounts in a manner that annoys or irritates others. Are you that person? Yes, it’s your feed, and you can use it however you see fit, but here are some common social media flubs that will likely cause you to lose friends, fans, and followers:

1)   The Preacher:

This person is likely using her account to sell something, be it a product, or service, or a pyramid scheme that she wants all her friends to join. Her feed is mostly about achieving a single goal, and she friends others so they can receive her message.

On Twitter, this style consists of 100% information posting and 0% engagement with others. No retweets, no at replies. This person has no interest in developing relationships and hasn't yet figured out that the whole point of Twitter is to communicate. She is often unfollowed or ends up off any meaningful lists that people actually pay attention to.

On Facebook, this person posts little or nothing personal, and most pictures are related to her goal as well. The irony is that many people will consider this person’s feed so boring that they will hide it from their home page, thereby defeating her purpose.

2)   The Shocker:

This person spends his time on and off social media existing in a profanity ridden cesspool. He is crude and rude, and doesn’t realize that society in general isn’t interested in his potty mouth.

3)   The Collector:

This person believes that social media is about collecting as many connections as possible. To her, social media is a game in which the one with the most friends wins. If you were excited about reconnecting with her in the social media space, you’ll soon be disappointed because the collector can’t be bothered to respond to personal messages. She doesn’t want to actually communicate or build relationships; she just wants a larger friends list than anybody else.

4)   The Documenter:

This is the person who tells you everything about her life online, and I mean everything. You know when she has the sniffles, where she is every minute of the day via incessant checkins, all her relationship woes, when she’s happy or sad, and every other detail she can think of. This is another person who is often blocked from their Facebook friends’ feeds and removed from purposeful Twitter lists because of TMI.

5)   The Expert:

This person is the one who has an opinion about everything, with or without any direct knowledge, and is always right. He cannot be persuaded to consider alternative views, his opinion is inflexible, and he constantly digs in his heels. This is the person who comments, “Well, I’ve never read that book, but…” or “Well, my friend’s, mother’s, cousin’s, neighbor’s dog once…” He is annoying, and it’s often not worth commenting on anything he says unless you completely agree.

So, yes, it is your social media feed, and you can use it any way you want to, but if you’re one of these people, don’t expect to keep your audience for very long.

 

- Christine Pilch Mancini 

Growing danger for college kids: Twitter

Everybody who knows me knows that I'm an advocate of internet privacy and security. I'm on social media a lot, but I'm very careful about what I share publicly. Unfortunately, I'm noticing a disturbing shift in the way college kids are using social media; they have discovered Twitter, and the way they're using it can come back and bite them in the future.

It took a few years for the kids to discover Twitter. They still text incessantly and use Facebook enthusiastically, but they have finally arrived on the scene on Twitter too, and what they're posting is truly scary.

If you know one college kid on Twitter, it's pretty easy to find their friends and check out their feeds. These kids use Twitter differently than many adults do. We tend to use it to share ideas, solicit help, and collaborate. The kids tends to use it as a giant, public chat system. And that's where the problem creeps in.

A lot of the feeds that I've seen are profanity ridden, often sexually charged, and full of content that their parents would probably not like, much less potential grad school admissions offices and potential employers. These kids either don't realize or have forgotten that every tweet is catalogued by search engines. Even if deleted seconds later, it is permanently stored on multiple servers around the world, just waiting to haunt them at the most inopportune time.

I know that I'm the old lady here, but my advantage of maturity and the memories of all my former job interviews just might give me a broader picture than these kids who work so hard in school while sabotaging their futures via a very public communications channel. I wish that I could talk to each one of them and explain the implications of this dangerous behavior, but I can't.

Maybe you can make an impression on your own kids though. I sure hope so.

 

- Christine Pilch Mancini

Photo credit: Media Spin. Used under Creative Commons License

How to change your LinkedIn password

A report has hit the net that LinkedIn was hacked, and the passwords of 6+ million accounts were posted online. I strongly urge you to change your password ASAP. 

Here’s how:

Log In at www.LinkedIn.com

Mouse over your name in the upper right corner and click on Settings

Click on Account in the lower left corner

Under Email & Password click Change Password

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Christine Pilch Mancini

My top 5 favorite Facebook features that you may not be using

Facebook has its faults for sure, but it also has features that you might really like, if only you gave them a try. They can simplify your communications, enhance your online privacy, and unclutter your inbox for starters...

Secure browsing:

Do you realize that whenever you access Facebook via an open WiFi network, (like at an airport or Starbucks,) unless you are connecting through an encrypted connection, anybody close enough with the right equipment can steal your login info and potentially cause lots of trouble for you? Go into your settings and change this pronto!

Private Groups:
Many people are a member of at least one Facebook group, which may or may not be useful. I'm a member of groups for my high school and college classes, professional brainstorming groups, a book club, and my particular favorite: a secret group comprised of only me, my Mom, and my sister. I started it so they could help me plan my wedding, and after a few fits and starts with them continuing to email various hints, opinions, and suggestions, once I started reposting the emails into the Facebook group, everybody saw the benefit of uncluttering our email inboxes, and keeping all the info in one easy-to-read place. We continue to use this space as our own private place to chat daily about whatever is going on in our lives. It keeps us connected over 3,000 miles and 3 hours of time difference.

Can you think of a way to take advantage of a private or secret group to enhance your own family or friend discussions, collaborations, and photo sharing, while freeing up your email inbox of lots of clutter?

Privacy settings:
Some people think that solving the conundrum of the separation of professional and personal friends on Facebook is as simple as having two accounts. Not so fast. The fact is, you cannot have multiple identities on Facebook. That is against its terms of service. And why would you want to be constantly logging in and out of multiple accounts when it’s entirely possible to make sure that only certain friends see certain updates and photos with lists and custom privacy settings?

Notes:
These are appropriate for anything that you want to highlight and may get lost as a status update. I use mine for favorite recipes and old blog posts that were once pulled in automatically by an app. Notes post to your profile and your friends’ newsfeeds, but they get tucked away into their own tab at the top of your profile, so it’s easy for me to find something when I want to share it with someone.

Nixing Notifications:

 

 

 

Are you irritated to receive emails and/or texts from Facebook every time one of your Facebook friends does anything? Facebook unfortunately defaults notifications "on" whenever they change or add anything, so you must consistently go in and uncheck all those silly boxes that allow Facebook to clutter your inbox with all those notifications.

What are your favorite Facebook features?

 

 - Christine Pilch Mancini

 

10 steps to better Pinterest marketing

I'm no expert Pinterest marketer, and for that matter, neither is anybody else. It's just too new on the social media scene. But I have noticed some things that make sense if you're interested in using Pinterest to market your product or service.

1. Use great photos in your own blog posts so people will be encouraged to pin them:
   Pinterest is a visual marketing tool, so your images are especially important. This is true whether you’re pinning your own or another’s content. Good quality pictures are more visually appealing and will capture more interest, which will likely make them more apt to be repined. You want your content to be shared, right?
   
   
2. Choose clever names for your boards:
   Sure, “Food,” tells users what that board contains, but “Fabulous Food is just catchier, and you definitely do want to captivate your followers.
   
   
3. Carefully select your board cover photo:
   That cover photo has the potential to generate a lot of intrigue, so choose it carefully. It should instantly relay the board contents and be visually appealing.
   
   
4. Tag ecommerce items with price tags:
   I recently read that pins with tags enjoy up to a 40% spike in sales. Adding a price tag is easy. Simply add a $ sign before the price in the caption, and the price will be displayed. So if you’re selling goods online, don’t keep buyers in suspense. That won’t generate more interest. Let them know upfront what your widget costs and drive interested buyers to your site.
   
   
5. Narrow your board topics:
   When my own social media tips board reached the point where I couldn’t quickly find the one that I was looking for, I knew it was time to create social media tips category boards, i.e. LinkedIn Tips, Facebook Tips, etc. Although you can’t nest subcategories within a main category on Pinterest, you can reposition boards, so it is possible to keep related boards near each other.
   
   
6. Follow others:
   Pinterest is a social network, and the whole point is to connect, communicate and share. If you’re not following others’ boards and only pushing out your own material, you’re missing out on opportunities to find great new content that you and your followers might enjoy.
   
   
7. Repin enthusiastically:
   Share, share, share. The more great content you find, the more valuable you are to your network.
   
   
8. Control your home page feed:
   Few Pinterest users create all the boards they need at first. Most people generally build new ones to suit their evolving needs. When you follow a person, you automatically subscribe to all their current and new boards that they create. This sometimes floods your own home page with a bunch of pins that don’t interest you. But that’s an easy fix. Simply go to that person’s profile page and unfollow the boards that are unappealing to you. Problem solved. That person keeps your subscription, but your home page feed is free of unwanted content. Do this regularly to maintain a valuable and interesting home page feed.
   
   
9. Create a board with offers exclusive to Pinterest users:
   Talk about an easy way to track Pinterest leads! Create a board with exclusive offers that people can only find on Pinterest. You can also do the same on Twitter, or Facebook, or YouTube…
   
   
10. Create a contest:
    Take advantage of Pinterest’s tagging feature by encouraging users to repin your content on their own boards with tracking hashtags, and develop a criteria to determine the winner. Or you could use the hashtag feature along with a theme and have people exercise their creativity when pinning content to their boards. Again, you would then have to search for the hashtags, review all the entries, and determine the criteria for a winner.

Pinterst is the hot, new social media, and we're still discovering its marketing potential, but there are plenty of built in marketing opportunities for clever business people.

 

 - Christine Pilch Mancini