Using the Power of Friend Suggestions

I am notorious for giving friend suggestions. Because of that, I often get feedback from my friends asking who these people are that I suggest to them. I love the suggest a friend to option because it allows me to do two things:

1. Connect people that know each other but are not already connected online.

2. Introduce people who I think may have something in common or who could be a good strategic connection. This is also known as a referral in face to face networking.

For those of us who use social media to build relationships and expand our sphere of relationships, referrals are key. Suggesting new friends allows networkers to do just that.

Facebook has the ‘Suggest Friends for ‘ feature that can be found on the far left, below all the application boxes (see picture). This is a cool feature that allows you to suggest up to 2o friends to someone. This tool is excellent for your friends who are new to Facebook. Suggesting friends to help people grow their network is something that most people appreciate, and often, they return the favor by suggesting people they know that they think may be good connections for you.

Twitter has a fun weekly tradition called #FollowFriday.

Tweeters use Follow Friday to share the people they follow most with their Followers. It’s a way of saying, “this person has good content, follow them”!

These tools are great ways to make and share connections and virtually every social media outlet has a similar feature. Use them to your advantage, and take friend suggestions as a real opportunity to start a new relationship.

Do My Employees Need Social Media?

Recently, while talking about social media with a client, the topic of empowering employees with social media as a business strategy was discussed. Allowing employees to share their company affiliation and actively exchange information in such an open and informal way initially gives a lot of business owners an uneasy feeling and with good reason. Its tough to monitor the content employees are delivering via social media outlets: Ask Dominos Pizza.

The reality is that social media is open to anyone and a motivated person can do something malicious whether they are an employee or angry customer. That being said, there is a tremendous benefit to your company by giving employees access to tools that show them how to use social media to promote what they do both directly and indirectly.

If you have a website, one of the most notable affects social media can have on your online presence is inbound linking. Having each employee posting a link to your website from their social media profile adds relevance to your site which is good for SEO.

Also, employees social networking on your company’s behalf increases the amount of exposure of your business, essentially expanding your sales force and in many cases a sense of taking ownership of the company’s mission to grow and expand via the internet develops.

There’s no real way to monitor all content being put out, however, there are steps business owners can take to protect themselves against social media smearing by irresponsible or disgruntled employees.

1.  Create a clear detailed company policy on social media usage and ensure this policy is given to all employees and agreed upon with a signature.  

2. Hold employees accountable who violate this policy as necessary.

3. Flag or report inappropriate, dishonest, or potentially damaging materials to the site that holds the such material. This is key as most sites are generally accommodating to such requests.

The Best Way to Warm the Cold Call

Before we had phones, people wrote letters to potential prospects and followed up with a phone call. The letter served as a friendly introduction that once received, allowed the reader to get acquainted with the salesperson. Eventually, the phone replaced the letter completely and cold calling was born.

The power of using social media outlets to grow your business has created a euphoric feeling among those who have longed for an escape from a life of cold calling. Inbound marketing has provided a perfect method for businesses to improve their level of exposure, but it hasn’t completely eliminated the need for a phone.

Social networking profiles, blogs and other forms of social media are the new way for customers and businesses to passively get acquainted. Once the connection is made, the cold call is instantly warm, even its a person you’ve never met face to face!

Social Media: The Letter Reborn.

How to make CSS and HTML Work Together Part 1

For the last week or so I have been struggling to figure out how to place an image into the header of my Wordpress blog that covered the entire area of the header. Though I had a reasonable amount of knowledge about HTML, CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) was completely foreign to me.  I’ve been doing a lot of research online trying to figure out the mystery of CSS, and after a lot of dead ends and partial explanations I was finally able to come to some real conclusions about CSS, and how it relates to HTML.

None of the sources I found describe what I believe to be the key to understanding how CSS and HTML interact.  If you think of your website as a room, HTML is the furniture, and CSS is where you put the furniture.

When you look at your CSS, you will likely see something like this on the sheet:

#header {
width: 960px;
height: 180px;
color: #FFFFFF;
font-size: 16px;
font-weight: normal;
margin: 0px auto 0px;
padding: 0px;
overflow: hidden;
}

Pixels (px) is the spacial representation of your header. To be honest I started out just playing with the numbers and previewing each change to see what took place. This also makes it easier to correct mistakes quickly.

CSS does not change the size of HTML objects. If your CSS framework is smaller than your HTML image, the image will not show completely. For instance if your header is 760px and your HTML image is 960px, you will only see 760px of that image.

In the next section, I will explain how HTML and CSS interact.

Blogging For Business

One of the best things you can do to increase traffic to your website is by blogging. I have been blogging for business since 2003 to bring account for my mortgage business. Blogging has been my #1 source of referrals in 2005 and 2006.

What is a blog? A blog is another tool to market, communicate and brand yourself or your business through regular updates – otherwise known as an online journal.

I have a website to capture my leads but I use the blog to bring them there and let them know who they are doing business with.

If you don’t currently have a blog – contact us for a one on one consultation to get started!

Where are the places you can blog?

1. Wordpress.com or Wordpress.org are the #1 sources for blogs.
2. Blogger
3. Moveable Type
4. Active Rain – Real Estate Blog

I know there are many to choose from that I didn’t list but all you need is 1 good blogging platform and Iwould recommend any of these to get started!

Social Media for Network Marketers

One of the primary methods of referral generation in the sales industry has been word of mouth advertising and the perfect example of how to maximize the  potential of this powerful yet simple exposure tool is exhibited by companies that grow via network marketing.

Though often stereotyped as pyramid schemes or scams, Network Marketing or Multi-Level Marketing (MLM)  is actually the ultimate example of large companies actually spreading the wealth around. MLM companies actually allow the sales force to generate the majority of the income; income that unlike most forms of income is residual, meaning it recurring as long as the account is open, and/or the customer is paying for the product. The way the sales force is recruited is though word of mouth advertising. Many people find interest in the products or services, and some see the opportunity to generate income while sharing what they have found with others.

The reality however is that the landscape of sales has changed drastically, and direct selling is becoming more and more taboo as consumers are becoming more aware of the power of options and therefore choice in every marketplace. As a result, even the best MLM-ers are turning to social media as a method of connecting with their friends, and potential clients and business partners.

Social Media provides you with a relaxed atmosphere where you can share your life, but also share what you do, because what you do is also a part of who you are. Having a strong social media portfolio is key to establishing an MLM-er as a real person that friends and potential clients can relate to, not a pushy salesperson only concerned with making a sale.  That makes you someone they can connect with by name, face, and profession.  A powerful trifecta of connections!

Hampton Roads Information And Technology Meet Up Testimonials

Our second Meetup was a huge success. Big THANKS to our sponsors and hosts at Victory Nissan of Chesapeake VA who provided an unforgettable forum and the perfect atmosphere for networking! Special thanks goes to Ryan Hall and Tina Pansacula who put in a lot of hard work, and where primary contributors to the success of this event!

Also, thank you to our speaker Justin Hitt who provided invaluable information about search engine optimization (SEO) and how to use the internet to market your business effectively.

Trifecta: Using the Power of Three to Grow Your Business

Are you using social media to grow your business? I get a lot of questions from business owners and other busy professionals about how to develop strategies for business growth using social media. My goal has always been try to simplify the social networking equation, and through my calculations I have determined that social media can be simply describe down to a three step process that when implemented properly can explode your business online and in person.

Having a well developed social media profile on a website like LinkedIn or Facebook is the first step toward growing your online presence. Before you can attempt to share a single product or service online, you must first be able to sell yourself (branding if you will). Branding yourself as a person first and not a sales robot instantly creates a unimposing medium for your friends and potential customers to become aware of who you are and hopefully what you do.

Blogging is simply a medium for relevant material. And what is relevant is relative to the viewer. First you have to find out what is relevant to your target audience, then you use your blog to convert that material into a format that is attractive to them. The more relevant material you provide, the more your expertise becomes apparent and your popularity grows.

Finally, you need the website you probably already have. What you don’t know is that unless you have something and/or someone pointing to your website, you’re probably wasting valuable time and money that you put into it. Blogging and social media outlets do the pointing for you. On the surface, they give people a reason to want to know more about you. Beneath, they are a free way to lead the google spiders right to your website.

The key is constantly having your social media trifecta pointing at something of relevance. Your blogs and profiles should always be pointing at your website and vice versa. Constantly be looking for relevant links, events, and other info you can share with your target audience. When they see value in what you have to share, they will also see value in and want to do business with you.