Terry Burgan
Managing Director The Entertainers Australia
If you are like me (a boomer) and struggle to keep up with the changes that we are experiencing from day to day in and around building an online presence, you will understand how challenging it is to get your head around a myriad of Apps, social media platforms, how to tweak settings, optimising , it can do your head in!!!!
After spending an hour reading an eBook this morning on how to optimise my company page on Google+ "The Entertainers Australia", I was still no clearer around some of the important messages the book was giving to me.
While I enjoy learning and have made it a part of my "daily dozen" must do's, I often suffer from overwhelm when I go down the rabbit hole which is online marketing. It can lead to fatigue with the odd expletive popping out here or there in absolute frustration.
Relinquishing our duties in this area however, is not an option! Unless we are across these platforms ourselves, we will never understand the metrics of the "modern business paradigm". Painful but true, the result of putting your head in the sand is that your backside will be pointing up, that is no way run a business, especially in todays competitive world.
Contracting outside help is one option, however we have found it is much like one of those opt in's where you you get this and that for one dollar and the rest, after your appetite is whetted, costs you a small fortune.
Perhaps I am sceptical about hiring someone to look through Facebook and other Social Media platforms in the search for great content, seems like an utter waste of time, especially given Google+ new Authorship algorithm which identifies and rewards the original author of the content.
We know our business pretty well, the "content" we send out comes from the experiences we have good or bad (we have had our share of both), the talent we work, the clients we service.
My point is this and it is made to those business owners who want to just walk away from online marketing, put it in the too hard basket, it is worth it! Even if you can afford to pay a dozen people to sit there and create content, learn it yourself!
Here are my tips to get through the quagmire of portals that you will need to become friends with in order to survive as a small business:
1. Read, Read, Read, everything you can get your hands on. A Google search will usually answer any quetsions you have e.g. (How to optimise my Company Google+ page?)
2. Be creative, use the evenings to learn and turn off the TV. Put your energy into your online marketing at night time, leave it alone during the day, that is when you should be on the phone talking to people.
3. Get advice from friends or associates on the latest trends, follow some of the excellent blogs. Though I have not used these guys as a service, the information I have received from http://www.hubspot.com/ is outstanding. If I was going to consider anyone to automate our marketing platform, it would be these guys.
3. Give yourself a break! It takes time and patience to learn the "how to's" and on that note, it never stops as various aspects of this crazy and beautiful world changes by the hour.
4. Make sure you set up and integrate Company pages on LinkedIn, Pintrest, Google+, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter (there are others but these are the main players).
5. Always point your posts on these platforms back to your site where ever possible.
6. Pay attention to each one of the platforms and make sure you post something daily.
7. Read Read Read
8. Read Read Read
and keep reading.......................
Good luck and when you think your head is about to explode with overwhelm, go and make a cup of tea and say to yourself "If I don't become disciplined around this I may not have a business in five years time". It harsh but very true, ignore at your peril Boomers!!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment