New Media Mavens

What Every Business Owner Should Be Doing Right Now

With only two months left for the year, there's still time gather your successes for 2009 and build your platform for 2010. While this has been a year for the record books, I'm certain next year will bring a powerhouse of possibilities. If you are a small business owner, thinking of starting a business or may be a corporate division head thinking what you need to do to expand your outreach using social and new media, here's the four step game plan you need:

Step 1: Assess your market

Who is your target market? If you haven't narrowed it down, this is the time. If you talk to everyone, you're really talking to no one. Find out who's your niche: Who can afford what you offer right now? This may be vastly different than last year or last month's answer. But it's time to drill down and get specific.

Step 2: Are you finding your target audience where they are online?

You can only know this by asking the people in your target audience. If you're trying to sell a fabulous fantasy trip to restore your spirit, mind and body to Malta for next spring and know your audience is women from 45-65, find out where they are online. Would Twitter be your best bet? Probably not since the market for that platform skews younger. But e-mail would be perfect and also using blogs and e-zine databases to build up your SEO.

Step 3: Are you offering and communicating value?

This is a tough concept since as business owners we like to think that everything we do confers value but ask someone outside of your office to look at what you're offering and give you feedback. Ideally, ask someone in your target audience. What is valuable to a boomer may not be valuable to a Gen Xer.

Step 4: Are you marketing consistently?

Marketing is a process, not an event. It's tough if you approach your marketing in a stop-and-start fashion to get any real traction. Schedule it on your calendar or use software to help do things automatically and disperse it over the week such as software to publish your blog posts.

What marketing plans or initiatives are you working on now or are you playing it safe? Click comment below and share.

Alison Woo, Chief Media Maven

Does Your Business Need a Community Site?

Customers are the lifeblood of any business. But how do you translate the fervor they have for your product or service into a thriving online community?

One of the hottest new online trends is the creation of community websites to. How do you know if you need one and, if you do, where do you begin?

Your business needs a community site if you:

• Have customers who would benefit from interacting with each other in an online space (think iPhone lovers looking for the best apps)
• Have customers who are interested in interacting together and don't have a space or community to do so online
• If you have customers who use your product or service in an interesting way and want to share those ways with each other (think Saturn's online community)
• Your business lends itself to discussion and you want a place to listen, share and engage with your customers 

To start a community site, you should ask yourself what your goals are. Is this site for research only? What can you offer your customers that will be of value to them? Do you have the resources to create content that will be compelling and engaging?

If the answer to all the above is yes, you may be ready.

COMMUNITY PLATFORMS

If you want to start your own community, you have a number of options.

For the business owner who wants to dip your toe in the community idea without a major commitment of time and energy, setting up a Facebook profile page is a great way to start.

First, you must have a personal profile. Secondly, start your own page. Then, invite your current customers or e-zine or online newsletter subscribers to join. Think about what content you can feed into your FB page. You can use your blog feed, YouTube channel, post videos and a host of other elements. Make sure to claim your name. After a set number of fans (check FB for details), you can choose your name. Make sure it aligns with your branding and promote it to your customers.

If your community might be more B2B minded, you might want to start a LinkedIn group. First search on the "Groups" tab and search to see what's out there already. Ask yourself, what would bevaluabl e? Who could you bring together and over what topic? What would be a value-add to these busy professionals? And what kind of content can you offer to feed the group? If you are confident that there isn't anything to meet the needs of your community, click on the "Create a Group" on the "Groups" page.

You will be asked to upload a logo, choose a name, create a description, and decide whether you want the group to be public or private. Then start to invite the people who you believe would make vibrant community members. Put the group's information at the bottom of  your signature line. It's often noted that the largest benefit of a group is conferred to the group leader. Take your role as community leader seriously and you will glean many benefits.

If you are ready to dive into the deep end of community creation, there's no better website than Ning. It offers a full comprehensive set of options. If you just want to get a site up and running in a few minutes, you can pick a template and set in less than five minutes. If you want to get fancy, you can customize the template so it looks like all your other online entities, such as your website, blog, (this is recommended!) It also recently announced new integrated apps such as Wordpress (for your blog or website), Blog Talk Radio widgets (for your podcasts or radio shows) and UStream.com (for your video podcasts and shows).

Creating a thriving community is the No. 1 way to engage your customers. When they're inspired, they recommend your product or service. And there is no price you can put on that.

Want a step-by-step plan to create your own community? E-mail me today!

Alison Woo, Chief Media Maven

Promote your Business and Your Work with an E-Book

Always dreamed of writing a book but want to fast track the process?

Consider an e-book! You get to show off what you know instantly. And with an amazing new platform, you can do it for free. Check out Fast Pencil's amazing array of publishing possibilities. You can even invite your friends or colleagues and your team can write an e-book with ease. Now that's taking social media to a new place.

This could kick a whitepaper's butt! What do you think?

Alison Woo, Chief Media Maven

How to Become a Video Super Star!

When it comes to new media, video is both king AND queen!

When it comes to thinking big about your business, you need to incorporate video in every way you can to connect to and continually nourish your audience. When thinking about what to make your videos about, we've always said the key word is VALUE. What will your audience find valuable?

How-To videos are one way to stand out and become memorable. One of the best new tools out there is Howcast. Launched by some of the good people from Google and YouTube, Howcast has created quite a buzz by creating a niche to help bring millions of eyeballs to their site. Howcast also integrates with all the other current video platforms that you know and love but their presentation, their branding and their outreach is quickly making it THE place on the web for how-to video. Best of all it's fun and FREE!

Take a look at this video on how to pick a lock. Now while it may encourage you to bring out your inner MacGyver, this is a great example of how the business owner created something interesting and compelling. If he lived in my neighborhood, I'd call him. And you never know when you need a locksmith. Last month, when Lena and I went to NYC to attend Mediabistro's Circus, I was scrambling and needed one when I left one of my apartment door keys in Charlotte. How did I find one? I called the first listing on Google. Just another example of why creating top-of-mind awareness is so important.

What will you create a video about?

Alison Woo, Chief Media Maven

How to Use This Summer to Move Your Business Forward

I love summer! Just last week, I had the great opportunity to visit one of my favorite places, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and see the glorious roses in the Cranford Rose Garden. It looks like a Monet painting come to life! (For more pics, friend me on Facebook and see the whole album!)

And this weekend's holiday just cemented all the reasons summer remains one of the best seasons in the year. Life slows down. We get to remember what's important.

It's so easy to get caught up with the day-to-day practice of working in your business that you don't have time to work ON your business. That stops today.

Nine weeks from today will be Labor Day. That means if you commit yourself today, you can do something amazing so that by the end of the summer your business could be further ahead than before.

Here are some things that can move you forward that you might consider:

• Tackle a new market: create a whitepaper, a new landing page for your website, book speaking engagements to your new target, submit articles to industry publication.
• Grow your online presence: Join Twitter; go to sites such as www.whoshouldifollow.com and start following others in your sphere of influence.
• Give your website a facelift: Shift to wordpress.org and create a blogsite instead of a separate website or blog.
• Engage in conversations on a daily basis: Commit to blogging daily instead of 3-4 times a week; ask your customers to join you and ask the questions they want answered; direct message people on Twitter talking about what you specialize in; go to LinkedIn.com and answer questions.

The goal of all of this is creating a new thought process around your business. If you want more out of  your business, you're going to have to invest more. Make this summer more meaningful.

Life is not static, it's dynamic. Make sure your business reflects where and who you are right now.

What will you commit to this summer? Join us and let's make this summer the most impactful yet!

Alison Woo, Chief Media Maven

Why Every Business Needs Video

This month we're offering a series of video podcasts discussing the power of video.

Watch our podcast and let us know how you're using video in your marketing mix. Click the "Comments" link on the bottom. Regards, Alison Woo New Media Maven

Easy Video Capturing Tool

Does the thought of creating your own video give you the heeby geebies? Fret no more! The options available are plenty and most importantly they are easy to use. Here's an easy solution to get you started:

Fip Mino HD:  Using this little gadget is so easy it's a no-brainer. We carry it around in our purses all the time to capture events and speeches. We balance it on a table with a tripod to keep the video steady. For a little over $200 this can't be beat. The following video was made with the Flip MinoHD. What other video capturing tool do you like? Regards, Lena Claxton New Media Marketing Maven

Why should you use video to promote your business?

Why should you use video? Because it is currently the ultimate way to deliver your message to your audience. It offers a multi-sensory experience and covers most learning styles so you reach more people. And it's transparent. That means your audience sees who you are -- every batting eyelid. All kidding aside, it's a fantastic tool to get up close and personal with your audience.

Consider the possibilities: Most businesses will have some visual element that they can highlight. Take your audience inside your domain and show them what you do. Show them the process, Show them the results. Show your products. Show your service. And if you can't find any visual elements simply dust powder on your nose, smile and talk about your topic and the great benefits your audience will receive. Talk about how you solve their problems. Share your passion. Share your vision.

How are you using videos to showcase your business?

Regards,

Lena Claxton
New Media Marketing Maven

Follow Those Links: Tracking Links Offers Measurement Methods

One of the very best things about social networking is the ability to promote your links in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and a variety of places. That can help you boost traffic and visibility to your other new media components.

But to find out just who is clicking on those links is why you need a URL service which shortens and tracks. The NY Times did a comprehnsive job covering some alternatives but we love Bud URL. It's simple, it's fun and easy. How much more do you want?

What are your favorite link services?

Alison Woo, Chief Media Maven

Share Your Videos Across the Net

With all the social media tools available to share and broadcast your message one can easily get confused and overwhelmed.

Fortunately, applications are out there to help you manage your time. Taking a page from Ping.fm that allows you to make status updates to all of your social networking sites in one shot, TubeMogul.com does the same for video. So you could have an account on YouTube, Viddler, Vimeo, Blip.tv or more, you only upload once.

The benefits of using TubeMogul (from their site):

• Save Time - uploading videos to each site in your distribution is no longer necessary - upload to TubeMogul and let the Universal Upload tool do the rest. Then you can login to understand your viewership across online video sites in one place.
• Increased Reach - with your videos on more sites at no extra effort, your opportunity to gain viewers multiplies! Users of Universal Upload have witnessed up to 3x more views per video.
• Improved Understanding of Viewer Base - better understand your customer base to create more targeted and relevant content or products and services.
• Track Trends & Buzz - create groups of videos important to you or your industry and track spikes in viewership to identify trends and monitor the pulse of online video viewers.
• Assess Marketing Efforts - assess the effectiveness of your marketing efforts by analyzing spikes and trends in viewership across any range of time.
• Competitive Intelligence - see what's working for your counterparts and competition and compare and contrast viewership trends with your own.
• Share the Intelligence - send and share data and charts with colleagues or friends.

Which video sharing site is your favorite and why?

Regards,

Lena Claxton
New Media Marketing Maven
Co-author of How to Say It: Marketing with New Media