Even though social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, and others are essential tools to marketing your business, your website is still important! I see a number of people getting into social media, which is way important, but they’re not setting up their own website, which I think is just as essential. Here’s how I like to explain it to my clients . . .

Your world headquarters

Think of your website as your world headquarters. This is where you can show everyone what you have to offer, talk about the company background, when it was founded, your company philosophy, offer testimonials, have a blog where you can interact with visitors, give people a way to contact you, etc. Just like the world headquarters for any brick & mortar company, your online world headquarters is the ultimate destination for your business.

Your branch offices

While your website is your online world headquarters, your social media accounts are like branch offices for your business or like a kiosk in a mall. They give people an idea of things like:

• The ability to purchase products or services
• Your location (your website and brick and mortar location)
• Testimonials from clients/customers
• Contact information
• A little bit about the people behind the business
• How to visit the main office

The McDonald’s effect

When you have branch offices, you’ll have a presence in areas people frequent, which means more visibility. Think of McDonald’s. Whether you like them or not, they’re everywhere, and because they’re everywhere, most of us think McDonald’s when we think of fast food. The same strategy will hold true online. If people see you wherever they go, they’re more likely to think of you when they need a product or service your company offers.

And, where are people online today? Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, YouTube, and many other social sites. And, remember, it’s not just people who visit these sites who are likely to see you. Since search engines are incorporating more and more social sites in their results, if you’re active on them, you’re upping your chances of appearing on Google too.

You’re your own landlord

Let’s go back to the kiosk idea for a moment. Companies that operate out of kiosks have to conform to certain standards. Their carts have to be of a certain type, they have to present their products in a specific way, have special signage, etc. In other words, they must adhere to set ways of doing things. It gives them great exposure, but it may limit their creativity a bit. Social sites are the same. While they provide excellent ways to get noticed by more people, you might want to do something that’s simply not available on one of these accounts. Because you have a website though, you generally have much more freedom to do what you want.

Another thing to keep in mind, is that if you have your own website, you won’t run the risk of becoming a victim if one of the social sites you’re using changes drastically or even goes away. GeoCities is a good example of this. GeoCities provided people with a way to set up free websites and many used them for their small businesses. Then, in 2009, the service was discontinued and the websites were gone. People who didn’t move their files over to a different hosting account were lost. And even then, because they’d built up their SEO on URLs based on their GeoCities site, when they changed to a new host, they had to start over. Social sites are similar in that you’re at their mercy if they make major changes or discontinue their services.

Credibility

Having a website helps solidify your online presence and lends a bit more credibility to your company than if you just had social media accounts. However, your website and your social media accounts should work together so that when people visit one, they can easily visit the others if they like. So, even though your Facebook page, Twitter, etc. may be the main way you interact with people, it’s in your best interest to have a solid website as your online world headquarters.

When emailing someone through LinkedIn, you’ll have the option to hide your email address from them. If you hide your email address from someone who has their LinkedIn account set up to forward emails to their inbox, they will need to login to LinkedIn to respond.  Letting them see your email address means they’re more likely to hit the respond button and reply to you right away. This short video goes into a bit more detail, and shows how to ensure your email address is viewable to the recipient.

I get quite a few emails every day, and like to respond as soon as possible. But when I get ones sent through LinkedIn without a return email address, quite often I’ll let those wait til the next time I login to LinkedIn. I’d much rather email right away and get it taken care of, but there are times when I just don’t want to break my stride and switch to LinkedIn.

If you’ve ever shared a link on Facebook, you may have noticed that the title and description that shows up aren’t always what you’d like them to be. For example, if you want to share an article you found in the local online newspaper, it might show the name of the newspaper in the title instead of the title of the article you want to share. You can actually change that and this tutorial I put together shows you how.

Changing the title and description on the link you want to share on Facebook can make the link more interesting to your readers, which means they’re more likely to click. It can also be used to add just a bit more SEO juice to your Facebook page (as opposed to your personal profile).

With over 400 million active users on Facebook, you know there’s a lot of spamming going on. A lot of Facebook spammers are looking for that small percentage of people who will fall for whatever sales pitch they put out. There are others though, who are making a real effort to use Facebook to market their business, make friends, or just learn their way around the most popular social networking website around. Unfortunately, they may not be aware of the fact that what they’re doing is getting them labeled as a Facebook spammer by the very people they’re trying to reach out to.

These five Facebook activities just might get you a big bad spammer label. If you’re guilty of any of them, you might want to rethink your Facebook strategy.

1. Your only activity is Friends, Groups, and Pages

Chances are, you’re trying to build up your friends list so you can blast people with your message – whatever that might be. As a result, the majority of the updates on your profile looks like this:

• Joe and Mary are now friends
• Joe and Andy are now friends
• Joe joined the group We be spammers
• Joe and Frank are now friends
• Joe likes Marketers and Spammers
• Joe and Michael are now friends
• Joe likes I Love Spam!
• Joe and Susan are now friends
• Joe likes I’m going to sell you all sorts of stuff
• Joe and Angela are now friends
• Joe and Steven are now friends
• . . . and the list goes on . . .

2. You should LIKE THIS!

You’re constantly sending page suggestions to all your friends – sometimes for the same pages over and over again. It’s fine to send a suggestion now and then, but when you send your friends suggestions constantly they’re likely to get tired of it.

3. You send friend requests to people you have absolutely no connection with.

You send a friend request to somebody you don’t know, and have no common friends. When the person you want to be friends with sends a message back asking if you know each other, you either don’t respond or you send a snotty reply.

If you really want to be friends with someone you don’t know, and have a good reason for wanting to do so, include a short note with the friend request. Just click the “add a personal message” and let the person know why you’re sending the friend request.

4. Using other Fan Pages and Groups to sell your stuff

You join Facebook Groups and Like Facebook Pages so you can post messages about your business. Recently someone became a fan of the PetsitUSA Fan Page and promptly posted a message that said

“PetsitUSA is now a favorite page of @my-facebook-page. Please make our page a favorite of yours.”

When I went to the Facebook Fan Page mentioned, I saw about 40 favorite fan pages listed, and each one of them had the very same message posted that was posted on the PetsitUSA Fan Page. Spammer.

5. It’s all about YOU! YOU! YOU!

Everything on your business page is all about you or your business. “Buy this!” “Look at me!” “Our company is wonderful!” Blah … blah . . . blah . . .

Sure, we all know Fan Pages are quite often set up to help sell a product or service, but rather than giving a constant sales pitch, interact with the people who like your page. Remember, it’s called social media for a reason.

Doing some of these things may seem like the right thing to do to get business, but think about how you feel when someone is constantly trying to sell you something. It gets old real fast and tends to backfire! There are lots of people who will go out of their way to avoid companies that are use the “in your face” approach to selling their products or services.

Do you have nightmares about your Facebook profile going away and losing your friends, photos, profile and wall status updates? You’re not alone!

If you were on Facebook at all this past weekend you may have experienced a certain level of panic as things got wonky (prompting some good subject matter for that nightmare.) They were having some server problems that seemed to take forever to get fixed. Strangeness was the norm. The wonkiness kept people from posting status updates, wouldn’t allow people to post on their friends’ profiles or to join fan pages, and even made some fan pages disappear for a while. If you spend much time at all on Facebook, you know this type of thing isn’t new. Unfortunately, it seems to be part of the whole experience.

If you’re looking for a little peace of mind to help keep your profile safe, Social Safe may just be the solution. It’s a downloadable application that backs up your Facebook friends, photos, profile and wall status updates. So, rather than just having all of your data on your Facebook profile, it’ll be safely stored away on your own computer where you can access it at any time. It doesn’t download your friends’ contact information, but you’ll at least have access to who they are. Should you need to restore your entire profile in the event of a catastrophic Facebook episode, you can at least be sure you’ll know who to get reconnected with. (Trying to remember a few hundred Facebook friends if my profile went bye-bye would drive me nuts!)

SocialSafe isn’t free, but it’s pretty darn close at only $2.99. It is well worth the money – and super easy to use. You’ll download SocialSafe, login to your Facebook account with Facebook Connect, and click on download. Once it’s finished you can view your Facebook profile content on your own computer.

Right now SocialSafe is just for personal profiles – it doesn’t backup Facebook Fan Pages yet, but the folks at SocialSafe are working on it. Hopefully they’ll get that worked out soon. And, of course Social Safe is on Facebook.

SocialSafe Explanation .. Introducing Wall Backups from Pascal Wheeler on Vimeo.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, social media tools, social media backup

It’s time for another social media teleclass!

How to use LinkedIn to Bring in More Business / Connect with Potential Clients

Date: August 25
Time: 5:00pm PST / 8:00pm EST
Cost: $20 (register by August 18) or $30 (register August 19 or later)
Register here

If you’re not using LinkedIn yet, you’re missing out! I’ve been active on LinkedIn for quite a while and have made many great contacts – pet sitters as well as people in other businesses. Some have turned into clients, while others are people who I share a common interest with – and sometimes we’re able to help each other in one way or another.

LinkedIn is a place to find like-minded professionals, businesses, and opportunity. It’s a place where you can be found as well. Boasting more than 40 million users, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network. It literally puts networking at your fingertips, so that you can connect with trusted colleagues throughout the world. And, because of the unique tools offered by LinkedIn you’re able to streamline your search process when looking for business leads, potential clients, or collaborators.

Here’s what I’ll be talking about:

• How you can use LinkedIn to grow your business
• Tips on how to use LinkedIn to drive traffic to your website
• Why you and your business need to be on LinkedIn
• How to establish yourself as an expert in your chosen area
• How to create a powerful LinkedIn bio that will attract attention
• What to include in your headline, summary, and job descriptions
• How to effectively use the advanced features of LinkedIn
• What recommendations are, how to ask for one, and who to recommend
• Why discussion groups are so important
• SPECIAL BONUS: LinkedIn Tips and Tools list to get you started after the class

Whether you’re interested in finding employees, getting the word out about your business, or simply enlarging your own personal network, LinkedIn is a powerful tool you can’t afford to ignore.

Kristin Morrison, from Six Figure Pet Sitting Academy is hosting the class. Learn more about the class and register here.

Whether you’re in the pet care business or some other business, you’re welcome to join in. This class is for anyone who wants to learn more about LinkedIn – regardless of your occupation.

Technorati Tags: LinkedIn teleclass, pet sitters, social media, social networking

As I was at the grocery store the other day, a young woman in front of me was busy texting as she slowly put her items up on the counter. The girl behind the register worked as quickly as she could given her customer’s unwillingness to put the cell phone away for a few minutes. I was tempted to say something but decided to keep my mouth shut. Since I wasn’t in a hurry, I just watched. I wanted to see if the woman would eventually put her phone away and pay attention to what she was doing.

She didn’t.

When it came time to pay, and only after she had finished sending a message, she swiped her card, picked up her bag and left. Not once did she make eye contact with the cashier. Not once did she even acknowledge the cashier…at all!

When the cashier started to ring my things up, I asked if that type of thing got to her. She just shrugged and said, “I’m used to it.”

What a sad statement!

There have been other times too, when I’ve seen cell phones get in the way of in-person communication. I can’t remember how many times I’ve been having face-to-face conversation with someone and all of a sudden they put one hand up, palm toward me, while they tap their ear with the other hand. Suddenly they’re whisked way from what’s going on in front of them and are deep into a conversation with someone who isn’t even there. An example of this is when a guy came to my home to give me an estimate on some work I wanted done. As we were standing in my living room talking about the work, the guy’s phone rang. He flashed me the hand, tapped his Bluetooth, and turned his back to me as he started talking. It was only when he finished talking to the person on the phone that he turned his attention back to me. He was politely escorted out of my house and didn’t get the job.

As much as I love social media and all the technology surrounding it, I honestly believe cell phones, texting, and the Internet in general are to blame for a lot of the anitsocial behavior today. It’s ironic actually, that the very technology that’s helping us become more social is also helping us become less social!

So what’s the solution?

It’s actually quite simple, really.

Turn the phone off. Take the Bluetooth out of your ear. Close your laptop. Pay attention to the person in front of you. Please!

Seriously…it’s that easy!

Honestly, what’s that important that you need to totally dis the person you’re face-to-face with so you can talk to someone who has interrupted you? Let your voice mail do what it was created to do – take a message. And if it’s a text, that can wait too. Technology is great, but remember that it’s supposed to help us be more social…not less!

Technorati Tags: social media, anti-social behavior, technology

On Tuesday, June 23 I’ll be doing another teleclass with Kristin Morrison of Six Figure Pet Sitting Academy. This class will be all about blogging!

No doubt you’ve heard about blogs, but do you know how smart business owners are using them to gain more visibility for their businesses? Whether your blog is a stand-alone blog or part of your overall website, blogging allows you to create dynamic content that keeps people engaged. It also keeps your customers or clients coming back for more!

With a successful blog you can:

• Build a loyal following of clients, customers, and business prospects
• Become a recognized expert or leader in your field of business
• Sell your services or products to your clients
• Sell advertising space on your blog
• Build a large list of highly targeted readers
• Highlight specials your business is offering in order to generate immediate cash flow.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this Blogging Teleclass:

• What a blog is and what makes it different than a website
• How to write “Google-friendly” blog posts that help move your blog higher in search engines results.
• How you can dramatically increase sales while spending less on marketing
• The best software to use for your blog
• Why it’s important to have your blog on your domain rather being hosted by a third party
• Why you need the best SEO blogging theme available for your blog
• How a blog can bring many more visitors to your website
• How to use your blog to reinforce your company goals and vision
• How to keep readers coming back for more
• Tips to help you stay on track with your blogging
• Basic blogging etiquette

This teleclass is being hosted by Kristin Morrision of Six Figure Pet Sitting Academy, and you can register for the class there.

Technorati Tags: blogging class, social media, blogging lessons

Over the past few months I’ve been doing social media teleclasses as part of the monthly teleclass series at Six Figure Pet Sitting Academy. The first one, which was a huge success was a general overview of social media, and in the second one I helped people understand Twitter and how it can be used for both business and personal purposes. The classes have been very well attended by people from all walks of life – pet sitters, writers, retailers, therapists, and others. Some are interested in using it for their business and others just want to learn what all their friends are talking about.

Both of these social media teleclasses are now available, and include a Tips and Tools sheet that covers a lot of what I talked about during the class, and a bit more. You’ll find them on the products tab above.

Technorati Tags: social media teleclasses, Twitter, social media