Social Media

Does Word Of Mouth Come Natural?

Does Word Of Mouth Come Natural?

Garth Beyer

Word of mouth marketing

No. Never.

For some brands and businesses, word of mouth seems to come natural. I encourage you to think about it next time you hear someone talk bout a brand or business or when you yourself talk about one. (If needed, which I doubt it will be needed, ask why the person brought up the brand or business.)

Always (always!) the brand or business is talked about on purpose. They’ve made themselves remarkable enough to be talked about. They’ve done something different from their competitors so you can tell your friends about it. They’ve designed their site, their shipping method, their product or service in such a way that it’s easy to talk about on Twitter and share their reactions and reviews on Facebook or Amazon.

Word of mouth marketing may seem to simply come natural, that the brand or businesses never considered it to begin with. Some may have come by it accidentally, but as soon as they’ve noticed it, they’ve leveraged it. And why not? Word of mouth is the best marketing there is.

You are building your brand or business with it in mind, right?

 

Stay Positive & People Don’t Whisper To Each Other Anymore, They Shout

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20 Actions To Increase Your Social Presence

20 Actions To Increase Your Social Presence

Garth Beyer

Increase Social Media Presence

1) Use incredible photos. Always.

2) Find small problems and solve them.

3) Connect with others on a personal and emotional level. You’re not a robot.

4) Update your social media profiles. Pics. Bios. Location. All that good stuff.

5) Only use the social media outlets that matter.

6) Connect with other social media folk in your realm.

7) Post daily or fairly regularly.

8) Give remarkable content away. eBooks anyone? Tickets? Gear? T-shirts?

9) Always deliver.

10) Always be learning and thanking those who you learn from.

11) Ask for testimonials.

12) Time your posts. There is research out there telling the peak times to post.

13) On any “about me” page, give something away.

14) Forget the RT/Share button, your work is in the Comment/Reply.

15) Be in it for the long run.

16) Have a target market. Fill in the blank for your target “People like us …..”

17) Trend, news, and holiday jack.

18) Share what others want to hear, not what you think they want to hear.

19) Try something new each week.

20) Write blog posts like this.

Need any clarification on these or want to chat about using one (or more) of these tips for your brand? Shoot me a tweet @thegarthbox

 

Stay Positive & Get Goin

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What’s Scary About Attracting More Followers

What’s Scary About Attracting More Followers

Garth Beyer

Follow Me On Twitter

Think of two different ways you can end an email.

(1) “Follow us on FB, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram” linking to each.

(2) “See how those we work with celebrate our success” linking to a video.

Another fork in the road:

(1) “Sign up for our newsletter here” linking to a subscription form.

(2) “Accept this gift for being connected with us” linking to a form where they can get the special gift.

The signature at the end of an email is just one place where you decide to either get attention or reward those who already pay attention to you.

What’s scary about attracting followers is by seeking out new followers, you’re turning your shoulder to those you already have.

The less scary, more beneficial action to take is creating a difference in the followers you already have. This way you leverage the following you have at the same time as giving them something to talk to other non-followers about.

It’s an easy answer, but to a question that is rarely tackled.

 

Stay Positive & Who Matters More?

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Expecting Conversation

Expecting Conversation

Garth Beyer

Instagram Photo

I see a lot of social media posts and talk to others who create online content wondering why they are not getting any engagement, why no one is commenting on their Instagram photo or replying to any Tweets. My reply is two-fold.

Lack Of Communication

Those who see the blog post, the Instagram photo, the podcast, don’t know what they are supposed to do next. Amateurs – and I don’t mean it as an insult – simply state what they want the viewer to do. Some write “leave a comment in the comments section below” at the end of their blogpost or ask “please share this video with your friends” at the end of their YouTube bit. It works!

The more experienced communicators can craft the message in a way that asks the viewer to participate, to communicate in some way without asking straightforward. The wording, the voice, the structure matters, but takes hours of practice to get right.

Writing into a void is easy, writing to interact without requesting the interaction is di-fi-cult.

Take care how you craft your next message, when you write your next blog post, when you post an Instagram photo description. Be sure an objective viewer will know what you want them to do.

Lack Of Emotion

Simply stating, a lot of created social media content is safe. It’s banal. It’s all numbered, bolded, bulleted and smells like a PowerPoint.

If you’re not getting interaction (when interaction is what you want) you’re lacking emotion in your content. The Instagram photo isn’t moving enough, the YouTube channel doesn’t make the viewer feel like anything has changed after watching, the blog post doesn’t make the reader giddy to start something new.

The question to ask before you start anything, before you tweet, before you share a photo on FB: how do you want viewers to feel?

Just as important, the question to ask before you finish anything, before you hit send, before you upload: will the viewers feel what you want them to feel?

 

Stay Positive & Voice Matters

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Social Media Pacing

Social Media Pacing

Garth Beyer

Iron Man Madison Setting A Pace

For all the readers who are runners, don’t you get frustrated when you’re jogging and another person or group of people will run for a short distance then walk for a bit and you end up at the same finish line about the same time? Only you’re exhausted, sweating, panting, about to flop over and pass out, while they merely stop for a minute to catch their breath and they’re off to Starbucks to grab a drink? Frustrating.

They do have some smarts, though. They pace themselves. They invest a little bit at a time and still reach the finish line, but with more energy to immediately head off on another race (or to their reward).

Pacers are extremely successful on social media.

To gain a great following on Twitter, you don’t need to hover over your feed for 7 hours a day. No need to interact with every single tweet that shows up and send a message to every single person who follows you the moment they do.

To gain a great following on Twitter, set out to interact with three people a day, send two tweets out and follow someone knew. It’s my 3-2-1 rule. Let any other Twitter action be natural. This led me to get 800 strong followers on Twitter. Much stronger than those with 20k followers who don’t amount for much, are mainly bots, and who don’t interact (and if they do, it’s spam).

Pace yourself in all things social media. It shows you’re in it for the long run. It shows you’re committed to caring. It shows YOU are a person, not just a Twitter account with a name and automated software attached to it.

The 3-2-1 method works with all social media platforms. Give it a try for a month and tell me you haven’t begun to enjoy social media more.

 

Stay Positive & 3-2-1 Go

Photo credit (in lieu of Iron Man this week)

How To Not Burn Yourself Out (It’s Ironic)

Garth Beyer

Overworked

Spending hours on Pinterest or skipping lunch to continue working on your business plan is exhausting. To be an expert in social media, undo, marketing, guitar, writing greeting cards, anything, it takes tons of time.

Over and over I’ve watched others burn out from spending hours upon hours on something.

I’ve seen friends spend days learning cool Twitter marketing skills just to burn out and scrap their campaign idea.  Others have exhausted themselves from writing for 4 hours straight or playing a video game for 8 hours non-stop. (Ask anyone in my family or my close friends, I’m quite notorious for burning myself out too, and it’s taken a number of years to write this post with pure confidence.)

The best way I’ve learned to not burn myself out is to do a little bit of everything. To be a social media expert, don’t spend all your hours trying to leverage Twitter. Do something with Twitter once a day and move on to doing something with all the other social media outlets. Instead of going all in, go in on all.

It’s not about knowing a little bit about everything anymore. Now it’s about learning a little bit about everything continuously over a period of time until you’re an expert on a lot of things.

This also means to go out and run in the rain, to cook yourself a damn good meal, to email a family member you haven’t spoken to in a while. Everything in moderation.

 

Stay Positive & Emphasis On The Everything

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What’s A Successful Connection On Social Media

What’s A Successful Connection On Social Media

Garth Beyer

Helicopter Leaves Complaint

Does responding to complaints, peeves and criticism establish a successful connection? Does it build brand loyalty? Does it lead to a developed friendship. Does it equate to a sure future positive interaction?

A successful connection on social media is when someone shares their dreams, their stories, their hopes and memories and jokes with you. It’s when you can engage in conversation, knowing you’ll converse again in the future. It’s when you look forward to interacting again.

A business who only responds to complaints on social media isn’t building their brand, they’re just keeping it still, stagnant, stationary.

And you know what I say about standing still.

 

Stay Positive & Suggestion Time

If I tell you how much I hate having helicopter leaves stuck to my car? How can you turn that into a successful connection? Tweet at me @thegarthbox 

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