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How to Use # Hashtags

Although hashtags are seen on nearly every social media channel and promoted on just about every TV show, they still confound many small business owners. Marketers everywhere are using them to amplify their brand awareness, but how can they benefit your small business?

Hashtag Basics

According to Wikipedia, “a hashtag is a word or an unspaced phrase prefixed with the hash character, #, to form a label.”

Hashtags help people identify what specific pieces of online content are about. By categorizing content, hashtags make it easier for readers to search for and find social media posts focused on the topics they have an interest in.

Where To Use Hashtags

Most major social media platforms give people the ability to search using hashtags to find relevant posts. They include:
• Twitter (the network that introduced us to hashtags)
• Facebook
• Pinterest
• Google Plus
• Instagram
• YouTube

When you click on a hashtag on these networks, you’re taken to a list of posts that have used that hashtag and presumably contain content related to the topic.

How can you use hashtags to drive more traffic to your social media posts? Here are a few ideas:

  • Include hashtags associated with keywords related to your industry, products, and services (for example: #jewelry or #lawncare) in your posts. First search on the social media platform to make sure you’ve selected a hashtag others are using to categorize posts. If you use a hashtag no one else is using, it won’t help you.
  • Use business and location hashtags together to help people find you. For example: #PortlandME #restaurants.
  • Create a hashtag for a special event you’re hosting, a marketing campaign, or your brand. But be careful when using hashtags for branding and promotional purposes. Look on Hashtags.org or Twubs.com and search on social networks and on search engines (such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo) to see if a hashtag might already be in use by another company. Using a hashtag already associated with another brand will potentially confuse people, and you might find yourself in legal hot water. As legal protections for hashtags representing brands are a mounting concern, consider consulting an attorney who’s knowledgeable about social media before creating and using a hashtag to promote your business or event.

A Few Other Hashtag Tips

When using hashtags in your social media posts, keep these best practices in mind:

  • Don’t use too many hashtags at once. One or two is best. Three is OK, but don’t go beyond that. More makes posts look cluttered—and a bit desperate for attention.
  • Place hashtags at the end of your posts rather than mixed into the main message. Posts with hashtags in the middle of their sentences are harder to read because the flow of words is interrupted with the #.
  • Don’t use hashtags that aren’t relevant to the content in your post. You’ll disappoint—and maybe even anger readers—if you use a popular hashtag to draw attention to a post that has nothing to do with the topic.

#Finalthought

It may take some time and trial and error to learn to use hashtags effectively, but they’re worth the effort because they can help you expand awareness of your small business and draw more of your target audience to you.

3 Tips to Boost Your Linked In Profile

With over 300 million users, it’s no secret that LinkedIn is one of the most effective online social networking platforms around. But could you be missing out by not paying attention to some simple details? Even if you don’t have a lot of time to devote to interacting on LinkedIn, tending to some basic “housekeeping” on the platform can help boost your credibility and make people more inclined to connect with you.

  1. Put a face to your name. Use a professional-looking headshot. Other professionals are more likely to connect with you if you’ve taken the few minutes it requires to replace that generic shadowy silhouette with your photo. A profile with a photo is 11 times more likely to be viewed than one without. It’s a rookie mistake not to have a photo. Likewise, steer clear of using profile pictures like couple’s photos, glamour shots, and anything excessively casual (e.g. wearing a t-shirt and baseball cap while proudly holding up a 4-foot sailfish).Need help?  Check out the pointers for choosing the best LinkedIn profile photo in this SlideShare from SUCCEED Powered by Staples.
  1. Use first-person voice. Yes, LinkedIn is a professional platform, but that doesn’t mean you need to sound overly formal. Your profile is YOU sharing your professional experience. Avoid sounding aloof by writing it in third person. Which of the samples below sounds more open and engaging?  For over fifteen years, Joe Smith has worked with clients, helping them increase sales and improve productivity. He is dedicated to educating and empowering business professionals with game-changing knowledge, tools, and resources.orFor over fifteen years, I have worked with clients, helping them increase sales and improve productivity. I’m dedicated to educating and empowering business professionals with game-changing knowledge, tools, and resources.Your LinkedIn profile’s purpose is for you to connect one-to-one with other professionals. You’ll risk appearing disconnected if your profile reads like you didn’t write it yourself.
  1. Include your contact info. Nothing is more frustrating than looking up a public LinkedIn profile in search of a phone number or an email address and discovering the person hasn’t included those things. Go to your profile RIGHT NOW and add that info if it’s not already there. Remember, it’s not just your first-level contacts who might seek someone with your credentials and expertise. Make it as easy as possible for any prospective clients to find and contact you.

While none of the above action items take a lot of time or effort to tackle, they can make a big difference in how others perceive you on LinkedIn. They’ll make you more approachable and accessible to other professionals, so don’t wait if your profile needs those basic updates. And remember, SCORE mentors are here to provide feedback and advice as you hone your presence on LinkedIn and your other social media platforms.
In fact, we’re here to help you with all aspects of starting and running a business. Learn more about SCORE’s FREE mentoring, affordable workshops, and other resources.

Build Your Brand through Face-to-Face and Online Networking

Networking – face-to-face and online – is essential for not only building awareness of and trust in your brand, but also in you as a small business owner. According to a survey referenced on the Business Networking by Dr. Ivan Misner blog, professionals who said they spend a little over six hours a week networking gained nearly 47 percent of their business via networking activities and referrals. Wow!

The not-so-secret benefits of what networking can do for you:

• Raise awareness of your business and what you do.

• Build credibility.

• Let people get to know the face behind your brand. (Remember, people do business with people.)

• Extend your reach and can lead to referrals. (Expand the possibility of you knowing someone who knows someone who can use your services.)

Combining face-to-face and online networking optimizes business development efforts.
Your involvement in networking in person and your online networking support and reinforce each other. When your contacts cross over from one realm to the other, you build multidimensional relationships. That gives you more options for interacting – and it makes it easier to stay top of mind with prospective clients and existing customers.

Networking opportunities to consider as a small business owner:

Face-to-face networking groups
Availability of networking groups can vary depending on where you live and your specific industry. Here are a few types of networking groups to consider:

• Chambers of commerce
• Industry and trade associations
• Small local networking groups
• Community service organizations (like Rotary clubs, Lions Club, etc.)

Online networking opportunities

As you know, there’s no shortage of social media networks available to businesses. Which networks will give you the most return on your investments of time and effort depends on a number of factors, including your type of business. Most likely, you’re already using one or more of these platforms:

• LinkedIn (the one network we encourage every professional to consider)

• Facebook

• Twitter

• Pinterest

• Google Plus

• Instagram

• SnapChat

• YouTube

• Vine

• Foursquare

When networking inperson or online, you’ll want to get the most from the time and energy you spend. Here are a few tips for making the most of your networking efforts:

Think of networking as a process, not as an event.
Networking is about building relationships. You can’t do that by attending one or two meetings or mixers. Only through consistency of involvement will you reap the rewards that networking offers. This is true of both face-to-face and online networking.

Cross-connect when possible.
Whenever possible, connect with face-to-face networking connections via social media. Vice versa, if you have an opportunity to have coffee with a social media contact, take it! Cross-connecting will give you more opportunities to stay top of mind with contacts.

Choose platforms and organizations carefully.
Research which will provide the most opportunities for you to interact with your target market. Also, consider how much time you have available for networking and when you’re available to network. Not all online social networks demand the same amount of time and attention. Some networking groups require substantial time commitment and attendance at meetings. Before joining, find out if they hold their functions primarily during the work day or in the evenings. Which work best with your schedule?

Also, find out how much of a financial investment you’ll need to make. Some networking organizations require membership fees which then enable you to attend certain events “for free” as a member, but you might also have to pay for some events and activities. Make sure a group is within your budget so you can actively participate.

Be genuine – and genuinely interested.
People can detect a fake. Be real; be you when networking. Also, make your interactions about them not you in the beginning. Make it a point to ask questions and show an interest in other people before you jump in to share about yourself. It builds goodwill and makes a great first impression.

Follow up.
After meeting face to face, connect on social media (particularly LinkedIn) or send a friendly email. By doing so, you can build on that one-time meeting and open the door to communicating on an ongoing basis.

While successful networking comes easier to some business owners than others, it’s rare – if not impossible – to build a brand without it as part of a business’s strategy. If you’re not sure which networking groups, platforms, and activities might work best for your business, reach out to a SCORE mentor for guidance. We’re here to help!

Mobile Apps: Small Business Owners, Don’t Leave the Office Without Them!

Managing time – and finding enough of it – stands as one of the biggest challenges small business owners face. With the demands of running all aspects of your business, it takes more than just time to accomplish all that you need to do; it also takes tools. Mobile apps can be a life saver for on-the-go entrepreneurs. There’s a plethora of free apps available for both Android and iOS mobile devices to help you take care of business no matter where you are. Best of all, you can turn what might otherwise be wasted time (waiting for a client or standing in line at the local deli) into productive time by having some key apps on hand.

Consider these mobile apps for your business:

Social Media Management Apps
No matter which social networks use in your marketing efforts, there are mobile apps for them. Facebook Pages Manager, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, Pinterest, and Instagram…all have free apps you can download to your smartphone or tablet. Capabilities vary from app to app, but they all give you the ability to post updates to your social accounts and monitor and interact with the activity of others in your newsfeed.

You might also want to check out Hootsuite and Buffer. Both are social media management tools that enable you to not only post to social networks in real time, but to also schedule future posts.

Blogging Apps
Both WordPress and Blogger enable you to create new blog posts, edit existing posts, upload images to your blog, manage comments, and publish posts directly from your mobile device. From crafting new posts to putting the finish touches on drafts, you can tend to your blog from anywhere.

Note-taking Apps
For capturing ideas and making to do lists, check out Evernote or Microsoft OneNote. Both enable you to create text notes, audio notes, and check lists that you can tag and organize into notebooks for easy reference and retrieval. From within the apps, you can take photos of documents, receipts, post-it notes, etc. to store them electronically and eliminate the clutter of paper in your office.

The beauty of all these apps is that they sync across all the devices you access them from so you can effortlessly and conveniently stay on top of things no matter where you are. It’s a very good reason not to leave the office without them!

What mobile apps have helped you manage your business on the go?

Evaluate Your Competition

You are ready to launch your business in a growing niche market. Out of the blue a friend sends you a link to a similar new product or service.  After your initial shock, head over and evaluate the competition. Move into discovery mode and look under the hood of the competitor’s engine.  That knowledge may add a creative spark to your thinking.  Or it serves to confirm that you’re bringing an authentic solution for a customer want or need at precisely the right time.

Take a short drive  and see what makes them tick.  Scope out their website and metatags.  Appraise how they tell their story. Are they solving the pain point in a novel way?  If you compete in a new market segment with low barriers to entry, understand the incremental features and benefits promised.  How does that compare to the “must have” features you learned in your customer discovery?  Tap into their social networks and get a feel for their buzz.

Read more

Five Tools No Business Owner Should Go Without

As a business owner, you’re doing all you can to reduce your costs; after all, this is one of the greatest ways to keep more money in your pocket. Whether you run your business from home or a co-working location, technology can help save you time and money.  Here are five social marketing tools to add to your arsenal.

Email Marketing

MailChimp makes it easy to create content with a catchy, streamlined email formatting platform to reach the masses. Allowing business owners to target specific customer lists, you can target your email blasts to those potential customers who aren’t faithful to your brand – yet. MailChimp is a great free option for business with less than 2,000 email subscribers who send less than 12,000 total emails each month. Another great option is Constant Contact, which “wrote the book on Engagement Marketing.” Offering a combination of free, personalized coaching and a unique set of online marketing tools, Constant Contact helps business from start-ups to well-established companies engage with their customers.

Social Media Management

As you’re probably well aware, being active on social media is a great way to get the word out about your company, but if not done properly, your social networking can actually backfire on you. Unfortunately, there are a lot of business owners out there who believe they simply don’t have the time to be as active on Facebook and Twitter to make social media worth their while. Gremln is one tool that makes posting to all of your social media accounts a breeze. Allowing users to schedule posts in advance, you can sit down and get your weeks’ worth of tweets and Facebook posts created, and allow Gremln to take over and post on your behalf at the times you schedule the posts to go live. HootSuite, another popular option, has built a following of over 7 million users through the ability to easily manage multiple social media campaigns from one platform. Ultimately, it will come down to the ease-of-use for either, but Gremln and HootSuite will take your social media strategies to the next level.

Credit Card Reader

No matter the size of your company, unless you have a retail store, there really is no need for your business to deal with cash transactions. Many small business owners have transitioned toward mobile credit card readers to accept payments when they’re meeting customers face-to-face, while implementing an E-commerce system on their websites to process credit card transactions. With Intuit GoPayment, you can choose between paying a monthly fee or a convenience pay-as-you-go pricing structure that charges you a percentage for each sale you make, helping keep more of your money within the company. Square is another great tool allowing users to accept credit cards on the go. Whether you use an Android or iOS smartphone, just plug the Square into your headphone jack and you’re ready to swipe cards and get paid for your products and services.

Tax & Accounting Software

One of the least favorite tasks many business owners are left with is dealing with corporate taxes. While it’s extremely tempting to hire a CPA to do your company’s taxes, that’s an expense you don’t need to pay for. Quicken provides business owners with more than a simple tax return, allowing users to maximize deductions while breaking down your taxes line-by-line. Quicken also provides users with the ability to manage every single business expense, from purchasing new office equipment to mileage reimbursements. Sage 50 is another accounting software package many business owners have already utilized. Built to handle all of your accounting needs, Sage 50 allows users to view multiple files simultaneously, manage cash flow, payments and collections, and reduce errors while deterring fraud thanks to a screen-level security system included with the software.

Temporary Assistance

Sometimes we need additional help, but due to monetary restraints, we aren’t able to hire the full-or part-time help we need. That’s where Odesk comes in; providing you the perfect way to connect with freelancers for any project you need help wrapping up. By posting your job or task for free, Odesk connects business owners with thousands of qualified freelancers from around the globe. However, if you need help with less specialized tasks, TextBroker is another great tool to take advantage of. Requiring its authors to go through an extensive background process, TextBroker allows business owners to request articles to be written for online content, and also allows you to include SEO options to target specific keywords. With five different quality levels of writing to choose from, you can get the help you need while remaining within budget.

Bradley Derringer is a blogger for TechBreach, giving you the latest on all things tech.

Build Brand Evangelists

You launched your business and sales are starting to ignite.  It’s time to discover your brand evangelists.  These are your customer champions!  Motivated users who are passionate about your product or service.  Initiate these 5 steps to capture their memorable user experience:

Reach out to 2 new customers each day. Pick up the phone and make that call. Start by thanking them for their business. Show some love, because customer shelled out hard earned money to buy your product.  Ask what they liked best about your product.  Before customers buy from you they have to KNOW you.  Followed by LIKE and finally TRUST.  If you have fostered trust,  you have made a sale. Discover what led them to your product.

Gather meaningful feedback.  Identify precisely how your product has improved their life in big or small ways. Did you save them time, money, or provide a new experience that was a WOW? Tease those pearls of information from their lips to your ears.  How did they find you?  That is a critical insight to understand. If someone else spread the word you now have another person to call and thank.

Ask for any improvements.  This may seem like a risk, but maybe there is a tweak or two or three that you may have not considered important when you launched.  That  feedback is critical as you improve your product or service further down the line.  Passionate customers usually have a lot to share.  Start by asking what would make it better.  Listen, learn and adapt.

Ask for a testimonial.  When a customer is genuinely excited about your product, it is time to spread the word.  A word of mouth recommendation is the single best marketing gift you can receive.  Recommendations lead to customer engagement, which reinforces the positive image of your business.  More new leads, more new customers, and more referrals.  All because you published trusted testimonials on your website, and/or on your blog.  Social proof delivers the credibility,  and starts the KNOW, LIKE, TRUST cycle all over again.

Offer a small token of appreciation.  Thank your customer for their time and their endorsement. Offer up a small measure of happiness, a coupon towards a discount on a future purchase for example.  It’s not the monetary value, it’s the thought that counts.

Continue to engage with your evangelists.  That’s a how small business wins in a socially connected universe.

Market Your Business Online

Begin the New Year by taking a fresh look at your business marketing strategy – how are you positioned  with So Lo Mo?   This cool buzzword stands for  Social Local Mobile, and these 3 marketing trends require your immediate attention.  2013 is the year to engage your brand or service with an interested audience, for free.

Do you have a social media presence for your business?  If not, why not? Social media simplifies a one-to one relationship with your customers.  Facebook is a place to start for your social media engagement.   Build your brand awareness and be part of a conversation.  It is easy to set up, free to use  and customers can locate your business should you lack a website.

If you still don’t have a website, now is the time to launch one and be found.  Head over to wordpress.com and set up a website or a blog for free.  Do you already own your domain name? It costs $13.00 to launch your website with your custom domain name and hosting on wordpress.com is free.  Talk about a no-brainer solution!

Choose a  website theme with a responsive design, which means it adapts to the screen resolution of the device its being viewed on.  Responsive design delivers a great viewing experience whether a tablet, or a smart phone or a PC. There are 59 responsive themes to choose from on wordpress.com. Some are free and some are premium (paid) themes.   Pick one you like (I like Watson from The Theme Foundry) and get started.  In a mobile world your website appearance is critical.  Enable your customers to find you in a flash!

You get the smart device implications, right?   Over 119 million of us are using a smart phone.

There were 17.5 million new smart device activations on December 25th, last December 25th 6.8 million.

Check out smart phone facts:  96% of smart phone users have researched a business or product on their phone;  94% have searched for local information; 70% called local businesses after searching.

Be found or be gone because smart phone users move on if they can’t find an address or phone number.  We all have the attention span of a gnat when we are searching for a solution.    Sprint over to getlisted.org and make sure your business information is available and current.  The search bots will be crawling all over your freshly updated contact details.

Don’t be left out of the conversation.  Get your message right with Social Local and Mobile.  Your customers will thank you with their business. And these 3 tips won’t break your budget.  Do it now!