Dude, Blog Your Business!

A few weeks ago Tom and I did an impromptu interactive social media seminar at the 3000 Club Friday networking meeting.  It went so well that we decided to get together with our friend, Christine Springer, an expert and teacher on all things  LinkedIn, and create a seminar series on social media.

The first of that series – ‘Social Media Idol‘ starts on April 20th. Jasper is the seminars’ Simon Cowell character and the event and series have been designed to be interactive – in other words, you do all the work and we stand there and give our critique!  Only kidding –  don’t worry, Jasper isn’t nearly as harsh as Simon Cowell can be!  This first seminar is based on the premise that you need to know what the job is before you choose which tools you are going to use, and covers lots of interesting subjects like ‘purple cows‘, ‘buyer personas‘,  ’inbound marketing‘ and Web 2.0! 

This first seminar provides the groundwork for the later seminars in which we look at some of the specific tools of social media, such as Blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, and Video Blogging – yes, even the video blogging will be interactive!  

Join Christine, Tom Hinchey and myself on Monday, April 20th OR Monday, April 27th from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. at Catch 22 Sports Grill in Phoenix . (Food and drink specials will be available!) The cost is $34 in advance for the initial seminar – register here or at Christine’s site  www.LinkForSuccess.com.

Adam Coomes (@adamcoomes), President of Infegy, sets up a search in Twitter for “social media whores” (or some such term for people who might be interested in his product).

Finds @BlogDudes and checks out their profile.

Adam follows BlogDudes.

I get an email telling me that Adam is following BlogDudes on Twitter

I check out Adam Coomes profile and follow the link to his website.

I check out the info on his company’s product – Social Radar

I Tweet Adam back saying ‘thanks for the follow, I would be interested in finding out more about Social Radar’.

I get an email from Brooks Morgan from the same company regarding setting up a webinar

Talk to Brooks on the phone to sort out mutually agreeable time

I participate in webinar

I am impressed and will likely become a buyer for our next client project.

Bish Bosh – done deal – sweet meat from one tweet!

And that, B2B ers, is how you increase your business using Twitter!

Its called “Inbound Marketing“.

How many small businesses have you heard say something like “I only operate locally, social media wouldn’t really benefit me”. Having been to many small business networking events I can tell you that this is an attitude you often hear. No matter how you explain to people that social media is a way to start conversations with their customers, where ever they are – which is why they go to networking groups in the first place, afterall – many don’t see social media as relevant to them.

If any require an example of a small, very localized business that is using social media to increase the number of customers coming to their shop it is Pizza Party in Santa Clara, California.  I commend you click on the link and watch the video that is on their site – a news item on their local ABC 7 News.  (Note: the fact that a local pizza shop is using social media to increase their business is worthy of local TV news!)  26 year old co-owner, Bear Silber, uses Facebook and Twitter to promote specials and offers, and even has a webcam so you can watch your pizza being made!  He also has his own iPhone app!  How cool is that?

Although his pizza shop has been around a long time, Bear makes it clear that if it is going to remain around in the future then the old methods of advertising, like Yellow Pages and door-hangers, are no longer going to cut it.  He uses the internet everyday anyway – utilizing social media is a natural move for someone like him, and it is obviously paying off – his business is increasing because of it.  It is a great example to other small businesses with a local market – social media can work for you to.  And if you are not as web savvy as Bear, then we are here to help.  All you have to do is ask.

I discovered Social Median –  - through ecademy.com (more about this in a future post), where I followed a couple of news items that had appeared there. I liked what I saw and so followed it back to the social median website – liked what I saw there and signed up immediately.

It is a great site that provides news feeds from a variety of channels that you choose or that friends in your network ‘filter’ through to you. Check out the introductory video (above) with Sarah Crisman. You can also create your own news and it has great integration tools so that you can share it with other social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

Started in February 2008, one of Social Median’s founders was inspired by their job as a White House staffer where every morning news “clips” of the stories that The White House staff needs to know for the day were presented. The site’s popularity has grown rapidly and is is certainly one to keep your eye on this year!