Your Digital Marketing Coach with Neal Schaffer

A holistic and realistic perspective on the role social media marketing can play at your business.Key Highlights[01:08] How to Get Started in Social Media?[01:57] What Social Media Can Do for Me?[02:59] Push-Pull Approach[03:12] Ways of Driving Consumer Demand[03:31] One Thing that Most Companies Forget[04:10] How Much will this Cost?[05:09] The Beautiful Thing About Social Media[05:50] Relationships Doesn't Happen Overnight[06:53] Start Small[06:59 What Immediate Results You Will SeeNotable QuotesSo the question really becomes and I asked this of all my clients, and you need to ask yourself as well, how did you go about getting leads before social media?Can social media first of all help in that process.?And obviously, if you're doing b2b sales, social media, we all know can be a great help starting with LinkedIn to try to find decision makers. And then by sharing and creating your own content to try to influence them, and is creating sort of icebreakers to start conversations with. And once you start having ecommerce, you're now selling directly to people. And when you're selling directly to people, obviously, social media can play a very, very important role.And that's one of the pieces of advice I gave the gentleman is having a strong social media program is going to have positive influence when you negotiate with these companies, not just for your own ecommerce, but also to show that you are a respected brand that has a following.It's that sort of calculation that you need at the end. The day for each type of marketing that you do on each channel to really drive the ROI home.But if you're not going to do social media, what are you going to do, it's going to cost a lot of money. The beautiful thing about social media, it's free. The problem is once you start outsourcing that social media, it's not free anymore. I like to empower social media agencies, social media consultants to help them out. But I also like to empower my direct customers, to help them do it on themselves to look for internal talent that can do it for them.But yes, if you're trying to create relationships with people you've never met, it doesn't happen overnight. Why would social media be any different, it's going to require a constant daily presence, the presence doesn't have to take a long time, it's going to require a daily presence nevertheless, and it's going to require the creating of content, right, whether it's blogs, or photos or videos. And in the future, as your brand gets well known, you may not have to develop as much of your own content, and you can be curating the content of your fans, and sharing that with your communities. The other result is, when you do that, in combination with creating more content, you're not only going to get new website visitors from sociaLearn More:Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazonBuy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazonJoin My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmoDownload My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschafferAll My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

More companies are sharing more content in social media, but when a social media user has a conversation with your business, does your voice branding back up your content - and is it "human" enough to deepen online relationships?Key Highlights[00:52] The Notion of Having a Strong Corporate Brand[02:21] Different Forms of Content[03:30] You Need to Have A Conversation[03:52] What Should Your Blog Be[04:18] How You Engage with Your Audience Is Critical[04:46] Be Open to Anybody[05:19] The Dangerous Pitfall We Have[05:41] Back-Up Your Content With Human Side[06:49] The Best TestNotable QuotesAnd it's not just LinkedIn, but really the HR industry is talking about this notion of having a strong corporate brand, as an employer, which then will help you really recruit better talent potentially quicker. And at even a less expensive cost. But the notion of branding obviously, is popular, it's always been popular in marketing. And in social media, we hear a lot about it as well.Nevertheless is another type of content companies can put out the best looking infographics possible, and attract a lot of people to their social media profiles, and even generate new leads and attract a lot of web site traffic just through the art of relevant content and relevant social media channels.But at the end of the day, people do business with people that they like people buy products from companies that make them feel good. And there may come a point where you're providing all this content and social media. But then you need to have a conversation.What you blog about shouldn't be written in web copy like text, but more of a social voice that is representative of your company's brand and social media.But at the end of the day, it's the social media users that will determine the brand of companies, because they're only going to see limited things of what you post in social media channels, especially on a platform like Twitter, where you only have 140 characters, but even on Facebook, Google Plus what have you, companies aren't posting really long messages.It's not only your choice of words that you use, but it's also on how you engage whether you engage with people that engage with you is one thing, but how you engage with them.So you may want to be considered the thought leader in your industry, and you write the most compelling content. But when people engage with you or your company, they feel that there's a gap, because maybe you don't exhibit the same human skills that others would want to see in you. But you have to back up that content with the person with the human side with how you communicate with people in social media. It is the basic human skills. Learn More:Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazonBuy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazonJoin My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmoDownload My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschafferAll My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

A deep analysis of Social Media Examiner's 5th annual Social Media Marketing Industry Report. Learn where the social media marketing market is today and what trends are in store for its future.Key Highlights[01:48] The 2013 Social Media Marketing Industry Report[02:54] Survey Participants Demographics[03:28] The Most Interesting Takeaway on the Report[03:50] The Fifth Most Popular Question[04:20] The Third Most Popular Question[05:03] What Worries Me[06:24] Huge Potential for Social Media Profession[06:46] Other Date Points[07:26] The Benefits of Social Media[09:27] Spending Time on Social Media[10:51] The Intangible Benefits[11:57] Start Blogging[13:15] The Other Surprising StatsNotable Quotes83% of those that are engaged in social media that were questioned, actually don't know how to create a social media strategy. It's sort of worrying that, in essence, more than 80% of marketers that are engaging in social media don't really have a strategy. And because they don't have a strategy that sort of answers these other questions.But what also worries me not only the fact that only 17% of marketers feel that social media strategy creation is not a significant issue, but that 88% don't know how to engage that they don't understand the best ways to engage with your audience. 90% don't understand the tactics.I think this is indicative of perhaps the people that are doing the social media marketing on behalf of their company, may not be as experienced in all the platforms, or maybe are relatively new, even though there were a number of people knew according to the demographics and the study, but not everybody.It's really surprising that that many people would want those questions answered, it really makes you see that a lot of the social media marketing you see out there is still at a very, I would call it an introductory stage.   Why aren't 83% of marketers spending more time in the trenches engaging with others, following others reading information, experimenting, trying to figure it out?f you're trying to create an objective and determine ROI KPIs, you know, it's either increased sales or decreased expenses, or it's going to be an intangible benefit, that's going to be very hard to calculate. And everybody looks at the increased sales, and decreased expenses, I believe that social media can be equally important.As I say, for every social media strategy that I create, a blog is always a centerpiece of that strategy. So clearly the wave of the future is that companies want to do social media themselves and avoid outsourcing.That's not surprising if social media relies on engagement, social media relies on content, on strategy on analytics, and what have you. But you also need a lot of graphics, whether they're infographics or whether yoLearn More:Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazonBuy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazonJoin My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmoDownload My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschafferAll My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal Schaffer reveals the secret fact that businesses should know in order to leverage the potential that is Google Plus.Key Highlights[01:23] Why Do You Need A Presence On Google Plus?[01:57] Google Plus Changes to the User Interface[02:36] How Google Plus Is Different[03:19] Understanding the Importance of Google Plus[03:45] Google's Correlation With LinkedIn[05:37] The Community Fabrice of Google Plus[06:46] How to Attract Google UsersNotable QuotesWe've had social networks that are based on people, right social networks are people that have user profiles, that post user generated content. That's sort of the general definition of a social network. Google Plus is a social layer has a community a community has been developed of the social layer, but it is a social layer that ties together whether all of Googles products.And it all works together to give the content on women networking, more authority, which therefore means it gets better search rankings, and therefore, getting better search traffic.By establishing a Google Plus page, posting content linking your page with all your other digital properties through the about section on your Google Plus page, you are now creating as many touchpoints as possible, with as many Google users as possible, just like completely filling out your LinkedIn profile. In fact, the more influence you are in the community. The more signals that go back to Google as well, the more it's going to help you generate more quality touchpoints with more relevant Google users.Learn More:Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazonBuy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazonJoin My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmoDownload My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschafferAll My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

The importance of focus in everything you do in social media marketing: Platforms, content, and objectives. Key Highlights[00:40] Why You Need to Perform Internal R&D[01:28] FOCUS![02:00] What Focus In Social Medi Means[02:19] The Problem That Most Companies Fall Prey To[02:48] The Components of Anchor[04:12] Take Baby Steps[05:12] Take Some Withdrawals[07:04] Stay With the FocusNotable QuotesI think that anybody that is active in social media, anybody that's active in business has a need for their own internal r&d to stay ahead of their game, to network with other people, and to learn auxilary skills that can help them succeed in business and in life.The problem is, the less focus you have in social media, it truly comes down to the less you get done, right.And I like to talk about when creating a social media strategy, the need to create an anchor, okay?And there's no one right way to do it. It all comes down to not only where you want to build a community, but what you want to build a community around. So by focusing on doing one thing, well, we can ensure that we begin to implement something.If you don't implement, it's good for nothing. And instead of implementing everything, just start with one thing, take baby steps.And if you feel like you're spinning a lot of wheels, spin a lot of cycles and not getting a lot accomplished not seeing the ROI. I want you to take some withdrawals, I want you to withdrawal from maybe one platform. Or maybe if you're curating or blogging on different types of content, get back to your anchor content.And everybody that knows me, has heard me say that before, because businesses need help on all the platforms, you don't pick a platform, you align your strategy with a platform based on your objectives, right. So staying with the focus, staying crystal clear on the audience, on the platforms, the content on the objective is sort of an evergreen thing that you're always going to need to do.Learn More:Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazonBuy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazonJoin My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmoDownload My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschafferAll My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Join me as I share my own usage of and reviews of popular social media dashboards while also recommending some new ones for you to explore.Key Highlights[01:13] What the Evolution of Social Media Dashboards means[02:42] Twitter Social Media Dashboard[03:15] Another Thing I Realized About TweetDeck[03:40] Moving to Hootsuite[04:03] The Problem I Am Having with Hootsuite[04:41] Exploring Social Sprout[05:30] Sprout Social's Timesaver Functionality[06:52] Viral Heat[07:01] CW Dashboard[07:40] Mediafunnel.com[07:50] Sendible[07:58] Other Tools You Can Check OutNotable QuotesAnd therefore, it's really important not only to find the one that you feel most comfortable with, both in terms of functionality as well as user interface, but also over time, the way that your company or you use social media, the way that social media evolves.And the evolution of social media dashboards means that I believe just as you should be auditing your social media on a regular basis, it almost makes sense every few months or so to take a step back. And look what else is out there.I say, you know, if I'm going to be using a dashboard like this, the data has to be accurate. And as I mentioned that once you become more and more active in social your social stream and in terms of app mentions or direct messages, it becomes an inbox right?If you haven't tried TweetDeck, Hootsuite Sprout Social marketing suite, you owe yourself a bare minimum of checking them out during the free trials and seeing what you may be missing out on. Learn More:Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazonBuy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazonJoin My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmoDownload My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschafferAll My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Ian Clearly of Razor Social joins us for a look at the best social media marketing apps for social media management, monitoring, and automation.Key Highlights[00:30] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Ian Cleary[01:22] Defining Different Categories of Apps That Social Media Marketers Can Use[02:09] Ian's Recommended Platforms[02:55] Special Features of Nimble[03:54] Monitoring Tools[05:08] Recommended Automation Tools[06:13] The Advantages of Zapier[08:17] Connect With Ian[08:32] Final ThoughtsNotable QuotesI suppose the a lot of it puts in is in the management section. So pure management tools for managing social media. And then like you say, there's the monitoring site for monitoring activity related to social media, and so on, as we talked about, then some automation tools for automating some tasks within social media could be within management or outside of management. Basically, picking the people that you want to engage with in social whether you're trying to develop new business or new partnerships. So you want to engage the quote unquote, influencers, and really using nimble as a CRM like a Salesforce to really put down your targets your you know, where they are in the pipeline. They have a different set of rules that you can apply. So there's some of the functionality is quite similar, and others is new functionality that's not provided, but I have TT. Another advantage to Zapier is that if the automation is not available, you can build that automation so you can further develop Zapier yourself. So as a business organization, you can basically do a lot more with Zapier.It's very good to pick it up content for you. And having the content ready available for you to share really quickly. So I think the future of social media marketing management tools will be on a mobile device so people will move to using on a mobile device glider is a really interesting application where it provides really nice templates that you can use and update and send out your these nice graphical images out onto Facebook and Pinterest and Twitter and everything very easily.Don't overdo the tools, we give them section tools there, pick the ones that are most relevant to your business, and get it working for one tool properly before you start adding in additional ones.Learn More:Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazonBuy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazonJoin My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmoDownload My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschafferAll My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

A look at Empire Avenue from a social media marketing perspective. Does it make sense for your brand to have a presence there?Key Highlights[00:46] What Is Empire Avenue?[01:50] Why Empire Avenue Should Matter[02:59] An Example of Why Empire Avenue Is Interesting for Social Media Marketers[04:07] Is Your Target Audience on Empire Avenue?[04:51] Creating Missions[06:35] My Empire Avenue TickerNotable QuotesCompared to the 10s, or 20s, or hundreds of millions of users that other social networks have it's small, however, because it's based on social media activity, and it's really the only game out there based on social media, if you think about it, and therefore it attracts a lot of very, very active social media users. Empire Avenue is interesting for social media marketers, and that it gives you a chance to engage with people in a very, very different way than you can on other platforms.With Empire Avenue, if the person you want to engage with is a daily Empire Avenue user, it's guaranteed that that person is checking in every day. And in fact, compared to a Twitter or Facebook or Google Plus, or maybe comparable to a Facebook or Google Plus, they are checking in on a daily basis, often religiously, and I know from my own experience, and from others that I know that are active users that we are as well. So part of what a lot of social media marketers try to achieve is amplification of their content and Empire Avenue in addition to all this, giving you a new way to engage to create brand awareness and a community of very, very active social media users.Maybe your brand has a new campaign, and you want your shareholders to help amplify that campaign to their community, perhaps you have a new blog post that you would like to see more traffic on in hopes that more of these heavier social media active users will actually share that post it cetera, et cetera.Learn More:Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazonBuy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazonJoin My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmoDownload My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschafferAll My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Through an experimental post, you will quickly discover the differences between the major 4 platforms and discover value in Google Plus that you might not have seen before.Key Highlights[00:49] One Big Difference Between Facebook and Google Plus[02:51] Google Plus's Different Community[03:34] Some of LinkedIn's Technical Infrastructure Issues[04:17] Why I'm Excited About Google Plus[05:51] The Difference in the Atmosphere Between Google Plus and Facebook[08:33] Google Plus is All About Status Updates[08:52] The Difference in ConversationsNotable QuotesI am going to bring in my on upon airways brand ambassador trip as well as this notion of experimentation in social media to give you a fuller and deeper description of the really unique professional community that is developing on Google Plus a community very different than LinkedIn.And over the last 12 months, I think that a lot of people have felt that their LinkedIn user experience has been well, for lack of a better word to has taken a turn for the worse, whether it's the introduction of new features, getting new emails that they didn't end up subscribing for, or didn't originally subscribe for, or just the never ending spam, the never ending self promotion that we see.The addition of being able to do that within Gmail for us Google Mail is what really sets Google Plus apart. Also just firm control. If you see spam and a comment, it's very easy to report that person. You can also easily moderate communities and what have you.But the reason why I'm really excited about Google Plus as a professional networking platform that someday may surpass LinkedIn is the nature of the people and the nature of the conversation.I always talk about the need for never ending experimentation in social media because it's always changing. It just goes to show you just the different types of people that different relationships that we find the different platforms.I think there's no better way through this experiment to show you the gap in the conversation some of the people I mean, there's definitely still some overlap of people between Facebook and Google Plus, but you will see that Google Plus has just turned into a much more professional network.Learn More:Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazonBuy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazonJoin My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmoDownload My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschafferAll My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Now that you have a robust social media marketing program running in your own country, what about the rest of the world?Key Highlights[00:41] Social Media Is A Lot More Global Than You Think[01:40] Looking At Some Statistics..[03:20] Should US Be In Charge of Every Global Channel?[05:03] Sharing of Best Practices Between Regions[05:30] The Challenge for Smaller Brands[05:46] The Challenge for Bigger BrandsNotable QuotesSocial media is a lot more global than you may think. And for people, it's great the ability to really meet and communicate and learn from people around the world. But from businesses, it also has a lot of implications that I think most businesses still have not realized.So obviously, when you think globally, not every platform is going to be relevant. But Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are three platforms that are relevant. But it's not just about traditional marketers wanted to keep control. And that's been one of the challenges that they have with social media and giving up control and finding value and giving up control of certain things while maintaining control in different ways.Most companies up until now are either completely hand off you know let each region do it themselves or they are very much want to keep in control like traditional marketing and I don't have enough experience with enough Global Fortune five hundreds to be able to give you a concise answer.There's a lot of issues, it may not be important for smaller brands, but obviously smaller brands have the ability to reach out to the entire world.  And if they've been limited to business only in their native country, they now have the ability to really create a global awareness for the product.Learn More:Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazonBuy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazonJoin My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmoDownload My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschafferAll My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com