Why Your Social Media May Be Failing You

You own a small business. You have social media channels... at least a Facebook page. But you haven't seen any returns? Let's demystify why that might be with this handy list:

THE FIVE BIGGEST REASON SMALL BIZ SOCIAL MEDIA FAILS

1. You're not posting often enough.
If you're only making posts once every couple of weeks or once every couple of months, it's no wonder that no one is seeing your posts and taking the appropriate actions. Social media marketing is about consistency. Posts here and there and every once in a while will not get you anywhere. With such a powerful tool at your fingertips, why not take full advantage of it by creating a posting schedule? Make posts AT LEAST three times per week and stick to the schedule. CMDS.co can help you create your business' optimal posting schedule to see the most traffic to your sites and content.

2. You've turned your social media over to one of your employees.
While it's certainly convenient to have one of your employees "do" your social marketing for you - you're already paying him/her, so why not? - and you would think that a trusted employee would know enough about your business to be able to make adequate social media posts, the fact is, unless that employee also has an extra 8 hours per day on his/her hands for this task - outside of regular work - your social media is suffering, and your employee likely is, too. Social media is not a "set-it-and-forget-it" proposition. It is more than posting a flurry of posts in one day and then not again for two or three weeks. It is more than uploading a few photographs. What about PPC? Hashtagging? Vlogging? Social media marketing requires tons of information and skills from a wide variety of areas to be able to make a dent out there in the content-rich web. These skills include: graphic design, content creation, marketing skills, computer skills, writing, copy editing, research skills, and analytical skills, just to name a few... not to mention a familiarity with social media posting tools and knowledge of ROI. Hiring a dedicated social media manager in the beginning literally saves you hundreds of man hours and thousands of dollars in profits.

3. Promotional tools aren't being utilized.
There are a LOT of ways that a social marketer can promote various events and sales and store promotions. Most go unused due to one of the two reasons above. This means that hundreds of thousands of small business are literally missing the mark with their target audiences simply because those audiences never see the relevant posts.

4. You've had social media for a while and nothing's happened, so why bother?
It may seem like your forays into social media marketing so far haven't "panned out," so to speak, but it is very likely due to one of the three reason listed above. Sure, newspaper ads have worked for your business so far; why change? Newspaper readership is WAY down from previous decades. The youngest generation of consumers relies far, far more on digital content for information than any other group of people, and that number is only going to increase as technology gets wider availability and less expensive. Everybody has an Internet-enabled smart phone these days; why not use that to your advantage? Posters and signs all you need? Nope. While posters, signs, and flyers can certainly reach some markets that social media won't, the simple fact is this: social media is, without a doubt, the simplest, most efficient, and cheapest way to disseminate your business' information. Those who have adopted social marketing as the viable and important advertising tool that it is will be MILES ahead of those who don't utilize it.

5. You don't have time for it.
You didn't have time for it in the beginning when you started your social media accounts - so you turned it over to an employee - and you still don't have time for it. What now? That's why firms like CMDS.co exist! A dedicated social media and Internet marketing company can take your social media marketing to the next level. Want to see double, even triple or quadruple the sales year over year? Want to easily, quickly, and inexpensively get your message out to your potential customers? Hire an Internet marketing firm. It is the way it is going to be in the very near future. No other marketing channel is going to even come close. If you're thinking that it's a waste of money and effort, the real question you should be asking is: can I afford not to? Can you really afford to leave 75% of your potential customers in the dark about your products and/or services? Can you really afford to not collect on, potentially, 4 TIMES the profit of previous years? Can you really afford to let your competitors pass you by?

Why Social Media is Important to Your Business

These days, it isn’t enough to have a website for your business: Facebook and Twitter have become a staple in marketing, and it’s time to start capitalizing on it. If your company still doesn’t have a Twitter account or a Facebook page - or if you have accounts that aren't updated daily - it’s time to get with the program and bring yourself up to speed. Here are five reasons social media marketing should be a priority.

1. More people will buy from you.
Not surprisingly, when you stay relevant and active, your customer base is more likely to buy from you. Social media marketing keeps your company or business relevant and interesting to potential buyers, and gives you the opportunity to constantly give them incentives to buy. 

2. Learn about your customers and connect with your audience.
All good businesses know their audience, and, with social media, getting to know your audience is incredibly easy. With analytics on sites like Facebook and Pinterest, you can understand your customer behaviors. This lets you market to your audience better and understand what your customer base wants. 

3. Social media marketing is a (fairly) level playing field. 
Unlike most other traditional ad campaigns, all companies start off on pretty equal footing when it comes to social media marketing. The most successful online businesses are the ones with the most clever, attention-grabbing tactics and the most useful content. 

4. Improve customer service
Social media gives you instant access to feedback from your customers; this insight is incredibly important, as it can help everything from new product growth to customer retention. If there’s a problem with any aspect of your business, you need to know about as soon as possible. With the feedback you get in the process of social media marketing, you’ll know about issues almost as soon as they happen – and you can resolve them right away.

5. An affordable way to market your business.
A fantastic aspect about social media is that it requires very little to do; if you have a computer and internet, you can market on social media. Meaning that in terms of monetary investment, you can do a lot with just a little bit of budget. For small businesses getting started in marketing, social media is an easy and affordable option. But what if you don't have the time to make daily posts on your social media channels? That's where social and Internet marketing companies like CMDS.co come in! We work with you and your budget to create a comprehensive social media marketing plan, post across social media channels for you, and report results.

Simply put, social media marketing is part of doing business. People expect businesses to have Facebook and Twitter accounts, and they expect to be able to use them to get in touch with company representatives. If you don't have social networking profiles set up for your company, you look less legitimate. If your business isn’t already active on social networking sites, now is the time to start. Do you need a social media plan for your business? Contact CMDS.co for a free, no-obligation quote, and we can set you up with a great social media plan that works with your brand or business and your budget!

File This Under: How A Web Pro Protects You

When you design and develop web sites, it's inevitable that you're going to set up domain names; it's part of the job. MX records, FTP logins, DNS... all sound scary to the lay person, but to those of us in the industry, they're no big deal. Another thing that's no big deal to us any more: frauds and scam attempts.

This past weekend, I registered a domain for one of my newest clients, The American Legion, Post #217 of Cusick, WA. and put their site online in advance of the long weekend. This morning, I received the following note:

Attention: Important Notice , DOMAIN SERVICE NOTICE
Domain Name:  legionpost217.org

legionpost217.org
Response Requested By
9 - Sept. - 2015

PART I: REVIEW NOTICE

 As a courtesy to domain name holders, we are sending you this notification for your business Domain name search engine registration. This letter is to inform you that it's time to send in your registration.
Failure to complete your Domain name search engine registration by the expiration date may result in cancellation of this offer making it difficult for your customers to locate you on the web.
Privatization allows the consumer a choice when registering. Search engine registration includes domain name search engine submission. Do not discard, this notice is not an invoice it is a courtesy reminder to register your domain name search engine listing so your customers can locate you on the web.
This Notice for: legionpost217.org will expire at 11:59PM EST, 9 - Sept. - 2015 Act now!

Select Package:
[SCAM URL WAS HERE]

Payment by Credit/Debit Card

Select the term using the link above by 9 - Sept. - 2015
http://legionpost217.org

On the surface, this thing's got all the hallmarks of a legitimate warning letter: got my name and the domain I bought accurate, comes from a domain-based email address, uses a bunch of business speak... but a little deeper reading, and you start to see the cracks. Most of the biz-speak doesn't mean anything: "Privatization allows the consumer a choice when registering." What? The registrars ARE private companies, so what does this even mean? The threats of people not being able to find the new site... to someone else, that might be a little unnerving.

To someone less familiar with domain names and how they work and what you have to do to make them work, this could sound like a scary notice and you might write them back. For me, it's just spam, but I worry about what if some of my clients who manage their own domains got one of these letters? Would these scammers get credit/debit information? After doing a little research, I see that these people have been at this for a while, changing tactics based on blog posts and critiques like this one (for instance, not emailing from a Hotmail account), and searching for the domains in the email headershow that they're purporting to be Internet marketers... but if they do things like this, they're actually scammers.

Web design professionals know that these kinds of scams have been going on for a long time and have no bearing on how your site will perform in search engines. What does have a bearing on how people find your site?

1. Relevant text and keywords
2. Easy-to-spider site design
3. High-quality in-bound links
4. Constantly updating with new content

Want to have a professional looking out for you on the web? Give CMDS.co a call today for your free, no-obligation quote.

DON'T DO IT!!!!!

Perhaps it's just that I am getting older and crankier, but I doubt it.

I've been seeing this all over the Internet lately, and I have to say:

FOR THE LOVE OF PIXELS, STOP MAKING ME CLICK MORE THAN ONCE TO GET TO YOUR DAMNED CONTENT!

Seriously.

An example: At Pinterest, there was a post touting "186 DIY Christmas Gifts." Now, what creative, financially conscious, crafty sort of person WOULDN'T want to see that, especially with the attractive candy canes as the "come on" photo accompanying the link? (The canes looked like they'd been dipped in white chocolate and nonpareils and wrapped in a red-and-white stiped box... very appealing, visually speaking.)

Anyway, so I click the link from the Pinterest post to go directly to the blog. On the linked page, the DIY content was broken up into sections of 30 crafts, accompanied by collage-style photographs of more attractive crafts. Okay... where are the details? Where is the content?

BEHIND ANOTHER LINK!

Under the collage photos were links that said, "To learn how to do these crafts, click here."

My blood's simmering at this point, but I click. Do you know what I found?!?!?

A page EXACTLY like the last,  including collage photos and links that SUPPOSEDLY led to the instructions for the freaking crafts.

Blood is beginning to boil, but I click. Can you guess what I found?!?!?!

A list of blog posts to which I would have to click to SUPPOSEDLY get to the content.

But you can probably guess what I did instead of clicking.

I closed the damned window, because there is no way that I have time to sift through thousands of blog posts to find the content I came to the blog to find in the first place.

And this, my dear readers, is a classic example of creating content people want and then FREAKING BURYING IT beneath layers and layers and layers of "organization." Don't get me wrong: I am all for organizing your content into something you can manage on the back end... but don't forget that your readers still have to be able to FIND that content.

And, make no mistake: Most people WILL NOT click more than three times to get to your article. And right there, you have lost your audience. And they're probably not coming back.

Another reason people link content in this fashion is to get the most "bang" out of it via page impression advertising. These people aren't interested in whether users actually find their content, read it, click on ads, find the article useful, or even share it with their friends. ALL they care about is the advertiser's pay check when the total reaches $20. That's it... or, at least, that's how I see it.

Because, if these blog designers and social linkers actually gave a good-golly-gosh-darn about the readers, when they linked their content from Pinterest or Facebook or Twitter or wherever, THE LINK WOULD GO TO THE ACTUAL CONTENT... NOT another stupid page listing links to the damned content.

This "at least three clicks to content" mentality is even worse when your site is selling something. Like I said, I understand the need for back-end organization, but you have to stop thinking like you and start thinking like your customers would think. Do you think that your customers are REALLY going to want to click on "Products" and then one subcategory, and then another, and then another, and then ANOTHER before they get to the product page of the item they want to buy.

NO!!!!

No, your customers NEED your site to be simply organized so that they can spend their hard-earned purchasing dollars at your site and not your competitor's.

But, honestly, your competitor's site is probably designed with the same tectonic plate structure of subcategorized obsfucation, so it will hardly matter, anyway, when they go buy the Chinese knock-off at Wal*Mart.

Changes

You may have noticed that I have not kept up with this blog for almost a year. The reason for that is a number of changes to my personal and professional lives, some good, some bad. Another reason is that blogger.com discontinued support of blog posts posted via FTP to a person's web site. I needed some time to think through the options available to me regarding keeping this blog active and accessible. In the end, I decided to host the blog through blogger.com's service, blogspot.com, so the new url to this blog is http://www.cmdstips.blogspot.com/. (Update your bookmarks!)

But, like all things in life, changes are something that we all have to cope with, at one time or another. Just as I went through some of the most life-changing alterations to my life and world, many people across the globe deal with changes to their lives that touch their businesses, and that includes their web presences. How we react to those changes often defines us and our businesses, if not for ourselves, then for other people, including our customers.

When changes come and we have to adapt our businesses to them, it's important to get perspective on those changes and our reactions to them. Sometimes, the changes are miniscule and customers and clients never notice them. At other times, the changes are huge and require us to be aware of our customers, their wants and needs, and may even involve encouragement, praise, or criticism from our customers. We may even lose a few.

The most important thing to remember is, when changes are thrust upon us, we should look at them not as destructive, negative powers out to destroy us or our businesses, but as opportunities to expand, reach out, be positive, and make positive changes that we may never have had the opportunity to develop without the unexpected change.