Here are a few suggestions when creating a Facebook profile for professional business networking:

• Choose your Friends wisely. Remember your Friends can see information about your other Friends in your Profile.
• If you decide to use Facebook for professional networking, take a close look at your Profile and decide what you want business contacts or prospective employers to see – and what you don’t.
• Create a simple profile (or clean up with your existing one) with minimal graphics and widgets.
• Limit the photos you post.
• Watch your tone. It’s important to keep a measured and polite tone while on social networks. This is important especially on mainstream social networking sites, such as facebook. Post things you’d feel comfortable saying in person, and avoid inside jokes that only a few of your contacts would understand.
• Keep in mind, within most social networks; you can set up private groups where those kinds of exchanges will not only be more appropriate. Always keep in mind: “It’s better to be clear than clever.” “Don’t expect people to get it. Be very explicit.”
• Sarcastic humor and anger can be dangerous in social network postings, just as they are in e-mail messages. Always think twice before sharing!
• Post content relevant to your job search or career.
• Use Facebook email to build relationships with your Friends.
• Daily Posts. Post content that highlights your personal interests and your professional areas of expertise. As a real estate agent, you may want to post tips on moving, local points of interest, tips on selecting an agent, etc. Posting personal picture slideshows is fine — again, within reason. You clearly want to avoid the pitfall of displaying shots of wild revelry. But for all the agony about what’s acceptable and what’s not, remember that offering contacts a decent glimpse into what makes you can have business benefits. It strengthens relationships. It really helps establish connections. People like to do business with people they know.
• It is OK to de-friend someone. Be selective when you are asked to be someone’s friend. Don’t feel that you have to accept every friend request that comes to you. You may also want to “clean up” your friends list from time to time. While many trivial actions do prompt Facebook to post an alert to all your friends – such as, adding a photo, or changing your relationship status.

We’ll keep you posted with our suggestions on maintaining a professional Facebook profile. But until then, make sure you have fun with the website! It should be an enjoyable experience socializing. Just remember what happens on Facebook stays on Facebook. Enjoy!

My Best,
Christina Gurtowsky
Media Consultant
Market Insights, LLC.

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What’s a blog?
You are reading a blog….A blog is a daily pulpit. A political soapbox, collaborative space, breaking-news outlet. Your memos to the world: What do you think people need to know about you, or your business?
In simple terms, a blog is a web site you make a daily, or weekly commitment to updating. Your new entries will show up at the top so that your readers can read what’s new. From there, they comment on it or link to it or email you.

A blog is whatever YOU want it to be. When it comes to business blogging, there are rules of etiquette you probably want to follow. But in more general terms of a ‘blog’- there are literally MILLIONS of types… in all shapes… sizes… colors… and there are no real rules.

Why blog for your business?
It’s a form of marketing that companies crave, and money alone can’t buy. Business blogs attract search engines, showcase your company’s personality, and encourage customer participation. Readers may start to read your blog every day and pass the word around that your blog is great resource for learning about (fill in the blank). The goal of blogging is to create a trust factor with your readers by offering them insightful and helpful information. After trust is achieved, readers may venture to other parts of your website and, eventually, they may buy something from your business.

And the benefits of blogging don’t stop there. Since fresh and relevant content is a metric that search engine crawlers look for, your search engine rankings are also more likely to improve with every daily blog posts.

A good blogger doesn’t turn out over night.
Every individual has to walk his own path and learn the ropes on his own. I think the best way to get ‘good’ at blogging is repetition and constant learning. “Practice makes perfect,” this way you can easily adopt the habit of blogging. You can also read other’s blogs, and see how they write. Make a commitment to blog! Commit to blogging every Tuesday and Thursday morning after your weekly sales meeting.
Make it fun! Throw a little satire into your blog entries. That way, it’ll be more enjoyable for you to write, and others to read.

All companies, large or small, should have a blog on their website. If you own a business, then you are very passionate about what you do or sell, right? Okay… so blog about it! It’s that easy!

My Best,
Christina Gurtowsky
Media Consultant
Market Insights, LLC

-What are competitors saying about your product and company?
-What do customers and prospects have to say about your product and company?
-What your competitor’s customers are saying about their own product?

If you want to rise above your competition and receive rad reviews from your customers, it’s essential you place customer satisfaction at the top of your list of priorities! No one wants to buy from a company with unhappy customers. The best way to build brand awareness is through excellent reviews and happy current customers; it’s critical to study and be able to identify what exactly your customers are saying.
When building brand awareness, it’s imperative one NEVER ignore a customer complaints. If there are issues, it’s critical they be recognized and addressed head on, immediately.

Moving forward, here are some positive ways of handling a negative situation:

Establish an immediate way of communication channel with the customer where the comment originated. Social media is not the forum to work through specific customer issues. Use this as an opportunity to express your concerns and encourage the customer to communicate off line. Customers want to be heard; so make sure you making it clear that as a company you are indeed listening.

Many top notch, successful companies have appointed individuals or an entire department to specifically monitor Twitter for the faintest mention of customer dissatisfaction, so that these concerns are addressed immediately. Many companies would rather take extreme measures to ensure customer satisfaction, than run the risk of degradation of our brand and hesitation in purchase intent.

My Best,
Christina Gurtowsky, Sales Coordinator
Market Insights, LLC

E-mailing has also become a successful networking tool. It makes regular contact easy, without being as intrusive and pushy as telephone calls. Through means of email, you are able to exchange items of mutual interest, such as discussion of news items, photos, and websites. This may be a casual means of follow up after you meet at a business event.

Online networking has the multiplying viral effect, which sets it apart from the Internet. Beyond the value of Twitter and Facebook for social networking, online business networking communities such as Plaxo and Linkedin have become essential tools. After each networking event are you taking business cards you collected and seeing if these folks are on your social radar. If not, ask to become friends on-line!

Here are some dos and don’ts to help personal networking effectiveness:
-Do have plenty of business cards to hand out, and help people to remember you beyond just your business card.
-Don’t get stuck with someone who has nothing to offer. (“Excuse me, I see someone…”)
-Don’t fall into the rut of sticking with someone you know. Circulate to find new people and new ideas.
-Don’t ask for favors without offering something in return.
-Do follow-up quickly, and stay in touch to develop the contact. Follow up through adding them to your facebook, twitter, and linkedin.
-Do build relationship bridges, offering information of mutual interest to fuel the friendship.

Remember networking is by far one of the most rewarding activities in a professional can engage in. And we only get better with practice! So practice everyday becoming a regular networker, and make sure to count your connections. So often, relationships are critical to success. And it’s now a case of shared success – with what you can give being as important as what you get out of your networking success and use all the tools available to get networked where ever you are!

Our Best,
Kathy Kane & Christina Gurtowsky
Market Insights, LLC

You will find you will be more successful in selling more of yourself and product through Social Media Networking when you utilize this innovative sales process. As we know, Social Media is a part of the much larger Spectrum of Media tools. This area of self promotion is an area where you must be very cautious if your primary goal of engaging is to sell more. Think of it more like any other giant audience where you are gathering with many people for something in common; As opposed to thinking of it as a giant audience to throw your marketing message (translated sales pitch) out into the crowd.

The Social Media area of the New Media is NOT a selling platform; It’s a LISTENING Platform

Grow your network. Give generously and people will follow you; and hopefully back to your store! Use it to engage people. Some may become fans, while others may even become friends.
The New Media includes a great variety of different tools to market and communicate your message.

Blogs (your community involvement),
Business websites (your store), and customer search capabilities are the essentials to providing a platform to share your story, and discuss the benefits of your product or service. Think of these social media sites as the common areas of the mall– where people gather outside of the business stores.

Another form of social communication can be found through, Twitter. Twitter is comparable to conversations in the common area among stores in the mall. You can display your product in the store front window. Window displays offer the mall shoppers a quick preview of the store, and invite them to come inside your store. This gives the client the choice whether or not to enter your store, but if you “get in their face” out in the common area, you might cause more harm to your brand and actually scare away a potential customer. So use discretion with these tactics, and DO NOT you blurt out your message. Put long thought into it first.

Another use tool is Facebook. A facebook profile page is like your home; whereas a facebook page is more like your blog.

It may help to compare the old sales process to a new one. Sales Reps used to manage the process, whereas today, the customer is in control. You can use either as your sales strategy, but sell appropriately with a sensible marketing strategy.

Here is an Example for Further Understanding:
The 7 Steps of the old sales process Vs. The 7 Steps of the new sales process:
a href=”http://view.picapp.com/default.aspx?term=selling&iid=289975″ target=”_blank”>
Old Sales Process vs. New Sales Process
1. Sales Rep Gets Leads vs. Customers perform online search for wants and needs.
2. Sales Rep Qualifies Leads vs. Customers research their favorite choices from what they found in their initial search.
3. Sales Rep Makes Appointments vs. Customers follow and watch their favorite vendors visibly or silently.
4. Sales Rep Presents Product/Service vs. Customers decide what they want before first contact (maybe even trial or test an offering).
5. Sales Rep Questions and Handles Objections vs. Customer invites vendor to take their order.
6. Sales Rep Closes the Sale vs. Customer becomes a fan through a satisfactory experience.
7. Sales Rep Moves on to next Lead vs. Customer posts public review of his/her experience with the vendor, good or bad.

This is why you cannot ignore the New Media and where Social Media fits into the bigger picture. With a more in depth understanding of the new sales process, today we are better educated to redistribute our time towards more marketing in the New Media, and less pushy towards our selling activity in the Social Media.

It’s always been about building relationships first. Social Media can help you attract new relationships that may lead to new customers; but understand that selling happens at another place and a different time.

Contributed by Christina Gurtowsky, Sales Coordinator & Guest Blogger
Market Insights, LLC

And just when we think we are finally up to speed with the latest trends, and involved in all the latest techniques of self promotion; we come across a term coined, “geotagging.”No, this isn’t a new show on National Geographic, or a lesson you fell asleep during in geography class. Put simply, “geotagging” is a process of attaching geographical data (longitude and latitude) to photographs, videos, websites, status updates and even emails.

This concept may be a lot to take in at first, but once you begin to understand it’s usage and benefits, it really can be a great marketing tool for you and your local business.

“Geotagging” is made possible by adding geographical identification metadata to various media, as a form of geospatial metadata. This data usually consists of latitude and longitude coordinates, though they can also include altitude, bearing, distance, accuracy data, and place names.

It originally started off as a feature, but entrepreneurs such as Naveen Selvadurai and Dennis Crawley predicted that this technology would grow into a larger phenomenon. With this in mind, Selvadurai and Crawley created “foursquare,” with foundations based solely on “geotagging.”

So what is Foursquare?
“Foursquare” is a social network fused with a game that just about anybody in the world can participate in. It allows people to “check in” to any location they visit. In order to play, all you need is a cell phone that can browse the internet (and a decent signal!).

Players are rewarded for their continued check-ins via a point scheme by earning status ranks, and acquiring badges. Foursquare will give the “local” badge to users who check into the same venue more than three times in one week. If that same person checks into a location more than anyone else, they will become “Mayor.”

Foursquare is great for drawing attention to, and around your brand. It creates an additional avenue for you to showcase offers to a more diverse audience through viral sharing. It also invites people to visit your business.

This latest trend is growing at a steady rate with a user base of around 150,000 people and is gaining momentum with new deals and partnerships…

So whether you own a retail store, restaurant, or coffee shop; Foursquare and Geotagging will prove as ideal marketing tools for your local business. Along with the ingredients of engagement, compulsion and loyalty, among others, you can successfully guide users into your desired sales funnel. According to Technology Talks, in 2009, Zynga earned $145 million in less than 6 months as a result of their flagship Facebook game, Farmville.

With the last figure in mind, what are your thoughts on this latest marketing tool? Do you think there’s potential for your business to offer perks to customers through Foursquare? If anything, I will keep you informed on the next latest trend.

My Best,
Kathy Kane
Market Insights, LLC

How was your interaction to the content you posted? Not actively participating in social marketing is like being a wallflower at a party. If no one will know you’re there, what’s the point in even going? Has anyone conversed with your business?

How often did you communicate? Like other types of marketing, frequency is important in reinforcing your message and getting people to remember you. Just as you would not place an ad in a magazine for just one issue, you must also contribute to your social marketing presence on a regular basis. For many business owners, this can be anywhere from 15-60 minutes per day. Did you do your do diligence?

Do you know your audience? Who are your fans? Have you taken time to get to know them and understand why they may have joined your page? Did they join for a contest or do they have business that may result in business for you?

Do you coordinate with conventional marketing? Social marketing should not be treated as a stand alone program. To be effective it should be combined with traditional marketing. For example, if you send out a flyer by mail, mention that people can get notice of additional promotions by following you on Twitter. Or use Facebook to post photos of special events you were involved in.

Count the coupons. Or whatever other promotion you did on social media. What were the exact numbers you can attribute to your bottom line because of social on-line media.? I looked at my business numbers last year and it accounted for 37% of my business.

The value of tracking link posts. Say you post ten links with no results on PageRank, placement or anything else; you may as well have thrown them into the wide unknown. However, five people read your links and re-post (or link back) to those ten posts, and you now have fifty (free!) back links (not reciprocal!) leading to your site. Five other people find those re-posts and re-post again – 250 back links, plus the original 50, adds up to a whopping 300 links leading back to your site. All those links will normally be posted on sites relevant to your site, which gives your site authority, which raises your PageRank.

The return. Even with conventional marketing, many business people are guilty of thinking they can expect a certain return for every dollar spent. If they don’t see that return in a specific period of time, they deem the campaign a failure. Social marketing can be even more abstract. In many cases, your posts or submissions will not be focused on generating sales, but instead providing information. As such, readers would be less likely to contact you looking to spend money. However if you choose to create a social campaign focused on driving sales, you may find yourself ignored as many people get turned off of sales pitches made through social media sites.

Track results through other sources. HowSociable is a great way to find out how visible your brand is on the social web.- http://www.howsociable.com/. Or with Xinureturns, get specific information regarding page rankings, back links, index pages and more SEO Tracking results. http://xinureturns.com/ .

Social marketing is less about what you can get and more about what you can give. More information, more posts, more contacts, more referrals – all of these can lead to an increase in business over time. Like a farmer planting seeds, if you plant enough of them, invest the effort, and be patient, eventually you will bear the fruits of success. All in all, social media is like MLM (multi-level marketing). So – plan your social media, post your social media, track your social media and the biggest networks win.

My Best,
Kathy Kane
Market Insights, LLC

When creating your elevator speech, think about how you currently introduce yourself in person. Do you just talk about yourself or do you ask questions? Think long and hard and write down what specific things you do to help your clients. Think long and hard about what message you want to portray. Think about the types of people that you enjoy speaking with, how do they start the conversation? Think about the people you do not find interesting. Remember as in any marketing piece, anyone can have “quality item”, “great service” and wonderful pricing”, but what are you going to say that will “stick, “stand out” and be “memorable”? You want to intrigue the person enough to want to talk with you more.

For a 3 minute elevator speech you will want a bit more structure. You will still want to grab their attention in the first 30 seconds. Maybe start off with current events, a joke, or something personal, next the body of the speech should include tips or tidbits and a conclusion wraps up the conversation with a close or call to action, web site, phone # ect.

I found this video interesting for knowing what NOT to say in an elevator speech. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrG6tAmnxws and here is what myself and Market Insights are all about http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_3JWx1H7FM

My Best,
Kathy Kane
Market Insights, LLC

3. Set up your free accounts with your company name. Ie: www.twitter.com/abcbiz

4. Make a plan! The easiest way I have found for clients is to plan out 30 days of social posts. Google your business, add video, blog links, photos, web page links to relevant information, make sure to vary it in these 5 sections: Promotions, Your industry news, Your business trivia, Questions Relevant to Business & Industry Related Tips. This should take no more than an hour.

5. Schedule 10-15 minutes per business, per day to copy and paste your daily posts in your selected media and to follow up on conversations, add fans/followers ect.

6. Ask others to help promote your business. Join groups dedicated to promoting each members on line programs.

Make it part of your daily routine and it just comes naturally after a while!

My Best,
Kathy Kane
Market Insights, LLC

DO YOUR HOMEWORK:
Before recording your elevator speech for video…Consider your background, your dress, your logo, and your props.

The 3 items below should take no more than 15 minutes to write & 15 minutes to record.
1. Your catch statement. Who are you, where do you work, what do you do. (In 2 sentences or less)
2. Your specialties and what makes you different from the competition. (In 3 sentences or less)
3. Your jingle, your catch phrase, web site address or your tagline to end the clip. (remember no copyrighted songs)

What do you do with it? You have several options to choose for a very reasonable video production.
1. Post it on You Tube raw.
2. Do it yourself-upload your clips to Microsoft Movie maker or Muvee or other software to add transitions, words to the clip and music.
3. Use an amateur videographer. A student or a budding entrepreneur to make your video more interesting.
4. Hire a pro. When you hire a pro with script in hand, the price automatically goes down since all they need to do is shoot and edit
Or maybe even….
5. Hold a contest with a valid prize and have your choice of commercials submitted from all aspects of video talent

Then…get yourself a You Tube Channel (make sure to try and match your web site domain/company name user name) and upload it!

Make Sure to Promote Your Video. Send an e-mail requesting comments and suggestions on the link and make sure they rate your video too. Post the link on all your organization boards, association sites and social on-line discussion groups. Write about your new commercial/elevator speech to your friends and family and submit it to various web sites and contests. Use the link in your blog, web site and anything else you can think of. Consider joining or creating a video roundtable group dedicated to increasing video rankings and ultimately your business search results.

My Best,
Kathy Kane
Market Insights, LLC