7 Habits of Highly Successful People on Social Media

Last year I heard the unfortunate news that Stephenen Covey had died.  A father of nine and a grandfather of fifty-two Steven has a large family to carry on his legacy.

The powerful strategies Stephen taught, like the 7 Habits of Highly Successful People in this post, continue to live on strong as well.

When I was in school I read Stephen’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and his strategies have stuck with me ever since.In this post I take Stephen’s 7 Habits and show specifically how these traits are present in highly successful people on social media.

Habit 1: Be Proactive

You can’t just put up profiles and expect people to start flocking to you in droves.  You need to be proactive.

Here are a few different ideas for being proactive on social media so that before long the results will start rolling in.

• Post fresh content daily
• Schedule content ahead of time
• Actively build new connections
• Focus on continuous positive improvement.
• Take initiative and realize that your decisions and actions are the primary determining factor for effectiveness in social media.

Find the times that works best for you and take action to improve your social media results. Be responsibility for your choices and the consequences that follow.

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. ~Steve Jobs

Make sure to be clear and specific about the social media goals you have. How many followers and likes do you want to achieve?  Set a date  Of course quantity of followers is a determining factor in success but so if the quality of the connections you are able to create.

Envision the ideal characteristics of successful social media brands for your business.

To achieve these will you need to outsource?  Most goals are more easily achieved when others help so if and when you get others involved make sure to share the end you have in mind with them as well.

Create a mission statement for your social media goals and review it often.

Habit 3: Put First Things First

Prioritize, plan, and execute your week’s tasks based on importance rather than urgency.

Having plenty of Twitter followers is a great asset for your brand and can help you achieve success, but any business will starve without traffic, leads and sales.

The first thing you should do is create a webpage where you can capture leads and link to it within your Twitter bio. Define the goals that are essential for you to succeed, and use social media to help you achieve the goals that matter most.

Habit 4: Think Win-Win

Genuinely strive to help other people succeed on social media and more often than not this win-win attitude will reciprocate and come back to help you.

When you follow or like someone and they follow or like you back, this is win-win.

When you share someone else’s content and they do the same for you, this is win-win.

I’m sure you get the point. 

A “win” for everyone involved is a much better long-term solution than if only one person in the situation had gotten their way.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood

Use empathetic listening to be genuinely influenced by a person, which compels them to reciprocate the listening and take an open mind to being influenced by you.

Don’t just be a broadcaster, be a communicator. On Twitter use search to find conversations that matter to you, and get in on them.  Being a thought leader does not mean putting other people down, but exists in engaging with a conversation and shedding your own light on the topic at hand.

Asking questions are a great way to get feedback and spark discussion, and they work well on Facebook and Twitter.

Position yourself as an expert by starting an “Ask me anything” thread on Facebook where you are around for a set amount of time to answer any questions about the topic at hand.

Habit 6: Synergize

Combine the strengths of people through positive teamwork.

On Twitter you can engage with others on your team to create a #Hashtag trend.

Go to tweet ups and meet other people in real life.  Although social media is an awesome form of communication it is no substitute for real face-to-face interaction.

When working with others online in person conversations are not always possible since people are often half a world a way.  Still you can spark synergy with your close connections through regular communication. Phone calls are great and Skype video chats are even better.

When you work with others you can create ideas and achieve goals that exceed what either of you could have come up with alone.

Habit 7: Sharpen the (Social Media) Saw

Balance and renew your resources, energy, and health to create a sustainable, long-term, effective lifestyle.

For social media this means that you will need to continually renew your content and connection building efforts to get continually new and improving results.

This means investing into improving your social media knowledge today so that you can benefit from this knowledge into the future.

http://smartonlinesuccess.com/7-habits-of-highly-successful-people-on-social-media/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SmartOnlineSuccess+%28Smart+Online+Success%29

3 Ways Social Media can Boost Sales Success

Recently there has been a lot of conversation against the importance of relationships in selling such as this recent Harvard Business Review article on Selling is Not about Relationships which makes it seem like social media would not make a good fit for sales people.

But a new RAIN Group report proves otherwise and shows that sales people that truly “connect” with buyers in this “always on” environment we live in to win more often. So here are 3 reasons why …

Social media provides great way to connect with potential buyers

• Social media provides the sales person with unprecedented ways to connect with potential buyers, build relationships and most importantly start conversations
• Social media provides the sales person with a platform to allow for their online personality to shine and begin that trusted relationship which can create affinity with the buyer
• Social media provides the sales person a platform for sharing value, which builds reputation and affinity for the seller

Social media provides a platform to collaborate with potential buyers

• Sales people can use popular online meetings tools like Google Hangout or even GoToMeeting to create spontaneous meetings with potential buyers
• Other technologies like Postwire can be used for more direct collaboration with more middle of funnel prospects
• Social listening technologies like Radian6, Hootsuite (or whatever your favorite is) will allow you to chime in at most relevant times with potential buyers, middle of funnel prospects or even existing customers – keeping you top of mind at all times!

Social media allows you to educate potential buyers with new ideas

• Social media provides plenty of ways to do this. Sales people that tweet their own ideas or find blogs articles that espouse their position – make it easy to connect with buyers. Content is king so being able to use it to your advantage is key.
• Marketing teams provides the platform and resources to sales to be able to do this. Too many companies in my opinion leave it to the sales team to figure this out all this by themselves. Content is the new collateral. If marketing creates the platform and the sales team can bring it to life with customers then sales will surely flow.

An integral part of the sales process is getting to know your prospects and establishing relationships—and it turns out social media can help you accomplish this quickly and easily. Follow the steps above to help your sales team make the cash register ring using social media. Remember – when you’re there alone there is no one to compete!

http://pauldunay.com/3-ways-social-media-can-boost-sales-success/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BuzzMarketingForTechnology+%28Marketing+Darwinism%29

7 METHODS TO INCREASE SOCIAL MEDIA MENTIONS EXPONENTIALLY

These days, one question that companies may ask their PR branding managers or any other PR agencies, is how they may increase the number of social media mentions for their brand.

Social media mention refers to how often your brand has been shared and talked about online on social media. For example, take a look at how many times your Facebook post has been shared; how many re-tweets you received for a recent tweet promotion and so on.

Here are 7 methods to increase social media mentions exponentially for your brand.

1. Challenging the norm

Any brand, organization or person can set up their own Facebook page, Twitter handle, Pinterest, Google+ or YouTube channel anytime. The question we need to ask ourselves is, how is our brand different compared to others?

Communicating the unique selling proposition (USP) of our brand to the consumers in social media is the key.

2. Ask for people’s opinions

Ask questions that will lead people to give you their opinions and comments on social media. Make sure your posts are interactive, that is, they induce active participation from your consumers on social media.

3. A picture tells a thousand words

Most people, especially men (don’t ask me why), are very visual creatures. Pictures are more convincing and your consumers are more willing to share them on social media. However, posting pictures that are irrelevant to your brand or your consumers can be detrimental to your brand as well. Hence, choose your pictures wisely.

4. Find the right audience

Always target the right group of consumers such that your brand will have a stronger fan base on social media in terms of quality. There is no point in having 100,000 likes (quantity) in your Facebook page, but only less than 1% of them are genuine fans of your brand.

Disloyal fans (or what I term as “fair weather” fans), are usually the result of hard-selling social media campaigns; during which companies will either have giveaways or lucky draws for people to win attractive contest prizes, in exchange for a ‘like’ on Facebook or a follow on Twitter. These types of campaigns are unlikely to gain loyal raving fans on social media.

5. Have a Laugh!

If used correctly, humour can be a very powerful tool for your brand. Humour contains the entertainment factor that makes people feel good about sharing it virally to their friends on social media. It is always the funniest and most entertaining video or picture that has the most number of shares, retweets or likes on social media.

However, like a double edged sword, humour can also “destroy” your brand when it is used incorrectly. No matter how funny the joke is, try to avoid sensitive topics related to sex, politics or religion.

6. Content Speaks

Organise your content in a way that speaks strongly about what your brand is about. If your business is about organic vegetables then all your pictures, links and videos on social media should be all about organic vegetables or topics related to healthy living. Make your content speak around a brand theme and write about topics that will be interesting to your consumers.

7. Be Timely

Timely articles gain more social media mentions than others. For example, your posts can be related to some current news or interesting trends that are recently happening in your country. When the original Gangnam Style by PSY took the world by storm in 2012, some brands came out with their own version of Gangnam Style dance videos to entertain their consumers.

Timely also refers to post related content that are relevant to upcoming seasons such as weekends and holidays; such timely posts will make your brand look more ‘personal’ to your consumers on social media.

At the End of the Day

It is all about putting yourself in your consumers’ shoes; think about what they want and what problems they may face and how your brand can help them. By doing so, you can definitely come out with many creative and successful marketing strategies to increase your brand’s social media mentions.

http://prcompany.org.uk/7-methods-increase-social-media-mentions-exponentiall/

Social and Digital Media Revolution Statistics 2013

Your Marketing Strategy is Outdated if…

The marketing landscape is constantly changing. If you're not careful and proactive, it is easy to get left behind. For marketing to be as effective as possible, you have to be able to keep up!

Erik Qualman shared in Socialnomics to reach 50 millions users: in Radio it’s 38 years; TV it’s 13 years; the Internet is 4 years and the iPod is 3 years. Facebook added 100 million users in less than nine months; iPhone applications hit 1 billion in nine months.

In other words, you continually have to adapt to stay relevant to your audience.

Take a few minutes for a short self-checkup to see if your marketing strategy is current or outdated.

1. Your Marketing Strategy is Outdated If You Aren't Using Video Yet

Youtube is the second most-used search engine in the world. Without video content, you're missing a huge chunk of your potential audience. In addition to that, optimized videos can rank very highly in traditional search engine rankings, especially Google, which owns Youtube.

Beyond their importance for search rankings, video is a powerful way to connect with your potential customers. Consumers are increasingly looking for brands with personalities, brands that excite them. They've come to expect more than text and basic graphics on company websites.

Video can entertain, educate and sell your products and services in a way that resonates strongly with today’s multimedia-obsessed society.

There’s also the social media aspect. Using video on Pinterest will set you apart from the crowd, as nearly all the content on the site are photos. Embedding video in LinkedIn profiles (using the Slideshare or Google Presentation applications), is still rare enough to make a real statement for those that use this capability.

And of course, video is shared frequently across all social networks.

2. Your Marketing Strategy is Outdated If Social Media Isn't Included in Every Part of Your Strategy

BrightEdge Technologies did a study last fall that found that the homepages of almost half of the top 10,000 websites studied had no social links installed. Social media buttons make it much easier for visitors to share content with their network. For example, Bright Edge’s research showed that sites with a Twitter share button were shared nearly seven times more frequently than those without the button.

Social sharing buttons make it easier for email recipients will share messages they get. They've also been shown to increase click-through rates by 115%. This simple step more than doubles the engagement you get with your email marketing campaigns.

Your prospects and customers are on social media – you should be too. Give them ways to connect more deeply with your brand and learn more about how you can improve their lives and stay updated with the latest news. The loyalty you engender can pay off big time.

With that in mind, make your social network profiles as visible as possible on all your marketing materials, from your business cards and brochures to your website and TV commercials.

3. Your Marketing Strategy is Outdated If You're Not Optimizing for Mobile

As of May 2012, 10% all internet usage is accessed via mobile devices, according to Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers.

That trend is quickly increasing. In fact, Google predicts that by the end of this year, 1 billion people globally will use their phones or tablets as their primary point of internet access.

In light of mobile web’s rapid growth, it’s no longer optional not to have a mobile-friendly website, even if your business is a one location brick-and-mortar store. Search Engine Land indicates that

“Google found that 92 percent of smartphone owners in the US seek local (offline) information via their devices, and that 89 percent of those people took some form of action after such a lookup. Beyond this Google said that 25 percent of people in the US made a purchase after a local lookup. In addition, in the US, 51 percent called a business and 48 percent actually went to the business location.”

4. Let’s not forget about email.

In Knotice’s Mobile Email Opens Report for the second half of 2011, we find that open rates increased by 36% over the course of the year. Despite that fact, 39% of marketers have no strategy to optimize their email campaigns for mobile, while 37% have only a “basic” strategy in place.

This is a huge missed opportunity! When you think about the difference in screen size between a smartphone (which has a 4-inch screen at the most) and a desktop computer, it’s not difficult to see why emails and the web pages they link to have to be structured differently.

You should respect your customers enough to give them the right kind of experience, whether they're looking at your marketing materials on their phones, tablets or computers.

We've seen an increase in the use of mobile apps, SMS marketing and QR codes (half of smartphone owners have scanned them and 18% make a subsequent purchase) reports Mashable.  Clearly, it’s very important and increasingly profitable to reach your audience through their handheld devices.

So, how does your strategy stand up? There are many more ways to stay on the cutting edge of marketing trends, but these four can have the biggest impact on your customer engagement and brand recognition. If you're behind the curve, it’s time to catch up. The benefits will far outweigh the cost and effort you put into the proces

http://www.zddesign.net/blog/your-marketing-strategy-is-outdated/