What Can You do for Your Business in 140 Characters or Less?

If you’ve tried to use Twitter for marketing your small business and abandoned the idea soon after starting, you’re not alone. Plenty of businesses and individuals sign up for the service at the recommendation of a friend, only tweet a few times, and then give up because they don’t “get” what all the fuss is about. Here are some tips that can help catch you up to speed!

1.  Make sure to post regularly and to Post quality links – If you link to another website, be sure it is worth the time of your followers. Also always Respond to Twitter mentions – Twitter users “talk” to one another by including the “@” sign in front of your Twitter name. Twitter allows you to see who has mentioned your small business Twitter account.

2. Include exclusive sales and discounts – Your Twitter followers can be an exclusive group to whom you offer special deals and discounts. Be sure to reward your Twitter followers, and encourage them to pass along the savings to their followers.

3. Use auto posting software – Posting on Twitter can be a time-consuming job, but you can spend just a few minutes a day writing quality posts to be published at a later time. Software like Hootsuite allows you to easily manage your social media accounts and save posts to be uploaded to Twitter at periodic intervals.

4. Analyze Your Twitter Analytics-You can post all you want on Twitter, but you won’t know how effective they are without analyzing the results. Use online tools like Klout.com, which is an effective website that measures your overall Twitter effectiveness and gives you pointers on how to improve your influence.

The FaceBook Generation

Call them the FaceBook generation.

McCann Worldgroup’s newly completed global survey “The Truth About Youth,” which polled 16-to-30-year-olds, concludes that millennials live in a new “social economy” in which the power of sharing and recommending brands cannot be overstated.

This group, according to the study, lives outloud, emphasizing public self-definition, life narration, and broadcasting via blogging platforms, digital cameras, and cheap editing and design software. In the words of one study respondent: “If there are no pics, it didn’t happen.”

McCann also found that respondents in Brazil, China, and India, where emerging consumers are forging fledgling brand loyalties, feel most strongly about telling friends about brands they like. The agency’s takeaway: Brands should follow the top five traits young people said they look for in their social friends. Advertising should truthful, genuine, sociable, mature, and humble to connect.

The biggest mistake marketers make? Overestimating their own importance. Young consumers say they quickly tire of brands that clutter up digital feeds with what they see as useless information. Can you relate?

Facebook is coming to Wilmington – don’t miss it!

SocialCrush Comes to Wilmington NC

Selling when no one else is!

As an agency that focuses exclusively on destination lifestyle & resort communities we get the opportunity to work with developers who are just starting out. They have a whole lotta’ dirt and a vision that we get to bring to life! It’s pretty awesome! We like to say that we turn a spot on the map into a spot in someone’s heart. We’re really passionate about that. But what about Compass Pointe you ask? We’ll let’s get to that!

We’ve been working with Compass Pointe from the beginning, developing the visionary website for the community in 2008 that transformed into the Compass Pointe hub in 2010.

Vision Website, 2008-2010

It’s the complete information source for the community and surrounding area!

Compass Pointe website

Additionally we’ve produced a complete portfolio of collateral from the visionary pieces to marketing onsite progress and new homeowners. We’ve watched this community grow up and we’ve never been more proud!

Facebook Welcome page

From brochures to virtual to mailings to ads….here’s just a few of our top picks!

Vision brochure + mailing envelope

Where Having More Costs Less billboard campaign

Or course we’re proud of our work, but more importantly we’re proud of how hard our work works! Since we’re conversion fanatics we’re proud to say we’ve driven over 10,000 leads to Compass Pointe through the development of 2 websites, onsite developer events, traveling receptions, an online based reality show and social media. To read about the print ad campaign, we’ve got it here.

Get Ready To Rock April 22, 2011

We all know that the times we are living in have drastically changed. Customer buying behaviors have shifted and their interest is channeled differently. People are researching you and your business, as well as comparing you to your competitors, online and via mobile channels more than ever.  You have to be better, more connected, offer more value, than ever before.

Of course, you already know all of this.  So….. why are you still using an old, crusty marketing agency that’s wasting your money and patience on antiquated and out-dated methods?  Are you sick and tired of hearing the same old mumbo-jumbo, hype and buzzwords, from your advertising rep?  Do you wish you could get the most out of every marketing dollar, see real ROI on your web and social presence, and be building your brand instead of tearing your hair out???

Your wishing days are over!

Ready? Aim….. Rock!

Erupting 4.22.11

800.609.0930  |  info@maximumrocks.com

98¢ gets you 8.7million impressions!

CLIENT: Waterway Cove, A Timeless Neighborhood with a Coastal Breeze

GOAL: To use Facebook advertising to reach an exact demographic and generate leads.

STRATEGY: During our brand assessment phase, we identified the client’s desired audience by location, age, education level, interests and likes. Various targeted filters were employed along with progressive A/B ad testing, refining both ad creative and text based on user responses, CPM and analytics to improve efficient and engagement. All within a fixed monthly budget.

RESULTS: For an ad spend of $0.98 CPC (cost per click), we were able to deliver the following targeted results: 8,728,912 impressions,
3,724 click through’s to a custom Facebook landing page for conversions. This generated a 168 pre-qualified targeted leads who actively espressed interest in more information

– Facebook became the top referral source to their website, responsible for 72.7% of total traffic.
– Established a thriving brand community and identity on Facebook.

To date, Facebook has been our best performing ad campaign online for this client. It is impossible to beat the low cost of reaching this unique and highly engaged audience.

Are You An Owner or Renter?

A lively discussion at the Idea Factory today, what type of employee are you? Or maybe you supervise one of these?

Employees are a lot like cars or houses. The amount of care, attention to detail, and feelings of permanency we project toward our cars or houses is comparable to the way employees view their work relationship. Consider the analogy.

Renters
When we rent a car or a house, we are less likely to spend a lot of time caring for it, nurturing it, or preserving it. On vacation, when we hit a big bump on the road, we say, “no big deal… it’s a rental.” Or if we knick the wall of our rented apartment we say, “oh well, we’ll be moving soon.” Our attention to the little details are not as precise because we know our relationship with that particular car or house is not going to last forever.

Some of our employees are also renters. They view their jobs from a temporary perspective. With the short-timer approach, they are less likely to give great attention to the accuracy or precision of their work. They believe that the quality of their work is “no big deal” because they won’t be there for very long. As a result, performance suffers and they look to move on as quickly as they can, once they’ve gotten what they wanted from our employment.

Owners
On the flip side, when we own our own house or car, we are more likely to spend time on the maintenance. We concern ourselves with the cleanliness and appearance of our property. If the car gets a scratch, we may touch it up. More regularly, we give the house a fresh coat of paint. Our property is something we are proud of and usually, we expect to own it for an extended length of time.

Many of our employees are owners. They approach their work with a sense of pride. They work hard to maintain the quality of their work, as well as the quality of their relationships because they know that they’ll be there for an extended period.

In this day of layoffs, reorganizations and downsizing, we are creating more opportunities for the renters to thrive. As leaders, we must do our best to create owners and the owner mentality. Recently, the Gallup Organization interviewed two million employees at 700 companies nationwide. A significant finding of the report was that employee tenure and productivity are directly related to the relationship between the employee and their immediate supervisor. Employee tenure and productivity are key indicators of an employee owner.

The conclusion is obvious. If you are a supervisor, you are responsible for creating employee owners. Spend more time cultivating the owners and retaining them for the long term. Don’t spend your time on renters. They’re going to be moving on anyway.

Stalk me on Twitter @TimMoore
Join my Facebook Posse! /TimMoore

Albemarle Plantation says STOP!

CLIENT: Albemarle Plantation on the Albemarle Sound on the Inner Banks

GOAL: Theme, create and promote an event to kick-off the spring season using only social media to promote event and gain new leads.

STRATEGY: Maximum created an event highlighting the unique coastal, southern location of Albemarle Plantation. We visually and verbally constructed a bright, spring theme that motivated an instant response from the target market – the snow weary northeast. By using numerous digital social mediums we were able to reach a maximum engagement from both the client’s A-lead database and new leads.

RESULTS:
– With a total Facebook ad spend of $978.18 we generated:
– 1,942,838 impressions
– 922 clicks to the event’s landing page
– 60 event registrations with the first week of ad spend
– Facebook as the #1 referred to the client’s website and the #1 new lead generator
– Twitter has increased the range & speed for the release of promotional information
– Revived brand and increased brand recognition
– And, with great pleasure, our client requested that we “stop the promotion” due to an overwhelming response. At that point, we moved ahead with promotion of their next event.

The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions

I read a lot of books on digital marketing and building trust in relationships.  I have some favorite authors, but I’m open to anything in the genre so I end up receiving a lot of preview copies for books to review. On February 4, 2011, I received this one…

Now, marketing and leadership books are strange animals. Some are great and others make you want to stab yourself in the eye with a fork. Almost all, though, usually are hypothetical or are recycled mumbo-jumbo. Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki is neither of these; instead, it’s a book about one thing: Influence.

Will this book help you to be “enchanting” in your sphere of influence?

Possibly. No book can guarantee that if you follow these X number of ‘easy’ steps, you’ll have more friends, better posture and piles of candy. What this book does remind readers, though, is that the only way to really make a lasting impact on people is to act with integrity. That’s a big deal and advice we would all do well to heed.

Some of the case studies are humdingers, but I won’t give everything away, just a few bread crumbs to see if this sounds like something you would benefit from:

Some Key Takeaways I Noted

1. Create a ‘yes’ page instead of an FAQ. Put the answer to the questions at the top: Yes. Then put the questions below it, on the page.
2. Push our message around trust even harder. Don’t work with clients who can’t trust us. Focus on clients who do, and can turn that into results for themselves.
3. Always express disagreement by first finding something to agree in.
4. Conduct a ‘premortem’ on every project: Get the team together. Pretend the project failed. Then talk it out.
5. Try to develop crow’s feet (you have to read the book to understand).
6. Reinforce my employees’ autonomy whenever possible.
7. Prototype everything.
8. Become a better curator of content. Start on Twitter and expand from there.
9. Build our marketing on total transparency: Tell people exactly what we’ll do when they sign up for a newsletter. Then deliver just that.

I admit, there’s a lot more than this. If you have a chance, do pick up a copy of Enchantment. It’s definitely a worthwhile investment and just might challenge you in a few places where you won’t expect it.

Was this helpful?  Have a take on this subject?  I’d love to hear your comments. (Oh, also, please feel free to share below, it’s the ‘enchanting’ thing to do)

Stalk me on Twitter @TimMoore
Join my Facebook Posse! /TimMoore