A Digital Marketing Insider's Point of View by Winston Bromley.
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Fear of Missing Out, or FOMO, with Social Media

Fear of Missing Out, or FOMO, with Social Media

As a person who loves and enjoys social media for it’s innate ability to connect us to people and events, which we could never have done so even just a few years ago, I wanted today to talk to you about a topic dear to my heart. It’s a strange but very real phenomenon that has occurred within the past few years with the rise of Smartphones being tied to our hips and wrists and almost everything we do. When our phones bing with texts and FOMO Fear of Missing outwe answer it the second it happens, or we check out tweet or Facebook timelines every 10 minutes, this begs the question. With all of technologies advances in the past few years, does technology bring us closer to each other or further apart?

My answer to that is that both are correct. We live in a world where the gift of “social media” is that we can discuss, rate, help, contemplate, learn and talk in mere seconds/minutes/hours on new things happening throughout the world. However, we also live in a world where living in the “present” is being “assisted” by technology.

There is concept that is called Fear of Missing Out, or FOMO for short. This is the idea that most of us using our smartphones and technology are glued to what others are saying on the social media platforms, and have this need to check in as  often as humanly possible, just in case we miss something good. As humans, and curious people, we hate to think we missed something good. Naturally, we do this as a way to feel connected to our “friends” online that we follow and Like, and Pin. It makes us feel good. Some people have mentioned that they see their real friends more often online via Facebook, Twitter, etc than they do in just getting together in person.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am part of this group and have willingly jumped in, as have you, to be part of my own experiences online as well as finding out about my connections, brands I follow and friends and their latest exploits detailed online. However, I do believe you need a BALANCE in life and go and meet, in my case, business leads and contacts you meet online. I use social media to start the process, and finish in person.

What I wanted to share in this post, from a Social Media insider, is that sometimes, we just need 2 things in our lives to achieve a good balance online:

1. UNPLUG and be ok with it. Don’t be afraid of missing out on something you missed online. Like a detox in real life, I have Unplugged myself when I find I need to re-charge my “batteries”. No cellphone, no social media, no texts sometimes for 1 day or longer just so I can be present with my family and my life.

2. Take the conversation OFFLINE and TALK to that person via the phone or in person. It’s amazing the amount of friendships and connections I have built up over the years with this tip.

Don’t buy into FOMO. Buy into real connections and being present.

My 2 cents…

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LinkedIn as the ideal tool for business via social media

LinkedIn as the ideal tool for business via social media

Linkedin as the ideal tool for business via social media

LinkedIn is one of the best social media platforms for business from the access to top level decision makers to finding capital and resources for your business. Today I wanted to show you how you can use LinkedIn in your business and 5 easy steps to improving traction on your LinkedIn account.

1. Your Linkedin Profile – The first step is to modify your LinkedIn profile so that people who are looking for your kind of talent should find your profile easily. For that, you need to make your LinkedIn profile very friendly to how people will find you – using keyword searches. For example, most of the time if you own a company, you tend to write that you are the founder or owner.  That is great however, the people who are searching for your talent like the Lawyer or Realtor, will put the keywords “realtor” in the search engine. If you don’t have these words in your profile, they will not be able to find your profile in the list. Make sure your profile is keyword rich (words people will search for you – from their perspective)

2. Provide a reason to connect with you – So, you have updated your profile with your expertise and now your profile is getting into the lists that you want to be found in. Now here is the rub. There are many other profiles, which are also showing in those lists with the great keywords you just created. How do you get the edge over the other people in those searches? Create a compelling headline which will get their attention and almost force them to click on your profile first, because it catches their eye. Take time and write a dramatic compelling headline which includes the 1 or 2 keywords that are used in normal search engine results, like “real estate” or “realtor”

3. Summary – the next step is to write a Summary. So a prospect has visited your profile. Now, to keep them here and not have them leave quickly, your page should describe in their minds what they are looking for and show your credibility in fulfilling them. As an example, being a social media marketer, you can imagine the amount of other people in the same line of work. Some really good and some not so much. Once they land on my profile, instead of “Winston grew up in Mexico.. (rest of my life and business story)” I would suggest you think of WHY those people are looking at your profile. You should know this by now. Mine would be they are looking for social media training or marketing. So my Summary talks about their needs and how I can help.
(see my profile here)

You an also add in a video in this section which is excellent marketing. So remember, most of the people try to write their autobiography in this Summary. Always remember that the prospect who is visiting your page is very busy and they just would  like to know that you have the sufficient ability/talent/skill to fulfill their needs. In short, the summary should be client-focused Otherwise, you are going to get just hits on your page and nothing to show for it.Then,

4. Increasing network connections –Ok, you have modified your profile and your Summary. Now it is time to increase your network connection to increase your business. Aim to make connections, much like real networking, with people that are aligned with your business. If you are realtor, you may not need to connect to another realtor profile.

5. Following up with the new connections – It is not enough to find new connections, however you should keep in touch at times on regular basis. What I suggest to at least have them remember you, is that when someone accepts your connection request or connects with you, send him/her a Welcome or Thank you message. I strongly suggest that you offer them something of value for free, as it will be an excellent gesture. I include a $47 Value social media teleseminar I did last year as my gift (see my profile here)

6. Regular updates – As often as possible (minimum 1 time per week) update the Status on LinkedIn regarding in your business life or related articles to your business in order to engage people in your network

LinkedIn is a great business (social) network website where if you are able to utilize all the features of the website including the 5 tips above, you will increase your business.

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Getting your posts to work for you in Social Media

Leverage other people's ListsLeverage your social media. In Business, it all comes down to “leverage” within your Social Media setups. You see, without it, we are merely talking to people and sharing ideas but it wouldn’t go farther than a few people.

I remember the days before true Social Media networking, when people would email out a funny(or not funny) joke or a great article and it would go as far as it could reach depending on who sent it to who (My father would send me at least 10 emails a day with something he found interesting). With social media, we can leverage that process through the platforms we use today and post a great article/video /call-to-action/quote, and the possibilities are endless on how far something can be shared and liked around the globe. It’s truly amazing to see where people are from when they re-tweet or like or share something I post.

In business, we need to embrace the fact that social media is now an integral part of our Marketing plan. It must be used on almost everything we do in order to get the most people to see what we want to show them. See, in business, we are always looking on increasing our profits (or in some cases, just making a profit). That is why we are in business. So it makes sense that when we post things on Facebook, pin on Pinterest, post on Linkedin groups and tweet about our latest widget, we are looking for a return-on-investment (ROI) for the time we put into it.

To leverage social media, you need to post content and links that people who will follow you will find interesting. The more the people that find it worth their time (in terms of being interesting, compelling, funny, serious), the more you will get shared/liked. By being shared, liked, tweeted, pinned, the content you post now gets put your content DIRECTLY into that sharing person’s Timeline. The benefit is that now all of their friends/followers will see that Share.

This is the power of leveraging the internet. Getting people to do the footwork for you. The more it’s shared, the more eyes on your content, the more chances of converting them into prospects. It’s a win-win (I can spend all day on how to convert people – that is for another article) and that is the start to move people towards the sale and seeing a ROI on your postings.

This is where is comes down to getting people to like/share your pages. How to do that, exactly you ask? At the moment, there are 2  things that get the most traction on social sharing/networking sites are:

1. Be Visual. Posts/pin/tweets with Images or Videos in them. We are visual creatures and our eyes naturally go to images. That is why Pinterest and Instagram as so big. So make sure when posting to add in an image or a video if none are present so that it will catch attention.

2. Asking good questions. A good question can go very far. Ask a question that you want people to answer either about your product or service or in the field that you are an expert. This will provide you with some Credibility, when comment on other people’s posts and comments.

I hope these two ideas and the concept of leverage sparks some great ideas for your Business!

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Bring it back home: How your website should be the Hub of all your Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing: Using a Hub for full marketing effectSocial media is a great tool to use in order to communicate with people that already follow you and to help find prospective consumers of your product or service. With the help of Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and more, there are many ways you can grow your business and reach a new unexplored consumer base. Social media gives you multiple platforms that expose you directly to the consumer and enables them to give you valuable information regarding your product or service. In order to be successful in today’s business environment, you must have a presence on social media. That’s a given. However, in order to assure consistency throughout all social media platforms, it is very important (even crucial) to have all your social media accounts leading back to one place. I called it the “Hub”.

Think of an airport. All the flights fly into one place however they all originally started from another location. This “hub” could be your Blog, your Company website, or whatever you fancy, but it should be where all your traffic merges. You may be bringing people back to your site to read a new article or discuss a new service or product or it may be showing people pictures of your services/products. Whatever it is, the end game is to always bring people back to this main “Hub”. By doing this consistently, people will start remembering your brand better as they get repeated exposure to it, what you do, and why they should be using you over everyone else. By keeping it simple, all of the main material on one site, you won’t split the attention of your prospects.

As an example, if you posted a new article that discusses a topic in your Business, it is best to have it on your Company blog. That way, you can use Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and the other social platforms independently to drive those followers/friends back to one location to funnel the traffic to where you want them to be… on your site. It is also a great way to build up links back to your site and demonstrate social proof to the search engines (yes that is becoming a major factor in ranking) that your site pages should be ranked better. (Just a side note, when people land on your site, it should ideally be with some call-to-action such as Subscribe to my newsletter, Buy Now, Follow me, as you will get the most traction and more subscribers in your list by doing so).

Having one hub for your business will make it easier for you to find and develop relationships with prospective clients that are interested in your product or service as you will always be adding to your site and those that have visited before, could also return for each posting. Another side effect is that it will also help with search engine optimization using the newer part of their ranking algorithim for social proof.

If used properly, social media platforms can add so much to your business by having one central Hub. Your one Hub will help brand your Company more effectively online and allow people to automatically identify your brand to a certain product, service or post.

Are you already using your website as the “hub” of your Social Media marketing?

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LinkedIn: The Misjudged Social Media Platform?

LinkedIn: The Misjudged Social Media Platform?LinkedIn, the Business Social Media Platform, is a social media monster on the rise again. Often I find people I work with don’t have a LinkedIn profile or very basic as they feel it’s only for people looking for a job. But it is a lot more than that…. and has been for a while. I started using LinkedIn back in 2005 and it’s gone through many changes. All for the better and maybe this is why people feel it is best used looking for a Job as you may not know the potential of it.

LinkedIn is often the misjudged Social Platform of the bunch. But it shouldn’t be. Here is why:

With new changes that took place in the past year, this profitable media monster has taken over a large portion of the business world looking to grow and expand their customer base as well as connect with others in the same niches of the business world.

With this network, you can reach people who actually can make your business money and vice versa. Reach up to 160+ million others who are on the site to do business and learn more about how to do business better. Now that’s not the same as Facebook however people on LinkedIn are business-minded people, who generally have money and can, if positioned right, spend money with your Business.

There are great features you can use that do not exist at the same level as they do on LinkedIn. For example, you can create specific interest groups on LinkedIn that pertain to your genre of business. You can use this group to drive traffic to your website and gain a ton of members. It is very possible to get thousands of people to join a specific business network. The best part is you can do more with it than just having “Likes” as done on other type of media.

You can also host events and webinars for your group to keep people interested and they will network with each other as well. You actually create your very own network which is relatively unique in social media. You can even do one on one counseling and mentoring on LinkedIn through your business page.

Unlike other platforms, with LinkedIn, people can actually see how other professionals feel about you and your Business through your Endorsements, Skillsets and Recommendations. Once you have a personal profile, you can also create a separate page for your company which you can grow exponentially by putting out good content and keeping people engaged, by talking to them, helping them and answering questions.

It’s worth working on your profile as well as having a business page for a lot or reasons. You can get a lot of feedback from actual customers. This is invaluable if you use the information to your advantage. You can earn business from some new people by growing your network and trying new things that you are learning from customers. It may also be a great tool for you to meet other professionals that you can network with and even learn some new things from too.

To sum it all up, don’t let LinkedIn be social platform you use when the moons align. If you are a professional business owner or Entrepreneur or working your way up through a Company, you really should be using LinkedIn on a regular basis to find new contacts, connect with others, post about your skills, share your skills, etc. It’s truly where the professionals with money are.

Come connect with me on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/winstonbromley and if you want to find out more about learning about using LinkedIn correctly, contact me

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