What has the small business marketing world Buzzing? “Google Buzz” !  This is the latest addition to social media marketing that the internet and marketers are all fired up about. Google Buzz  is a  new feature that shows up in Gmail that is a friend feed type social newsfeed like Facebook which behaves differently in google never ending style – a scroll platform. Most of the “buzz” about Google buzz has marketers asking is it a marketing utility? Is it something we need? It is brilliant because what it does is forces social stream into our inbox and allows us to see that we are inundating ourselves with stuff we don’t need!

Google Buzz will allow us to see more real time content such as tweets and comments in google buzz that will get ranked as critical words.  Eventually Google Buzz will eliminate the race for followers and fans and will allow google environment fans to be able to use Google Buzz effectively to parse down the number of people they want to connect with to a reasonable level.

I am all for anything that will make our lives easier but if Google Buzz does what is promised, it will negate the need for companies to be concerned about how many friends and fans they are collecting and concentrate on building long term relationships with their true customers.

As the world of social media marketing changes, we are studying all the ways in which we can help our small business customers to make educated decisions on which social media platforms they will incorporate into their 2010 marketing programs.  Stay tuned!

I don’t know about you, but at the end of every year, I receive a myriad of promotional calendars in the mail. Considering there is little space on my office wall and the fact that I carry a hard copy day timer (which I affectionately refer to as my PDA!), I feel guilty that I cannot make use of all the wonderful calendars I receive, I decided that one way to provide an answer to my questions is to create a content calendar, using one of my spare calendars. You can use a spare calendar to perform the same exercise.

Use tools such as Twitter search or Google Alerts to find out your customers’ needs. Are you seeking attraction or attention? Develop a content marketing plan –mark in your calendar when to Blog, when to send out Press Releases, when to write a White Paper. Consistency is the key to every marketing plan. Create consistent information and stick to your plan. If you cannot perform the marketing initiatives yourself, then look for someone who can assist you with implementation.

Outsource to a qualified content consultant who understands your industry and can help to write a Blog post in a timely manner. Or, assign an internal project manager to work with an outsourced content manager. Just be sure your content manager understands your industry and is an expert in their field.
Once you have put together your content marketing plan, work the plan. Consistency is the key! (Consistency is the key!).

The same advice is true for social media. Approach the common venues such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook much as you would when you first walk into a room at a dinner party. Look around the room, see who is there, find someone with the same interests, hobbies, etc., ask about their life and then offer information. Do not begin to push your product or services to everyone the minute you walk into the room.

It is not socially acceptable in the social media world to constantly tout your own accomplishments or to sell your products and services without first building a relationship. Look for people like yourself if you are looking for a way to get started. As in real life, in social media, the old adage “give before you get” works very well. Offer information on blogs, articles, links to helpful sites, and share tons of great content before you begin to talk about you and your business. Keep the personal information and updates to a minimum; do not push your products or services right off the bat. A little promotion on you and your business is ok but if you are tweeting more than four or five times a day, you are just adding to the “noise”.

How do you decide what topics to include in your e-newsletters? Listen to your customers. Look at your daily e-mails to see what questions are top of mind for which you have provided an answer. If some of your customers or potential customers are asking the same question about your industry, chances are it’s a question that is probably on most of your customers’ minds. Keep your information short and sweet (KISS principal), give your e-newsletter a catchy heading and you will have great success with opening rates and response from your targeted database.

Once you have designed the template for your newsletter, prepare a few ahead of time so that you can push them out on a regular basis. Repetition is the key to a successful e-newsletter campaign. It is one of the marketing tools in your marketing campaign toolkit that is low cost and effective.

Here is our reply:

If your small niche sector in manufacturing is signed up for RSS feeds, any time there is a posting to the web or your website on the subject of metal finishing, they would receive an automatic RSS feed.  The point of an optimized press release is not necessarily to notify the journalists in your niche marketing  of a new product or up to the minute news but to bump your website up in the rankings when a potential customer is searching the web for “metal finishing”.  Nine times out of ten, if you have submitted a news release to any of the national distribution sites, Google will have caught it (or Yahoo or other search engines) and it will add to your web site’s relevancy. 

Press releases about new products or services target potential customers or readers through various news channels. The world of PR has changed. Your news releases should be written for your customer, not the press.  In the past, companies would shoot out press releases and snail mail or e-mail directly to the journalists who covered their particular niche market.  Now, journalists are going online to seek out information for articles and are finding your press release through search engines. News posted on a distribution site can reach print media outlets, online media channels, blogs, Yahoo, Google News or other online aggregators and search engines.  An optimized press release will also assist you by gaining online credibility for your company and authenticity among search engines which will eventually result in better page rank, move you up in the rankings, and add search traffic to your website. An optimized press release generates traffic by directly promoting your website among journalists, bloggers, direct online customers, search marketing, news distribution partnerships, news aggregators and search engines.

Be first to sprint out in front of your competitors with brand new marketing initiatives firmly in place, including social media, direct mail, web marketing, brochures, flyers, advertising and PR and you will gain a head start in the marketing sprint to the finish line!

Knowing how and where your customers are searching for your products or services is the most important aspect of your marketing plan for 2010. Budgets are tight and more than ever, companies are looking for ROI and accountability. In order to justify your marketing investment, do your research and spend your marketing and ad dollars wisely.