by desing | Tools
Utilizing Social Media to Market Your Business
When the phrase “Social Media” comes to mind, the first immediate thoughts are that of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Four Square and countless other platforms online users subscribe to daily. Most often than not, their responses are followed by, “What is that and why should I use it?” Using it and not using social media can be the underlying factor of your brand or business advancing with today’s ever changing technology.
However, using social media to market your brand, if utilized correctly can not only build clientele but it can build a community, communication, and character. When used correctly, your main objectives should be to build and strengthen your brand, communicate to your existing and future audience base, and drive that audience to take some type of action. Whether that action is to buy your product, sign up to your newsletter or blog or simply follow you, these are the actions that develop a brand’s social media presence.
Let’s take a closer look at these areas and how they might apply to your social media efforts.
Objective #1: Build and Strengthen Your Brand
When it comes to building and reinforcing your brand, social media is one of the most powerful marketing tools available. It gives you the strongest and broadest opportunity to both find your target audience and to engage in conversation with them.
These days, you have no choice but to differentiate yourself from your competitors. Ways to do is to think about the specific qualities that make your company different from your competitors. By building your awareness on what makes you different, you can use social media as a soapbox to announce to your audience.
If you’re a service professional, target a specific niche and build a blog and Twitter strategy around that. Demonstrate your expertise in working with a certain type of client and then seek out those types of clients to have conversation with. Look for new ways to connect with them and encourage your current clients to socially share your articles with their networks.
Objective #2: Actively Communicate to your Existing and Future Audience Base
Social media is about increasing the conversation about your brand. This makes social media platforms prime outlets for PR driven companies who want to know what customers are saying about them. Setting up even a baseline of social media monitoring systems can go a long way toward helping you follow these conversations. Whether you’re launching new products and aiming to get people buzzing about it or trying to reach out to a new target audience to share information about one of your best selling services, the actions taken by others can be tracked to help you know more about your customers.
Objective #3: “CTA” Creating Your Call to Action
One of smartest reasons to use social media is for the potential boost it can have to your conversion efforts. Whether you’re looking to drive sales, increase leads or simply drive people to action, conversions can be virtually tracked.
Obvious options like buying your products or becoming a lead spring to mind, but don’t forget about other valuable actions like subscribing to your newsletter, retweeting a blog post or downloading a white paper.
An exercise highly encourage to try is to make a list of ways you think about the different ways you might be able to use social media to increase conversions for each item. Often times, this is the best way to start planning your social media efforts.
Objective #4: Using Hootsuite – for those who feel like we do not have the time
All of these social media outlets can seem overwhelming at first, but there are options for those of you who feel as though there just isn’t enough time in the day. For those of your who can not keep up, there is a website Hootsuite that allows you to schedule your social media messages. You can schedule your tweets, Facebook posts, LinkedIn updates and more! So take a few minutes out of your day to plan and schedule your posts. And in case you were wondering, Hootsuite is a free-service with upgrade options. Remember that you may have to curb your message to your audience in different Social Media outlets. Those fans you may have on Facebook may be slightly different from your Twitter followers – so your message should match your audience. Finally, remember this note “quality over quantity”. Do not post dozens of messages without substantial content that will appeal to your audience simply because you want to have an abundance of posts. Actions like these, will eventually overwhelm your audience and may lead to an “unlike” or “unfollow”. Keep it simple and substantial! Know get to it!
The Objectives Have Been Made, Now Start Building Your Social Media Plan
Reviewing your business’ social media approach with each of the above objectives in mind helps you set the stage for your social media efforts. The blueprint in trying to get you to figure out why you want and need to start utilizing social media to market your brand is already laid out. Now start building!
by desing | Our Legacy, Services
As an advisory board member of Crotona International High School in New York City, I conducted a workshop entitled “Embrace Your Fabulous Self & Discover Your Career Path” workshop a select group of vibrant, bright students. The workshop focused on the importance of courage and confidence in one self to enable the effective pursuit of goals, career and dreams. These girls were such a pleasure and they taught me a little something too!
by desing | About Maria, Impact Lives, Our Legacy
Embrace Her Legacy launched our Embrace Her Community initiative and joined the fight against women cancers and volunteered at the Revlon Run/Walk in NYC on May 4th! It was such an amazing and FUN day of service as we eagerly handed out water to the run/walk participants. It touched my heart to see so many people supporting loved ones and lost family and friends who have been effected by cancer…it was such an honor to service these lovely individuals and we look forward to doing it again and again and again.
Our Embrace Her Community efforts are all about connecting you, yes YOU, with social platforms where you can be of service, impact lives and build your legacy!
by desing | Events, Our Legacy, Services
It was SUCH a honor to be a guest speaker and panelist at the YESpreneur Conference 2013 in Newark, NJ. The conference is an annual leadership conference for about (200) entrepreneurial-minded girls ages 8-17. Parents also gain the opportunity to ask questions to featured entrepreneurs inside the Parents Cafe. We conducted the “Bring Your Legacy to Life With a Vision Board” workshop where we educated the ladies on creating a vision board to live purposefully and remain motivated to achieve life’s goals. Then, shared nuggets of wisdom with the parents on how they can help cultivate the businesses of their daughters. Great day indeed!
by desing | Faith & Purpose
In celebration of Mother’s Day, I decided to write up a post about the one-of-a-kind relationship that a mother and daughter share. When Mother’s Day rolls around, I admit that I was never one of those daughters who “praised the ground that my mother walked on.” Now, I always loved my mother because she is my mother. Nevertheless, our tumultuous relationship never really allowed us to develop a strong, loving relationship. I envied my female friends who could talk to their moms about anything, and I yearned to have that sort of relationship with my mother. I always knew she meant well but our strong personalities would clash head first at times. All I wanted was for her to listen to me and understand me, but now I realize that we wanted the same thing.
Everyone else (well mostly everyone else), could get along with her and loved her but she and I couldn’t see eye-to-eye on almost anything. I felt so alone when it came to me and my mom’s roller coaster relationship because everyone I knew got along with their mothers well and worshiped their moms – me, not so much. I loved her always, but liking her was another story. We DID always manage to have fun and laugh together but it never lasted too long. And I wanted more, I wanted to have what most of my friends had with their mothers. In my family, it was taboo to discuss our issues and even writing this post will probably strike a cord with some folks. But I realized I wanted my mother’s validation and I wanted to hear her say “Hija, I’m proud of you.” I blamed her for all the mistakes of my adolescence because I thought if she would have just listened to me then I wouldn’t have lashed out and behaved the way I did. Feeling like a misunderstood weirdo because my mom wasn’t my “end all be all” like my friends became the norm. But then I realized I wasn’t alone.
The truth is that everyone’s mother/daughter relationship is different. We can’t hold our moms accountable for our actions because at the end of the day, they’re human too. It’s up to us as the “child” to let go of the anger, resentment, frustration and learn to forgive. We should begin to accept those for who they are; that doesn’t mean they’re right it just means that we’ve matured into acceptance. If you know how someone is, you can learn to appropriately react to situations with that person. What I’ve realized is that parenting does not come with a guidebook and my mom did the best she could and I must say she did a damn good job! She came to this country without knowing the language and made it happen. She was fearless and raised (3) beautiful children. She went to work every day and instilled values in us that I will cherish to this day. I never wanted for anything thanks to her and my precious father. She showed me how to cook, clean and pretty much take care of myself. And I must say that those cooking tips come in handy today. She may not have known how to express her love, but she always told me that a mother’s love is like no other. She was tough on me for sure, but after I started accepting her for who she was I realized that we are pretty much the same person. We’re both loving, funny, emotional and go-getters ready to take charge of our lives.
Lately, we’ve gotten closer and I’m sure it’s because of my prayers and that I’ve grown as a woman; I can relate to her more now. When I told her that I was quitting my job to focus full-time on Embrace Her Legacy, she said “Hija, I know you’re going to be ok, You got this.” Those words were so impactful because in our culture, it’s all about getting a good job and holding on to it no matter what. But for her to understand my dream, support my vision and even share ideas on how to make the transition smoother made me think I’m a blessed with a beautiful mother. She loves me unconditionally and I know she will always be there for me. Although things may not ever be picture perfect, I cherish her and the new chapter of our relationship where we talk to each other and not at each other. So, if you’re relationship isn’t perfect with your mom, I’m here to encourage you to have faith and do what you can on your end to make a better relationship. Don’t force it, all in it’s time. As I said, they are not perfect and neither are we. Forgive, forget and move forward. Happy Mother’s Day!
by desing | Events, Our Legacy
What an incredible event we hosted with our guest host, Gilt Groupe executive and marketing extraordinaire, Rashana Hooks. We chatted all things legacy, purpose and turning our mess into a message…check out photos below!
