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How well do you think this is working for their #SocialMedia efforts? #RocketGroup

A photo posted by Gus Wagner (@wagnergus) on Dec 12, 2014 at 7:12am PST

Everyone wants more friends, likes, and followers in social media…and whatever Google is calling theirs…for their businesses, campaigns, and efforts. Many businesses are making basic Facebook Page mistakes that you can avoid by following the Facebook search tips in this post.
One common call to action I see repeatedly in print and even local television advertising is the icon below:

It doesn’t work like that. Not well at least.

With that call to action, a customer might find you on Facebook if you are the only business with your name on the platform. But they might just as well find a similar-named firm in another region of Missouri, they may find nothing, or they may find a sneaky competitor of yours.

What is the proper way to promote your Facebook presence in real life? It’s by using your full URL. For example, ours on Facebook.com/RocketGroup.

Let’s assume that your customers are able to find your Facebook Page online. What are some of the common Facebook Business Page mistakes they might find when they get there?

• The last time you updated your Page was over two months ago.
• You have a Facebook Profile instead of a Facebook Page (a Cardinal Sin.)
• The purpose of your business or organization has gotten lost.
• You haven’t engaged with your Fans.
• Your Fans have no idea what your brand stands for.

Your business can distinguish itself from others by responding to posts, answering customer questions, and otherwise interacting with your Fans on Facebook in a way that’s true to your purpose and authentic to your brand.

If you’re really serious about Facebook, here’s some more food for thought:

• Empower someone dedicated to social media to manage your account.
• Unlink your twitter tweets and your Facebook posts. They are two different audiences. And your ‘more than #140’ tweets are getting lost. Share the same info, just in different ways.
• If you are going to schedule, which is ok to do, schedule at minimum two posts a day. Just like Raisin Bran it will do you good. Don’t lump all of your posts together at the same time of day or on one day of the week.
• Ask questions. Customers will become accustomed to answering your questions. And when they do, you’ve engaged your customers with your brand.
• Even if you aren’t on social media, your customers and prospects are, and they’re talking about your efforts and your business. Engage with them by paying attention to what they have to say and responding.

Just like everything else in your business life, social media is a commitment. You must commit to using it well, and to adapting to its constantly changing landscape.  Your goal in social media should be to constantly test your methods, content, and timing to see what works best for your organization. And just when you think you’ve figure it all out, it’s probably time to test again. That’s how quickly social media platforms like Facebook can change.

Need help? We’re here.

Thanks for the time,

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Gus Wagner - Comment (0)

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Gus Wagner - Comment (0)

Below is the SlideRocket presentation from our April 18th presentation to the Missouri Travel Council. The video from this talk to the statewide audience at their Jefferson City, MO conference appears below the SlideRocket show.

 

 

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Gus Wagner - Comment (0)

During our recent Social:IRL statewide tour, we became admirers of the team behind RAZ Mobile. We are happy to announce today that we are now partners with that same team.

Click the graphic below for more information:

RAZ Mobile gives nonprofits, organizations, and political campaigns the ability to create their own branded, mobile-optimized web site, to share it with new and existing supporters through social media, text messaging, QR codes, email, search and more, and to accept donations from supporters with a few taps on their smartphone. RAZ Mobile’s easy-to-use site-builder allows fundraisers to post news, polls, events, videos, volunteer info and more. All RAZ Mobile websites feature a prominent donate button throughout each site, enabling the ability to collect donations from supporters via their smartphones. 

With more than 60{628954cb2bad821921117287c23504a7919be1893c483613421612ad8712cddb} of all consumers using mobile devices to interact with consumer purchases, Social Media, and especially live events, creating a mobile portal to launch your fundraising success story is an obvious choice to make.

Click here for more information and to get started with your account sign up today.

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Gus Wagner - Comment (0)

With the Graph Search, algorithm improvements, and one billion users on Facebook there will be more and more pressure on businesses and organizations – large and small – to gather as many Like’s as possible. 

We stand by our longtime stance, the best way to get Like’s for your business is to earn them.

It appears Graph Search will be fueled by the Like’s users have accumulated since the beginning of their time on the platform. If I am looking for a hamburger restaraunt recommendation for Jefferson City on the tool, it will supposedly show me all of the interactions my Facebook friends have had concerning “hamburgers” and “Jefferson City”. Then I will be able to pick the best option.

This will be like Google search with peer pressure applied on top of it.

If early testing reports prove to be real, Like’s will have an inordinate amount of weight when it comes to results.This will lead to a rush of fear mongering bloggers and scared business owners to do anything and everything to drive up their Like counts. This will then result in larger numbers that will have no actual impact on their business…driving up frustration for all.

Earn your Like’s through good content with consistent posting, good visitor interaction, good real world service (that still works!), and targeted investments in sponsored posts and Facebook ads. 

Having your Christmas card list from around the world give you 100 or 1000 new Like’s to your hair salon in Mid-Missouri is not going to help you one bit. Can your Gramama in Spokane get her weekly cut and curl from you in Fulton? If the people who are liking your Facebook page aren’t local and can’t spend money with you then you are wasting time, energy and bandwith.

Invest the time, energy and bandwith into a content calendar so you know what will be posted and when, into taking attractive photos of your work product to share online, and into customer recommendations and shares which will further your message into your customer’s audiences and further.

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Gus Wagner - Comment (0)

The Slides from the presentation we gave at the Mid-MO Public Relations Society of America on January 24, 2013 in Jefferson City, MO.

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Gus Wagner - Comment (0)

Highlights from and testimonials about the Social:IRL Social Media for Non-Profits events held in Jefferson City in December of 2012.

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Gus Wagner - Comment (0)

Yesterday the story of the maybe/maybe not imaginary girlfriend of Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te’o broke. Regardless of whether the story is true or not the fact of the matter it spread like wildfire across the internet damaging the NFL prospects of Te’o, Notre Dame, and media outlets like ESPN and CBS who had covered the emotional story in the past.

Look at the image above of Deadspin’s original Facebook post which we saw 51 minutes after it had been posted in the mid-afternoon. It had already received 359 fan interactions, including 242 valuable Facebook shares. A tweet posted at the same time has, as of this post, recieved more than 15,705 retweets and more than 2,200 favorites. 

While the Facebook interaction may seem low compared to the 99,000+ fans their page has, are your good news posts about your business getting these types of response rates when posted at an off-hour in the middle of the afternoon?

We have talked before about bad news spreading fast when it comes to local businesses and the need for your good news to spread just as fast…or to encourage the spreading of your good news from your audience.

Social Media channels are powerful funnels for information of all kinds and you should always be prepared for the speed at which your good, bad, or indifferent news spreads.

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Gus Wagner - Comment (0)

The newly minted 97th General Assembly of the Missouri Legislature is increasingly more active on Social Media than the 96th General Assembly. Those seeking to grow relationships with their elected officials should be connecting with elected officials online as well as in the real world.

Although there is room for growth, rates of participation on Twitter reached majority levels in the Missouri House of Representatives and nearly every member of the Missouri Senate is on Facebook.

According to our research  of the newly sworn-in legislature and the two most popular Social Media platforms in Missouri, 140 of the 163 (85{1ccf3f7051f621f207bf0b5abe66fecd9fcbebd6ccca57cd81eaf6422f6a0a70}) House members and 32 of 34 (94{1ccf3f7051f621f207bf0b5abe66fecd9fcbebd6ccca57cd81eaf6422f6a0a70}) senators have some level of activity on Facebook. 93 representatives and 29 senators have also established a Twitter account for participation percentages of 57{1ccf3f7051f621f207bf0b5abe66fecd9fcbebd6ccca57cd81eaf6422f6a0a70} and 85{1ccf3f7051f621f207bf0b5abe66fecd9fcbebd6ccca57cd81eaf6422f6a0a70}, respectively. Our research of the 96th General Assembly showed 82{1ccf3f7051f621f207bf0b5abe66fecd9fcbebd6ccca57cd81eaf6422f6a0a70} House members had Facebook accounts and 49{1ccf3f7051f621f207bf0b5abe66fecd9fcbebd6ccca57cd81eaf6422f6a0a70} had Twitter accounts while 94{1ccf3f7051f621f207bf0b5abe66fecd9fcbebd6ccca57cd81eaf6422f6a0a70} of senators had Facebook profiles and only 56{1ccf3f7051f621f207bf0b5abe66fecd9fcbebd6ccca57cd81eaf6422f6a0a70} had Twitter profiles.

Levels of actual interaction and following the “rules” of Social Media prove to be a bit lower. Only 70 of the 93 House Twitter accounts have recent tweets (75{1ccf3f7051f621f207bf0b5abe66fecd9fcbebd6ccca57cd81eaf6422f6a0a70}) and 39 total elected officials are using their personal Facebook profile, instead of a Facebook Page, as their presence. The terms of service for Facebook state personal profiles are not to be used for business or promotional purposes, so we suggest members who do not have a Facebook Page established should set one up.

Past industry studies of Social Media show that roughly 2/3 of Twitter users are listeners – not talkers – so the level of active tweeters is actually much higher when compared to regular users. Legislators who are not broadcasting tweets are probably using the platform to stay connected with relevant conversations and colleague posts.

Our findings, linked here in Excel format, show which members are active, inactive, protected, or non-existent on Facebook and Twitter. We also provide direct links to members profiles on both platforms.

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Gus Wagner - Comment (0)

Recently, we participated in an interview with the new website Missouri.com. The interview was part of a series of talks with small business owners and innovators from the Show-Me State sponsored by our client Master Your Card Missouri. 

Missouri.com: What inspired you to focus on hiring and developing Missouri-based talent from the start?  How has this decision shaped the vision and direction of Rocket Group and what kinds of results has it yielded within your community?

Gus:  When I started my company and decided we were going to be a virtual agency, I had a lot of options. I could have contracted internationally or nationally, but I decided there was plenty of talent here in our backyard and we would do our best to showcase and create opportunities for those Missourians. I am a Missouri kid at heart and want to take care of our own first.

Missouri.com: What are some ways that small business owners can start using social media to improve their bottom lines?

Gus:  The easiest, and most successful, way to start using Social Media is just to tell the stories of your business and yourself. Letting your audience see behind the curtain, what influences you, or how you have come to be where you are are great sources of content and are messages that will create the social relationship you are trying to build with your customers and prospects. You can’t be selling all the time on these channels, as people will just tune you out.

Small business owners also have to learn to fish where the fish is and fish when they are biting. By studying the audience interaction and they will quickly be able to determine what days and times of days will lead to the greatest interaction. They also can quickly determine what platform their audiences are on. Here in Missouri if you aren’t on Facebook but you are on Google+ you are really wasting your time in reaching a local audience. I think twitter is the greatest thing ever but still concentrate my business marketing on Facebook because that is where the greatest number of audience members are.

Missouri.com:  Can you talk about the significance of your business revenue model shifting predominantly from political clients to business clients over the last 3 years?   How does your approach differ when dealing with different sectors?

Gus: As far as my approach, I generally work the same way in across all fields. I remain honest, open and direct in discussions leading to creating any work. I set the goals and temper the expectations that any one tool is the silver bullet to winning an election or doubling someone’s bottom line.

The decision to grow our business related client work came from several fronts. First, we work exclusively for conservative candidates and causes and almost exclusively at the state legislative level in Missouri. We were there in the days when the current conservative majorities were in the elected minority and played a key role in the majority shifts in 2002. After that election, I accepted the challenge of running my company and serving as a Chief of Staff in the Missouri State Senate at the same time which I did until the end of 2010. Thanks to technology advances in that decade and the structure of my contract employees and the legislative schedule I was able to do both jobs successfully at the same time.

Once I left the Senate, due to term limits, I able to dedicate more time to increasing our business related work in the Mid-Missouri area and have been rather successful in that effort. Our political campaign work is still a significant piece of our business, and we had a successful 2012 going 5-1 in our major campaigns.

Missouri.com:  What are some social media trends that you’re excited about?

Gus: The amount of analytical data that is almost available in real-time in Social Media is extremely exciting. This information gives us the ability to see what is working and what isn’t which allows us to pivot messaging and tools. Instead of committing client dollars to traditional media and being stuck with one message for weeks at a time, we can now make brand-consistent changes and updates at least daily.

The use of photographs and video, which show the influence of Pinterest and YouTube across all platform’s is also very exciting. This just gives a brand even greater ways to highlight behind the curtain operations, employee appreciations, and customer satisfactions.

Missouri.com:  What tips can you give our audience for creating great website content that motivates potential customers?

Gus: Blog. This gives you a way to be as personable and direct as you are in Social Media. Social Media should be used as a tool to drive audiences back to your website and they should find the same voice(s) there as they do on Facebook, etc. We try to use video and photos in our blog posts as much as we do on Social Media to help tell our stories.

Businesses, especially small businesses, should always have their contact information and links or embeds to maps of their location on their sites as well. So many businesses, especially in the hospitality field, forget to put that critical information on their sites or make it hard to find.

Always look at your website’s user experience as you would when you are looking at sites that drive you crazy. If it makes you crazy, why would you do it on your own site?

Missouri.com:  What advice would you give to someone who would like to use Pinterest to promote their brand but isn’t sure where to start?

Gus: To be honest, Pinterest is a weak spot with us. Just last week, they announced the release of brand pages for Pinterest so we will have to start paying greater attention to it. We have always recommended  certain types of business – especially consumer  and consumable goods – take advantage of this platform to highlight their products. Again, this is where awesome photography can play a big role in the future of your operations and a reason why we ourselves have made recent upgrades in our own camera equipment and capabilities.

Along with LinkedIn, this is an untapped gold mine for businesses in our Mid-Missouri market looking to make a splash online. The local audiences might be small right now but they are highly engaged and you can own your competitive real estate there very quickly.

Master Your Card – Missouri is a public education campaign from MasterCard

Missouri.com:  Can you expand on your plans to start including mobile marketing to your already long list of services?

Gus: Stats don’t lie. Nate Silver told me that.

So much consumer brand interaction is taking place on mobile devices, even while they are physically in a business location, businesses need to be ready. Their websites need to be optimized for mobile, they need to make sure they are the “Mayors” of their FourSquare, Google Places, Facebook brand page, Yelp and more so they know what consumers are saying about them. This is something, again, that our Mid-Missouri market is not deeply prepared for and it may be our evangelist mission for 2013.

Missouri.com: As a self-proclaimed “Social Media evangelist” what has inspired you to offer public appearances and free seminars?  What are the most common questions you get during these sessions?

Gus: That was good timing. Well, first, we didn’t self proclaim that we were, Jason Falls told us we should be and we accepted that challenge. Study after infographic after frustrated marketer have shown that the middle of the Midwest, us, are the last little island to have accepted platforms like twitter and LinkedIn. We use Facebook at normal personal rates but lag in business page development and interaction.

I have enjoyed speaking about and sharing my knowledge on Social Media, of course there is always the higher goal of gaining business from these appearances but I go out of my way not to make the presentations all sales-pitchy.

According to the Law of Uncle Ben, which I wrote and will someday be court-ordered to stop publicizing:  As Social Media professionals, enthusiasts, and influencers it is our responsibility to educate all interested parties on the true power of these platforms.

The questions I normally get are the basic ones about security and set up. There are still a lot of people who don’t grasp the basics which many of us take for granted. The questions that frustrate me are from the folks who were doing, for example, Facebook in one of many abusive or wrong ways and then blamed the tool for the failure of the message.

Missouri.com: What are 3 things companies should and should not expect from social media?

Gus: Good content and commitment are the only legitimate ways to do find success on Social Media.

Companies should never expect Social Media will be easy, free, or grant instant success. These tools change on an almost daily basis which is why no one can rightly call themselves and expert at this stuff. It is going to cost them time and money to get up to speed and build an audience.  Also, someone might be able to quickly build an audience of hundreds or a thousand for their small business by asking their friends and friends of friends to LIKE their page but then what? Can those fans do business with your restaurant or car wash if they live 2000 miles away? Finding and building an audience that actually does or can do business with you is the toughest and most time consuming thing about Social Media.

They should expect consumers will say bad things about them online, that their competition is watching everything they do on Social Media, and that it can be the greatest tool they have in their marketing mix if they commit to using Social Media in the proven successful ways.

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