Social Media Series for Small Business – An In-depth Look at LinkedIn for Your Small Business

This week we are back to our Social Media Series for Small Business with an in depth look at LinkedIn.  To date, we've talked about which Social Media sites are best for your business and what good posting strategies you should be using, and we've taken an in depth look at Facebook for small business.

Let’s take another look at the enhanced version of our Social Media for Small Business Infographic.

As we reviewed before, LinkedIn is a business networking site with about 240 million users. The best use we've seen for LinkedIn is a networking tool for those out of work or looking to move in a different direction with their career.

But LinkedIn can also be a great tool for small business.

First, start by creating a LinkedIn Company Page to raise brand awareness and teach potential customers about your products and services.

Use your posts to attract followers to your company page. Followers are key to driving word of mouth, recommendations and referrals. The more quality followers you have, the more you will increase your reach and engagement.

You can start increasing followers by asking your employees to add your company page to their personal profiles. By doing this they are automatically following your company page and can like and comment on posts about your company. Do the same from your personal page and you've just expanded your company page’s reach significantly.

Next, ask your customers and potential customers to follow your Company Page – include links to connect on your website and other social media as well as in your email communications.

Increase your exposure by posting regularly. Share company news, industry articles and start key discussions about topics important to your customers and potential customers. We recommend 2 - 4 times per week; others may recommend daily. Like every other social media site, the key to success is to have a strategy and be consistent.

LinkedIn may take a bit more effort to cultivate, but the opportunities to expand your network may well be worth the investment of your time.

How are you using LinkedIn to benefit your small business?

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Kerry Brooks is Co-owner of ProfessionalEdge Associates, offering a wide range of marketing, event planning and other support services to businesses that want to increase their success, but aren't in a position to add to their staff. Learn more at www.gettheprofessionaledge.com.

Ten part series on starting a business - Part 5

Pricing and Bidding

One of the most challenging aspects of starting a business, particularly if you are providing a service, is determining what to charge and how to bid.  It might be best to come at pricing from two different directions.  First, if possible, do some research and see what other companies are charging for similar services.  Second, put together a budget including expected expenses and projected revenue, and figure out what you need to charge to cover your expenses.  Budgeting can be especially challenging when you are starting out, because you will not know all of your expenses or what to expect for revenues, but do your best to come to a reasonable budget. 

Study the numbers you have derived from each of these processes, and determine what you will ultimately charge for your services.  If your business is pricing a product, the process is similar, but it may be easier to find out what the market will support and what others are charging for similar products.

Often a business providing a service must submit a proposal or bid to an organization in order to gain them as a customer.  Take care to put together proposals that answer each specific requirement in the request, and be sure that it is professional.  You may find it helpful to read books or take a class on how to write a proposal. Note that each organization/project will want information in different ways.  Some will ask for an hourly rate, some will want a project cost.  Some may not tell you what they want.  Expenses will be handled differently.  For example, if travel is required, the company may pay for that separately, or you may have to include that in your costing strategy.

Competition can be tough depending on your industry and potential customers, especially when you are just starting out and trying to make a name for your business.  Do your homework, be diligent, and don’t get discouraged. 

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Kim Luedke is Co-owner of ProfessionalEdge Associates, offering a wide range of marketing and support services to businesses that want to increase their success, but aren't in a position to add to their staff.

Don’t Forget to Feed the Monster Before it Gets Hungry

Your small business is a being. It’s a living, breathing, moving, growing, changing being. It needs to be fed in order to keep it fat and happy.

Think about how you feel when you skip a meal or don’t eat right. Your stomach gurgles, your energy level is low and your mood changes.

This is the way many entrepreneurs are with their small businesses. They work every day on what will bring them revenue today or two weeks from now and forget to feed their business with leads and contacts that will help them be full further down the road. Occasionally, they’ll stop and send out a single post card or email or post something on Facebook, but there are large gaps in between and not a good balanced meal to sustain the company’s energy, so the results are not what they expect.

Imagine instead if you devoted a percentage of your time and a dedicated monthly budget to your business. The old adage of paying yourself first applies to your business as well. It doesn't have to be a huge amount of time, or a huge amount of money. It just has to be consistent. Start with an hour or two a week and $500 - $1,000 per month.  That doesn't sound like much time or money to invest in marketing, but it can go a long way. It’s much more about getting started, being strategic and keeping it going than about how much you can do today.

If you start with a small budget and you’re not a marketing guru, invest in a consultant to make the most of that budget for you. The right consultant can stretch that amount each month into a good mix of marketing and social media to get you the best reach for your investment.

Then, invest the limited time you have into communicating and providing information about your business to that consultant and then to networking as much as possible to cultivate current connections and add new ones. The consultant can take the information and turn it into blog posts, social media posts, email campaigns and other marketing and advertising to come up with the right mix to maximize your investment and always keep you in front of your target audience.

You also must have realistic expectations. With a small investment of time and money, you won’t see huge results immediately. So don’t give up after a month with no immediate results! With consistency, you will start seeing your business and your brand awareness increase. Over time, you will solidify your brand and your network will grow. So as you have new products or services to offer down the road, your monster will be full of new prospects and potential customers to sustain your business.

Is your monster being fed a good meal consistently or is that a gurgle you hear?

__ Kerry Brooks is Co-owner of ProfessionalEdge Associates, offering a wide range of marketing, event planning and other support services to businesses that want to increase their success, but aren't in a position to add to their staff. Learn more at www.gettheprofessionaledge.com.

Take Time to Pay Attention to the Simpler Things

Last week, I read a blog that made me take a break from all of the technology and contracts and stress of life and stop to think about the simpler things.

It was about how to give your 2014 kids a 1970s summer.  It made me laugh. In fact I’m still laughing. And it brought back many wonderful memories of leaving the house at 7:00 in the morning and not coming back until after playing hide and seek at dusk. Riding bikes. Bouncing from house to house and slapping together sandwiches at whoever’s house we were at when we got hungry. Lemonade and Kool-Aid stands. Cartwheels and Red Rover on the front lawn. Playing in the sprinklers. And laughter. So. Much. Laughter. Thank you Melissa Fenton and @_MommyPage for the fabulous flash back.

We thought it would be fun to take a look at what was happening with business and technology back in the 1970s too. Here are just a few kind of important things that happened during that decade:

• Southwest Airlines made its first flight in June 1971
• Federal Express was founded in 1971
• The earliest floppy disks were invented at IBM; they were 8 inches wide and became commercially available in 1971
• The first e-mail transmission took place in 1971
• The first voicemail system, known as the Speech Filing System (SFS), was invented by Stephen J. Boies in 1973
• On April 3, 1973, the first cell phone call was transmitted
• Microsoft was founded on April 4, 1975
• Apple was founded April 1, 1976
• Oracle was founded in 1977
• The microprocessor, spreadsheets and the C programming language were invented
• Pocket calculators and the Sony Walkman were built
• Microwave ovens and VCRs became commercially available
• In 1979 e-commerce was invented

Clearly, the 1970s saw many inventions and thriving entrepreneurship. Technology grew by leaps and bounds. And it has never stopped.

Hmmm. Any correlation between that and the “forced smile-inducing, uber planned and supervised, over-the-top summer life experiences” parents are providing these days?

Technology is an amazing thing. It’s what allows us to run our business when we live in different places and our customers are in other different places. That’s not something that could have happened in the 1970s and not something to be taken for granted.

But, this article reminded me to take more moments to remember the simpler things and break the ‘rules’ more.

In fact I've just used an app to put that on my To Do list in the cloud so it will trickle down to all of my various technology devices. J

How do you take time to remember the simpler things?

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Kerry Brooks is Co-owner of ProfessionalEdge Associates, offering a wide range of marketing, event planning and other support services to businesses that want to increase their success, but aren't in a position to add to their staff. Learn more at www.gettheprofessionaledge.com.

Entrepreneurs: Celebrate the small victories, learn from the missteps, and don’t forget to sing in the mud

Running a small business can be like riding the world’s craziest roller coaster. There are ups and downs, twists and turns, big climbs and long drops. But there are three simple lessons that we encourage you to implement each day to make the ride much easier.

Celebrate the small victories.

No matter what you are going through today, there will be victories. Maybe you gained a new customer or a great testimonial from a happy client. Maybe you reached a milestone anniversary or maybe you just increased your followers on Twitter. Whatever the victories, be sure to celebrate them every day. Celebrating the small victories helps you concentrate on the positive things happening in your business and not dwell on the challenges. If you, as the business leader, focus on the positives, that will resonate throughout your team and to your customers. At the end of each day, make a list of the victories and celebrate them.

Learn from the missteps.

There will be missteps. You will make mistakes in business. Thomas Edison famously said “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” 

As long as you learn from the missteps you are moving forward. Don’t be afraid to experiment and try new things. If they become missteps, you are learning and progressing. Don’t dwell on the misstep, dwell on what you learned from it and move on.

Sing in the mud.

Along with the wild roller coaster ride there will be times that you feel overwhelmed. There may be staffing issues or cash flow challenges or clients who may not be the best fit for your company. You may seemingly have more work to do than hours in the day.

Admiral William H. McRaven, United States Navy Admiral and Commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command delivered the 2014 commencement address at the University of Texas at Austin. His speech included ten important life lessons he learned in SEAL training. They are all applicable, but one stood out as very appropriate for entrepreneurs who are feeling overwhelmed “If you want to change the world, start singing when you’re up to your neck in mud.” Please click here to watch that section of his address, or click here to watch the full speech – you will be glad you did.

Being an entrepreneur can be overwhelming and can sometimes feel like it is taking you on a crazier ride than you expected. These three simple steps will help you stay focused on the positives, keep learning the ways that won’t work until you find those that do, and keep singing even when you feel overcome.

What important life lessons can you share with your fellow entrepreneurs?

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Kerry Brooks is Co-owner of ProfessionalEdge Associates, offering a wide range of marketing, event planning and other support services to businesses that want to increase their success, but aren't in a position to add to their staff. Learn more at www.gettheprofessionaledge.com.