Key areas we will cover in chapter 15:

• ✓ encouraging visitors to your sites
• ✓ ensuring consistency between your online and offline brands.

Promote your social media efforts

Let’s look at how to get that all-important exposure for your social media sites so that other people know you exist and can engage and communicate with you, all of which leads to sales.

Email signature

If you are using the professional version of Outlook you can add the icon images of your chosen sites to your email signature and hyperlink them to the relevant pages — so you can have one linking to your Facebook page, one to your Twitter page, one to your LinkedIn profile or company page, and so on. If you don’t want to use the icon images, you can simply hyperlink a short piece of text such as ‘follow us on Facebook’ and it will do the same job but you are including a call to action at the same time.

Your emails go to people everywhere, not just to people in your place of work. So this is a really easy way to get some exposure for your sites, particularly when you are sending an email to a prospect as it gives that recipient a chance to see a whole lot more about your company. Your friends and family who you email will also get the benefit of keeping up with your business side if they wish, even down to the real estate agent you recently emailed about a possible move, or the travel agent about a holiday you have just confirmed.

For those who use an email program such as Gmail, there is an option for you too called www.wisestamp.com. It enables you to build your email signature and then include links to sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and many more. You can even add random quotes that change on every email, or your username for Skype, and filter in your latest tweets. You never know where your email will end up, and I know I have definitely got business from my email signature.

Business cards

Some companies still include their fax number on their cards and I guess that in some industries a fax machine may still be used, but if you think about yours, how often does it ring with anything that’s not spam? That’s if you even have one.

Use this valuable space to promote your page addresses and usernames for Skype and Twitter so that others can choose which way to communicate with you and also find further information about your company easily. Use both sides of your card so that it doesn’t look too cramped. If you have to use a corporate business card that does not have all of this information on it, think about getting a second card printed with your alternative details that you can pass out alongside your corporate one.

As an aside, while we are talking about what your business card could have on it, does it have what you actually do on it too? I don’t mean ‘Director’ or another title, but if a 14-year-old picked up your card, would they understand what it is you do when they read it?

My card says ‘Linda Coles, Author, Speaker and Trainer. Building relationships online’, so anyone who picks up my card can see instantly what I do. What does yours say?

Printed media

People can contact you in so many different ways so wherever you would put your telephone number, think about putting your social media page details there too. Print media is certainly no different, so think about these ideas and see if any could apply to you:

• menus
• appointment cards
• flyers
• posters
• postcards
• greeting cards
• folders
• calendars
• stickers
• vouchers
• bookmarks
• corporate gifts.

Don’t forget to add your social site details to any ads you run in the press and telephone directories. In fact, think about all of the areas you publish your telephone number or web address and add them in.

Vehicle signage

Hold on, I don’t mean you have to go and get your whole car sign-written at huge expense, but why not do at least the back window of your car or service vehicles? I paid a few dollars for my web address to be put in my back window and I know people have seen it because they have commented on it.

I was once at a set of traffic lights in town when I looked across to the car beside me. I thought the driver looked familiar but the lights changed and off I went. When I got back to the office, there was a LinkedIn message for me from the person in that car! He had seen my back window, realised it was me and was simply saying hello. I have never actually met that person yet, only chatted on LinkedIn, but maybe one day ... I have also had people toot their horn and wave to me and I’ve absolutely no idea who they are but they may have chatted to me online somewhere (either that, or they are nutters).

TV and radio

If you are lucky enough to be able to afford TV or radio advertising, the same applies here. Many magazine and current affairs TV shows advertise their Facebook name at the end of each episode, inviting you over to the page after the program to leave your views and comments about the show’s topics.

For big brands that are running promotions and giveaways on TV, it’s the ideal place to send your traffic. You no longer need to spend large amounts of money on separate websites and applications for big promotions. Just make use of Facebook.

Using your Facebook page address rather than your website means you only need a short and easy-to-remember URL. This is because the web address of any Facebook page will always be www.facebook.com followed by a forward slash and the page name: www.facebook.com/yourpagename. That means you then only need to tell people to go to your Facebook page ‘yourpagename’ and that’s all they have to remember. Bear this in mind when you set up your URL in the beginning as once you have named your page it is virtually impossible to change it.

Website

Your website is also an obvious place to post links back to your social sites as your web address is usually posted on all of your printed media. Many websites simply place the icon images for Facebook, Twitter, and so on, on their front page somewhere at the bottom and hope that will suffice, but it could be done better. As visitors to any site, we now expect to see them top right of the page, so follow suit.

If your web designer is able to incorporate the icon images into the site’s template so they appear automatically on every page, that would be ideal, but if not, consider adding the images to the home page, ‘About’ page and contact page at the very least.

Social box plug-in

These plug-ins, or widgets, allow your website visitors to read the last content you loaded onto your Facebook page, Twitter feed or Pinterest — or whichever plug-in you are using — and become a fan or follower of your page without ever leaving your website. Your visitors can also see who else is a fan, and if any of their friends are, if it’s the Facebook plug-in. Google will help you find the plug-ins for you and the HTML code to install in your website as it has instructions on how to create the plug-in you require. The code will need to be installed by your web person if you can’t get into the coding area yourself. You may want to add it to your blog site also, if you have one.

Page backgrounds

Your Twitter page, LinkedIn profile page and YouTube page will allow you to create and install an image for the whole of the background, so this is another place to add your other social site details. I use a copy of the same image from my Facebook page for continuity because it already has my logo, my picture and my contact details, so it really is a no-brainer.

Voicemail

This may seem a crazy idea, but why not? ‘I’m sorry I’m not able to take your call at the moment, but why not visit my Facebook page in the meantime ...’. Think of the exposure.

Newsletter

If you are regularly sending out newsletters to your database, your social media links need to be on there too. I use a call-to-action text link within my newsletter as well as image icons at the end to promote the sites. For example, your message may say, ‘We have had some very interesting comments on our Facebook wall about the new chocolate-flavoured spread ... ’. Hyperlink the ‘Facebook wall’ text to go through directly to your page where they can read more. ‘Write your wish list on our Facebook wall’ is a good call to action and very easy for your readers to do and have a bit of fun with.

Is your online message the same as your offline message?

You may recall in chapter 1, I mention a company director whose prospect had contacted him after doing his due diligence and found some discrepancies between the company’s offline and online messages — it was not practising what it preached. Is your message consistent across all your forms of marketing?

Double-check the following:

• Is your strap line or brand promise on all of your printed and online marketing?
• Is your brand consistent on all of your email signatures?
• Do your LinkedIn profiles follow your corporate look but with some personal individuality?
• Are you proud of all of your tweets or do they need reining in?
• Does your website mirror everything in your marketing arsenal?

And if your message is consistent, is your style sheet consistent across your brand? By that I mean do you have a few branding rules in place so that visually you look consistent wherever someone may be looking at you? For example, what is the colour code of your logo, and does it match your business cards?

Rules simply give us a framework within which to work so that the edges don’t get blurred on what is acceptable and what isn’t, so it makes sense to set up a style sheet to keep it easy.

Use fonts consistently

What font do you use when you are typing a quotation or letter and is it the same font as you use in your email? Does it also match the font on your website, and what about your brochures and business cards? If you use Arial 11 in all of your articles, but Calibri 12 on your website, that is not consistent and one of them may need to change.

Think about which font and which size you should have for the following on your online sites:

• headlines
• subheadings
• paragraphs.

I have included a checklist to help you make sure everything is covered.

So now you’ve created an audience or community, your social efforts are thriving, your content plan is working and your website is getting even more traffic than before. Everything you’ve been doing up until now has all been pointing to getting more sales. Yes, you want to be cool and friendly online, but ultimately it’s sales you’re after.

Your website

We covered it off, but here is something you need to think about. When someone finds you, wants what you have on offer and hits the ‘contact’ button, it’s got to be easy and seamless with an immediate response. Forget boxes to be filled in; give them an email link or telephone that is manned and jump straight on it. Studies have shown the hottest time to get back to an email enquiry is within the first five minutes. Yes, only five. Forget pretending you’re super busy; reply to their enquiry immediately, even if it’s just to say you’ll follow back up with them later in the day. But get in contact before they go to your competition.

Direct messages

These are no different from getting an email enquiry and should be responded to quickly. Obviously, if someone has contacted you via Facebook after hours, they are not expecting a reply there and then, but do check for messages within the relevant platform daily. While many will notify you via email that a message is waiting, from my experience it can be a bit hit and miss.

I asked a recruitment company how they approach social media. This is their story.

Conclusion of chapter 15

Long gone are the days of just a single website representing your brand online. There are now many more places to find and be found. As long as everything you do has professional consistency across it, you’ll not go far wrong. Keep to your branding guidelines, colour schemes, fonts and tone and refresh header images regularly across the board for an up-to-date look. And get back to enquiries as they happen!