10 Reasons to Use Social Media

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Les Adkins

So it’s 2013 and Social Media is everywhere. I have even started a daily tip on Twitter @mysylbert Apologies for the shameless plug but I had a goal of 2000+ followers in 90 days which has turned into a little longer so I need all the help I can get. Thanks for the follow if you are so inclined.

Working with businesses here in the US and Internationally I hear this statement a lot “Well we are using Social Media but we are not seeing the results we would like to see”, which keeps me in business by the way, but I always ask the question WHY? Why are they using social media and you would be surprised at the number of directors and CEO’s of large well-known companies that can’t answer that question. So below I have decided to state the Top 10 Reasons to Use Social Media (in my humble opinion). For business or for individuals.

10. To Get Noticed: Whether you are a business or an individual and you want to get your name out there the best way to do this is through Social Media. Search Engines love Social Media.

9. Marketing: There has been a lot written and said about Social Media Marketing and although you should never look at Social Media as a new Marketing channel (it doesn’t work) you should enhance your marketing through Social Media. “Content is the Fire, Social Media is the Gasoline” Jay Baer

8. Real Time News: Now you have the ability to have real-time news with video from around the world without having a large group of paid journalists and travel expenses. (and I studied journalism-so journalists don’t hate). Anyone with a smart phone can report the news. Look at all the news related items coming out of the Middle East, US and literally every major country in the world. The ability to get news right away has never been more easy than through social media.

7. Relationships: Finding long-lost friends and family. Reconnecting with old school friends or work colleagues. We live in an age where, if they are on social media, you can reconnect with them and develop close ties again or just keep in touch. This is great for sales and also if you are looking for a job.

6. Innovation: I believe this is one of the biggest breakthroughs that social media has allowed companies, that use it correctly, to accomplish. You can now innovate your products and services by asking the users what they want and adapting to their wants and needs rather than guessing or holding expensive focus groups.

5. Collaboration: Business, Science. News and Education are just a few of the industries who are now using social media to collaborate with others on projects that normally might have been done in a vacuum. Two minds are greater than one, with social media you can now have dozens, hundreds, thousands or more all working toward a common cause or project.

4. Sales: If your sales team is not using Social Media to gain new leads and find new business then you are missing out on a great opportunity. Social Media allows you to find new business opportunities, who the decision maker is, and what companies are looking for. If you don’t believe me Google Social Media Sales. “You can really get to know his or her needs through social listening. It’s a great way to research a market and initiate conversation leading to a sale.” Janet Fouts

3. Finding the Right Talent: Although there are a lot of people in the job market it is still hard for companies to find the right people that will move their organization forward. With social media you can search in specialty groups and also have a broader reach when you need to fill a position. Finding the right person for the job is right at the tip of your digital fingers.

2. Information: Causes, Companies and people in general have always wanted to get information out to their peers, prospects, and the general public. We always tell anyone we are working with that the information has to add value to their audience. This works for businesses, organizations and everyone who is putting out information. Including my blog. But now with one click you can send out information to millions of people around the world. Just be careful that it is the right information. (Your audience will decide this for you).

And drummmm rollllll please!!!!!

1. To Stay In Business: Socialnomics and Infographics have stated that 40% of Fortune 500 companies will no longer be in business in 10 years. This is due to their inability to adapt to the new consumer, business or audience. So whether you are a business, church, nonprofit or individual you need to be using social media if you want to still be relevant and viable in the next 10 years.

Les Adkins is the CEO of Orange SMS Consulting and an International Social Business Strategist, speaker, consultant and author. Bringing strategy and whole brain thinking to creative campaigns and social media through his work. Please follow @mysylbert and connect on LinkedIn Join us on FB and Google+ as well.

Are You Too Busy To Blog?

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Les Adkins

Are you familiar with the story of the children whose father was a Cobbler and they went without shoes? Well there are several people who own or run businesses that use this story. It’s a great story but at the end of the day it’s just an excuse. I can say this, because I have been using this story myself and realized that it was a Gigantic excuse.

There is some truth in this because business owners are busy and they sometimes neglect their own business working with customers/clients. But it is still an excuse. Doug Grady writes in his book “The Ripple Effect” that one of his statements his dad taught him was “Do It Anyway” even if you don’t think you can or if you don’t have the time.

I realized recently that the last Blog I wrote was on June 20th. For you mathematically challenged that was a little over 2 months ago. This week I was facilitating one of the training’s I do for NetApp in Brazil and a few of them said that the information they were getting may not be relevant for their country. I went into explaining why this is an excuse to do something outside their comfort zone. The course helps technical people move from the technology conversation to the business conversation. Moving from speaking technonese to speaking business strategy. They were trying to use “it may be different in my company” as an excuse as to not use the information they were learning. (It worked itself out when I said just use the information but in your style). But I digress…

I use the example above as a case to show that all of us find reasons and excuses for not doing something new or not doing the things we know to do that will make us successful. My company helps organizations grow their business by providing guidance using social media and how to create a “Social Business Strategy” customized to their organization.

The point or the “So What” for this Blog is simple. I am no longer going to allow myself or anyone in my business to use the story of the Cobbler as a reason for not doing what we need to do, to allow our business to grow. In other words:

So the next time someone tells you the story of the Cobbler and his children with no shoes because he was busy making shoes for other children. Just smile and remember that from this day forth. You and I are living by the motto “No More Excuses”.

Important Note: No one is saying this will not be hard, anything worth doing is.

Be on the look out for more blogs from me on a more consistent basis.

Greetings from Sao Paulo Brazil:

Social Media – The Big Three???

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Les Adkins

So lately I have been hearing a lot about the Big Three in Social Media. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. So I started looking around to see who was out there hyping these three and training and teaching companies how to make these work for businesses. There are a lot of companies out there touting their skills on the Big Three.

So I wanted to take a moment to weigh in and let you know that although these are considered the Big 3 they may not be your Big 3 or 4 or 5 or 2. The number is arbitrary because it depends on your Social Business Strategy.

Let me show you a little guide that is put out by RLTM (Real Time Report) that was posted on April 13, 2012.

Facebook: over 845 million active users Facebook

Twitter: over 500 million users Twopcharts

Qzone: 500 million active users China Internet Watch

Sina Weibo: over 300 million users Bloomberg Businessweek

Renren: over 170 million users iResearch iUser Tracker

LinkedIn: 150 million members LinkedIn

Google Plus: 100 million active users Google

Tumblr: 51.5 million blogs Tumblr

Instagram: 40 million users TechCrunch

Tagged 20 million unique mthly users Tagged

Foursquare nearly 20 million users Business Insider

Pinterest 11.7 million unique mthly users TechCrunch

Posterous 3.9 million members SF Gate

The last Google Search I did on “Social Media Sites” came up with 147.000.000 results. Just to let you see how different measurements tell us the Top sites here is another site that gives you the Top 15 from ebiz/MBA.

As you can see there are several Social Media sites that have large numbers based on members, unique monthly visitors and their Alexa Global Traffic Ranking.

So as a business, just keep in mind that unless your audience is using these sites and you can engage them you might be wasting time and resources on the Big Three! It’s always better to create a strategy around your social media efforts than to put things out on the Big Three and hope they produce results.

Create Awesome Content!!!

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Les Adkins

Got your attention? Well this is a very quick, down and dirty blog. Lately I have been inundated with offers claiming to have that magic pill to help me with my Social Media Presence, Strategy, Posts, Content, Marketing and the list goes on. They entice you with headlines like the one for this blog, sorry about that. Now I could be a real Jerk and name some of the companies and people I am getting offers from, but… I won’t. I learned a long time ago that the only way to win is to be better than the other guy or company who is telling everyone why your company is so bad and how they don’t really have the best of ______________ (fill in the blank).

So What Do You Do? With all these offers and guarantees?

How do you get through all the noise and find the right thing to do to get ahead in whatever business or endeavor you are doing without shelling out a lot of money to the wrong people, companies or offers? Yes I am talking to myself as well. I have paid for bad information, technology and other stuff along the way.

I heard a great line the other day in a movie. “If you want to make a lot of money; Work your Ass Off!” Friends with Benefits As in life so as is in business, there are no short cuts! A friend of mine posted this about someone trying to help businesses out with Social Media. “Liar” by Doug Grady.

The point is simple; work hard, build trust, and be a real person in order to add value to your community. (This Goes For Businesses Too) And yes come back and continue reading these posts and I will help you with all of the above. For just the time it takes you to read this post and if along the way you find value please share this with others.

It is a new world and for all the good, bad and ugly the new currency is TRUST!

Yes folks I have been away but I am back. Hope you tag along on the second part of my continuous journey.

Les Adkins is the CEO of Orange SMS Consulting and an International Social Media Strategist, speaker, consultant and author. Bringing strategy and whole brain thinking to creative campaigns and social media through his work. Please follow @mysylbert and connect on LinkedIn Join us on FB as well.

It’s Been Too Long! How is your New Year Starting Socially?

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Les Adkins

Life is a wonderful teacher….Unfortunately she has a habit of killing all of her students!

So how is everyone doing? I know it has been awhile since the last time I have blogged. I hope you are following me on Twitter or are connected to me another way; Google +, LinkedIn, FB page. I hope that in some way we are connected. If not what are you waiting for?

Well it’s been a crazy beginning to the new year and a lot has happened. Those of you who went with me on my 30 day journey I hope that it added value to your lives and gave you real help in improving your business and reaching your personal goals.

I have been absent in blogging for way too long. Two months. This is one time that it is worth repeating “Do as I say, not as I do!” In order to keep your branding out there you need to continue reaching out to your audience and continue building up trust.

In the next several months I am going to be completing my book and I am asking for your help in keeping me on the right track. I will be putting exerts of the upcoming book on here and I really would like to hear your comments. I will also be adding some valuable advice on social (media) and where it is going and also sharing some thoughts from colleagues and friends about how things are changing with Social and Mobile Engagement.

So for those of you who only follow my blog, my sincere apologies. Please keep connecting with me in other ways as I am more apt to stay in touch with quick posts on a regular basis.

Here’s to living the Life you Were Born To Live! This is my own personal mantra for 2012.

Join us on FB as well.

Day 14: Blog, Blog, Blog

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Les Adkins

So if you are not blogging; why not?

If you have a business you should be blogging about the industry you are in and giving helpful information, that adds value.

What am I talking about? I hear you out there saying, shouldn’t I be selling my company on my blog? Well have you read a blog lately? Most of the good one’s give valuable information without asking for anything, and that is the way it is supposed to be. Yes you can mention your company but only in your bio at the end. Here’s why:

Home Depot was starting to lose sales to Lowe’s. They came up with a great idea. They decided to offer free workshops to the communities where they were and provided these workshops usually on the weekends. Amazingly enough most of the materials that they used in these workshops were also sold by them, but at the end of the workshop there wasn’t a “sales pitch”. They really didn’t care if you went somewhere else to purchase the materials needed. So what do you think happened? Well there sales went up because they became a trusted partner in the community.

That’s the reason. Here’s the how.

You can use a number of different free blogging tools here’s a couple.

WordPress

Blogger

Now there are a number of different free tools out there that tell you how to blog. Click on blog for a great site on “How Blogs Work”.

Your blog should be concise, short (as possible), and informative. But why should you blog and also why should you comment on other blogs.

Influence! When i write this blog it is networked and goes on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. I then post it on Google + and a few LinkedIn groups that I participate in.

If you only blog and post but don’t interact then your missing the point. There have been many ‘Blogs’ written about blogging, but you need to understand that as an individual or business you need to engage with your audience and others and a ‘Blog’ is an easy way to do this.

Social media is about interacting. In order for you to grow your online influence you need to make sure you are initiating dialogue with others. Not just for the sake of selling, but to truly provide helpful, insightful, and inspirational information to others.

Happy Blogging!

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Day 10: Develop 30 second Commercial

Posted on October 13, 2011 by Les Adkins

So on day 10, I am re-developing my 30 second commercial.

So what makes you unique? Who are you? What company are you with? And how do you creatively explain what you do?

Being a business development consultant that specializes in Social Media Strategy and Whole Brain Approach has been difficult this past year. (No, I’m not complaining just stating facts.) Every time I say what I do, someone inevitably states, “We do the same thing”.

When I first started working with “Social Media”, around seven years ago, there were very few people who knew what “Social Media” was. Let alone its value to business and how it would change the way companies do business. Or they only knew a few of the players and had no idea about Second Life or Kaneva. Virtual worlds that have become more conducive to business interaction in the last few years.

Anyway my point is that when I started the words “Social Media” were unique enough to draw interest. Now I’m just another fish in the sea and everyone has jumped on the social media bandwagon, from PR companies to Advertising and Marketing agencies.

So how do I set myself and business apart? I go back to the basics. Here is the exercise.

Adapted from Jeffrey Gitomer, “Sales Bible”

Instructions: Fill out this exercise below. Read it from top to bottom. Add a few personal pronouns. Time it. Practice it. Study it. And voila!

My Name:

My Company Name:

These first two are pretty self-explanatory.

What I do:

Now don’t make the mistake of saying you print materials or you provide business development consulting. I love what Timothy Ferris from “the 4-Hour Work Week” says when asked this question, “I’m a drug dealer”. This is usually a conversation ender but I thought I would share it anyway because I love the answer. Go read the book and find out why he answers that way.

OK, so what should you say? You should say something that involves action items and makes the person look at what you do differently. I’m still working on mine but it goes something like this:

We help companies draw new talent and new customers by creating a Whole Brain Approach to their business development strategy.

Notice I am getting away from the words Social Media. Although what we do in the message above is help them with their Social Media Strategy as part of the business development strategy.

My Power Questions:

“When formulating your power questions for your commercial, ask yourself these…questions.”

What information do I want to get as a result of asking these questions?
Can I qualify my prospect as a result of the question
Does it take more than one question to find out the information I need?
Do my questions make the prospect think?
Can I ask a question that separates me from my competitor?

You need to ask questions to be able to close your 30 – second commercial with a call to action. Make sure there is a closing statement or question that ensures another contact.

I personally am not a big fan of lists of questions, I prefer a guide to be able to respond to the person’s answer from my previous question. So here is a quick guide:

Situation - What is the current situation (of their business related to what you do)?

Objective – What are their objectives? (Usually to better the situation, this can be more sales, more talented employees, larger sales, better communication, and so on.

Challenge – What challenges are they having in reaching these objectives?

Impact – What impact is this having on them? (Make sure you ask about the impact to them. The answer they give will tell you a lot about the person you are speaking to.)

Trial – So in order to reach your objectives you need to (fill in the blank) Example: So in order to gain new talent you need to improve the current employee environment of communication to the Executives?

There is a lot more that goes into the above guide, but it is a good place to start.

My Power Statement:

How Can I Help?

Why Should The Prospect Act Now?

Have a call to action statement that gives the person a reason to act now.

Example: I specialize in reaching new talent and helping businesses communicate to their employees, vendors and customers in a way they want to be communicated with. I know you can’t afford to be sending out messages that don’t reach your Whole audience in these times. So let’s meet for breakfast and discuss your latest objectives and how you are communicating those objectives to your customers. If I think I can help you, I’ll tell you. If I don’t think I can help you, I’ll tell you that too. Fair enough?

I know this is getting too long-winded, but I want to end with How to Deliver the 30 – second commercial:

Be brief
Be to the point
Be remembered
Have power questions and power statements ready
Get the information you need
Show how you solve problems
Pin the person down to the next action
Have Fun!
Time’s Up – (When you have delivered your message, made your contact, and secured the next meeting or action – move on.)

Lot’s of information to digest. Sorry for the lengthy Blog.

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Day 3: Make 10 to 20 New Contacts Per Day

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Les Adkins

So today I am talking about Day 3: Making 10 to 20 new contacts per day Monday through Friday

I first want to wish Steve Jobs and his family my personal condolences and use his passing as an example for the reason to make new contacts daily and with whomever you want to.

I am currently writing a book regarding Social Media and how it is changing the business environment and the world. I wanted to have two interviews in the book and one of them was Steve Jobs. Unfortunately I personally will never get his innovative and creative opinion on how Social Media is changing the world. This is my fault. Several months ago I thought about adding these interviews and I have been procrastinating trying to contact him. Now I might have never gotten the opportunity, but I did not even try.

What does this have to do with making 10 to 20 new contacts a day. Just to let you know that contacts can be anyone and your imagination is your only limitation as to who that contact may be.

There are several helpful resources in helping you make those 10 to 20 New contacts per day.

1. LinkedIn

2. “Networking Like a Pro” You can also purchase the book by Ivan Misner, David Alexander and Brian Hillard.

3. Networking Events. No matter where you are there are many Networking Events taking place. If you have trouble check out your local Chamber of Commerce or just google “Networking Events (put your city or neighborhood here)”

4. FB, Meetups, Twitter, Google+ (Hangouts)

OK so why do you need to make 10 to 20 new contacts per day? Just imagine that at the end of each week you have 50 to 100 new contacts and if you only get 1% of those to introduce you to your next client or become a client you end up having 1.5 new clients per week. So you can’t have 1/2 a client (although I have had some) so let’s say 1 or 2. At the end of 6 months you would have 12 to 24 new clients. Now it is up to you to determine the dollar value of that new client but you get the picture.

Some of you are saying that you have too many people to follow-up with so how do you make 10 to 20 new contacts per day. Well, let me tell you. I know we live in a busy world and some days you just can’t make 10 to 20 new contacts. So instead of not making the contacts at all, make it a weekly goal. Usually you can get 50 to 100 new contacts by attending 2 Network Events a week.

Hope that helps. There are several tools and companies that would also help you do this if you have the resources. But if you don’t, in this new technological world you can do it yourself and usually those contacts you make yourself will be more value than if you are paying a company to push leads to you.

So in order to live outside the “Comfort Zone” you have to do things a little differently than the rest of the Population. If it was easy and didn’t involve some work. Everyone would be doing it.

One last note: Make sure you contact anyone you think of. By trying to contact those you think are unreachable you may be surprised by your results.

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Social Media Expert?

Posted on September 21, 2011 by Les Adkins

So is there such a thing as a “Social Media Expert”? Lately I have been seeing a lot about this subject on the group “Social Media Today” on LinkedIn and Google +. As well as several other blogs. Yesterday I was in a meeting where I was called a “Social Media Expert” several times but I do not consider myself an expert, just someone who has been working with Social Media for over 6 years and understands how to make it work and also I keep my eyes on what’s new and what the new trends are.

I don’t believe anyone can be an expert on Social Media or any industry for that matter unless you keep learning about the industry and the changes that happen within that industry. When I first started working in Social Media I used to love to ask people who said they knew all about Social Media if they had heard of Second Life and Kaneva. Most said no, so that told me something.

For those of you who don’t know they are virtual worlds that allow individuals to interact in a social way using an avatar and many businesses are using this as well.

Here is what I wanted to say. I have seen many lists and many opinions on what to look for when looking for a Social Media Strategist or so-called “Expert”. I agree whole heartedly with most of these but I have one big question.

How are the people who are deciding what’s on these lists coming up with the information. Yes it needs to work, it needs to be more than how to create a FB (Facebook) page, and it needs to be a part of a holistic strategy. But who is right?

One of the big ones I see all the time is that if you have 1008 followers on Twitter and you follow 1010 people this is a flag that you may not be a social media ex… But I have to ask the question, does having a large following on Twitter make you an expert or does what you communicate to that audience, no matter the size of the audience, matter more?

I have been thinking about this for a while and just wanted to state that just because someone thinks that you have to be a certain way in order to be a Social Media Expert doesn’t mean that you should let them have the last word. You should pick consultants and firms to help you with your Social Media based on your relationship with them, their knowledge of social media overall, their knowledge of integrating it into your current business processes and (here comes a big one) – helps you build trust and affects behavior with the social media strategy and implementation you are, or plan on doing.

See, couldn’t help myself, had to give my own opinion. But keep in mind that this is a young industry and remember that the “Experts” used to state without a doubt in their mind with many measurable results that the “World was Flat”. This was a common and accepted thought for years. So the next time you see a list (and I have some out there) or someone stating how to pick a Social Media Expert just keep in mind that it might be a good idea to think that it is just their opinion.

The World is not Flat it is round but we did not figure that out until one man overcame this old thought which was prevalent in the first half of the 20th century. Not that long ago. So lighten up out there on what you think or don’t think a Social Media Expert is.

Les Adkins is the CEO of Orange SMS Consulting and a Social Media Strategist, speaker, consultant and author. Bringing strategy and whole brain thinking to creative campaigns and social media through his work. Please follow @mysylbert and connect on LinkedIn

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Social Media Intern – Why can’t they do everything?

Posted on September 1, 2011 by Les Adkins

Tracy Raiteri who I am connected to on Google + posted the below video and comments.

youtube.com – By Author of Socialnomics (Erik Qualman) a Social Media Intern’s take on Social Media ROI.

Originally posted by Vlad Gorenshteyn (Google +)

“If your boss is asking you the following questions:

- What’s the point of social media?
- What’s the ROI of social media?
- Why can’t we just hire an “intern” to handle all of this social media mumbo jumbo?

Then, you should ask your boss these questions:

- Would you like our brand to be around in a few years?
- What is the cost of not listening and properly responding to your customers on social channels?”

I personally have spoken at several events and sat on several panels discussing the above issue and get the same question- “Why can’t I just have an intern do everything?” (regarding social media)

I always stop and wonder how this person/company accomplishes their other work that is required for day to day business and the things that help that company be successful. So I usually ask them this question:

” How many interns do you have currently on staff?”

The answers I get range from 0 to 30 depending on the size of the company. I then ask:

“What do they currently do?”

This answer ranges greatly. Some do coding (technical), some do marketing, some work with promotion and writing and the list continues for mostly general work under the supervision of someone else.

Then I ask the pointed question:

“Would you let an intern run your entire organization?”

After the laughter settles I explain the following.

Social media is more than just creating a facebook page or twitter account or creating content to post. It is a way of communicating with your vendors, prospects, customers and employees on a long term basis. It’s the new way of doing business.

In order to do this correctly and to maintain your brand you need a consistent message and this message needs to be part of your overall strategy. This strategy must come from the executive suite. It must include your objectives and have a defined audience. You also need to have a group (or the better option is to have all employees trained) to handle and listen to what your prospects, customers and employees are saying, and responding to those comments. It is a dialogue with your audience. This dialogue needs to be continuous and consistent. And you need to be honest about who is posting the information.

There are many companies that will help you in the implementation, and consultants that can help you with a strategy, but at the end of the day any social media needs to be generated from within by the overall organization.

How you handle social media will determine the health and longevity of your organization. There are lots of professionals out there who can help you navigate these new waters. Please don’t relegate your entire Social Media strategy and implementation to an intern.

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