This fall, I was crowned “Social Media Idol” at the Marketplace Conference in Kitchener, Waterloo, a title that was given to me because of my active engagement in my community, both online and off.

I’ve been on Twitter for almost three years now and it’s been an incredible avenue for me to become more engaged in my local community. It was through Twitter that I first connected with Linda Ockwell-Jenner and became a part of the online community supported by Small Business Community Network.

Being a ‘social media idol’ requires more than just being an administrator on a Facebook Fan Page or tweeting out links and events to your followers. It’s about engaging in dialogue, creating value for your followers, and being a part of a community that isn’t limited by your geography.

It’s similar to what small business owners must be to their clients; broad in knowledge, specific in scope and well versed enough in their domain to be considered an expert, and therefore, worthy enough to be trusted and to do business with.

Below are some tips from my social media idol application that can help your business take advantage of building your own social media community:

• I have over 500 connections on LinkedIn, almost entirely consisting of people that I have actually worked with or met in real life. LinkedIn is a great way to create a more active connection with your professional network. Once I’ve exchanged cards with someone, I immediately add them to my LinkedIn network. Through the LinkedIn weekly newsletter, you’ll receive updates on the changes in your network’s activities (i.e. changed jobs, got a promotion, started a business), which is a great prompt for you to stay in touch and stumble across opportunities for you and your business as well.

• I’ve tweeted over 30,000 times and have almost 2,800 followers currently which has earned me a Klout score of 55. Klout measures one’s online influence, true reach, amplification and network impact. Understanding Klout’s algorithm and how it measures these factors can get quite complicated, but what you can glean from Klout more readily is how you compare to your competitors and the impact with their network. You don’t have to tweet 30,000 times to have influence, but you do have to provide content that is relevant and that resonates with your followers to build true credibility. Most importantly here is to know that it’s not about the numbers! It really is better to have a full engaged, supportive, online community of 100 people that actively support you and your business, than it is to have thousands of followers that don’t engage, or more importantly, don’t care. As Brian Solis recently said, “the value you glean from each network is directly correlated to the relationships you forge within each network”.

• I have spoken publicly about the impact of social media and digital media on behalf of Gallery Stratford and the City of Stratford’s Rhyzome Networks, as well as having spoken at my local Kiwanis Club, the Small Business Community Network in Kitchener-Waterloo and for small business owners through Perth Community Futures.  Get out there!  Share your knowledge, expertise and unique perspectives and build your profile in your community in real life. Whether it’s volunteering or speaking commitments, these opportunities will open the door for you to meet new people and understand what your business can offer them, as well as what they can offer you.

• The first nine pages of a Google search on my name are almost all entirely relevant to me directly…and that’s just me personally! Everything from my LinkedIn profile to my twitter account to comments I’ve made on editorials years ago shows up in that search. Own your business’ profile online - social media is considered organic search and naturally rises to the top. 

You don’t need to be crowned a social media idol to effectively integrate social media into your business. Simply by integrating some online elements into the work you’re already doing, sharing the resources and knowledge you’ve gleaned along the way with your customers, you will be successful.

As we begin to close out 2011 and move into 2012, the one thing I believe your business can do in social media before the end of the year is plan your digital roadmap. You don’t have to be on all social media platforms at once, but just like any other part of your business, you need to do some pre-work to ensure that you’re successful in your execution. Here’s a great presentation that will help you ask the right questions and plan your digital roadmap for the year.

Hope to see you online in 2012!

LindaOJ here again, and in this blog I want to take you back in time to when I first discovered social media. I was poking around on the Internet and discovered Ecademy, which at that time was a website where I could connect with people mostly in the UK; it has now grown worldwide. I did my best to focus on how to use the website and learn how I could connect and grow my business. The year was 2003 and I had been building my first business, Motivational Steps, since 2001 and had recently founded the Small Business Community Network. I felt overwhelmed and decided to concentrate on my face-to-face networking and finding ways to market my businesses without spending too much money. If only I knew then what I know now I might have been rich and famous!

I want you all to learn from my mistakes; not regrets, but learning experiences. Think of the process of building your network as being similar to the way in which we build friendships. Why do you forge friendships with certain people? Are they a positive or negative influence on you? Here are a few questions you might ask yourself when making new friends on a personal level:

• Do I need any new friends? We normally ask ourselves this question as we get older, our lives are busier and it takes a bit more effort to really get to know the people we like, can trust and want to spend our personal social time with. Most people have at least 2 very old friends they grew up with and know almost as well as themselves.
• Are my new friends a good influence or do they tend to set a bad example? We have all been in that situation; I know I have. We meet someone and they invite us to do something we are not comfortable doing. One example might be drinking too much when we normally like to stop after a couple of drinks. Do we feel like we have to follow their lead or can we speak up and be different?

On a business level it is even more important deciding who we want to connect with or call our “friends”. This is where LinkedIn in particular plays an important part in building your network and can lead you to some wonderful opportunities, if you make the right choices. For those of you who are not familiar with LinkedIn please visit this link: http://press.linkedin.com/about and it explains really well what is offered. In a nutshell I like to think of LinkedIn (and these are my own words) “as my online resume; my window to the world; and a really great way to let people know who I am; what I do; my expertise; and a wonderful way to make connections and help others”.

So, if you remember when I attempted to build connections all those years ago I believe I primarily chose a social media platform that I was not familiar with. I did not take the time to research how to use it, what was on offer and how it could help me, or even how long it might take. I was very careful when DaveOJ, my husband and business partner, introduced me to LinkedIn. I wanted to learn as much as possible about it before I jumped in. September 26, 2006 is when I made my first profile on LinkedIn and that is 4 years after LinkedIn came into being. Over the years I have been slow and sure and did my best to use LinkedIn to my benefit:

• My profile has undergone many changes over the years. I update my photo when needed. There is nothing worse than clinging to an old photo that looks nothing like you and if you do meet people face to face they are surprised you look so different! I am always amazed when people fail to put a photo on any of the social media sites and you can only see what appears to be a shape of a person with no face and no identity. Does this mean the person is shy or is hiding and prefers people do not know what they look like? If you are building a profile on-line and you are not able to use your logo as your business identity, no photo could mean lack of trust and people not wanting to go the step further and get to know you.
• When building your profile on any site, but in this case on LinkedIn, make it a fantastic profile. Have pride in it and you are allowed to show off and say how good you are. Always be honest: don’t try to be someone you are not or pretend to have expertise you don’t. You will be found out at some point if you are not completely honest. You can continue to build your profile over time and people appreciate this.
• Now is the time to start connecting to people! Whether you are working for another organization or own your own business it is beneficial to know whom you want to connect to and why. If your company is global then it might be worthwhile connecting to people in lots of different countries. If not, and your business is based locally with your customers close at hand, it is easier to manage your connections if you choose to concentrate on the local area.

It’s really not a race to see who can get the most connections! I like to think it’s about quality not quantity.  Imagine a wall full of trophies, and every day you have to polish those trophies, and now and then you can show them off, but in the end what use are they? The ‘wall of trophies’ in this case contains our LinkedIn connections, which we are proud of. We don’t want to ignore those connections, or forget to keep in touch with them. In reality connecting on LinkedIn is no different than sitting opposite me in a coffee shop, where we would chat and find out about each other. As the relationship grows we find ways we can help each other. If we line up our connections on LinkedIn on our trophy wall and never speak to them what is the point?

I am a stickler for etiquette on-line and off. Would you really come up to me if you were a complete stranger off the street and ask me to go to the movies with you? I hope not, I would run a mile! Would you approach me in a coffee shop and ask me to recommend you to one of my connections if I had no idea who you were? (Please say no!) So transfer those thoughts to LinkedIn and say to yourself, before I ask someone for anything at all I need to have an idea who they are and why I feel I can approach them. Some reasons you might approach me on LinkedIn could be:

• You want to connect to me;
• You want a recommendation from me;
• You want to sell me something;
• You want to invite me to an event;
• You want me to join your group on LinkedIn

There are ways to go about connecting on LinkedIn and believe me, I did not make those rules but I think they are there for a reason. Here is what LinkedIn themselves have to say:

You can ask someone to join your network by sending them an invitation to connect. If they accept your invitation, they become a 1st-degree connection. We recommend that you only send invitations to people you know well.

In order to connect to someone on LinkedIn, once you select the name of the person and click, you are asked for the nature of your relationship with them:

• Are you a Classmate?
• Have you done business together?
• Are you a friend?
• ‘Other’?
• Don’t you know the person you re connecting too?

If your answer is: “you don’t know the person you want to connect to”, well it’s your choice but at least have a good reason to want to connect with that person. I do get annoyed when people click the ‘friend’ option and I have no idea who they are… we are certainly not friends!

If you are a member of groups on LinkedIn you can connect to every member of those groups if you want to and it is quite easy to do, but why would you want to?

Another way to connect to people is to ask one of your current connections for an introduction. I like this one, it works for me. Again you might be asked by the person you want to connect with why you want to connect to them, so again, have a good reason.

Once you have your connections and you are happy, you are feeling comfortable, look around LinkedIn and find ways to grow your credibility. Answering questions in your area of expertise is always a great way to do this. Offering recommendations to people you connect with is a great way to support your connections, but please don’t do the ‘tit-for-tat’… if I recommend you then you have to recommend me – that is a no brainer. Earn those recommendations and for sure ask for them if you know they are deserved.

Recruiters use LinkedIn to find the perfect match for job vacancies. If you are looking for a job be on your best behaviour and make sure you are showing up as excellent and not mediocre or you will be overlooked.

I think of LinkedIn as a work-in-progress where I am always learning something new and finding new ways to benefit me. It takes work at the beginning (whilst you are building your profile etc.) but you will be able to manage and maintain LinkedIn easily once you get into the swing of things. You can go away and forget about it if you want, but when you come back no one will really care, sad but true.

This is a subject I could go on and on about and recently I have been invited to offer presentations on LinkedIn to small business owners more often than not. In the end though my advice is just do it, after researching like I did what works for you.

If you do have any questions I would be delighted to answer them and also any tips to share, please post your comments here.

"Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things."

- Peter Drucker

Linda Ockwell-Jenner is the Social Sweetheart. She is President of Motivational Steps and Co-Founder of the Small Business Community Network (SBCN) based in Waterloo Region. Find out more about Linda at www.motivationalsteps.com and www.sbcncanada.org

Small Business matters. This month we’ve reached out to various Canadian small businesses to share their experiences and insight and offer practical advice to the other businesses that make up the TELUS Talks Business community.

Today we talk to Marie Wiese, founder of Marketing CoPilot Inc. and Chair of the York Technology Alliance.

As a business owner, what are the business challenges that keep you up at night?

Finding new business and cash flow issues keep me up at night. Many businesses struggle with how to build lead generation into their business processes and since I do this for living, helping business owners build online strategies to drive lead generation, it is always top of mind for me.  If you aren’t selling, everything else in the business becomes more complicated including cash flow. The trick is to build a marketing engine that provides a steady stream of new business to even out the peaks and valleys. I am always looking at ways to accomplish this for myself and my clients.

Are you incorporating social media into your business communication?  If so, how?

Absolutely. Any business today that does not educate itself to take advantage of social media is going to miss out. It matters to my business in two ways: I use it to create a community around best practices in marketing and I am currently tracking solutions for small business to see how they can leverage it for brand development and lead generation.

How will you measure the success of your social media initiatives?

Before you can measure anything, you need to be clear on what the outcomes are you want from various online activities. Many companies complain that their websites don’t generate leads for the business. But in looking at the website you’ll discover a poorly articulated value proposition or no clear call to action other than a “contact us” button, so driving traffic to a website from social media efforts is a lost opportunity. You need to determine who you want to engage, what you want to say and then track how they are engaging with the story you tell. There are lots of mechanisms you can add to your website to tell if it’s working or not. But don’t get caught in thinking it’s about volume. Thousands of followers on Twitter means nothing if they are not part of the community you are trying to reach. Set your goals around who, what, when and why and measure that.

Quite a few businesses struggle with building their customer base and attracting new customers with limited funds and resources.  What is your advice to these businesses?

There are three things you need to invest in as business owner: 1. A clearly defined value proposition so the market knows why to buy from you and not your competitor. 2. An active online strategy which includes more than just a website. 3. Consistent execution. Many business owners under spend on marketing because they see it as a collection of tactics that return poor ROI. If you build it as a process in your business by following the three steps I listed, you will see amazing returns, usually within three to six months.

Have you used technology to grow your business? If so, how?

Everything we do for clients starting with the upfront consulting, used to be a manual exercise. Then we sat down and defined the process and identified where and how we could use technology to make what we do more efficient and add more value for our customers. What we uncovered was amazing. Now everything can be tracked and measured in a system: we use Freshbooks to track hours and invoicing; Basecamp for project management which we can open up to clients and let them see what is happening with a project; we use Constant Contactfor email marketing, a great self service product; we use an SEO platform, gShift Labsto help track and adjust organic search engine optimization activities and Google Analytics to closely monitor website activity. There is a product for everything these days and if you aren’t harnessing technology to optimize the processes in your business, and knitting it all together, you won’t be able to grow your business.

What is your greatest success as a business in 2010? How did you make it happen?

My greatest success in 2010 was being named Chair of the York Technology Alliance(YTA). I have been a volunteer with this organization for over five years and I strongly believe that the technology sector is the key to Canada’s future. But as an industry, it is still relatively new and fragmented. Helping the tech community in Toronto rally together to create an ecosystem to foster growth has been incredibly fulfilling for me. I made it happen because I got involved and dedicated my time. The organization has grown substantially in the last five years due to all the board volunteers who share the vision of a strong tech sector for Canada. I am proud to lead that group.

Pretend you’re considering starting a new business next year. If you could talk to yourself before embarking on this new business given today’s environment and what you know from experience, what are two things you’d advise?

There are two themes I would pursue in any new business venture: scarcity and being remarkable. There are a million ways to solve a business problem today. Competition is fierce and instantaneous. Author Seth Godin puts it well when he says, “If you're creating a business, figure out what contribution you make and what you offer that your competitors can't. Scarcity creates value”. Once you figure out what creates scarcity and not just a “me too” product or service, figure out how to do it in a way that is remarkable and that no one else is doing. People will tell other people about you and you will never have a lead generation (sales) problem in your business.

Many small businesses struggle to maintain work/life balance.  Is this a priority for your company and if so, how are you managing it?

One of the decisions we made in our business was to not take formal office space. With today’s great online tools and technologies, our philosophy is to find the very best people for the job regardless of where they are located. Not having a formal office means you aren’t investing in something that does not contribute to the bottom line, it forces you to put processes in place to manage people to the work that needs to be done and it lets people be more flexible in their personal life. Having homes offices means our kids see us before they leave for school in the morning, it eliminates a lot of commuting hours and reduces our corporate carbon footprint.

What are the things you do to motivate your team and keep them focussed on the business goals?

Our team is motivated by coming up with new ways to do something. In every new client project we take on, I give the team the opportunity to bring forward something new they have seen or a book they have read that has an interesting spin on the business problem we are solving. We don’t take the manufacturing approach to building marketing programs for clients. And although we are big on process and milestones, each project has a new twist that someone gets to try out.

What are your goals for your business in 2011?

We have three very distinct goals for 2011:

1. Building the Marketing CoPilot Community – we believe that a partnership approach to building a business is the way of the future. We are building a community of businesses, consultants, current clients, past clients, friends and colleagues to help inspire people to harness the power and simplify the process of marketing for their business.
   
2. Launch our Montreal office – we want to recreate our community in Montreal and serve clients in both French and English
   
3. Add more services to our Virtual Marketing Manager product – there are lots of new marketing tools coming out and we want to be able to offer new online products to clients to generate better results
   

Thank you. Please give our readers a quick overview of your business. (Name, location, size, services provided etc.) If you would like to provide contact information or a website address for your business that would appear with your survey answers, please do so.

Marketing CoPilot can be found online at www.marketingcopilot.comwhere you can subscribe to our blog to get practical marketing solutions for your business. Marketing CoPilot builds integrated marketing processes tied to strategic business goals and measured in their contribution to business results. Our service, Virtual Marketing Manageracts as an outsourced marketing department that designs and executes online strategies in such areas as search engine optimization, email marketing and content development. You can connect with founder, Marie Wiese on LinkedIn http://ca.linkedin.com/in/virtualmarketingmanagement

Finding relevant professionals on Twitter just got easier with LinkedIn’s new Twitter integration application.

Overview

1. Receive “Connections to Follow” recommendations for Twitter based on your LinkedIn network.
2. See which LinkedIn connections are on Twitter (and easily to see who you are or aren’t following).
3. Save your LinkedIn connections to a dynamic Twitter list that automatically updates as connections add/remove Twitter.

Our thoughts

Beyond the benefits of a dynamic rolodex, LinkedIn is proving to be a good way to keep your ear to the ground on an ongoing basis to build stronger and more meaningful professional relationships– both online and offline. The new Twitter app is a great way to keep an eye on real-time trends within your network and spot new business opportunities as they arise.