Social Business Consulting continues to evolve and 2017 is no exception.  I have been helping companies with social media marketing since 2009 so makes me feel like a grandfather in the space.  That’s eight years! but a lot has changed in the social business and social media consulting landscape since then.

Here is a quick video post I did on the The Top 10 Must Read Social Media Books for business professionals.  Enjoy!- 

Justin Results French.

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Join my colleagues Phil Black & Chief Wealth Strategist George Antone for this special FREE webinar on Passive Income through Private Lending. Starts Thursday Nov. 21st at 12pm PST OR 6pm PST. Register as my guest here http://bit.ly/WealthPB for Thursday 12pm OR here http://bit.ly/WealthPB2 for Thursday at 6pm PST.

This has been a HUGE eye opener for me.  It’s all about leverage.  I wanted to share this with my readers. Enjoy- Justin

This is a paper I wrote in business class back in 2007 that I happen to run accross while organizing some local files (as I move things to 100% cloud).  A lot of this info is relevant even in today’s competitive smartphone landscape as Android and Apple continue to dominate. Enjoy- JF

Smartphones- Almost On Palms And Knees- Nimble Rivals Have The Treo Maker Struggling

If you think the mortgage industry is competitive, try analyzing the competition in the wireless communications industry specifically smart-phones.  Competition has never been fiercer.  Palm has been a long time leader in the market of smartphones until the last couple of years.  I actually have a palm treo 700w which I wouldn’t trade for anything.  This is hands down the best phone for business I have ever had.

The key to staying competitive according to experts is keeping on the cutting edge with regards to innovation, style, look and feel, technology, and software.  Blackberry, Apple and other manufacturers have done a good job thus far, but unfortunately Palm has used the same software, with minor updates to the look and feel of its smartphone devices for five years now.  Most of the selling features on today’s devices such as video, touch screen technology, media player, and camera phone have come standard on the Palm smartphones for years.  The catch here in this article is although Palm has been the leader in previous years, competitors are scrambling to take market share from the old leader and continue shrinking their profits.  Palm has had its share of problems and set-backs, and perhaps I can demonstrate some examples by using the Griffin Model.

I will continue to analyze the smartphone article in BusinessWeek utilizing the Griffin Model.  First and foremost, I believe that the environment and culture for the management in Palm headquarters was getting much too comfortable as being the lead innovator for their smartphone product which finally caught up to them.  They should have paid more attention to the inside and outside environmental factors that could have saved them from their current crisis.  I would suggest their management read “From Good to Great- by Jim Collins” for insight to this comment.  Next, one critical mistake that Palm made was not keeping on top of the innovation and upgrades to its software platforms for their phones.  This is critical to the technology dimension for a firm that can be the difference between millions of dollars in profits or losses, especially when the company has a product in a highly competitive and technologically advanced industry such as wireless communications.

The social media and cultural dimension plays a major role for Palm because of the nature of the cell phone industry as a whole.  People now have more cell phones than home phones.  Cell phonesalesand upgrades are at record levels because of the environmental pressures and highly competitive nature of the industry.  Perhaps an early strategic alliance with Microsoft should have occurred sooner, or even been made exclusively with palm.

In closing, Palm now has their work cut out for them.  If they analyze their company according to the Griffin Model and the management team reads my recommended book from above, I believe they will be on their way to saving customers from switching to the Iphone or Blackberry.

Reference: Cliff Edwards “Smartphones- Almost On Palms And Knees- Nimble Rivals Have The Treo Maker Struggling” BusinessWeek– Pg. (41) September 24, 2007.

How to Effectively Use All Your Social Media Platforms

As a business it’s beneficial for you to be a part of various popular social media sites. Reaching the various overpopulated networks creates maximum exposure. However, you aren’t actually doing any good if you aren’t presenting a unified front between them. You have separate accounts, but the multiple platforms should essentially be seen as one. You want your customer to move between them without knowing the difference.

While your networks present various degrees of customer engagement, each in their own unique way, together they should be a single unit, representing your brand consistently. Having a strong brand image is important to do this well. After employing new sharing techniques, and making a few tweaks to your profiles, you’ll have a free flowing social presence in no time.

Brand Image

As you know, your brand makes you recognizable. NetMBA.com pointed out that, “The brand can add significant value when it is well recognized and has positive associations in the mind of the consumer.” If this is the case, you want your brand to be consistent between the platforms. To do this, you should keep a few things in mind.

• Color scheme is important. This can be incorporated in the design of your Twitter page, welcome page on Facebook and blog theme.
• Your default photo doesn’t have to be your logo, but should be representative of the brand in a recognizable way.
• Present yourself as the same business online as you are off. When you are your authentic self, customers trust you.

Get Linked Up

Your business reaches one audience on Facebook, talks with another group of your customer base on Twitter, and presents thoughtful content to the ones caught in the blogosphere. Your business is in good shape to reach everyone you want, yet you are not as successful as you could be. In order to get maximum benefit from your social presence, you want customers to be visiting all your sites. There are a variety of ways to do this.

• On Facebook, make your “Follow me” button visible.
• On Twitter, have your website link immediately below your Twitter handle. Then create a custom background, like @Souplantation, directing followers to your Facebook page and blog.
• On your blog, set up a Twitter feed so you are then connecting with your readers as well.

Let the Various Platforms Supplement One Another

While having a blog is great, and you hope to build a community there, Facebook is more within the immediate reach of most of your customers. Putting exclusive deals on Twitter are great, but not when they only reach the people who already follow you. Keeping posts consistent between platforms is integral in getting as many people involved as possible. You want to reach your entire audience, not just the ones that happen to populate that one network. To do this, you want to spread any new content or information across all platforms.

• Get your blog post in a Tweet, so it can be shared. Then put it on Facebook so those who aren’t in the blogging world can see it and then post comments on their network of choice.
• When you give an exclusive Twitter deal, tell your Facebook fans to follow you for dibs on it too.
• If you put up photos from an event, make it known in all areas. Twitter and your blog aren’t conducive to albums or multiple photos, so put them where it is. Then bring everyone else there.

To effectively use all your social networks, you have to present them as one unified platform. You want your customers to move freely between the various platforms, getting the same business and familiar brand no matter where they are.

Bio: Jessica Sanders is an avid small business writer touching on topics from social media to phone systems. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including medical billing software for b2b lead generation resource, Resource Nation.

Your Small Business and the Need to be Social.  

If one of your regrets as a small business leader in 2011 was not being social enough with current and potential customers, is this the year you improve that issue?

As more and more businesses are discovering, being anti-social when it comes to social media is not only the wrong thing to do, it can also very directly lead to a loss on one’s return on investment (ROI).

Among the many pros of having a social media influence on the Internet is that it can be done at relatively low cost to your company, mostly consisting of time and effort.

Deemed by some to be a fad that will come and go, social media has helped many businesses reach out to customers in real-time, allowing them to offer products and services, deal with customer issues and questions, and promote items essentially 24/7/365.

Some Business Owners Just Don’t Get It

That being said, some surveys still show the reluctance by business heads to engage in this medium

According to a recent report from SocialStrategy1 and OfficeArrow, more than two-thirds of business owners (more than 300 executives were polled) indicated they would not be investing time and money in social media this year. While a large number of such owners say they understand just how social media can have a direct impact on their bottom-line, they are nonetheless not going to invest in it.

For those who are using social media, nearly 50 percent said they do in order to improve brand awareness, 33 percent look to increase their leads output, 32 percent are seeking to better their customer service, and 17 percent have been looking to enhance both ratings and reviews.

It appears one of the biggest hurdles for businesses in using social media is many of them question whether or not they are getting a good ROI in return because they don’t measure such numbers. The survey points out that an overwhelming majority of those polled indicated they do not have an accurate understanding of how their present SM efforts were performing.

In the event your company’s social media results have not been very social to date, here are some things to do to improve upon those efforts:

• Fresh content. If your content is not frequently updated, don’t be surprised when both present and potential customers don’t return to the site. Posting on a daily or several times a week basis is crucial in order to get return visitors;

• Promote the content. Make sure you retweet important industry news and events when on Twitter and share similar items on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and more. By doing so, you open the door to having others pass your message along, in essence, being free advertisers of your brand;

• Record the metrics. Make sure you spend the time and invest the necessary resources in recording and analyzing data. If you don’t know who is coming to your site, where they are coming from, when they are coming, etc. you are essentially taking a stab in the dark with your SM efforts;

• Have a game plan. Last but not least, make sure you know who is in charge when it comes to your social media campaigns. Some companies opt for their marketing or PR departments to handle SM campaigns. If your company is too small for such departments, then make sure the individual/s in charge of social media have some experience in this area. You may also look to spend the money and have your social media efforts outsourced to a company that does such work for a living.

If you haven’t already, take the time to invest the necessary resources into your social media campaign today.

Besides, you don’t want your company being known as one who is anti-social, do you?

Dave Thomas, who covers among other items small business loans, writes extensively for Business.com, an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.

Since I began advising businesses on social media marketing in 2009, things have continued to change much more quickly than I can keep up with. But I do my best to continue to learn strategies, techniques, and tools all for measuring continued success for businesses using this new extremely cost effective communication medium.

Before advising business on social media, hundreds of companies in Southern California trusted myself and my team with keeping them up and running with various Information Technology needs.

It was much easier to sell solving computer problems than trying to sell social media services, but we deal with much larger marketing budgets now which has it’s rewards. Besides- our efforts have resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue on some projects.

When people’s computers are down, they can be fanatic! I had one customer that was loosing hundreds of thousands of dollars per day when they were down. So we worked the weekend to get them up by Monday morning. Weekend emergency rate applied of course 😉

When selling social media services, we sell an improved business, cost savings, long term sustainability, competitive advantage, and many other benefits. In fact, we do a lot less selling and more educating. This is now the 21st century sales approach in case you haven’t noticed.

Social media consultants have a tough job. They must prove ROI, demonstrate results in a short amount of time, and show an increase in revenue otherwise they may be going back to the drawing board; or worse out of a client or a job.

From inside the social media trenches and business school, here are some things I learned that apply everyday to life in a social business setting. I have the privilege to lead companies into these murky waters where sometimes the outcomes can be serendipitous among saving companies thousands of dollars while acquiring new customers and driving bottom line revenue.

Here are those applied theories in action for social business:

1. Red ocean vs. Blue ocean strategy using social media

2. Swot analysis (google it)
3. Quantitative vs. Qualitative data (link to mashable article)
4. Self awareness ENTJ and how to listen more (especially with Social Media)
5. Work on projects with great people. In business school, When you do projects you either choose your own team or the professor assigns them. Just like in the real world, when you work on a project be sure you are aligning with the right people. (this is a critical success factor)

Hope the above principles are helpful for you. Feel free to connect with me on twitter or Google+ plus.justinrfrench.com
I’m continuing to decrease my Facebook usage

Do you have anything to add? I would love to hear about some of your experiences in the social business trenches.

Justin Results French – Chief Social Business Technologist

P.s. If you found this post valuable feel free to share it with other business owners, entrepreneurs, startups, small businesses, business professionals, or other social media consultants. Sharing is caring 🙂

The number one reason why most businesses used to fail in social media was education. I’ve taught online marketing and social media best practices at Mira Costa College now for 2 years to help solve this problem and give back to the business community. This has empowered and helped hundreds of local businesses which I am extremely passionate about. I think its safe to say that this education thing can no longer be an excuse. There are a ton of educational resources out there. The real problem I now see is people expecting immediate results. Social media does not happen overnight and could be a challenge especially for small businesses mostly due to the time involved, knowledge needed, and even a limited resources factor. But the benefits out weigh the downsides.

What being in the social media trenches for 2 years now shows us is a lot of people out there get started in social media and they expect immediate results or instant gratification. I’m here to tell you that this is a myth. There’s no such thing as instant gratification with social media. If your business decides to get in this social media space or get into this game, you need to play to win and you need to finish the race. Have some fun too. I see plenty of companies and business professionals getting into this space and expecting immediate results and they don’t finish the race. They create a few blog posts, they send out a few twitter messages and that’s it. It doesn’t work like that.

I would like to reveal the secret to social media success. If you want to be successful in social media when it relates to your business or your career the key takeaway here is daily actionable steps over a long period of time will lead to sustainable growth. It takes quite a long time to build momentum in social media but with a little bit of planning, execution, and time, you can start to see results fairly quickly compared to other online marketing tactics which are becoming less effective. Whether its traffic, leads, sales, or just awareness for your cause, social media can be some of the most powerful word of mouth and cost effective results for lead generation, revenue, product sales, etc. It’s also important to note that social media is now integrated with SEO or search engine optimization. We are seeing this because of the dynamic of user generated content combined with off-site social media tactics that seem to go hand in hand together as a successful integrated online business strategy. Think of it as a snowball marketing effect on your business. You get that analogy right? As the snowball starts at the top of the mountain, it gains momentum and gets larger as is makes it’s way down the mountain. We help businesses do exactly this and the results have been incredible!

I hope this post helped clear up some myths, so feel free to comment and share. Thanks

Justin ‘Results’ French

P.S. Wrote this entire post using dragon naturally speaking on my iPad pretty smooth