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.

Here is last weeks LIVE Goolge+ Hangout I was featured on where Dan & I answered your online marketing and social media questions LIVE. I share some HUGE tips, tricks, and whats working in the trenches of social business.

Join this coming Friday at 12pm PST and every Friday for another exciting episode of the Marketing Online Hangout

Did you know that 80% of businesses involved in Social Media or what I have been referring to  since 2009 as “Social Business” have still not seen an increase in leads, revenue, or cost savings company wide?!  I know crazy right? Because of their weak social media management? Lack of tying business goals to social media or online marketing? Or how about not giving social business enough time? Or maybe not bringing in the right Social Media Specialist.  I have done a lot of social media management in San Diego and as businesses continue to struggle with “Change” I continue to deliver results. It’s not about the latest tool, or CMS system (Google it if you don’t know what it is) it’s about the 7 C’s to Social Business Success and it always will be.

To not overwhelm you with data, case studies, etc, lets just take one example of the facebook  marketing effect:

How would your business “Like” a 939% increase in reach to over 150,000 people in less than 3 weeks? 

Got Results?

If you are looking for help with your social media strategy, or not seeing results, then mossy on over to social media solutions for business and let me know what questions you have about tying these types of results to your social business efforts.  Cheers,

Justin “Results” French

Today’s Blog Post Sponsored By:

are we more or less free this fourth of July?

Happy Fourth of July! A quick Reality Check…
“In the 80’s only 23% of Americans were on government programs. Today- 51%! This is reality! Stop giving up your freedoms for handouts- become self reliant “Happy 4th of July 2012” – JRF “Liberty is the breath of life to nations” ~ Bernard Shaw

Social Business has become a HUGE trend lately.  Businesses of all sizes are finally starting to adopt more organic ways to communicate, connect, and engage there customers.  It is a relief to not have to sell businesses on the importance of social media.  My blog post in 2009 called the top 5 lessons learned about social media for business reminds me of the many challenges facing small businesses and my commitment to helping support the business community with my passion and ability to help them integrate technology, marketing, and sales.
But things have evolved even MORE with Social Media touching departments such as Customer Service, Marketing, Sales, PR, Operations, Legal, IT, and even Culture.

One thing is for sure- if people and businesses alike can focus on these 7 C’s to Social Media for Business Success they will have a GURANTEED outcome of usccess.  Why do i make that gurnatee? Cause i have helped MANY businesses achieve an increase in Revenue, Sales, & Profits thanks to me executing on the 7 C’s phylosophy of Social Business Success.

Do you have any C”s you would like to add??

Justin “Results” French

Today’s Blog Post Sponsored By:

After being connected 3+ years to one of my favorite thought leaders in the social media space, Brian Solis and I finally had the opportunity to meet in Orange County at the Linked-OC event. We shared some laughs, he answered my questions, and I even got my copy of “End Of Business As Usual” signed that I had picked up at a local Barnes and Noble the first week it was out! Yes- I am a true Brian Solis fan but who wouldn’t be. Brian has been a huge inspiration to me and many others throughout their social media consulting journey and I did not miss this amazing opportunity to finally meet him in person. I wanted to thank him personally for all the valuable knowledge and insight he continues to share with the business community. His insights are always ahead of the curve.

Here are the Top 5 takeaways from Brian Solis at the Linked OC Social Media Event:

1. Meet in real life- Even though you may have connected with someone on-line, always take an opportunity to meet off-line as this will help strengthen the context of the relationship and create a deeper impact and emotional connection which can help reap huge benefits in your professional career. It’s sociology 101 people.

2. We are forever students- As Brian so rightfully mentioned in his presentation; these current times are trans-formative. Things are changing so quickly. I feel change is occurring in people not only personally but professionally. Embrace change. You must be constantly learning to stay relevant and current in today’s digital age OR risk being left behind. Life is a marathon so enjoy the music and March to the beat of your own drum.

3. Social Media is disruptive- just like Entrepreneurs. To get ahead in life, you MUST take an un-conventional approach. Conventional wisdom does NOT work anymore. You must think out-side the box, especially with your marketing. Just going to school, graduating, getting a job, and getting retirement after being with a company for 30 years is a RARE occurrence. This is now an exception to the rule, NOT the rule. The rule is to work your butt off doing something you love and make sure building a sustainable lifestyle you can be happy with at the end of the day saying you gave it your all each day before you go to bed.

4. Ask yourself and your clients- what defines success? How are you staying relevant to your connections on-line? How are you continually adding value? If you can’t answer these questions in your own life, you might have a hard time helping your clients see the social media success factors in their business. Think of yourself as a doctor. Ask questions. Really find out what impacts their business and help them to improve. Social Media Consultants have a rough job- convincing upper management, showing short term success even though it could take months to deliver ROI. If you are a social media manger or a social media specialist, you had better love what you do otherwise do something else and leave it to the professionals who are in the social media trenches every day. They eat, sleep, and breathe this stuff.

5. Big data is only valuable to you if you can translate it into decision making processes.  Word of mouth online generally is positive or negative. This sentiment can be measured. But data overload still exists in today’s business climate. The REAL question is how are you using this data to help make better decisions on product development, risk mitigation, client retention, etc. This word of mouth online trend is becoming more and more appealing to big brands and we will continue to see this space develop more and more over the coming years.

I hope you enjoyed this post.  Please share it with your social networks by using the buttons below.  Sharing is caring 😉
Have an amazing week-

Justin Results” French

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

The number one reason why most businesses used to fail in social media was education. I’ve taught online marketing and social media marketing best practices at Mira Costa College now for 2 years to help solve this problem and give back. 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 factor.

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. Whether its traffic, leads, sales, or just awareness for your cause. 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.

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

Justin ‘Results’ French

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

P.S.S. I’m excited to share 1 milestone for me- I just wrote my 7,00th tweet today!  What a journey it has been…