When you start off, you are building Brand Awareness within your network. Once you have earned the trust of your network, then you have positioned yourself to offer your products and services. Just as the sales call or unwanted knock at the door rarely leads to a sale, abusing your network leads to a shrinking network.

Let’s start with the basics and lay a good foundation for your social media campaign.

Process (Sales vs Awareness)

We examine  how the social process works and some of the benefits. We also define expectations of your social media efforts.

• While sales will come, you are building brand awareness with social media
• Define your target audience and expand it
• Develop a social media update schedule for 12 months (stick to it)
• Develop an outline of updatable topics that you can start to build content for
• You should have content on your website or blog that pertains to the update prior to pushing out the update
• Social involvement should be on all print and online materials (email signature, business cards, voice mail etc.)
• Be prepared to become active in your social campaign whether you handle it internally or outsource it. It’s not something you can pay for and set it adrift only to look for sales to increase. You must help craft the topics, write supportive information and provide suggestions. No one knows your company and or industry better than you.
• This process is like a marathon and not a sprint. It takes time, adjustments, effort, vision, patience and investment of time and money to succeed

Tools (Quantity vs Quality)

We define what tools we use and how we will use them. We also will discuss optional tools that can be added if so desired.

• Setup accounts with full account profiles
• Identify the kinds of updates that can take place on each network based on their character limitations
• Develop update schedule (day and time)
• Install a social widget on your website to show the latest update
• Identify optional services to expand your social network and traction such as social bookmarking, email blasts, video channel and blog development
• Create location to provide a click-to from the update
• Install tracking code for measuring updates effectiveness
• Prepare to grow your website and / or blog as you begin the social campaign
• Advertise that you are now on social networks and what type of information you’ll be providing

Performance (Fact vs Fiction)

We discuss how we define, measure, adjust and re-engage parts of the campaign. We set goals and milestones.

• Examine: Look at statistics to monitor traction
• Examine: Revisit your products and services from a client’s point of view
• Examine: Compare your architecture against your competition
• Examine: Have you done everything suggested in Process and Tools
• Adjust: Define and develop content for your top 10 products and services
• Adjust: Revisit your goals of social networking (sales vs awareness)
• Adjust: Take a moment to remember why you are doing this
• Engage: Implement adjustments based off of tracking and performance
• Engage: Are you as active as you could be with your social network?
• Engage: Promote your social network involvement at every turn

As you can see, it’s much more than just having an account. Social Architecture is about having a plan, the right content to educate people and the objectiveness to adjust to reach people in a new advertising medium. Social networking is just like in-person networking, you get out what you put in to it. Investing time, effort and yes even money is the best way to grow your network.

Welcome to Social Media Networking. Allow Studio490 to help you as you take the first steps toward growing your company.

1.    Utilization of Resources

A good alternative to adding a new department or creating a costly task force to complete a specific function is outsourcing. Some tasks may take up an inordinate amount of an employee’s time. By outsourcing, companies can free up their employee’s time which would allow them to do the important day to day function in a timely manner. This increases overall efficiency and improves employee morale.

2.    Reduces Operating Cost

Companies that try to do everything themselves may incur very high research, development and marketing expenses.  Keeping an employee trained and up to date with within certain fields can be costly too. Outsourcing the secondary functions to experts whose only function is one particular task can be much less expensive in the long run. Additional costs, such as SS tax, WC benefits and health insurance, are all part of hiring a full time employee. A company will not incur these cost with outsourcing to experts.

3.    Access to Experts and Specialists

Outsourcing firms are comprised of highly trained and very experienced specialists who know how to handle all aspects of that particular project. For difficult tasks, this allows for many companies to manage those complex projects. The employees will have more time to do their aspects of their job which would increase productivity and customer service. By outsourcing these projects, the company will not be confined to their geographic location.  The company will  have access to even a greater pool of experts by outsourcing through North America. (We are not talking about outsourcing outside of our borders. We want to keep the jobs within the USA.)

4.    Improve Customer Service

When an employee is bogged down with lots of tasks to complete, he/she is less capable of providing excellent customer service. Outsourcing permits a company to redirect its resources from non-core activities toward activities that serve the customer.  The level of customer service will increase because time and resources are being focused on that area.

5.    Improve Efficiency

Cost, quality, service and speed are critical measures that a company must aim for in improvements. This need to increase efficiency directly conflicts with the need to invest in the primary focus of the business. By freeing up time and resources, the company is able to concentrate on making money and growing the business.

Then you realized that your company logo should be more than just words. And so you brought the topic up in a sales meeting and the guy who sells stuff on eBay was the most creative person in the group. So he whipped up a logo using Paint Shop Pro over the weekend.

Next thing you know, the logo is in your power point which was put together by your Sales Manager.

Three weeks later, you are attending a conference and your secretary has been working on a brochure/calendar combo and you say, “hey, drop in our new logo and print out 100 for the show.”

I paint these situations because this is just what happens everyday in business. May I suggest you print out all of those materials and lay them out on a table next to each other.

Do they look the same?

I’d bet a Venti Mocha Frap that 7 out of 10 are not. They were made by different people at different times with different reasons. Not to mention that none of these very skilled and willing people were Creative Professionals.

That disjointed look you now see all throughout your Client Facing Materials are what your clients see everyday while dealing with your company. Your brochures look different than your email blasts. Your business cards look different then your website. Your powerpoint look different than your closeout materials. When they get some project materials from a SA they look different still.

What is this saying to your client?

Is the process of your business this disconnected? Are my orders being handled properly? Am I paying to much to a company who is spending more time on my project than they should be?

This is where a Creative Professional such at Studio490 comes in and asseses the single brand of the company, adjusts all materials that are not company branded and develops a process for employees to follow to avoid future disconnects.

Having a single brand applied to all client facing and internal facing materials will streamline the development process of communicating with your client. After all, you want a sales person to be selling and not trying to design your next newsletter.

Contact us today and let us exceed your expectations.

You can see some of our work at www.studio490.com and our references from clients we helped fix that broken road.

Tj and Dana Todd
Studio490

While working with a company some years ago and listening to their situation, I suggested developing a Corporate Blog. After meeting with management about the concept, I was told to shelve it until next year. I looked at him and asked him “why?” After pausing for about 10 seconds to choose his best excuse, he said, “We need to take baby steps.”

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I responded, “With all due respect, you’re a technology company with a website that was developed as a student project, you have no cohesive marketing materials in place to compensate, you don’t write press releases, don’t advertise…. what are you waiting for?” He simply said “No”.

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I went through my ideas and pitched it along with a Marketing Plan for the upcoming year (some 2 months later). I mentioned that I wanted to start a Corporate Blog for them and tried to educate them as to why I felt this was a great idea. Time passed and I proceeded to make plans as to how I wanted to architect this new Marketing Tool.
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Another project came up and I felt this would be the ideal situation to implement the blog. I sent out emails describing how I would use the blog and why it would be such a great product for their customers. I thought I was gaining ground on this, until one day one of their Directors said, “Tj, what is a blog?” I learned a valuable lesson that day about communication.

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• Tell them
• Tell them what you told them
• Tell them again

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It was then, I realized that they were not unwilling to commit to this idea due to a lack of potential or investment, but unwilling to commit due to a lack of understanding. It took me over 3 months of talking about the concept to get someone to say, “I really don’t know what that is.”

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Have we really come to a place in our culture where we are afraid to ask for more information due to public image?

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So, I sat down with the Director and explained what a blog was. During the process, he asked questions about the software and then gave me the buy-in. I think this was the same thing that happened when websites first came into existence. Some were like, “oh god I don’t know what that person is talking about”, but I don’t want to sound out of touch so I’ll just say, “well, I don’t know if that is the right fit for us at this moment. Let’s put it on the side and consider it next quarter.” Now look at how many companies have websites.

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To all of you out there that want to ask the question but don’t want to seem less knowledgeable than someone else, ask it anyway. Learn something today that will benefit yourself tomorrow.

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Tj & Dana Todd
Studio490

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Some questions that never seem to get answered.
1 – How do I check my email when I’m not at home?
2 – How do I save my user name and password so I can log back in?
3 – Do I have to shut my computer down when I stop using it?
4 – What browser should I use?
5 – Do I need to run system updates?
6 – What is a Blog?
7 – What is a MySpace?
8 – How do I find pictures online?
9 – When I save a file on my computer, where does it go?
10 – How can I stop the pop up windows?

and man many many more.

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Contact us for scheduling a visit, chat (IM) or phone call today.

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tjtodd@studio490.com

Tj & Dana Todd
Studio490