AMPUP Your Digital Marketing

Stephanie Frasco is the owner and social media consultant for ConvertWithContent.com, which focuses on social media and blogging consulting and management.

Stephanie recently joined AMP UP Your Social Media's host Glenn Gaudet to discuss how she helps lead her clients to social media success and different social media platforms and the benefits of each:

"Be listening on Twitter for people talking about your brand and your business and engaging with them. It's very effective and you’ll be surprised how to see many people will respond back and start following you, and maybe even increase your sales."

Stephanie details what social platforms she suggests for which type of business. She looks at each business individually and does a social media audit to see what’s happening currently around their business, industry or brand. She looks at the business’s audience and where they are already and what conversations are being had. Consider doing the same for your business. Here are a few guidelines that Stephanie suggests going by to see if your business is on the right social networks for your social media marketing goals:

To get the most bang for your buck:

Facebook: If you have no fans, it's going to take a while to be successful on Facebook, given the new guidelines and decrease in organic reach. There are a ton of people on Facebook everyday, so it is definitely worth being there, but just know it is going to take time.

Pinterest: Suggested for e-commerce sites. One of the best ways to drive sales from social sales.

LinkedIn: For B2Bs must be on linked in for a personal and a business standpoint.

Twitter: For outreach of any kind or for targeted leads.You can search for conversations around your brand or industry and bring those people into your own conversations and drive them to your site. Twitter is also a great tool for customer service.

Google+: Great for its SEO benefits. Google+ recently launched promoted posts for those with 1000 circles/followers. These promoted posts are linked to your GoogleAd Words account and your google display network. Build up your circles so that you can take part in this effective promotion tool.

If you are spending all this time building this community, but they aren't buying anything, you're wasting your time. Make sure to be using a conversion tool so that you can your ROI. Stephanie uses InfusionSoft for tracking leads, to see who comes to her website and where they came from. She can even see how much each person spends on each network.

Jason Mollica is the president of JRMComm, a public relations and marketing consultancy. He got his start in the business in radio and television when he helped launch Fox News Radio. He recently joined AMP UP Your Social Media's host Glenn Gaudet to discuss how JRMComm guides clients to engage in their social media efforts. "Conversation on social media should be a two-way street. Make your audience feel like they are part of your brand or part of your product." Jason shares tips on how to personalize your social media channels: Start at your website. Make sure that you have identified who you are trying to reach and your website is appealing to that audience. Make sure your photos are crisp, you content is clean, and your design is fresh. All of your social links back to your website, so in a sense, it’s the hub of your social. Mix up your social content. Make sure you are posting conversational value add content that is not salesy. When posting content about your brand, make people believe in what you’re doing. Don’t talk just about your company and your services or products, create a discussion around company culture. Maybe an employee spends her time helping on her lunch break at a food pantry, or maybe she volunteers at a cancer clinic because cancer has played a large role in her home life. Show your brand’s personalities.

Jason Mollica is the president of JRMComm, a public relations and marketing consultancy. He got his start in the business in radio and television when he helped launch Fox News Radio. He recently joined AMP UP Your Social Media's host Glenn Gaudet to discuss how JRMComm guides clients to engage in their social media efforts.

"Conversation on social media should be a two-way street. Make your audience feel like they are part of your brand or part of your product."

Jason shares tips on how to personalize your social media channels:

Start at your website. Make sure that you have identified who you are trying to reach and your website is appealing to that audience. Make sure your photos are crisp, you content is clean, and your design is fresh. All of your social links back to your website, so in a sense, it’s the hub of your social.

Mix up your social content. Make sure you are posting conversational value add content that is not salesy.

When posting content about your brand, make people believe in what you’re doing. Don’t talk just about your company and your services or products, create a discussion around company culture. Maybe an employee spends her time helping on her lunch break at a food pantry, or maybe she volunteers at a cancer clinic because cancer has played a large role in her home life. Show your brand’s personalities.

Matt Heinz is the founder of Heinz Marketing, a Seattle-based marketing agency focused on sales acceleration. Heinz helps clients achieve sustained sales success by growing revenue from existing customers and cost effectively identifying and winning new customers. Matt recently joined AMP Up Your Social Media’s host Glenn Gaudet to discuss the need for an integrated sales and marketing approach via social media to increase sales and velocity. "If they can build an elevator to the moon, I think we can figure out this reporting stuff eventually, too.” Matt offers these tips to help build a stronger bond between your sales and marketing teams: Start with content. Understand who your audience is and what they care about. What are the primary problems, trigger events, or buying signals that you can engage someone with with good content that leads them to be interested and learn more about you? Make social media a regular habit for your sales team. Setup a daily reminder for them to network daily. Everyday the marketing team should feed the sales team with content for them to post to their own social channels. Sales people should reply to any comments, and follow all of the people they talked to the day before on Twitter and send them LinkedIn requests. Reuse and repurpose content. There are many tools available to automatically repost previous blog posts so you can reuse content with ease.

Matt Heinz is the founder of Heinz Marketing, a Seattle-based marketing agency focused on sales acceleration. Heinz helps clients achieve sustained sales success by growing revenue from existing customers and cost effectively identifying and winning new customers.

Matt recently joined AMP Up Your Social Media’s host Glenn Gaudet to discuss the need for an integrated sales and marketing approach via social media to increase sales and velocity.

"If they can build an elevator to the moon, I think we can figure out this reporting stuff eventually, too.”

Matt offers these tips to help build a stronger bond between your sales and marketing teams:

Start with content. Understand who your audience is and what they care about. What are the primary problems, trigger events, or buying signals that you can engage someone with with good content that leads them to be interested and learn more about you?

Make social media a regular habit for your sales team. Setup a daily reminder for them to network daily. Everyday the marketing team should feed the sales team with content for them to post to their own social channels. Sales people should reply to any comments, and follow all of the people they talked to the day before on Twitter and send them LinkedIn requests.

Reuse and repurpose content. There are many tools available to automatically repost previous blog posts so you can reuse content with ease.

Kurt Shaver is the founder of The Sales Foundry. The Sales Foundry helps companies increase sales by implementing advanced Social Selling techniques and tools like LinkedIn to connect with more decision makers. Kurt recently joined AMP Up Your Social Media’s host Glenn Gaudet to discuss how salespeople can use social media to increase sales. "I tell salespeople to focus their efforts on growing their networks." Kurt offers these tips to help salespeople grow their presence on LinkedIn: Create a good looking profile. Spend some time making your profile robust with information about you, videos you created, blogs you wrote, publications you have been published in, etc. Grow your network. You want a strong network made of both quality and quantity. Establish contacts and build report. Personalize your message when you send them a connection request. Ex: “Hey Glenn, I really liked your blog post you wrote about staffing needs.” Then mention why you want to connect and how you think the other person will benefit from connecting with you. Repurpose and leverage content. Take the information that you have been given from your marketing team and sales managers and repurpose that content into LinkedIn posts: Ex: facts from a PowerPoint, testimonials from emails, etc.

Kurt Shaver is the founder of The Sales Foundry. The Sales Foundry helps companies increase sales by implementing advanced Social Selling techniques and tools like LinkedIn to connect with more decision makers. Kurt recently joined AMP Up Your Social Media’s host Glenn Gaudet to discuss how salespeople can use social media to increase sales.

"I tell salespeople to focus their efforts on growing their networks."

Kurt offers these tips to help salespeople grow their presence on LinkedIn:

Create a good looking profile. Spend some time making your profile robust with information about you, videos you created, blogs you wrote, publications you have been published in, etc.

Grow your network. You want a strong network made of both quality and quantity. Establish contacts and build report. Personalize your message when you send them a connection request. Ex: “Hey Glenn, I really liked your blog post you wrote about staffing needs.” Then mention why you want to connect and how you think the other person will benefit from connecting with you.

Repurpose and leverage content. Take the information that you have been given from your marketing team and sales managers and repurpose that content into LinkedIn posts: Ex: facts from a PowerPoint, testimonials from emails, etc.

Lilach Bullock is the founder of Socialable, a digital marketing agency that helps businesses leverage social media to generate more revenue. Lilach recently joined AMP Up Your Social Media’s host Glenn Gaudet to discuss how to get the most out of your social media marketing. "Try to be different. Don’t be afraid to be controversial. Some of the most controversial posts have received the most shares. It pays to be different." Lilach offers these tips to maximize your social media marketing efforts: 1. Don’t just bold post. Build and nurture relationships with your followers to create an engaged, organic fan base. 2. Research to see where your customers are. Don’t just follow the bandwagon and join Facebook and Twitter, see what “smaller” platforms might work even better for you (ex: StumbleUpon, Reddit, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.) 3. Make sure you have enough resources to respond to all of the comments you receive. Responding is crucial to building your social media relationships.

Lilach Bullock is the founder of Socialable, a digital marketing agency that helps businesses leverage social media to generate more revenue. Lilach recently joined AMP Up Your Social Media’s host Glenn Gaudet to discuss how to get the most out of your social media marketing.

"Try to be different. Don’t be afraid to be controversial. Some of the most controversial posts have received the most shares. It pays to be different."

Lilach offers these tips to maximize your social media marketing efforts:

1. Don’t just bold post. Build and nurture relationships with your followers to create an engaged, organic fan base.

2. Research to see where your customers are. Don’t just follow the bandwagon and join Facebook and Twitter, see what “smaller” platforms might work even better for you (ex: StumbleUpon, Reddit, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.)

3. Make sure you have enough resources to respond to all of the comments you receive. Responding is crucial to building your social media relationships.

Gina Joseph is the Digital Engagement Manager for Cision, a PR Software Marketing Solutions company. Gina focuses on content creation, email marketing and engaging with clients. Gina recently joined AMP Up Your Social Media’s host Glenn Gaudet to discuss the importance of content in social media marketing. "If you are trying to kickstart your social media, do a lot of reading! I love RSS feeds! Look to see what is new and happening so you can share that content." Gina offers a few “tricks” for content creation: Meet regularly with your marketing and sales teams to have brainstorm sessions to decide on relevant content. Review questions and trends from your customers to create valuable content pieces. Create evergreen content (Q&As, Tip Sheets, etc.) that you can repurpose and repost. After you have your content, decide what the best avenues for sharing them are. Facebook? Twitter? Pinterest? Email? Who are you trying to reach and what would be most impactful? Rather than just reposting content from last season, refresh it with up-to-date trends or new tips and tricks.