If you are a regular visitor to our blog, this post might be a little basic. But we know that more than 70% of our visitors are here for the first time. We also know many of those readers are just starting to use social media for business, so today’s post covers some of the questions we get asked over and over again.

Do I need to be active on all the social networks?

While it is good to have a presence, it is hard for most small business owners to maintain active profiles and run their business. Or suggestion: pick one network and do it really well. If you have the time or energy, add others as you master each one.

Which network should you focus on? It depends on your business:

Facebook and to a less extent Pinterest make sense for consumer products and retail establishments.  In contrast, Twitter is perfect for restaurants and entertainment venues. Professional services should probably concentrate on developing a strong network on LinkedIn.

Which network will help me achieve my goals? Is your goal attracting new clients, strengthening bonds with existing clients, or building a reputation as a subject matter expert?

Facebook is where your friends hang out. Without a solid customer or contact sphere, it will be hard to launch a succesful business page without some investment in advertising. This platform is at its best helping you connect with and strengthen relationships with existing clients.

Twitter is a terrific place to expand your circle since there are few restrictions on who you can follow and talk to. Of course, you have to say something of value if you want people to talk back.

Where is the best place to share media?

Facebook’s’ new Timeline feature makes it an ideal place to share photos, photos and more photos. Twitter is all about the words. If you write good blog posts with snappy titles, be sure to share them here. LinkedIn doesn’t need as many updates, but when you jump in, make your updates count by sharing your best content.

For most small business owners, an average of 30 minutes a day should suffice. This is less time than you waste driving to the coffee shop, and the pay off is much better. Just be sure you use your time well. Follow the 80/20 rule: Spend 80% of your time responding, liking and talking to others. Spend 20% on your own status updates

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The beauty of social media is that it gives brands immediate access to customer reactions. Today’s consumers aren’t shy about turning to social media to register their opinion about your company’s latest move. And usually, it’s an unhappy opinion. Fewer people log onto social media to share how awesome your new packaging design is or how fabulous that new video is, but if they dislike something, a torrent will be unleashed on your page.

Sometimes, this is a blessing. If there’s a genuine problem with your business, for instance, customer service issues or defective products, it’s a chance for you to become aware of the problem and fix it in a timely manner. But other times this “constructive criticism” can turn into a pointless, abusive whirlwind that distracts you from your real goals.

Let’s take Coca Cola, one of the biggest brands in the world. They recently decided to try something new: white Classic Coke cans for the holidays, with proceeds from sales going to save the polar bears. Cute, right? Apparently not. Customers expressed their outrage at the change of the classic red coke cans. Some complained the cans were too similar to Diet Coke’s silver look, while others just hated to see the red go, even temporarily. Some even claimed Coke tasted different in the red cans. So what did Coke do? They pulled the white cans.

This isn’t a matter of a bad product or bad customer service. This isn’t a “mistake” the company made–it’s a matter of opinion. Yet Coke almost immediately abandoned their long-term plans for the cans and changed them back to their trademark red. It’s almost inexplicable. Were people really going to stop buying Coke because of the color of the can?

To contrast Coca Cola’s acquiescence, let’s look at Facebook. Facebook constantly rolls out sweeping user experience changes, alterations to privacy policy and other tweaks to every part of the site. There’s always an outcry, furious petitions and people begging them to return to “old Facebook.” And Facebook (with a few notable exceptions), doesn’t. They expect their customers to adapt. And they do, to the point that they’ll beg for that old interface when a new one comes out and the cycle begins again.

The right path, as usual, lies somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. Listen intently to your customer. Take their thoughts and opinions seriously, and then choose what’s useful and what’s noise. Be true to who you are, but don’t be afraid to make changes when necessary. But don’t fold at the slightest whiff of trouble. Keep your  spine in tact.

Facebook. Twitter. LinkedIn. YouTube. Google+. StumbleUpon. Digg. These are some of the most popular social networks today, and many social media experts will tell clients that they need to be on all of them. Right away. Right now. No excuses, get on all those networks today. You can’t miss out on the SEO, SEM, client conversation benefits.

Maybe that’s true for huge corporations, but when you’re dealing with a small business owner stretched to the max, that list just sounds exhausting. It sounds like another impossible wishlist to add to an already groaning list of things to do one day, someday, when you have some time. Think about it: if you’re an average small business owner with one hour a week to devote to social media and you’re trying to be on all seven of those networks listed above, you only have 8.5 minutes every week for each network. There is no possible way to be successful on every social network in 8.5 minutes a week.

But you can be successful on many networks in 60 minutes a week. So let me absolve you of your guilt: you don’t have to be on all of those networks. Not all at once, not right away, maybe not ever. It is far better to focus all your time and attention on one network and make that space the best it can be, a true gathering place for customers and others in your industry, than to stretch yourself thin over seven networks and not make an impression on any of them.

When we tell clients this, they act like we’ve handed them a gift. We’ve given them permission to be human, permission to focus on just one aspect of social media and work at it tenaciously until they’ve built something great that contributes back to their business. For consumer oriented businesses, maybe that’s building an amazing community on Facebook. For business-to-business brands, that might be an excellent LinkedIn page where you focus on making new industry contacts. And on and on.

The bottom line is, you don’t need to be everywhere–you just need to be where your customers are. Find out where your critical mass of customers is and focus your attention there instead of trying to be all things to all people. Make the most of your time and resources and build one great thing instead of seven mediocre somethings. So you have permission. Go do something great.

As a confirmed networking junkie, I was always looking for my next fix. When I found LinkedIn, several years ago, with it’s emphasis on career history, educational background and association membership it seemed like a great fit.   It is a supercharged version of my address book, but by itself it isn’t interactive enough to feed my need to connect.

I always believed the real power of LinkedIn is in the ability to see who knows who, but it wasn’t much of a conversation tool.  I could introduce people or exchange an email, but it wasn’t convenient to keep logging in, so I quickly moved conversations elsewhere.

Then Amber Naslund, who I follow on Twitter, posted her LinkedIn profile and invited her followers to connect, and it all made sense.  Combining the platforms makes each more valuable.  Twitter allows me to chat with people efficiently.  As long as I keep it to 140 characters, I can share information, humor, insights and ideas.    Adding the connection via LinkedIn gives me a broader more detailed introduction.

I still don’t think it will replace face-to-face interaction, but it can give traditional networking an extra buzz.  The key is cross pollination. Bring your contacts across platforms, using the best tool for the best purpose.  Interested in testing the idea?  I am on Twitter as @lorraineball and you can find me on LinkedIn too.

Roundpeg, an Indianapolis social media firm helps our clients develop strategies to use LinkedIn as part of their marketing mix.

During her keynote at Techpoint’s Innovation Summit Randi Zuckerberg talked about how social media has changed, and will continue to change.  She shared her view on the top 10 social media trends.

1. Give people a reason to like your page.  With so many pages the days of the random like are over.   You have to offer them some incentive such as specific information or special offers for fans only.
2. Delight your customer.  Randi talks about the need to engage your customers, and suggested featuring them using your product or just doing something really interesting.
3. Give your business a human face.  Platforms like facebook allow you to highlight your employees and give people a feel for the faces beyond the brand.  This is something I think we do really well on the Roundpeg page where posts range from photos of the cats, to pictures of our Halloween contest mixed in with blog posts, videos and events.
4. Free Market Research – With access to consumer, there are fewer and fewer excuses for launching a bad product or a good product with no real market.
5. Stay Timely and Relevant – Social media allows you to put meaningful information and messages in front of potential clients at the right time
6. Crowd Sourcing - Social media gives you the ability to leverage the collective genius of your community to solve problems and create content.
7. New eCommerce – Creative merchants are taking advantage of new capabilities wthin sites like Facebook will bring shopping experiences into the social environment.
8. New Customer Service – The challenge is to avoid only paying attention to the whining customers, reinforcing the negative behavior.  Randi suggests also reaching out to customers who are happy with your services.
9. Real Time Interaction –  the world of social is the world of what is happening now.
10. Beautiful Mobile  - Creating great mobile applications does not mean talking your entire website to mobile, but creating an application which does one thing well.

Today’s guest post is by Vicki Bohlsen the president of Bohlsen PR.  Her topic:  The RFP and how tot participate in the process in a way which helps you determine if the project is right for you. 

Would you take a job without meeting your new boss?

I’m sure you’ve participated in the RFP (Request for Proposal) debate. To answer them or not, that is the question.  I know people say they would never an answer an RFP, and I know people who search them out like black jelly beans and answer any and all they can find. I’m probably somewhere in the middle. I’m of the belief that I would never hire someone from just their resume, and that a company shouldn’t hire a vendor just from a proposal.

About a year and a half ago, I had my first opportunity to write an RFP for my own company. We were trying to identify the best website developer for the creation of the BohlsenPR website. It was a lot of fun to approach it in the way I wish all RFP processes would play out – with inclusivity, two-way communication and objectivity.

1. We decided to invite a few people/companies we identified as a potential fit, but we also let it be known that we would accept other proposals from individuals/companies that wanted to participate. Our ultimate goal was to find the best fit for us.

We invited five companies, and we received 11 proposals when all was said and done

2. We gave people the opportunity to ask questions at various times throughout the submission period by offering several open-call times.

 Seven of the eleven companies submitting proposals called and asked questions during these time periods or at arranged times. Several email communications went out reminding those submitting – or wanting to submit – that we’d be happy to provide additional information and answer questions.

 3. As the proposals came in, we had an intern make them unidentifiable. No staff saw a proposal with the submitter’s name during the initial review.

 We did not want to be swayed/influenced by the company’s name or reputation; rather, we wanted to be impacted by the content in the submitter’s proposal.

 4. Two people from the company were given the task of reviewing each and every proposal with a well-defined criteria and ranking system. Each proposal was given at least an hour’s review in which detailed notes were taken. This committee narrowed the field down to three before I even saw them, and only then did we know who the finalists were.

 Then, during deep discussion, we narrowed it down to two and had a one-on-one meeting with each submitter. Ultimately, it was not a simple decision, but having met each company and the person who would act as lead on the account helped us to make a decision.

 5. We provided feedback to the 10 other people/companies who so generously took the time to answer the RFP, letting them know who we chose and why we did not choose them.

We got very positive feedback from most of the companies that did not get the job, thanking us for taking the time to provide the feedback that would be useful for them in their next RFP process.   I don’t know if there is a perfect process for hiring anyone for anything, but this RFP approach seemed as fair as possible – and we even made some new friends along the way.   Now when determining if it makes sense for our company to answer an RFP, I ask myself these questions:

 1.Are we a fit for what is being asked?

2. Can we get more information throughout the process so we can provide the best possible presentation of who we are and how we can meet the client’s needs?

3. Can we do exceptional work for this client?

4. Do they want us to submit a proposal?

5. Do they understand who we are and what we do?

6. Will we learn something from the process, even if we don’t get the gig?

 If I find myself saying, “They’d be foolish not to hire us,” I can assure you we will be submitting a proposal. Just as they need to feel strongly about who they hire, we need to be just as certain. You wouldn’t take a job without meeting your new boss, would you?

Vicki Bohlsen, the President of Bohlsen PR has more than 20 years’ experience in corporate and non-profit media relations and marketing. This includes national and local media placements and the relationships that facilitate them, and expertise in broadcast production, crisis management and media spokesperson training.

“I’d love to use social media, but what if someone says something bad about me?”

“Oh yeah, I have a Facebook page for the company, but no one can comment on it. What if they said something nasty?”

As an Indianapolis social media company, we at Roundpeg hear these statements all the time. These are literally questions at every social media seminar I have ever given. So let’s get real, and talk about the possibilities of the different types of “negative” posts that might show up on your social media platforms–and how to deal with each one.

1. The justified complaint. No matter how good your company is, you’re  going to make a mistake. Most clients will try to fix mistakes or air grievances with you in person or over the phone–most save social media as a court of last resort when they feel they aren’t being listened to. So when they do take their complaint to social media, listen. Acknowledge their complaint, apologize and offer to correct it. Usually, it looks something like this: “So sorry you had that experience. Send me your number and I’ll call you to discuss.” Hopefully, they’ll take you at your word and you’ll have a chance to learn about a problem, take steps to correct it and turn a bad experience into a great one. Everyone makes mistakes–it’s how you fix it that counts.

2. The troll. In online terminology, a troll is someone who likes to stir up trouble for no reason. This is where your disgruntled employee, your arch rival competition or your random lunatic fit in. If there is someone who persists in posting negative comments about you after you’ve reached out and made good-faith efforts to solve the problem, you have a few options. On Facebook, if the messages are posted on your fan page, you can simply delete the posts. Isn’t it a better idea to delete a few offensive posts than disallow all posts–even the ones saying how great you are? If the posts are on Twitter and you’ve done your best to defuse the situation, block the person and ignore. There’s nothing else you can do. You can’t make them stop tweeting, but you can stop giving them attention. And eventually? They’ll go away. Promise.

The most important thing to remember is that not having a social media presence doesn’t make negative comments go away–it just means you lose the chance to respond. If I can’t post my complaint on your Facebook page, I’ll post it on mine. If I can’t @ your Twitter handle in my tweet, I’ll just use your brand name and bad mouth you that way–and you’ll never know. You can’t run from or prevent negative social media comments–but you can respond to them in a way that’s classy, customer-service oriented and polite. So stop hiding behind locked Facebook pages or thinking that not using social media at all solves your problems. It doesn’t. Get out there and be smart.

 Roundpeg, an Indianapolis social media firm helps small business owners develop proactive social media and marketing strategies. 

Who has time to post individual updates to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter? We’re all running a mile a minute trying to cram more and more things into our day, so why not make life a little easier on ourselves by automating some of the process? It’s so simple to use Hootsuite or Tweetdeck or one of the dozens of other platforms to feed all your posts from one network to all the others, creating a never-ending loop of content. It’s fast. It’s painless. It’s easy. As a social media company, people confess to this all the time. And it makes me sad.

It’s wrong, and it’s ruining your social media efforts. Here are five reasons to stop linking your social media accounts together–now.

1. It’s confusing. For instance, if you push tweets to Facebook (or LinkedIn), your messages might be filled with strange symbols that make no sense in the context of Facebook–like @ signs and # signs that aren’t traditionally used on Facebook. Because significantly more people use Facebook than use Twitter, these can come off as just plain bewildering.

2. The timing is off. People on Twitter might tweet 50 or more times a day while thinking nothing of it. On Facebook, a couple of posts a day is acceptable. On LinkedIn, some people post only once a day, and many post far less. By connecting all the accounts, you’re ruining the natural timing and pacing of each network. Posting once a day on Twitter is far too little–but posting 50 times a day on LinkedIn is far too much.

3. It’s repetitive. Some people might follow you on multiple networks, believe it or not. While duplicating an occasional post is fine, when you duplicate everything, people get bored. And then they unfollow, unlike or disconnect. After all, what’s the point in following you on multiple networks when you’re just going to repeat yourself like an echo?

4. Things fall through the cracks. When you post every update to every network, there’s really no reason to regularly check each network. After all, everything feeds automatically, so why waste the time? This is much more efficient. Sure, you might check your primary network, but what if someone posts something in response on a little-visited site like LinkedIn, or it gets lost in the shuffle on Facebook? Overly automating makes it too easy for messages to get lost in your misguided quest for efficiency.

5. It’s missing the point. Pushing all updates to all networks means you’re using social media as a broadcast network, not as a way for genuine communication. You’re forcing one untargeted message down the throats of anyone willing to like, follow or connect with you–and that’s a disservice to them. And it’s a disservice to you. Take the time to craft interesting, unique messages for each social network. If you don’t have the time, it’s okay to focus on one network. Make your LinkedIn page the best it can be, or really pour some love into Facebook. But don’t just spray your message and pray it hits someone.

Need help?  Consider attending one of the Free social media seminars offered by Roundpeg, an Indianapolis social media firm.

You may have heard about Facebook’s daring new Timeline project. If you haven’t, you will soon when it takes over your profile on October 2. For the uninitiated, Timeline is your entire life. On Facebook. Not only does it show you major events from the years you’ve been on Facebook, you can even go back and add seminal events to your timeline. Adorable baby pictures for “birth.” Your wedding, the day you got your dog, the day your child was born.

Not only is Facebook encouraging you to share every moment of your past, it’s making it easier to share your future. New applications encourage you to share the minutiae of your life, from what you cooked for dinner to what music you’re listening to on Spotify to every movie you watch. Live your life in the open, Facebook says. Share. Live. Join us.

As a marketer, I’m thrilled about the changes for the very reasons I personally fear the changes. It means that marketers like me will have access to all kinds of your information that will allow us to target ads, content and other information to you. This is fantastic, because it makes my job easier and helps me find and reach customers in my clients’ target demographics. It means we can use every aspect of your personality, your likes, dislikes and indeed, your entire life story to better sell you things. It’s a dream come true.

But I use Facebook personally, too. And I’m concerned. Concerned about the ever-shifting patchwork of privacy settings. Concerned about how Facebook tracks your movements online–even when you’re not logged into the site. Concerned that there really are no boundaries anymore between the public and the private, the personal and commercial.

Timeline isn’t necessary a bad thing. And Facebook isn’t necessarily evil. But think long and hard about Timeline and the role you want it to play in your life. Because there will be people like me out there, ready to use anything you share.

Update: The launch of Facebook Timeline has been pushed back until at least Tuesday, October 4, due to a pending lawsuit.

Quality vs Quantity – How Many Twitter Followers Do You Need or Want?  There is an ongoing debate about the right twitter strategy. Do you want lots of followers who retweeet your messages or fewer followers who actually talk with you.

Turns out there is no one right answer. Sarah Kessler writting for Mashable profiled two social media celebrities recently Guy Kawasaki and Robert Scoble who have dramatically different approaches.  Kawasaki will friend everyone, in contrast Scoble is much more selective about who he follows.

• Kawasaki puts his bluntly: “My strategy is that Twitter is a marketing broadcast platform,
• Scoble, on the other hand, is more of a quality over quantity kind of guy: “Caring about number of followers is going to take you down a path that’s not very satisfying

• Aim for a Reasonable Goal – If you currently have 500 followers, you will not be at 5,000 overnight.
• Put in Some Quality Time – Attracting attention is about sharing good content, and that takes time.
• Pick a Niche – Be really interesting and informative on a specific topic, and you will become the go to person. You may not necessarily attract everyone, but the people you connect with, will share your interests.
• Keep Your Tweets Relevant to Your Niche – This is one I think you have to take less literally.  While I write about blogging, social media, web design and marketing, I also talk about the local Indianapolis art and cultural community.  Don’t be afraid to have  more than one niche.
• Respond in Order to Engage – If you want others to talk to you, take the time to pay attention to them.

So what do you choose?  Quality of  Quantity?  On LinkedIn, I accept every request.  Making a connection is like handing out a business card at a networking event. There is no expectation of a follow up conversation. That is not twitter.  And because everyone is talking all the time, I don’t necessarily want to clutter my stream with updates from people I don’t care about.  I filter some of the content through lists, but I routinely block or unfollow people who never share anything of value.   That works best for me.  What is your social media strategy?

Roundpeg, is an Indianapolis Social media firm offering graphic and web design services for small businesses.