1. Get on Facebook
2. Establish a business account if you don’t have one
3. Create a 200pix wide x 600pix high image for Facebook
4. Add Facebook links to every page of your website
5. Fill out your entire Facebook profile
6. Obtain a Facebook vanity URL to help customers find you
7. Add your vanity URL to your email signature
8. Add your vanity URL to your marketing materials
9. Post daily updates to Facebook regarding your business
10. Answer any customer questions on Facebook, whether they originate from Twitter or an email. It will help foster conversation.
11. Send an email or newsletter to all clients/contacts letting them know you are on Facebook and asking them to “like” your page
12. Make sure all privacy settings are updated to keep all personal information separate from business pages
13. Post links to articles other people have written as a way of adding value to your clients’ businesses
14. Don’t make your Facebook page about you — make it about your customers
15. Use features other than posting updates: add conversations, photo albums, blogs, etc.
16. Brand your page so that it is instantly recognizable as going with your website
17. Establish a conversation with your customers
18. Be part of the community
19. Run Facebook promotions — try a giveaway or contest using Facebook to promote
20. Try Facebook advertising
21. If you sell tangible products, use pictures to tell a story of that product
22. Realize Facebook allows you to humanize your business — try doing a funny video of your employees
23. Engage your own employees using Facebook
24. Crown an employee of the month on Facebook — it amuses customers and gives positive reinforcement to staff
25. Get on Twitter
26. Write a stellar Twitter profile, just because it’s 140 characters doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be amazing
27. Start tweeting at least one tweet a day for 20 days before you start trying to get Twitter followers
28. Make sure those tweets are helpful and interesting, otherwise nobody will follow you
29. Make your tweets 1/3 new content by you, 1/3 retweeting other content you think is interesting, and 1/3 conversing with other tweeters
30. Start courting followers
31. Try to follow people who you actually think are interesting. Don’t just follow someone who you think will follow back
32. Sign up for a service like TwitterUnfollow
33. Sign up for a service like HootSuite
34. Decide if you want to be a planned tweeter or if you want to be organic
35. If you want to be organic, be on a constant look out for good tweet ideas
36. If you want to be a planned tweeter, start planning your tweets days, or even weeks in advance
37. Write 10 tweets a day and spread them out over two weeks
38. Download the Twitter app to your smart phone so you can tweet from anywhere
39. Start exploring Twitter lists
40. Make Twitter lists so you can keep track of those who really matter to you
41. Retweet when others talk about you, especially if they are positive reviews
42. Share business updates in real time
43. Start a blog
44. Add the blog to your website
45. Make sure the style and header match the rest of your website
46. Brainstorm tons of ideas before going live
47. Write as many blog posts as possible before going live
48. Post at least one blog post a week
49. Make sure the posts are SEO friendly and you know how to use SEO plugins to optimize your blog
50. Put a link to your blog in your email signature
51. Send an email blast or email to your contacts/customers letting them know you have a blog
52. Understand that blogging is about adding value to your customers and keep that in mind with every blog post you write
53. Start looking for free pictures you can use with your blog
54. Get a feel for how long you want your blog posts to be
55. Hire a ghost writer if you don’t have time to write the posts yourself
56. Do a series of blog posts that all interact and help your readers accomplish something big
57. Learn how to write the best headlines you can
58. Learn how to write for the web — its’ different than print
59. Cut yourself some slack as you start, there’s a learning curve
60. Tell your story
61. Personalize your blog without being unprofessional
62. Make sure your brand is consistent on your blog
63. Establish yourself as an expert amongst your customers and amongst your peers — write what you know about
64. Foster your own creative thoughts
65. Disseminate your blog posts among social media including Facebook and Twitter
66. Start a monthly newsletter you send to customers encapsulating your favorite posts
67. Get on LinkedIn
68. Join groups to foster interaction
69. Make sure your profile is 100% up to date
71. Recommend others
72. Put up a business appropriate pictures
73. Make sure all your employees are on LinkedIn
74. Recruit talent using LinkedIn
75. Answer LinkedIn Questions
76. Take the time to connect to all present and past customer
77. Use LinkedIn to keep in touch
78. Network with peers
79. Spy on your competition
80. Start an email marketing campaign
81. Join MailChimp or Constant Contact
82. Create a long and impressive email list from past clients and contacts
83. Put a place on your website for visitors to sign up for emails/newsletters
84. Write the blasts so they are helpful to readers and not about you at all
85. Make sure they are 100% branded with your company
86. Use short headlines that are informative
87. If possible, make your email mobile friendly
88. Include pictures, but no videos
89. Keep it short
90. Proofread like crazy
91. Use writing to engage in content marketing
92. Write and distribute press releases about new services or products
93. Brand the press releases
94. Hire a copywriter to write a case study — they are the newest wave in sales copy
95. Update your website copy
96. Make sure your copy is professionally written and edited
97. Hire a copywriter who can use words to turn visitors into customers
98. Make sure your website design is up to date, both visually and technically
99. Make sure you have a logo that is on everything from your website to business cards to email signatures to your social media profiles to EVERYTHING
100. Set aside dedicated time to keep up with social media, your business will thank you
101. Keep looking to the future, there will always be new ways to use social media to better your business, be first to jump on the bandwagon!
January 6, 2011
Rebecca, aloha. Great list. Easy to do; easy not to do. Will definitely share it with many–in fact, I may “borrow” it for a post. Aloha. Janet
January 6, 2011
Wow that’s quite the list and I think you’re bang on in so many ways. Now it’s how to manage that in a daily to-do list.
I wrote my key winning strategies up the other day on how to tackle much of this 2-3 times per week.
Thanks for including a link to my article on privacy – it’s gone down really well as it’s super important too.
Thanks Rebecca.
Natalie