Customized Wordpress Website is Your Hub for Social Media

Or WordPress.org is the best website platform to create your online marketing central hub

When you use social media in tandem with your website presence you need to think of its use like a two way street of communication. When people visit your site, you want to engage them enough with your content and offers so that they sign up for your newsletter, like your business Facebook page, link with your engaging tip oriented Twitter account and also follow your LinkedIn account if your business is professional or business to business. When I have been lucky enough to find a website I really like, yes I will do all four actions!

I sign up for the newsletter,  follow them on Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn. And I can do this in a matter of seconds because all the Icon link buttons and newsletter op-tin invites are sitting together in the upper right hand sidebar which is the hottest real estate you've got on your site!

So that's one side of the street or communication when it comes to social media and your website. The other side has to do with your delicious, inviting content that is so on point and leading edge that your readers want to share it. So you  need your Like Me and Tweet Me buttons for your Facebook and Twitter readers that want to share your blog article content with their own faithful followers. And the social media marketing circle or  word of mouth  miracle goes into action. Isn't it grand? And for your sophisticated followers that appreciate LinkedIn,  and sites like Delicious and Stumble Upon, you need to make sure you have your Share to Any plug in installed  and showing on your post pages.

What's that you say? Share to Any is one of the great plug ins you can install for free when your social media integrated website is installed on the WordPress.org platform. And all those other graphic link buttons and opt in forms I mentioned above? All easy to get on your website with user friendly WordPress.

Two years ago when I decided to create a blog for my husband's online business, I did my research and decided on a domain hosted WordPress blog or website.  I bought a domain name, installed it on WordPress and went to work creating pages. What was so amazing to me is that I did not need to know HTML or code and instead of getting just a great blog for my husband to write articles, I got a fully functional  website!

And now I create customized Wordpress websites for my small business clients. I teach them how to add their own content and photos, how to update and use social media to enhance their marketing efforts. It is a win win situation because it does not cost thousands of dollars and it is the same platform that large companies like Ford, Pepsi and the New York Times are  using! Can't beat that and everyday  the folks at WordPress and  their Open Source freelancers are always offering new  plug ins and widgets to keep your website up to date with the latest trends in website use!

In recent posts I have shared a few online marketing tips that can make your small biz  website and online marketing efforts get the results you need. Making your site the inviting hub or home  with well written content, compelling calls to action and  easy navigation is essential. Researching the different social media  options like Facebook and Twitter  to see where your niche market hangs out is key.

Lurking on these sites to see  how your friendly competition utilizes social media is also a smart business move to make before you get your feet wet. And then emphasizing  the writing of a blog to establish you as a leading authority in your field and to get loyal followers is another great tip. These are previous tips that you have read posted here. To bring all these strategies together, I highly recommend the use of a customized WordPress site to make it all come together in a professional manner and without going over your small business budget. I invite you to take a look at my site to see how social media and WordPress integrate to get you online results!

For more tips on social media marketing, follow this blog and visit Karen Teeters' website at FiveStarSiteMakers.com. You may republish this article in full. Just make sure you list this paragraph and provide a link.

7 Reasons to Blog as Social Media Strategy

Your Blog will Grow Your Business

and Enhance Your Social Media Efforts

by Karen A. Teeters

Have you have taken my advice from my last post to lurk and follow businesses similar to yours on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin? If so, you may have noticed something most blog writers for small businesses do on a pretty regular basis.

It has to do with their blog posts. Whenever a savvy social marketing business posts a brand new blog article, don't you see a microblog on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn with an enticing tagline and link to the post? Something like: 5 Proven Ways to get Great Leads http://ow.ly/4qEDW.

How often have you clicked on a link like that, read the article, liked the article, perused the website, and decided to follow that writer or business on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn? Maybe you even signed up for a newsletter and received a free ebook of tips as a thank you?

What I am trying to get at here is that a well written business blog works beautifully as part of your social media marketing strategy! In a previous post I emphasized the importance of creating a great website with engaging content. You need to have that in place before you start drawing people to your site with social networks, yes.

However, it is your fresh content in your blog posts that will draw the social media enthusiasts to your site in the first place. So business blogging is key, a central hub for all your social buzzing.

Many of my clients have had a website for years and meant to but never got around to creating a blog. Or they started one and did not know what to do with it or got easily disinterested. This is one of the reasons it is so important to research and create a social media marketing plan and stick with it!

Blog articles are crucial to the success of your social media marketing strategy. Once your Facebook Fan or Twitter follower links to your blog, she will explore your website's services, benefits. about page and newsletter opt in, just what you want!

 7 Reasons Your Blog will Grow Your Business and Enhance Social Media:

1. Original, useful, fresh content makes you look good! How many times have you seen businesses on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn send you to other articles or sites? This practice can be valuable to you and your potential client especially when you send them to info authored by respected thought leaders in your industry. But if you are relying solely on this practice for your social media posts, you are doing yourself a great disservice! You want to send your fans to your blog and website to take advantage of the solutions and advice that only you can offer. This adds that trust and like factor that will encourage potential clients to look more closely at your offerings!
2. Establishing yourself as a thought leader in your industry adds credibility! If a Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn follower likes your writing and advice, they may repost or retweet your article to their friends and even possibly make your post go viral. Can you see the benefit of providing your own original blog articles?
3. You want to give back to your community! And the goodwill of the free advice and solutions you offer on your blog will do this for you. Helping your existing and potential clients with valuable, up to date, well researched information will help to establish you as a business person with integrity. You will become someone that will easily be referred to readers' associates and friends. People will be “tweeting” your good name!
4. Publishing a new article every few days or every week will encourage you to participate. What this means is that once you have committed to creating simple, short how to and industry savvy articles on a regular basis, you will find it much easier to add to your tweets, Facebook and Linkedin posts. And with a growing backlog of articles, you will have oodles of information to refer to.
5. Search engines will have much more of your content-all your blog articles. So that your site should be listed under more keywords than a regular static site. Your site and articles should show up more often in searches this way! And your social networking efforts work, your LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter accounts should all come up when people search for your company name. More credibility and find-ability for your services!
6. Newsletter opt-in sign up is more likely to increase with social media links and visitors. Have you ever bought from a company after receiving a great offer in their newsletter? But you did not buy from them when you first visited their site did you? Maybe you were following them on Facebook and Twitter and were getting their e-mails for a few months, right? They say out of site and out of mind but with the combination of social media and blog efforts, you can stay at the forefront when a buying need pops up!
7. Other thought leaders with great blogs may find your article and mention or link to your post!! You know you are always reposting some great advice you read to your followers, right? Well the longer your provide thoughtful, helpful blog posts, the more likely other social networkers will repost or make mention of or link to your blog posts in their blog posts! A win win for all!

You may read this and be convinced that blog writing is something you need to do but you are not sure how to set up a blog or even start writing. Blog set up can be simplified and articles do not have to be long or complicated. They need to be in your own, conversational voice and you stick to what you know. More on blog set up and writing best practices to come.
For more tips on social media marketing, follow this blog and visit Karen Teeters' website at FiveStarSiteMakers.com. You may republish this article in full. Just make sure you list this paragraph and provide a link.

Social Media Lurking 101

How to Follow the Successful Other Guys
on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter

by Karen A.Teeters

In a recent post I discussed the importance of following businesses that are similar to yours to see what kind of successful social marketing media strategies they utilize to create business.

You are probably thinking how to accomplish this within each of these platforms. I would like to share with you what I originally did after I created my first blog for my husband's Corvette art business. 

Follow Friendly Competitors

First you need to be familiar with other companies that might be friendly competitors or offer complementary services to your business. My husband, Scott Teeters is a car artist and author who has been writing articles and creating art for car magazines for over thirty years. His most popular series is the Illustrated Corvette Series which has been appearing in Vette magazine since 1997. Scott resells his popular Corvette art on his website called illustratedcorvetteseries.com. The supporting blog I created is CorvetteReport.com. So Scott's customers are Corvette enthusiasts who like to buy Corvette art, Corvette magazines, Corvette clothing, Corvette aftermarket items and anything Corvette that relates to the specific model Corvette they own.

Appeal to Your Market's Enthusiasts

So I researched companies who appeal to this market. Corvette Central and Corvette America sell Corvette supplies and accessories to this demographic. Online Corvette forums appeal to this crowd. CorvetteBlogger is a popular Corvette lifestyle blog. So I follow these companies everywhere.

Scott has a Facebook account. So he looks up these companies to find their Facebook business pages. He “likes” (facebookese for follow) them so that he can see their comments and posts on his wall. He can observe whether or not they have a landing page or if they are offering special discounts. He can become members of Corvette enthusiast groups on Facebook and see what the other companies are commenting on these posts as well.

On Linkedin, he can look up the main players, owners, ceos of these companies and link with them to see what is happening in their industries and how they are using LinkedIn. He can join Corvette groups on LinkeIn as well.

Over on Twitter, he can look up companies like Corvette Central and Corvette America and follow them. He can follow Corvetteblogger and all the Corvette forums on Twitter as well. And he can follow people who follow these accounts. Get the idea?

Hopefully this description gets your creative head thinking about all the companies you could be following and lurking in the background to observe just how they behave and interact on social media networks.

Read the Primers First

Now before you do all this it is best to advise that you do read a few social media primers such as Chris Brogan's Social Media 101, Shamar Hyder Kabani's The Zen of Social Marketing and Tara Hunt's The Power of Social Networking to get an idea of best practices like providing useful tips and fun comments 70% of the time and marketing business offers only 30% of the time. That being said you will be able to lurk intelligently and take notes on some clever ideas that your competitors do that will help your own efforts.

One of the best things you will see other people do and you too can do on Twitter for example is retweet helpful tips and insights of some of the people and businesses you follow. If you think the tip is something that your potential client that is following you on Twitter could benefit, then by all means retweet. On your Facebook wall, you will see other people share  any tips or comments of the people or businesses they are following and you can do the same. This makes you look good!

With LinkedIn, you can always leave comments about what you are up to with helpful tips and events. You can answer questions as an expert to certain groups and leave comments in the groups you are a member of and of course read all of the comments of those in your LinkedIn connections.

Another thought here. When you find a website of a company you would like to follow, someone who is doing something similar to you, you will often find links to follow them on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Do it! Link to them and take some time in the beginning of your social media research to lurk in the background and see what they do. Try to learn from the best and leave the rest as they say.

Good luck with your social media research. More tips to come.

For more tips on social media marketing, follow this blog and visit Karen Teeters' website at FiveStarSiteMakers.com. You may republish this article in full. Just make sure you list this paragraph and provide a link.

Three Tips for the Social Media Newbie

by Karen A. Teeters

A few days ago I got a call from a relatively new business owner  who was in the same social media conundrum I was in a few years ago.

Client Referral

One of my website clients had referred her to me.  I had coached my client with training on social media pointers for newbies and she realized I was the best candidate to do the same for this newer business.

And so I have a training appointment with my now new client to show her how she can use social media marketing to drive business the right way. We will use the free internet Skype  program so that she can see my screen as we talk over the internet. And I will start with three easy tips.

In my last blog, I talked about the importance of first having an excellent website because that is  the hub of all your  social media efforts.If you do not have a nice home to invite all you social media  friends to, then you have wasted your time.

But once you have a customer friendly, professional looking website in place, then what do do?

My new client explained to me that she had started her Facebook page and she filled in the profile for her LinkedIn account and she had posted a few things but she still was not sure what her goal was or what she should do next. She even bought a few books on the subject but was still confused.

I explained to her that she was on the right track by contacting me because I was in her same situation myself when I first started. I got myself on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and had read several best selling books.

Expert Social Media Training

The best thing I did was attend a live workshop by a local expert. With a power-point presentation, I could actually see what other successful businesses were doing with social networking. I could read a well written micro-blog and see how everything interacts. Write a new blog entry-Share it on Facebook-Distribute it with a newsletter-Tweet it on Twitter and Microblog it on LinkedIn.  Use software to make it quick and easy.  It started to make sense.

And the best advice was to start following similar businesses who were using Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Three Tips

So in three short steps, here is my advice for the "Small Business Social Media Newbie":

1. Hire an experienced social media networker who can show you the ropes so you can do it right the first time.

2. Start up your accounts with Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin and lurk in the background for a while to see what the experienced networkers in your business are doing. Are they posting just business specials or are they interspersing their posts with bits of personal details and helpful observations? 70%  helpful insights and 30% business offers is the norm.

3. Now after you have your feet wet and have a basic understanding of how things work, buy your social media books and study them. You will now have a greater understanding of the jargon and techniques discussed. And you can develop a social media plan that will work for your business or your client's. Start microblogging everyday on the sites that work for your business is a given!

Expert Authors to Follow and Read

To further your education, I recommend books and blogs  by social media experts such as Chris Brogan, Mari Smith and Gary Vaynerchuk. Darren Rowse is also great for blogging advice. The online Mashable blog is one of the all time great social media resources as well. After a while, you'll be networking with the best, at least until Facebook or Twitter makes a major change.

And you can follow my blog right here for more tips for the social media newbie. Happy networking.

For more tips on social media marketing, follow this blog and visit Karen Teeters' website at FiveStarSiteMakers.com. You may republish this article in full. Just make sure you list this paragraph and provide a link.

First Crucial Step for Successful Social Media Networking

How Do I Figure Out Social Media Marketing
for My Small Business?

Or What do I do first? 

by Karen A. Teeters

When I go to networking meetings and share with other small business owners my specialty of creating websites and online marketing consulting, I always get asked about  the mystery of that latest buzz word, social media marketing. They are frustrated and say things like--I have a Facebook Account but I don't know what to say and what is Twitter for--?

Get Results

Are you one of these confused business owners? Many small business owners already have a website. They may have started a blog. They might even have a Facebook profile, a LinkedIn profile and maybe even a Twitter account  but most people are clueless when it comes to having a social media marketing strategy that will actually get results-people signing up for their newsletter or even people inquiring about their services from online efforts.

Excellent Website Presence

The simple thing that I advise is not to worry about becoming an expert in all of these at once. Before you as a small business start microblogging on Facebook or Twitter or joining  business groups on LinkedIn, I recommend that you have an excellent website presence that people feel is easy to navigate with a compelling what's in it for me statement and purpose on each page. In other words, before you take all that  time to put together your social media profiles and figure out  how to word your Facebook and Twitter comments, make sure the business home you are welcoming these prospects to is professional and effective.

I guess it is obvious since I am a  a website designer and developer that I would be  aware of this  essential.  As an an avid  and enthusiastic participant in social networking myself, I do love to follow other businesses. After reading intriguing comments on Facebook or Twitter, I always link to the listed website to find out more and I am often disappointed at what I see! Maybe you have had this experience too.

Don't Make Me Think!

So many small businesses may have started their businesses five or more years ago and have not done anything new to their websites since then!  This is a huge mistake as the online strategies and opportunities are changing daily! Making sure your site design is up to date, clean and easy to navigate with  the latest information on your company is just basic today. I recently read the excellent  web usability book by Steve Krug titled Don't Make Me Think which is the perfect advice as you review each page. Make it easy and keep it updated!

There is so much more than creating your basic pages. Starting a blog to set yourself up as an  authority in your field is one. Making sure each  page has a clear purpose and a call to action for your prospects is another. And making sure there is an opt in box to sign up for newsletters and to keep track of potential leads is really key and not to be overlooked.

As I explain these details to fellow business owners, I usually end up offering a free evaluation of an owner's website so that I  can make a few recommendations. Once you have a site that is going to work for you and your customers, then I offer my insights on successful blogging tips and which social networking sites would be most successful for particular businesses.

Your Website needs to be an Inviting Home

So next time you get frustrated about how to use social networking, take a look at your website first and make sure it is an inviting home for your potential new guests! That is your first step to figuring out Social Media Marketing. Stay tuned to this blog for more tips.

For more tips on social media marketing, follow this blog and visit Karen Teeters' website at FiveStarSiteMakers.com. You may republish this article in full. Just make sure you list this paragraph and provide a link.