English: Infographic on how Social Media are being used, and how everything is changed by them. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We’re stepping up to meet demand.

As social media becomes ever more present in small business and nonprofit marketing budgets, there is a need for Certified Social Planners with a Social Media Certification.

We’ve always had success placing our best students in full time or part time positions. Now, we’re giving an opportunity of a lifetime to 10 people – Guaranteed Placement.

Yep, if we don’t place you within 90 days after completing your Certified Social Planner coaching program, we’ll give you your money back. But, don’t fear, we have clients waiting RIGHT NOW for CSPs.

Make $25-$50/hour helping organizations build and execute their social media plans. One recent graduate has a near $50,000 job, another stay at home mom is making an extra $1,250/month.

If you’re interested, get in touch and we’ll give you more details, but you better sign up fast. This guarantee is limited to the first 10 people at this time.

We will use this series for the next 13 weeks to walk through our certification steps and show how easy it is to get your Certified Social Planner designation.

We will update this post with the live link to the Google+ Hangout and then post the video as a follow up as well in case you can’t join us live.

Enjoy your Friday and look forward to one of these a week for the next 13 weeks, or sooner if we have a fast learner!

For sure we’ll cover Habit 1: Subscribe.

JOE

*** Updated with Video ***

We had some technical difficulty with Google Hangouts (I can’t tell you how frustrating Google Plus is, but it’s worth it for the SEO and Hangouts).

So here is the first 5 minutes of our coaching we captured via Jing. WARNING it’s great content but unedited and boring to watch. Scroll down and you can see me and Katrina on Google Hangouts while we’re talking.

http://screencast.com/t/xjRIuBnaF

The other 40 minutes of coaching will be available soon. But, I’m not sure where I’m going to host these training videos as they are much longer that YouTube’s standard allotment.

*** Updated 3/24 – Asked for and received Googles Plus 15 minutes ***

Here is the other 40 minutes: http://youtu.be/J0FjqAAe5Wg

Traditionally, market research focused on demographics to have a clear idea of target market age, gender, income, location, and other traits. Then psychographics was added to the mix, taking into account customer’s interests, values, and attitudes. While demographics provides general information, psychographics attempts to gets inside customer heads.

New Media offers us a new way to understand our customers: socialgraphics: the synergy of demographic and psychographic data shared on social networks resulting in a greater, real time understanding of your target market. It’s like crack cocaine for internet marketers wanting to attract and retain longterm clients. #apologyfornonpc

How do you build your ideal customer socialgraphic?

Describe your ideal customer. Not your typical customer, but your ideal customer – the ones that makes you the most money or are most enjoyable to work with or better yet, both! What are their demographics? What are their psychographics? Do you have examples among your existing past or present customer base? If not, can you identify real people that fit as examples?

Take your list of examples and plug them into your Nimble CRM system. All you need is primary contact information and Nimble will generate possible Social Network matches. Take the time to connect with all your examples on their different social networks using Nimble. Now, print a socialgraphic report from Nimble on your example set. ***Spoiler alert, it doesn’t exist yet***

So, now what do you do?

Do it the hard way. Determine which networks your ideal customer uses, and how frequently.

Spend time trying to understand why they are using each network – education, entertainment, or other purpose.

Are they engaging? What type of information are they sharing – photos, links, videos?

Summarize this information along with the demographic and psychographic data and develop a profile of your ideal customer.

Now, don’t be an idiot, take the time to start engaging with this group of people using the New Media Habits.

In the book we talk about the 3 pillars of New Media and strategy being the first. As we look at our book launch, now separated from V180 Media, we are revisiting our strategy and corresponding priorities. We have new resources, new partners, and new objectives. Thus, we need to update our New Media Guide.

Our top 3 target markets are still entrepreneurs, nonprofits, and aspiring new media professionals. But our objectives have changed from local content business generation to national training partnerships. Our objectives are now online book and workbook sales, coaching opportunities, and certifications. Thus, our entire New Media Guide is changing, from annual theme to the daily topics.

Also New Media tools and networks are evolving, changing some of our tactics. And, we’ve discovered new efficiencies, discarded inefficient methodology, and developed better processes.

In short, we’ve set 5 quarterly priorities to achieve our defined gripitROI this next quarter.

Priority #1: make the book, training, and coaching available online – Completed 3/14

Priority #2: revisit each habit weekly, releasing updates on our blog and social networks – Begin 4/1

Priority #3: use online video for remote coaching and training – Begin 3/21

Priority #4: gain 1000 Facebook Likes, 2500 Twitter Followers, and 500 Pinterest followers – 4/30

Priority #5: engage 100 advocates to empower our brand – 5/30

We also established tactics and strategies for achieving these objectives. I won’t share all of those on this blog because we don’t want the dingos to steal all our babies. But I will share 1 exciting new strategy that emerged while discussing our Priority #4.

The Lazy Baby – A Follower Strategy

Step 1: Automate the noise. Select appropriate industry resources to curate relevant content. Use Sprout Social or other scheduled posting tool to generate consistent updates to your networks, sharing this relevant content. Monitor and adjust as necessary so your content meets the 3E requirements from our book.

Step 2: Be grateful for engagement. Spend your daily time allotment (minimum 15 minutes/day) thanking followers, friends, and others on Social Networks (review the Mention habit). If you have more time go out of the way and promote partners or others on their networks.

Step 3: Buy the love, within reason. Equate a dollar value for achieving preset goals and establish a corresponding outsourcing budget for 90 days. Hire a performance based Certified Social Planner to focus on your growth. Pay a portion of your budget for hourly work, the balance for meeting goals and social advertising/promotions your performance based CSP may require.

Step 4: Be lazy. Listen to the music, be thankful, and enjoy your new found love.

Any dingo can steal this lazy baby strategy. Enjoy!

When you participate in coaching and/or become a Certified Social Planner you get access to all of the New Media Habits tools including Sprout Social, SEOMoz and Basecamp.

As a practicing Certified Social Planner, our Basecamp templates allow for easy setup of new clients or brands. The daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly To Dos are pre-established. The New Media Policy, GripitROI reports, Monthly Content Plan, Centers of Influence, SEO, and other template documents are already setup. These templates are updated as we and others just like you continue to evolve and serve new clients.

Look for even more updates over the next 13 weeks as we continue to evolve the New Media Habits.

Joseph Frost

Without addressing all of these 4, you will not have a Highly Satisfied Customer that will refer you or repeat doing business with you. Without addressing the 1st component, trust, you will not get a chance at all with a prospect. Trust is the critical factor to any sales person’s success. So how can you use New Media Strategies to build trust online and enhance your sales?

#gripitROI for Sales – The Trust Factor

When is the last time you made a major buying decision? Did you go online, research, ask for referrals? If you’re like 87% of America, you search online even before you shop local.

Your online credibility is affected by your website and your social media presence. If void in social media, there is no social validation. This equates to a reduction in your credibility if your customer expects you to be active. Just have a link is not enough, if your twitter or facebook page is void of regular content.

We suggest adding twitter feeds or facebook like boxes to your website to showcase your activity as a signal that you are more credible or trust worthy.

Look for more on gripitROI for Sales in future posts as we begin to #evolve the New Media Habits into even more actionable areas.

It did not stink!

We visited 4 companies with our kids that day. I noted some words of wisdom from our hosts.

Spin Linen – Learn math and sales. And don’t let anyone tell you you can’t be a mom and an entrepreneur!

Amazing Pizza Machine – Learn how to be different.

Gratton Warehouse – Have values. Do the right thing when nobody is looking.

John A. Gentleman – We survey our families to see how we’re doing. It’s kinda like a test in school.

Here are a few more pictures of the event.

We’ve been working on cool projects for our clients since 2008, previously as V180 Media and KreativElement. We’ve perfected Custom Website and Video Production processes over the last 4 1/2 years and you get to benefit from our experience.

The New Media Habits will continue to evolve under the guidance of Joseph Frost and the team at Frost Media Group.

Sincerely,

Joseph Frost

I formulated the Us of Your Message while working on a recent project in partnership with the Nonprofit Association of the Midlands (NAM). The Us are (in no particular order):

• Universal
• Unifying
• Uncommon or Unusual
• Understood
• Uplifting

Let’s take a look at each individually for better understanding.

Universal

Your message, or a significant component of it, should be universal, a universal truth if you will. Something that cannot be reasonably argued or discounted. Unless you are purposely polarizing an audience, your appeal should be to the greatest number of people.

Unifying

A message that brings people together makes it stronger to individuals and groups alike. Your message should have elements of unity that connect people to the message and to one another.

Uncommon or Unusual

You want your message to be memorable, to stick out in a crowd. There is so much noise everywhere today. Your message has to be heard loud and clear. Uncommon or unusual messages will get the extra attention, will stand out, and will be more likely to me recalled.

Understood

Make sure your messages are understandable and simple. Simplicity is one of the most difficult things to accomplish, but one of the most powerful ways to help get your message across. However, simplicity can lead to lost context or meaning. Understanding is a must that cannot be overlooked.

Uplifting

Arguably the most powerful part of a message is the feeling it delivers. Choosing a positive uplifting message enhances the emotions of your audience and encourages them to share your message.

The next time you’re putting together your message, whether it’s a presentation to your team or a tagline for your organization, Use the Us.