Remember the famous whisper coming from the corn field in the Kevin Costner movie, “Field Of Dreams?” Build it and they will come. No truer words have ever been spoken.

Have you built anything lately? You must build before customers and friends will come. Rarely will they come based on an idea. It’s time to start construction my friend.

How often do you ride down the road in your own community and see new construction and wonder what is being built? How often does it come up in conversation, “Hey Jeff, what’s going on down on Main Street, I see they have broke ground on a new building.” That’s called community buzz. Something is being built and you and your friends are curious. A buzz has been started and it’s likely that you will make a phone call or two to further investigate and try to get an answer.

Construction usually takes a few months and you slowly start to see a building rise from the dirt. Slowly it appears and becomes recognizable. The word is slowly getting out and the community starts to anticipate the finished construction and what it will mean to the community.

The citizens in your community are now realizing that the new building may represent new jobs and become a real asset the the area. You find yourself telling others in conversation that you are excited about the new construction. You may actually post a photo of the new building on your Facebook Page and Twitter. You may actually be interested in employment at the new building and stop by and pick up an application.

In your own mind you have decided that this new building will be an asset to the community. You have spread the word, and you have also applied to be a part of the organization.

This is the blueprint for building an online presence in your own community using Social Media Marketing and creating a buzz.

The building that I speak of is your blog or community website. Some call it hyperlocal blogs. You must build it before anyone will come. You must fill it with content. The content of your site are the walls coming out of the ground. Content is visible to your community and future customers.

The buzz surrounding the construction of your new community is an effective use of Social Media Marketing using tools that are readily available to all of us. Do you know how to effectively use Twitter and Facebook to create that buzz?

You create your own buzz and slowly build a community who will be anticipating the launch of your new community website and what it will mean to your community.

In the example I used above, there are people in your community who will want to apply for employment. In your world, there will be people who will apply to become community contributors to your site. If you build something great, your community will want to be a part of it. This is vital to your success.

This is your chance to become a Rockstar in your local media. Through the simple and effective use of Social Media Marketing strategies. Help enough of these citizens in your community by promoting them and their causes and in turn you will receive rewards than cannot be calculated.

Social Media Consultants:

At Echelon Media, we are real people actually doing what we teach and preach. Thanks for stopping by. If we can help you, please contact us.

No related posts.

I haven’t seen the movie Pirates of the Caribbean in a while, but I sure remember and love this quote:

Elizabeth: Wait! You have to take me to shore. According to the Code of the Order of the Brethren…
Barbossa: First, your return to shore was not part of our negotiations nor our agreement so I must do nothing. And secondly, you must be a pirate for the pirate’s code to apply and you’re not. And thirdly, the code is more what you’d call “guidelines” than actual rules. Welcome aboard the Black Pearl, Miss Turner.

Too many times people want the how-to rules for marketing online. The truth is they want a way of holding the person who told them accountable for whether or not they fail in their marketing campaign online.

But Johnny said that if we Twitter or Facebook like this… we’ll get tens of thousands of followers that will buy our product…

This of course is complete crap. The only thing we have to judge results by is past actions. Meanwhile, internet marketing changing daily. Some of the topics and posts I wrote about two years ago are completely worthless now. This results in having to change your marketing tactics and strategies constantly with the landscape. Anyone who sells you a sure-fire method for anything online is a snake oil salesman. Period!

Instead, look for the people who are preaching methods, not metrics. If I ask you how much each customer is worth to you, you should be able me. Or at least you should know if you are running a successful business. Say you give me the response of $75. I would ask you what your time is worth per hour. Perhaps $40/hr. Now you have all the info needed to make the most of your time online.

You can safely spend 1.5 hours of your time converting 1 person online into a customer. If not, a least a person willing to turn around and refer you to others looking for your service. This can be over any medium you’d prefer: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace, Blogs, Forums or anything else you can think of. This is so simple in theory, yet people only want a magic formula. There is not magic formula. If there was, everyone would be doing it and then it would blow up.

Look for measured results based on the time involved for you to interact with others. Then, know how much time you can safely spend per person. You might find that you only need to find and interact with 500 people to double your presence and business online. Then you can nurture those relationships until the day you die and still have plenty of business. If you’re in a bigger market this may require more time and effort to reach your target goal. In the case of Dell or Best Buy, a whole army of people work to help those online with their needs like finding a computer. Dell wouldn’t go out and hire 100 people to Tweet and Facebook if it didn’t make them money. The same applies for small businesses, just on a smaller scale.

Know what the value of each customer is. Then interact with them on their medium and 100% genuinely and you will successful convert online users into friends and patrons. Talk to everyone like your spouse or kid and reach each person with the level of dignity and respect and you won’t have to worry about the rules of social media but rather how to meet people’s needs better. Listen and listen well. People will tell you exactly how you can serve them better.

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1. Your Business Blog And Social Media; A Match In Online Heaven

If you’ve spent any time researching online strategy or social media marketing, you know that everyone who has ever flexed a profitable mouse button or massaged a keyboard for money will tell you to get a blog for your company website. Even Google has stated that blogs help in search rankings. But why, how, when and which kind? …and more importantly, who is gonna build it and keep it updated? …to what end?

Blogging For Business

At Echelon Media, we understand exactly how daunting the idea of business blogging can be: not only technically speaking, but time wise too. So it’s cool if you are not fired up about 750-word blog postings, we’ve seen this before .

So why have a blog? The answer is simple: to show your human side. You see, your regular website is pretty static. It may look nice and have a few pictures, but the content is pretty straight forward, like a fact sheet. And that’s cool because that is what a business website should be… Now add a blog… blogging allows you to speak to your customers and potential customers in normal conversational tones (kinda like you’re reading now!), adding in a trust factor and personal loyalty that can’t be accomplished through flat HTML codes and files. Throw in some video and holy cow, you’re kicking into high gear now!

Another HUGE benefit to having a blog is the public relations tool that in can become. If you are smart, you will use your blog to highlight your employees and what they are doing not only in your business, but in your local community as well. Trust me, your “walk talks louder than your talk talks” and a blog can illustrate that clearly and concisely, bringing goodwill to your brick and mortar store.

Now that we’ve shown you how awesome it is to have a blog that we operate on your behalf, and just how much good it will do for your business, let’s explore the other side, social media.

Social Media For Business

Social media is: the collection of websites and applications that enable people to interact and share information online.

When it comes to your business, social media is: a collection of online tools you use to meet and interact with existing and potential customers. Some of the best known social media sites are: YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Flickr. There are also industry specific social media sites, but we don’t wanna weigh you down…

(re-read that above, it’s important!)

Let’s illustrate: here’s Al on video. He’s so cool:

Ok, so now you can see the relationship that blogs have to social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Sweet action! Tapping the potential that exists in the two can rocket your business’ online presence with very little investment. And before you ask, “NO, social media sites are NOT just for teens and young adults!”

In addition to being all happy and huggable in the blog and social media spaces, the two combined can and will help you dominate search results in Google, Yahoo and Bing. That is what we call Search Engine Optimization, and, oh yeah, we are experts there too. (our backs hurt from all the patting we do, don’t worry, we’ll be fine )

Lastly, we understand you; the Small Business Owner… and you don’t have time to blog and Tweet and be all social online all day. After all, you have employees, customers and a 500-line P&L to tend to dontcha? So let us do it all for you! (the blogging and social part, not the P&L part )

Yep, that’s right, let the experts at Echelon Media build, operate, and update your blog and social media profiles on your behalf. It’s all good and not as costly as you think.

Our approach to social media is just a little different than most, and we’d love to share that with you! Contact us here.

Related posts:

1. Build It And They Will Come
2. Surefire way to not fail while marketing online