Last week I gave a speech at the Red Bank Toastmasters club about social media. I started by asking the audience a simple question, “Who here is involved with social media?” 

Now, how many questions outside of, “Who here breathes air?” do you think you could ask where every single hand in the room goes up?

Apparently social media is as common these days as the air we breathe…crazy! 

After my speech I had a few people approach me with questions about how to get better at social media. One person didn’t have a company, but wanted to work on his personal brand. I gave them a few ideas such as registering his name (URL), starting a blog and completing his LinkedIn profile.

I had another gentleman tell me that his company actually frowned upon their employees engaging in social media. I gave him a few ideas to bring back to his boss, and then showed him how to set his privacy on Facebook so that he can still mingle socially online, because let’s face it, with a boss like that who knows when he may be looking for a new job…of course that was a joke, but he understood the point, that you need to stay connected because you never really know, right?

So even if you don’t completely get it yet, start “social”-izing…it’s the only way to stay relevant…The Time Is Now!

John Zalepka

Let’s say you were advertising your brand as the greatest, most reliable HVAC contractor in all of the land. But you never connected with past clients that would have been more than happy to post on your Facebook fan page just how great, and reliable you are.

And let’s just say that someone does a Google search because they are in the market for a great, reliable HVAC contractor.

Instead of finding a well-crafted social presence that you control, Google sends them a link to a blog post from that nightmare customer a few years back who had a less-than-reliable experience with you. In fact, not only are they are telling everyone how un-“reliable” your business is, they even have a link recommending someone else, your competitor.

It could happen, in fact it IS happening, EVERY DAY. And if you are not integrating your online and offline marketing efforts, you are doing more than just losing a potential customer - you are potentially damaging your brand.

People are talking on many different social media platforms, some you may not even be aware of, and they may even be talking about your business. There could be a conversation going on RIGHT NOW that you don’t even know about. Wouldn’t you like to be a part of that conversation, good or bad?

It’s not enough for YOU to tell people how great you are in your advertisements. People are very skeptical these days when they see what they know are “paid” ads, either online or offline. Studies have shown that only 15% of people actually believe advertisements…and those same studies show that over 90% of people believe peer recommendations.

So get moving…get your raving fans to talk about you & refer you to their friends…just make sure to give them something for their efforts so they will want to continue helping you out.

Stay friendly, my friends!

John Zalepka

One of the first things that I did when I started this blog was to link it up with Google Analytics. I wanted to see just how much traffic my site would get and from what referral sources the traffic was coming in.

I have learned a lot in these past two weeks about how people get to the site, how long they stay, and how many pages they view just to name a few. And with great pride, I watched how the daily traffic to my site steadily built on itself…that is until Sunday and Monday (yesterday).

I did not post anything on Sunday or Monday because I wanted to see what would happen to the traffic. And if you didn’t guess it already, Sunday’s traffic dropped off drastically and Monday’s was nearly non-existent.

How many times have you stumbled upon someone’s blog post because of a link in an article or due to a Google search, only to see that their last post was from over two ago? Even if their post was earth-shattering (at the time), you most likely didn’t finish reading the article, or worse never went back to that site because as we now know…no new content = no new traffic.

So get to posting & then keep on posting. For that is the only way that you will stay relevant in the minds of those you wish to eventually sell something to.

John Zalepka