#EducationMatters – Educate Your Clients on All Your Services

Are you educating your clients on all of your services? You can’t assume a person will know everything your company offers based on a quick description on your social media pages (if they even read that). You also shouldn't assume your clients know everything about you. It’s just not realistic.

Don’t rush out and flood your mailing list and social media platforms with a flood of updates, or one long unending message about what you do. That will likely frustrate your clients and make your reputation suffer. So how do you educate your clients without being spammy about it?

Here are some suggestions that will help you educate your clients AND get them intrigued about your services. You don’t have to do all of them, but consider one or two.

• Update your site. Consolidate all your services into one informative page. Make sure it’s easy to read and understand. Break down each service into a three sentence (or less) description. ProTip: It’s also a good idea to develop a FAQ that covers common regular questions and any you receive about services. If you have one, make sure you link the FAQ on this information page.

• Each service you provide should have a more detailed explanation. Whether you do this by individual web pages or as expanded tabs on your information page is completely up to you, but it needs to be there.

• Create a blog post about your services. Be informative, and explain how you help the client with each service. It can be as detailed as you like, but you can easily keep it as brief as the site update suggestion from above. Then, post your blog post link on all your social media sites. Make sure your title is eye-catching and the first three sentences are intriguing. Future questions can be directed at either this blog post or the information page you make.

• Do you have two or more services that are normally purchased together? If so, why not combine them into a package that clients can purchase at a discount? This promotion can also be a great way to mention other services you provide. This one is excellent for mailing lists, by the way.

• Choose a day of the week to inform your clients on all social media accounts about your business. Then, select one aspect of your business and talk about that. It helps to have an image to go with your post. That image should be easy to read and understand. One of my clients uses a definition image where they list a service they provide and then write out that two to three sentence description. Make the background eye catching. You should know that white text with a black outline can go on any background, so you should use that for consistency and viewing ease from mobile devices.

These are just some ways to inform your clients of your services. One thing to keep in mind: your audience for Twitter isn’t the same as Facebook. Nor is your mailing list the same as your Instagram. Expect that your clients aren’t all aware of the same information. Repurpose your content instead of setting up an information page on one social media site (like Facebook) and using that link to give your clients information.

One other thing, and this is important. Don’t just share your own stuff. Talk about other things, places, events, ideas, and more. If you are constantly trying to sell your services, you’ll come off looking cheap and shady. To #BeAwesome in social media you will need to take into consideration the type of content your audience wants and provide that regularly.

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Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+,YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them.

Click here for her Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars

#EducationMatters – Really Connect with Your Power Partners

Another relevant aspect of education is getting to know the businesses that refer clients and customers to you. These power partners are essential in meeting the needs of your customers.

But what, exactly, is a power partner?

A power partner is a company that isn’t direct competition but has similar client bases. This allows you and the power partner to refer clients to one another.

I’ve mentioned before that social proof is important and explained how team building is essential in your business. Referrals from your power partners are essential aspects of social proof. Why? Their customers and clients trust that your partners wouldn’t steer them wrong. The same goes for your referrals. When you suggest a power partner to a customer or client, you’re giving those power partners your personal stamp of approval. Your reputation is on the line so educate yourself on what, exactly, your partners can provide to your clients.

Remember when I said you don’t need to do everything on your own? You don’t have to be perfect at everything. If you get swamped with projects, doesn’t it make sense to know where you can refer clients when things get overwhelming? Not all projects will fall under your scope of work, and that’s okay.

Take the time to get to know your power partners. Where do their strengths lie? Keep tabs on how they’re doing and how stacked their schedule becomes. Also, make sure your power partners know what you do. This helps in their referral process as well.

Most of all, when you refer a client, let the power partner know they’re coming. It would be a great idea to build a tracking system for referrals. I say this for two reasons: 1. You can ask the customer/client how the connection went and 2. You can find patterns of behavior and cycles of customer/client needs that can forge a direct relationship with a power partner.

What do I mean by that? What if you are a marketing/brand consultant and one of your power partners is a web developer who specializes in building Wordpress websites? Let’s say 75% of your clientele require website overhauls and 5% need new ones created. You refer them, of course, to your web developer power partner, but less than 25% of them actually convert. You and your power partner put your heads together and come up with a referral discount. Or you create a package deal in which you contract your power partner to do the web-end of the service. There are many other options out there. You’d be surprised how often that tiny collaboration can make all the difference in a successful business transaction.

A relationship between you and your power partners can weather storms greater than you ever imagined. The support network you build today can last for generations and is a genuine path for being #BeAwesome at what you do!

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Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+,YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them.

Click here for her Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars

#EducationMatters - How Do I Keep Up With Changes in Social Media?

Social Media trends change every day. This summer alone has met with dramatic overhauls of Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. Facebook Live, Instagram Stories, Pinterest Videos, and more have come on the scene. Less than 24 hours after Facebook Live was announced to the public, you had powerful influencers cornering the market while most of the business population was scrambling to figure out the details.

How did they get ahead? Education. Educating yourself on changes in social media is one of the most important things you can do for your brand, but how do you keep up with the trends? We’ve provided three sure-fire tips to keep up-to-date on social media changes:

Check popular social media analyst sites. Follow social media analyst sites like Mashable and the Social Media Examiner.

Social Media Influencers. If that’s not specific enough, search for experts in your favorite social media venues. Sue B. Zimmerman, for instance, is an Instagram expert. She always has great tips and video tutorials that prep for upcoming trends. Jon Loomer is focused on advanced Facebook marketing. Top Dog Social Media has fantastic generalist articles that cover how to communicate on social media, but their primary target is LinkedIn. Following the expert of your preferred social media site is a great way to stay ahead of the game. These are just a few of the experts in their respective fields.

Social Media TV. Set up social media TV using YouTube. Subscribing to a reliable social media channel is as simple as typing “social media” in the YouTube search bar, clicking on Filter & Explore to choose Channel (this sorts out the social media-related channels), and subscribe to any channels that keep you up-to-date in a way you enjoy.

Weekly summary newsletters or RSS feeds. Using paper.li or Smartbrief on Social Media can help you stay on track with current social media topics. Paper.li allows you to select your topics of interest while Smartbrief on Social Media is the most well-respected social media news summary you can have delivered straight to your inbox. Both are free to use.

For RSS feeds, consider using a feed reader to keep all your content in one place. Feedly is a common one that is universal across all mobile platforms. It’s also compatible with most desktops and can also be used in any web browser. It’s also free-to-use. Find marketing gurus and tech crunch sites to follow. This is also an excellent resource for following podcasts that talk about social media change.

Taking the time to learn about social media changes is necessary to your business success. #EducationMatters when it comes to staying ahead of the competition so that you can #BeAwesome in social media.

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Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+,YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them.

Click here for her Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars

#EducationMatters - Open a Book & Learn Something New

“Unless you do something beyond what you’ve already mastered, you will never grow.”
– Ronald E. Osborne

In life and in business, truer words were never spoken. With so much knowledge at our fingertips through online courses, books, seminars, and more, there is no better time to extend your scope of understanding.

Imagine that your business is water and your knowledge is the river bed it travels down. If you stop learning, the river stops flowing and the water becomes stagnant. Knowledge serves three purposes:

• 1.     Expand your horizons, both as an individual and as part of a business
• 2.     Encourages flexibility in change
• 3.     Provides wisdom and inspiration from those who have been there before you

Don’t limit yourself to business-exclusive topics, either. A person who only studies business will only understand other business-focused individuals and may lose sight of the customer’s needs. A mind needs balance. Time management, spiritual journeys (to include creative expression), biographies, history…the sky is the limit on what you can learn and who you can learn from.

Here are several free (or mostly free) resources available to you:

MIT Open Courseware: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has offered its course curriculum for free to anyone. From Urban Studies and Planning, to Math, to Global Studies and Languages, there is a course available for anyone.

Your Local Library: You’re probably familiar with this place, but did you realize most libraries have access to online courses, ebooks, and more through a company called Overdrive? If you have a long commute, why not check out their audiobook selection? Learn while you travel. If you want to know whether your local library has this available, check here.

Kindle Unlimited: For a subscription fee per month, you can have access to hundreds of thousands of Kindle Unlimited titles with just a touch of a button. KU allows you to download up to ten titles at a time. If you’ve filled up your allotted space, no worries. Just click on the book you want and Amazon will ask you which book you’d like to return. It’s like an infinite lending library since new titles are added every day. Another bonus you may not be aware of: KU pays authors a small amount per page read, so everyone wins. The Amazon reading app is available on all mobile devices and desktops, so don’t worry about compatibility. Many titles also come with a free audiobook as well.

These are just some resources to get you started. It’s imperative that you set aside personal development time every week. It doesn’t matter if it’s thirty minutes a week or thirty minutes every day, #EducationMatters when it comes to honing your edge. The team here at The Social Media Advisor hopes that these resources help you continue to #BeAwesome.

Be sure to Follow us and Let's Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+,YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them.

Click here for her Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars