Ebook: The Beginner’s Guide to Social Media

 Written by

The Beginners Guide to Social Media ebook cover graphicThe Beginners Guide to Social Media: an introduction to social media from a business perspective, is my new and free social media ebook, ready to download right now.

Lots of businesses around the world are struggling to understand what social media is, what it offers and what it means for their business. My new ebook will help demystify social media, helping you understand how to incorporate social media into your business:

“My eBook, The Beginner’s Guide to Social Media is your introduction to social media for businesses. This 35 page illustrated eBook is packed with advice and years of practical social media know-how and hard-earned business experience.”

Here’s just some of the many benefits of understanding social media for businesses:

  • Find out what Facebook can do for your business
  • Discover how blogging can benefit your business
  • Learn how to optimize your business website or blog for social media
  • Read what your customers are saying about your business
  • Track and monitor topics and trends in your industry
  • Maximize your business presence on the web
  • Get to know all of the top websites to promote your business

In addition to the ebook, there’s a blog, which I hope will become a good place to share all of the simple social media hints & tips I come across during my travels.

Right now, there’s three articles, discussing how to make the best of Google Alerts, Google Trends, and a discussion detailing the benefits of having a business blog.

Questions? I imagine so. That’s why I’ve written an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page, to help you along.

Download ebook

To download my new ebook, just follow the link, fill out the response form and then follow the download instructions.

If you know of any friends or family members who’re in business, but unsure about social media, please feel free to tell them about my ebook and send them the link!

How saying “No thanks!” can be expensive, but not the way you think

 Written by

We can’t always say “Yes!” to every offer of work. I know this only too well. And sometimes, saying “No thanks!” can be costly to you, but an educational process to someone else.

While this situation doesn’t occur that often, it’s certainly happened often enough for me to consider how expensive saying “No thanks!” can be.

Back in September, I talked about the power of saying “No” to clients, and how it’s not always automatically a bad thing. The thing is, saying “No thanks!” is slightly different and not always as straight forward as it appears to be.

I had an offer of work, all of which came in the form of a Microsoft Word file. The problem was, the file was in a terrible state and would require an inordinate amount of effort to fix the layout before it could be turned into something usable.

The ROI (Return on Investment) of giving away business knowledge

For me, at the the quoting stage, I was presented with a clear problem; how do I communicate to the prospective client the amount of work required to knock the Word file into shape?

The prospective client would want to know why it was going to be at least a day of my time just re-working the layout. So their question to me would then require at least some kind of explanation of layout and the design process. For me to say “No thanks!” could easily turn into an expensive educational process with a question return on my investment.

For a prospective client that I’m trying to say “No thanks!” to, I could easily spend an hour of my time, which isn’t going to be paid for. Now, you could argue that having explained this to the prospective client, they could make the decision to go with my advice. However, at the time, they’d made it clear the layout wasn’t a priority. But for me to even use the content of the Word file, the layout most definitely was a priority!

This is just one example, but when you sit down and think of all the times that prospective clients catch you on the phone and the conversation drifts into an exploratory, partially educational process, for them to just say “No thanks!” to you, that’s yet another avenue for lost, non-billable time.

Business education as an investment?

Now, the situation is totally different when it comes to existing clients. I think educating clients is part & parcel of what I do, since my role is more a consultancy and partner than being a mere supplier. I’m happy to invest my knowledge into my clients because I’m confident that the effort will result in additional work over the long-term, as well as increasing their value in me.

An existing client clearly has some trust in you, so they’re going to value your knowledge. And they’ll value your knowledge all the more once you’re able provide demonstrable evidence, with results.

As a legitimate business activity, earning trust should play a major role.

Of course, you need to keep things simple and not give too much away. Revealing too much about what you do can be as harmful as not saying enough. Ideally, you’re trying to minimize the amount of thinking your client needs to do.

The take-away advice here is to be aware of the time you’re spending saying “No thanks!” and how you choose to walk away from project estimates. But also be aware that giving your knowledge to existing clients could be a valuable investment.

New social media ebook pre-announcement

 Written by

In lieu of the launch of my new ebook, entitled: “The Beginner’s Guide to Social Media — An introduction to social media from a business perspective”, I’d like to just explain a little about why I decided to write such a book in the first place.

I’ve been writing about social media from a business point of view quite some time. Back in June, I posted an article explaining in brief what social media is, which came out of some ideas I was playing around with at the time.

When I look around the business community, I see a lot of people talking about social media, but having little idea what it entails, or how social media can properly benefit their business.

There’s a lot to know about social media — certainly from a business point of view — which is hard to capture and commit to memory, just from catching conversations and the odd blog article here & there.

Writing a book about social media for business

With that as a backdrop, I decided to write, what was at the time, a simple presentation. After giving it some more thought, I realized a presentation just wasn’t enough to do the subject the kind of justice it deserved, or to give business people a real taste for / of social media. So I decided to flesh the presentation out into a full-blown book.

The book is broken down into 4 main parts, which are:

  1. What is social media?
  2. What does social media do?
  3. How can social media impact on your business?
  4. Optimizing for social media

To some extent, I’ve been fortunate enough to have written about many of the key themes and elements of the book on the Blah, Blah! Technology blog, such as Social Media & Social Networking and SMO (Social Media Optimization) & SMM (Social Media Marketing), over the last couple of years.

I’m really, really pleased with the book so far. And the feedback I’ve had from those who’ve been kind enough to proof read my book has been fantastic. Over the next month or so, I’ll be building a social media marketing campaign of my own around my ebook, to promote it as far and as wide as possible.

I’m still not sure whether I want to sell the book, or offer it for free. However, most people seem to think I should charge something, so that seems to be the direction I’m leaning towards for the time being.

Rather than give an exact launch date, I’m just going to keep working on the book until I’m 100% happy with it, and then take it from there. But writing a book is a very different proposition to then launching and publicizing it, which is something I’ve never done before. So it’s going to be a lot learning!

So stay tuned and watch out for my brand new social media book, coming soon…

6 five minute SEO guides for business websites

 Written by

Optimizing your business website for the search engines might seem like a daunting task. Either you do it yourself, or you pay someone. Sometimes, doing SEO work yourself might end up costing you more than hiring a professional like me. So here’s a collection of 5 minute SEO guides for business websites.

The following are a collection of articles originally published on the Blah, Blah! Technology blog, taken from my instant SEO article:

5 minute SEO primer for beginners — “In SEO, it’s often the simple stuff that works the best. But time and again, people ask: “How do I get to the front page of Google?” — we start with the basics of Search Engine Optimization…”

SEO for URLs and externally linked files on websites & ‘blogs — “Google is a reader of websites who’s best kept happy with sensible structure and strong content. Google will read almost anything — or should I say almost any file…”

Search Engine Optimization: the art of ti… — “Titles maketh the article. Without a concise title, enriched with meaty keyword chunks, an article is just so many bytes of miscellaneous data. So I just thought I’d touch upon my thoughts on quick, easy SEO tips again, with an example. It’s the simplest principles of Search Engine Optimization that do the most good. But it’s the simple things that often get overlooked .. even by the big guys…”

2-4-1 keyword listing on Google SERP — “Ever curious as to the circuitous route some of the visitors to my ‘blog take en route, I’m often left in various states of mind…”

SEO tips for websites — “Here are my top Search Engine Optimization tips for giving your web pages a lift, making your website that little bit more friendly to the search engines and your visitors alike!”

What search engines really, really want from your website! — “The similarities between the web, the way the web functions and real life are much closer than you’d think.”

Feeling empowered? Hopefully, I’ve armed you with enough SEO know-how to at least give your business website a boost…

Don’t make ’em think?

 Written by

Sometimes, thinking can be a bad thing. Don’t get me wrong, I like thinking, but there’s the right kind and the wrong kind when it comes to business — and especially web design.

Yesterday, I went to the cinema with my girlfriend. Afterwards, just before the drive home, I needed the little boys room. As we both went down the corridor to our respective rooms, I stopped next to the sign marked with a little blue guy. I paused, looked at the sign on the wall, but couldn’t figure out which door the sign related two, since there were two.

Why not just put the sign on the door like everyone else? For a split second, I felt indecisive, which really is not Wayne Smallman at all! Trust me on that one.

When websites work well

And then I was reminded of a book I bought a while back called “Don’t Make Me Think!” by Steve Krug, which is a common-sense approach to web usability. And a lot of the advice really is just that — common sense.

The overarching theme is to not make people think when they’re using your website. It’s a wise policy, too. There are a number of constants to designing a website which, as a web designer, it’s as well to stick to.

Examples abound, such as the use of images within a web page. More often than not, the default action of the visitor is to click on the image. Not meeting people’s expectations can leave them feeling frustrated and confused. It’s at that moment that their thoughts turn to your competitors website.

I’m also reminded of a quote from the excellent action crime thriller Ronin. In this particular scene, Sam (played by Robert De Niro) says something like: “If there’s any doubt, there is no doubt.” And he’s absolutely right.

Once there are doubts, those doubts dissolve what initial trust there might have been between your visitor and your website. After all, building trust is amazing hard with a website, especially for small businesses with a small brand.

Being taught the wrong kind of lessons in business

As is often the case, clients rarely have a full appreciation of the amount of time involved in what you do. When these expectations get too high, I invite a client to the office for the day to go through a set of changes and / or amends. At the end of the day, they’re usually a little tired and a good deal more educated about what I have to do when they want that blue widget to be red.

Similarly, I get to see more of their decision making process, which gives me the mental tools I need to ask the right questions and when to ask them.

All good, yes? Not always.

The great thing about clients is they often have a very clear idea of what they want. They don’t know what’s involved in making their ideas happen, nor do they care, unless it’s likely to cost a lot of money!

But if they’ve asked for similar in the past, and sat through an entire day with you while you do the work, this knowledge of how I do things can sometimes stymie the naked ideas behind their less naked ambitions.

And the moral of this story? Think before you make others think, or you might just be the last thing on their mind…