Dave Saunders recommends – and I agree

I recently attended 2 events (Coffee Talk with the Chesterfield County Chamber of Commerce and The Powhatan Chamber of Commerce luncheon) having Dave Saunders of Madison and Main to speak on social media.
Samuel Little Graphic Design has recently positioned itself to handle the services and principles that Dave is talking about. I will explain them after each point that Dave makes.
Remember: You are not going to be able to take the easy way to market yourself online. You’re just spinning your wheels and spending money with no return. You’ve got to dive in a do it right. Now, I know it seems overwhelming…but we are going to help you though it. It does require time. We have plans to take each component one at a time and build up to where you need to be marketing to your customers.

Here’s what Dave said.
5 things you should be doing long-term:
1) Bring awareness to your brand through social media
Be on all networks where people are. Not everyone communicates through Facebook, some through Twitter, some through LinkedIn. Be where the people are. We help you get there…call us.
2) Be proactive in customer service
If there is a problem fix it before the word gets out.
3) Position yourself as an expert
How do you do that? Contact us on how…we have services in place to do that.
4) Customer engagement
Engage the customer into whatever you are offering. Ask questions on what their challenges are and then fix it.
5) Use search engine optimization and or social media optimization
Optimize your website and social media outlets for keywords that people search for. We can help you do that.

7 things to do now:
1) Improve your website
Is your website old? Do you hate your website? Is your website not performing as it should and being a hindrance to your over all plan? Call us we can help.
2) Stake your claim
Why are all of the domains taken? Because they are all bought up. Stake your claim with social media services like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, etc. You want to have your company name with these services before someone else does. Having your name with these services is important for when people want to find you.
3) Get a blog
We have blogging services. We can set up a blog for you and training you how to blog or if you don’t have time we can blog for you. Give us a call.
4) Create multi-media content
Create original content. Content that is yours. Google loves fresh content. Not content that someone else wrote and then you linked to it. Fresh content is blog writing, photo and video posting. We can help you with this content and to get it online in the right places that matter.
5) Quality over quantity
Only send out good content that’s when people listen. If you don’t think it’s beneficial to your customer don’t post it.
6) Cross pollinate
We have services that cross pollinate. Make a post on your blog and link it to all of your social networks, post it on another website, send the post in an email, send out a press release. We can help you do all of these things systematically. We can do this, call us.
7) Use Twitter as a PR tool
If you’ve got an event or something that the press needs to know about, tweet it to the press. Through twitter you can be one on one with members of the press. They are always looking for good content.