Happy 5th Anniversary, SMS!
August 16, 2016
Last month, Social Marketing Solutions, LLC celebrated FIVE YEARS of success! That's right, 5 years ago, in July 2011, Kelly Jones founded SMS and started out as the first representative of the team. Later that year, Kim Perry joined the team and helped manage and grow the company. The following year, SMS joined the Morris County Chamber of Commerce and stayed an active member for the next 3 years.
In the past 5 years, our all woman-employed company has had the pleasure of working with 3 interns from High Point University, Montclair University, and Susquehanna University, as well as 8 amazing employees! Currently we operate a team of three strong women, who manage customers in New York, New Jersey, Florida, Oregon and California. Misty Layne joined the SMS team 4 years ago and has been a crucial part of SMS’s success. Working side-by-side with Kelly, she has helped to grow and develop both the company and its services. There have been a lot of changes over time!
When SMS first started, we only worked with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, but we've now grown to include additional sites such as Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, WordPress, Blogger, MailChimp, and Constant Contact (and other social networks!). We now offer blog writing and uploading services, website edits and updates, and newsletter creation and distribution to our many customers. Within the past 5 years, we've worked with over 120 different businesses from a range of industries across the U.S. and even Canada! Some of our clients have included: NY Times Bestselling authors; realtors; lawyers; medical facilitators and practices; therapists; online stores; construction companies; payroll providers; fitness studios; dryer vent cleaners; movers & haulers; health product stores and seminars; mortgage brokers; flower shops; chocolate shops; marketing firms; furniture stores; schools; and home food delivery services.
We look forward to many more years of success and to growing our amazing team of women and roster of wonderful customers. We couldn't do it without you guys – YOU are the reason we're so successful. THANK YOU!
Client Spotlight!
July 30, 2016
We are incredibly lucky at Social Marketing Solutions to be able to work with some of the best companies and people out there. From clients we've been working with for years to the ones who are brand new, we work with a vast array of talent all around the tri-state area and we thought it would be great if you had a chance to meet some of them. Today we're introducing you to one of our newer clients, the Opthof Center for Psychotherapy, LLC!
The Opthof Center for Psychotherapy, LLC is run by therapist, Gerald Opthof, out of two offices – one in Westfield, NJ and one in Morristown, NJ. A graduate of Montclair State College, as well as Montclair State University, and with a doctorate in Forensic Psychology from Eisner Institute for Professional Studies, Dr. Opthof is a highly trained professional with a litany of credentials and accomplishments to his name.
His areas of specialty include:
- Alcohol and drug addition and court mandated therapy
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Sexual problems, additions and relationship counseling
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Coping with depression, anxiety and pain
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Mental Health Evaluations
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Marital and couple counseling
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Coping with grief, loss, anger, stress and recovery issues
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Parenting and family conflicts/issues
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Adjusting back into a sober/healthy lifestyle
What I personally like about working with Dr. Opthof is – he gets it. Simply put, he is a great listener, and he is realistic in his practice. He supports people in rough times of their lives who are dealing with tough stuff, but he has a passion for getting his clients through the muck and over to a healthier and happier lifestyle.
A client since March of this year, Dr. Opthof has hired Social Marketing Solutions to oversee and build his Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, as well as website editing (yes, we do that too!). And since it's our job to hype our client, we're going to do just that – Dr. Opthof is participating in the Rock-N-Ride Fundraiser hosted by Road Recover Foundation on August 21st! Dr. Opthof and his team are cycling in this event, which helps support non-profit Youth Programs and Community Outreach Events. Road Recovery helps teams and young adults who have been derailed by addition and/or or other adversities, but who want to embark on a path to a healthier future. So far, Dr. Opthof has raised $525 of his $1000 goal. Anyone can donate by simply going to the website below, every donation helps and he appreciates the support – https://www.crowdrise.com/rock-n-ride
Visit Opthof Center of Psychotherapy, LLC online via their website, Facebook, or Twitter! And keep checking back as we keep introducing you to more of our fabulous clients and sharing more wonderful social media tips and news!
Successful Engagement – What’s It Look Like?
March 25, 2016
You already have a Facebook page for your business (and likely a Twitter handle and LinkedIn profile, Instagram and Pinterest accounts, and more) but are you actually engaging with your audience? What does successful engagement look like? It's comments, likes and shares of your posts, taking quizzes, entering contests, redeeming offers and writing reviews. You don't want people to simply “like” your page, then move on and never return. But how do you GET engagement like this? Simple – by putting in the work.
And it does involve work but perhaps not as much as you might think (and some of it is fun!). Post content that is relevant, timely and interesting. Most people spend an average of 15-30 minutes on Facebook so your time in front of their face is limited. Make sure you're noticed. Post information of value to your fan base and their friends. Educate your audience on something they may value. Posting photos and video also increases engagement. In fact, you'll get MORE engagement with photos and video than you will with any other type of content. So post ways to use your product…photos of “behind the scenes”…positive reviews and testimonials…videos on how to use your product – sky's the limit!
A few other things to remember:
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Respond quickly to posts or reviews on your page. You may have noticed that Facebook monitors this and highlights how responsive you are on your fan page.
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Don't over OR under post. Posting more than once a day is great – you'll show up in your audience's feeds more often – but show up TOO often and they'll be turned off.
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Keep your page updated. Likewise keep your website and all other links updated. What's the point of having a great fan page, if a customer gets to your site only to find out of date information, etc.?
Facebook is an important tool when it comes to online marketing and you need to make sure you're on top of your engagement (by the way, this stuff works fabulously for other sites as well). Get the conversation going and if you're not sure where to start, give us a call. Make the best of the free (or nearly free) resources at your fingertips to exponentially expand your business!
Let’s Blab About It!
March 4, 2016
Consumers today are more visual than ever before. Studies have shown that people spend more time on your website on average if video is involved and pay more attention to social media posts involving photos and video. A practice that's growing in leaps and bounds? Live-streaming. There are so many ways in which it can be used – from webinars to product demonstrations and more – and easily holds attention. That means platforms for live-streaming are popping up left and right, so which do you choose? One of the latest ones to spring up is Blab.
What is Blab? Simply put, Blab lets you build a personal and business presence while creating community. How does it work? It lets you host your own live show or conference with up to four people engaging at the same time. The moderator has control over who's in the three additional video seats, but anyone who wants to tune in can use the right panel to chat and the left panel to tweet. Blab’s ease of use, simplicity and functionality give it the edge over other live-streaming platforms. It's also important to note that Blab’s time length is open-ended and most blabs last about an hour.
Blab is easy to use. It's an off-shoot of Twitter, so you just login with your Twitter account info. You also find people to follow by using their Twitter handles (and of course you can search by subjects, etc). To create a Blab, you push the “create Blab” button, give it a title and a few tags, then either go live or schedule a time for it to post and away you go! And when your Blab is done, you can upload it to YouTube or as a podcast on iTunes or somewhere similar.
Blab really is the next step in live-streaming and is an easy way to introduce yourself to the format. Check out the FAQs section on their site to familiarize yourself, then Blab away! And remember, when you need help setting things up in the social media world or get too busy to handle everything yourself, give us a call. We'll put together the perfect plan for your company and get all eyes on you!
Start the Year Right!
February 4, 2016
January is about to end (can you believe it?) and 2016 is off & running! That means it's time to create a social media marketing plan that details your business's social media goals and the actions necessary to achieve them. Do you know what a good social media marketing plan entails?
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LISTEN: Tune in and listen to what people are saying about your company. This is how you can evaluate your current social media presence. It also helps you better understand what the competition is doing and figure out what people are talking about so you can join the discussion.
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SET GOALS: The next obvious step is setting your goals for the year. Now that you know what people are saying, what's trending and what your competition is doing, what do YOU want to accomplish this year? You want to use social media to meet your audience's needs and capitalize on your company's strengths.
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IDENTIFY OBJECTIVES & DEFINE STRATEGIES: Identifying objectives and defining strategies is how you'll decide to meet your goals for the new year. Breaking down each goal into the steps to achieve them, makes the bigger picture easier to accomplish.
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IDENTIFY YOUR AUDIENCE: Who are you trying to reach? Do you want to continue reaching your current market or do you want to branch out into new areas? Deciding this helps you tailor content to each market's specific needs.
And from there it's onto implementation! Social media is a wonderful (and necessary) marketing tool that businesses often don't understand how to use. Many ignore the above steps and simply hop on social media creating random posts or spamming people, which is why they rarely (if ever) see results.
So what's your plan for 2016? If you're still working on it and need a hand, give us a call and we'll help you figure out the perfect strategy. And if you find yourself having trouble with the implementation portion (too little time, etc), our social media managers can handle it, down to the last detail. We work with each company to create an individualized plan, so we're able to market it all, big or small!
Happy 2016 and Best Wishes for the New Year!
January 4, 2016
The holidays are behind us and the new year is here…Another year gone, can you believe it? We wanted to say THANK YOU to all our wonderful clients. It's been amazing and wonderful helping you all grow your social presences online this past year! We love what we do!
This year has been amazing for us as we've accomplished more than ever! We recently celebrated 4 years in business, with progressive growth each year. We expanded to clients in three new states: California, Florida and Georgia. We also expanded our services to include social media sites such as Pinterest and Instagram. In addition, we had a rise in customers in need of blogs and the creation and distribution of online newsletters, which led to the addition of those services to our repertoire. Our newest clients include NY Metro Dryer Vent, Orangetheory Fitness of New Providence and Middletown, NJ as well as Ketterhealth, who have been added to our list of clients who have been with us from the beginning, such as Payroll Specialties, College Hunks Hauling Junk and Moving, Suburban Furniture, and C&M Medical Billing.
2015 was fabulous and we can't wait to see what 2016 brings. Most of all though, we hope all of your holidays were bright and that the new year brings with it plenty of luck and love!
~Kelly Jones
Scare Up Fun and Spooktacular Sales This Halloween!
October 28, 2015
Halloween is right around the corner. One of the world’s oldest holidays, Halloween is celebrated in many countries in many different ways – honoring lost loved ones, preparing for the new harvest season, dressing in costumes and celebrating with friends and family. Where did Halloween even come from? It's thought to have originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off roaming ghosts. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as a time to honor all saints and martyrs; the holiday, All Saints’ Day, incorporated some of the traditions of Samhain. The evening before was known as All Hallows’ Eve and later Halloween. Over time, Halloween evolved into a secular, community-based event characterized by child-friendly activities such as trick-or-treating. With all the Halloween festivities and excitement going on plus the added advantage of Halloween being a visual holiday, it's no surprise that Halloween is one of the BEST times to connect with your customers! But how?
Did you know Halloween is the second biggest holiday event in the U.S., where nearly $7 billion is spent on Halloween activities? It's also the kick-off to the huge holiday season that's so crucial to small businesses. This makes Halloween the perfect time of year to reach out to customers and prospects, but with everyone competing for attention you want to make sure you stand out from the crowd. So what's the plan?
Halloween is an entirely visual holiday and one that the entire family (pets included!) likes to get involved in. So get in the spirit! People love sharing photos of their costumes and decorations, and they also want to participate in promotions that are Halloween themed. Host a photo contest for best costume or best PET costume online and have people like and share your page to vote. Doesn't matter if you don't run a business that exactly ties into Halloween – the prize can be whatever.
Another idea for a business that may not sell anything Halloween related is COUPONS. People love coupons. People also love businesses – especially small businesses – that get into the Halloween spirit. Create a mailer that is Halloween themed and offer a discount for shopping near Halloween. You also could offer a discount to anyone coming in wearing a costume on Halloween.
One final idea for partaking in Halloween – no matter what you sell, consider the uses. If you're a small hardware store that sells things like reflective tape, flashlights or glow sticks, then do a promotion with those products, tying them into Halloween safety.
There's ALWAYS something you can do to reach potential prospects and customers. So get into the Halloween Spirit and scare up some sells!
What’s Periscope, You Ask?
September 25, 2015
Kids these days with their 801 million social platforms – am I right? (Whatever happened to the days of MySpace and LiveJournal)? It can be hard to keep track of it all and know whether you should be utilizing each one in your marketing campaigns (the answer is no, by the way. You do not need to use every single one that comes along). Sometimes though, a platform comes along that catches your attention and makes you think about all the ways you could integrate it into your advertising. That's where Periscope comes in!
Periscope is a live-streaming video mobile app that Twitter purchased in February 2015. Twitter then rolled it out to the public on March 26, 2015. Basically what Periscope allows you to do is broadcast "live" from your smartphone from any location, at any time of the day or night. And viewers can tune in to your broadcast from anywhere in the world and chat with you in real time while you broadcast (they type in questions/messages which pop up on your phone's screen, which you can then answer verbally). Yes, there are a couple of other networks like this out there right now but Periscope is currently the No. 1 fastest-growing social network to date! Have a look at these numbers: 1) Periscope hit 1 million users in 10 days and 2) Periscope hit 10 million users in 4 months. Wow! Even more staggering than the size of this user base is the amount of content users are consuming: 40 years of content is viewed every day on Periscope. Yes . . .40 years. Unbelievable!
So you know there's absolutely an audience there, at the ready, just waiting for you to press "record"…but what are you going to do during a "live" stream? Here's a few thoughts to get you started:
1) Live product demos – Are customers always wondering how a certain product of yours works or have a new product coming out? Set up a Periscope broadcast and show 'em exactly how it's done! So do an interactive product demonstration by answering pertinent questions from viewers. Showcase cool product features, packaging, etc.
2) Behind-the-scenes look into how your product is made or what your offices look like – People love the idea of " being on the inside" and showing them the magic that happens behind-the-scenes is a fabulous way of humanizing your brand. Not only are you letting people see the art on your office walls but they're seeing you and your employees faces and now have an idea of with whom they're actually dealing. Periscope takes the business/consumer experience and makes it very personal by having the consumer connect with a real person, which in turn builds the "know, like and trust" factor at a faster rate.
3) Live events – Having a live event that not everyone in your fan base can attend? Stream it on Periscope and let everyone know ahead of time when it'll be showing.
4) Expand your fan base – Periscope opens up a big, wide world of new people with whom to interact. Once you start interacting on a regular basis here, you can then start adding people to Facebook or your mailing list, etc.
What do you think? Ready to take the plunge and give Periscope a whirl? Or even just dip in a toe and do something small just to see what it's about? Video is essential for marketing as the world has become a visually driven place. As we get more and more "now, please!", I suspect live-streaming will only get bigger and bigger. Happy broadcasting!
Happy 4th Anniversary, SMS!
July 28, 2015
Social Marketing Solutions celebrated it's 4th anniversary this month and we couldn't be more excited! It's been an amazing 4 years, full of exceptional clients. We couldn't have done it without you guys! So THANK YOU. Our clients are simply the BEST. We wanted to share a bit about how SMS has changed over the past few years so read on!
When we first opened up, our services were limited to Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin daily updates. Now we do not only that, but blogging and newsletter maintenance, as well as working with Instagram and Pinterest. That's not the only way we've grown though! SMS started out with only ONE employee but now we're so busy, we have three! And while we started out with 20 clients, within 2 years we had already reached over 100. All thanks to you guys!
We have worked with a ton of different clients including – authors, online magazines, health/wellness professionals, payroll companies, moving/hauling companies, IT businesses, food services, therapists, recycling companies and many more. We work with everything from service based companies to online business to product based businesses. We have various ways of meeting our clients…We do most of our marketing online – through our website, social media sites and newsletters in addition to the Morris County Chamber of Commerce. We also utilize word of mouth and referrals from past and current clients. The #1 thing we hear when people come talk to us is, "I don't have time to manage my online presence, but I know I have to." That's literally the #1 reason why people hire us, because they don't have time to update themselves, but they know the importance of an active online presence. And our #1 marketing tip that we tell everyone? Online marketing isn't a one time fix; your marketing presence on and offline must be maintained, revisited and an accurate representation of your company. In this day and age, people go online to research a company and their legitimacy and without continued updates on your website and social media, you're not accurately representing yourself and utilizing imperative marketing tools.
We've had some exciting times and milestones during our 4 years as well. Our most exciting project was when owner Kelly Jones assisted Shawn Edgington in the launch of her "No Bull Challenge". She helped with the online launch party which was very successful – Shawn's book hit the NY Times best seller list! Also exciting was when SMS gained its first out of state client…and then went international, with it's first client in Canada. We have had some great times the past 4 years.
So what does the future look like? Well, as the social media world changes, we'll be changing with it. We'll be adding even more social networking sites in the near future along with new services offered and we'll keep growing our team. Our company has continuously grown the past 4 years and we don't see it slowing down anytime soon – and we couldn't be happier!
It’s Time for That Mid-Year Review!
June 23, 2015
Summer's here and the living is easy. Life is laid-back; customers abound; what more could a business want? Knowing that your 2015 marketing plan is going to, well, plan is always a good place to start. Summer is the perfect time to review your marketing plan and strategies to decide what's working and what isn't. So what's the best way to do so?
First things first, dust off your 2015 marketing plan. Take a look at the plan you put together back in January with ideas on how to grow your business in 2015. Did you ever start that blog or newsletter, test a pay-per-click campaign, or launch a referral program? What’s working best, and what still requires some more attention? How happy are you with what's been accomplished the past 6 months? You may not have much to change! But if not…
Go over each of the points and compare where you are now with where you were projecting you'd be. Are you on track? Have you accomplished what you planned? Consider where you are now and decide what you want to achieve by the end of the year. While you're at it, do some spring cleaning. Cut your least-performing marketing activities. Marketing can be hit or miss – don't keep something that isn't working for you just because it's what everybody else is doing at the moment.
Think about how you can change and improve things. A fabulous mid-year change is updating your website. Add some new content based on your 2015 experiences thus far – like success stories, client testimonials, or best practices.
You can't let the year pass you by without making a few changes. The review will take less time than you think and you'll reap the benefits. We're also including this 100 Point Mid-Year Marketing Checklist as a quick in-depth guide. And when you've gone through and decided on what changes, if any, you'd like to make, remember that Social Marketing Solutions is here at all times to help your company have the best marketing campaign possible.
Author
- Kelly Jones
Social Media Manager
