One Conference, Three Ideas

Yesterday I attended Igniting Small Business Conference, an event organized by the Windsor-Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce. I'd been wanting to organize social media workshops for businesses in my city, so I was very interested in the event.

In this post, I'd like to share with you the three key ideas I took home from the conference. As can be expected from events like these, many of the participants were overwhelmed with new information.

The key points below are the ones that stood out most for me, and that I think you'll find useful in promoting your business as well:

1. You can't ignore mobile marketing

This is one of the key ideas from the presentation, “Mobile for Small and Medium Businesses,” by JP Casino of Motricity.

I don't know how much you've been using mobile marketing in your own business. In my case, I only recently made some of my WordPress sites mobile-friendly.

We simply can no longer ignore the fact that an increasing number of people are accessing websites and social networks through their mobile devices. If your business doesn't show up at all, or is not compatible with mobile gadgets, then you're losing out.

Of course, mobile marketing goes beyond just making sure your website displays properly on a smart phone. It also includes text messaging campaigns and the (super exciting) click-to-call option.

My next actions steps are:

• Make sure all my WordPress sites are mobile-friendly
• Find out how to make HTML sales/squeeze pages mobile-friendly
• Investigate the click-to-call feature

2. Systematize to optimize

I had difficulty choosing, but I finally decided to focus on this key idea from the presentation, “Social CRM: Client Relationships Come Full Circle,” by Michael Mahoney of Mosaic Sales Solutions.

The best way to make social media marketing efficient and measurable is to systematize it. Set up systems for publishing content, responding to complaints and negative reviews, monitoring competitors, and even engaging with influencers in your market.

Systematizing means breaking down activities into smaller tasks, determining the best order to complete those tasks, and using tools to automate and faciliate as much as you can.

The tools Michael recommended were: Crowdbooster, BufferApp, NutshellMail, Bit.ly, and Hootsuite or Tweetdeck.

My next action steps are:

• Try the tools listed above and see which ones are most useful to me (I already do use Hootsuite and Tweetdeck, and maybe I should rethink that. Do I really need to use both?)

3. Stimulate dialogue, not monologue

This one is from Michael Angelo Caruso's presentation on Internet marketing.

I chose this idea, because it sums up an entire strategy for creating and sharing content in social media. It's not all about you, what you think, what you know, or how you feel about things.

It's all about your market: what do they think, how do they feel, what do they want?

My next action step:

• Be more deliberate in encouraging dialogue on my blogs and social networks

Your Thoughts?

Were these ideas new to you at all? What action steps were you inspired to take after thinking of these ideas?

Let us know below and we'll keep each other accountable!

photo credit: CarbonNYC