Sunshine on a Cloudy Day

 It used to be that when someone said, “Get your head out of the clouds!” they were telling you to stop dreaming and be realistic. Today, forward thinking business owners are using the “cloud” to organize, share and generally manage links, files, folders, presentations, email alerts and any other data that was previously shared through an “in house” file transfer protocol. In an increasingly mobile business world with all sorts of competing technologies being used simultaneously, using a cloud based platform to exchange and manage information is not only sensible, it's the wave of things to come.

You may think, “This is fine for huge companies with employees scattered all over the map, but what does this mean for a small to medium sized business?” The truth is that every business reaches a point where larger storage devices must be purchased in order to store and keep track of information. More salespeople, more decision makers and more data means hiring more IT people just to keep the hardware working properly. The need for a system that allows an administered, secure, and versatile platform for information exchange within a company becomes obvious. Companies such as Box.com and Dropbox provide these cloud based services and more and more businesses are realizing the savings and accessibility advantage of online, cloud based information management.

If you are interested in learning more about how your business can “get into the cloud” and start saving time and money, visit our website at www.roambusiness.com and contact us.

R.N.

Super Bowls of Cookies!

A small business owner I met recently told me he didn't think he needed to use social media to attract new clients because he relied on "word of mouth" to let people know he did good work.  After stopping to grab my jaw before it hit the floor, I asked him if he knew what social media was.  "Yeah sure, Facebook, Twitter and that kind of thing,"  came the reply

I don't want to write a term paper about why some "small businesses" will always remain "small" but it should be clear to anyone following this blog that we believe any business that does not realize the potential of social media will never realize its potential business.  Social Media in 2013 is "word of mouth"!  The beauty of these media is that a business can now take part in the conversation and, through its interaction with existing clients, stimulate conversation with potential clients.

For my money, the biggest play in last weekend's Superbowl came when the lights went out.  While it's true that Oreo spent a lot of time leading up to the game developing a Twitter following, when the power failure caused a temporary partial-blackout in the stadium, seven little words, "You can still dunk in the dark", went viral and got Oreo the kind of attention that can't be purchased. That wasn't a stroke of pure luck.  Oreo had a professional ad agency handling the Twitter account.  That agency clearly demonstrated the two aspects of social media use that make it vital.  1) The message was immediately relevant. 2) It sparked the use of the brand name and lit a fire.

While your objective may not be to have your ad in the Superbowl, there is no reason why you can't use social media to make you the M.V.P. in your market. Visit our website at www.roambusiness.com and ask us how we can help get you there.

R.N.

The Egg Toss

     Did you ever play a game called egg-toss? Two people stand a few feet apart and toss a fresh egg back and forth, increasing the distance between them with each toss.  No matter how nimbly the players handle the egg, at one point the players get too far apart and the forces of velocity and gravity win the game, leaving one player with egg all over his/her hands!

    That game is very similar to managing social media marketing campaigns.  Unless a business can afford to designate a full-time employee as "Social Media Manager" or some such title, the tasks of optimizing and managing content and interaction on numerous networks such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. is sometimes tossed around between any number of people until such time as the tasks become so fragmented that the media used overtake the campaigns and everyone ends up with egg on their faces!

    The days when a business could run an ad in the local paper, radio or TV station and call that an ad campaign are over!  The age of digital marketing has arrived and businesses that are not prepared to meet its challenges and deal with them effectively will be left behind.  So what is a small or medium sized business supposed to do?  Creating new positions or hiring new "specialists" may seem ridiculous in a time when austerity and budget cuts are, more and more, becoming the prudent course for many of these businesses.

    Outsourcing the task of managing social media campaigns or "internet marketing" as it is sometimes called, would seem to be the only viable solution.  There are several problems inherent in outsourcing which are worth noting.  The first and probably most important consideration after the cost of outsourcing is : Will the content, the voice of your social media and  the interaction, be a true reflection of your business's "brand"?  How much attention will the marketing company give to what you want to say rather than what they think is the most slick and hip "market-speak"?  What kind of reporting will they provide?  While it's a fact that success with social media campaigns are not "instant solutions", will you be apprised of the kind of interaction taking place between your clients and the marketing firm you have hired?  It's fine and nice to be fed graphs, charts, numbers and all sorts of fancy analysis, but what do the numbers mean to your bottom line?

   When choosing  a firm to handle your social media campaigns and the ongoing task of maintaining them, you need a company you can trust and speak to on a personal level.  We at Roam Business have many answers and solutions, but we believe that we must listen first.  Representing a client means knowing the client, not just being a public relations front with no idea of the client's day-to-day operations.

Thomas Arken

(Tom Arken is a Roam Business Associate, specializing in content analysis and software integration. R.N.)

Websites and Buggy Whips

     I met with a new potential client recently and he said something I have heard all too often.  I asked what I thought was a pretty straight forward question, "How are you using social media to increase your revenues?"
     He flashed a self-satisfied look and replied, "Oh yeah, we have a website!"  It was almost as though we were speaking two different languages and conversing through an interpreter.
     What many people in the business of educating their potential clients on the facets of internet marketing often encounter, is the idea that a mere website presence constitutes, in the minds of many small business owners, the maximum use of social media marketing. 
     We sometimes take it for granted that everyone has heard of Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumlbr, Instagram, Youtube, and myriad other channels for promoting products and services.  The sad truth is, many small business owners are too immersed in the day-to-day operations of their businesses to have heard of any of those tools, unless they have teenage children!  And even in that case, they rarely see them as viable advertising channels or invaluable tools to use for interacting with new and existing clients.
     I learned many years ago the importance of a having a visual presentation on hand when meeting new clients in  the process of selling intangibles.  Today, my laptop has replaced the binder I carried years ago as Financial Advisor, selling mutual funds.  My  presentation though, follows the same basic principles that were used years ago.  1) Keep it simple.  2) Show real examples of what can be done.  3) Back it up with numbers.  4) Close with the client asking for more.
     No business owner (large or small) wants to be the last buggy whip manufacturer.  By the time our initial meeting ended, my new client was asking me if  I could suggest a way to get a lot of people to "like" the new Facebook page we had just created for his business!  I told him how we could let more people know about his page when we next met to set up his twitter account.


Roam Business is a Montréal based consulting firm, specializing in social media marketing, and accounting & office software optimization.  www.roambusiness.com
Roy K. Nelson is an owner and the Senior Executive Analyst in the firm