What 7 social media websites are the best for SMB online presence?

Choosing the right social media outlet for your small business depends on many factors related, but not limited, to:

1. Your business,
2. Your customers and
3. The existent in-house knowledge of the people in charge of executing your social media promotion campaigns.

This article assumes that you won’t be outsourcing your social media activities to external agencies, since in such case this article should be “old news” to a savvy social media manager. The number of social media websites has grown substantially. Some big ones are expanding everyday, others are being born and are growing in popularity and old ones are losing their shine and are cast into oblivion. As such, making the right choice for a social media can be a tedious process. Not all social media populate the right audience for your marketing messages or have the features you are looking for.

It’s okay to be selective, as long as you have a clear social media motive & objective with high Return on Investment (ROI) expectations.

Before we move on to recommending the best social media websites for small businesses, there are some rules of thumb that need to be kept in mind before you even attempt making a choice for a perfect social media match.

1. Know what Social Media are in relation to Marketing

If you are new to social media, or if your knowledge of social media is limited to having a Facebook profile, browsing videos in YouTube or posting some pictures on Instagram, you need to get to know social media a little bit more first. Read articles about them, scroll down the homepage and read the “unexplored sections” of your favourite social media website like [advertisement], [about us], [FAQs, Frequently Asked Questions], [privacy statements] etc. There is business model behind every social media website and this business model relies heavily on people like you using it as a marketing platform, whether paid or free. The good thing about social media is that it allows for free and low-budget marketing. You can achieve a lot through posting excellent content & mastering the art of effective social engagement (attractive call to action messages). You can read more about the relation between social media and marketing in my other article with title: “How Long Will Social Media Marketing Stay Effective“. https://twitter.com/OpenAnswer/status/495607482300235776   Also, try to immerse yourself in the vast literature that has been written on social media behaviour and strategy. It will help you understand a number of important, though seemingly trivial, elements of social media interaction and engagement that are vital for your success. You may be able to answer questions like:

1. Why do people click on some posts but ignore others?
2. What is viral sharing and how can I transform it into “viral marketing” of my product page or blog post?
3. Why are video’s, pictures and emotional headlines more likely to be liked, clicked on and shared than others?
4. What causes people to not like my company’s Facebook page, dislike my YouTube video or unfollow me on Twitter?
5.  How can social media success be measured? What tools can I use and what metrics should I set?

2. See how others, competitors, are doing it.

Yes, do it! We were all once beginners and there is a first time for everything. Take the opportunity to check how your competitors specifically are going about their social media exposure or read clear-cut case-studies about social media successes (and failures) for small business within your geography, customer demography or business sector. This is only another way of conducting the oh so vital market research before you draw up the even more vital Social Media Marketing Plan. (You are going to make a plan, aren’t you?)

3. Be social, creative, authentic, engaged, active and communicative.

As the name implies, social media is all about being social, socially active and sociable (= mostly likeable). You or the person(s) in charge of carrying out your social media campaigns should also have some creativity in compelling writing, attractive design or a reasonable mix of both. Some knowledge of HTML code (for embedding images, video’s, tweets etc.), web design, graphic design or image manipulation skills may come in handy. A successful blogger is mostly someone who has a sufficient dose of these skills to lead a small-scale social media campaign.

4. Know how social media performance is monitored and managed.

Putting all of your creative development and digital assets out there on social media is not enough. Plug yourself into the rich vein of social media analytics tools like Hootsuite, BufferApp, TweetDeck etc or more advanced ones like Sysomos. See whether such tools can deliver answers to questions, such as:

1. How would you know that what you are doing is right or wrong?
2. What kind of content seems to bring about more engagement through clicks, likes, shares or favourites?
3. How would you know that your declining sales or increasing website hits are the result of your social media activity?
4. How can you distinguish between the performance of your Twitter account, YouTube channel and Facebook company page?
5. Why has your LinkedIn company page not been followed or liked for whole 3 months?

5. Draw up a water-proof Social Media Plan and follow it up with analysis and review.

Your business plan can contain any elements you deem important to your company’s social media success, but it should definitely include the following main elements:

1. Your business goals and objectives: identify them and define them.
2. Your social media objectives in relation to your business goals
3. Define your parameters and metrics pertaining to these objectives: choose the right tools to manage your online performance.
4. Identify and define your target group: is it your existing customers, potential customers or social media influencers (Brand PR)?
5. Keep the competition’s online presence in mind: research & calculate their social media performance in terms of fellowship numbers AND engagement rates.

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The 7 best social media websites for small business.

I will let you do you own research on the specific feature of each of the social media websites I selected and move on to recommending them in order of preference or fitness to most small businesses’ marketing objectives. I would aim for the big 5: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ & YouTube, including photo and interest sharing platforms, Instagram & Pinterest in one category and some “new-comers”. The reasoning behind my selection is derived from their authority, functionality, market leadership, technological advancement, clear advertising models, being international (multilingual), ease of use and off course big number of members (= more exposure). If your business is a B2C small business, the best social media platforms I recommend in order of relevance & importance are:

1. Facebook
2. Twitter
3. Google+
4. LinkedIn
5. YouTube (becomes a top-3 if you can make engaging video, relevant to your business)
6. Instagram or Pinterest (moves up to number two or three if it is a product, or a service, deriving value & marketability from design or packaging = fancy photo’s. Like cloths or shoes or beauty services or accessories)
7. Ryze

If a B2B small business, the best social media I recommend  in order of relevance & importance are:

1. LinkedIn
2. Google+
3. Twitter
4. Facebook
5. YouTube (becomes a top-3 if you can make engaging video, relevant to your business)
6. Instagram or Pinterest (become more important if it is a product, not a service, deriving value & marketability from design or packaging = fancy photo’s. Like office stationery, ornaments or furniture)
7. Quora

How can a manager control his temper?

Which one is more effective: talking or barking?

When it comes to controlling emotions (temper) it is always easier said than done. But it can be trained and it all starts with creating self-awareness about our emotions. Having such awareness specifically denotes the importance of having a high degree of social & emotional intelligence in the discipline of management (the managing of others, whether employees, business relations or random members of our social circles).

We all know the cliché that is not so much a cliché actually but closer to a fact:

you can’t control something you do not know well

&

you cannot manage others if you can’t even manage yourself.

I try to remind myself that emotions can always choose the rational path of calm words (smart & effective communication) instead of deeds and automatic reactions (impulsive communication). But our emotional reactions are naturally faster than our rational considerations. That’s a bio-physiological fact we can’t do much about, but can only tame gradually through training and lots of practice.

If you think about it, you can always TALK about your emotions; how angry, disappointed, misunderstood, tensed, worried or impatient you are about a certain employee’s attitude or performance, instead of BARKING OUT these emotions.

But the problem of emotions control often arises when:

1. We think that our true thought/position in a certain situation can only be fully communicated, understood & respected by others when it is accompanied by emotion.
2. We think that others will only take us seriously when they see our emotions (which can be true by the way depending on your audience and their level of social intelligence)
3. Talking is viewed as a sign of weakness (culturally or group-collectively) and barking as a form of strength (also, culturally or group-collectively).
4. We are not the talking type that releases regularly and timely but the type that bottles up impressions about others until they evolve into powerful untameable emotions that erupt at once like a volcano in the most poorly-timed & destructive manner!

Controlling emotions does not necessarily imply suppressing them, but rather channelling them to reach effective communication. That’s why a face-to-face setting is usually preferred in solving conflicts, with as less external factors as possible influencing the calm & effectiveness of communication.

Communication is best served when conducted in a rational manner based on words and voiced thoughts that describe our emotions clearly & constructively, instead of uncontrolled eruptions that describe our words and thoughts poorly & destructively.

Which one is better a discussion or an argument?

Let’s compare both and find out for ourselves.

A discussion is a communication style of which the outcome is not predefined, while having “mutual understanding” as a pre-determined final goal before entering into it. A discussion is supposed to lead to the best solution of a given problem, a clarification of a misunderstanding or the best valuation of an idea, to mention some random examples.

Such “understanding” is to be reached & accepted by all engaged parties at the end of a discussion, based on healthy communication, proper exchange of ideas, information or opinions and genuine agreement (as opposed to artificial one for the sake of muting “high volumes”). It’s a collective, non-selfish & constructive process by nature (even if no outcome is reached yet).

An argument, on the other hand, is characterised by the “will to win” clearly visible through the show of interruptive emotions. An argument is less effective than a discussion in most cases but can be necessary depending on the counterpart’s openness to having a calm discussion. Having an argument is mostly the result of us being unable to suppress whatever emotion that we have at a given moment of discussing a topic, whether anger, impatience, anxiety, disappointment or sadness etc.

Paradoxically enough, having an argument at such times can be a healthy release of pent-up negativity; one that needs to be out of the way, first, for a calm discussion to take place.

I find arguments to be generally ineffective & counter-productive than discussions because their goal is either:

1. Predefined: when we argue for the sake of arguing (releasing negative energy because we WANT to), OR
2. Non-defined at all, when we argue because that’s all we can do now (releasing negative energy because we CAN’T discuss calmly)

Therefore, enforcing an arguing style of communication is a counter-productive, selfish & unfair form of communication aimed at convincing the other party of one’s points of views, legitimizing the use of irrational communication (shouts, fictitious outrage, refusal of agreement, interruptions, unmeant disagreements, lack of self-reflection, manipulation of facts etc.).

An argument is at its best when it means “a reason given in proof or rebuttal”, only as part of a debate or a discussion and not as a way of communication.

Spoken Word: The danger of silence

The video speaks for itself; thanks “God” it’s not silent.

Clint Smith: The danger of silence

If you can’t motivate yourself, nobody else will. Do you agree?

Yes, and no.

Self-motivation, when existent, is more powerful than any external motivational factor, yes. It’s no wonder that “self-motivational abilities” are often mentioned as a characteristic trait/habit of the majority of successful people.

Having said this, I also believe that all humans experience some degree of low motivation at some stages of their lives, as a result of continuous hardships, disappointments or “bad luck”, even when they’re putting in their utmost energy and positive hope in it. In such case, the power of external motivation comes in very handy or even necessary. 

Sometimes that inspirational voice in ourselves dies out or is muted down though all kinds of factors and it does no harm in such case to call in the help of external motivators, whether professional or simply existent in our comfort zones; a good friend, a colleague or a family member. 

Tony Robbins: Why we do what we do

Motivation has become an industry of itself, with big names like Anthony Robbins inspiring millions around the world with what often sounds like common sense but nonetheless very powerful to hear repetitively. But also through world-famous platforms like TED Talks featuring people from all backgrounds and colours who share the most inspiring words that we need to hear in order to revive our desire to achieve, flourish or believe in ourselves once again.

Dan Pink: The puzzle of motivation

 

 

What important “marketing trends” do you foresee in the near future?

1. Marketing budgets and expenditure will gradually shift in growth towards more Digital Marketing & less Traditional Marketing.

2. Digital Marketing will grow in importance corresponding to our growingly digitalized lives & will soon be the centre all marketing orbits around.

3. Smart-phone-friendly responsive web design & web development will become an established quality-norm, in relation to marketing.

4. Ad re-targeting using browsing history, internet behaviour & predictive search techniques will grow.

5. TV advertisements will still be important in combination with online TV video-sharing for quick brand awareness & exposure.

6. Content Marketing will become more important, whether text-based, image-cantered, interactive or dynamic.

7. Social Media Marketing will become a more diverse new form of “traditional marketing”.

8. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will continue to evolve around social media marketing & the so-called “quality content”.

9. Connectivity to internet through more devices, appliances, public machines & public services will cause simplification & amplification of marketing messages.

10. Text-based content will be the norm in online marketing & visual Marketing will continue to compete with traditional text-based content (mainly blogs) using visual content like pictures, videos, inforgraphics, webcasts, podcasts, slides etc.

 

What books influenced your writing career the most?

Great question!

I have no writing career as such, but I do enjoy writing. I can better share who my favourite authors per language were & how others described my style of writing.

Naguib Mahfouz‘s novels influenced my Arabic the most. I read them all, except for about 7 novels. His novels are a must read for anyone who loves culture-rich literature.

Naguib Mahfouz

Harry Mullisch‘s books must have influenced my Dutch, although I’m told to have a distinct non-typical Dutch style of my own through a blend of some English and Arabic influences, clearly obvious in my use of long sentences that don’t break my thoughts and my preferred use of formal jargon making it closer to “legal language”, like this one long sentence right here!

I read his most famed ones like “The Assault” & “The Discovery of Heaven”; a reading tip for lovers of world literature.

Harry Mullisch

English is more of an indiscriminate mix. Though, I recently received the valuable comment from my most valued critic, my father, that I have something of Franz Kafka‘s & Fyodor Dostoyevsky‘s styles in my critical writing (both non-native English authors by the way) . I considered such a far-fetched comparison a true compliment and one to follow-through with!

Franz Kafka

Having read only the translations of their works, my thanks should go out to the translators, I guess; a humble ode to the most underrated professionals throughout history!

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Leadership is not about titles and positions but about influencing others. Do you agree?

I disagree on this one.

If leadership is only measured by our random influence on the lives of others, then we may as well all be leaders in a general sense, since we always influence other lives to some degree, through our social being.

In my opinion, leadership in general, whether good or bad (to stay within the generic question wording) is mainly concerned with the power to persuade others to follow what you do, say or believe in. There were always good and bad leaders, who shared the “leader” label, and who led others through a combination of charisma, eloquence, identification, power, inspiration, love, hate, fear and/or deception.

The good ones lead others to goodness.

What is the difference between a “dialect” and an “accent”?

Let’s test our knowledge first.

Is the funny secretary, “wanna-be interpreter”, in the video below imitating accents or dialects?

Actually the talented English comedian, Caterine Tate, is imitating none of the two in this comic video. She’s just making fun of the sound of some languages that are literally foreign to her; she speaks none of them. As such, she cannot be speaking in an accent or a dialect belonging to these languages.

Accents and dialects are often used interchangeably to describe the non-native sound of a spoken language. But accents and dialects mean two different things, in fact. I speak three languages fluently and in different dialects and accents; Arabic, English & Dutch. I also used to run a language services business for 5 years. So, the subject does intrigue me as such to delve into in more details.

What accents and dialects do have in common is that they are the natural results of “language competition” in people’s verbal communication system. They are mostly linked to those who speak, hear, know or are exposed to more than one language or to a form of language different than the official one because of geography, ethnicity or both.

Anglophone World Map

Accents and dialects are both “spoken-form distinctions” from what is usually referred to as a Modern Standard Language form, spoken by a larger or a dominant group with a well-developed written form. While spoken Modern Standard Languages are commonplace in many (multi-cultural) countries like the US, the UK , The Netherlands, France and Germany, or even less multi-cultural ones like China and Japan, in Arabic countries as a region language is a different story.

The modern standard form of Arabic is only official, academic, literary, educational, legal, media-centred or written but no longer spoken by the common man in the street. So, all Arabic people in fact only communicate in Arabic dialects.

Arabic Dialects Map

Some dialects are derived from other older languages and have evolved to become official forms of another language and are no longer dialects but official languages, like Mexican Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese & Cantonese Chinese (Hong Kong).

Spanish Speaking World

Some may put “Indian English” in a separate category too as a dialect and not only an accent, although not globally acknowledged, for having different uses in its official form and for being used by a very large population. But the large population of India (1.237 billion per 2012) already has its fair share of national dialects, as you can see below, making a sub-categorisation of “Indian English” both possible & impossible.

Dialects of India

Accents relate to pronunciation differences of the same words pertaining to same meanings while using the standard grammatical & spelling form of a given official language. Dialects also relate to pronunciation but often have totally different words for the same meaning or same words for totally different meanings. Dialects also distinguish themselves for having distinctive (new or forgotten) words and language uses of their own.

One Word,  one Meaning, but 5 different Pronunciation!

Having an accent can be an individual label of a person or one related to a certain group of people, usually characterized by having a shared native tongue or a shared/similar cultural background. In Holland, the second  biggest minority of Moroccans is believed to have a certain “Moroccan accent” (but not exactly a dialect) while native Dutchmen in the Eastern part of Holland do have a distinctive dialect with its own words, uses and phrases.

People of Levant Countries (Palestine, Syria, Jordan & Lebanon) have different dialects among them, but a shared one when compared to the more similar dialects of the Arabic Gulf Countries. (see Arabic Dialects Map, above)

The French Speaking World

Having a dialect is mostly a collective characteristic of certain people of a shared ethnic (but mostly geographical) background while sharing a standard form of language that is taught in main-stream schools. People in Rotterdam, my number one home city, have a distinct dialect than those of Amsterdam, but can speak Modern Standard Dutch (ABN or Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands), any time.

How do you say “Razor Blades” in Australian?

The most famous example is probably the difference between British, American, Canadian and Australian accents, which, while differing in word use and vocabulary sometimes, are more often called accents than dialects, probably because the official forms of these language forms are still very similar in vocabulary, use and grammar for the major part and because they are direct derivatives of British English.

British Dialects

This, while the Irish, Welsh and Scottish, for example still have their own original and official languages (Gaelic, Welsh & Celtic, respectively) that have had more influence in their variant of English than in the case of the US, Canada, New Zealand & Australia.

When do you know when to shut up, and when to speak?

Knowledge is knowing what to say, without necessarily saying it all the time. People by nature have an almost automatic aversion towards “know-it-all types”, even if they indeed know it all, most of it or mostly. Even if they “know it all” compared to the ones who think of them as “know-it-alls”. It is just how we are as people.

We don’t like to entertain the idea that people whom we perceive as our “equals in everything”, may suddenly not be so equal in something like “knowledge”, but actually higher than us. That’s why we are more susceptible to accepting the same piece of information (with a nod and a smile) shared by a professor, who’s clearly a PhD. holder, than from a colleague of the same age and education who read more books about the topic, including the professor’s own book on the topic, with only a Bachelor’s degree and an insatiable thirst for knowledge!

Sometimes the reason behind this “aversion”, is that the stereotypical “know-it-all” persons, indeed, tend to be smug & condescending towards others who know less, can do less or who are less extrovert with what they know.  Know-it-alls often have a total lack of the kind of social skills and empathy needed to pay attention to such a fact or to make such a quick observation of their surroundings, before they address others or share their knowledge.

Other times, the reason has mainly to do with the recipients of knowledge themselves. Such knowledge can be shared by someone who simply happens to know more, but it is often unnecessarily and unconsciously viewed by the counter-part as “threatening” to their own self-image or own standing (in a group). Such people are mostly insecure or less confident than others, but have a habit of channelling such insecurities the wrong way. There are many people who tackle their low confidence problem by welcoming knowledge from more knowledgeable people without the intervention of things such as “ego” or “comparison to themselves”, thereby turning a “vice” to their own hands by making it rather a virtue.

One can also say that if knowledge is factual, applicable and/or useful to the audience or to the discussion at stake, then it should be shared regardless of how it is received and perceived. But hey, there is a reason why people prefer watching certain types of TV programs; some may reject the idea of liking movies, soaps and entertainment shows and others may make jokes of those who watch discovery channel and national geographic as being “boring” or “not so cool”. A difference is there, and plenty of choices are there to make. And it is okay.

Mastering manners of sharing knowledge and knowing how to channel it responsibly and effectively is a sort of wisdom not everybody has. It is mostly related to age but more often to life experience, social skills and character.

It’s a waste of time, for instance, to share your knowledge of the solar system with those who are still “agnostic” as to whether “the earth is flat” or a “rounded globe”. (not such an extreme example, if you realize there may be people on our global earth, who still pick their brains around this fact)

And it’s also a waste of time to explain the importance of choosing the right accounting software for company operations, to a group of accountants who want to start their own accounting company, during a start-ups seminar, only because it’s part of your one-fits-all proven seminar-script as a coach or a speaker, that has always proven successful with previous seminar attendees.

Wisdom is knowing when, what, how and to whom you should say certain things and when not to.