“Tomorrow’s the day you’re going to get things done,” you tell yourself as you fall into bed for the night. You have good intentions, but who’s kidding who? You always have good intentions! But most days you feel like you’ve accomplished nothing.

Being a stay-at-home mom is easy, right? No deadlines, screaming bosses, boring meetings, right? WRONG! I have TWO pint sizes bosses now, and throw in a few four-legged bosses and I’m looking at a total of 4 bosses each morning. Unless you are a superwoman (and in my opinion, every mom is a superwoman no matter what) and know how to manage and organize your time each day, it can be quite stressful most of the time. For me, being productive doesn’t come naturally. In order to be productive you have to start with motivation. Some mornings when I haven’t slept well, or a kid shows up at 3am to snuggle, or a puppy barks at 5am to go out, I feel less than motivated! However, when you connect your productivity to the motivation it takes to complete your tasks, you will learn that it means a happier mom, kids, spouse AND puppies at the end of the day.

Let’s look at a few ways you can be more productive as an extremely busy mom:

10 Productivity Tips

1. Get up earlier

This wouldn’t be an article about productivity without adding this first piece of advice. Get up earlier. Easier said than done! I admit that I haven’t mastered this one. But I think the point of getting up earlier is to have time for yourself. Time for a walk, time to netflix and chill, time to sit in silence. For me, I stay up late after the kids are in bed. That’s what works for me. If it works for you, then great! However, our next point….

2) Workout in the morning

The first point about waking up earlier goes hand in hand with exercising in the morning. I will admit that getting a workout out of the way in the morning is the way to go. When 5 o’clock arrives, I’m guessing that with kids home, dinner to fix, dogs to feed….that a workout is not going to happen. With that said, if you have a flexible schedule, you can still work out in the morning. I like going to the 9:30 am class myself.

3) Get up and get dressed

It’s super tempting to work in your pajamas all day. And some days, I think it’s perfectly acceptable. For me, the long winter days called for many days of yoga pants and work. However, there’s something about getting up and putting some makeup on that helps boost your confidence. Also, if your hair and makeup is done, you can jump on Facebook live to your fans at a moment’s notice!

4) Take time to relax

You need to work hard to be successful working from home. It’s not easy. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t take a moment to yourself! Set aside an hour for lunch, for a walk, or even a nap on the couch. It’s not healthy to constantly feel under stress or pressured.

5) Get out there

When I started working from home, I loved the silence. After 19 years in corporate cubicle land it was a welcome change. After a few months, though, it got TOO quiet. I started wasting time at the grocery store and the bank (Target run anyone?) just to SEE people. I would go out for lunch every day which wasn’t good for the pocketbook either. It wasn’t until I joined a local networking group where I started to feel like a professional again. I chose to stay at home for freedom to be with my family, but I still wanted a career. Finding a group of professionals to trade ideas with and talk business really helped close the gap. (and feel less lonely!)

How to Be More Productive

6) Make a Schedule

Thy planner is thy friend! I still use a good old fashioned paper planner when things get busy. It helps to have a tangible list of appointments in front of me. It’s a nice way to lay out the day and have an idea of how busy it will be or if I will have time for other things. Check out this post about how you can use a planner to boost your productivity.

7) Check Your Social Media Habits

Do you ever find yourself sitting at your laptop supposedly working on something, like a blog post, only to have clicked over to Facebook scrolling through the feed mindlessly? I have! It happened today, in fact. When I literally only had 2 hours open I could spend at the library writing. There are 2 ways social media can affect your productivity: Spending long chunks of time on social, or constantly checking it. Which one are you? The best way to handle this is to keep Facebook or other CLOSED on your laptop while working, and keep your phone in your purchase away from your desk. I will do that and keep the sound on so I can hear a phone call (from school or other) just in case.

8) Create Lists

This can be helpful and dangerous at the same time. While lists work, they DON’T work when you have 10 of them laying around. Designate a notebook or a list on your phone as your master list and work only from it. Or, create an accessible spreadsheet of sorts to separate work and home duties. Whatever you do, make sure there is only ONE version of it.

9) Plan your schedule a week in advance

I LOVE it when my week is laid out a week in advance. I can pull up the calendar on my phone and get a quick look of how busy I’m going to be. If I have a light week, I’ll sign up for some volunteer shifts at school. If it’s busy with meetings, then I won’t do anything extra. And I won’t feel guilty about it! It’s all about balance.

10) BAN THE GUILT!

Speaking of feeling guilty, let’s get rid of that right now! As moms, we can’t help but feel the burden of every member of our family on our shoulders. “Part of [your] plan, and being more productive personally, will be saying no to some business-related things so you can show up for your kids. You also can’t beat yourself up, like we moms do. It all boils down to choices and making better ones based on where you need to be and what you need to focus on right now, at work and at home.” says superwoman business owner Stacia Pierce. As I mentioned above, if you balance your load, you can make time for everything. Your kids will see you working hard toward a goal and contributing to society at large. That’s a good thing! Most importantly, nobody’s perfect, so stop trying to be.

There you have it! These are my top 10 tips to stay productive as an extremely busy mom and business owner. What are some of your favorite time management hacks?

The post Top 10 Productivity Tips for Extremely Busy Moms appeared first on Intentional Marketer University.

If you have been following me for any length of time, you know I talk about how I work from home with kids! (and puppies) It can be exhausting, exhilarating, maddening, surprising and everything in between!

According to Sara Sutton Fell, founder of FlexJobs, “There’s a common misconception that working from home means you can care for your kids while you work, but it’s really not fair to your job or your children to try to do both simultaneously.”[source]

Caring for your children while you juggle a work-from-home career can be hard, but these tips can help you stay organized, and involve the kiddos wherever possible! Hey, when you work at home, you can use all the help you can get, right?? Not everything you have the kids do will actually help you, (you can probably complete the task quicker) but it could teach them a skill and also make them feel needed and busy.

Check out these ways you can have your kids help you ask you work from home:

1. Filing and Sorting

Sorting is a great activity for younger kids. This may not help you especially in your business, but it will keep them busy and teach them a skill! The confidence gained from a job well done is invaluable as well. Young kids can sort and count office supplies, and older kids can count and sort inventory, for example. Another idea for older children is to count supplies or inventory and enter into a spreadsheet. My daughter has found Google Docs (on her recycled, refurbished, laptop) and has a blast creating stories and documents!

1. Shredding

After the little ones are finished sorting the paper you don’t want to keep, have them create a shredding party! Even if you have a pile of non-private papers for recycling, let them shred it! Whatever keeps them busy right? Just make sure if your child is young, they don’t shred their fingertips!!

1. Cleaning

This will probably seem more “fun” for the younger ones, but having your child clean is a great idea to keep their hands busy. Dusting, wiping down, and sweeping can help you keep your office clean. If you have older children, a little incentive (like a dollar or two) can go far.

1. Babysitting

Since you are home, your babysitter doesn’t necessarily need to be an older child! You can have the older one(s) watch the little one! They will gain valuable skills from this and also build confidence. You are also training your child to be your helper in the future as well as a paid babysitter when the time comes! This type of babysitting can simply mean reading books or playing games.

1. Working In Your Business

This would depend on the type of business you have, and how old your kids are, but think about what skills your kids already have. Could they create social media posts for you? Many tweens and teens are a wiz on the iPhone and could probably put together a viral meme for you! Or, have them enter all of your customer information into a new spreadsheet. Be sure to pay your child something! This will build a solid work ethic for the future.

How To Work From Home When You Have Kids

It does take a little strategy and planning, but finding tasks your children can help you with can really pay off in the future. These mini-jobs can teach a skill, make your children feel needed, and, best of all, keep them busy while you work. Over time, the investment you make in training them, will build solid workers for the future. If you start them young enough, when they get older you can have them help with data entry, photography, marketing and other more complex tasks.

How do your kids help you work?

The post How Kids Can Help You Work From Home appeared first on Intentional Marketer University.

Or, some of us will give up our career to stay at home with the kids, all while dealing with that missing piece of your professional life that you miss so badly.

Leaving the Corporate Life to Work From Home

Like most people, you probably dread going into the office every day, fighting traffic, dropping your kids off at before school care, counting the hours until it’s 5pm so you can do it all over again in reverse. Your company has instilled some level of fear in you that you could lose your job at any point, so you better perform. Some are lucky, thought, and have a great team and a great boss who motivates, gives you freedom to work the way you work best, and have supportive colleagues that are fun to have lunch and shoot the breeze with! But, when your day is over, you don’t go home feeling fulfilled, rather you feel lucky to have a job and income.

In my opinion, one is not better than the other! I learned the hard way that life is way too short to spend 60% of my week somewhere I didn’t want to be. Not only did I not want to be there personally, but “being there”, meant I was NOT there when my kids needed me.

Now, when I made this leap of faith, there was more than just unhappiness at my job that pushed me. Life happened. But I do know that the fear was there. Resigning from my very well paying, professional position in corporate IT felt like I was stepping off a cliff. I was pretty much scared of everything. Fear of losing savings, fear of going broke, fear of making a fool of myself….the list goes on.

3 Ways to Get Through the Jump

In the almost 3 years I’ve been working from home, I’ve learned a few things about the ups and downs of this decision I made such a short time ago:

1. Get over it:

I talked about the fear of leaving my corporate job on Facebook Live this morning with my new friend Sheila. I am not telling you to go and quit your job willy-nilly. You have to have a strategy in place, and a plan for money. I’m not that big of a dreamer. When I made my decision it was a full 3 months before I walked out of my office for the last time. We also saved my whole paycheck for those 3 months and figured out that where the money was going. What did this teach us? That most of this 2nd income was being wasted. We did fine on the one income! However, taking that leap of faith is just that – a leap of faith. I knew with my whole heart that this is what God’s plan was for me and he has provided for our family every since.

2. Meet people

My journey started first with meeting Meredith. She was my mentor for almost a year showing me some of the ropes of the online marketing game. We quickly became friends and decided to go into business together. Meeting someone like-minded with the same goals and dreams made the journey that much easier. As family duties changed and more time opens up I am getting out in my own community by joining networking groups and other social gatherings. It helps to know people in ALL things!

3. Learn new skills

The online and social media marketing world came easy to me. I really enjoy technology. Obviously…..I have been working in information technology and software development and support for almost 20 years. I have a knack for learning and teaching people how to use tools. So, the past 3 years I have been learning how to do things in online marketing every day! There are experts out there that I have followed and kept up with that introduce things to me each day. Just like my corporate job paid for me to attend trainings for my job position, I have invested money in some of their courses for the good stuff and will give the same advice; Read books and blogs, (like this one!!) take online courses and find mentors/coaches who will help you through the tough times.

Conclusion

There you have it! These are the main ways that I made my leap of faith from suit to sweats. Believe me, it has not been an easy road, but I can wholeheartedly tell you that it has been the most rewarding time in my career and personal life.

What about you? Have you made that leap to work from home and take back your time?

The post How to Make the Move From Corporate to Work From Home appeared first on Intentional Marketer University.

“Don’t even try to sell on social media; it doesn’t work”.

What came next was a cross-eyed look of confusion. I am sure he was thinking, “well if I’m not selling my services, then what am I doing there in the first place”??

I know this sounds counterintuitive, Selling your products and services rarely happens directly from social media.

Hear me out;

How to Sell Without the Slime

Have you been posting on Facebook about your business to the tune of no likes or comments? Usually those posts of yours where you say “our new protein bars are half off! Check it out!” ring to the tune of crickets, don’t they.

That’s because people are happy to buy when they find something that meets their need, but they do not like being sold to. Think about yourself when you’re in a store at the mall….the sales person comes up to you and asks if you need anything? Your defenses go up. You know they do!

What we also know is that social media can be a powerful tool for your business, if you use it correctly. Let’s dig into how social media should be used for promoting your business:

1. Helping – Instead of thinking about selling your product or service to someone, think about helping them buy. Many people are out on Facebook and Google searching for information about what you do. After searching Google for possible options, many people will head out to Facebook, for example, and post a status “looking for recommendations”. If your profile is set up to lead people to your business page, you can lead people to your business simply by answering their post. This also works great in Facebook groups. Be on the lookout for questions you can answer in groups. Without being salesy at all, you can establish your expert status.
2. Getting Social – Even though you are in business it’s OK to get social! What you are doing here is building awareness around what you do and who you are! Facebook just made the famous algorithm change just a few short weeks ago, didn’t they? The one where they prioritize “people” posts over “business” posts? First and foremost, people are on Facebook and other social media to connect with others. How you can use it for your business is to connect with others with your shared interests. It’s OK to get personal. I love dogs and I have new puppies. So I have been having a ton of conversations around them since they come home! I’ve attracted some loyal fans too.
3. Entertaining – This is otherwise known as blowing off steam! This can be anything from a funny GIF to a viral video. My current obsession is the Taco Bell commercial “Web of Fries” and I shared this to my pages simply to entertain my audience. Life isn’t all about work, you know. How you can use this is just by acknowleging that your potential customers don’t think about work or shopping all the time too. Maybe they are on Twitter that day looking for some relaxation. Posting an inspiring quote, a cute kitty video or a hilarious super bowl commercial can be exactly what they need right now.

These are just 3 ways you can use social media to build awareness about you and your business. Using these techniques you can then apply the 80/20 rule when posting about your business. For every 4 posts helping, entertaining and educating, you can recommend your product or service in context.

So with all of this said, why use social media at all for business?

At the end of my conversation with the insurance agent, he asked me how then I could measure the ROI of social media.  How can I track how “well” his posts are working toward attracting new clients?

This is where the strategy comes in!

Remember above when I said, selling rarely happens directly from the platform? That’s because happens with a combination of social media + email marketing + your website!

That is for another conversation, but I can leave you with this stat:

• Email has a median ROI of 122% – over 4x higher than other marketing formats including social media, direct mail, and paid search. (DMA and Demand Metric)

When you focus on taking your fans and followers off of social and into email leads, you can grow your list, nurture that list, make offers and turn leads into clients!

The post How to Sell on Social Media Without Being Salesy appeared first on Intentional Marketer University.

Tell me if this is like a day in your life – It’s been a super long day, you’ve picked up the kids, you have dinner on the stove, you finally sit down to catch your breath to relax. But instead, you take a look around your living room and notice that it looks like a bomb went off. Sadly, “clean the house” has been on your to-do list for longer than you’d like to admit.

Then, your husband beckons you from upstairs, telling you he forgot to let the dogs out, and could you do so? As you walk to the door to let the furballs out, you realize you’re out of milk, so you stop by your desk to write it down on the grocery list….and then your child calls from the bathroom, for a little, a-hem, help.

Does this sound a little like your life?

While the requests may be different, the situation is the same. As moms and business owners, we are pulled in 800 different directions at any given moment.

For me, whether it’s my house duties, or my duties when I worked out of the home, and now that I am working from home, the fact remains that my wheels are always spinning, and I am busy, and usually stressed. But, some days I am actually not getting anything done!

Prefer to watch? Watch the video:

Getting Organized

Some time ago, I decided the madness has to stop. Now that my kids are in school full time, and I am not going to an office working a typical J-O-B, I have 5-6 good hours of time to myself a day. I NEED to be able to accomplish something! In my research, I found a book called Getting Things Done by David Allen (GTD) and it looks pretty promising. In this post, I would like to break it down simply for anyone who wants to GTD too.

1. Brain Dump – First and foremost, the most important thing to do is to empty your brain of all of the things that have your attention. Get Things Done calls this “Capture”. Basically what this means is that you need to record, somewhere, everything big or small that has your brain’s attention. This could be personal and professional. For example, buying milk and cleaning the living room would go on your brain dump list. How you do this is not important. You can use good old fashioned paper and pencil, or you can use your iphone notepad. Just remember where you wrote your list!
2. Create Lists – I would personally recommend keeping the list count low. I have fallen victim to having lists in 3 different notebooks, plus my iPhone, and lost track of all of them. Create a To-Do list, which are things that are highly actionable. You can break those down if you wish to things like run errands, calls to make, emails to send, etc.
3. Organize – Get Things Done adds “clarify” before you organize. To me, this seems like the same thing. To clarify your task means to process what it means and to see if it is actionable. For me, I will clarify and process AS I organize my lists. However, if you need some help in the clarify department, A Fine Parent likes to describe it this way; whenever something new pops up, you handle it using the 3 D’s – Do it, Delegate it, Defer it. Let’s get organized:

• Do it: You know what to do, and it will take less than 5 minutes. For example, if you’re out of milk, put it on the list and you’re done. Scan your emails and respond to the easy ones right away.
• Delegate it: You aren’t the right person for the job. For example, if your neighbor called and needs to borrow your husband’s tools, send a text off to him and let him know. Done.
• Defer it: You don’t know what to do OR It’ll take more than 5 minutes, OR it has to be done at a certain time.

A Fine Parent describes below:

“Here’s how we to defer effectively –

• If we don’t know what the next action is, add it to the collections bin.
• If we know what the next action is, and
  • If we can accommodate it today, add it to today’s actions list.
  • Else, if it MUST be done today, add it to today’s actions list.
• If we know what the next action is, and
  • It cannot be accommodated today, decide when to do it and add it to the calendar
  • It has a fixed date that it needs to be done on, add it to the calendar”

This is the organization stage. As you complete the decision to do, delegate or defer, you will place the items on your lists. Create the appropriate lists with categories like Calls, Emails, Errands. You can have one list with 3 columns. Whatever is simplest for you. I have a to-do list on paper, and my “deferred” list, which is really a project goes in Trello. Every week or few days, I look at my to-do list and Trello, and note everything down on my calendar for the week.

4. Review – At the end of each week think about how it went. Were you able to feel like you did a lot? Do you feel accomplished and productive? Or was this week just a waste.
5. Do – This is the last step according to GTD. Now that you have your lists and your calendar, go out and do what you set out to do!

One note about this step, that I have a lot of experience in, is to focus on one thing at a time. I have talked about how inefficient it is to multi-task. I spent my entire 19 years in the (out of the home) workforce putting out fires as a support representative and IT analyst and I can confidently tell you that it is a WASTE OF TIME.  Switching back and forth between things is just downright inefficient. Focus on one thing, complete it, and move onto the next. I can’t tell you how often I want to flip to Facebook or my Inbox while writing this post, but I refuse. I intentionally have to stay focused on this page. I have learned over the years how to best manage my time, and I have written more about it here.

What Do You Think?

So do you think you could try out these tips to organize your life a bit? Think about it over the next week or two as you move throughout your week. Consider where you waste the most time. Keep your life simple and you will find it easier to get through the rest of your weeks with a feeling of accomplishment. What is your best hack? Add it to the comments below!

The post How to Simplify Your Life and Get Things Done appeared first on Intentional Marketer University.

Do you find that even though we have an endless supply of gadgets to manager our time and productivity that you STILL can’t get anything done?

I suffer from this phenomenon and I know you do too. (even if you won’t admit it)

The problem is not so much that we don’t have enough “time”. “Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein,” says H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Really it’s about keeping your energy levels high enough to ensure that you finish at least one of your most important tasks for the day.

“The number of hours in a day is fixed, but the quantity and quality of energy available to us is not,” say Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr in The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal . Their message: To be a consistently high performer, you have to manage your energy, not your time.

There’s just not enough hours in a day and it’s not possible to be productive the whole time.

In today’s vLog I talk about a few ways to manage your energy, so you that you can manage your time. Let’s dive in:

• Accept that you do not have to be a morning person to be productive.

Man, do I struggle with this one…..I am NOT a morning person. I’m just not. I like to put my kids in bed at 9:00, go downstairs, pour a beer and watch some Netflix. Around 11:30 I hit the sack and call it a night. When my alarm goes off at the ungodly hour of 6:12am (I do have responsibilities to get a husband off to work as well as my kiddos off to school!) I roll over about 2 or 3 times to hit the snooze button. I hate the mornings. But, since I’m always reading about ways to be more productive, I can’t help but notice in everything I read, they all say to get up early and end early! So I tried it. The only thing that happened was being groggy and worthless until about 9:15 or so.

• Determine the hours where you work best.

To figure out when you work best, take a week and monitor your work habits and tasks. What time did you sit down and work? What hours did you actually complete a task on your list? Also, take note of how you felt during those hours. If you felt energized, vs. groggy, then this most likely is the best time for you to work!

• Block your best hours

Now that you know what times work best for you to get things done, be sure to block them in your calendar. Block them on your phone, your planner, your kitchen whiteboard, wherever. Each day, during those hours, attack the things on your list you need to complete. The rest of the day is left for you to do other things like have coffee with a client, attend a networking meeting, or go to the gym.

• Organize and prioritize your tasks

Now comes the fun part. Take a list (I like spreadsheets) and write down (type in) all of the tasks you do in a week to keep your business going. Enter the tasks that you need to do for the week to make money. Enter the mundane tasks, like social media scheduling, too.

To be effective, you need to be able to separate important tasks from urgent ones and focus on getting important activities done when you are most active.

Urgent tasks are productivity killers.

Urgent tasks are those that need to responded to NOW, on the defensive. Urgent tasks are not always important. When you take a look at the Eisenhower Decision Matrix, you will learn that what’s important is seldom urgent, and what’s urgent is seldom important. Important tasks are things that contribute to your long-term mission, values, and goals. Important tasks also are those that contribute to your bottom line. (i.e. money)

Identify areas of your life where you are wasting time and try to reduce these. Review your most common meetings, interruptions, and other activities and see what you can do to move these out of your most energetic, productive times.

A good way to do this is to log everything you do for a week in meticulous detail and then examine your record to see how you use (or misuse!) your time.

By first understanding your own work habits and style, you will learn time management. Without it, you will end up chasing a never-ending list of tasks, and a feeling of disappointment at the end of each week!

Have you checked out our Business Checklist?

The post How to Maintain Time and Energy in Your Business appeared first on Intentional Marketer University.

Facebook is still the big dog of social media channels with over 1.7 million active monthly users. So of course, small businesses need to be using it in some form to connect with their audience. It used to be very easy to set up a Facebook brand page for your business and start building up your likes to get a massive organic reach but this is no longer possible.

Using Facebook Groups to build a community

Using Facebook groups is just one of the strategies that you can use to build your presence on Facebook.

Not only does it drive traffic to offers, incentives, and even your website; it establishes the coveted “know, like and trust” factor that you so importantly need to make sales using social media!

Before we build your Facebook group, let’s talk about WHY you should build your Facebook group.

• As we mentioned, Facebook has HEAVILY restricted organic reach from Facebook Pages. Facebook Groups sends a notification to members whenever someone posts to the Group, which in turn drives traffic to every post.
• Facebook Groups build trust. When you have a Facebook group and share valuable information in the form of blog posts, tips, videos, or tutorials, for example, you are establishing to your members that you are engaged and “know what you’re talking about”.

The more valuable your posts are, the faster your Group members will begin to trust you.

• Facebook Groups build a community around your products. Many groups are created by businesses as a bonus for when someone buys their product or service. This can make members feel exclusive and provide an area they can get additional help from you.

First, you will build your Facebook group from your personal profile.

• Click the down arrow in the top right of Facebook and select Create Group.

• Fill in your group name, who you will want to add to your group and then choose the privacy setting of your group.*

Public Facebook Groups

Closed Groups

Secret Groups

• Click Create

• Incentivize People to Join

• Keep the Group Active and Value-packed

• Do not overtly sell in your Group. They are best used as a branding tool

Other ways you can bring value to the group is to “Go Live” and broadcast to your Group! Facebook Live is an amazing way to engage with your Group and build trust. Some examples:

Live Q & A

Product Tour

Live tutorial

• Encourage Members to Share

Using Facebook groups to build a community does not mean that you will have 1,000 people interacting with your brand daily. Keep in mind there are many “lurkers” in Facebook groups! This just means people are watching and learning.

Your main goal though should be that of engagement. If you want your group to be successful, you want to make sure you are posting things that spark interaction with your content or with other group members.

Using Facebook groups to build a community will be one of your strongest brand assets you have.

Build an active, engaged community around the industry you serve, and you will build the trust you need to eventually make sales.

The post Using Facebook Groups to Build a Community appeared first on Intentional Marketer University.

Guess what? It has never been easier to determine, arrange, and execute a Facebook posting and engagement strategy for your small business.

Facebook allows you to run Facebook contests for free now. You used to have to use 3rd party products like Heyo, AgoraPulse, or ShortStack. Now, with a little maintenance, you can do this on your own!

Contests are a great way to engage with your Facebook audience. People love to win stuff! With the new rules in place, businesses can easily launch a Facebook contest right from their Timeline.

Facebook Posting and Engagement Strategy for Small Business

Ways to Run Your Contest:

• Like the post
• Comment on the post
• Like and comment on the post

The one big rule that has stayed in place that you should keep in mind is that you are not allowed to require people to share the post to win.

Check out the Official Rules according to Facebook here.

With the official stuff out of the way, let’s get on with it. You have several choices for how you want to execute your Facebook posting and engagement strategy for your small business. Choices include:

• Like to Win
• Comment to Win
• Like AND Comment to Win
• Caption This
• Fill in the Blank
• Photo Contest

You can determine your specific requirements as you set up your contest, but the bottom line for any of these choices is to get maximum engagement from your audience. When you get more engagement, Facebook uses your results to determine who should see your posts in their feed.

The bonus for your audience is they get the chance to win awesome goodies, while the benefit of contests for your business is to bring your community together and to further humanize your brand!

There are well over forty-two million active Facebook pages.  If you want your page to stand out from the crowd you need to grow the audience by deciding on a Facebook posting and engagement strategy for your small business and drive more likes to your business page.

The post Facebook Posting and Engagement Strategy for Small Business appeared first on Intentional Marketer University.

You should be thinking about the following ways to use your Facebook cover photo:

• Brand yourself
• Feature the benefits of your product or service
• Building your email list
• Announce contests or promotions
• Showcase testimonials and/or reviews
• Show social proof (followers, likes etc)

You can include your contact information, pricing and make calls to action on your timeline cover.

Did you know that a successful cover photo can triple the number of fans you have on your Facebook business page?

That’s right! and it is all because a successful Facebook cover photo speaks your audiences ‘language’ and turns regular audience members into loyal fans who trust you and want to purchase (at some point) from you.

Other ways you can leverage your Facebook cover photo are:

• Driving your fans to your website
• Directing the fans to an offer
• Providing a link to valuable information
• Asking fans to Like you
• Asking fans to share your page

Include Text (or don’t)

Facebook terms state that you cannot include contact information, blatant calls to action, discounts or price information, but they did leave it open enough to put other attention-grabbing things like:

• Company tagline or slogan
• Inspiring or motivational quote
• Names of people in your photo
• Credits

Watch this video to learn how you can use Canva.com to design your Facebook Cover Photo.

Don’t forget your strong call to action: Let users know what you would like them to do. You should let them know why they should click on your Facebook cover photo. This could be to take advantage of a sale or deal, to read content, to request more information, etc.

Bottom line… a successful Facebook cover photo must have a very human feel to it. When used correctly, Facebook will be your effective platform for finding and engaging with your target market, increase traffic, and result in sales conversions.  Remember to always provide awesome deals to fans as a thank you for their following you and you will be rewarded with a community of fans creating conversations about your brand across the social web, and driving traffic to your website.

The post Your Facebook Cover Photo is *Waaaay* More Important Than You Think appeared first on Intentional Marketer University.

Ready for More Business from Facebook?

Then relax, sit back and follow along as we show you how incredibly easy Setting Up Your Business on Facebook really is. Setting up your business on Facebook is incredibly easy. Follow along as we show you exactly how to complete the process. Ready? Good!

Grow your Facebook Business Presence

It’s time to create your Facebook fan page and bring your business online to Facebook’s millions of daily users. Use these 4 simple steps:

• Create a personal profile if you do not already have one, or login to Facebook. Even if you do not want to have a personal profile, we strongly recommend doing so because of the business-only limitations you will run into.
• Choose a business category for your page.
• Choose an Industry Specific Category. Choose a category that matches your business. Agree to the Facebook terms and click “Get Started”!

For the sake of brevity, we have simplified the steps to the most basic description. If you are looking for a little more help with setting up your business on Facebook, take advantage of our Ditch the Daycare e-course HERE.

Triple your Fan Base

For your business page to be considered serious, you should have 100 likes.  That is why setting up your business on Facebook is going to require just a bit of marketing. Don’t worry though, it is not scary at all and you certainly don’t need a business degree!

How do you get your first 50 likes?

• First, leverage your current network (therefore having a few close friends and family like your page) doesn’t hurt, but you do want people who are a good fit for your business. Keep in mind only asking those people who would genuinely care about your products.
• Go to the “Invite Your Friends to Like This Page” and click “invite” on all relevant Facebook Friends. This will send them a notification that you are requesting for them to Like your page.
• If you have an existing email list, send them an email directly with a link to your Facebook Page and ask them to click the “Like” button. Make sure you tell them why they should “Like” your page and give them an incentive for doing so.

If you are looking for a little more help with setting up your business on Facebook, take advantage of our Ditch the Daycare e-course HERE.

Boost Your Leads and Sales

As you are Setting up your business on Facebook, you are going to have to get organized. The first thing, as we have taught to Mompreneurs across the country, is that you have defined target customer. Are they hanging out on Facebook? Would the person you are able to help with your product or service be there? If the answer is yes, let’s move on.

In general, you are looking for nice, visually appealing, ENGAGING content to share. When running your business on Facebook you will be looking for high engagement, to ultimately drive more eyes and “likes” on your page.

A few best practices in setting up your business on Facebook posting strategy are:

• Post visual content that people want to share
• Post content that invites high engagement
• Post important things that people want to share
• Post relatable content – i.e. funny or interesting observations about things in life

Anne & Meredith, Founders of Ditch the Daycare, have worked with business owners just like you in almost every country around the world.

If you want to make more profit in your business, starting today, you simply cannot ignore proper Facebook marketing any longer and lucky for you, setting up your business on Facebook has never been easier.

The post Setting Up Your Business on Facebook appeared first on Intentional Marketer University.