Almost without fail, every client I speak to has not discovered all three these tools;
They are BCC-ing bulk emails, so are unable to write Dear ‘Bob’ or mention the company specifically without spending hours cutting and pasting.
They don’t know how to get as-it-happens information on the web about their industry or interests and once they do, they don’t know how best to share it out on social media without spending all day, every day at it.
These three simple tools solve all those problems. Find great info, share it in a consistent manner that saves time and then share specifics with your contacts in an impressive way.
1. Hearing all about it - Google Alerts (www.google.co.uk/alerts)
For those of us old enough to remember cuttings services, discovering Google alerts was an epiphany. Not only I could hear news about ANY industry or topic's news as often as I wanted, or even as it happened but it was for free! Great for keeping tabs on anything being written out there, whether it’s about you, your clients or competitors.Great for keeping abreast of things, great for content to share on social media, great, great, great all round.
Simply (and it is simple) set up your google alerts to let you know what and how often you want to know.
2. Manage all your social media - Hootsuite.com
There are other programmes similar to Hootsuite but it is my favourite as it let me include Google+ early on.Hootsuite lets you schedule and keep an eye on all your main social media channels from a single 'dashboard' (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Blogger and now mailchimp). It also has the Hootlet, letting you share/schedule anything you find on the web with a single click. Go have a look at hootlet.com
The free version gives you 5 social media channels (you have to count a company or business page as a separate channel) and you'll need to pay to see Hootsuites analytics but there are other ways of looking at your social media analytics.
Use Hootsuite to take the pressure off day-to-day social media. Look at your diary and tweet where you’ll be, what you’re doing and add the odd retweet. Write and schedule a topically blog and use Hootsuite to promote it across your social media, days, weeks, months in advance.
Social media is about being social and interacting with your followers, but using Hootsuite saves time and leaves you free to share the ‘fun’ or happening side of your business knowing there are consistent topical posts happening thorough out the week.
3. Send great emails - www.mailchimp.com
When I left my job and started my own company one of the very first things I did was update my contacts list and let everyone know I was ‘going solo’ with MailChimp.I didn't want this to be a boring email, I wanted it to seem personal with Dear ‘so and so’, remind people of my face and show off my new company logo (not so proud of my DIY logo now!) but still.
MailChimp is free to use unless you want to send thousands upon thousands of emails, or use its extra clever features. But for sending great looking emails to all or just some of your contacts, seeing who opens them, how often and who clicks through is an invaluable tool.
If you’re sales focused you can gauge an interest from the recipients based on who opened the email, you can resend the email (changing the title) to all those who didn't open it, you could even call the companies that opened the email and clicked through…the possibilities are endless!
A MailChimp app is now also available for Hootsuite without adding to you count of 5 social media streams.
