Knowing how “Hot” your prospect is can be just the beginning of the relationship building process There are six types of prospects to know and identify and I will cover three in this blog for effective communication. Stay tuned next week to hear the rest of the story. 


It has been stated through research that 93 percent of people’s impressions of others are not directly related to what they say but how they say it. Understanding different personality types is critical to being successful in business and in any face-to-face contact with customers. Try understanding and recognizing the personality type of the person you are talking with at the show. The goal is to determine the prospect’s personality type so you can talk to the person
based on how they receive information. People have been trying to figure out others for years. 


In 1928, a psychologist by the name of Dr. William Marston developed a DISC theory test to help identify people’s personalities and characteristics, and he used colors to associate the different personalities. 


Yellow = Influencer and Charismatic
Red = Dominant and Inspirational
Blue = Very Detailed and Methodical
Green = Steady and a Team Player


Then in the late 1970s, Dr. Gary Couture developed an easier way to remember the DISC classification, called the bird theory, that took the same concept, but simplified it by characterizing personalities into the four birds category – known as the peacock (yellow DISC color), the eagle (red DISC color), the owl (blue DISC color), and the dove (green DISC color).


It was much easier to recall the birds’ characters than the colors on the original DISC analysis test. The bird theory brought the practical sense to identifying people by their majority (80 percent dominant) “BIRD” personality.  There are many who teach personality systems in the world, but out of all the personality systems available in today’s market, I would have to say that the newly adopted Bird Theory by Tod Novak, CEO of the Tod Novak Group, is one of the best programs available for companies to use as a guideline for building customer relationships.   


Interaction with Different Personalities
Each of us has a primary personality type (80 percent), and a secondary personality type (20 percent). The goal is to determine the individual’s primary personality type within the first sixty seconds of meeting the person. Each person’s personality type can be recognized based upon
how he or she acts, dresses, speaks, and moves. We must know our own personality type to communicate successfully for effective communication with others.


Using the following information set out below, you will be able to soar through meetings with diverse participants to decide like an eagle; influence like a peacock; be a team player like a dove; and problem solve like an owl. 


Edgar Done, also known as the Eagle or High D (Red DISC color)

This is the individual who looks you straight in the eye and has a confident demeanor and firm handshake. His or her behavior pattern is controlling and very direct. This person is fast and decisive in his or her pace and their priority is the task or bottom line results. This person’s overall appearance is businesslike and powerful, and may not be seen in sweats unless working out at the gym or playing a sport. Their workplace is busy, efficient, and very structured. Their source of security is being in control and leadership. They fear being taken advantage of and his or her personal worth is measured by results, task record, and progress. Their internal motivator is winning, control, and being number one. Their strengths are delegating, leading, and inspiring others. Some weaknesses are that they may be perceived as insensitive and
impatient and dislike details.


A typical job for this personality type is CEO, president, or military leader. Irritations to this person would be inefficiency and indecision. Under stress, they become withdrawn and can be head strong. Decisions may be dictatorial and this person may be perceived as being critical
of others. Their motivation comes from productivity and bottom-line results.


For effective communication, when approaching someone that appears to be Edgar Done, or an Eagle personality type, it may be better to talk in sound bites with metrics. This person likes bottom-line results as to why he or she should purchase the product or service from a company. Most often, they are the decision maker. Use words such as “results” or “will save you time” and so on when talking to this person.


Emma Hope, also known as the Peacock or High I (Yellow DISC)
 
This is the individual who also looks you straight in the eye and has a confident demeanor and firm handshake. This person will be noticeable by appearance and style. Male or female, this person will be fashionable and trendy with the female having shoes and handbag that match or wearing something that is unique and stylish. The male will usually have starched jeans or pants and starched shirt and his shoes are fashionable. They are also a decision maker. This person’s behavior pattern is supporting and direct and their pace is fast and spontaneous. Their priority is developing a relationship and interacting with others. This is the person known as a “people”
person. His or her appearance is stylish and can sometimes be a little outrageous.


A typical job for this personality type is marketing, sales, bartender, or entertainer. This person’s workspace environment is stimulating, personal, and cluttered. Their source of security is social interaction and approval of others. His or her fear is loss of prestige. Their personal worth is measured through recognition, status, and number of friends with an internal motivator of the chase and being included on decisions. This person’s strengths are persuasion, enthusiasm, and the ability to entertain. However, weaknesses include being restless, ignoring details, and possibly lacking time management or discipline. Some irritations would include routine work and perfectionist people. 


Under stress, this person may be perceived as sarcastic or superficial and decisions are made spontaneously. Their internal motivator is having fun and receiving recognition from others. For effective communication, when approaching someone that appears to be Emma Hope, or a peacock personality type, it may be more to your advantage to talk in excitement and use voice reflection. This person likes interaction and excitement when he or she is talking and making a decision to purchase the product or service from a company. This person most likely will be a decision maker or at least an influencer to the decision maker. Use words such as “image,” or “will make you look good” or “feel good,” and so on when talking with this person.

Anita Job, also known as I – N E E D – A – JOB!
 
Shall I say any more? This individual is the person that stops by, looking for a job, and feels the best way to do this is through walking into a business or stopping by at the exhibiting company’s booth at a trade show.


Be sure to stay tuned for next week’s blog for the remaining three types of prospects and how to best communicate with each.

About DJ Heckes, Author of Full BRAIN Marketing and Owner of EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts

DJ Heckes is CEO of EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts and Full BRAIN Marketing .  She focuses on educating and training companies to significantly improve their Small Business Marketing strategies.  DJ Heckes also presents customized training programs for Business Marketing, Social Media, Leadership and Trade Show Marketing. Learn more atwww.EXHIB-IT.com  and www.fullBRAINMarketing.com.  Be sure to follow us!

DJ Heckes, CEO & Author
EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts
www.exhib-it.com
Full BRAIN Marketing
www.fullbrainmarketing.com

Knowing how “Hot” your prospect is can be just the beginning of the relationship building process There are six types of prospects to know and identify and in  my last blog article I covered three and this week I am covering the remaining three types of prospects to know and understand for effective communication.

Interaction with Different Personalities continued.

Remember, each of us has a primary personality type (80 percent), and a secondary personality type (20 percent). The goal is to determine the individual’s primary personality type within the first sixty seconds of meeting the person. Each person’s personality type can be recognized based upon how he or she acts, dresses, speaks, and moves. We must know our own personality type to communicate successfully so we can have effective communication with others.

Using this information, you will be able to soar through meetings with diverse participants to decide like an eagle; influence like a peacock; be a team player like a dove; and problem solve like an owl.

Alley McMate, also known as the Steady Dove or High S (Green DISC)

This individual will have a slow and relaxed pace and may be dressed in compliance and wearing comfortable shoes. Style is not as important. This is the person who may not look you straight in the eye at first, is a little more reserved, and has a soft handshake. This person is a team player and most likely will not be a decision maker, but is usually the person that can put you in touch with the decision maker. His or her behavior pattern is supporting and direct and their pace is slow and relaxed with an appearance of being casual in compliance. They prefer relationship building first, then business second.

A typical job for this personality type is teacher, nurse, social worker, or administrative assistant, or executive assistant. Their workspace is personal, relaxed, and friendly. His or her source of security is friendship and support. This person’s fear is set in change; hence, known as the steady dove. He or she measures personal worth by depth of relationships and compatibility. His or her internal motivator is being needed and involved. Some strengths for this type of prospect are listening, teamwork, and follow-through. Some weaknesses may be that he or she may be oversensitive, slow to start, and occasionally have a lack of goal setting. This person is easily irritated by insensitive or impatient people such as Edgar Done (eagle) or Emma Hope (peacock). Under stress, this type of prospect becomes submissive to others and can be indecisive. They do not make decisions alone and his or her motivation comes from being accepted.

What I have not shared with you is what is known as the “attack dove.” The dove personality is complacent in nature and holds most everything inside. If you are to anger this type of person, you may not even know it. However, once they draw the line on how much they are willing to accept from a person, they just walk away. You may not ever know what you did to cause this disconnect, but it will be permanent.

When approaching someone that appears to be Alley McMate, or a dove personality type, it may be wiser to talk in a lower calm voice and not directly approach this person too quickly. This person likes interaction after getting to know, like, and trust you and the company. The person is not usually a decision maker and dislikes confrontation. For effective communication, use words such as “like,” “feel,” “relationship,” and so on when talking to this person.

Jay No-Way, also known as the “Walking Book of Knowledge”

We have all met this person. No matter what you say or do, this person knows everything and loves to challenge the words being spoken. Do not get into a confrontation with this person and slowly transition into the exit strategy by handing this person a pamphlet or business card and thanking him or her for stopping by to visit with you at the office or while exhibiting in a trade show. This approach is also known as the disengage process.

Moe Lassis, also known as the Conscientious Owl or High D (Blue DISC)

This individual may be dressed casually, will walk in a slow and orderly fashion and may not approach you at all if meeting this person in public. This is the prospect that may not make eye

contact with you at first, is very reserved, and may have a softer handshake. This person is more of a researcher and is gathering information. Having all the facts is most important to this type of individual. He or she is more personable one-on-one, but not in a group setting such as a trade show environment. This person’s personality is a little more analytical and he or she may also be considered an introvert. This person’s behavior pattern is controlling and indirect and his or her pace is slow and orderly with a proper and functional appearance. Their priority is the task or process of getting things done.

A typical job for this personality type is accountant, engineer, or computer technician. Their workplace is structured, functional, and proper. This person’s source of security is being prepared, paying attention to detail and fear criticism of their work. They measure their personal worth by precision, accuracy, and being busy. This person’s internal motivator is

competence and his or her strengths are planning and organizing, having numbers, and knowing the facts. Some weaknesses may include being a perfectionist and being critical of others.

Some irritations are disorganization and unpredictability. Under stress, this person may withdraw and become headstrong. Decisions are well thought out and he or she will not make a decision quickly. You will need to spend quite a bit of time answering many questions. This person is prepared to ask the questions so do not dismiss him or her too quickly. Their motivation is accuracy and information.

When approaching someone that appears to be Moe Lassis, or an owl personality type, it is best to also talk in a lower calm voice and not directly approach him or her too quickly. This person likes one-on-one interaction but not necessarily in a trade show environment where things move quickly. He or she is not usually the decision maker and is more of a fact-gathering

and information-gathering person.

When talking with this type of prospect, it is important to be sure accurate information is provided about the company history, facts, and figures. If not, this person may know more than you do, as they have most likely researched your company before coming to your office environment or trade show or will after meeting you. For effective communication, use words such as “statistics,” “history,” “facts,” and so on when talking to this person. “There is definitely diversity in the work environment...”

Recognizing the general characteristics of people and using bird profiles in tandem with generational differences for effective communication is key to being successful in today’s market for building a long lasting relationship. Stay tuned next for the five generations in the Work Place and how to communicate with each generation effectively.

About DJ Heckes, Author of Full BRAIN Marketing and Owner of EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts

DJ Heckes is CEO of EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts and Full BRAIN Marketing .  She focuses on educating and training companies to significantly improve their Small Business Marketing strategies.  DJ Heckes also presents customized training programs for Business Marketing, Social Media, Leadership and Trade Show Marketing. Learn more atwww.EXHIB-IT.com  and www.fullBRAINMarketing.com.  Be sure to follow us!

DJ Heckes, CEO & Author
EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts
www.exhib-it.com
Full BRAIN Marketing
www.fullbrainmarketing.com

As customers are coming forward to contribute their expertise, time, and resources in marketing exchanges in blogs, social media, and many interactive forums, we are witnessing the emergence of collaborative marketing. Collaborative marketing is now becoming the process of working together with customers to create value in marketing exchanges.

Some of the top companies that have used relationship marketing are required to think first about how to relate to their customers. In contrast, with the active customer, collaborative marketing requires companies to think about collaborating with customers, making sure they have an integral part in the company’s marketing activities. In collaborative marketing, the strategy network becomes the enabler of collaborative exchanges and goes way beyond relationship exchanges because companies involve mutual dependence and maximization of shared benefits to their customers.

Collaborative innovation and marketing allow companies to tap into the customers’ expertise by integrating customers with the company’s new product and service development process. They have taken forum marketing to the next level on the Internet. For example, if a company wants to launch a new product, they can have their potential customers register online and sample the new ideas or products. Communities may be created online to discuss the new initiative or product and give honest feedback. This allows the potential customer to be more open and honest with the feedback and not be in a room face-to-face in an environment where a focus group is established and participants often feel the pressure of not saying the right thing for the research answers.

The Collaborative Process

Collaborative communication now becomes a just-in-time marketing through communication that is relevant to your customer. Relative messaging now turns conventional advertising from a just-in-case marketing communication that is created from traditional advertising to a just-in-time communication initiated by the customers, and is truly relevant to the context.

Collaborative support from potential and existing customers allows companies to reduce costs while increasing overall satisfaction. This is done by allowing customers to have dialogue with the company to help solve problems. A great example is Cisco’s online community that allows their customers to get answers to support questions from peers and experts. By allowing customers to take part in the support operation, Cisco is able to decrease customer support costs, while increasing overall customer satisfaction. The community first started out as a customer support initiative and became a valuable resource for new product ideas and competitive intelligence.

While smaller businesses may not have the support staff for something as elaborate as Cisco, they can still utilize an online community to help with new product launches. They also can do this while getting the feedback needed from potential customers to help make relevant decisions about moving forward with a new campaign or product and save money. It also helps all businesses to stop and listen to the customers’ feedback to increase customer satisfaction.

To enable this collaborative process, companies need to build technology platforms that allow the customer to connect to their business processes. Collaboration will not succeed unless both the customer and the company in the collaborative exchange have the appropriate incentives. A key challenge is to determine how to engage the potential customer to want to take the time and effort to provide the pertinent feedback in your online community area. Marketing is taken to the next level when companies understand that the Internet is an excellent channel for marketing to customers. This is true only if the power lies with customers – by making the customer an integral part of the company’s marketing activities and seeing that their feedback is valuable to the organization. Harnessing the power of collaborative marketing is only as good as seeing the customer as a virtual extension of your company’s overall marketing strategy.

While there are many benefits to be gained through collaborative marketing, there are also challenges that you should be aware of such as lack of a common mission, lack of commitment, costs of group decision-making, and barriers for entering and existing in this collaborative marketing effort. A common mission meets common objectives in this new online community. In order to enjoy the rewards of working together, there needs to be a new shift in the way of thinking and acting.

The shift in thinking goes from independent to interdependent thinking, and is one of the most difficult challenges for a business when organizing a collaborative marketing effort. While each of us has an independent mind, we need to adapt to a logical or natural connections association between two or more things associated with interdependent thinking, for example: seek first to understand, then to be understood; synergize and think win-win for connection, correlation, interconnection, and interrelationships.)

Are you ready for this paradigm shift? The answer to this question must be well thought out and carefully planned before you begin this new collaborative endeavor. If done correctly and utilized properly, this could grow your business exponentially.

About DJ Heckes, Author of Full BRAIN Marketing and Owner of EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts

DJ Heckes is CEO of EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts and Full BRAIN Marketing .  She focuses on educating and training companies to significantly improve their Small Business Marketing strategies.  DJ Heckes also presents customized training programs for Business Marketing, Social Media, Leadership and Trade Show Marketing. Learn more at www.EXHIB-IT.com  and www.fullBRAINMarketing.com.  Be sure to follow us!

DJ Heckes, CEO & Author
EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts
www.exhib-it.com
Full BRAIN Marketing
www.fullbrainmarketing.com

A good thing to realize is that we use technology and technology does not use us. One does not have to use Twitter as discussed above, and there is no reason to jump in and do everything at once. It is best to start with listening. What are people saying about you? What conversations can you be a part of? What types of proactive reach can you do and what do you need to be reactive to? For you and for your company, be sure to choose how to use the technology.

If a commitment is made to become part of an online community and conversations, commit to taking the feedback to the company and asking what you can do to change and actually make the company change. Determine what the customers want and figure out a way to get back to the company mission and values. 

Benchmark your social media efforts and see if they are creating any return on investment on organic search engines through relevant content and information. Use a trend graph when trying to benchmark your social media and Internet strategy efforts. (A trend graph provides information at a glance through graphing out ups, downs, and horizontals [growth stalls] to provide metrics of valuable information needed in the study being performed.)

Message boards and forums are important ways for companies to brand. Think about why a person joins a forum; it is based on similar interests and commonalities. Online communities become trusted resources to ask advice about things not related to the same online forum or online community. However, relationships have been developed and trust is gained.

According to http://www.big-boards.com, the most active message boards and forums on the Web, they list out and rate different blog posts. When visiting this Web site, it is easy to sort and filter by different blog posts, memberships, page views, traffic, online users, Alexa ranking (a relative measurement of how popular a Web site is among the Internet community), and much more.

Knowing blogs are becoming a relevant communication tool, this is something you may want to consider doing for your own exposure, as long as you have relevant content that people will want to follow.

We are experiencing an explosion in social media participation around the world. It is becoming harder and harder to run a business without using social media. It is time to figure out how your business fits into this social media world and how to develop a strategic market place online. Social media is much different than Internet marketing. Once you understand the mind-set of social media, the core of all your social ability, and heart of your search engine optimization (SEO), the rankings will be paid off through more visibility, more leads, and potentially more sales.

Learn about these online communities and how to engage in them. With a Web presence, active social media usage, and search engine optimization strategies, you can deliver a content strategy designed to sell your products and services online. I have found social media to be very beneficial both personally and professionally. Social media content I am personally using are LinkedIn, Twitter, Squidoo, Facebook, Google+, WordPress and lots of widgets for measuring my time and efforts in Social Media. 

Spread links, contents, and messages to the far reaches of the social sphere. Tie all of this into a constant web of influence while gaining higher search engine ability. Integrated social media initiatives will increase Web presence and grow your business strategies.

About DJ Heckes, Author of Full BRAIN Marketing and Owner of EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts

DJ Heckes is CEO of EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts and Full BRAIN Marketing .  She focuses on educating and training companies to significantly improve their Small Business Marketing strategies.  DJ Heckes also presents customized training programs for Business Marketing, Social Media, Leadership and Trade Show Marketing. Learn more at www.EXHIB-IT.com  and www.fullBRAINMarketing.com.  Be sure to follow us!

DJ Heckes, CEO & Author
EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts
www.exhib-it.com
Full BRAIN Marketing
www.fullbrainmarketing.com

How do you get people who are afraid to write to find their voice? Blogging is not always the right tool for everyone. It is OK not to blog. If you are afraid to write, then don’t blog. If you start writing blogs, set clear boundaries for what you want to accomplish.

Twitter is one of my favorite social media sites. Many companies use Twitter for business, including Dell. Dell has one of the largest turnaround stories for correcting its reputation through using social media. Several years ago, Jeff Jarvis created a Web site titled “Buzz Machine” (www.buzzmachine.com). Jeff Jarvis posted blogs regarding Dell Hell and it was widely covered in the media. Dell Hell taught Dell a very important lesson about listening to what people were saying about them online and finding new avenues to connect with their consumers and customers. Dell has a team of about forty people led by Richard Dell on Twitter (http://twitter.com/RichardAtDell). Dell is connecting Richard Dell with their consumers on Twitter. The company wants to know if consumers and their customers are talking about them and they respond by asking how they can help.

Twitter has its ups and downs, but there is a critical mass there with early adopters. Another example of a company using Twitter for customer service is Comcast (http://twitter.com/COMCASTCARES). Frank Eliason out of their Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, office heads up this Twitter social media site. Eliason discovered that by doing a search for the word “Comcast” (and occasionally “Comcrap”), he could find tweeters who just happened to mention service complaints and he could address these complaints quickly himself. While Twitter is not a replacement for phone and e-mail assistance, Eliason says it is an avenue through which people have gotten to know Comcast. He feels it is a little more personal with back-and-forth discussions in a less formal environment. It also provides immediacy to interactions.

Dell, Zappos, and Comcast are the three highest profile companies I found using Twitter as a customer service social media site. There are lots of newspaper companies, journalists, and other companies also using Twitter, but the three listed seem to be the most interactive that I have read so far. Zappos (http://www.zappos.com/ and http://twitter.zappos.com/) has about four hundred employees identified on Twitter who are building relationships with real people. There is something to be said about knowing and connecting with a person at a real company that can be very valuable.

Is social media for everyone? No, but it is important to have social media on your radar and help customers and clients get on a radar to be in the know about certain topics in your industry and most importantly, building online relationships. It is also important to learn search skills and go beyond Google and use specific search tools such as:

• http://search.twitter.com

• http://googleblog.blogspot.com

• http://boardreader.com

There is a whole suite of social media and each type has a different search engine. Do not think that Google is the only search engine. Try using RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. This is a resource that teaches people how to make the Web more useful and cut back on the number of e-mails received.

Ethical Online Marketing – Things You Should Know

Another important organization to become familiar with is Word of Mouth Marketing (www.womma.org). This organization stresses using ethics when using online resources for marketing and when using social media. The essence of the WOMMA ethics code comes down to the honesty ROI, which is known as:

• Honesty of Relationship – You say who you’re speaking for

• Honesty of Opinion – You say what you believe

• Honesty of Identity – You never obscure your identity

When using social media, disclosure and honesty are very important. What value do you offer the online community? Do not let people promise you a million views for a video you want to post without showing you the return on investment, because your video may end up on a porn site or anywhere to meet the promised statement.

The first mistake most people make in social media is failing to commit to social media or to a community. People start blogging for about six weeks and then get bored. There should be an understanding that everyone is committed to being part of the online community that is selected. When I committed to blog consistently, it was an eye-opener for me. I realized the time that I invest is the pay off. When I first started piddling around with social media, it was more of a fad to see what it was about. For the first few months, I would go in weekly and slowly build a network. Then one weekend, I dedicated some time and started first with LinkedIn to see who was in my “connection.” I went to each connection to view his or her connections and the next thing I knew I was building my business network referral system.

I would send out LinkedIn e-mails to seek an answer for something I wanted to know and would get responses within minutes. Some of the connections that are on my LinkedIn page may also be contacts that I have e-mailed through Microsoft Outlook in the past, but I was finding the responses were much quicker through social media than general e-mail. I see Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and MySpace social media sites as extensions of some sort of blogging, but in shorter sound bites. Even though I do not personally use MySpace at this time, since I have focused on other social media avenues. That does not mean it may not be effective for you or your business.

It is important to remember that social media is not a cure-all. Do not think that just because you start a blog or get on Twitter for customer service that the problems of a company will be fixed like magic. Online conversations reveal a lot about a company’s DNA. In the old days, more social networking was used than any of this technology social media. Now things are digital and searchable and information is much easier to find.

About DJ Heckes, Author of Full BRAIN Marketing and Owner of EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts

DJ Heckes is CEO of EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts and Full BRAIN Marketing .  She focuses on educating and training companies to significantly improve their Small Business Marketing strategies.  DJ Heckes also presents customized training programs for Business Marketing, Social Media, Leadership and Trade Show Marketing. Learn more at www.EXHIB-IT.com  and www.fullBRAINMarketing.com.  Be sure to follow us!

DJ Heckes, CEO & Author
EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts
www.exhib-it.com
Full BRAIN Marketing
www.fullbrainmarketing.com

What is a blog and why should businesses blog? Blogs, or Web logs, present online journal content organized in reverse chronological order, and should be entertaining and informative. Blogs and other social media can create the following for you:

Online Democracy

This is the human factor that reads blogs, searches online for Information, sends and receives e-mails, sends and receives voice mails, and has a Web site or visits Web sites.

Search Engine Optimization

As much as 80 percent of all Web interactions begin with a search. Using key word phrases targeted to your product or service helps your organic placement and you can also use pay per click campaigns to grow faster, but organic sites seem to have more credibility for searches. From 80 to 95 percent of all clicks on a page happen in the organic results. This will get people to your site, but there needs to be recent and relevant content with links to keep consumers on your site and give information that is valuable to the customer.

Higher Prospect Interaction and Conversion

Google ranks phrases used on your site and it is important to know what the customer is searching for in your industry to be able to best interact on your site and gather leads that eventually convert to sales.

E-mail Acquisition

E-mail personalized newsletters are a great way to educate the consumer and establish you and your company as the expert in your field. There is a downside to e-mail campaigns in that if you are just selling, selling, and selling, you will have people opt out and the e-mail acquisition campaign will fail. Deliver content that your customers want to know and drive traffic back to your Web site with more relevant content.

A great example of this would be in a newsletter. My company links back to our seminar page http://www.exhib-it.com/seminars/ highlighting our FREE marketing seminars for the entire year at a glance.

This is informative for the customer and shows how our company supports businesses in the community (which establishes our promotion and process that is relevant to our strategies).

Employee Retention/Customer Engagement

Employees who blog for a company are more engaged with the company than employees who do not blog for the company. If you want to start with an online blogging site, try WordPress (www.wordpress.org). It is the most widely used blogging site and is free, and has lots of plug-ins. The featured plug-in are WordPress.com Stats that provides simple, concise stats with no additional load on a server by plugging into WordPress.com’s stat system. WP Super Cache is a very fast caching engine for WordPress that produces static html files. Poll Daddy polls create and manage the polls from within WordPress.

Intense Debate Comments enhances and encourages conversation on a blog by building the reader community, increasing comments, and boosting page views. Wickett Twitter Widget displays tweets from a Twitter account in the sidebar of a blog.

Get Recent Comments displays the most recent comments or track backs with your own formatting in the sidebar. The weaknesses are that WordPress usually requires you to have hardware/server and it is a little more technical to use, and is not built for organizations.

Key word-focused blogs compound at a much higher rate than individual blogs.  However, if you do not post frequently and systematically, your blog may end up nowhere. Blogs are meant to be written frequently with relevant content that is key word focused. If you are doing something unique in marketing, write about it online! Use the Internet for traditional and media marketing and incorporate social media to grow your business!

About DJ Heckes, Author of Full BRAIN Marketing and Owner of EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts

DJ Heckes is CEO of EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts and Full BRAIN Marketing .  She focuses on educating and training companies to significantly improve their Small Business Marketing strategies.  DJ Heckes also presents customized training programs for Business Marketing, Social Media, Leadership and Trade Show Marketing. Learn more at www.EXHIB-IT.com  and www.fullBRAINMarketing.com.  Be sure to follow us!

DJ Heckes, CEO & Author
EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts
www.exhib-it.com
Full BRAIN Marketing
www.fullbrainmarketing.com

LinkedIn recently announced their update to Company Pages that now helps companies and small businesses become more engaged on the network.  Having a Company page is a company’s profile of record on LinkedIn and is a powerful tool to speak to millions of professionals through word-of-mouth recommendations with trusted testimonials. It is very similar to a LinkedIn Profile for a company.

If you’re already a LinkedIn Member, Company pages are a new great way to research companies you are interested in, follow what they have to say through their updates and shared information, and see what kind of people work there.  You can even review products and services you use on a Company Page.

Company Pages present a great opportunity to reveal the human side of your company by allowing others to peek at the individuals behind your brand and highlight how members use your products or services. A Company Page offers tools to bring your brand to life and truly engage your audience.

Until now, company pages existed in isolation.  Businesses are now able to update their individual company page to enable followers to receive updates and insights about company news, employee moves, job opportunities and much more.  This is a brand new opportunity to showcase your thought leadership and expand your business.

Want to post a company status update for your Company?  Any company page administrator can post a note in the status box on your company’s overview page.  Keep your followers thinking about your company by sharing updates, promotions, announcements, news articles or videos. Updates will appear on your followers’ home pages.  Followers can comment, like or share updates. This allows you to develop a unique conversation between your company and your followers. Best of all, these interactions can be seen by your followers’ networks exposing your company to a greater audience. You can also view the LinkedIn Metrics to see what followers found engaging to optimize the conversation.  Get your company conversation started today by setting up a company page on LinkedIn.

Brands can now have company pages, and users can 'follow' the company page for updates from those companies. The LinkedIn network has more of a business networking and career focus, and the way that users connect is much more formal.  Users in LinkedIn often have fewer, more intimate connections than they would on Facebook or Twitter. The content shared and discussions started to engage your audience are usually more industry and business-focused which makes LinkedIn a great source for B2B Marketing.

Want to find and follow your favorite Companies?  You can locate and find interesting companies in one of two ways:

• From any Member’s LinkedIn Profile.
  You can click through to company pages from any LinkedIn Member’s profile. Just mouse-over any company on a LinkedIn profile page and on the resulting popup, click through to a company page or click the “Follow Company” link.  If a smaller company has not claimed their company page, you may not find them.

• From the LinkedIn Header.
  One of the easiest ways to find a Company Page’s homepage is in the LinkedIn navigation bar at the top of any page. You can also search by using the search box in the box in the navigation bar for any company.

• From the Company Page.
  If you’ve found a company page of interest that you like by searching for a specific company name or keyword, just click “Follow Company” to stay updated on that company.

Having the ability to follow companies helps you track developments at companies of interest to you, including job opportunities or other business developments.

Now that you know how to set up a Company Page and Search and Follow Other Company Pages, listed below are Tips to Engage your Audience Listeners.

Five tips to “turbo-charge” your LinkedIn company status updates:

1. Say “Hello” to Start a Relationship.

Introduce yourself first by describing who you are, why you and your business are here and don’t start off with the sales pitch. Truly engage your audience. Get to know your audience. For example, an IT services firm should tailor its messages differently to their tech-savvy followers than an audience of  marketing executives.

Remember - your followers are already interested in hearing what you have to say so be brief, authentic, honest and relevant.

3. Think Quality - Not Quantity.

Offer insightful news, tips and other relevant information about your industry or business. Engage your followers with what you have to say and build relationships. Don’t just blast yoru readers with sales pitches or promotional messages.

Develop friends first! If you build your LinkedIn Company Page based on relevant content, the business results will follow. A humorous, effective status update can go viral and expose you to a wider audience as your followers “like,” share, or comment on company-driven content with their own professional network of followers.

A great example is Dell’s update about rival HP that created lots of buzz recently.

2. Mix Up Your Content with Varying Your Status Updates.

Company Status Updates are posts made by a company to share anything from company news about product releases to promotions to relevant industry tips and articles. Company posts are visible on the company’s Overview tab by any LinkedIn member. Anyone who follows a company will see the posts directly on their homepage. All LinkedIn members are able to view posts, click on embedded links or view videos and are also able to comment, like, or share a post.

In one post, consider highlighting a new product release, share an article link to press coverage or industry news and in another post, highlight a new product release or a list of hot topics or hot jobs. Photos are great! Try posting a YouTube video, opinion pole or even an infographic - even better.

Here are some great examples of spicing up your content and engaging you readers:

The Harvard Business School Executive Education that posts video Q&As with faculty, online newsletters, podcasts, and other multimedia content to engage with users.

Intuit posts a weekly news video broadcast to keep their followers informed:

4. Participate in Conversations. 

Ask for feedback from your followers and find out what they want from your company. Start by asking questions and then watch how your followers respond and interact with other readers who are commenting.

Answer their questions timely and highlight insightful comments and show your followers that you’re actually listening to what they are saying.

5. Analyze Your Engagement Often.

How do you know if you’re doing well? Utilize the Free Analytics Tool in  LinkedIn and check the stats that appear on your posts within 24 hours after your status update goes live. This will allow you to see what types of information and links create the most comments, likes, and clicks. Use this data to understand who your followers are, refine your strategy and optimize the conversation.

Use your time wisely and effectively in your social media marketing efforts. Remember: just because a social network is "popular," doesn't make it necessarily right for your business or industry. Use analytics as your guideline for what steps to take next. Monitor the traffic and leads you're generating from your online presence on each individual social media site. Is the return on investment (ROI) significant enough based on the amount of time and effort you're spending there? Is one social networking site performing better for you than another? These are all important questions to adjust your strategy accordingly so you can focus more of your time on the social networks that work for you and your business, and less of your time on those that don't.

About DJ Heckes, Author of Full BRAIN Marketing and Owner of EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts

DJ Heckes is CEO of EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts and Full BRAIN Marketing .  She focuses on educating and training companies to significantly improve their Small Business Marketing strategies.  DJ Heckes also presents customized training programs for Business Marketing, Social Media, Leadership and Trade Show Marketing. Learn more at www.EXHIB-IT.com  and www.fullBRAINMarketing.com.  Be sure to follow us!

DJ Heckes, CEO & Author
EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts
www.exhib-it.com
Full BRAIN Marketing
www.fullbrainmarketing.com

Google+ is NOW available with Google Apps.

How to Turn on Google+ App. 

1. You need to join Google and create a Google profile before you can turn on the new App.
2. Due to Google+ not being part of the core Google Apps suite, this is an additional service only if your organization has moved to the new accounts infrastructure.
3. You will need to enable Picasa Web Albums for photo sharing and Google Talk for messaging features.
4. Users must create the Google+ Profile to be able to use Google.  This is a profile that will be publicly visible to anyone on the web. You can choose which information in your profile to share publicly or with specific circle of influencers and what information you want to keep private. You can share content, photos and videos outside your organization.
5. You can export or transfer your Google+ data using services such as Google Takeout.
6. You need to be 18 years of age to use Google+ and if this requirement is not met, your entire account will be suspended.
7. You need to create content within Google by using the name most people commonly know you as.
8. You can select who within your organization is allowed to have access to the Google+ and enable the service for only specific users using organizational units.
9. All users must agree to the additional non-core Google+ Consumer Terms of Service to use this new service App.
10. Some users may have conflicting Google+ accounts and will be prompted to change their user name for their personal Google+ account the next time they sign in.
11. Before turning on the Google+, know that your organization is solely responsible for complying with all laws and regulations applicable for the provision of Google+ and this includes all users allowed within the organization.