At OnMark’s recent Social Made Simple seminar, we had an attendee pose a great question: If you sell a service, and not a “widget,” what’s the best way to use social media?

This is often particularly challenging to those in the heavily regulated financial, healthcare or banking industries. But before you give up entirely on integrating tools such as LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter into your communications strategy, consider doing a little research and testing out a few simple ways to use social media in the service industry.

Do Your Homework

The service industry is competitive. Check to see what your competitors are doing online and in the social media space. If aspects of their approach align with your business goals, try putting your own twist on it.

Also, if you are in a highly regulated industry, you may have advertising and marketing rules that apply. Make sure you are aware of these before embarking on a social media strategy. Your staff needs to be on board and have clear policies regarding their use of social media under your company’s brand.

Move Your Offline Methods Online

You likely have several marketing assets in print format. Try repurposing these for online use, where it makes sense, but make sure you adjust the message accordingly. For example:

1. Tune-up reminders. Whether you are an accountant, a financial advisor or a body shop, your customers can benefit from regular tune-ups related to the service you provide. This could include a quarterly budget review, or a tax reminder. You can put these messages on Facebook and/or Twitter on a regular basis.
2. Improved customer service. The more open channels of communication you offer, the better your service is perceived. Where are your customers going online when they have questions or feedback? Be there, and be prepared to respond using the same social channel.
3. Lead generation. Develop relationships outside of your service that can lead to referrals. Think about offering personal information about yourself and your hobbies that might open up a dialog with someone new. Once they have a relationship with you, it opens the door to referrals.
4. Education. Instead of selling your services, educate your customers about a “lifestyle”-related topic that indirectly aligns with your service offerings. For example, an insurance company can use social media to talk about safe driving. A hospital might use social media to discuss nutritional information.
5. Consider starting conversations online and finishing them offline. If a customer poses a question that involves sensitive information, have a service representative phone them directly, if possible, and post a response that says you will do so.

This year, a few major firms such as Morgan Stanley and Securities America announced they will allow their employees to use social media.

Another helpful article is “How to Engage in Social Media in Regulated Industries.”

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Make the most of your family camping experience and the environment with these tips:

• Travel local - use less gas and less travel time.
• Borrow or rent instead of buying camping gear.
• Use LED lights for flashlights and lanterns.
• Host your campfire or cookouts using reusable plates and dishes.
• Opt for a tent instead of a camper.
• Use organic bug repellent and citronella candles instead of chemical-based repellents.
• Don't forget to get rid of your garbage by recycling or disposing before leaving! And if the campground doesn't recycle, bring your recycling home.

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Planning your summer vacation? Calculate the cost of driving anywhere in the U.S., including your carbon footprint, at www.costtodrive.com.

Turn off your tap water while brushing your teeth and washing up and save more than 200 gallons of water a month.

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At a recent seminar, we heard a social media expert say that marketers need to spend at least 10 hours a week researching, posting, Tweeting, monitoring and responding in order to execute a successful social media strategy. This guideline seems reasonable if social media management is a key aspect of your job description, but what if you wear other hats like many of our small business clients do? Does that mean your social media efforts are wasted if you can’t even spend a fraction of that time?

At OnMark, we’ve become skilled at customizing online marketing strategies to both business goals and internal resources. We believe that while 10+ hours a week may be ideal, it is not realistic for many companies and that there are ways to manage these social media efforts, achieve results and still focus on your core business.

So what if you only can dedicate 2 hours a week to social media? What should you do to make the most of your time?

Start small and focus on the Big 3: Email, Facebook and Twitter. There are an overwhelming number of social media outlets, many of which may or may not make sense for your company. But if you opt to tackle the ones people are the most active on, you’re off to a great start. Consider establishing or enhancing an email marketing program. Set up a Twitter and/or Facebook account and get a conversation started on around something that is relevant to your target audience. 

Use a free social media monitoring and management tool like HootSuite (http://hootsuite.com). Using HootSuite’s dashboard feature, you can monitor and post to multiple social networks, including Facebook and Twitter. You can also write and schedule messages ahead of time so they are sent when it makes the most sense for your audience.

Establish a monthly “editorial calendar” in advance. Take one hour and brainstorm or send an email to various functions in your company and enlist their help. What are the most frequently asked questions they receive? What are important industry trends and news items you can comment on or post links to in Facebook or Twitter? Mix in some seasonal and/or personal entries and you’ve got a good mix of messages that you can cycle through as needed.

Sign up for Google Alerts (www.google.com/alerts) and other tools to automatically receive email updates on what’s being said about your brand, the competition and your industry. This service delivers the information to your in-box daily or weekly. Regularly scanning the alerts helps keep social media messages timely and can give you ideas on what others in your industry are doing with their social media strategy.

Consider outsourcing the more time-consuming pieces, such as strategy development, measurement and ongoing planning efforts. There are benefits to letting an online marketing expert help define your overall social media strategy since they have access to the latest tools and resources. You are the content expert so your input is critical, but this gives you the opportunity to influence the overall direction without spending the time researching and developing the plan and budget.

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If your house is like mine, we have TONS of paper. (Even though we have tons of electronic devices in use every day.) While we are trained to recycle at work, we need to carry over this habit to home.

Tips for getting started:

1. Setup a large plastic bin in a convenient place for everyone. We started by keeping ours in the garage just outside the door. We quickly decided that this wasn't convenient enough and now keep it in the mud room just off the garage.
2. Find a local place to take your bin. Many schools and churches are using paper recycling as a fundraiser. Look for the green and yellow bins labeled as Paper Retriever.
3. Identify what kind of paper you can recycle. Paper Retriever only accepts office paper and magazines. We've opted for a community drop off that allows co-mingled paper and cardboard. This allows us to recycle almost everything including cereal boxes, pizza boxes and the reams of school papers and traditional mail we get every day.
4. Finally, tell your house to stop throwing regular paper in the garbage and use your bin.

Happy Recycling!

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If you think about it, email is truly the first social media tool. It enabled one to many communications with groups of friends, family and coworkers around all kinds of topics. Since the use of Facebook and Twitter has exploded over the last few years, many of our clients are asking: How do we balance the 3 largest social outlets within our company’s marketing plan?

Recently ExactTarget, a global online interactive marketing provider, conducted research about people’s perceptions, commitment levels to brands and the expected roles of the 3 big social channels. One key take away is that a majority of US consumers are not only active on the big 3 social outlets, but most people are active daily.

Following are a few key findings:

Email as a Social Tool – People want to receive messaging that is relevant to their needs. They expect the content to have value-- whether that be educational or offer-based. Consumers want email frequency to be based on value as defined by the volume of email received in their inbox.

• 95% of US online consumers use email
• 83% of US online consumers say they check email at least once per day.
• 18% of consumers say they never open email from companies
• 70% say they always open emails from their favorite companies

Facebook as a Social Tool– Consumers expect fresh, new content with personality that has a moderate frequency, as they want their personal interactions to be the dominate stream. The age of the consumer greatly influences their overall perception. Consumers aged 24 and younger are less tolerant of advertising messages and are more likely to have “liked” to learn more about a company.

• 73% of US online consumers have created a profile on Facebook.
• 65% of US online consumers are currently active on Facebook
• 68% of Facebook users check Facebook at least once per day
• 64% of Facebook users are “FANS” of a company (Do they use this Fan term still?)
• 55% of Facebook users have “liked” a company and then later decided they no longer wanted to see that company’s posts.
• 51% of FANS say they rarely or never visit a company’s page after “liking” them

Twitter as a Social Tool– Consumers turn to Twitter for its updated stream of short information. People want a moderate flow of information and quick responses when questions are posted.

• 17% of US online consumers have created a Twitter account.
• 9% of US online consumers are active on Twitter.
• 64% of active Twitter users check Twitter at least once per day.
• 71% of Followers expect to receive marketing messages from companies through Twitter.
• 52% found Twitter to be pointless

Download the full ExactTarget report

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In addition to “owning” your listings, you want to keep a watchful eye on what others are saying about you.

Here are eight easy ways to keep an eye on your brand. 

1. Google Alerts (www.google.com/alerts): Set up alerts for your company and product names as well as any other important key words and this tool will comb the web weekly (even daily) and conveniently deliver web mentions in an e-mail.  

2. GigaAlert (www.gigaalerts.com): The free version is similar to Google Alerts. However, it does offer paid options that provide even more features allowing for data filtering and multi-user sharing.

3. Google Blogs (http://blogsearch.google.com): Search blogs for latest content.

4. Twitter Advanced Search (http://search.twitter.com/advanced): Allows you to define a range of time to search past tweets about your company.

5. Technorati (www.technorati.com): Identify blog posts about you, your products, competitors and any other category.

6. Twittorati (http://twittorati.com): Search tweets for company or product mentions or comments.

7. Facebook Search (facebook.com/search.php): See who’s talking about your company. It’s also a great way to find similar names on Facebook.

8. Social Mention (www.socialmention.com): Real-time search engine that provides alerts and a buzz-monitoring widget that can be added to your website or blog.

For other great tools for keeping an eye on your brand online, check out http://wiki.kenburbary.com.

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You invest so much into building your business, but in an instant, a disgruntled customer venting frustrations on the web could tarnish your brand. Although keeping tabs on your online reputation sounds daunting, it’s not. For starters, go to Google, Bing and Yahoo and search your company name and brand names. What shows up? Google and Yahoo feature a local listing function that is similar to the old yellow pages. Review your address, phone number and map placement. Is it correct? (In our example below, the pin placement was originally down the street from the correct placement.) Click the link next to the map for “More info” or “Place Page” shown in our example below with a purple circle.  These listings are initially created by the search engines combing the web for business directory information. However, you can “take ownership” of your listing. Go through the process to own your listing so you can update the information for it.

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The next time you head out to a restaurant for dinner, think about where you are going. Do you anticipate leftovers? If yes, throw a reusable container into your bag, pocket or purse. By forgoing the carryout container, you save the environment from one more cardboard or Styrofoam container sitting in a landfill. Additionally, you're less likely to forget those prized leftovers on the table and increase the chance of enjoying them the next day. :)

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At the beginning of this year, I resolved to yell at my kids less as I get them off to school each day. Feel free to smile at this very blunt admission that yes, I yell to get my kids to school on time. Now what you need to understand about my mornings is that I have three boys, ages 4, 6 and 8. These aren't quiet, introverted boys. These are loud, energetic boys who rarely sit still unless they are playing DS. It is a small miracle that they get to school every day on time, fed, dressed, hair combed and teeth brushed.

In an effort to work with one of my kids on his emotional control (or lack thereof), I started giving mini lectures on how you get to choose your mood. Throughout the day, things are bound to be less than perfect. When this happens, you get to choose if you are upset or if you move through it. To support this, we talked about how saying out loud that you're going to have a great day is half the battle at creating a great day. And so, the word of the day was born...

For the last few weeks, we've picked a new word to use to describe our day. This is a collaborative discussion with everyone getting a turn to contribute. Once selected, everyone takes turns saying in a loud voice, "I'm going to have a (fill in the blank) day!"

At the end of the day, the first thing I ask is "What happened today to make your day (word of the day)? This has been a tremendous conversation starter that focuses on positive things. It also gets boys, who are notoriously bad at telling you anything about school, to think of something unique to tell about their day. The thing that brings a smile to my face each time is the very kid-like answers that I receive back. I've received responses such as,

"My day was outstanding because I played with Billy, my best buddy, all day" 4-year old response

"My day was terrific because we had outdoor recess."  6-year old response

"My day was magnificent because we had gym today." 8-year old response

So, if you'd like to participate in our "Word of the Day" project, please follow our selection on Twitter. And remember, you have to say it out loud and energetic!

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