If you are a small business owner or an entrepreneur and weren’t able to attend the most recent Rogers Talks Social Media event in Toronto on November 4, 2013, we are presenting a summary of the most important highlights from the event. First of all, Rogers Talks is a special event designed for SMB owners, start-ups and entrepreneurs to help them keep their businesses competitive.
Randall Craig is a consultant, author, speaker and the President at 108 ideaspace. In his presentation, he spoke about the role of a Risk Mitigation Strategy and Social Media policy, constant monitoring and responding on various Social Media channels as well as building a Social Media Marketing Strategy which includes 5 steps:
Step 1. Building a functional and engaging website using the WordPress platform. He outlined the importance of having a blog as a center of the website.
Step 2. Being active on Social Media channels and getting inbound links from credible websites.
Step 3. Creating a responsive website design which is mobile and tablet friendly.
Step 4. Adding a sharing functionality to the website and letting customers know about the Social Media presence (e.g. through adding Facebook address on business cards).
Step 5. Setting up an overall goal, identifying potential challenges, targeting the right audience, developing a tactical plan and benchmarking for success.
Harley Finkelstein, an entrepreneur, lawyer and the CPO at Shopify (an e-commerce platform). He presented top thriving businesses which are based on the Shopify platform (e.g. http://www.goldieblox.com/). Shopify provides great functionality to manage online stores, but what all these successful websites share in common is that they provide customers with unique buying experience whether it is an effective way to process the order, short delivery time or interesting product information.
Matt Hartley is a journalist from the National Post. He provided great tips on how to get a company’s story noticed. He outlined that the most engaging stories are those that talk about:
– Company’s news (launching a project, acquiring a new client, acquisition, etc.);
– Financial results;
– Short;
– Narrative;
– Exclusive.
Ben Kelly, an account director from LinkedIn Canada, provided some easy though very effective tips to enhance a personal profile/business page on LinkedIn. From adding relevant skills and experience to managing LinkedIn Ads and engaging in LinkedIn groups, his top tips must be implemented by every business owner that wants to fully utilise LinkedIn opportunities. He also noted that there are over 8,000,000 total LinkedIn users in Canada with 613,321 Canadian SMB Owners, over 270,100 Ontario SMB Owners and 155,209 GTA SMB owners have a presence on LinkedIn.
Scott Stratten is an author, speaker, and the president of UnMarketing. In his presentation Scott outlined the importance of being transparent and immediate on the Social Media channels as well as covered a story about a lost toy and the excellence in customer service (you can read the full story here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-hurn/stuffed-giraffe-shows-wha_b_1524038.html). He also presented his recently published book called “QR Codes Kills Kittens” where he shows some common mistakes of how QR codes are being misused by many companies.
iRISE-media.com is a digital media agency specialized in Social Media Marketing and online advertising. Our team helps clients increase their reach and profitability by developing customized and targeted social media marketing strategies. We service clients in Toronto, Ontario and throughout Canada as well as globally.
