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By Karen Emanuelson
Domino’s delivered 400 million pizzas last year. Monster Energy is the Number 1 energy drink by volume in the U.S. What can a small business owner learn from these mammoth companies? Plenty, including how to use photos to promote your business. Regardless of the size of your staff or the industry you are in, you can take advantage of photos and photo opportunities to market your company online.
6 creative marketing ideas using photos
Here are 6 creative ways to use photos to promote your products or services online:
- Run a contest. Ask customers to submit photos featuring your products or services. Offer a prize or discount for entries. Domino’s Pizza created a special URL to promote their recent photo contest ShowUsYour Pizza.com.
- Create an account on Flickr for your business. Upload photos that build anticipation for an upcoming event or new product line. I use my Flickr account to showcase community and nature photos I have taken as editor of the North Oaks News as well as to promote my company.
- Feature one photo on each page of your website to add visual interest. While too many photos can be distracting, one large image can have a lasting impact on visitors. Additional photos may be placed in a less dominate location lower on the page. Photo gallery pages are an obvious exception to the one-photo rule.
- Send photos via Twitter. Using TwitPic, you can share photos from your PC or camera phone via Twitter in real time. TwitPic also provides stats on how many people have viewed your photo, and you can add the TwitPic widget (above right) to your website for additional exposure for your photos.
- Upload photos to Facebook. Create albums based on themes. The Monster Energy Facebook page has more than 70 company-created albums and encourages customers to post their own photos. The result? More than 5,000 photos uploaded by Monster Energy customers. Examples Facebook albums small businesses could create include:
- Holiday Gift ideas
- Why customers love us
- How we make (product)
- Before and After
- On the road
- A quick, fun way to promote your small business or organization using photos is Smilebox. This website offers a free (or relatively inexpensive if you choose to upgrade) way to create a short video display of 8-15 photos. Below is the Smilebox I created in just a few minutes using a free account to promote Reciprocate LLC.
 Click on the play button above to view the Reciprocate LLC Smilebox creation. |
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5 small business ”photo op” ideas
Opportunities for using photos to promote a small business abound. Keep a camera or camera phone handy as you go about your day. Make a conscious effort to take 5 photos each day for one week. By the end of the week, you’ll have created a photo gallery to choose from and you will have also created a mindset to look for and create photo opportunities.
Here are some possible photo opportunities to get you started:
- Products or services
- Company-sponsored events
- Employee meetings, client successes, awards, and celebrations – especially if you can feature your product, service, or company logo somewhere in the photo
- Company representatives and/or your product at trade shows, speaking engagements, and events. Stage photos in front of banners and signs which promote the event or in front of recognizable location signs.
- Before and after photos — this can translate into almost any industry but works especially well for organizers, home improvement companies, and decorators. Think outside the box. Even accountants can show a “before” photo of a mountainous pile of receipts and an “after” photo of a clean desk, featuring their company logo displayed on the monitor along with a happy customer.
Use your imagination. Get creative! Unless you are in the professional photography industry, don’t worry so much about getting the perfect shot with perfect lighting. Some applications (like TwitPic) atually lend themselves to impromptu camera phone images. Have fun but do keep your company image and marketing goals in mind. I encourage you to share links to your favorite use of company photos in the comments section below.
By Karen Emanuelson Twitter recently reset passwords on numerous users’ accounts.
If you cannot log into your Twitter account, check your emails to see if you have received one from Twitter that looks like this:
If you received this email, you will not be able to log into your Twitter account without clicking on the emailed link. Additional information may be found on the Twitter help page.
As a precaution, Twitter users are advised to not share their Twitter password and account information with third party companies that offer to increase follower counts rapidly.
By Karen Emanuelson
 Once you have completed all the sections of your LinkedIn profile and believe your profile represents the best “you,” it’s time to engage the LinkedIn community.
This is the first in my series of LinkedIn Strategies. With the goal of increasing your professional network through LinkedIn, over the course of the series I will share a number of tips including profile settings, the importance of connections, activities and networking, joining groups, and how to use special features to help you stand out and be noticed.
#1: Profile Settings:
Set your profile to notify your connections of your updates
Both the Member Feed Visibility and Profile and Status Updates settings are accessed through the “Settings” tab on the very top right of the LinkedIn screen.
 Select "Yes, notify my connections" for both your profile and status updates  Set Member Feed Visibility to "Everyone"
Set these three simple settings properly for maximum exposure and impact.
Member Feed Visibility displays a condensed version of your recent network update activity including status updates, connections, and recommendations. To see your recent activity, click on “View Profile.” A list of your activities appears on the right side of your profile.
The Profile Updates setting will let your connections know when you have received a recommendation, made a change to your profile (including adding a new position and changing a title as well as editing changes). Your connections will also know when you choose to follow a company.
Status Updates are key to engaging your connections. Status Updates are an easy way to tell your connections what you are working on — the final touches to a major project, research you are conducting, meeting preparations, and seminars you are attending. The Status Update area very valuable PR real estate that can be used to promote you, your image, your products or services and your company.
- In keeping with the rule for all social media, this is NOT the place to sell. This is the place to share what you know and what you are working on. Subtle self-promotion is acceptable.
- Begin each Status Update with a lower case action verb.
- Include links, if appropriate, to your website, an article that highlights your point, registration information for a seminar you are conducting, or a presentation you gave.
In addition to being displayed in the top portion of your profile, Status Updates are also sent to your direct connections and posted on your direct connections’ home pages under Network Updates. This feature is similar to the way Facebook posts are displayed on your Friends’ pages. Connections on LinkedIn are also able to comment on your Status Updates.
Recommendation: Turn these three settings to “Nobody” and “No” when you are initially creating and editing your profile. When your profile is complete, turn the settings back to “Everyone” and “Yes.”
The power of LinkedIn starts with the proactive use of the Member Feed Visibility and Profile and Status Updates. Checking these three settings is an easy first step to ensure you receive maximum exposure for your time and activity on LinkedIn.
By Karen Emanuelson Reciprocate shared a few simple tricks to maximizing your impact on LinkedIn with members of the Saint Paul Firestorm. The presentation is below:
Pay particular attention to the areas of your profile highlighted with red arrows. Use key words here for maximum impact.
Additional information on building a optimized LinkedIn profile is available under the LinkedIn tab above. In particular, check out
LinkedIn: Network While You Sleep.
Reciprocate. Share What You Know.
By Karen Emanuelson
Five words describe the philosophy behind social media:
Reciprocate
Share What You Know
Remember these five words as you go about your social media networking and marketing.
Demonstrate your thought leadership. Engage your followers and those you are connected to by providing them with information and value. Don’t hard sell. And absolutely no spam!
Five simple words to keep in mind — Reciprocate - Share What You Know — as you promote your small business online.
By Karen Emanuelson  You, no doubt, have heard a lot of buzz about Twitter — especially from TV broadcasters and famous personalities, who seem enamoured with Twitter and it’s power for instant communication. Twitter claims more than 150 million registered users with 300,000 new users every day! According to The Huffington Report , an April 2010 study suggests that while most Americans are aware of Twitter, few are using it. So, what’s in it for you?
Twitter basics
Twitter is based on 140-character snippets of information called “tweets.” Think of a tweet as a broadcast message. You need a Twitter account to send and receive tweets. The benefit of Twitter is its immediacy. The disadvantage of Twitter is the volume of tweets sent — averaging 55 million tweets a day. It’s not easy breaking through all that noise.
There is no subscription fee to join and you can set up a profile in a matter of minutes. Twitter is one of the more casual social networking sites — more like Facebook than LinkedIn. It is used for both business and personal communications.
Setting up your account
- Decide on the image you want to portray on Twitter. Let your intended use be your guide. Even though Twitter is less formal, if your intent is to use this account to promote your business, keep your Twitter image more professional.
- Create a unique Twitter name or “handle.”
While you could certainly use your real name, most Twitter users choose a name more representative of their personality or business. MNFamilyMatters is the Twitter handle for a Twin Cities based family law practice; ESQCoach is the handle for a web-based attorney marketing site; KarenEman is my Twitter handle.
- Add a photo or graphic. Since I primarily use my Twitter account for business, I use my Gravatar – the photo I use on all my online profiles including Twitter and LinkedIn. You can use a company logo or even a graphic.
- That’s all it takes to set up the very basics. You can use the “Settings” tab to add details to your profile, including a web address, as well as design the look of your Twitter background.
Now what?
Now the fun begins. You need to find people to “follow.” The social media networks are making it much easier to cross-connect. The easiest way to get started is to find connections from other social media networking sites and/or your email address contacts lists to see who you know that is using Twitter. If you are on LinkedIn, add your new Twitter account to your LinkedIn profile. When asked, “allow” Twitter to connect to your LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn just added a “Tweets” section to their site that shows which of your LinkedIn connections are on Twitter and those that you are following.
Another easy way to find people to follow is to check out “lists.” On my Twitter profile page, I have created multiple lists of Twitter users as a way to categorize them. One list is made up of Tweeters who live in Minnesota; another includes those who tweet about Las Vegas deals (great if you are planning a trip); and another lists people who tweet about topics of interest to small businesses,
One caveat: Don’t think of Twitter as too personal. Unlike Facebook or LinkedIn, it really doesn’t matter if you know the people that you are following or that are following you. You can follow politicians, CEOs, friends, family members, industry leaders, and individuals from across the globe — and they, in turn, can follow you. That’s part of the fun!
More info
If you are hesitant to set up a Twitter account, you can check it out first. Click on the image on the left to go directly to Twitter. Without signing up, you’ll be able to see, in real time, some of the people using Twitter as well as a collection of “ Top Tweets.” I look forward to having you follow me on Twitter. I’ll reciprocate and follow you back.  RCE7FBKYKTWZ
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