Google Finally Catches Up and Offers Personalized URLs

Google announced today that it will finally offer personalized URL's to established accounts.  For those of us in the social media industry, this is a long time coming.  Most of the other mainstream social media platforms allow you to personalize your URL, which makes it easier to brand, copy and tell others what your Google + account is!

The accounts that will be eligible for these URL's are established accounts that have these qualifications;

1. The account must be at least 30 days old.
2. The account must have at least 10 followers.
3. The account must have a profile picture.

Not to much to ask for, for some personalization!  Way to go Google!!

Value of a Social Media Marketer

Whether you are working for a company handling all of their social media marketing, or own your own consulting practice offering the same to your clients, we all at one time or another have come up against those that still do not believe in the power of social media marketing.

I can't blame them really.  Especially those that have been brought up in the trenches of traditional marketing.  Give me a really great email marketing list and press release service, a think-tank of creative minds that put together an incredible marketing plan and you've got all you need, right?

Not anymore.  If you have a business today and aren't online, you are missing the boat.

How do you prove your worth as a social media marketer?  How do you convince your company to participate in (and budget for) social media marketing?

Gather your data and create a cohesive presentation before you march into their office to prove your worth.  Research current statistics that will give you information about return-on-investment for your company.  Conduct searches specific to your industry and how social media has benefited other companies.

Decide what the marketing goals of the company are.  Do they want to increase revenues?  Are they more interested in creating buzz about their products?   Are they open to having contests and giveaways?  How much flexibility will they give you to market their company?  Once you find out what their goals are, start outlining how you are going to achieve those goals through your social media efforts.

Most companies want to see a return on their investment.  Some will ask for a guarantee in numbers of followers or increased sales.  This is not something we do and will address this in another post.  To prove your worth, you are going to have to measure your effectiveness in other terms, such as visibility across the internet, increased followers, increased engagement with potential customers, etc. 

Keep in mind that for every company that doesn't see the value in hiring a social media consultant, there is another one waiting in the wings to utilize the power of social media to grow their business.  

Success means we go to sleep at night knowing that our

 talents and abilities

 were used in a way that served others. 

~ Marianne Williamson

How Do You Find Your Clients?

Here at ScribeTree, we are continually trying to update our skills, stay on top of the latest software platforms that will help us help our clients better and find time to get a little reading in on the side.  Right now we are reading "The Tao of Pooh" while we are going through a series of workshops.  This lead us to the quote that you see on the image above.  It begs the question, "how do you find your clients?".  

We'd like to hear from you.  What sources do you use, what websites do you frequent, what events do you attend?  What works for you and what doesn't.

We all love to help people, but how do we find them to begin?