It might not be the first thing you would think of as a means of getting potential business in the door, but you could certainly do a lot worse than to host an open house as a managed service provider. Let’s go over why you might want to put on this kind of event, as well as a few tips and ideas to help you do so.
Social media marketing has become a necessity for any company that is marketing their services and products correctly. Along with the positive customer engagement and authority gathering that comes from using social networks, microblogs, and other social media actively, being so active will eventually result in some fashion of negative press.
Small business owners must wear many hats. As a small business ourselves, we understand everything that goes into running one; even more, what goes into owning one. It’s a LOT of work, and a LOT of time and dedication is needed to keep it running smoothly while trying to have a personal life on top of it.
If you were to rank the pages of your website by importance to your clients, your first instinct might be to put your more personal pages--like your About Us and Staff pages--somewhere near the bottom of the list.
That would be a mistake.
After witnessing the viral social media impact of United Airlines most recent disaster involving forcefully removing a passenger from an overbooked airplane -- we figured it would be a good time to talk about what you can do to successfully manage a social media disaster. So, like they always say “Don’t be scared, be prepared!”
You probably recall back in 2010 when BP’s oil rig failed, discharging what was estimated to be 210 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, affecting somewhere between 2,500 to 68,000 square miles of water and coastlines. In addition to the financial burdens placed on the company (the EPA temporarily banning BP from seeking new contracts with the US government and a whopping $18.7 billion from fines - the largest corporate settlement in US history), the company’s reputation suffered - and, continues to suffer - due to poor reactions from management after the spill occurred.
There’s this off-handed idea that you only need public relations if you or your company has made some type of mistake. Kind of how no one knows about a celebrity’s PR rep until they’ve done something wrong - like cheated, lied, stolen, etc. Nowadays, that’s no longer the case. You don’t only want to be seen when something goes wrong and you have to fix it. The trick with public relations is to put enough flame-resistance out there beforehand to help lessen the intensity when something does go wrong. Your public relations are the only way you can have any control over public opinion, so you need to be sure to implement a strategy along with your marketing.
Marketing, Advertising and Public Relations, they seem pretty similar but, like these two photos below, they’re actually different and you need make sure you focus on each in itself to maximize your company’s success. It’s easy to get confused about the differences between these as they all are essentially there to promote an organization and its products. However, as a business owner, you need to understand what each area involves and how it fits into the bigger picture - your success. Here, we will break down marketing, advertising and public relations, and explain why they’re important.
