intuit / michelle long: social media and small business

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Using Social Media to Grow Your Business

July 25, 2009

Long for SuccessSmall Business Town Hall

Agenda

• What is social media?

• How can it help grow my business?

• Success stories

• Getting started

• Q&A – approx 30 minutes

This is the first of many Long for Success Town Halls THANK YOU for participating!

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Special Guests

• Michelle L. Long, CPA

– Author of Successful QuickBooks Consulting

– M. Long Consulting, LLC

• Chris Kim

– Social Marketing

Manager, Intuit Payroll

• Dante Layton

– Dante Layton, Inc.

• Ruth Perryman

– The QB Specialists

Your Biz

Blog

What is Social Media?

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Blogging

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How can it help me Grow my Business?

• Another marketing method• Focus on your target market & how to

reach them• Provided useful and relevant content• Be consistent and persistent

• Benefits:– Create Brand Awareness / Name

Recognition– Build Credibility– Get new clients or customers

Twitter Success Story

• http://twitter.com/ruthperryman

• 17,000+ followers (growing about 300/day)

• Clients acquired – Cybertary, Your Virtual Assistant, affiliate link purchases

• Key Tips

– Don’t just post ads

– Follow everyone back

– Leave room for retweets

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How to Engage in Profitable Conversations

• Promotion

• Conversation

• Idea

• Results

Using an RSS Reader• What is an RSS Reader?

• A free website or application that aggregates and updates numerous sites into a single place

• What are the benefits? • Time Saving: The content comes to you vs. having to visit each site

individually• Fresh Content: Content is updated in real time• Easy Organization: Allows you to organize sites into folders, similar to

Outlook

• What are my choices? • Web-based (eg, Google Reader)• Stand-alone app (eg, FeedDemon)• Plug-in (eg, MS Outlook, Internet Explorer)

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How to subscribe• Click on the “RSS” icon

on a given web page

• 2 ways to subscribe:1. Often a 1-click option

to add to Google Reader

2. Copy/paste option• Copy the RSS Feed URL • Click “New

subscription” or “add feed” in your reader

• Paste the RSS Feed URL

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For a short video on RSS go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU

What to subscribe to?

• News sites• Blogs• Twitter

– Create keyword searches such as• QuickBooks • #QBtip• Any other topics of interest

• Community Forums, eg:– Intuit Community– Yahoo Answers (keyword searches)– Other forums you participate in

• Google Alerts

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Final Thoughts• Do NOT post anything online that you

would not want a customer or client to see

• Always maintain your business image at all times

• Provide useful and relevant information• Q&A – Request to Speak or type in Chat

Window– Michelle – mlong@mlongconsulting.com– Chris – Chris_kim@intuit.com– Dante – Dante@dantelayton.com– Ruth – Ruth@theQBSpecialists.com