Social: Farewell to #InternJaylene!

I'm so sad to have to bid farewell to my intern, Jaylene! In our time together this summer, Jay earned her Inbound Marketing certification from HubSpot, researched and set up CRM systems, social media scheduling tools, and other business programs, learned about the latest social media trends, helped with some content creation & distribution, and got hands-on experience dealing with the real-life digital marketing needs of small business owners. I got significant help organizing my business, learned how letting go and finally delegating some things can make me MUCH better at my job, and got my feet wet as a manager (I'd never managed anyone before Jay). I'm sad that our time together is at an end, but I'll be happy to recommend Jay for her first post-collegiate job when she graduates in December, and I'm looking forward to getting some things accomplished with my next intern this fall!

Once we got past the technical difficulties, Jay shared a bit about what she's learned this summer, and gave us her thoughts on inbound marketing (spoiler alert: inbound marketing is awesome).

Social - the scoop from #MRCCSocial!

Happy Friday! Today we had an awesome episode of Social with the amazing Karen Accavello of Human Touch Media, LLC & my intern Jaylene Kessler (#InternJaylene) discussing our experience and learnings from yesterday’s Mahwah Regional Chamber of Commerce Social Media Day (#MRCCSocial)!

(ICYMI, I did a workshop called Rock your Personal Brand - see full presentation & materials here - and live tweeted from the conference – my Storify threads will be released on the blog next week, since I need to give you all a rest from my content for two seconds!)

Here are some of the key takeaways from this morning’s conversation at Jane:

- Everyone is distracted. There is so much going on in every consumer’s life, so you have to make it your goal to truly capture their attention and give them a reason to actually be interested in what you’re saying. Your goal is to cause the consumer to call to action, whether that means purchasing your product or just checking out your website. Set attainable goals, and have a plan to draw the consumer in!

- Engage, don’t sell! Offer something to the consumer, don’t just try to sell them your product or service. Don’t keep your information to yourself! Offer something of value (example: how to video, DIY, etc.), which in return will cause consumers to trust and like you because you have given them this knowledge for free!

- Don’t try to force consumers to sign up for an email marketing list until you tell them everything your emails will offer them. Without a benefit for THEM, they will not give anything to YOU! Keep everything short, sweet, engaging, and professional!

-Build a TRIBE, don’t just try to generate sales. Quantity is not as important as QUALITY! Your following isn’t as important as the loyalty they give to you and they trust you build with them!

-Keep your email subjects short, to the point, and as vital as they truly are. Don’t tell someone your email is URGENT, when it actually isn’t at all... this will break trust between you and the recipient as well as make your future emails extremely invaluable.

We all learned so much, and got to network with so many amazing people – can’t wait for Social Media Day 2018! (Pattie, FYI, I definitely want to come back as a speaker!)