Social Media and Your Business
How can we help you?
Without a doubt, Social Media is the way that businesses must do business in order to survive in the 21st century. At The Chamber, we are dedicating to helping your business take advantage of this new communications medium through a variety of free and low-cost tools.
Don’t believe that Social Media is necessary? Check out these statistics:
• Facebook: Over 500 million members with 250 million daily users. It’s fastest growing demographic is those who are 35 and older – in other words, Facebook isn’t just for kids!
• LinkedIn: Over 85 million members, including one from every Fortune 500 company. Growing at a rate of one member per second.
• Twitter: Over 145 million members, with a growth rate of nearly 1400% in 2009. The top Twitter demographic are those aged 45-54.
• YouTube: Over 125 million visitors a month and two billion videos viewed a day. Approximately 15% of the data consumption in the world is from people watching YouTube videos.
• Blogging: Over 112 million Americans read blogs on a regular basis. 26 million Americans have blogs and update them at least monthly.
How can we help you?
Free Services: If you are a Chamber Member, there are multiple free services that you can take advantage of, including:
• Member of the Day: If you have a particular event, special, press release or member-to-member discount that you want to promote, we are happy to help you do so! All you have to do is E-mail me the details and we can make you our “Member of the Day.” For this, we’ll put a link to your website and special event/press release on the top of our blog and in our Facebook & Twitter status.
• Guest Blog Post: Every Friday, we try to run a guest blog post (http://lehighvalleychamber.blogspot.com). This is where we turn our blog over to our members and allow them to write about a topic of their choosing. It is not an opportunity to just advertise and promote your business. Rather, it is where our members can talk about an area that is off importance to them and their industry, provide information about a topic, position themselves as an expert in their field and gain exposure to our blog readers in the process.
• Link on the Blog: Let us know your website URL or Blog address and we will happily add it to the link list on our blog.
Low Cost Service:
• Suggestion Service: We have over 3,900 friends on our Facebook profile. With this service, we will take your business fan page or event and invite all of our friends to become fans of your page or attend your event. If you actively use Facebook as part of your promotional and marketing strategy, this is a great way of gaining additional fans and exposure. The cost for this service is $100.
Training Services:
The Chamber holds special training classes, once a month, on Social Media-related topics. Below is a list of upcoming trainings:
Consulting Services:
The Chamber is at the forefront in assisting our members in adapting to and embracing the rapid rise in the usage of Social Media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Blogging. As part of these efforts, we are pleased to offer affordable Customized Training and Strategic Planning Options for your business.
Services: There are two key aspects to this proposal – customizability and flexibility. We are pleased to offer any or all of the following services, including:
1. Training Options for you and your staff: We create customized trainings for you and your staff. All trainings can be done at your facility and handouts are provided. Options include:
a. How to operate Social Media platforms.
b. How to use Social Media to generate leads and sales.
c. Best practices for protecting your privacy online.
d. Content creation and use on Social Media.
2. Strategic Plan Development: The Chamber will provide your organization with an overview of available Social Media platforms and a step-by-step guide to use each of these tools, along with a step-by-step implementation matrix to guide you through the initial creation and ongoing maintenance.
3. Social Media Policy Development: Many companies have yet to develop a Social Media Policy that governs employees’ usage during the workday and protects the business and owner. The development of a Social Media Policy can help mediate these concerns.
4. Ongoing Operation: Many businesses simply don’t have the time or staff capacity to operate a robust Social Media plan. The Chamber can execute your plan for you, based on your business’ needs.
For questions, pricing and availability, contact Mike Schlossberg – mikes@lehighvalleychamber.org – 484-809-1796.
The Chamber’s Social Media Contact:
Mike serves as the Assistant Vice President of Technical & Community Management for the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce, the 9th largest Chamber of Commerce in America. In that capacity, Mike trains small business owners to use Social Media and increase their profits. Mike has literally taught thousands of business professionals, from one-person shops to companies that employ over 2,000. Mike’s classes have run the gamut of Social Media, instructing on everything from using Social Media to increase leads and sales, providing value-added content and creating comprehensive Social Media Marketing Plans. In addition to his classes, Mike lectures on a regular basis to a variety of businesses sectors, including realtors, insurance agents, retail store operators, students and the unemployed. Mike also provides individual consulting to interested businesses.
Mike Schlossberg – mikes@lehighvalleychamber.org – (484) 809-1796