The Scriptus Blog

The greatest thing about social media and blogs is that it takes very little time to cut and paste a link, then add a few comments. But the impact can be huge, especially if you have multiple social media sites working together to get the word out to everyone in your network.

For more information about online marketing and creating social media profiles, please contact Scriptus.

Scriptus worked furiously through the holidays and January, but let our new site fall by the wayside. Now, we’re back at it: updating the blog, editing text, adding and removing products as necessary, and even getting into the social media game. There is no better way to uniquely promote your business in the current climate than by getting busy online (in the most professional way possible). 

LinkedIn is the most straightforward and accessible business networking site. Simply create an account, follow the prompts to generate a profile (which is really an electronic resume), then search for colleagues and contacts with whom to connect. Once they “accept” you as contacts, search their contact lists for familiar names, or folks you think might be useful for job-searching, partnering, mentoring, and anything else you can think of. And don’t forget to add new contacts who you meet at work, networking events, expos, and others. Then, add your LinkedIn profile link to your email signature, your website, your blog, and other social media profiles. This will boost your visibility, keep you in the mind of contacts, and help with SEO for your name and business. Here is Heather Graham’s LinkedIn profile.

Facebook and MySpace are a little less easy to navigate if your purpose is business promotion. That’s why they are called “social” media; they exist primarily to connect friends and make new ones. However, Facebook has a function for creating business pages, while MySpace is limited to bands and artists. To start promoting your biz on Facebook, create a personal profile. You are free to share as much or as little personal information as desired. Then, click on the link at the bottom of your profile to “Create a page for my business.” The steps are self-explanatory, but the idea is to get as much information about your business on that page as possible. This can include instructional videos, podcasts, event photos, upcoming event information, links to blog posts (there are many Facebook applications that can help with this), and loads of other information. Also, be sure to make your business page “public” so that it is searchable by more than just your personal Facebook friends. Then, add the link wherever possible to drive visits to your Facebook business page. A widget that will give you a “tiny url” (instead of the typical long ones) can be found on Scriptus’ Facebook page. 

Social media profiles involve writing about your business concisely and accurately, with the proper tone to match your professional style. If you have questions or are interested in outsourcing these tasks, contact Heather Graham.

The August 2008 edition of Entrepreneur magazine carried a great article (“Do the Two-Step,” p. 106) about the two best ways to generate leads for your business. No surprise, cold-calling didn’t make the list. In fact, the article was primarily written to teach entrepreneurs how to avoid the time-wasting and pride-swallowing involved in calling cold prospects.

Instead, the author suggests that written marketing materials are the number one way to excite interest and drive customers to your website, your office, and your bottom line. 

Here’s how it works:

Think about a report, list, or other educational material that will engage prospective clients and educate them about your field and services. 

For instance, a wills and trusts attorney might consider creating “Top 5 Reasons to Create Your Will as a Young Couple.” In the current economic climate, a financial advisor might consider releasing a brief demonstrating his or her proven track record over less successful firms, titled “How to Create Wealth During Economic Downturn.” Perhaps a jeweler could write a sheet describing the traditional meanings of various gemstones (“Say it with Sapphire”). Be sure to include your logo, web address, and contact information on the paper.

Then, put all of your effort into promoting that piece. Post it on your website; hand it out at networking events and tradeshows; highlight it on your business card (“Email Rick to receive our complimentary post-wedding checklist for young couples creating a will”). 

Creating a piece that people considering your services will find interesting and intriguing inevitably leads to first contact and, eventually, closed business.

So, get out your legal pad and start marketing! If you have questions or need writing help, Email Heather Graham

A fellow business professional emailed the other day to ask me for fresh, unique ways to greet clients via email. Her go-to was “It was a pleasure meeting you today.” (She’s a real estate broker and meets a number of new people every day.) She felt this greeting not only sounded stale, but, worse, disingenuous, and asked if I had some suggestions for greeting folks via email in a more exciting way.

We all fall into patterns of writing electronic communications. Some use the same salutation or closing, while others, gasp!, drop formal tone or even capitalization because they believe email to be an informal medium. 

Never mind that email is officially a legally binding communication between professionals, and that many companies keep copies of employee emails for up to several years. The real point here is that email has quickly become our primary mode of communication in the Western world. If important messages such as client follow up, thank you notes, and written agreements are zinging back and forth through cyberspace, those electronic messages should represent you as a professional in the best possible light, which includes being original and sincere.

So that was my advice to this colleague: in greeting clients (and others) via email, think for a second about what you sincerely mean to say. You’re not just glad to have met a client; you are happy for their business, grateful for the time they took to meet with you, excited about working with them further. All of these phrases ring more true than a standard opening.

And you never know: sincerity and originality might be the elements that actually close the deal for you.

Email Heather Graham

Your grandmother’s adage about sewing was to “measure twice, cut once,” meaning that once you snip that fabric, there’s no going back. Better to double-check your measurements before deciding to commit.

Sixty years later, this aphorism is more true than ever when it comes to electronic communication. Once you hit the “send” button on an email containing your resume, annual review to your boss, or final thesis paper, the likelihood of being able to take that action back is more miniscule than this writer’s understanding of how cyberspace really works.

Sure, there are a few programs that have the capability for doing a search-and-rescue to retrieve sent email. That is, if it hasn’t yet been downloaded from an email server…and if the person doesn’t have a handheld device that allowed them to read the mail one millisecond after you sent it…or if they aren’t sitting in front of their desks with one of those annoying bells on their computer that tells them every time they have incoming mail.

More likely, the only way to fix a missent email situation will involve some romantic comedy-esque shenanigans where you have to hang off the side of a 50-story building while a co-worker distracts the boss so you can infiltrate his or her office and delete the offending communication. 

And they still might have it on their BlackBerry…

Blog posts, social and business networking sites (like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and others), and web copy are even more complicated to get rid of. You may be the owner and editor of this text, but once it’s posted, people read it, link to it, and email it. They might even remember it! You can never really delete virtual content, even by taking it down.

So the lesson here, for Scriptus clients and beyond, is to read twice, and hit “send” once. Quickly proofreading even the smallest email and doing a spell check (and making sure the file is attached!) can save a lot of time and embarrassment later. Yep, we all should have listened to Nana! 

Email Heather Graham