15 WAYS TO GROW · PAGE 1

INTRODUCTION
Social media marketing
is nothing new,
but recent developments have made it a challenge to keep
up with its ever-evolving technology. Some marketers adapt
quickly finding the perfect place to both grow their business and
become thought leaders.

Thought leaders across the world of business routinely come

together to collaborate, share, and contest their views on social
media.

We’ve compiled the advice of some of the top innovators in

marketing. We hope you’ll follow their lead, and watch your
marketing business grow to the next level.

Our eBook contributors are powerful

innovators in the marketing world and
attract quite an impressive audience,
with over one million followers!
SCOTT GINSBERG KAMI HUYSE
World record holder, author, speaker and Founder of Zoetica Media.
nametag wearer.
TAMARA MENDOZA
MARY C LONG Freelancer for small businesses nationwide.
Chief Ghost at Digital Media Ghost.
WILL BLUNT
ROBERT CARUSO Founder of BloggerSidekick and Chief
Founder and CEO of Bundle Post. Contributor at Bluewire Media.

KENNY NGUYEN DAVE KERPEN

CEO and Founder of Big Fish Presentations. New York Times best-selling author and founder
of Likeable Local.
PHYLLIS KHARE
Author and co-creator of Social Media
Manager School.

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SCOT T GINSBERG
Scott Ginsberg is the
only person in the
world who wears a
nametag 24-7. Even
to bed. Since 1999,
he’s been an Author.
Speaker. Strategist.
Filmmaker. Publisher.
Songwriter. World
Record Holder.

“ 1. Throw Away Your To Do List and

Start a Victory Log
We all need concrete evidence of progress. Positive
reinforcement that makes us more inclined to take further
action. I once consulted with the president of a boutique web
development firm. They rented my brain to help develop a
culture of innovation. Not just people generating ideas, but
also rapidly executing on those ideas. My recommendation
was to create a company wide victory log. A real time register
of individual executions to emotionally invigorate the team and
keep momentum alive. The team dusted off an old computer
screen that wasn’t being used, mounted it on the wall and
kept a visual record of daily progress. A digital log that posted
concrete evidence of people’s victories, big and small.

The firm’s president said the screen completely shifted the

mindset of the office. It helped tip the scales toward happiness,
boosted people’s confidence and encouraged employees to
celebrate all of their executions. That’s the power of the victory
log. It’s designed to empower you with the daily successes you
create. It trains your brain to recall your achievements, plants

”
the positive in your mind and reminds you just how successful
you really are. That’s something a to do list can’t do.

15 WAYS TO GROW · PAGE 3

“1. Throw Away Your To Do List and
Start a Victory Log”

Victory In Action:
At Likeable Local, we celebrate our daily
achievements with a “Moment of Rock!” We
gather both of our offices together to celebrate
achieved goals and special accomplishments.

How can your company celebrate your success

in a fun and meaningful way?

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MARY C LONG
Mary C. Long is Chief
Ghost at Digital Media
Ghost, a marketing,
ghostwriting and
professional reputation
consultancy for brands
and individuals seeking
tangible results for
their online efforts.
She is also a ninja.

“ 2. Meaningfully Connect
The key to growth is relationships. If you don’t know
who the influencers are in your industry - find out - and
connect meaningfully with them. Meaningfully how? Have
conversations. Offer insight without being asked - and
without trying to sell. And then nurture those relationships by
interacting regularly and identifying adjacencies and ways to
potentially collaborate. Successful businesses - even those
occupying the same space - view competition differently,
because they know there’s more than enough work to go

”
around and winning together is easier than going it alone!

Make Connections Concrete:

Partner with the best in your industry in a mutually
beneficial way. At Likeable Local, helping and
empowering small businesses is our goal. We’ve
partnered with companies from Business Expos
to SCORE and provided education to develop
relationships for both parties.

Who can you connect with?

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 ROBERT CARUSO
Robert is a long-time
marketing and social
media professional
listed on Forbes
and PR Daily for his
expertise. He is the
co-founder and
CEO of the patented
BundlePost.com social
curation and content
management software
used by brands and
marketers worldwide
to improve social
media efficiency,
effectiveness and

“
results.

3. Increase Your Integration

With the increasing content and social media noise, small
businesses must place increased emphasis and resources on
consistent digital marketing integration.

2015 now requires even SMB’s to strategically and consistently

create and curate relevant content, that:
• starts conversations
• build relationships
• drives the sales funnel.

Companies should focus on blogging, graphic creation,

relevant content curation and all at increasing levels. These
components must integrate together strategically with clear
objectives. Failure to rise above the noise of the massive

”
content sites and establish clear objectives, processes and
execution in these areas will negatively affect your ability to
realize results long-term.
Some of our Likeable
Partners have recently added
social media management to
their diverse product offering
through our Certified Partner
Program. Learn more at
LikeablePartners.com

15 WAYS TO GROW · PAGE 6

“3. Increase Your Integration”

What to integrate?
How can your blog, email, marketing, social media, and
content resources intertwine? Try both co-promoting
and adding share links or calls-to-action!

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KENNY NGUYEN
Kenny Nguyen is the
CEO/Founder of Big
Fish Presentations,
a company whose
mantra is “turning
presentations into
experiences.” His
presentation tips
have been featured
on popular news
outlets such as TEDx,
Forbes, Entrepreneur,
and more. He and his
team are currently
producing “The Big
Fish Experience,”
detailing their

“
experiences on
presentations.
3. Find Emotional Points to Tell a Story
In 2015, storytelling will play a huge factor in how brands relate
to customers. Finding emotional points and telling them in
captivating ways through stories on why your business does
what it does to current customers and prospects will keep
people emotionally connected to you.

Today, competitors to your small businesses grow left and right.

While you may offer the same products, you never will have the
same exact story. Let that be your selling point on why you get
them the most. Great stories feature three elements:

1. A Villain – The villain is the problem that hurts your

customers’ quality of life. Characterize the villain in a real
dastardly way and let the customer know what happens if
the villain prevails.

2. A Hero – Your solution. Give the backstory of the hero

and how the hero rose up to fight the villain. Let the
customer be part of the hero’s journey to prevail and how
by believing in your solution, the world can be a better
place.

15 WAYS TO GROW · PAGE 8

 3. Suspense – Your story should never be flat lined it
should have action throughout. From what happens
when the villain is introduced, to what happens when
the villain and hero confront, lead your customer
on a tale that will help them not only make a logical
decision, but also one that feels good emotionally as
they helped joined the quest of the hero.

”
Great brands that get storytelling suspense and
creating adventure are brands like Nike, TOMS, and
Charity Water.

Our villain,
Reachageddon (the
end of organic reach
on Facebook) is a
terrifying thing for
small business. Luckily
our social media
solution comes in to
save the day as their
hero. Our suspense?
No one knows what
new restrictions will
happen next!

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PHYLLIS KHARE
Phyllis Khare is the
author of Social
Media Marketing
eLearning Kit for
Dummies and co-
author of Facebook
Marketing All-In-One
for Dummies 1st and
2nd Editions. She’s
been ranked as one
of the “Top 10 Social
Media Bloggers you
must follow!” on

“
SocialAppsHQ and
consistently ranks in
the top half of the Top
100 Marketing Book
Authors on Twitter.
Along with Andrea
Vahl, Phyllis created
an online learning
center called Social
Media Manager School
with students from
all over the world.
Also she’s the creator
of TimeBliss.ME, an
innovative way online
entrepreneurs can use
Google Calendar for
time management.
5. Control Your Calendar -- Control
Your Productivity
Time management isn’t a sexy topic, but it IS the kingpin of
everything you do and how you feel about your work. Do
this ONE thing and you’ll have the ability to change your
relationship to TIME (especially if you feel overwhelmed and
anxious about your work):
Start by putting everything on a physical time slot on
a calendar. Everything. Every little bit of work, every
appointment, every phone call, every part of everything
you do. You will quickly see that you probably don’t have a
realistic relationship to the limits of Time.
When you live a calendar-based life you’ll see very clearly
where you need to outsource, when you need to let go of
unproductive tasks and how you overbooked yourself causing

”
your own experience in life. Control your calendar -- control
your productivity.

15 WAYS TO GROW · PAGE 10

“5. Control Your Calendar -- Control
Your Productivity”

These are a few of our favorite apps...

Our Likeable Partners use the

Likeable Local App to save time
while working for their clients.
Visit LikeablePartners.com
to learn more!

15 WAYS TO GROW · PAGE 11

KAMI HUYSE
Kami Watson Huyse is
the founder and CEO
of Zoetica, a digital
marketing and public
relations agency.
Zoetica specializes in
helping companies
with a national
and international
footprint to contribute
meaningfully, build
community, and drive

“
measureable business
results. A 20-year-
veteran of public
relations, she speaks
at social media events
and conferences
across the country.
Her work in social
media has earned her
two Society for New
Communications
Research Social
Media awards and
IABC’s Gold Quill of
Excellence Award. She
is the author of How
to Use Social Media
Win Business and Find
Influencers.
6. Be Useful
Add value to the field and find ways to help your clients, peers
and competitors. How to be useful. Yes, I did say, “help your
competitors.” Marketing is an ever-evolving field, and none of
us have the corner on the market for knowledge. Being a part
of a vibrant community of peers will only help your business
in the long term.
Always keep learning, then share what you learn. This is
a great way to create content to elevate your business,
including blog posts, social media updates and your
newsletter. If you wonder how it is done, so will others. It will
make you a thought leader in your field and your company
will be sought out for its ideas. Create an email newsletter
that people actually want to open. Make sure it is short, sweet
and something people can’t believe they don’t have to pay
for. Be sure you have an offering in every newsletter that
will help people. In doing so, you will grow your business

”
exponentially and have a huge mailing list that will serve you
well over time.

15 WAYS TO GROW · PAGE 12

“6. Be Useful”

Sometimes, being useful means giving value for free.

For example, Likeable Local’s resource center has dozens of free
eBooks and webinars (like this one) for download. Being useful helps
your prospects and customers trust you and helps you drive awareness.

15 WAYS TO GROW · PAGE 13

TAMARA MENDOZA
Tamara learned the
value of Social Media
at a young age. As a
freelancer, she has
already helped several
small businesses
located in different
countries, but mostly
in the United States.
More companies are
now becoming aware
on the importance
of measurement and
ROI. She loves learning
new things and
watching trends, and
tries to avoid saying
‘no’ to anyone needing
help.

“ 7. Analyze Your Social Success

Appropriately
How much reach and traffic you get after a month? How many
potential leads were you able to convert into sales? Did you
respond to all of the people who talk about you? Any positive or
negative feedbacks from them? There are so many helpful tools
you can effectively use such as HootSuite, Sendible, Mention,
Google Analytics and a lot more. You should learn to intelligently
analyze every result you get no matter how small it is, so you will
know where you are going. I always believe everything counts and

”
everyone matters in social media.

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“7. Analyze Your Social Success
Appropriately”
With Likeable Local, our
consultants can use a master
account to monitor their
clients’ visibility and growth
all in one place. Learn more at
likeableconsultant.com!
What are you tracking?
How many looks, likes, and leads are you
getting from social? What kind of engagement
% are you striving for? How many new contacts
have you captured? Determine the metrics you
care about and find tools to track them!
15 WAYS TO GROW · PAGE 15
WILL BLUNT
Will Blunt is a blogger,
researcher and
entrepreneur. He
is the founder and
Director of Marketing
at Blogger Sidekick.
Will is the creator
of the Blog Strategy
Canvas, an easy to
use template for
developing a blog
marketing strategy,
and has been
featured on HubSpot,
MarketingProfs, Social
Media Today and

“
Business2Community
as a blogger. He is the
Chief Contributor at
Bluewire Media, one of
Smart Company’s Top
25 Business Blogs in
Australia.
8. Diversify Your Content
Internet users consume a lot of content every day, and many
of your customers will choose a variety of mediums to access
that content. In order to command their attention you need
to create consistently quality content across a select few
mediums that target their daily behavior. To save you energy
a great tactic is to dedicate your time to researching and
writing the best, longest and most engaging blog content you
can. But don’t just hit publish and think your work is done.
Squeeze every last drip out of the work you have done by
re-purposing your blog content in different forms. More high
quality content spread across a diverse set of platforms will
attract a bigger audience to your website, and increase your
chance of converting them into customers.

15 WAYS TO GROW · PAGE 16

 Here are 6 ways to re-purpose your well-researched blog
posts to capture a more engaged audience for your business.
Pick the ones that fit your skill set and customers’ online
behavior.

1. E-mail newsletters (Don’t underestimate the power of

your email list. Nurture them into customers)
2. Video (Don’t obsess about the quality. For example the
iPhone camera captures some nice video)
3. Social media (Pick a couple of social networks that fit
your style, don’t over commit)
4. Infographics (An online tool such as Piktochart is
helpful if you don’t have a design background)
5. Presentations (You can distribute these on a platform
such as SlideShare or Prezi)
6. Downloadable templates, checklists and e-books (Give
away free resources in exchange for an email address)
Bonus Tip: Don’t spread yourself too thin. These are
just some suggestions for the content you could create
to engage a wide audience. But as a small business it is
important to focus on the 2 or 3 that provide the biggest

”
impact.

Repurposing In Action:
Here, we took our most
popular blog post in
company history and
repurposed that into a
slideshare presentation.
From there, we asked
the 150 top marketers to
follow in ‘15 to contribute
some ideas and tips to look
out for this year. Now we
are listing those tips into
an ebook you are reading
right now!

15 WAYS TO GROW · PAGE 17

DAVE KERPEN
Entrepreneur,
author, and speaker,
Dave Kerpen is the
founder and CEO of
Likeable Local and
the cofounder and
Chairman of Likeable
Media. He is the NY
Times Best selling
author of Likeable
Social Media, Likeable
Business, and Likeable
Leadership. His fourth
book is currently in
the works, The Art of
People.

“
The #1 LinkedIn
Influencer of all time
in page views, his
reach has surpassed 9. Don’t tell your customers to “Like”
Bill Gates, Jack Welch, you and “Follow” you, tell them why
Mark Cuban, and and how they should
Barack Obama, Everywhere you turn, you see “Like us on Facebook” and
“Follow us on Twitter”. Huh? Why? How? Give your customers
He has been featured
a reason to connect with you on social networks, answering
on CNBC’s “On the
the question “What’s in it for me?” and then make it incredibly
Money”, BBC, ABC
World News Tonight, easy to do so. Note the difference between these two calls to
action: “Like our page on Facebook” vs. “Get answers to your

”
the CBS Early Show,
the New York Times, questions on our Facebook page.
and countless blogs, as
one of Entrepreneur’s
top 10 up and coming
leaders.

He is the father of 2
beautiful girls, husband
to an amazing
business partner, and
friend to many.

15 WAYS TO GROW · PAGE 18

“9. Don’t tell your customers to
“Like” you and “Follow” you, tell
them why and how they should”

Consistently post
new and exciting
tips and tidbits for
your followers on
social media. Soon,
you’ll have yourself
a loyal and engaged
following.

15 WAYS TO GROW · PAGE 19

DAVE KERPEN

“ 10. Listen first and never stop listening

Before your first tweet, search Twitter for people talking about
your company and your competitors. Search using words that your
prospective customers would say as well. For example, real estate
agents should use Twitter and Facebook to search for people using
the words “looking for a realtor” or “need to find a good home” in
your town. Or if you’re a gifts boutique, search “need a creative gift.”
You’ll be surprised how many people are already looking for you.

”
Your customers are out there! Go find them.

15 WAYS TO GROW · PAGE 20

DAVE KERPEN

“ 11. Be Authentic
Your customers don’t want to read impersonal posts and sales offers
all day. Instead, be human and be yourself. Are you sponsoring a
Little League team in your town? Share it with your fans! Know a few
jokes related to your industry? Tell them! Write posts that show your
company’s personality and watch your online community begin to

”
engage and grow.

Example:
During NYC’s huge blizzard we took some time to break
out the orange thumbs and play in the snow.

15 WAYS TO GROW · PAGE 21

DAVE KERPEN

“ 12. Why ask questions?

Wondering why nobody’s responding to your posts on Facebook?
It’s probably because you’re not asking questions. Social media
is about engagement and having a conversation, not about self-
promotion. If a store posts on Facebook, “Come in and see what’s
on the sale today,” nobody will comment and nobody will come in.
If that same store posts a question as simple as “What’s your favorite
gift you’ve ever bought?” and attaches a great picture, people will be
more likely to comment online and engage with the company. More

”
engagement leads to more views and trust which leads to more
sales!

Start a
conversation
and your
followers will
answer!

15 WAYS TO GROW · PAGE 22

DAVE KERPEN

“ 13. Surprise and delight your customers

Want to bring more attention to your company’s social media pages
and become more likeable overall? Figure out ways to surprise
and delight your customers on a regular basis. Offer contests and
raffles or encourage your community to join the conversation for
a chance to win local gift cards that show off a town’s personality.
Remember, free is like magic and a delighted customer will share

”
their experience with friends and family.

Our followers were invited to enter to win a chance

to the Bahamas! If that’s not surprising, we don’t
know what is.

15 WAYS TO GROW · PAGE 23

DAVE KERPEN

“ 14. Look for Support Among Your Peers

Even if you have the greatest partner in the world, running a business
is one of the loneliest jobs on the market. It’s lonely at the top
because nobody can understand what you’re going though. Joining
Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) in 2010 contributed hugely to
the growth of my first company. EO is the world’s largest peer-to-
peer network of CEOs, and its most important element is monthly
meetings with a small group of fellow entrepreneurs called Forum.
My Forum of seven people has become one of the most important

”
resources in my business and life, my closest friends, and a great
support system.

My wife Carrie,
remains one of
my strongest
pillars of support.
If you don’t
have someone
you can trust
absolutely,
you’re missing
the best tool
there is!

15 WAYS TO GROW · PAGE 24

DAVE KERPEN

“ 15. Just Be Likeable

What do your customers say when they talk about YOUR
company with their friends and family? Do they rave about easy
communication, effective listening and great results? Or will they
have less than savory things to say? Is your customer service
immaculate? Are there displays of community awards? What about
your company is remarkable? Make your company #Likeable and

”
your business will boom as a result!

At Likeable Local our Core Values include

1. We are passionate about small business.
2. Our customer’s success is our success.
3. Always be improving.
4. Our work is fun.
5. We are driven to create a #LikeableWorld

15 WAYS TO GROW · PAGE 25

WHAT’S NEXT?
Want to learn more about how Likeable Local
can help your business grow? Reach out to us
and schedule a free social media consultation
with a member of our team. Just because you
downloaded this eBook, you get one month for
free! Mention #LikeablePartners when you speak
to use and save!

Call Us At:
212-359-4347

Email Us At:
contact@LikeableLocal.com

Facebook:
Facebook.com/LikeableLocal

Twitter:
Twitter.com/LikeableLocal

Web:
LikeableLocal.com or
LikeablePartners.com

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