86: 7 Valuable Social Media Shortcuts

There are two halves to social media: sharing and interacting. While you can’t schedule your likes, comments, and other responses in advance, you can simplify the manner in which you collect and distribute the content you want to share. By uploading more than status updates, you can show your audience that you are a source—or at least a distributor—of engaging knowledge. Then, when you share updates about your business, these posts will have more credence and smell less like spam. You do have time for online social networking, if you use your time wisely.

85: Where Should You Advertise?

The only metric that should inform your future advertising is the collective answer to one question: “How do my bidders hear about my auctions?”

Some media will be in the budget simply to show the breadth of your campaign—to assuage sellers. But the majority of your sellers’ advertising dollars need to be going to higher ROI media, and you need to be able to sell and defend your suggested advertising outlays.

84: Will Self-service Websites Impact Your Business?

Proving where we add value and enough value to equal our fees will be one of the main challenges facing auction marketers in the future, as self-service websites attract more and more MLS agents and FSBO (For Sale By Owner) properties. Different auctioneers will have different valid answers to the question of value.

83: The Ads of Summer

We just need to ask ourselves if we’re using our advertising to advance their cause or their bravery to advance our branding.

You’ve got a summer of sports to sponsor—whether on Little League jerseys or on your nearest stadium’s JumboTron. Independence Day and Veteran’s Day are still left on the 2011 calendar, and soldiers are wearing camouflage or dress blues every minute from now until the ball drops. Show your support of these American institutions, pastimes, and heroes as you feel led. Just make sure your message is not diluted and your respect is not in question.

82: Long Distance Marketing

On a regular basis, I talk to auctioneers who are proposing and contracting auctions across state lines—in some cases across multiple time zones. Whether these auctioneers are selling for distant estates with local heirs or for banks with holdings in multiple states, they are faced with the same dilemma: how do we find buyers in geographic areas outside of our expertise?

81: Your Brand Doing the Heavy Lifting

Your company promotion can communicate something far different from what its words say. Sadly, most small business advertising says, “I’m much better at what I do than telling you what I do,” or “You need to trust that we’re more professional than our advertising makes us look.” Don’t be one of those companies.

Why I Canned biplane’s Website

The artist formerly known as biplaneproductions.com exemplified what some experts call a “brochure site” or “web 1.0.” It was good-looking with its stock photos and Flash animation; but, unlike the auction-filled sites of my clients, it didn’t have new and regular reasons to visit. While it was more than a giant PDF, it wasn’t much more than a company brochure—a brochure that my clients don’t need and that my prospects don’t have on their radar.