I'm looking for an experienced social professional with experience in educational & cultural social impact projects. Any platforms to search?

Hi! Happy to answer this question. Initially, I'd ask "what are you tracking at present?" And "what are your goals?" Software wise, I love to use a few tools for Twitter. Hootsuite to schedule relevant content (and not all tweets should be scheduled--happy to touch on this more), Tweetreach to get a feel for impressions/influencers who HAVE been engaging (in my mind, impressions are KEY, more so than Follower count because hashtags can help you reach more people) and Sprout Social for a more in depth view of your Twitter analytics. Getting more visibility/followers: what hashtags are you using? How often do you acknowledge those who follow you (new followers vs existing followers)? Are you just sharing autoscheduled content and links OR are you creating conversations? Hashtags wise: find those that have a community already centered around them! *You don't want to "hashtag hijack" however, tags like #smallbiz #blogchat #_________ specific to your industry or ideal client's industry can go a long way. Other tools that people use to track community and engagement include Sum All, and Commun It https://commun.it/ Once you start tracking impressions (and monitoring growth vs plateaus) you can then go back and look at your content to see which posts generated the most response/engagement. Again, just want to emphasize that creating conversations and asking questions are great methods to do all of the things you are looking to accomplish.

Start with creating your USP (aka Message). This message will be the statement that sums up the reasons for doing business with you from THEIR perspective based on what THEY want (versus why YOU think they should do business with you). It may feature a unique ability your company can provide - some feature or benefit or experience that they either can't get anywhere else or that you do better than anyone else - and I'd strongly suggest it NOT be based on your low pricing. To do this - get very clear about what pain (or problem) your business gets rid of (or solves) and what promise you make to your market. For example: When you say "excellent quality" and "affordable"... what exactly does that mean and why should your market care? -How will they KNOW it's "excellent" (according to them)? And do they want excellent? Maybe they want fast... -What does "quality" mean and how will they know? If you fix my cellphone and it works... How is that qualitatively different from anyone else fixing my phone? Isn't fixed the same as fixed? -What is "affordable"? And affordable for whom? Lastly - When you say "specialize" - and then say cellphone and tablet repair... Does that mean you specialize in ALL cellphones and tablets? Because when you say "cellphones and tablets" it sounds more like you generalize in a type of handheld electronic product. A specialist is an expert in a small area of products or services. Think deep and narrow. For example - You can specialize in repairing a certain brand - Such as "we specialize exclusively in the repair of Samsung cellphones and tablets"... Or you can specialize in the repair of devices running on the Android platform.... (you get the idea) Once you find your USP - use it in all of your inbound and outbound marketing platforms. I wish you the best of luck in your marketing efforts! -David

Hi there! In few words, the launch date does not matter a lot as long as you are following with a continuous marketing plan all the year. It is better to tune your lunch date according to your marketing campaign than connecting it to the seasonal event. The timing of your launch only matters if your website is already ranked or has a good authority associated to it. Launching a website is not like opening a local shop. The launch date is defined by the effectiveness of your marketing campaign. In other words, your question must be rephrased as: "When is the best time to launch my first marketing campaign for my newly created website?". In that case, you will need to describe in details what kind of website you have and how are you planning to market it. I would be able to give you a more accurate answer if you explain to me what kind of website are you planning to launch or what products mainly are you selling. Hope that helps!

It can certainly be tough to build up a substantial follower base, starting from nothing or very little, especially if you haven't launched your product yet. But here are a few tactics to help you get in front of more people pre-launch: 1) Start sharing tons of useful content. Before you bother sending people to your Twitter feed or Facebook page, you want to make sure they'll find something valuable once they get there. If you have the time, create original content that ties into your industry, your product, or your company in some way (without directly promoting yourself, though). If you don't have the bandwidth to create your own content, find other articles from bloggers you admire or experts in your industry, and share their content. Just make sure you're putting out information that's highly relevant and valuable to the audience you're trying to attract so you can engage them once they find you. 2) Create conversation. The people who aren't following you yet aren't seeing your tweets, so how do you show them value and get them to discover you? Start a conversation! At Change Collective, we're rolling out our first course on Becoming an Early Riser. So I'll do a Twitter search for "need to wake up earlier" and find a bunch of people who are tweeting about the exact problem we're setting out to solve. By favoriting their tweets or replying with -- "That's great! We think we can help - check out our newest course & let us know what you think!" -- I'm getting our product on their radar and simultaneously providing value to them. 3) Ask for help. Start with your fellow team members, and ask them to share the company's Facebook posts or retweet some of your tweets. You can even create lazy tweets for them to share. What about your board members? Advisors? VCs? They all have a stake in helping your company grow awareness and adoption, so find an easy and appropriate way for them to help by leveraging their networks. And if you have friends and family who are excited about your business and supportive of what you're doing, they probably won't mind a friendly request to help spread the news every once in a while. Hope this helps! I just joined an early-stage startup and I'm currently building up our marketing from scratch. Happy to jump on a call and offer some tips from the trenches if you'd like. Best of luck!

I might suggest starting with Bitly and exploring the possibility of getting a custom branded shortener, which you can set up through Bitly once the domain is purchased. For example, my website is philpallen.com but I shorten all links to philp.al/link so it's more professional. I feel like many other shorteners look like spam, but I'd say your safe with Bitly because it's widely used. A custom one would be even better!