If you’re a small business owner, then you probably are feeling a little overwhelmed by now. Especially if you hated marketing before – you probably REALLY hate it now.
You’re probably thinking: “Everyday, I have to blog, Tweet and LinkIn. Every day….day after day…and WHAT is it getting me?”
Well, how about a little secret that will perk you up?
Psst….everyone is overwhelmed. You are NOT alone.
A little better?
OK…maybe a few ways to keep your sanity from leaking out of your ears are in order.
1. Understand WHY you are marketing and to whom those messages are intended. (Focus) Yes, yes…..as we have often discussed, everything begins and ends with STRATEGY. Really, just a fancy word for the best (most effective) pathway to your ideal customer – how you are going to do it. If you are laser-focused on your target audience, you know EXACTLY who they are, what they need from you and what you want them to DO (do you want them to call you for more information? purchase your book on your website? Join a group?) then it will be easier to determine which social media tools will work best. Think of social media/marketing as breadcrumbs. They must lead your target to that ACTION. If you find the shortest distance to your ideal customer and make that path back to action crystal clear – touchdown!
2. Schedule Yourself – Pace Yourself. If focus is the theme – then patience is the sub-theme of this article. Do not fall victim to marketing from an emotional place or you will find yourself on a very fast treadmill. If you’re thinking you need to be Facebooking and mastering Twitter and understanding StumbleUpon all this morning, then you will quickly drown. As of this writing, there are at least 300 viable, valuable social media tools out there. I give you complete and total permission – in fact, I strongly recommend – that you take on each tool, one at a time, get comfortable, figure out it’s best use for YOUR business before you move on. Your client may not be found on Facebook so easily, but on LinkedIn, now that’s better! It’s very easy to get so swamped by all that’s coming at you – make your strategy, choose the tools that work, find your customer, insert yourself into the conversation. Rinse and repeat.
3. Tools of the Trade. There are plenty of tools out there that will help you manage all this social media marketing – for example, I am a fan of Hootsuite and Hubspot’s social media software. Some very smart people have lassoed the social media landscape into these tools to make things easier for you – don’t blow them off. Some are free – some are monthly subscription and some are more expensive. There are many more out there — and we will discuss others in the future – but for now, know there are tools out there that can help you make sure you are reaching out, engaging and making the best use of social media. As you dip your toes in, see what works – and don’t buy too much in the beginning. Just be patient with yourself and your progress.
4. Givers gain. (Now where have I heard that before…hmmmm) This is more of a reminder to you as to why social media is needed in the first place — and a motivating factor when the grind of Tweeting gets too much. When you are engaging your ideal customer, you are giving. “Engaging” is the heart and soul of social media – it’s not TELLING, is conversing. It’s now all about TWO-way conversation – which is why it’s more time consuming. Giving — your knowledge, your expertise — is only helpful if you are listening first. What does your ideal client need from you? Giving of yourself, giving of your knowledge may seem like a random act in that not EVERY SINGLE person who benefits from your largesse will purchase. However, if you are crafting your social media STRATEGY correctly, a percentage of them WILL. And some of them will buy A LOT – and recommend you to others. Right back to that 80-20 rule….just like ol’ times.
P.S. The world is changing – and business is changing and the truth is, there’s not much choice but to jump on board or be left behind. The key is: focus and pace yourself. The benefits will show themselves, sometimes in surprising ways.
Does Your Blog Do “Off-Page” SEO?
May 2, 2012
By now, most of us have at least heard about SEO and we’ve been talking about it quite a lot the past few weeks or so…but there are two kinds of SEO that you can concern yourself with (possibly more, when you really think about it). There’s on-page and off-page SEO. On-page SEO is what you do to customize a blog post with header tags, keywords and images. Off-page SEO is what you need to do outside the blog to help rank the blog higher. The purpose of off-page SEO is to connect your blog with various high authority networks so the blog gets more back links, more traffic and will move higher in the rankings. There are a bunch of terrific tips for the off-page SEO….here are just a few.
(1) Do a lot of social bookmarking is platforms like StumbleUpon and Digg. The social bookmarking sites are crawled by search engines more often and they do have a very active user base. Bookmarking your blog on these sites will lead to traffic spikes often.
(2) Spend time to create forum profiles. Almost all forums are free to register. To get back link from forums, use the blog name as forum profile name. Example: If Zac wants to create forum account in ABC forum, he will give the forum username as Blogging Tips to get a back link like “http….ABC/user/BloggingTips” rather than “http…ABC/user/Zac”. The first link will point straight to this blog; hence, back link created.
(3) It is good to submit blogs on stat based websites like Quantcast and Website Shadow. These WhoIs sites generate free back links and also give free analytical report of registered blogs.
(4) If you are providing any service or selling any products through blog/s, write a Press Release and submit it to high powered free press release sites. The aim is to get indexed in Google News which will lead to higher traffic and free back links. Continue to submit new press releases every 15-days.
(5) Spend some time in submitting RSS feed to RSS aggregators. The feed could be blog RSS, RSS from article directories and web 2.0 RSS links. You can use feedage.com to convert a static html page into RSS format. Some of the best places to submit RSS feeds are bloghub.com, postrank.com, feedagg.com, feedage.com, plazoo.com and icerocket.com.
(6) Apart from blogging, you also need to write articles for publishing in web 2.0 networks like HubPages, Squidoo and Blogger. These web 2.0 properties are definitely high authority sites and links from these platforms work wonders for the blog’s off-page SEO.
Apart from web 2.0 properties, it is also beneficial to submit articles in article directories; however, after Google Panda updates, article directories have lost its value as a prominent off-page SEO tool so use them with discretion.
Stuck for Content? (Part 2)
April 4, 2012
Yesterday’s post on ideas for content was SO POPULAR (thank you, thank you) that I thought this might need to be expanded upon! Hey – maybe you could use even MORE ideas about what content to add to your site or your social networking sites OR your blog….SO….here goes….
1. Start a Regular Feature
Create a regular feature on your website e.g. “Web design tip of the week”, “SEO tip of the month”, etc. Regular features are another great way to create new content for your website and improve your SEO performance. It also helps promote loyalty and encourages customers to visit your site regularly.
2. Allow Guest Posting On Your Blog
Once you have established yourself, ask others to post. You know, others are looking for these opportunities to publish and you can create great new alliances to boot. Don’t be shy….ask.
3. Create Case Studies
This is a terrific way to show your prospective clients how you work, showcase your results and toot your horn a little at the same time. Prospective clients do want to see how things work and how you work before they will tip a toe in the water. The format of this is easy: your client’s issue, your approach and how it’s implemented and then – the result!
4. Create a White Paper
Write a white paper or report on a topic important to your industry or on a hot topic within your niche. Try to make it as informative and in-depth as possible. Publish your report on your own blog, write a press release to promote it as well promote it on social media, other blogs, document sharing sites, etc. Well written informative reports tend to attract a lot of back-links and coverage across the Internet.
5. Create a Best Post List
Any list of tips – Top Tips for Attracting New Clients, for example – are bound to attract readers. For example, this post is a good example of the “best” post list.
6. Monthly List of Posts
Following on from the previous point, you can also create a monthly list of best posts on a topic and publish it on your blog around the same time each month. You can feature content from your own site as well as from other external sites. This can become a regular feature on your blog.
7. Monitor & Write About Trending Topics
If you have noticed a trend that connects to your expertise, by all means, right an article. For example, I have noticed there are a lot of entrepreneurs who have been in business for over 20 years and they are now struggling with how to wrap their heads around the social media entry into marketing. It is such a complete shift from the “push” advertising days that an article is warranted. No, this is not original material, but my experience with it as it relates to a certain industry might be. Write from your perspective and how you have made changes to accommodate your clients. That’s going to be very attractive to other clients in the same boat.
8. F.A.Q’s
Once a week, take one of the questions you are asked all the time and make a blog posting out of it. I am asked ALL THE TIME about SEO as it relates to the writing for websites I do. Take the opportunity to talk about this and offer a snippet of expertise and a few tips to help.
9. Research Social News Sites
Take advantage of social bookmarking and social news sites such as Digg, Delicious or Stumble Upon, that syndicate content from thousands of users and websites are also great for researching ideas for new content for your website or blog. These sites are excellent tools to find new topics to write about.
10. Publish Interviews
This is one of my favorite ways to add content to my blog. I am a CONSTANT recommender of books and articles on a wide variety of subject that interest my clients. Pick up the phone and ask for an interview — most authors are thrilled with the exposure. Interviews make great content and feature regularly on successful blogs. Don’t think you have to interview someone famous. You can interview any professional from your industry, colleague or even a customer.
mary jo cranmore
