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Author Archives: admin
Why You Absolutely Must Build A List To Be Successful
Posted on August 25, 2010 in The Basics by admin
About Social Networking, Business Strategy, communications, key social media tools, social media and websites, twitter
As you have probably heard a thousand times, a list is indispensable to your online business success.
A list gives you the following benefits:
- Build a solid relationship with your prospects and customers.
- Gives you a destination where you can funnel your most loyal followers.
- Offers an on-going vehicle to share content, resources, ideas, survey your clients and sell products.
But just having any old list of names isn’t good enough. In order for you have a list that is responsive to your content and offers, it is essential that you list build with intent by going after your exact target audience. So the first step in any list building campaign is to make sure that you have defined the precise audience you want to attract.
Once you have defined your target, there are some sure-fire methods which will help you attract people:
- Article marketing
- Press releases (both off and online)
- Social media tools
- Face book
- YouTube
Building your list has never been easier but you must be sure to do it in the right way.
If you want to learn more about list-building, tune into an interview with Wendy Moore who is an Australian online superstar and expert in list building. She is one of the 13 featured speakers on the Wise Women of the Web teleseminar series. Go to www.thewisewomenoftheweb.com to sign up for this free conference.
Branding, Business Strategy, social media
What does it mean to become a Web Celeb?
Web Celeb is a term coined by Pat Sutton, an Internet luminary who has been listed on the Forbes list of Thirty Women Entrepreneurs to Follow On Twitter.
Through trial and error, Pat realized that the only true way to success on the internet as a small business was to become a Web Celeb or in common day parlance, to become the dynamic and well-known face of your business. To become a Web Celeb means that you will draw people towards you with ease, whether you want them to buy products or become part of your network or multi-level-marketing team.
Pat argues that what is important isn’t what you know or who you know but Who Knows You! And that people will only join you when you become ‘larger than life’ on the web. Moreover, in this day and age of Google and social media, people want to know who the person behind the business is before they are ready to actually interact with or buy from you.
Simply put, the infamous Unique Selling Proposition for your business is YOU. Not your products, but YOU. And if you are building a multi-level-marketing or networking business, this becomes even more important because you are building up a group. If you have not positioned yourself correctly, no one will want to join your team.
In terms of specific steps to becoming a Web Celeb, you need to do the following:
- Create a fantastic profile for yourself that is clear, coherent, full of testimonials and pertinent experience
- Build a website around your profile
- Share your profile throughout the Social Web
- Make sure that you have full ownership of your website so that you can add content that builds on your new-found Web Celebrity
If you would like to know more, sign up for the free teleseminar series “The Wise Women of the Web” www.thewisewomenoftheweb.com, in which Pat Sutton is one of the 12 featured speakers. Find out how you too
Why You Should Create An Online Hispanic Marketing Program
Posted on August 23, 2010 in Think Out Of The Box by admin
Business Strategy, change in communication, Customer Service
The Hispanic online marketing opportunity still remains relatively untapped, particularly by small or medium-sized businesses.
If you have ignored this community up until now, you may want to reconsider when you hear some of the following statistics:
- The population of the US Hispanic community will quickly surpass the 50 million mark
- The Hispanic community represents a whopping $1 trillion in buying power
- Over 70% of the $1 trillion spent actually come from English-speaking Hispanics. And the English-speaking Hispanic population is the fastest growing segment of the Hispanic community.
- The average Hispanic consumer spends over 14 hours online every week
- The spending power of Latinas (female Hispanics) is at the $500 million and is rapidly growing
- Latinas spend an average of $60/month on beauty products versus the rest of the market where the average is $22/month.
- Hispanics in general spend a mind boggling $250 billion in the telecommunications industry.
The statistics speak for themselves. Marketing to the Hispanic community is an enormous opportunity that you simply cannot afford to ignore. But many are afraid to approach this community or they don’t do the marketing in the right way.
If you are interested in learning how to market correctly to this untapped trillion dollar market, sign up right now for the FREE The Wise Women Of the Web teleseminar series www.thewisewomenoftheweb.com. Lori Gama, who is a Hispanic marketing expert, will feature among the top female internet experts who will be interviewed throughout the week of August 30-September 3rd.
How To Truly Succeed With Social Media
Posted on August 21, 2010 in Social Media by admin
About Social Networking, Branding, social media, social media and websites
Millions have toyed around with social media tools. Not as many have gotten social media to work for them to bring in real business results like enjoying huge boosts in traffic, subscribers, clients, affiliates and lucrative joint ventures.
So what is the secret to having social media success with your business?
Here are just a few:
- Make sure that your social media tools (i.e. Twitter, Face book LinkedIn and YouTube) are working hard for you. Set them up with a great profile of yourself and coherent branding
- Link all your social media tools together so that when you tweet or blog or post a video, your fans and followers on other platforms will be able to see it
- Target your conversations towards the people you really want to attract. Use tools like Twellow.com (a sort of Yellow Pages for Twitter) to find the people you want to follow.
- Create on-going, interesting and original content all the time. No content means empty conversations which translate into no results.
- Build relationships. Do not sell on social media. You can sell to your new-found friends and followers on your website or blog but NOT on the social media platforms.
If you would like to know more, join The Wise Women Of The Web Teleseminar Series. www.thewisewomenoftheweb.com You will hear Christine Gallagher, a foremost social media expert who has developed a successful social media system for businesses, as well as 11 other female internet stars.
A good brand ties all your efforts together. It is a clear message of who you are, who you want to target and what you have to offer that sets you apart.
The goal is that wherever anyone ‘meets’ your brand, their first experience with you will always be the same. So if they meet you on Face book or LinkedIn or on your blog or at a live event, the impression they come away with should be exactly the same.
A brand is a guiding force. Defining a brand is not about picking a business name and a logo. It is about establishing a big vision for your company.
And most importantly, you must be sure to identify down to the tiniest detail. If you just say you target ‘everyone’, you are essentially saying you target no one. Having a precise target for which you provide a specific solution to a compelling problem is essential. an essential Pick a niche and get to know that target market as well as you know yourself. You need to know what they struggle with, what excites them, what they love and hate. The better you know your target, the stronger your brand (and the solutions you offer your target) will be.
Finally your brand is not something you develop once and then just forget. You should re-evaluate your brand at least once a year to make sure that your current brand is reflective of where you are going.
If you want to learn more about the magic of branding, sign up for the free teleseminar series The Wise Women of the Web www.thewisewomenoftheweb.com One of the 12 guest speakers is a branding aficionado, Jennifer Bourn and her presentation is a combination of original content, wise advice and great reflections.
How To Boost Business Results Through Online Radio Interviews
Posted on August 19, 2010 in Think Out Of The Box by admin
Blogs, key social media tools, social media, technology
Amongst the great thunder and hype of various online marketing tools, one of the most powerful tools which is online marketing radio has somehow passed quietly underneath the radar.
Simply put, getting interviewed on online radio is one of the most important things you can possibly do this year to enrich your marketing program.
The benefits of doing online radio interviews are great:
- The return on investment cannot be beat; online radio interviews provide an easy, FREE way to market you, your company and your products and services
- While you want to make sure you are not using the interview as a simple advertisement (the viewers ALWAYS want to hear content), an online radio interview will give you all the benefits of an infomercial in that it will spread the word about you.
- Online radio interviews can help you quickly establish yourself as an expert and leader in your field.
- There are thousands of radio shows to choose from so you can build your presence quickly
- Doing online radio interviews are a convenient, time-friendly marketing tool you can use from the comfort of your living room or office
- You will reach a much bigger audience than you normally could relying on ‘typical’ offline marketing strategies (attending local community meetings or using traditional local media). While your radio audience could range from anywhere from 10 to 1000, most radio shows are syndicated so will ultimately be heard by hundreds or thousands.
- Instead of talking to a ‘general’ audience as you would on traditional mass media, you will be speaking to those who are actively searching information on YOUR topic of expertise.
In sum, using online radio interviews is a fantastic way to get your market’s attention.
If you want to find out more, just sign up for the FREE Wise Women of the Web teleseminar series www.thewisewomenoftheweb.com This event features 12 of the internet’s most famous female superstars, including Eleanore Duyndam, an online radio expert. The host of the Internet Marketing Luv Radio Show, Eleanore’s interview will give you a step-by-step process of how you can use online radio interviews to transform your business.
About Social Networking, Blogs, key social media tools, social media and websites
Blogs are the original social media. When they first arrived on the scene, blogs constituted a veritable social media breakthrough, finally allowing us to easily create our own content (i.e. be our own publisher) and conduct ongoing 2 way conversations with our fans and followers.
If it isn’t already, your blog should absolutely be at the center of your social media and online presence. Your blog will deliver you the following benefits:
- A blog allows you to quickly establish authority in your field.
- A blog gives you a fast way to get input from your customers so that you can understand their problems, needs and opinions about your products and services. This ensures you will deliver exactly what your specific target audience needs.
- A blog is an SEO gift from heaven; it will help your search engine optimization efforts immeasurably. When you post 2-3 times a week, you will be giving Google exactly what it wants and it will help greatly with your position in Google. So instead of being on page 20 where no one will find you, a blog will help you reach the coveted top 3 positions on the first place so that your prospect can find you.
- A blog is the backbone of your web presence. All the content you create with your blog posts can then be shared and repurposed into podcasts, videos, tweets, Face book comments and conversations. Without this backbone, your social media and online efforts will just be a bunch of fragmented, unrelated conversations, with no beginning and no destination.
- A blog gives you an internet home. So when someone arrives at your blog, make absolutely sure that you have integrated an opt-in box (and free report) so that people will give you their names and email addresses. Once you start creating a list in this way, you will be able to begin converting visitors to your blog into paying customers
If you want to know more about the all-important subject of blogs, please sign up for the FREE once-in-a-lifetime teleseminar series called The Wise Women of the Web www.thewisewomenoftheweb.com Along with 11 other famous female thinkers online, I will be interviewed on the topic of Why Blogs Rock. So don’t miss it!
TwitVid, Twitter’s hosting service, launched a new product this week called SocialAds. The goal of SocialAds is straightforward—it is to get you (or your brand) more Twitter followers and/or retweets of your advertisements. In other words, the service in essence allows you to buy Twitter followers and retweets.
Buy your Twitter audience? That, to me flies in the face of the original spirit and intent of Twitter which was about freely conversing with people with whom you shared a common interest. Buying a Twitter audience harks back to the mass media days when we bought impressions for the privilege of broadcasting our advertisement.
This is how SocialAds work. You create your account and then setup an ad campaign. The ad campaign will focus on obtaining new followers or retweeting your ad The ads themselves are displayed within videos hosted by TwitVid . You pay only when the desired action is complete.
The bidding begins at $1US dollar per follower and $.75 per retweet. Whoever is the higher bidder will receive better placement.
According to TwitVid, participating brands can receive more than 400 new followers in less than an hour. Their statistics also show that 2% of the viewers who are shown an ad will then follow the brand. However, there are no numbers which can guarantee that those followers will remain connected with the brand after a month and beyond.
This feels like advertising to me. This feels like the old world.
What is equally troubling is it appears that Twitter is considering offering the same kind of product. If you want more people reading your tweets, Twitter may offer you additional followers for a price. Think of it as a “Promoted Tweeter” product, which is designed to bump up follower numbers for your account.
It is still unclear what the Twitter product will look like. Some believe that Twitter will charge users based on the number of followers they acquire. Others believe that Twitter will create a product where the client is charged simply on the amount of exposure their Twitter account receives.
If indeed Twitter does develop products like these, it will represent an enormous strategic shift for the company. Since its early days, Twitter has frowned upon third-party companies who promise to build up follower counts automatically.
My first question is why the change of heart on the part of Twitter? My second question is for the potential clients. If you are going to ‘buy’ followers, the obvious question is how much is a follower actually worth to you? How do you quantify this? Without understanding this, I would think long and hard before investing money in some of the programs discussed in this article.
14th of July, 4th of July, independence, social media
This Sunday was the Fourth of July, America’s independence day. As I am sure you are aware, this is a very important holiday in the United States. While the Fourth of July has basically become synonymous with barbecues, swim parties and family picnics, it is still hugely symbolic not just for American patriotism but for the freedom it represents.
Of course, as an American living in France, my Fourth of July is just another day because absolutely no one celebrates it. However, I don’t have to wait long until the French themselves have their own Independence Party—the 14th of July.
Different circumstances of course, but the same sort of celebration. For both America and France the 4th and the 14th represent a new beginning and the end of oppressive regimes (England for America, the King for France).
Independence. Freedom. The stuff of dreams. Unfortunately, in today’s world, very few really feel that they truly hold their destiny in their hands (including many I know both in the United States, France and beyond). Whether it is the tyranny of money (or the lack thereof) or addiction or sickness, even the haves in this world feel a very heavy burden as they try to make ends meet and have some semblance of a quality life.
This is, by all counts, not the world’s finest hour.
But why on earth am I discussing this subject on a column about social media? Basically, I believe the greatest paradox in the world today is that NEVER have so many people felt so much discontent while in fact there is so much opportunity. And in my book, this is because so many of us cling to an old way of doing things and don’t realize the great potential that is staring us in the face.
Just a few years back, something odd happened. For years, the internet with all its potential sat on the sidelines. Yes, we were all using it. We set up our websites. We created our emails. We even started to shop a little online.
But at some incalculable moment, the importance of the internet shifted. No longer a mere addendum, it became front and center. And I am not certain that many of us have caught up with that yet. We still live in an old world with decaying systems and archaic mindsets.
And while social media leads the pack, the internet in all its iterations abounds with opportunity and wealth. Used correctly, the internet/social media has mindboggling potential to change your life and your business. .
But before you can really take advantage of the opportunities, I think it is important that you wipe the slate clean. Start with a fresh envelope. Re-evaluate what you are doing. And make dead certain that fundamental basics are in place. I’ll talk more about those in my next post…
Understanding Foursquare
Posted on June 29, 2010 in Foursquare by admin
Foursquare, location marketing
Despite all the hype, there still seems to be some confusion about what Foursquare ‘really ‘is and why a business (or an end user) might want to use it.
Many consider New York-based Foursquare to be one of the hottest internet properties around. Like Twitter when it first came out, Foursquare has been the talk of the town in 2010.
The concept behind Foursquare is simple; you share your location. You use your cell phone or mobile device to «check-in” with your friends. The places you can check into are endless ranging from cafes and bars to restaurants, parks, offices and museums. Once your friends know where you are, they can then recommend places for you to go or things to do.
But that is just the beginning. Foursquare is a social game as well. The service gives you points for each check-in and you can ultimately earn various badges for frequent visitation to a certain place as well as other VIP treatment. And if you have visited a place more often than anyone else, you will be recognized as the mayor of that location. As a mayor, you will be offered special discounts and free links.
The naysayers wonder if identifying your whereabouts is really such a great idea and are concerned about the privacy implications. But Foursquare management is quick to point out that their social network is quite safe and that ultimately you inform only your Foursquare friends and can choose when you want them to know where you are.
Foursquare has attracted some big businesses into its fold. For example, Starbucks has a deal with the company; you earn a “Barista badge” if you check-in five times with the retailer.
Starbucks, like many companies, see Foursquare as part of its customer loyalty or VIP program, using it to reward frequent visitors. Imagine this example of how a VIP program could work with Foursquare. You are conducting an event. Prior to the event, you award badges on Foursquare. When your customer arrives at the entrance, he shows his badge and, in short, becomes a VIP customer with special privileges like the right to enter certain areas or hear speeches from which the badge-less will be excluded.
The benefits for Foursquare users? It is another way for them to connect with friends, earn badges and garner perks from the places they check-in. As a user, you also have access to a check-in history so you can keep tabs on where you go, who you meet and what you are spending your money on.
Foursquare is on fire in terms of growth. It is fast-approaching 1.6 million members and there are no signs that its growth will abate any time soon. In early June the location-sharing mobile game was growing at about 15,000 users per day.
The company is currently doing about 10+ checkins per second. That translates into 36,000 checkins per hour and 864,000 a day. By the end of June, Foursquare expects to hit 11.58 checkins per second which means it will be processing over 1 million checkins per day.
Having said that, the success or failure of Foursquare will really depend on whether the company can add value to the service in a variety of ways: partnerships as well as more sophisticated features which will encourage interaction between users checking into the same venues.