Business Blogging - How to Build A Better Blog

Visiblity is the First Step to Getting Clients, Customers, and an Audience

2009-07-12T11:24:47-07:00

My friend and colleague Dave Lakhani says, "You've got to be seen to sell." And if you read this blog or Biz Tips Blog, you know I write a lot about creating online visibility. If people don't know about you, how can you expect to get new clients, fill your coaching or mentoring groups, sell your products or have an audience for your radio show?

Recently I was having an email conversation via LinkedIn with Bonnie, who participated in the Social Media Success Summit. She said:

My biggest challenge with social media this moment is to drive traffic to my BlogTalkRadio show...Even though I ask guests to Tweet the show and my show is auto-Tweeted via BTR, listenership remains low. Any ideas on key word strategies or other social networking tips to bring the show onto more folks' radar screens?

You can substitute "group coaching program" or "online TV show" or "info product" for "radio show."

Yes, she's doing some of the right things. And in fact, her frustration is not uncommon and a complaint I hear nearly every day. It's part of what inspired me to partner with Wendy Y Bailey to offer our teleseminar The Secrets to Filling Your Coaching Groups, on Tuesday.

In my opinion, it boils down to one thing for most people: lack of visibility.

Many will argue that it's all about the list. But let me ask you this ... how do you build a list? You've got to be visible, then offer something of value that people will trade their email address to get from you. Just because you have a squeeze page for your opt-in list or an info page for your radio show, doesn't mean a ton of people are going to find it. There's a heck of a lot of info competing for attention out there in Internet-land.

You have to promote and market CONSISTENTLY AND CONSTANTLY.

Here's my initial response to Bonnie - yes, it seems simplistic, but I really didn't have much background info to start with:

Do you have a Facebook page for your show? Do you set up an event on FB for each show and push it out to your peeps?

Do you ask your guests to promote the show?

Do you blog about your show?

When Bonnie replied, it was clear she was doing all these things. But what also came out was that she was not consistent in her efforts. Posting an event once on Facebook with no follow up will not produce results. Sending one tweet about a show will not drive thousands of listeners to your show. Sorry, just won't happen. Here's my second bit of advice for Bonnie:

You're doing all the right things. They need to be done constantly in order to see results, as you know.

I would queue promo tweets for several times per day for several days before and on the day of the show.

I would continue to do Facebook events. Yes, people don't always understand, but that's because they respond from their notifications page and don't click through to the the actual event page. If people do respond as yes or maybe, you have the opportunity to send reminders.

As for polling on twitter, you need to tweet your question multiple times during the day as people are on and off all day long. To catch people you need to be visible frequently.

Being repetitive and consistent was the "ah ha" for Bonnie.

The final point I want to make is that one-shot promotion for a product/event/program won't be very effective. Your visibility strategy has to be ongoing. That means all the time. Even when you're not selling or trying to fill a group or round up an audience for a show.

The more consistently visible you are, the more likely you will generate the clients, students and audience when it IS time to promote your stuff.

There are tons of tactics for creating massive online visibility. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Feel free to join me and Wendy on July 14 to learn more! And go check out Bonnie's radio show Up Close & Personal. I'll be a guest sometime in the coming months!

Are You a Fan of The Blog Squad?

2009-07-10T06:06:00-07:00

As you know from my last post about blogs vs. Facebook, my strong belief and advice to anyone in business is to use your blog as your hub site, your home base. However, that does not mean I advocate ignoring social networking sites and if you've followed me for more than a day, you know I'm quite active on Facebook and twitter and LinkedIn (a little bit less).

In my view you need to be where your audience is and then drive them back home (blog).

In case you don't know, I do have a fan page set up on Facebook. If you prefer to hang out on Facebook, then I want to be there with blogging info for you.

The Blog Squad on Facebook

One of the things I'm doing for people who join The Blog Squad Fan Club is make special fan-ONLY offers once in awhile and on the last day of the month will offer a substantial discount to a product or service. You've got to be a fan to find out and get notifications of special deals.

There is also a discussion forum and I'll answer your questions about business blogging and social marketing. I hope you'll join me on Facebook!

By the way, if you have a Fan page on Facebook, post the link in the comments so I, and other readers, can check it out and join your community too!

Why Blog When You've Got Facebook?

2009-07-06T12:01:57-07:00

I got a really good question last week via twitter/email and after yesterday's twitter problems, it's appropriate to address this now. Here's what I was asked:

From your perspective on blogging, what's the advantage of actually doing a blog, over having a well-developed page on Facebook--where you not only share regularly updated status reports, but can also post Notes (where I imagine what would have been posted to a blog would be posted on Facebook), can easily share media, engage people in conversation and relationships, and organically have your updates propagated to other friends' pages, etc.?

It's an excellent question and one that does come up in some form when I speak and teach.

First, let's look at what happened on Twitter. Yesterday, with no explanation for nearly 4 hours, hundreds of thousands of legitimate twitter accounts were suspended citing "suspicious activity." People on Facebook, FriendFeed and blogs went nuts.

OMG! We can't communicate with our followers!

I admit that I got a bit freaked out too when I discovered my account had been suspended when I tried to retweet a client's blog post and got a big warning message. That was before I knew that so many other accounts were suspended. Once it became apparent that it wasn't just me, I calmed down. Within about four hours most accounts had been restored and all was good again in the world ;-)

But what if this happened on Facebook? I have many colleagues whose accounts have been shut down with no warning or explanation. It took weeks to get a response and get their accounts reinstated.

This is why I "preach" that your blog is your hub. It's your home base. It's where you want to drive all that social traffic ... to a space on the web you own and control. Yes, of course something could happen to your server and shut down your site, but at least you're in control.

You are not in control of what happens on Facebook and twitter. Those sites do not belong to you and you are at their mercy. What if you had spent tons of time building a fan page, posting content via the Notes app, building your list of friends and fans, etc. and one day Facebook shuts down? Now what? You may have lost everything if that's you're only home on the web.

Many smart people call social networking sites "satellites" or "outposts." Chris Brogan has an excellent post outlining what he calls "a simple presence framework" where he talks about using your outposts to socialize and connect and then gently guide people back to your home base (blog!).

Ultimately, my goal is to have content that is so attractive that people will want to trade their email address for a free report, video course, etc. I connect socially on Facebook and twitter (and I have a presence on many other social networking sites as well) having conversations and sharing links to my content. Occasionally I promote a teleclass or new product or use an affiliate link to promote something a colleague is offering.

I drive people back to one of my blogs where I can get more intimate and share more information in depth. This helps prospective clients get to "know, like and trust" me, which may entice them to go to the next level and request my free report or buy my product. Once they do that, they're on my email list. They've said "yes, I want to know/get more from you."

New people find out about me every day on Facebook and Twitter, and as they watch, listen and interact, they decide whether or not to follow me home (to my blog). If Facebook or twitter were to disappear, poof! -- without a blog and an email list, all my friends and followers would be gone. But because my primary connection points are via my blogs and I frequently offer valuable content and programs, I would not suffer (too much!) if Facebook or twitter disappeared forever.

As Mari Smith says in her post about lessons learned from the twitter incident:

Twitter [and Facebook] is only one platform for visibility, branding, community building and connecting. It’s vital to your social media success to be diversified and have a) a built-out Facebook profile (unless you’re choosing to only use your profile for close personal friends/family), b) a built-out Facebook Fan Page, c) an active blog with increasing subscribers, d) an active account on LinkedIn with increasing contacts e) an active channel on YouTube, f) an active, built-out account on FriendFeed… and many, many more platforms.

And here's a two minute video where I talk about your blog being the hub of your online activity.

So what's the lesson here?

Build a blog as your home base - don't depend only on 3rd party sites for your web presence
Build a list, separate from your sites, so you can communicate and connect and sell

Where do you stand on this issue: why blog when you can use Facebook for your online presence?

Blogging Tidbits Round-Up

2009-06-30T10:58:11-07:00

A little bit of blogging this and that today to catch you up on some things I've been up to and that may boost your business and blogging efforts...

1. Have you joined The Blog Squad's fan club on Facebook? The new direct URL is http://facebook.com/BlogSquad. FYI if you have a fan page on Facebook, be sure to get a "vanity" URL for it ASAP before someone else grabs your ideal URL.

I am now offering exclusive Blog Squad Fan Page deals on the last day of the month. If you want VIP notification of savings on Blog Squad products and services, make sure you join the fan page by clicking on the button that say "Become a Fan" if you are not a fan already. Today's deal is 25% off Online Video Made Easy. You can grab the coupon code on the fan page.

2. Recently I launched a free 5 part video course on Business Blog Mastery: How to Get the Best Out of Your Blog. Don't miss this! Some good blogging tips and includes video, audio, and transcript.

3. On July 15 I'm teaching a free webinar for TypePad with Andy Wibbels on Top 5 Tactics for A Successful Small Business Blog. It will be informative AND fun since Andy has a great sense of humor.

4. Finally a reminder. I'm consistently seeing in my blog stats that Twitter is the #2 or #3 referrer of traffic to my blog. Is your blog feed being delivered to your twitter stream? If not, use Twitterfeed to set that up right now.

Blogger Jeff Hopeck Interviewed by Denise Wakeman - video

2009-06-20T07:21:00-07:00

Gotta love the Internet, blogging, social media and my dentist, Dr. Ramsey Amin. Today I met a fellow blogger at a micro tweet up - just the two of us at a popular cafe near my home office. Jeff Hopeck is the brother-in-law of my dentist who connected us through blogging and twitter. The last couple of times I got my teeth cleaned and checked, Dr. Amin was telling me how his brother-in-law blogged and that I should look him up.

Can't remember the sequence of events, but through blogging and twitter we chit-chatted a bit. This week Jeff is in town from Atlanta so we met up for a coffee. We talked blogging and social marketing for nearly 2 hours!

Jeff Hopeck is a former secret service veteran, publisher of HealthyHabitsBlog, a speaker, fitness coach and author of a brand new book Stop Killing Yourself. Pretty dramatic title. It's all about learning to understand how to read food labels so you can make better, healthier choices when dining out, grocery shopping and cooking at home. Before we parted company, I asked Jeff to share a tip for bloggers in a quick video interview...

Michael Stelzner Interviews Denise Wakeman

2009-06-16T08:32:06-07:00

Last week I had the pleasure of visiting my colleague and King of White Papers, Michael Stelzner. I was in the San Diego area meeting with colleagues and attended a tweet-up with a 100 twitter friends. On my way back to L.A. I stopped in Poway to have a chat with Michael.

Michael is the brilliant mastermind and organizer of the Social Media Success Summit with which I've been associated, promoting and presenting at for the past four weeks. Wednesday is the final day of the amazing online event (you can still register and get access to all the video presentations, audio, transcripts, bonuses and private forum). My presentation on business blogging concludes the series.

But I digress. Michael grabbed his Flip HD Mino and we did a short interview about blogging. Mike's first question was: is it too late to start blogging for your business?

Got your own questions about business blogging? Submit them here and blog on!

How to Reach 97 Million Americans - Lou Bortone's Video Tip

2009-06-14T07:34:17-07:00

Lou Bortone the Online Video Guy is my guest "author" today. I guess author takes on whole new meaning with video. I asked Lou to share a video tip with my readers and in the video he talks about why you should be using video in your marketing mix.

I think you can see I'm pushing the use of video on your blog. Not for every post, but to mix it up once in a while. Give your audience a more intimate glimpse at who you are and the chance to connect with you even more deeply.

Don't be intimidated by Lou Bortone's videos. He's been doing this a long time. If you've seen any of my videos, you know they're pretty basic, and they get a point across. That's what you want to do. Nothing fancy or technically complex.

Not sure how to get started? Here's my list of equipment and software.

Engage Your Readers in Multiple Ways

Recommended Training:

Online Video Made Easy

Recommended Reading

YouTube for Business

Use Video on Your Blog to Entertain Your Audience

2009-06-12T06:53:00-07:00

Not a day goes by that I don't read something in an ezine or on twitter or Facebook touting the power of video to connect, engage and convert your readers. And it's true. Video is a much more intimate way to connect since the viewer can see your body language, your facial expressions and hear your tonality.

In this 2 minute video clip, which is part of a 5-part 50 minute video program about blogging (free!) I talk about the power of using video on your blog (it's a video clip from a presentation I did a few months ago).

And video is not difficult to shoot, produce and distribute. The tools are soooo much easier than they have ever been. I can assure you that if I can do video, you probably can too!

In this blog post on blogging and video, I list some of the equipment, tools and software I use. Dare I also be shamelessy self-promotional and remind you that with the Online Video Guy Lou Bortone, I created a video course for newbies called Online Video Made Easy...everything you need to know to get started using video on your blog. Really, it requires very little investment to get started and I'll bet you'll have a lot of fun.

Fun though it may be, you also want results. Typically people respond much more favorably to videos: they're more apt to click your links, sign up for your programs, buy your products and generally heed your calls to action.

If you're using video on your blog, what's your experience been? Do you get more comments? More subscribers? I'm curious how video is working for you. And if you're not using video yet, what's stopping you?

How to Drive More Qualified Traffic to Your Blog - TeleSeminar

2009-06-07T07:26:00-07:00

** Business Building Mastery Expert Teleseminar Training Series **

TOPIC: How to Drive More Qualified Traffic to Your Blog With Denise Wakeman (interviewed by Travis Greenlee

WHEN: June 9th, 2009 - 10am Pacific | 1pm Eastern

In a hurry? Grab your FREE seat: http://budurl.com/BizMastery

Every blogger wants to know how to get more readers. And of course readers are the life blood of your business blog if you want to grow your business. Readers create your community and when they become
raving fans, they become your clients.

There are myriad ways to drive traffic to your blog. And, there are some simple tactics that can exponentially increase the right traffic to your blog. This program will give you 7 specific tactics to drive
more qualified readers to your blog.

You will learn:

1. How to create compelling headlines
2. The strategic way to use keywords in your blog posts
3. How to automate your social networking sites to get a flood of traffic
4. Two elements that absolutely must be on your blog
5. Two simple habits that will continually encourage traffic

As Travis Greenlee says, This is going to be one ROCKIN' call...

Grab your seat now --> http://budurl.com/BizMastery

Why blog? William Reed Shares His Success Story

2009-06-06T08:53:07-07:00

I am often asked if blogs really work to build a business. I say "yes." The next comment usually is, "your business is about blogging so of course it works for you." Well, to that I say, there are hundreds of success stories about how blogging has helped a business build more awareness, get more traffic to their web site, build a database of prospects, attract new clients, media coverage and myriad opportunities. Most of those businesses have NOTHING to do with blogging or online marketing.

William Reed, author of Entrepreneurs Creative Edge, shares some of the huge opportunities that have come his way as a result of being visible on the web with his active blog.

What do you think of that invitation to write a weekly column that gets in front of more than 80,000 people? Not bad, eh?

Now, William Reed and I have decided to partner on offering blogging programs for the English speaking population of Japan and possibly the rest of Asia! We're offering a free teleseminar on using a blog to build online visibility, to gage interest and then we'll decide where we go from there. Now tell me that blogging doesn't work to create business opportunities!

Want some more proof?
Blogging Success Stories Wanted! (read the comments)
GolfAsian Blog: 3 Years Old & Still Posting
Blogs Build Your Business: You Want More Proof?