Biz Tips Blog: Online Marketing, Visibility and Business Blogging Tips

RIP Biz Tips Blog

2011-04-21T14:14:45-07:00

It's been awhile coming, yet I've resisted it for months...I've decided to shut down this blog. :-(

My internal conflict stems from the fact this was my very first blog, started in September 2004. However, over the last few months, I decided to focus more of my content creation attention on my site over at DeniseWakeman.com. Initially it was simply going to be a site to get info about me and my products and services. But of course, to offer the most value and attract the most traffic, I knew I needed to integrate a blog with the site.

I realize I just don't have the bandwidth to write consistently on three blogs so something's got to go and this blog is the natural choice. Build a Better Blog will carry on with posts published a couple of times a week.

On DeniseWakeman.com I'll continue to focus my writing on how you can leverage the web to boost your visibility so you can get your important message out to the world!

If you subscribe to get Biz Tips Blog updates, you don't need to do anything. You won't miss any new content as I transfer my subscribe system to DeniseWakeman.com. Or you can manually subscribe to get updates here. (You can unsubscribe anytime via a link at the bottom of every email update.)

It's been a great ride and I invite you to continue on the journey with me.

BLOG ON!

Cool Tool Alert - Hundreds of Graphic Images for Your Sales Pages

2011-03-29T07:07:00-07:00

I love a great deal and I was just turned on to one -- a suite of graphic images you can use on your sales pages, web sites, powerpoints, landing pages -- for only $10.95.

I'm not a graphic designer by any stretch of the imagination, but sometimes I need images for my sales pages. A well designed call to action button can encourage more sales. A stylish check mark for your bullet points can turn a boring sales page into a credible tool to sell your product.

It can cost a fortune to have a designer create custom "buy now" or guarantee badges or cool check marks and arrows for your sales pages.

This package - the Marketing Graphics Toolkit - has hundreds of options and multiple color versions of every button and badge. For some of the images you will need Photoshop to manipulate them, but at least half are jpg or png files you can simply upload to your pages. For the images that require customization, give the files to your designer and that will save you time and money since she won't have to recreate the wheel (that's what I'm going to do!).

I realize this is a salesy blog post, but the package is a great deal and these kinds of graphic images are important for your business. I feel like it's my obligation to let you know about hot deals on tools you can use to do business better. Obviously you'll make up your own mind. But seriously, even if you use just a few of the images, you'll have made your investment back and then some. That's why I jumped on it and encourage you to at least check out what you get and see if you can use any of the graphic images for your websites.*

I've looked at other graphics packages in the past, but this one has the most variety and best range of color and styles.

Check out the Marketing Graphics Toolkit here.

*I'm an affiliate for this product.

8 Hot Social Media Tips From Eight Industry Experts

2011-03-22T14:26:07-07:00

This guest post by Amy Porterfield is reprinted with permission from Social Media Examiner and features tips from experts who will be speaking at Social Media Success Summit 2011.

Are you looking for some creative ideas to enhance your social media activities? If so, look no further.

To help you lay down tracks for social media success, here’s a solid list of strategies from eight top social media experts. Take a look, ask yourself what tips you can use and start reaping the rewards of real success.

#1: Offer live events on Facebook

“To provide additional value and fresh ways for your fans to interact with you, periodically conduct live chat sessions or live webinars or teleseminars. My co-author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day, Chris Treadaway, and I recently conducted what we called a ‘flash chat’ in order to crowdsource content for version two of our book,” explained Mari Smith.

“We used the awesome webinar platform Linqto and within a few minutes we had a large group of people interacting with us. Linqto allows presenters to be on webcam and mic and take turns ‘on the floor’ while participants interact via chat,” said Mari.

Mari also said you can keep it real by simply conducting a live Q&A right on your Facebook fan page wall. You’ll get extra visibility in the news feeds of your fans!

#2: Help others who aren’t necessarily famous

“Don’t try to build your personal brand or company brand alone. Go out of your way to look for opportunities to help others and give others credit. This may seem like a lot of work in the short term, but it pays off in the long run. Plus, it’s the right thing to do,” said Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business.

“Easy ways to do this include recommendations on Twitter of others’ work, retweets and hot tips on the comment section of blogs,” Erik added.

“Heed Guy Kawasaki’s advice and select those not on the A-list. The Mari Smiths, Chris Brogans and David Meerman Scotts already are showered with love. Select an up-and-comer, as you will stand out more to that person,” explained Erik.

#3: Don’t over-focus on marketing

“All too often, businesses overlook the ’social’ part of the phrase social media marketing and jump straight into the ‘marketing’ part… to their detriment. They forget that social media is dominated by a community of people who have expectations of the various social networks to which they belong. Very often, these expectations do not include having marketing messages jammed down their throats,” explained Hollis Thomases, author of Twitter Marketing: An Hour a Day.

Hollis cites INGDirect, L.L. Bean and Ben & Jerry’s as good examples of authentic brand voices that ‘get’ the Twitter community.

Notice the engagement in their streams.

Hollis added, “If you plan on delegating your social media activities to someone, ask yourself, ‘Does this person really understand our brand, the image we want to present and does s/he have the ability to communicate properly about these attributes?’”

#4: Research what your customers are saying

“Stop reading the success stories and best practices to model your social media strategy. Use them for inspiration, but my best advice to you is to go figure out what your opportunity is first,” said Brian Solis, author of Engage: The Complete Guide to Building, Cultivating and Measuring Success in the Social Web.

“Every business case is different. Your customers’ needs are different. Use a tool such as Research.ly to learn more about what your customers and prospects are saying, looking for and sharing. It’s here where you will find the insights necessary to inspire a campaign that’s relevant and meaningful,” said Brian.

Publish your time-stamped stream as an intelligent link.

#5: Meet people in real life

“I’m from Boston and we used to have a huge user group here called the Boston Computer Society,” says Steve Garfield, author of Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business. “They had monthly meetings where people could go out and meet each other and get help and learn about new products. Then, people started getting answers online. So the Boston Computer Society disbanded, thinking that people could just go online to get all their answers.

“The most critical thing that the Boston Computer Society forgot was how important it is to meet people face to face. That’s why I have monthly meetings in Boston with a group I founded called Boston Media Makers. At these meetings every person who attends gets to meet every other person. That’s the secret,” said Steve.

You can meet people online, but solidify these online relationships face to face.

“The meeting is set up to allow for mingling at the beginning, then we have a round table where everyone gets two minutes to talk about who they are and share some news or ask a question. Then the meeting ends with more mingling. What’s very important is that the meeting is free, and happens at the same time every month no matter what. We never cancel. Everyone is welcome,” explained Steve.

#6: Get your content read by being controversial

“We all know that ‘content is king’,” says Dean Hunt, a leader in high-impact buzz and viral content. “This is especially true when it comes to social media and social bookmarking. But what happens if nobody reads your masterpiece? There’s nothing worse than spending hours on an article, blog post, etc., only to see it gather dust in the Internet caves.

“So here’s a strategy I created to ensure that your content WILL get noticed… In fact, people will do a double-take when they see your content title, and will not be able to resist reading it. I call it the ‘negative slant.’ It’s very simple to do, and works best with informational or how-to content,” said Dean.

“An example is a recent post I wrote, ‘How to Work Really Hard and Make No Money.’ It was a big success. Now, I should stress that the content in that blog post was informative, positive and actually showed people how to make money, but I put a negative spin on the title, which gave it shock value,” said Dean.

“Imagine if the title had been ‘How to Make Lots of Money’ instead. We see these kinds of promises every single day, and we’re trained to not believe or trust them. So put a negative slant on your social media content, and watch it create buzz and get shared faster than ever before,” explained Dean.

#7: Invest in social media after you do your research

“Just as you would invest your personal finances based on your family size, age and market conditions, you should be spending in social business with the same industry knowledge,” said Jeremiah Owyang, partner of customer strategy at Altimeter Group.

According to Altimeter’s recent report, How Corporations Should Prioritize Social Business Budgets, “Corporations should gauge their own social business maturity and prioritize spending decisions based on the industry benchmarks. Novice programs must focus on getting their internal teams in order; intermediate programs must scale customer-facing initiatives; and advanced programs must integrate social business throughout the enterprise.”

This chart matches spending priorities with an organization's social business maturity. Take a look and see where your business fits best.

#8: Share the knowledge of experts with your audience

“Get experts involved with your content. Determine who the experts are in your industry. Then go to them and offer to interview them about their hottest new project. During the interview, be sure to ask plenty of questions your audience would like to know the answers to. The result will be a great article, audio or video that provides valuable information to your audience AND forges a relationship with the expert,” said Mike Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner.

To see an example of this strategy, check out Mike’s recent interview with bestselling author Seth Godin.

Want to Learn More About Social Media for Business?

If you’re not fully leveraging the power of social media, don’t worry. You’re not alone.

There’s one easy way to take your social media efforts to the next level. By attending the web’s largest online blogging conference, Social Media Success Summit 2011 you’ll become empowered to use social media to gain more exposure, better engage customers and grow your business.

The great part is you’ll be learning from 22 blogging experts. Join Jeremiah Owyang (Altimeter Group), Brian Solis (author, Engage), Frank Eliason (Citigroup), Mari Smith (co-author, Facebook Marketing), Erik Qualman (author, Socialnomics), Michael Stelzner (founder, Social Media Examiner), Dan Zarrella (author, The Social Media Marketing Book), Andy Sernovitz (author, Word of Mouth Marketing), David Meerman Scott (author, Real-Time Marketing & PR) and experts from Verizon, Boeing, Intel, and Cisco as they reveal proven social media tactics at Social Media Success Summit 2011.

It’s the web’s largest online social marketing conference. Go here for a free sample and to learn more.

By the way, all eight of these experts cited in this article will be joined by 14 other social media pros at this year’s Social Media Success Summit 2011. Go here to learn more about this online social media conference.

NOTE FROM DENISE: This, in my opinion, is one of the premier social media marketing training events of the year. I was a presenter the first two years and the quality of content is exceptional. This a 100% training (no pitch!) online summit. Worth every penny, especially while early bird tickets are still half price!

Now it’s your turn! Which of these expert tips are you going to model for your own social media strategy? Share your comments with us in the box below!

Build Marketing Momentum: Three Keys to More Profits

2011-03-15T07:52:00-07:00

This is a guest post by Sydni Craig-Hart of www.SmartSimpleMarketing.com.

Most service professionals know that they need to market their business consistently to get great results. But knowing and doing are two very different things. It can seem challenging to market consistently when you're so busy serving your clients, running your company, and trying to take care of and enjoy the other aspects of your life.

Without a doubt, effective marketing requires your time, energy, and consistent effort, but not to the point that it becomes draining for you. It actually should be really easy - and it can be! Once you build momentum and get the right systems in place, you'll find that your marketing runs like a well-oiled machine. It will support you in filling your practice with ideal clients. You'll also create more visibility for the solutions you offer, and generating the income you need to enjoy the lifestyle of your choice.

Then you might be thinking, "that all sounds great, Sydni, how do I do that?" Let me answer that question for you.

First you need to build a strong foundation for your marketing. This includes:

Getting really clear and focused on exactly what you want to accomplish in your business.
Setting S.M.A.R.T. goals - goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-sensitive.
Making over your mindset. Many times, what hinders us from taking consistent action with our marketing is that we let our limiting beliefs get in the way. It's really important to embrace a mindset for marketing success.
Identifying who is your exact market, who your ideal client is, and what specialized niche of services you're going to offer that individual.
Learning how to talk confidently about what you do in a way that is compelling to the person that you're speaking with.
Looking at how you're packaging your services so that you're creating options and solutions that are really appealing to your ideal client.
Finally, you want to create a simple marketing plan that's going to, create visibility and awareness for the work you do, week after week and month after month.

Once you have your foundation in place, it's time to focus on creating visibility! And there's a number of ways that you can do this:

You can educate those already in your network - the people who already know you,like you and trust you. This can include family members, friends, ex-colleagues and other individuals in your professional services industry that may offer a complimentary service. Everyone who knows about what you do needs to be educated about how they can refer business to you.
You also want to look at ways to create referral relationships. Connect with complimentary professionals so you can refer work back and forth to one another.
Network strategically. Make sure that you are connecting with the right people who can help you achieve your goals. Don't just network for networking's sake.
Look at ways that you can create a lot of visibility for your work through social media and other online networking resources. Of course, there's the BIG three:Twitter, and Facebook, and LinkedIn. However, depending on your profession, there are also may be social networks that are specific to just what you do.

Now that you have built a strong foundation, you built up some momentum, and created some visibility; you want to maintain that momentum.

This includes:

Having regular interactions with your audience, using webinars, teleseminars or an email newsletter.
Consistently publishing great content on your blog.
Leveraging the power of social media so that you can consistently create visibility for what you do

The fact is that consistent, effective marketing creates awareness. It creates awareness of the problems that you solve, and who exactly you solve them for. So when people who are looking for those solutions discover what you have to offer, you become the natural choice and hiring you is almost automatic. They don't over think it or hem and haw. They whip out their credit card or other form of payment because they need exactly what it is that you have to offer. And it's maintaining a full practice of client that creates a consistent and reliable income for you month after month.

If you'd like some help in building and maintaining your marketing momentum, I have just the resource for you. I invite you to visit me at www.BuildMarketingMomentum.com. There you'll learn about my easy to implement and highly, highly affordable step by step system to get you more clients and generate more revenue in your service business.

I can't wait to start working with you!

About the author: Sydni Craig-Hart, expert marketing consultant for service professionals, supports her clients in creating success - in both their businesses and lives. Known as "The Smart Simple Marketing Coach," the tech-savvy Sydni uses a results-focused, "how to" approach in implementing simple, customized strategies so service professionals create profitable businesses in which they enjoy the lifestyle they choose.

To tap into Sydni's expertise, get your free Smart Simple Marketing Starter Kit at www.SmartSimpleMarketing.com.

Contest - Win a Copy of Seth Godin's Poke the Box

2011-03-08T09:02:47-08:00

Over on DeniseWakeman.com I'm running a contest ... I'm giving away three copies of Seth Godin's new book, Poke the Box.

There are over 100 entries so far, each person posting the anwer to this question:

"Imagine that the world had no middlemen, no publishers, no bosses, no HR folks, no one telling you what you couldn't do.

If you lived in that world, what would you do to get your business in front of more people, get more visibility, so you can touch more lives and make a big difference in the world?

Go. Do that."

Get the details and enter here >>>