At first I didn’t like the idea of creating a Twitter List because it seemed exclusionary. I mean think about it, what if I created a “Social Media Rockstar” list, or an “Real Estate Rockstars” list and I didn’t put YOU in it. Would you be offended?

Chances are somebody would feel left out. Thus, I avoided the idea of creating lists all-together.

The Cool Thing About Lists Tho…

It’s a very easy and effective way to filter through specific content. For example, I created a “News” list to keep up with content coming from media sites in Technology, New Media and Real Estate.

I created a “Conferences” list to stay on top of updates from some of my favorite conferences (events that I’m either speaking at, attending or interested in attending).

The Game Plan: how I’m using lists to manage my time better…

The goal is simple. Process information faster. Allowing me more time to allocate to other projects/activities (like finding new speaking opportunities). I’ll also be able to find the “good stuff” a lot faster allowing me to be more helpful and valuable to you as an information resource. I’m currently up to 11 lists (7 of which are private). I won’t share all of it with you (that’s the point, there’s some strategy behind it). The best advice I can offer you is: identify what’s important to you (find your information resources for knowledge, identify and keep an eye on your close connections) and engage with your audience. You need to minimize your time spent/wasted on processing information throughout the day so that you have more time to allocate to the revenue producing activities in your day-to-day business.

Part Experiment: @RibeezieMedia (automated content)

I created a Twitter Account for [Ribeezie Media] at: @RibeezieMedia. A lot of the content there is automated. See, the thing is, I’m subscribed to over 400 RSS feeds. I skim through a lot of content every morning and every night. The bits that I find useful, I tweet. I don’t really share my reader so I created this twitter account instead as a way of sharing the content that I find most interested. Most of it pushed through Twitterfeed and tracked through bit.ly. Other bits of it is scheduled, tweeted and tracked through su.pr. As the team and I continue to collaborate and work on new projects, we’ll share the account. And although a lot of it is automated, if you send us a tweet, we’ll definitely respond.

Tracking Results:

This part is simple. I’m really only measuring results in two ways:

1. The number of “clicks” and “retweets” on each of the articles that are tweeted,
2. The number of @ replies from the content that’s shared.

Follower counts are important too I suppose but what’s significantly more important is the level of engagement that you have with your audience. Some people have a low follower count but a high level of engagement with their audience.

How do YOU do it?

How do you use Twitter to process and share information? How do you measure your results (if at all)? What seems to work for you?

Scott Berkun is a full-time professional writer and speaker. In this book, Confessions of A Public Speaker (affiliate link), Scott does an excellent job of delivering solid advice to the aspiring speaker based on his collective years of experience. Funny, witty and informational, this is a “Must Read” in my opinion.

See, public speaking is one of my passions. I have three events coming up this month and I spoke at three events in February. I spoke at a total of approximately 23 events last year (17 of which were paid). Scott undoubtedly has done many more, so it’s nice to hear stories and lessons based on someone else’s experience. In business and in life after all, I believe that you learn from your own experience and the experience of others. That being said, here’s what I’d like to do…

Enter the Contest:
I have two copies of Confessions of A Public Speaker. At first, I wanted to keep both (hehe). But alas, I won’t. I’d like to give one away to another passionate and aspiring speaker. To enter, simply do the following:

• Leave a comment sharing a story about one of your recent speaking experiences and challenges (What went wrong? Were you nervous?) and how did you deal with the situation.

Contest closes on Friday, March 5, 6:00pm PST. If you know of someone who might enjoy this, please Tweet it and/or share the link to this post with them.

The old communication model was a monologue. Businesses grab the megaphone and sell to consumers (engaging in what Seth Godin calls “interruption marketing”). But you know, the statistic is that the average person receives somewhere around 3,000 advertising messages per day. But only somewhere around 14% of people trust advertisements. On the other hand, 78% of people trust the recommendations of other consumers. Purchasing decisions are made based on the conversations that friends are having on-line with one another (on Twitter, on blogs, via email, etc.); something David Meerman Scott discusses at length in his book World Wide Rave (affiliate link).

The simple fact is, the new communications model is a dialogue. An inviting and open conversation between you (the brand) and the consumer. An open dialogue builds trust, generates awareness and ultimately, leads to sales. The center spot is where you wanna be. It’s the good stuff. The space where discussions are had and trust is built.

So, what are you doing to engage with your audience today?

(Stat Source: Nielsen “Trust in Advertising Report”)

[Photo Credit: Swiss Miss]

Dharmesh Shah is the Chief Technology Officer and Founder of HubSpot. He also co-authored what has quickly become the number 1 book on web marketing Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs (affiliate link); if you haven’t read it, I definitely recommend it!

The following slide-share is from his presentation at the Online Marketing Summit (#oms10) in San Diego titled: “Twitter: From Newbie to Ninja” It outlines some great tips for both the Twitter Newbie and serves as a refresher for the advanced user.

Introducing the Eyejot This! Bookmarklet:

When you send a video email using the Eyejot This! Bookmarklet, the recipient is going to receive an email notification (view image below) prompting them to either watch the video within their email client or click on an external link. To view a sample video message, click here: http://www.eyejot.com/et?ribeezie-2312514

Benefits of Sending Branded Video E-mails:

• Professional Looking: once you’ve subscribed and saved the Eyejot This! Bookmarklet onto your toolbar, shooting and sending a branded video email is easy. In fact, the whole process takes less than a few minutes (depending on the length of your message of course).
• Easier to Create than Written E-mail: In most cases, recorded a video email is easier than typing out a full on email. Why? Because on video, you’re conversational and spoken word comes out more naturally. It’s a great way to get face-to-face with clients (at least virtually) and works well with both existing clients and clients that you’re trying to court.
• Great Way to Capture Attention and Have Site Visitors Spend More Time On-Site: my favorite part about Eyejot is the ability to share a webpage with someone while branding it with your email message. It’s a great way of sharing relevant information with a personalized touch. Sharing a particular blog post, listing or teaching someone how to navigate/use the IDX on your blogsite increases the chances of someone spending more time on your site.

Are you using video as part of your marketing? If so, how?

I refer to it on occasion as a sort of public IM (instant messenger) where instead of having private conversations one-on-one, you’re having public conversations from one to many. Here’s the Wikipedia definition of Twitter: (you can find anything on Wikipedia)

“Twitter is a free social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the author’s subscribers who are known as followers. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access.”

The Twitter Song:

Some people use Twitter for the pure enjoyment of connecting and conversing with an audience (for fun). For other’s, it’s a marketing tool. Irrespective of the camp that you sit in, here are some interesting statistics for you: (Source: Nielsen Wire – Twitter’s Tweet Smell of Success)

• Twitter grew 1,382% from February 2008 to February 2009
• Adults ages 35-49 make up the largest demographic
• 62% of the audience access Twitter from work vs. 35% that access the network only from home
• 735,000 unique visitors accessed Twitter via their mobile device in January of 2009
• The average visitor visited Twitter 14 times during the month and spent an average of 7 minutes on the site
• The average Tweet per person is estimated at 240 for the quarter
• 812,000 unique visitors sent and/or received Twitter text messages from AT&T or Verizon cell phones in the last quarter of 2008

On Friday, February 19th, the Pacific West Association of REALTORS® will be hosting a “Twitter for Real Estate” workshop with “Yours Truly” (me). We’ll be exploring what Twitter is and how it’s applicable/advantageous to business. We’ll discuss tools and applications for greater productivity as well as outline some strategic approaches to following and connecting with an audience.

In an effort to answer some questions for you ahead of time on how small business owners are using Twitter, I’ve put out the following survey. I’ll compile some of the results and publish them in a pdf. For now, I’d love to hear your thoughts on how you’re using Twitter…

Workshop Date:

Date: February 19, 2010
Time: 9:00 – 11:00am
Fee: $30 members, $35 non-members
Location: 1601 Orangewood Avenue | Anaheim, CA 92805

Contact: Joey Vargas | 714-245-5500 | joeyv@pwr.net

This is the first in a series of tutorials that I’ll be creating for you. Each week, we’ll cover something different. Today, I wanted to talk to you about creating custom tabs for your Facebook Page since Facebook Pages is something we’ll be discussing in coming weeks as we gear up for a webinar with the folks at Oodle Pro for Real Estate.

To get email notifications whenever we dish out a new tutorial, just head on over to our subscription page and sign up for the newsletter (you’ll get some other helpful stuff too).

Adding Custom Tabs To Your Facebook Page:

If you have any questions, just drop ‘em in the comments below. And if there’s something you’d like to learn (a suggestion for our next tutorial), we’d like to hear from you as well.

Tuesday evening, I attended Startups Uncensored #14 with Jason Nazar and the folks at Docstoc. Docstoc is an online community where you can find and share professional documents. If you’re not familiar with their service, I encourage you to check them out. I’ve used them to upload and share content before (such as e-books) and highly recommend them.

The subject for the evening was Google Adsense for websites (some of the Google Adsense team flew in from Mountain View, California and led a great session). Our very own Stacey Soleil won some product schwag prior to the start of the evening (we’ve since dubbed her #schwagqueen, heh). But really, though the adsense session was great, it wasn’t the hi-light of the evening for me. See, I’m not much of an adsense user. I never have been and probably won’t be (it just isn’t part of my marketing strategy). If you use adsense on your sites, I’d be curious to hear about your experience (good or bad) and how long you’ve been running adsense (just drop a comment below).

What did stand out to me was the opening presentation led by Jason Nazar to kick off the evening. There were a lot of entrepreneurs there that evening (from the solo-preneur to the small business). Each of them hungry to learn, network and grow their business. Jason shared 12 rules that entrepreneurs need to follow to kick-start their business and get on the path toward success…

12 Golden Rules to Marketing & Publicity for Startups:

#1 – “Marketing is not something you do, it’s who you are“

#2 – “You are your product: First, Market Yourself“

#3 – “Brand Recognition is Everything: People don’t use products they don’t know”

#4 – “Turn your Customers into your Mass Marketers“

#5 – “Social Proof is key: they need to hear how good you are from someone else”

#6 – “Marketing a product Does Not require having a product”

#7 – “Don’t give people an option not to listen to your message”

#8 – “Publicity is not a Meritocracy: journalists cover Products of people they know and like“

#9 – “Capture attention where I don’t expect it”

#10 – “Don’t be afraid to Piss People Off, it gives you a chance to win them back”

#11 – “Publicity is a function of persistence: No door can not be opened with time”

#12 – “Be Everywhere! In startups popularity not polish wins the prize”

Personally, each of these stands out for me… How about you?

]]> http://www.ribeeziemedia.com/12-golden-rules-to-marketing-publicity-for-startups/feed/ 4 http://www.ribeeziemedia.com/live-interview-with-aaron-brazell-author-of-the-wordpress-bible/ http://www.ribeeziemedia.com/live-interview-with-aaron-brazell-author-of-the-wordpress-bible/#comments Sat, 06 Feb 2010 01:37:55 +0000 Ricardo Bueno http://www.ribeeziemedia.com/?p=692

Stacey Soleil and I were very excited to have welcomed this week’s Podcast guest, Aaron Brazell, author of The Wordpress Bible (affiliate link). An accomplished blogger, speaker and consultant, we talked to Aaron about his experience in IT, social media and the history that has led to his writing an accomplished piece of work.

Many of us use Wordpress. It’s what we use here at [Ribeezie Media] to build our client websites. Why? Because it ranks extremely well in the search and there’s just about nothing you can’t do with wordpress. On the call we talked to Aaron about “open source” (what it means and it’s benefits to the end-user). We discussed the differences between wordpress.com and wordpress.org and moving content from one platform to another.

The book is for:

• Theme designers,
• Plugin developers,
• Core developers,
• and Wordpress users alike

In it you’ll find tutorials, references, screenshots and walk-thru’s on just about everything Wordpress; from the basics (such as installation and blogging 101 basics) to more advanced topics (such as plugins, themes and templates, custom fields and more).

Aaron and his publisher (Wiley), were gracious enough to send Stacey and I an advanced copy of his book and I can already tell you that we love it and will be recommending it as the Wordpress “Go To” resource for new and advanced bloggers alike.

Listen to the Podcast:

Bonus:
Aaron Brazell is offering an upgrade-only maintenance plan our listeners. For those of you that have your own self-hosted wordpress blog, that means you get security updates any time new releases are issued (this includes plugin upgrades as well). The price for this is $100/month (includes up to 3 blogs).

For more, email: aaron (at) technosailor.com

Buy the Book:

At last week’s RESA (Real Estate Staging Association) International Conference I had the pleasure of presenting alongside Branding & Marketing Expert David Avrin. Internationally known as the “Visibility Coach,” David talked about just that…the importance and power of visibility for a company. In this 3:38 sec interview with David, he answered the following questions:

• How do you gain visibility in the marketplace? More specifically, in a crowded marketplace?
• What’s the biggest challenge businesses face in marketing themselves?

Interview with David Avrin (The Visibility Coach):

The biggest challenge any small business (especially Real Estate) faces is that of gaining visibility in the marketplace. All things being equal, how do you differentiate yourself from your competitors? David addresses these points and more in his new book. I’m only a few chapters in but can already tell you that it’s definitely going on my “Top Recommendations” List.

In the meantime, what about you? What’s your biggest marketing challenge as a small business? Let us know in the comments below as Stacey Soleil and I hope to have David join us on our podcast soon…