Why Outsourcing Inbound Marketing is the best option for most Small Businesses

What do you value most?

If you are a small business owner and you read beyond this paragraph, I’m going to share my inexorable logic why outsourcing inbound marketing is the best of all possible options to find new customers for your small business.

If you are a small business owner, what are the two things that you value most?

After speaking and working with many small business owners, and being a small business owner myself, I can tell you without a doubt, the two most valuable things you possess as a small business owner are (1) time and (2) money:

1. Time. There’s just not enough of it. It’s your most valuable resource. With it you create the 2nd most valuable thing which is:
2. Money. It’s scarce. If you invest it, there’s got to be a return on investment, period. The higher the better, so if you can measure it, and improve it, so much the better.

Time and money are your most valuable resources. And everybody wants what you’ve got. That is precisely why Outsourcing Inbound Marketing is the best of possible options for you.

First, why outsourcing your marketing makes business sense

If you outsource your marketing, it saves you time. You don’t have to do it. If there’s a return on investment, and it helps you make more money, then you’d be foolish not to do it, right? You’re saving time and making money!

Second, out of all the marketing alternatives, why inbound marketing?

If you are looking for something you need, what do you turn to first? Do you go to the yellow pages? Or do you do a search using your favorite search engine? If you’re like most consumers and business buyers, you sit down at your computer, or use your smart phone, and search for what you’re looking for… and you ultimately find what you’re looking for (without the yellow pages).

And the companies who show up at the top of the rankings, and provide you the things you’re looking for? They’re practicing inbound marketing. With Inbound Marketing, you develop a web presence, and promote yourself online so that when your customers are looking for products or services that you offer, they  (1) find you and contact you first (2) you convert them into a customer, and you (3) measure the results.

Inbound Marketing: How it Works

Inbound Marketing uses the best practices in Web Design, SEO, PPC, Blogging, Social Media… and ROI Analytics:

• Web Design ~ WordPress Websites and Blogs that position you in your unique niche, and put you in the driver’s seat.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ~ Top search engine rankings for keyword phrases that drive targeted traffice to your website.
• Pay per Click Marketing ~ Pay per Click Marketing augments your organic SEO, and helps you focus on keyword groupings and landing pages that will help you convert traffic into inquiries and sales.
• Blogging ~ Timely and relevant information that positions you as an expert in your niche, so that when your prospects have a need they call you first.
• Social Media ~ Connect with People, Collect and share information that it useful to your prospects and customers, Use that information to inform your own Editorial Direction, and Create your own content. 
• Traditional and Online PR ~ Leverage content, events, accomplishments to gain back links from other influential websites, and also media hits with traditional journalists.
• ROI Analytics ~ Measure the effectivness of your marketing activities to see what’s working and what’s not working, and invest your dollars where you can achieve the greatest ROI.

The catch? It really works best if you are doing all of these things simultaneously. It doesn’t work if you just try one tactic here, another tactic there. You might get some results with one or two tactics, but to really make it work, it requires a commitment–and it’s a process, not an event. But you can execute an Inbound Marketing program very cost-effectively, and that leads me to why Outsourcing Inbound Marketing is your best possible alternative.

Third, why Outsourcing Inbound Marketing is the best option

What are your options?

1. Do it Yourself: Not an option. You have more important things to do with your time.
2. Use an In-house Resource: It’s expensive to hire a full-time person, and it might only get partly done because many different skills are required. To be effective, Inbound Marketing requires simultaneous execution of multiple tactics, and a sustained effort.
3. Outsourcing Inbound Marketing to a Competent 3rd Party who can handle it for you: It’ll get done and you can measure the ROI.

The great news? Inbound Marketing is very cost-effective. You can get a lot for a relatively small investment.

Conclusion: So now hopefully I’ve been able to present a logical argument why outsourcing your Marketing, if it’s producing a measurable return on investment, is a wise decision. And by implementing an Inbound Marketing Strategy, you’ll help you find your prospects and customers find you at precisely the most important moment: when they’re looking for you!

And that is how I arrive at my claim that Outsourcing Inbound Marketing is the best of all possible alternatives for your business. Because it’ll help you spend more of your time doing the things you need to do to take your business to the next level, and you’ll be making more money.

Pages related to Outsourcing Inbound Marketing :

• Ghost-Blogging and Blog Management
• Social Media Marketing

If you are looking for Outsourcing Inbound Marketing please contact me today.

Are you confused by all the Local Internet Marketing options? You are not alone…

Who's the trusted advisor?

The typical small business owner does not have the time or expertise to effectively manage all the Local Internet Marketing investment options.  

Not only are there more numerous–more complex directory relationships, but pace of the fragmentation in the marketplace is outpacing everyone’s attention span.        

How is a small business owner supposed to keep track of all the different ways to promote their business? Directories, Internet Yellow Pages, Search Engine Optimization, Pay per click Marketing, Blogging, Social Networking, Mobile Advertising, Hyperlocal Advertising Sites–as well as Web Design Issues, Marketing Experiments, ROI Analytics, and all the other time-consuming issues of running a Local Internet Marketing program.           

This is the primary reason so many 3rd-party providers have jumped into the Local Internet Marketing game over the past few years. There is a void to fill. And there’s a desire on the part of small business owners to hand off this business of Local Internet Marketing to a trusted advisor.          

Who ‘s the Local Internet Marketing Expert?

So who’s the expert in Local Internet Marketing? Your Web Design guy? The local SEO expert? How about the Local Phone Company? Your Local Newspaper? The Company that publishes your Tax Software? Because all of these people also claim to be your best Local Internet Marketing Expert.  If everyone is a Local Internet Marketing Expert, the problem is: “Who do you trust?”  

Whoever you choose to help you–here are a 7 Things Every Small Business Owner Should Do  to launch a Local Internet Marketing program, obtain greater visibility, and drive business through the door. I’m going to share some of the things I have done and that I do to help me drive business for myself, and hopefully by doing that, you’ll pick up an idea or two that will help you with your business. 

7 Ideas Every Small Business Owner Should Do to Achieve Success in Local Internet Marketing        

 1. Claim your Directory Listings  

Claim your listings

All of your contact information should be consistent on Google, Yahoo, Bing, Best of the Web, Yelp, and the Mobile Directories.  

At the very least, you should include your business name, address, phone number, your main keyphrases that someone would type in a search engine to find you, and include links back to your website or blog. Also make sure your Google Map is up-to-date. Luckily you can do this all in one place with a Universal Business Listing. 

2. Create a web presence  

A web presence is essential

 You can create a free website at WordPress.com. Or Weebly.com. Or even better, get a designer to create a self-hosted WordPress website with a pre-built theme customized to match your logo. You can take a pre-built them, make it your own, and have a website you can be proud of for a relatively small investment. While you’re at it, create a Facebook Page for your business, and a Company Profile on Linked-in, because these days they’re all connected. 

Even then, keep it simple. Regarding your website design, all people want to know is: “Who are you?” “What do you offer?” And “Why should I trust you?” Unless you have an ecommerce website and are selling lots of things online, or you’re selling something very complicated, a simple 5 page website plus a blog should suffice for most small businesses.  

Small Business Tip: If you already have a web presence, make sure that it’s easy to optimize your website to get traction with the search engines. Maybe you don’t need a new website, when a simple SEO Makeover with On-page Search Engine Optimization would suffice. If you want to add blogging capability, maybe it’s time for a do-over anyway. 

3. Create a Special Offer for New Customers  

Offers drive business

Restaurants regularly offer 50% off one item for new customers, or an appetizer for free with a minimum purchase. Hair stylists offer a free color with a hair style for new customers. Do you have an offer especially designed for new customers?  Use the offer in conjunction with a Groupon, or a FourSquare program. 

If you structure your offer correctly you should have no problem driving new customers through your door. Keeping your pipeline filled, and new customers are the lifeblood of any small business.  

4. Optimize your Website
One of the best ways to maximize the results of your Local Internet Marketing is by optimizing your website for local keywords, for example: Your Service > Your City, Region, State, Zip Code.  Also you can add a list of the local communities or municipalities in your service region at the footer of your website to drive additional local traffic. The trick to getting top spots in the search engines is to create pages with high keyword densities (the proportion of the number of times one keyword phrase is used to the total number of words in the page: 3-4% is a very good number to aim for). 

I have optimized my website, and in the image below, I’m showing you a top-view screen shot of my Google Analytics Web Statistics from the last 30 Days, so you can see how this is working for me, and how I use it.  

Use Web Stats to Measure your results

As you can see from my Web Stats, my main keyword phrases are: ”Direct Marketing Consultant” and “Small Business Marketing” in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio. If you looked at the rest of my stats you’d see that I get small ”long tail” hits for every combination of those keywords, as well as some great traffic from some my more popular recent blog posts, like “How to Build a Great Website” and “How to Create a Better Linked-in Profile.”  

Small Business Insight: I’m also getting a lot of unintended and undesired traffic for how to make an *c-h-e-a-p* (sic) small business website, because in my most popular recent blog post “How to create a great website,” I used the word *c-h-e-a-p* (sic) twice. So now I need to think about a way for me to rephrase that to take advantage of the current traffic, and instead of that undesirable word, use the word ”low budget,” which I could actually turn to my favor: small business owners who have a little bit of budget to create a website.  

5. Get Other Influential Sites to Link Back to Yours  
Your search ranking is determined not only by the web optimization and the quality of the content on your website, but also who links back to you. A great way to create back links is to sign up for local directories, to submit your blogs and articles to other influential websites (like Ezinearticles.com and Bizsugar.com), and to comment on other influential blogs in your area. You’ll see I’ve got some nice traffic coming from BizSugar.com, Linkedin.com, Smallbiztrends.com, and Twitter.com. It all adds up!   

Small Business Tip: Linked-in and Facebook are influential sites. Two great ways you can control getting other influential sites to link back to yours are by Optimizing your Linked in Profile and Gaining Likes on your Facebook Page for Business. 

6. Create a Small-budget Pay per click Marketing Campaign
Pay per click gives you additional insights into what’s working and what’s not working.  Start with $100 or $200 per month on Google Adwords, Yahoo Search, Microsoft Ad Center, and/or Facebook.  The trick to Pay per Click is to create a separate landing page for each logical grouping of keywords. The investment will quickly pay off (quickly meaning you can start gettting hits today). Pay per click Marketing is a great way to augment your organic (free) search traffic. 

Take advantage of all the PPC networks

7. Measure your results
Why is it that so few companies measure their results? WordPress.com Stats is Free. Google Analyticator is Free. My new favorite, Going up Web is also Free. Increasingly, your company website is the focal point through which you can measure the results of your marketing. Each of these tools provides great insights that will help you improve your traffic and your inquiries and sales.     

So that’s my bare bones strategy for Local Internet Marketing Success. Whomever you choose to work with to help you with your Local Internet Marketing, it’s going to require some real work, and if anyone tells you it’s easy, then maybe they’re not telling you the whole story. Every small business owner should be doing each of these things simultaneously, and doing them now! 

If you are a small business owner, and you do these 7 Easy Steps to Local Internet Marketing Success, chances are you’ll be happy you did. If you do, let me know how it works out! 

Pages related to Local Internet Marketing :    

• Hyper Local Internet Marketing
• How to Get Great Leads

If you need help with Local Internet Marketing please contact me today.

What are the Best Practices in Blogging for SEO?

Google wants to deliver what you're looking for

“If SEO works so well,” many of my clients ask me, “why I’m recommending the use of Blogs to drive traffic to their websites?”

In order to understand why Blogs are not only necessary, but they’re an essential part of driving traffic to your website, and why you’d want to know the Best Practices in Blogging for SEO, it’s  it’s important to take a step back and talk a minute about how Google develops the rules that determine how high our pages rank in the search engines.

The Google PageRank Algorithm

Several years ago,  few people really could imagine the explosion of social media engines like Linked-in, Facebook, and Twitter.

Google did.

“The perfect search engine would understand exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you want.” ~ Google co-founder Larry Page 

When Google modified its Pagerank Algorithm to include backlinks, it was the beginning of the Social Media Revolution (or the revolution of user-generated content). Google dictated that it’s not only structure of your code on your pages that determines your page rank, but also how many influential websites link to yours…, in other words, your search engine visibility is determined not only by the quality of the content on your website, but by who is linking to you. 

This is why why Blogging is the new strategy to attain search engine visibility - and why it’s important to know the Best Practices in Blogging for SEO - because Blogging provides a platform to share your ideas, get others to connect with you, and if your ideas are good ones, they can share you ideas with others. So you’ve got one platform that facilitates all three actions of social media: (1) Connect (2) Collect and Share, and (3) Create.

Success breeds success. If your posts are popular and they follow the best practices in blogging for SEO, chances are they’ll also achieve greater search engine visibility.

Here are the Best Practices in Blogging for SEO

The page that does the best job with on-page optimization and has the most inbound relevant links will have the highest search ranking. Think of it from Google’s shoes… “Pagerank is based on relevant inbound links.” What does it mean? It means that Blogging combined with an SEO program is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your website, and get your phones to ring.   

1. Focused Content ~ Create an editorial focus for your website. If your customers are small business owners, write only about things that are of interest to small business owners. Write about sales, marketing, managing people, managing your taxes, building your cadre of trusted advisors, etc.
2. Keyword Research ~ Research keyphrases to incorporate each page and post. And only use one keyphrase per page in the on-page optmization efforts (your title, in your text, and in your hyperlinks). The more specific you are the better. For example: you’ll have a much better chance achieving a top ranking for the search term: ”ISO 9001 Certification Requirements” than you will “ISO 9001″.  
3. Optimized Pages and Posts ~ Content should be relevant to a site’s core theme, products or services. Each page should be optimized around a specific keyword phrase to achieve a keyword density of at least 1% (meaning if your post is 450 words, you should use your keyword phrase at least 5 times). Make use of the keyword phrases in header tags (h1, h2, h3), use your keyword phrase in the “alt description” of the image on the page.
4. Provide Fresh Content ~ Fresh and updated content shows people there are signs of life on your website, and if you’re continually adding new pages to your website, that creates more new opportunities to gain traction with the search engines. 
5. Speed Page Delivery ~ Slow loading websites frustrate visitors. Frustrated visitors look elsewhere for their needs. They will either back click or close the search altogether and then visit your competition. You can get a CDN (Content Delivery Network) or there are plugins for Wordress like WP Super Cache on WordPress that speed page load times.
6. Be Selective About Outbound Links ~ High quality outbound links are links that are relevant to your website’s core theme, product or service. Even then use them selectively. Best Practices in Blogging for SEO means to add “ref=nofollow” to most outbound links.
7. Create Quality inbound links - Avoid ‘link farming’ at all costs. This practice can result in your website being penalized. The most effective and highest rated links are those that are created organically. Organic links are links contained in relevant articles, directories, industry specific websites, news distribution sites, and most importantly, people commenting on your blog posts. If you’re using WordPress for your Blogging Platform, use a plugin like Comment Luv to give your commentors the opportunity to create a relevant back link from your website. Also, you might consider distributing SEO and Social Media enhanced press releases from time to time, for example with PR Log, a free news distribution resource; this is an excellent method of obtaining additional high quality inbound links.

If you follow these 7 Best Practices in Blogging for SEO – you’ll get a lot more quality inbound traffic, and the next things you’ll want to start working on are reducing your bounce rates (people visiting your site and leaving because you  aren’t giving them what they want), and increasing your conversion rates (registrations, downloads, requests for more information). 

If you need any help increasing your search engine visibility with Best Practices in Blogging for SEO, please contact me today.

How do you Create a Better Linked-in Profile?

While Linked-in is acknowledged as the premier business-oriented social networking site, many people look at it as a simple online CV or resume.     

But Linked-in is greatly underrated as a place to showcase your talents, grow your capabilities, and develop new business opportunities.  It is certainly worth your time to build a better-Linked-in Profile.   

I know for a fact that many Human Resource Professionals use Linked-in to help find and screen candidates. If you’re a job seeker, your should optimize your Linked-in Profile–just in case someone is looking for someone like you at this very moment.  If you’re a manager or an executive, you should take time to create a Better Linked-in Profile–to put your best foot forward.     

I realize there are many blog posts out there about how to Build a Better Linked-in Profile, but I put together the 5 main things that I do whenever I update someone’s Linked-in Profile. These 5 things will help you (1) connect with others and let them connect with you (2) collect and share information that’s important to you, and (3) to showcase your own content that positions you as the expert, so that when a client or prospect has a need they call you first.     

5 Easy Tips to Create a Better Linked-in Profile

 1.Clean up your URL with your name. When you first create your Linked-in Profile, it gives you a URL that ends with Gobbledygook. You should change this to something shorter. My LinkedIn profile URL is http://www.linkedin.com/in/lesproctor. It’s a much easier on the eyes, and looks nicer when you email it to people.     

2. Add your Twitter Account. In case you missed it, Twitter is going mainstream. And your microblog posts (or “tweets”), can now show up on the status update at the very top of your Linked-in Profile page. You can see a post that I put up entitled “An Open Mind is Good for the Bottom Line.”  These status updates are important because they illustrate to people visiting your website that you are active, and that “the lights are on and someone’s home.”     

Les Proctor's Linked-in Profile

3.Add Anchor Text to your Website Links. You can add up to 3 links on your profile to your website, or different pages on the same website; these links pass Linked-in’s SEO authority to your website, so you should take advantage of them. Customize the text on the links, so that the search engines understand more about the content of pages they link to.     

In my case I’ve added 3 Links to different pages of my website: (1) Direct Marketing 2.0 Blog, (2) Results Marketing Services, and a (3) Free Website Analysis.  

Adding Applications to your Linked-in Profile

You can add all kinds of really cool applications to your Linked in Profile. Your Creative Portfolio, Polls, Events, Your Reading, a Blog, and more. In my case I’ve added my Reading List and my WordPress Website Blog.      

4. Add your reading List. What people read tells a lot about who they are. By adding my reading list this I am giving you a sneak peek at the books in my library. Art, books, culture…, these are the things that bind us all together.     

Les Proctor's Linked-in Reading List by Amazon.com

 5. Add a Blog. In this case, my website is developed on WordPress, which is the most popular web publishing platform around. By adding my Blog, I’m publishing my 4 latest Blog posts, so people can see what I’ve been writing about lately.     

Direct Marketing 2.0 Blog

I know there are many others things you can do to create a better Linked-in Profile, but these are the areas where I consistently see an opportunity for improvement. I’m sure I’ve left something out.     

Please let me know what *you do* to build a better Linked-in Profile. And, if you liked this post, please share it with your friends. Share

If you’d like me to help you Build a Better Linked-in Profile or a Social Media Marketing Program, please contact me today.

3 Social Plugins to Gain Likes on your Facebook Page for Business (or 3 Easy Ways to Get People to Like You)

Even Scrooge "likes" it

Facebook is changing consumer behavior.  

Instead of searching online, consumers and business buyers who have a need are connecting to people they trust, and asking for referral sources. This is why it’s *more important than ever* to be connected, and Build a Facebook Page for Business. 

As I was writing this post I was trying to come up with a punchy headline, and it occurred me that maybe I ought to write a headline that would appeal to the Ebenezer Scrooge in all of us. I too, was resistant to the social media bandwagon at first, I admit it… Social Media, Bah humbug!  

One this is undeniable though–there are 500 million Facebook users and counting.  

So if you’re a small business owner these days, while you’re counting your pennies and watching every expenditure, you’re also wondering “how do I leverage my network and tap into my market that’s on Facebook?” It’s gotten too big to ignore. That’s why it’s important to know how to Build a Facebook Page for Business. 

To illustrate how this works, I’m using 3 Facebook plugins that illustrate how you can quickly and easily ”Like” your Facebook page from your website. 

3 Social Plugins to Build a Facebook Page for Business

Like Box - The Like Box you to attract and gain “Likes” from your website. The Like Box enables users to see how many users already like your Facebook page (including their friends), read recent posts from the page, and like the page with one click (I am using the “Like Box” in the right sidebar of this website under Measurable Marketing Tips).  

Like Button – The Like button lets a user share your content with their friends on Facebook. When the user clicks the Like button on your site, a story appears in the user’s friends’ News Feed with a link back to your website.  

  

Share Button - The Share Button is the easiest way to allow your content to be shared on Facebook. If you click this button it will share this post with all your friends.  

Share  

Ok, so hopefully you’ll see how easy this is to get people to “like” you–it’s so easy even Scrooge would like it.  

Happy Facebooking, and “God Bless us everyone.”  

Note: If you’d like to Build a Facebook Page for Business – I’ve included links to the code for each of these buttons, so you can forward this post to your web developer, and put the button you’d like on your website.  

If you don’t have a web developer, and you’d like to implement Social Plugins to Build a Facebook Page for Business – please feel free to contact me today.

Do you want to promote a Facebook Page?

Don't administer promotions on the wall

Facebook is, quite simply, social networking at its finest. Not only can you use the platform to interact with family and friends, but from a commercial point of view, it’s great for marketing as well. 

It is a Marketer’s dream… You can connect with more than 500 million potential customers, you can choose your audience by location, age and interests… all with easy-to-target, self-reported demographics that are up-to-date and accurate. 

If you own a business, or are responsible for marketing one, you’re right to think about creating a Facebook Page (formerly a Fan Page) and build community around your business. And you’re right to think about using a drawing, contest, or sweepstakes to promote a Facebook Page and “gain likes” (grow your Fan base). 

How to Promote a Facebook Page: Be aware of the rules and regulations

It’s grown so much so quickly there’s still confusion about what you can and cannot do to promote a Facebook Page. 

For example, it is against Facebook’s promotional guidelines to post this offer on the wall of your fan page: 

“Like us and Win a $250 Shopping Spree (or some other prize)”

Potential problems with this offer:

• You can not administer a promotion on your wall (without an approved 3rd party application)
• You need to get Facebook’s approval prior to running a promotion on your wall
• You can’t use Facebook to communicate with the winner

The big distinction that Facebook makes in their promotional guidelines is between publicizing and administering a promotion on a Facebook Page (this applies to contests & sweepstakes only): 

• Publicizing a promotion means that you promote, advertise or reference a promotion in Facebook, but you do not collect entries or draw or notify winners in Facebook.
• Administering a promotion means you both publicize it and collect entries in Facebook.

These guidelines have been a boon to 3rd party applications like Wildfire, Involver, FanBase that help Marketers administer promotions through Facebook, but on the 3rd party-application page (which is technically outside Facebook). These applications require users “Like you” as a condition of entry, and then have a an entry form that’s not “on” Facebook, so it conforms to all the rules. But many of these solutions can be expensive… a minimum of $750-$1,000/month and up–making it cost-prohibitive to many small businesses. 

The Solution? Use Facebook to promote – and not administer, your drawing, contest, or sweepstakes

Publicizing  your promotion does not need Facebook approval, and does not need an approved 3rd-party application to run it. 

You can use Facebook freely to promote, advertise or reference your promotion, but you can’t collect entries or notify winners in Facebook.  

Next Post: “3 Easy Ways to Get People to Like You”

Posts related to: Promote a Facebook Page

• Social Media Marketing

If you need some  help on how to promote a Facebook Page, please contact me today.

This is a “must see” video for everyone…  Check it out.  It’s worth 5 minutes.

It’s kind of mind-boggling, really…

You want to know how to get better results?

"I don't want to..."

Everyone says they want better results.

So why aren’t companies more adventurous when it comes to trying new things? Do they want to know how to get better results?

It’s the “I hate brocolli” syndrome of marketing and business.

If you ask the average CEO, “What’s the rationale for the way you’re currently marketing your services?”  Many say: “It’s what we’ve always done.”

The sad truth is that many companies are engaging in the same old tried marketing tactics rooted in strategies that were developed eons ago (a.k.a. 2007).  They’re wasting money on tactics that are not rooted in any real, current strategy – or based on the realities of today’s marketplace.

How to get better results: Higher response rates and higher conversions

“Nothing fails like success.”

There an old saying: “Nothing fails like success.” People get a little taste of success. They get lucky because they tried something, and it worked, so they naturally think that if they just keep doing whatever it was that made them lucky, they’ll keep enjoying success.

Unfortunately, times change.  So what worked once, at one moment in time, may not work today. That’s why it’s important to continually test new ideas. 

Any Direct Marketing old timer will tell you that the secret to getting and maintaining high response rates and higher conversions is: “Test. Test. Test.”

In fact, there are some who say that  30% of your budget should be set aside for testing.

If you’re testing new ideas agains the old ones it’s the only way to know for sure that you’re marketing is continually improving. That’s how to get better results.

Apply the principles of continual improvement to your marketing. In Direct Mail it’s called “A/B Splits and Multivariate Testing.” In Google Web Optimizer it’s called “Marketing Experiments.”

Test everything. Test in order of importantance. Your offer, your keywords on your pay-per-click ads, your landing pages.

Or if you don’t really want new and better results, you can just keep doing what you’re doing — what you’ve always done.

Posts related to “How to get better results”:

• 12 Marketing Ideas to Grow Sales

If you’d like someone to help you test some new ideas and show you how to get better results, please contact me today.

Blogging and Social Media Sitting in a Tree: K.I.S.S.I.N.G.

Social Media was made for Blogging

Blogging and Social Media… Just a fad? Or here to stay? It’s driving the revolution in user-generated content…

What is the purpose behind Blogging? It’s not to show how smart or cute you are. If it’s going to be a part of an effective business strategy, you need to provide value, to show people the way, and establish yourself as a thought leader.

What is the purpose behind Social Media? It’s to connect with People: Friends, Associates, Affiliates, Prospects, Customers, and let them know what you’re up to. If you are using social media, you get to build your own channel, and you are literally the Editorial Board, Editor in Chief, Writer/Anchor, and Ombudsman all in one person.

What’s the purpose behind integrating your Blogging and Social Media? Quite simply, it’s a radical new opportunity to put yourself “out there” in front of your clients and prospects, to help them solve problems,and position yourself as a potential solution provider, so that when they have an itch they’ll remember that you provide the scratch.

How to Integrate Blogging and Social Media: In 8 Simple Steps

1. Reserve your social media profile names: If you haven’t done so already go to Linked in, Facebook, and Twitter, and reserve your social media profile names. Optionally you can create a corporate Facebook account, or a Facebook Page, so that people can follow your business (“like you”) instead of you as an individual.

2. Build out your social media profiles: Building a good profile takes time and evolves as you evolve. To start take an hour or two and do your best to build your social media profile so that it tells people what you do and how you do it better than anyone else.  Optional: On Linked-in add Wordpress (if you have a WordPress website) and Twitter.

3. Build your base group of followers. Upload Gmail, Yahoo, AOL accounts. Or Upload a .csv file. This allows you to connect with everyone in your address book quickly.

4. Work to add followers on a daily basis. Did you meet someone at a networking event? While you’re adding them to your CRM, invite them to connect, to be a friend, or a follower.  This requires some discipline. But once you add it to your routine it’s easy.

5. Blog about things your customers and prospects are interested in. And educate them about what you do at the same time. Make what you do relevant to your followers. Jerry Seinfeld was a genius at this. Share practical tips, insights, humor, personal triumphs. Your editorial could be topically-related business news, the economy, or about the seasons and the weather.

6. Download Tweetdeck: Add your social media accounts to Tweetdeck. There are others tools out there like Hootsuite, Social Oomph. I’m wary of “auto-magic,” i.e., anything that automates your marketing so much that you end up losing the human touch. Think quality over quantity as it pertains to the content you’re writing, and your number of followers. There are no shortcuts. Just do a good job, and success will follow.

7. Update your statuses: When you post a new blog, update your statuses to all three networks (Linked-in, Facebook, and Twitter) using Tweetdeck. This will increase the likelihood that your thoughts will be seen, and picked up by others. The more you interact the more you get picked up.

8. Interact with Others. Remember that Social Media is a two-way street. It’s not simply a broadcast medium. If someone takes the time to comment on something you’ve written, take the time and have the courtesy to respond. Also, comment on other posts that you find interesting. Retweet (RT) other people’s Tweets.  Follow and comment on status updates that you find interesting. Take advantage of opportunities to interact with others.

If you follow this Simple 8 Step Plan to Integrate Blogging and Social Media, others who use Social Media will see that the lights are on and someone is definitely home. 

Don’t forget that Social Media is “Social”

Remember to emphasize the “social” aspect of ”Social Media.” Its purpose should be to genuinely connect with people because you genuinely care about connecting with people (**not to connect with them so you can sell something**). If you’re at a cocktail party, you are a boor if all you do is talk about yourself.

So that’s how you can begin to integrate Blogging and Social Media, and if you do it right, first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes YOU pushing all your new business around in a baby carriage shopping cart.

Postscript: The one item on this list that people ask me the most about is #5. “What specifically should I write about about?” My answer: “It all depends.” What is going to engage your followers? You’re the Editor-in chief; you decide what will engage your followers. Write about problems and solutions (and oh by the way if you provide the solution let your followers know, but don’t lead with a solution before you’ve got people agreeing that there’s a problem in the first place).

If you need any assistance with Blogging and Social Media, please do not hesistate to contact me.