Archive for Social Networking
Must Haves For Your Blog
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Blogs are a great way to connect and build relationships with your potential clients. Depending on what you talk about, they can help you reach a completely new audience and they give your audience a way to get to know you and your brand, and to participate in your community. All of these are important for both growing your business and growing your blog following. Often, however, even the biggest blogs make little mistakes. They forget or overlook some important features. Here are seven features to implement on your blog:
Subscribe or RSS feed. There’s nothing more frustrating, as a visitor, than finding a blog you enjoy and not being able to subscribe to it. People are busy, too busy to remember to visit your blog on a daily or weekly basis. Cut them a break, and yourself, and offer an option to subscribe to your blog so each new post is delivered via email, sent to a reader or shows up on their iGoogle page.
Contact/About information. Have you ever visited a blog and thought, “I wonder who this blog belongs to? Where are they? Who are they?” Trust me, readers think this and they want to know. If they can’t find out a bit about you, determine your credibility or make some sort of connection, they’ll move along. Retain your visitors by sharing a bit of information about yourself including a means by which they can contact you.
Comments. Some blogs intentionally do not allow comments and while they have their reasons, most people like to be able to leave a comment if they have something to say. If you’re considering not allowing commenting because you want to avoid spam, then check out a few of the spam blockers like Askimet, which is available for WordPress blogs. If you’re avoiding allowing comments because you don’t want to respond to them, consider outsourcing the job and having someone moderate your posts, or just set ten minutes aside at the end of each day to respond. People like the interaction and it draws more readers.
Archives, popular posts, popular comments, tags and other associated identifiers. People search and read blogs differently. Some simply read the most recent post and move on while others search by category or tag. Some people will want to read the most popular posts and others will want to sift through your archives post by post. Provide a number of options for your visitors to search by.
SEO plug-ins. One of the wonderful features about a blog is that it’s welcomed by the search engines due to frequent and easily indexed content. That being said, there are an abundance of quality search engine plug-ins, particularly for WordPress, which make optimizing your posts for the search engines quick and easy.
Social networking and bookmarking features. With Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Reddit, and other social networking and bookmarking sites growing in popularity, it pays to include options on your blog. You can ask people to tweet your posts, post or link to them on Facebook, Digg them and so on. It’ll draw traffic and subscribers.
Google Analytics. You want to know how many people are visiting your blog, where they’re coming from, how many posts they read and how long they stay on your site, right? Google analytics will tell you all that and more. To make good decisions about how to grow your blog, it pays to have the kind of information an analytics tool can provide.
Blogging is extremely popular and useful, and along with this popularity comes a bevy of useful tools. Take advantage of these tools and resources to grow your subscribers, profits and business.
Strategies For Website Traffic
Posted by: | CommentsWebsite traffic is a good thing. In fact for many business owners, driving traffic to their website is their primary avenue for business-building. And while traffic may be all well and good, what you really want is targeted website traffic. You want the people visiting your website to be potential prospects. Your goal should be to turn them into future customers.
Here are 6 effective strategies to guarantee targeted website traffic.
#1 PPC ads.
Of course, not all Pay Per Click ad campaigns generate targeted traffic. You have to study your prospects and design keyword-specific ads that send traffic to a web page related to the ad. If you have a website about foods for people with Celiac Disease and your potential customers have to dig to find information about bread alternatives, you’re not sending the right kind of targeted website traffic to the right place. Send them directly to your bread products page.
#2 A squeeze page, opt-in list and targeted email messages.
A squeeze page is essentially a way to capture the email addresses of people who are actually interested in receiving your information. True, they may be after your giveaway but that’s okay – they’re still a qualified prospect. Once you have their email address, you can begin sending them informative, entertaining and slightly romotional messages, all of which are designed to send them directly to your website – targeted website traffic.
#3 Article marketing.
Article marketing is one of the most effective ways to generate targeted website traffic. When you publish quality content, and it gets published online in article directories and republished on other websites, you’re reaching a wider audience. The link(s) in your article and in your bio box can all send targeted traffic right back to your website. The more articles you publish, the more targeted traffic you generate.
#4 Blog and guest blog.
Use the advice and strategy described above for article marketing to generate traffic with your blog.
#5 Social networking.
Social networking can send tons of traffic to your website simply because people are curious about you and your business. However, if you’re strategic about your social networking use you will occasionally include links to your website with attention-grabbing posts or headlines. If the idea of social networking is like “Greek” to you, I offer a powerful webinar program called Social Media Made Easy. You can find out more about this amazing program by clicking here.
#6 Comment on blogs and forums.
On most forums and blogs when you participate and comment you can post a link to your website in your signature. This does generate curious folks who just want to know “who said that?!” When you participate in forums and blogs that are relevant to your website and industry niche, you’re sending targeted traffic to your website. You can also try unique approaches like posting reviews on websites and directories for products related to your industry and include a link to your website in your review profile, for example reviewing on Amazon.com. You can post answers on Yahoo! Answers and you can post videos or podcasts on directories and drive traffic to your site much like you would with article marketing.
There are a number of creative ways to drive targeted traffic to your website. Analyze your traffic-generating strategies and tactics to ensure you’re sending the right kind of traffic to your website.
5 Twitter Tools Every Social Media Marketing Campaign Should Use!
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John Panico of Social Media Dudes shares his Twitter expertise in this guest post. To hear more of John and his Twitter secrets, join the free teleseminar on February 23rd. Register here.
Twitter is one of the fastest growing social networking sites on the planet. It truly is one of the game changers that if not already a part of your social media marketing campaign, change that today (see my article on Twitter for Business Done Right for proper setup).
If you are looking to either be a Twitter Ninja or perhaps haven’t participated because you were concerned about the time it takes to manage, I am endowing you with what I consider five essential tools that will make you more efficient, save you time, get you the followers that you want and fortify your social media presence. As a bonus, all of these are free (although you may decide to upgrade to take advantage of some additional feature that some of these tools afford you.
Here they are (as they say on DWTS in no particular order):
- Social Oomph – You may remember this site formally going by Tweetlater.com (which personally I thought was more appropriate). Nevertheless, I find this tool to be invaluable in how to be efficient on twitter.
One of your objectives with your social media marketing campaign is to appear to be everywhere 24/7. Let’s get real. If all you did was tweet all day, you wouldn’t have time to focus on your business. One of the best features that Social Oomph allows is for you to schedule your tweets. I set aside 1 hour every Sunday morning and plan out 6-8 tweets a day. Some of them are going to push people to my site because of posts I have scheduled. Others are RT’s (ReTweets) that will bring a lot of love (and followers) back to you.
The other thing that I have found most useful is the Auto DM’s (Direct Message) feature that Social Oomph provides. Like them or not, as long as you are not selling back in your first response back to a follower, these can be very effective. You can have rotating DM’s.
- TweetDeck – Twitter is constantly doing things that make it compelling to use their homepage for all of your tweeting. But if you are like me, I currently have 6 Internet Explorer browsers open along with several other applications. If I want to quickly and effortlessly take a quick look to see if someone that I am following (or a phrase/keyword) has just tweeted something, it takes a while to do that.
Having to go to the twitter homepage to do that just takes up too much time, so I prefer an application that is sitting there in the background doing all of the work for me. Some will argue that other applications such as HootSuite or Twirl or just as good. I am not saying I haven’t used them. I just have found TweetDeck to do it better and cleaner.
TweetDeck allows me to use my Twitter lists or to make groups on my own based on keywords. How cool is that? And while it works easily on my desktop or laptop, it also performs just as well on my iPhone or Blackberry. In my opinion, it is the must-have twitter tool.
- PollDaddy – Part of being involved in social media marketing is well…being involved. You not only want, but you need engagement with your audience. If you are shy about getting into the mix, creating a poll not only provides involvement, but can also supply good market research for your product or service. It allows you to get answers about things much quicker and obviously cheaper (since it is free) than using a marketing firm to do it for you.
With PollDaddy, you can create a poll and send it to your Twitter followers in seconds. No account necessary!
- Twellow – Known as the Yellow Pages for Twitter, this tool can do some amazing and fun things. Did you ever wonder just how many users in your city were actually on twitter? Twellow can tell you. But the best feature by far is geo-targeted followers. What’s that you say?
If you are a business professional or a local service business, it probably doesn’t do you any good to have followers in Boston if you are located in California. Number of followers is nice, but targeted followers are a better option. When you get to the home page, click on the TwellowHood tab and then enter your location (and other search terms you are looking for). From there it is easy to follow people that fit your parameters.
- TweetSpinner – How do you know who has the same interests/concerns that you do? You could do a search on twitter, but once again, that is time consuming. Perhaps this application is a better and albeit more efficient tool for you to use.
If you aren’t as interested in followers that are geographically in a particular area, this application allows you to automatically follow those who tweet keywords of your design. The value to that is that those people are going to see the value in your tweets and follow you back. (You are providing tweets that have value regularly aren’t you? You should NOT be trying to sell something every tweet…mix it up.) Then you can engage them to see if you can forge an alliance or if after you have shown yourself to be a good twitizen, they will want the goods or services you provide.
All right, off you go and on your way to becoming a Twitter Ninja. I can tell you from personal experience that when my clients have used these tools effectively, they have told me thank you countless times for giving them more time in their day to work on their businesses and also for the opportunities that have come their way as a result of finding/using these tools.
Are you interested in how to use social media in your business? Don’t know where to start or which sites you should be using for your business?
Believe it or not, not doing social media right can actually harm your business.
If you are looking for free tips or advice on how to approach your social media, go to Social Media Dudes.
Or follow our tweets on Twitter at twitter.com/johnpanico
Finally, those are my thoughts from high atop my 2nd floor office above my garage. What I want to hear are YOUR comments. Let Janet know if this post was of help or what other topics you would like to hear about by leaving your comments here.
Twitter Secrets Revealed by Social Media Dude
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Entrepreneurs report over & over that they know Twitter should help their businesses, but they just aren’t getting anywhere with it or they are too intimidated to begin.
“Twitter Frustration” is happening all too much – and it’s time to pull in an expert so everyone knows how to use Twitter right.
Everyone knows Twitter is a great marketing tool…. It connects you to people who would never have found your business otherwise. It gives you an audience that wants to hear what you have to say. It’s free marketing.
And it isn’t easy to turn that into amazing business growth without the secrets of those with big Twitter success stories.
John Panico of the Social Media Dudes has the answer for you. He’ll be sharing all his best secrets in a 60 minute teleseminar – Twitter Strategies for Your Business – you’ll be studying with the master. Learn the Twitter strategies that have earned him more than 16,000 targeted followers in 6 months & grown his business dramatically.
You’ll learn –
- 3 best strategies for growing your Twitter following
- How to turn followers to customers & cash
- Ways to use Twitter to be an expert in your field
- 5 Tools so Twitter doesn’t waste your time
- Strategies to get the most from the viral nature of Twitter
Teleseminar details:
Date: Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Time: 1:00- 2:00pm ET (New York time)
Registration: Click here.
Recording: Available to all registrants.
About John Panico – John has spent his career working with small business owners & he excels in helping entrepreneurs market their new & growing enterprises. He runs several online businesses, but is probably best known around the net as one of the Social Media Dudes. John started out his marketing efforts with just a hope & a dream but through the use of social media, he has become known as the “authority guru” of the internet. He writes extensively about marketing, social media & how to become an authority in your niche. Follow him on Twitter.
Use Social Bookmarking to Gain Recognition
Posted by: | CommentsWho wouldn’t want to be viewed as an expert in their field? It can mean more traffic, more sales, more credibility and greater visibility. Your readers and social bookmarking sites can help you there.
When you find something that you love to read, you want to tell everyone. You also want to be able to find it again if you needed to. That is part of what a social bookmarking site is all about.
When you provide good quality content, your readers are happy. They are sometimes so happy that they will bookmark your content on their favorite social bookmarking site.
There are bookmarking sites for just about everything. Readers can tag content, videos, pictures and more. You can create your own account with these sites and add icons to your blog (like mine, see below this post) or website content pages.
The sites don’t copy your content but index a link to it when someone bookmarks it. The bookmarked content or media is voted on by other members of the site. You could even be featured on the front page which could bring you more readers.
There is one crucial point: Readers won’t bookmark your content if you don’t try to build relationships with them. Listen to what readers say in surveys, comments on your blog and make changes on your site or to your products. Knowing that they are being listened to is a great way to build additional credibility.
Don’t stop there. Your readers may be writers in their own right. Endeavor to find to what your readers are interested in. If they have blogs, read and comment on them. Bookmark posts that you find interesting. If you see any of their bookmarked content, leave comments when you vote.
Reply when readers post on your blog. Use your responses to start a conversation with them. It can be both a fact-gathering mission and curiosity about those who read what you write or buy your products.
When your loyal readers see your stuff bookmarked on a site like Digg or StumbleUpon, they will vote for you. Social bookmarking is one way to drive traffic to your site and help build expert status. Choose social networks that cater to your type of content.
If readers like and trust you, they may be more inclined to use social bookmarking to interest others in your work too. Reciprocate by visiting their blogs or websites and tagging their work. Again, the reader/business relationship can prove to be mutually beneficial.
Visit Reader Blogs and Get to Know Them
Posted by: | CommentsReaders visit your website each day. They are there for information to start. They may keep coming back because of your knowledge or to get to know you before they try your product or service offerings. Let them know that you are a real person by returning the favor and visiting them too. It’s great add a comment to your blog post where your reader commented, but it’s another game all together to return the favor by commenting on their blog.
Everyone is a real person but not everyone comes off like they are. Business owners who intentionally stay aloof from their readership set themselves up for all sorts of scathing comments. They are like royalty in ivory towers – high and unreachable.
You are one part of the business equation. Your readers (potential customers) are the other part. Without traffic, you can’t hope to make a sale. Unless you build relationships with the readers, they won’t see any reason to stay loyal to you.
Blogging
Chances are, at least one third of your readers have some sort of presence in cyberspace. More than likely it will be a blog. They may be professional bloggers, recreational bloggers or online entrepreneurs like you.
One way to get to know them is to visit their sites. If you have your own blog for your business, have a category devoted to reader news. Take some time to highlight some of your regular readers on a bi-weekly or monthly basis.
Next, visit their blogs. Read what they have to say and the kind of topics they talk about. Leave helpful comments that show you actually read the posts and not just wishy-washy “I came to visit you to say hello.” Really get involved. Remember the old saying, “treat others the way you want to be treated?” This old saying, when put into practice, can really catapult your expert status.
If you have an RSS reader, you can include all of their sites in it so that you will be notified when there are new updates. Participate just like any other follower of the site. They will recognize your name.
Sites, that you like, will benefit when you link back to them on your site. Organic links rank higher in search engine eyes than simply doing each other a favor and exchanging links. On your blog, you can post reviews of their blogs or just write posts that highlight each one. This is essentially a review without calling it that.
Interacting with your readers and getting to know them in this way is mutually beneficial. Those organic links work both ways. Besides, you never know who will hear about your business through these comments and other relationship building techniques.
7 Reasons to Use WordPress For Your Website
Posted by: | CommentsYou are ready to do it. You are ready to have your voice be heard. You are ready to start your own website or blog. Good for you – now to decide which platform to use…
Blogger, WordPress and TypePad are just a few of the more popular platforms. While there are several different applications that are low cost and/or free, most solopreneurs find themselves in the world of WordPress. There are many good reasons to choose WordPress over the competition, including open source content management and SEO ability. If you find yourself trying to decide which is right for you, here are some everyday reasons to use WordPress as your platform of choice.
1. Personality Zone – WordPress is all about you. There are hundreds of free themes available to personalize and provide an Internet presence that represents who you are as a solopreneur.
WordPress themes are flexible and can be customized to your niche audience, service and product line. Best yet, if you get tired of the theme you are using on WordPress, simply change it by uploading a new theme. With a simple click of a button WordPress moves your content to the new theme for you.
2. Plugins! Plugins! Plugins! – Get the idea? Plugins are another way to customize your space. Popular plugins include contact forms, site statistics, search engine optimization, and photo resources. WordPress currently offers many different free plugins and is adding to their plugin resources daily.
3. Pagination – Back in the early days of blogging or using a platform of this type, blogs appeared as online diaries with one post following the next and comments intermixed between. With WordPress you can actually create pages to separate your material or to provide additional information.
Maybe you have a blog that focuses on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Each of these could be placed onto their own unique page, making it easier for your readers to find the information they are looking for.
You can also create additional pages such as ‘Contact Me’, or ‘About Me’ pages. This functionality also makes WordPress the perfect platform
for businesses, not just bloggers!
4. Performance – Believe it or not, not everyone who uses WordPress is an expert at web design. Creating your own website or presence can be a daunting task for anyone. WordPress provides easy to use functionality with a built in dashboard to help manage your sight. Also, because of its popularity WordPress has many resources available to their users including online forums, help references, and support teams. Best yet, if you just want to try blogging out for a bit before you invest in your own domain name, WordPress allows you to register your blog on their site for free at www.wordpress.com.
5. Permalinks – When you create your blog and/or website, you want the world to be able to connect to that specific blog quickly. This is where permalinks come into play. For every blog you post, WordPress creates a unique permanent link to that specific post.
6. Ping Back to Me – What is auto pinging anyway? It is a tool that allows you to notify the search engines that you have posted a new entry. By default, WordPress has pingomatic.com built right into the platform, so the search engines are automatically notified that you have posted to your blog. In addition each time another website or blog owner links to one of your blog posts, you are notified on your WordPress Dashboard as well as in the post iteself in the comments section.
7. Pathways Back – Have you ever commented on another person’s blog? Many times the blog will only post your user information when you leave a comment, but if you use WordPress and you are commenting on another WordPress blog, then WordPress has the ability to automatically provide a link back to your blog for anyone to see. A great and free tool to increase your readership.
This is only a small list of reasons bloggers choose WordPress to host their blog. Ultimately, you need to choose the platform that’s right for your needs. Keep in mind, WordPress prides itself on being one of the most user friendly platforms and is constantly striving to make things better for users.
