An Industry Fighting for Survival

You don’t need a vested interest in the fate of newspapers to be privy to the increasing number of stories about the industry’s struggle in the digital age. ‘Citizen journalism’ and blogging has led to wide cuts in staffing, journalists still employed need to be paid decent – or at least competitive – wages, and newspapers are still extremely dependent on advertisers who are taking their money elsewhere, primarily to the web to improve their SEO rankings and online advertising presence.
Newspapers, as a result, are frantically searching for a practical model to reinvigorate the business. One highly publicized method is to charge for online content. Yet another method has been discussed quietly for months. It is only recently that the chatter has reached the public domain through YouTube videos and in-the-know blogs.
This proposed model has newspapers identifying third party websites with little to no traffic and selling links to them in their editorial content. This would enable papers to regain some of their advertising revenue while tapping into one of the major reasons they lost the it in the first place: advertisers taking a greater interest in page rankings and SEO.

How Linking Works

Around 30% of Google’s algorithm for pages rankings are calculated through links to the website. Google assumes that linking implies recommendation, thus each link suggests the website’s relevance and quality. Links from particular websites count more than others. For example, newspapers have a high page rank with Google. If they link to a page, their benefits are, to some extent, passed on to the linked page.
However, if links are randomly generated or irrelevant to the content, Google’s search results become meaningless, providing results based on quantity of links rather than quality or a real online presence being built. This, of course, is extremely damaging to Google.

Dangerous Consequences

While link selling has gone on for years (even big hitters such as Yahoo and WordPress have been caught doing it), recent public chatter about it has been hushed. Even YouTube videos from the recent Silicon Beach Training SEO event where the discussion originated were made private within a couple of hours. And it’s easy to see why; this topic is not only contentious, it’s downright dangerous for newspapers.
For starters, the topic focuses attention on the difference between ‘white hat’ and ‘black hat’ search engine optimization. In true fairytale stereotype, white denotes ‘good’ or above board techniques to boost page rankings, while black suggests more underhand – and less-publicized – methods. Needless to say, purchasing editorial links is considered ‘black hat’. Many companies employ both white and black hat methods to improve rankings, and, because so many organisations are in glass houses on this one, no one wants to throw accusatory stones or even mention this tension between these approaches.You can find out more about white vs. black hat methods here.

This approach also blurs the line between editorial and advertising – something which can significantly affect the integrity of any news organization.
More important than putting a few noses out of joint, however, is the danger newspapers face in employing this method of generating revenue. When Google finds out about the link selling, as they surely will, they could take two courses of action. The first is to change their algorithms to give less clout to outbound links on newspaper sites. In this case, newspapers will simply lose out on this source of revenue when advertisers no longer invest. The second possibility is far more dangerous. Google could choose to reduce the page rank of the newspapers themselves, thus negatively affecting their ad revenue even more as the sites become less attractive to buyers. Both The Irish Times and The Economist faced this consequence when they sold links in previous months.

There’s no doubt that the next few years could make or break the newspaper industry. For now, the discussion is still relatively hush-hush. Newspapers would do well to keep it that way. In the meantime, the rest of us would do well to keep on top of these industry developments to ensure we can achieve the best results in SEO within industry-accepted parameters.

I’ve been doing some learning on SEO to better improve my client offerings.. I found a great ‘beginner’s guide’ over at searchbliss that makes a good read for anyone interested in the basics of SEO. Enjoy

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization Terms Defined

Title and Meta Tags

Good search engine optimization includes several factors that are explained to help you achieve better website placement. Most of the tips given can be achieved almost immediately, where as other factors explained will take a lot of your time and effort. If you are serious about Search Engine Optimization then you’re on the right track. Please note that the tips mentioned in these tips are used by SearchBliss and some of the website optimization stated is merely our opinion.

Before you begin reading these tips, please keep this in mind. The most important advice I can give you is to build your web pages with your visitors in mind. We have all been to sites that “don’t make much sense” as a result of webmasters targeting keywords that they have trouble placing into readable text. You can have thousands of web site visitors each day, but it is useless traffic when they exit your page out of frustration, and they may never return.

Targeting the Right Keywords

Choose the right keywords. This is an extremely important part of Search Engine Optimization and should be done FIRST. Optimizing a site takes a lot of time, patience, and hard work. Doing this targeting the wrong keywords can be devastating. Find relevant keywords that are searched for often. Make sure you target “phrases” rather than single keywords. For example, targeting “hosting” alone will not help you. There are too many search results. But targeting “web hosting provider”, “web hosting service”, and “hosting business” will get you more realistic results (and a ton of traffic). Plus you are still targeting “hosting”. I would suggest targeting ONE “reach phrase” and TWO “realistic phrases”. Three phrases may seem like a lot, but not when one or two key terms is in all three phrases. When this occurs, things don’t get watered down, giving better results.

Let’s begin with the “bare bones” of website optimization. Title tag and meta tags. Most SE’s (search engines) give little to no relevance to some of these, however, since no one really knows how they are factored by each engine, they are still important steps in optimizing any web site.

1: The TITLE tag

Here is an example Title tag which should appear in-between the <HEAD> tags of your web page(s):

<title>My Business Title</title>

The title tag is very important. Why? Because SE’s not only give it value in relation to search engine optimization, but they use it in their search results. Search on ANY search engine, and you’ll see the content of this tag used in the anchor text of the links for each web site. Here is a little experiment. Follow the Google link (opens in a new window) and take a look. Google Experiment

There are 28,100,000+ pages in Google with the title tag <title>Untitled Document</title> So most of the web page links displayed are Untitled Document. Why? Because who ever built these web pages used an editing program that adds the title tag, and they never changed the title text which is certainly poor Search Engine Optimization.

So what should be in the title tag? The name of your business or web site with the “keyword phrase” you are targeting. For example, your business sells “watches”. This is a broad search term and using it alone my not work out for you. There are 42,500,000 estimated search results in Google. However searching for the term “Swiss watches” I get 2,760,000 estimated results. The likelihood of your site appearing in the first 3 pages of Google is much more realistic using “Swiss watches”. This is better website optimization. Plus, the keyword “watches” is still present, so you are actually targeting both terms.

Here is a good title tag using this example:

<title>MyGreatWidgets Inc., widget Tools</title>

Keep it short and to the point. Targeting too many keywords can “thin out” your website’s relevance.

2: The DESCRIPTION Meta Tag

Here is an example description meta tag which should appear in-between the <HEAD> tags of your web page(s):

<meta name=”description” content=”A Description of My Business.”>

The description meta tag is less important for search engine optimization, but it is still utilized by the search engines. Google for example, will use the web pages body text, image alt tags, and yes even portions of the description meta tag will show at times. The body text and alt tags will be discussed later on in these tips.

So in my opinion, it is important enough to use. The best way to use it is to place your keyword phrase inside this meta tag “once”, then split up the phrase and add the keywords again separately. But keep it readable, and avoid too many comas. This is bad Search Engine Optimization and can be viewed as “spam”. Your site could be black listed and ignored by SE’s all together. Also, use two sentences maximum and avoid “sales pitches” like “The best shop ever”, and so on.

Here is a good description meta tag targeting the term “Widget tools” from the example above:

<meta name=”description” content=”Widget Tools from MyGreatWidgets Inc. Browse through our large selection of widget software and tools.”>

Notice that “Widget” and “TOOLS” appear twice, but the second time is split with the term “SOFTWARE” (widget software being a secondary targeted keyword phrase).

3: The KEYWORD Meta Tag

Here is an example keyword meta tag which should appear in-between the <HEAD> tags of your web page(s):

<meta name=”keywords” content=”my,keywords,and phrases,separated by,commas”>

The keyword meta tag is believed one of the LEAST recognized meta tag by search engines. It carries very little weight when it comes to search engine optimization. However, it is not ignored by all engines. For example, through my own experiment, I have used a single keyword (like spaloof – which means nothing) that had very little if any search results. After being indexed, SearchBliss had appeared at the top of MSN. The keyword was NO where else on SearchBliss. Only in the keyword meta tag. This says to me that some search engines DO give the keyword meta tag some weight.

I suggest adding your target keywords 3 to 4 times without REPEATING THE SAME TERM. This is viewed as “spam”. Spam example: Swiss watches,Swiss watches,Swiss watches,… This is more commonly know as “keyword stuffing”. It also applies to everything else being covered is these tips.

Here is a good keyword meta tag using the “widget Tools” example:

<meta name=”keywords” content=”widget Tools, widget building tools, website widgets, widget software, webmaster tools, widget tips”>

Notice that the keywords listed 3 times (widget & tools) are not only split up using other key terms, but are also never too close together. I do this by adding other keywords/phrases in-between the ones with the target terms. The term “widget tools” only appears together one time.

There are also several other meta tags that may or may not help website optimizing, like the “abstract”, “robots”, etc. But I feel that there is no need to cover these in regards to good Search Engine Optimization. I believe they are not an important part of search engine optimization and have no use in these tips. Build title and meta tags now, then optimize your meta tags.

Another great blog post I found, and since I spend most of my time writing for my clients, I thought I’d share it. Lots of good resources here!

9 Possible Ways That Writing Changes Things

by Joanna on September 2, 2009

I asked a question the other day about how writing helps to make things possible.

It’s a question that unfolds in lots of different ways.

Some of it is around the way we write to open things up for others (and more on that next week.)

But I’m also interested in the way that writing can shift things for us, inside: opening up a sense of creativity, playfulness, the freedom to dream dreams and explore what’s possible.

Apture™

by Silke Gerstenkorn

I don’t have definitive answers on this, just some ideas, observations and hunches.  Your feedback, input and expertise on this question is most welcome to help me (and others) understand the connection between writing and possibility.

As numbers help me open things up, I’ve used the hook of number 9 to doodle around the question.

How Does Writing Help To Make Things Possible?

1. Writing is a declaration of intent

Putting pen to paper makes a dream, a target, an imagined possibility start to seem more real.

The language you use makes it more tangible.  Sharing it with others – on Twitter, or a blog post – means blasting through the comfort zones and setting out where you really want to get to.

By writing it down, you declare yourself in the game.  Putting it on paper alerts the part of your brain known as the reticular activating system to join you in the play. ~ Henriette Anne Klauser, Write it Down, Make it Happen

2. Writing helps you notice the sticking points

You might notice your own points of resistance or limiting beliefs as you write.  You might notice them because you’re feeling awkward or uncomfortable in writing about them, or spot them later when you’re editing.  Perhaps it’s negative language you’ve used, or metaphors that subconsciously make a project look threatening and daunting.

When this happens you could try rewriting with language that is softer, more possible, more full of “coulds” and “maybes” and see if new a sense of possibilities opens up (more on the language and verbs of possibility next week.)

Anytime words alone stop you doing what is important to you – change the words ~ Moshe Feldenkreis

3. Repetition makes a difference

I guess this is how affirmations work (though they rarely work for me, because they’re too general and not convincing enough.)  The more you write about something postive, interesting, quirky, creative… the more you will start to feel that way.  (I think this only works if it’s genuine, not if you’re just doing it for the sake of it or to try and convince yourself.)

I explored this a while back in relation to writing with gratitude.  It’s one of the best examples I know of how language, words and writing can change your state.

Writing that sense of gratitude helps you to notice it, capture it, name it, share it.

Gratitude changes the way you write. Writing with gratitude changes you.

4. Your mind starts looking for evidence: to back up what you’re working on or thinking about, or to supply you with more words.

This is one of the reasons I enjoy writing to a theme: my mind starts looking for material I can collect and use.  The theme serves as a focus or filter.  So long as I pick something positive (interesting, quirky, creative) I can look forward to finding all sorts of interesting things courtesy of my inner search engine.

5. Writing opens things up

Pick a theme, a topic, an idea that you want to write about and your mind will look for ways to explore it and expand it.  Pick a number for a list, and your brain will hunt for the answers to your question.  (One of the reasons I love list posts.)  It’s a way of opening your mind… including opening it up to new, previously undreamt of possibilities too

6. Writing helps you notice the details

Writing that’s full of generalities is dull and unconvincing.  Writing becomes vivid and compelling when you work in the details, the messy, fascinating, terrible, wonderful stuff of life.  Paying attention to the details makes the journey through life more interesting and enjoyable, awakening the explorer mind set.

7. Writing makes you creative and playful

Writing gets you playing with language, regardless of whether or not you’re engaged in something labelled ‘creative writing’.  Some words in themselves can make you feel more creative and playful (and let me assure you, possibility is one of them )

Creative, playful people are more likely to find solutions and look for possibilities.

8. Writing changes your brain chemistry

I just wish I knew more about how.

( Ellen, Robyn, if you’ve any articles on the archives on this please do let me know, and I’ll work them in to what’s next on this topic.)

9. Writing together helps us find answers

I have a lot of hunches and intuitive feelings about this topic.  I’ve done some reading about it, but not enough to make this post really well referenced.

I’d love to hear more from you – about examples, evidence, books you’ve read, or your own experience of how writing changes things… inside, to start to make them possible.

I’ve been hunting for good blogs to add to my RSS and came across copyblogger. They’re doing a great series of lessons on copywriting, and this one about writing an eyecatching headline is SPOT ON. I’ve cross-posted to share the intellectual wealth.

Lesson #2: Man’s Head Explodes
in Barber’s Chair

Today we’re going to jump into the second pillar of Internet Marketing for Smart People, which is copywriting. More specifically, direct response copywriting, which is used by direct marketers to trigger very specific responses from readers.

The first thing you should know is that copywriting and content are two different critters. Related, but different. We’ll talk lots more about that as we go forward.

One thing they do have in common, though, is that they both need fantastic headlines.

The headline for this lesson is from Dean Reick’s “Direct Creative Blog.” You can read the article here:

21 Great Headlines from Trashy Tabloids

Most of us glance at the tabloids when we’re in line at the supermarket and figure they’re written for (and by) morons.

But the truth is, smart copywriters study them, because cheesy tabloids are masters of the #1 copywriting skill: the art of the headline.

Take a look at these three Copyblogger lessons on precisely how you can adapt an existing successful headline (like one on a tabloid or a popular magazine) for your own content.

• The Cosmo Headline Technique
• The Hidden Key to Cosmo Headlines: Sex and the City?
• Magazine Headline Remix: Details Edition

This is also a great technique if you’re a bit stumped for a post topic. Mentally translating a tabloid headline to your own topic can spur all kinds of creative ideas.

If your headline fails, you might as well go home

If your headline is boring, or wimpy, or doesn’t capture anyone’s attention, the game is over.

Your headline has one job, and one job only:

The job of the headline is to get the first line of your copy read.

(“Your copy” in this case might be a blog post, a sales letter, a landing page, or even a lesson in a free e-course.)

If the headline does that job, it worked.

If it doesn’t do that job, it failed.

Great headlines can also do tricky things like make people want to Digg, Stumble, re-Tweet, or otherwise share your work.

What headlines don’t do, and don’t need to do, is to “sell” anything. They don’t have to deliver your biggest promise, or communicate a customer benefit, or some of the other stuff you may have read about.

(I’m not saying it’s bad to put a promise or a benefit into a headline. But you do it because it works to get the first line of copy read.)

And because headlines do fail sometimes (happens to the best of us!), here’s a Copyblogger lesson on one that didn’t do well for us . . . and how we tweaked it to work better:

One Big Way to Avoid a Headline Fail

Why you want to write great headlines

More people will read your headline than anything else you write.

They read it in your Twitter stream, they see it fly by in their RSS reader, and it shows up in their email in-box.

Mastering headlines doesn’t automatically make you a great copywriter, but it is a skill you’ll need if you want to effectively market anything.

If you haven’t yet read the 11-part Copyblogger series on “How to Write Magnetic Headlines,” here’s the complete list for you:

1. Why You Should Always Write Your Headline First
2. The Cheater’s Guide to Writing Great Headlines
3. Do Key Words in Post Titles Really Matter?
4. How to Write a Killer “How To” Post That Gets Attention
5. 7 Reasons Why List Posts Will Always Work
6. Why Some People Almost Always Write Great Post Titles
7. 10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work
8. 9 Proven Headline Formulas That Sell Like Crazy
9. 7 More Sure-Fire Headline Templates That Work
10. Warning: Use These 5 Surefire Headline Templates at Your Own Risk
11. The Art of Writing Great Twitter Headlines

What else gets read?

The other places you want to have great, compelling content are your first paragraph, your image captions, any P.S. you might have, and your subheads.

(Subheads are the second-level headlines you see in a post like this one that break up the copy, like “What else gets read?” above.)

Those are the most-read elements of any kind of copy, whether you’re sending out a 28-page paper sales letter or a Twitter Tweet.

The same skills that will make you a great headline writer will also serve you well when you’re putting these elements together.

For more ideas on subheads, check out The Deceptively Simple Steps to Persuasive Writing that Works

Content vs. copywriting

Remember at the beginning of this article, I mentioned that content and copy are two different critters?

The main purpose of copy is to persuade. The main purpose of content is to create trust, familiarity, and warm fuzzy feelings in your audience. A smart 21st-century strategy uses both.

Used together, direct response copywriting and social media-style content are much more powerful than either one used independently.

This post comes from Chris Brogan, who has a plethora of knowledge on social media. I’d re-blog his entire blog if I could, I think his knowledge is spot-on, and everyone could benefit from it.

A Sample Blogging Workflow

Your company has decided to launch a blog, and you’re the lucky blogger. Maybe you’ve even asked for this pleasure, suggested it to the boss yourself. Only now, you have to deliver, and you have to stay consistent. It’s not always easy to keep up a steady blogging pace, and there are days when you might run into a roadblock or two that might keep you from delivering on your schedule. Here are some ideas on how to build and maintain a steady blogging rhythm, be it for your personal blog or your business blog. We’ll cover goals, tasks, tools, and some bonus secrets.

Goals of Your Blog Posts

Blogging with a purpose helps you stay consistent. My blog, for example, is dedicated to equipping you with strategy, tools, and knowledge, so that you can go off and do useful things with social media and networking software. That’s the main goal of the blog overall. Secondary goals are to maintain a presence in your mind, should you have business needs. Another goal would be to stay in the habit of writing, and working at improving my writing. Those are goals for my blog.

Goals for my blog POSTS (versus goals for the blog overall) are different from post to post. On top of everything listed above, some ways you might use specific posts are:

• Seek link traffic – I write certain posts (like anything with a big number) with a secondary goal of deriving links from you to the story. Why? Because that tells Google and Technorati that I’m doing good things over here, and that matters.
• Seek advice – I often write posts where I ask for your opinion. Why have a blog if you can’t start conversations?
• Establish thought leadership – When I write about something way off from the norm of what others are blogging about, it’s to show you that I’m not a “me too” blogger.
• Promote something interesting – This might be people or software or an event. One point about promotion posts versus other kinds: if you’re looking for comments, promotion posts rarely get them.
• Link love to others – Sometimes, I want to give other people the spotlight, or point out good writing elsewhere. It’s important to keep that in mind. Linking out promotes linking in.

Blogging Tasks

The frequency of blog posts you choose is important. Many posts a day is great, if you can keep it up. Once a day is probably ideal (but not as easy as it seems). Once every two or three days means your readers won’t know what to expect. Once a week might be enough, depending on how niche your blog is, and how authoritative you are to begin with. But no matter what you decide, make the decision and stick with the schedule. Within that schedule, here are some potential tasks to consider doing for every post:

• Read material first – Use your RSS reader to see what else is being talked about, in your industry, in your vertical, on friends’ blogs, and most importantly, from fringe places that aren’t related to you or your industry.
• Compose a blog post – If there’s research and links involved, open a notepad file to keep track of the links you’re intending to put in the post, or sources of the data you’re collecting.
• Consider pictures – Using pictures makes the posts pop. You can use Flickr photos marked with Creative Commons licensing, provided you cite the source of the original photo, and provide a link. Read more about this at http://flickr.com/creativecommons”>Flickr’s Creative Commons site. There are other places for photos. Want to leave your other sources in the comments section?
• Tag your posts – If your blogging software doesn’t have tags built in, consider seeking a plug in, or at worst, having a few scripted copy/paste details of tags you can add to the bottom of every post. Tags are important for searchability, for getting the occasional new reader by finding you via your metadata.
• Announce your best posts – If I have a post I’m really proud of, and think works well, I’ll send a link to it via Twitter, usually summing up what I’m talking about before the URL. I might also send info about it via Facebook, via LinkedIn’s status line, etc.
• Occasionally, bookmark it, too – If I’m really pleased by a post and want it to have legs, I’ll share it in Google Reader’s shared items (which sends it to other places), will Stumble it in StumbleUpon.com, might even Digg it, too. If you do this kind of thing, be sure to digg and stumble and bookmark other people’s stuff, too, when it’s merited, so that you don’t seem like a perpetual self-promoter. I do my best to maintain a balance. Hopefully, that shows through.
• Check traffic and logs – As the day goes on, check your stats reader of choice to see if the blog is having any kind of impact. If you’ve got a decent ego surfing mechanism set up, also see who’s blogged about your post, and try to add some value back to their write-up. Don’t just drop by and say thanks. (Further note: don’t be crazy about checking your blog stats. They’re just a way to measure how people are responding to your posts.)
• Get off your blog and comment elsewhere – Make sure you’re taking the time to comment on at least five blogs a day. Whenever you’re going to bother posting and putting out new material, others are doing the same. Be sure to respect them and give them comments and feedback where you feel it’s appropriate.

Tools

When you decide you have to maintain a blogging rhythm, and regardless of whether you’re doing this for business or your personal blogging goals, there are some important tools that you should consider. If you’re going to get into a flow, here are the tools you should have on hand:

• RSS Reader – I prefer Google Reader above all others because of several features, including its ability to rapidly scroll through information in list view, its search capabilities, it’s sharing capabilities (make your friends work for you), and all the other options. Starting your blogging habit by having a good blog consumption habit is the only way to fly.
• Picnik – If you need free, easy, web-based photo editing to make interesting pictures, check out Picnik. I find this tool very useful in sprucing up my pictures. If you use it to edit other people’s photos, be sure to check the permissions for whether you CAN edit their images.
• Skitch – Skitch is a screen capturing tool that’s very useful, and has all kinds of built in goodies.
• Summize – If you’re looking for what Twitter thinks is interesting, you can use Summize to ask about interesting links and the like.
• Calendar – Here’s one. If you use a calendar (like Google Calendar, you can make a new calendar to show what you’ve written about, and what you plan to write about. This is called an editorial calendar, and it helps you keep your writing on a decent tack. Thus, if you intend to have 2 interviews a month and five product reviews, and a weekly check-in with some project, you can be sure to track all this in a calendar.
• Notepad or text edit – I write my blog posts in a plain text file so that I never lose a post to a bad Internet connection. Further, if I have a few moments, like if I’m on a horrible conference call, I can jot notes, and occasionally write entire posts while offline. I do this a lot at airports, bookstores, and other places where the Internet isn’t a given.

The Bonus Round

I guess in some ways, I should’ve started with this. First off, if you’re not reading Copyblogger, you’re missing some of the best advice on what to write and how to write it. Brian Clark and team (he has more guest writers!) keep a decent pace on giving you writing ideas and inspiration. Now, let’s talk about some more ideas that will keep you going with blogging material:

• Go to the grocery store – there are more headlines and interesting WAYS of saying things right there in your face at the checkout counter than you’ll likely come up with on your own. (This was a Copyblogger tip that I love).
• See what makes the front page of Digg.com (or your industry’s most likely haunt) – learning by emulating is an important blogging skill. Don’t be a clone, but if you pick up some tricks from writers you come to admire, all the better.
• Don’t forget other media – with YouTube, Slideshare, and several other places full of free and interesting content, don’t forget to give people a taste of video and audio to go along with your text and photo posts. In fact, be willing to mix it up often, or on a schedule, so that people get a sense for all the ways you can keep them informed and entertained.
• Schedule posts – My all time favorite piece of advice. If you can, write more than one post at any given sitting. Take the second post, especially if it’s not time-specific information, and schedule it for the next day. If you do this enough times in a row, you can build up quite a store of posts, and never miss a day (or whatever your schedule is) due to a random issue. Note: you can usually re-schedule things, in case the mood strikes, or news breaks, or the like. Don’t feel pinned down as much as you might feel liberated for all the last minute conflicts this will help you avoid.

Does this help? Do these mechanics give you some ideas on how to improve your own blogging habits? I’d love to know if you have other advice to add.

The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.

20 Ways to Drive Leads Through Social Media

September 28th, 2009 Posted in Social Media Community, social media

What is it? What is it good for? Engagement.

One of the primary selling points of social media is the concept of engaging a potential customer or partner in your product or service. So how do you accomplish engagement on a personal level?

20 Ways to Engage a Potential Customer Using Social Media

1. Start a blog. This seems like an obvious one. This should be one of the first things you think about doing when contemplating using social media as a marketing tool. There should always be a hub where your contacts can interact. The so called “hub.” WordPress is a great tool to start blogging. Get on it!

2. Join Brightkite and Use it during the business day. Brightkite is a service that allows you to update your location to the people following you on a regular basis. I do not recommend using this tool after business hours (could turn a little creepy) but it can help your contacts get an idea of what you do on a daily basis. Even if you are just sitting in your office for most of the day.

3. Join LinkedIN and recommend your partners. Most of us are already using LinkedIN (if you are not click this link for great information on LinkedIN). When you start to recommend the people you love working with it will help spread the goodwill that your business partners deserve. What happens you spread goodwill? Ever heard of pay-it-forward?

4 and 5. Start an RSS Reader and Find 10 Blogs. It is important that you use an RSS Reader to help with the organization of the blogs you read. For more information on starting and maintaining an RSS Feed check out this link. By using a Technorati or Google BlogSearch you can find 10 blogs that are industry “blog leaders” in your dedicated profession. By following and commenting on the blogs you will start to engage other readers.

6. Place a Poll on Your Blog or Website. There are plenty of tools available for polling on your website or blog. Wp-polls is a great resource if you are connected with wordpress. Ask a question to your audience. How can I make my content better? What are you wanting to read or learn about? This will help in engaging your more loyal readers and followers.

7. Ask a Loyal Reader to Guest Post. There is a ton of value in having your loyal readers do a guest post for your blog. They will feed your link to their subscribers and it also gives them a pride in ownership of your blog. This allows for the strengthening of a relationship in the long run.

8. Identify Your Strategy. This should have been placed at number one because it is the more important of everything you could be doing online. If you do not have a strategy in place to lead the charge into social media you will be at a lost when it becomes overwhelming. A strategy allows you to measure success points in your social media journey. This only helps when it comes to YOU engaging THEM.

9. Focus. Really Focus on Your About Page. What is the second most read page on a blog? The about page. People want to know who they are communicating with. The last thing you need to do (and I am also guilty of this on my personal blog KyleLacy.com) is to create a boring about page. Spice it up. Add some details that will create the best about page you could possibly want! Also.. enable comments on your about page. Allow people to comment on yours likes and dislikes.

10. Use Twitter on a Daily Basis. Now this might be a little overwhelming to the young at heart in social media but Twitter is fast becoming the ideal means of online communication. For a detailed explaination of Twitter check out DiTii.com’s video.

11. Add Your Social Media Information to Your Business Card. I have written a ton about this in previous posts. If you want to truly engage with the people you meet offline… add your social media sites to your business card. I have my LinkedIN, Twitter, and Blog URLs on my business card.

12. Be open to collaboration. You may have run your small-to-mid sized business for years by yourself but social media is built on the art of collaboration. People will be giving their opinions on a daily basis and it is in your best interest to take those opinions with stride. Collaborate and join in on discussions surrounding ideas related to your industry and your life. Collaborate. Learn. Listen.

13. Start a Facebook Page and Add in Your Family Life. Facebook is an extremely personal tool that can be used to connect with individuals on an emotional basis using pictures. You have to be open in sharing some of your family life with the outside world. There is a reason why PR companies have used the idea of “family man” to save many tarnished CEOs. Add pictures of your family, your dog, your vacation. People will connect. (New to Facebook. Check out this link on getting started as a company).

14. Pick 4 Social Sites and Maximize. You will become anti-social if you become overwhelmed with the multitude of different social media sites in which you are a member. We teach a 4-touchpoint theory of choosing four social media sites to spend your time. With a limited amount of time you will find that 4 sites benefits you in two main ways:

1. You will have more brain “bandwidth” to communicate on a deeper level.

2. The same people will pretty much be on all the sites you choose. (I say this loosely)

15. When someone comments on your blog email them a thank you. I learned this from the famous Gary Vaynerchuk. If someone is joining into the conversation on your blog and adding content make sure you thank them for your support. The people who show a vested interest are key to growing your readership. Don’t be alarmed if you don’t have time to email people the moment they comment. It sometimes takes me weeks before I send a follow up email.

16. Write About Personal Experience. We talk a lot about this. Write about the way you see life. Write about the way you experience your business on a daily basis. TAlk about how you are helping people. Talk about how you are solving the problems on a daily basis. Use Twitter. Use Facebook. Tell stories on your blog. People engage in stories. They connect with stories.

17. Try to Keep Yourself Within 450 Words or Less on Your Blog. It is important to keep blog posts concise and to the point. If you have trouble writing this will help you in the long run. As you can tell by the post you are currently reading, it is not essential that you keep it to 450 words. If you have advice and knowledge to send out to the masses.. . please do so. If you keep blog posts short it helps to keep readers and that is the goal.

18. Remember Quality vs Quantity. Quality is always better than Quantity. I have always said that 100 extremely engage readers are infinitely better than 4000 quasi engaged readers. Quality allows you to truly form relationships with the people you are dealing with on a daily basis. You can build your base anyway you like but make sure you always come back to quality over quantity.

19. Monitor the Conversation around Your Brand both Personal and Professional. For more on this read: 25 Tools and Tips to Following Your Brand Online. Why is it important to follow your brand online? You need to be involved in all the conversations surrounding your product, service, or YOU.

20. DO NOT HARD SELL! I am going to repeat this again: Do Not Hard Sell. This means you are not sharing about sales and detail after detail about your company. It means you are concentrating on listening to the people who are investing in your writing and social media presence. Nobody cares about your 50% sale. They care about who will be greeting them at the door of your store or place of business. Personality rules and if you want to act like a used-car sales man… go work at one.

Cross Posted from Greg Martin’s Blog

Twitter Marketing Tips

Here is a brief overview of what you could be doing…

Promote other people as much as you can - this shows people that you are not just interested in pushing your own agenda and that you have others interests at heart.

Post valuable and helpful information - that hasn’t come from you that you think would benefit those who are following you. Remember that people are looking for answers to their marketing problems and if you are providing valuable content that helps them you will be seen as a valuable person that is worth following.

Post valuable information that you have created - finally it’s time for you to promote your own content. There is nothing wrong with promoting yourself as long as it isn’t all sales and spammy. I like to direct people through to content on my Blog that can help others in a big way. My goal is quality first before quantity.

Answer the questions going on in your followers minds - This is an important tip, like any other form of marketing online you need to consider what the conversation is that is going on inside your prospect or followers mind. They have followed you for a reason and you need to be catering to that reason.

I personally think it’s ok to be posting non-marketing content like “having dinner at my favourite restaurant”. But if that is all you do then your followers will get a little tired of that. Your postings still need to be targeted to the niche of people who are following you and that is best achieved by asking yourself the question “what is going on right now in my followers mind?”

Thank people for following you - this is the right thing to do but it can become a time consuming issue if you don’t automate your activity. I will get to automation in a moment but thanking those that follow you is very important and you need get this happening ASAP.

Engage in conversation - This is a powerful way to get followers. You need to realise that whenever you do this the entire following of the person you are conversing with gets your posts with your Twitter name on it. This works powerfully when you are conversing with top industry leaders who have large lists.

My first encounter with this was with @Mike_Dillard who at the time had a following of over 12,000 people. From the brief conversation I had with Mike I saw my follow numbers escalate for almost a week. Believe me it works.

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Twitter Automation

This is seriously awesome and worth your attention. Automation is your key to growing a profitable list.

TweetLater combined with Twitter has become the fastest method I have ever engaged in to create traffic. Twitter is very responsive and by using this service you can be guaranteed of instant response to your postings.

TweetLater is a free service which is great to get you started however you may be interest in the Pro account. With the Pro account you can create a series of posts that can be sent to your list 24 hours a day completely on Autopilot.

Of course there is a fee for the Pro version but the return I am receiving from my Twitter marketing more than recovers the cost of the Pro service. It’s a great way to generate leads and revenue at the same time.

Rather than me telling you about it here just follow the link and check out Tweet Later.

Check Out TweetLater Here

Check Out My Twitter Spam Post Here

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Automatic Exponential List Building

I would like to introduce this totally free service to you as a great way to build your following on Autopilot. I don’t recomend that this be your only way of building your following however it is a great way to at least get started… and very simple to use.

I guess you could say that this is a combination of Twitter and network marketing.

Check out Tweeter Getter Here

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Follow Those Who Interest You

Another great tool I use for folliwing people automatically who are in the same market I am interested in is Twollo.

With Twollo you can automatically follow anyone that uses certain keys words. For example if you are into Search Engine Optimisation or SEO for short, you can enter SEO into Twollo and it will automatically the person who posted SEO in their tweet.

I have dozens on word combinations I am tracking and have followed hundreds of people automatically with this tool. And they are all discussing the subjects I am interested in.

How cool!

Click Here To Go To Twollo

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Advanced Twitter List Building & Marketing

Once you have grasped the basics of Twitter etiquette & automation it’s time to get involved in some serious list building techniques.

The program that has opened my eyes in a dramatic way to building a large list fast is Brute Force Twitter. Using the techniques described in the training I am watching hundreds of people follow me everyday. Some days I have had close to a thousand follows but you need to keep in mind this is being done over multiple lists.

As of this writing I am still in the early stages of my list building activities so what ever you do, don’t take my word for it, go and check out the guys page and read it for yourself.

Click this link to visit Brute Force Twitter

Additional Notes - As of July 2009 I have just updated this post now to include this new tool I am using called Himmingbird. In fact after using Humming bird for two months now I can safely say that there is simply nothing else you should be using to build a large Twitter list with.

Click here to check out the Humminbird review I did… and click here to check out the Hummingbird site.

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Engaging The Twitter Community

You may have already noticed that using the Twitter website to interact with the community is a proverbial pain in the butt. It’s not designed for ease of use.

The best tool I have come across for to engage with my Twitter following is Tweet Deck. If you haven’t yet used this service then you are not getting the best out of Twitter. it’s an absolute must.

Click Here To Ckeckout Tweet Deck

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Tracking Your Traffic & Clicks

If you are thinking of marketing like a professional on Twitter then you are going to have to track your traffic and clicks.

As of this writing I am receiving around 1,500 to 2,000 clicks per day from two lists of around 12,000 followers. These tweets are being sent for different blog posts and for different target audiences. But that’s the overall result as it stands now.

That’s not a bad effort and the way I can know how I am doing is by using a service called Bit.ly I have also used Budurl but I like the graphs on Bit.ly better.

Google those terms and open your free account, add your links and include the shortened links into your tweets and your away.

Who Am I And What Am I Doing?

In May of 2008 I started using the Internet to help me build my home business that I was involved in. Since then I have studied and learnt from some of the top Internet marketers on how to use the net for marketing and attracting prospects to you to build a successful home business.

I now have people from all over the world contacting every week wanting to know how they too can use the Internet to build their home business. I currently build more than one home business as well as being involved in marketing many affiliate products online.

I also consult to successful home business builders that are wanting to use the Internet to build their home business.

If you would like to connect with me then please feel free to click here and visit the contact page. I appreciate all enquiries. Or you can network with me below…

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Network With Me And Market Your Business

I am building a nice little online community and I would love to see you there. It’s called That’s Business… Check it out and maybe I can market your business for free on the internet.

Click here to go to That’s Business

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