Category Archives: social media

Pinterest Marketing: 3 Tips for Attracting Pinterest Traffic to Your Blog

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Pinterest featue in Metro - 27th February 2012

(Photo credit: Great British Chefs)

Have you been enjoying the guilty pleasure of pinning images and creating boards on Pinterest, but wish there was a way you could use it to benefit your business? Pinterest is the hottest social media property out there right now. It’s gained faster adoption by users than any other social media platform. For example, the InQbation blog says, ‘Pinterest Most Successful Startup Company on the Web in 2012.’ Lemon.ly created an infographic that illustrates the statistics related to this fast growing, social media platform.

Here are some Pinterest stats:

  • Over 10.4 million users
  • They hit 10 million unique monthly visitors faster than any site in history
  • Pinterest generate more referral traffic to websites than Youtube, Google+ and LinkedIn.com combined. Source: lemon.ly

If you’d like to get some insight on how you can leverage all of that traffic and re-route some of your ideal audience to your blog, here are five tips for attracting traffic to your blog using Pinterest.com:

1. Find out what kinds of images your visitors like to pin

Jessica Kupferman, of Badass Biz, wrote this guest post on Denise Wakeman’s business blog, ‘Top 5 Reasons You Need to Use Pinterest with Your Blog.’

I like tip #4, which shares a link that you can use to find out if visitors are pinning images from your website: http://pinterest.com/source/yourwebsite.com (replace /yourwebsite with the URL to your blog.) This will give you an idea of what your visitors are pinning (if at all) and what they are not pinning from your site. Source: http://bit.ly/HHV5YJ

2. Discover what gets pinned and re-pinned the most

Rather than link to a specific article, I’m sharing a link to an entire site that is a fabulous resource for learning about marketing and selling on Pinterest.com. Marketing on Pinterest, is a website authored by marketing specialist Jason Miles, and it covers topics such as Pinterest traffic tips, infographics, and he offers a 10-part video boot camp.

His, ‘Pinterest Traffic Tip #18,’ asks, “What content gets re-pinned the most on Pinterest?” He also includes an image that captures the main points of the tip that can be shared on Pinterest. This illustrates how you can leverage Pinterest’s visual focus even if you’re selling information products. You can create compelling visual images, graphic book covers or product shots and share them with your followers.

3. Customize the images you share

If they are popular and appealing, photos and images can be pinned and re-pinned dozens of times. But this can lead to the link to your website getting lost when visitors do not follow the custom of pinning from the source as opposed to simply clicking that re-pin button. Create a watermark of your logo and/or your website’s URL to include in each image you share on Pinterest. This will make sure that those who are re-pinning your image know exactly where it came from and how to get to your site for more information.

This comes from tip #4 of Michael Chizbuzor’s article, ‘Pinterest and Twitter: 16 Marketing Strategies to Drive Twitter Traffic.’ In this post, Chizbuzor writes about using social media to drive qualified, targeted traffic to your website for free.  Always keep his tip #5 in mind when you are doing any kind of social media marketing: Don’t waste your time. Invest your time. Get in, post your pins and get out.

*Bonus Tip: Share other people’s blogs

Ken Pickard has started a Pinterest Blog Roll. In his article on the Empowerment Network blog, Ken shares the concept of sharing other people’s blogs, so that in turn, they will share your blog on Pinterest.com in order to get more exposure and traffic.

Basically, Ken has created a content syndication tribe where the members visit each other’s blogs and share one another’s content. You can read his post and join his tribe, or follow suit and create a special tribe within your niche or network.

Source: empowernetwork.com/kenpickard/blog/pinterest-blog-roll/

Please follow me: http://www.pinterest.com/evelynwrites, and be sure to subscribe to my email newsletter where you’ll get lots of insider tips about writing and marketing online that you won’t ever see on the blog.

 

 

 

 

 

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Visual Storytelling and Marketing

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photo credit: Erik Johansson

Guest post by Brianne W.

The immediate impact and the efficacy of visual storytelling have been known for long. It is making its presence felt in a more prominent manner now with social networking platforms that rely purely on images, graphics or presentations. These have the potential to bring in traffic to a website, to create a repertoire of inbound links and to help the SEO initiatives taken up by an organization. The difference now is that the effort need not find a place only on the organizations’ websites. More avenues are now available for marketing through visual storytelling. You too can benefit from these platforms by following a methodological approach.

1. Create an effective campaign

Use platforms such as Pinterest, Slide Share, Youtube and Instagram to give shape to your visual storytelling initiatives for marketing. Each of these platforms boasts of millions of users. A video, a slide or a picture can all prove effective in making your campaign go viral over the web. Do not turn the campaign into a list of features. State what it can do for people and show people their benefits for you to gain in the form of higher sales and revenues.

2. Use networking platforms

Even though the visuals based platforms remain your primary ground for activity, post the links to your visual message in the form of videos, slides or pictures on other networking platforms as well where you have gradually built a place of prominence. Capitalize on your goodwill on these platforms to get more inbound links and traffic.

3. Prepare your site for a higher conversion rate

Once the marketing through visual storytelling methodologies prove effective and you get the traffic for your website, the product details and the website as a whole should inspire confidence in people. Build your website in a manner so as to capitalize on the gains that your marketing initiatives bring. Enable ease of navigation. Provide information on the various options available to get more details on products.

4. Document the processes in a visual format

Each business has an aspect that is visually more appealing while at the same time immediately identifiable with the business. Focus on such aspects of your business to give shape to a striking campaign. Give it a professional touch to prepare it for the immense competition you face on the visuals based networking platforms.

5. Connect with people

Make sure that the campaign allows people to connect to it. Depict issues that people face. Let your picture or video bring a smile on people’s faces knowing very well that they are familiar with the content of your campaign. Highlight the features that present a solution.

The visual medium carries a wider reach. It does not rely on the written word more often than not. A picture can be self explanatory. Your audience gets the message in just one glance. If the message is powerful enough, it draws people to explore more. Once this happens, the marketing campaign moves towards conversion. The efficacy of your overall campaign in the visual storytelling domain depends on your creative skills. Let your creativity do the talking for you.

About the author: Brianne is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on technology and luxury. Beside this she is fond of gadgets. Recently an article on beer pong game attracted her attention. These days she is busy in writing an article on data recovery software.

 

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Do You Have Klout? How to Measure Your Online Influence

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I have been hearing about Klout.com for awhile, and I’ve been seeing those +K tweets on Twitter and wondering what that was all about. Well, now I have a new social media addiction thanks to my friend, LaShanda Henry of Sistasense.tv. She talked about Klout.com in a the SistaSense Circle group coaching program that I belong to.

Klout is a social media site that measures and identifies your social influence in social media. You can join for free and set up a profile. You give the app permission to link to your Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook profiles and then it uses that information to give you a score between 1 and 100. When I first joined Klout back in July I had a score of 38. Today my Klout score is 51–solidly in the middle of the pack.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about Klout yet, but I am learning about how it works and how I can leverage its features to get more exposure online.

One of the fun features is the ability that I mentioned earlier, which is to give people “+K’s,” which is kind of like the “thumbs up,” that the “Like” button on Facebook represents.

You can give people a +K to show your appreciation if they shared some of your content with their network, or if they shared something of someone else’s that you found useful. A +K can serve as a thank you for being helpful to you, or as an encouragement to keep up the good work they’ve been doing, or if they have influenced you in some way. +K is not about boosting your Klout score. It’s just about providing a medium for users to engage and build community around their topics of interest.

  • Here’s how to give your peeps a +K on Klout:
  • Log in to your Klout.com account
  • Type in the Twitter.com username of the person you’d like to give a +K to
  • Now you will see their Klout profile. In the area where it lists what that person is influential about, click on the “see all. . .” link. Now you’ll find a list of their topics and you’ll see the “Give +K” button to the right of each topic.

Once you’ve given them a +K you can then Tweet about it, or post a Facebook status update about it.

So far I’m finding Klout to be fun. I guess if and when I manage to boost my score beyond 51 I will see if it does anything to drive more traffic to my site, or increase my social medial following.

If you’re on Klout and want me to +K you, leave a comment. My Twitter username is @evelynwrites if you feel like returning the favor.

Facebook Boundaries–Separate Your Personal and Business Lives or Mix it Up?

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Now that Facebook has become such a fixture in both the business and personal lives of hundreds of millions of us around the globe, the question of how to keep your business and personal worlds from colliding on Facebook is one that eventually pops up.

Create a company Facebook Page
The first step is to follow Facebook’s terms of service and use a free fan page or company page to do business on Facebook, and use your personal profile for communicating with your friends and family. Yes, the personal profile is far better suited to engaging with your audience, but there’s no use investing a lot of time and effort building up a business following on your personal profile if it will get you shut down. I personally know of at least one author and speaker who had a huge Facebook following on her personal profile and Facebook shut her down completely.

Once you’ve created your company page, the best way to get an initial influx of ‘Likes,’ is to invite your friends to ‘Like’ your company page. But first you’ll want to get a nice supply of posts in there so that they have something interesting to read and comment on.

Segment your friends into lists
If your Facebook profile is anything like mine, it’s a mixture of family, friends, former co-workers, current business contacts and other random people. In order to create some kind of boundary–if that is what you want to do–you can first segment your people into lists. Going forward you can pop new friends into the appropriate list or create a new list. (Google+ style ;-)

On your profile page click on ‘Account’ in the upper right-hand corner of the page and then click on ‘Edit Friends,’ from the dropdown menu that will appear. You will see a friend’s photo on the left and a ‘Friends,’ button on the right. Click on the ‘Friends’ button and another dropdown menu will appear with several lists along with the option to create a new list.

Let’s create some new lists. You may have current customers and clients, colleagues and prospective customers as Facebook friends. You can decide how you are going to divide people up. Give each list a name and then as you go down your list of friends, click on which list you are going to add them to. Be mindful that when you create these lists that Facebook will sometimes send them a notification that they have been added to a particular list. Just be careful what you name your lists and this information is not for your eyes only.

Choosing who sees which status updates
Now that you have placed your friends in lists you can decide who sees specific status updates. When you send a notification about a company event, your aunt Sadie in Buffalo doesn’t need to see that.

When you click on the box on your profile that asks, “What’s on your mind?” you’ll see a down arrow to the left of the ‘Post’ button. When you click on that down arrow a dropdown menu appears allowing you to select which list you want this update to go to.

If you don’t want to go to the trouble of segmenting your Facebook friends into separate lists, or if you are of the mind that you are your brand and that personal and business can mingle happily, then you might want to send a note to those contacts who are interested in your business activities inviting them to join your company page and include a link to it.

Of course, who knows how long these instructions will be valid because Facebook is constantly changing its layout and features, which should serve as a reminder that you don’t own or control your Facebook profile, so always create ways to bring your friends to your blog or website and encourage them to sign up for your email newsletter so that you can stay connected.

Edgerank–How to Improve your Visibility on Facebook

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In case you didn’t realize this, Facebook uses an algorithm to filter or sort what shows up in your news feed when you log in to your Facebook personal profile. The status updates, the photos, and videos are just a sampling of all of the content that your friends are sharing. Depending on how many friends you have, it would be overwhelming if you just saw everything unfiltered. That filtering is influenced by EdgeRank, which has a formula associated with it. Let’s delve into EdgeRank a bit and find out how you can use your new knowledge about it to boost your visibility on Facebook.

The news feed that you see on your Facebook profile uses various criteria to decide what will be displayed for you. Techcrunch calls EdgeRank the, “Secret Sauce,” of Facebook’s news feed, so let’s break EdgeRank down:

When you add your content to Facebook, whether it’s a status update, photos, videos, or notes, each of these bits of content are called, “objects.”

As your friends interact with the object you posted by either “Liking,” it, sharing it, or commenting on it, they are adding what’s called an “edge,” to the object. Each subsequent interaction adds additional edges to the object boosting its Edgerank and increasing the liklihood that it will show up in the news feed of the friends you converse with on Facebook.

Facebook has publicly shared the basic EdgeRank formula, although they have not shared exactly how they use it: EdgeRank= u * w * d

Where u= the affinity score between viewing user and edge creator, w= weight for this edge type (create, comment, like, tag, etc.) and d= time decay factor based on how long ago the edge was created.

So, the basic components of EdgeRank are affinity, weight and time.

Affinity is Facebook’s one way measure of one user toward another–but not vice versa. Weight is applied to each object to determine its EdgeRank. The type of content you post matters when it comes to weight. Photos and videos have greater weight than links and status updates, but engagement–actually taking the time to comment adds tremendous value because it does not take much thought or effort to click the ‘Like’ button. Time is key because we all want to read what’s fresh and up-to-the-minute rather than looking at old news.

Now that you get what makes up EdgeRank, let’s look at how to determine what yours is currently.

You can’t improve what you don’t measure, so let’s first get a benchmark for what your EdgeRank score is right now. Visit, http://edgerankchecker.com. to find out what your score is now and get tips for improving it.

Here are some practical ways you can use it to boost the visibility if the objects that you share on Facebook:

1. Post more photos and videos

Photos and videos attract users and get more likes and comments

2. Find ways to encourage interaction with your friends

One way to elicit interaction is to ask open-ended, or provocative questions. Ask for a comment other than just clicking the “Like” button

3. Sprinkle your content throughout the day & include links in your posts

Posting a quick status update in the morning is not going to be sufficient if your goal is to increase exposure and results on Facebook.

4. Use Facebook’s survey feature to ask relevant, compelling questions

No on wants to respond to a lame survey. Ask interesting questions that your audience will care about and want to get answers to in your polls.

Use these tips to maximize the power of Facebook by boosting your visibility in the news feed. Boosting your EdgeRank will get you a better return for the time you invest on Facebook.

Got a Facebook marketing tip to share? Please feel free to leave it in the comments.

Are You on Google+ Yet?

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A few weeks ago I finally got a much-coveted invite to join Google+, which is Google’s shiny new social media platform that just came out of beta in early July. Now anyone with a Google account can join Google+.  I’ve been having fun playing in this new social media space, getting to know the ‘lay of the land,’ and I’ve been having a great time.

Facebook and Twitter were my first foray into social media marketing, so I am considering Google+ from the perspective of how I use those spaces and what additional benefits it might have to offer me.  What I have observed so far is that Google+ so far has been embraced primarily by early adopters—those of us who geek-out on new tech tools and can’t wait to see what the latest tech gadget has to offer.  So, I have been using it to connect with other business people who are using G+ because, frankly, my peeps—that is my friends and family are not yet on Google+, nor do they show much of an interest in joining.

Here’s a quick overview of what Google+ has to offer, so that you can decide it maybe you want to come on over and check it out.

+Circles

On Facebook everyone is your friend, on Twitter everyone is a Follower, but with Google+ as soon as you add someone to your network you place them in one of your existing circles, or you can create a new one to add them to.  Here’s an idea of some of my circles:

  • Friends—yes, actual friends that I know and have established a real relationship with whether or not we have actually met in real life.
  • Business contacts—colleagues, fellow business owners, collaborators
  • Blogs to watch—As a blogger I have certain blogs that I keep a close eye on for relationship building. I put those in this circle.
  • Clients
  • Acquaintances
  • Relatives

+Hangouts

Hangout is a video and voice chat application that allows up to ten people to do a video chat on whatever topic they choose. You  must install a little plugin, and your laptop must have video and a mic in order to participate in a hangout. You can either initiate your own, or visit, http://gphangouts.com, to find a public hangout that you can join.

+Sparks

This is a colossal feed engine that contains feeds from across the Internet on any topic you can imagine. Just type in your keywords and up pops all of this content that you can read and share with the people in your circles.

Google’s +1 Button

The +1 button is separate from Google+, but there is also a +1 button along with your posts. You can think of it as the Google version of Facebook’s ‘Like’ button. Clicking the +1 button means that you think that site is kinda awesome and you’re giving it the ‘thumbs-up’ vote. But another cool thing about the +1 button is that all of the sites that you have clicked +1 for are listed on a page on your Google profile making it sort of like your own de facto social bookmarking site. People can peruse your +1 page to see what you like and recommend, but you can also keep your +1 page to yourself by making it private.

+Mobile

As an iPhone user it’s more than a little bit irritating that the mobile app for iOS is not yet available. But if you are an Android user you can take all of Google+’s features with you on the go with the exception of hangouts , but they may be adding that functionality to the mobile app at some point in the future.

Breaking News: The Google+ iOS app for iPhone and iPad is now available in iTunes

http://mashable.com/2011/07/19/google-iphone-app/

My G+ conclusions

So, for the moment, I’m digging Google+. I use if for business networking, and research primarily. One of my business colleagues shared on G+ that she was going to ditch all of the business contacts on her personal Facebook profile and tell them to look for her on Google+ so that she could reclaim her Facebook profile for actual friends and family. I am watching and waiting to see how things shake out with Google+. I was on Facebook for years before anyone I actually knew joined, so maybe in time G+ will gain more mainstream appeal.

What are your thoughts on Google+? Have you joined yet? What do you like or dislike about the new social media platform on the block? Feel free to leave a comment.

 

SistaSense Power Circle Summit–The Company You Keep

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Regular readers of this blog know that I am a huge fan of LaSahanda Henry, mompreneur and developer of Black Business Women Online, and blogger at SistaSense.com.  I’ve been a member of BBWO for years and I have watched LaShanda grow into a force to be reckoned with online. But what I love about her is that she has a heart to help business women of color succeed and thrive by  creating wealth through online business.

I want to invite you to check out the, first annual ‘SistaSense Power Circle Summit,’ which is a virtual conference so no worries about airfare, hotels and who will keep your kids while you’re away. This 2 Day TeleSummit for Web Entrepreneurs will run from  July 29 – July 30 2011.

LaShanda said, “The success of your business depends on the company you keep! When I think about how much my business has grown over the last four years, I attribute a great deal of my success to the powerful, successful, business minded people around me.”

In an effort to give all of us access to some of these great business minds, LaShanda has put together this amazing SistaSense Power Circle Summit. This event is made up of a group of talented and successful entrepreneurs that have graciously agreed to share 2 days worth of powerful business changing, mind shifting information with you.

The Keynote speaker, Donna Maria Johnson is the founder of INDIE Business. She will share her secret to Leadership: INDIE Business Style. How to enjoy your life! Build your business! Have your way!

Wealth Coach and Finance Expert Deborah Owens is going to discuss A Purse of Your Own: The Seven Wealthy Habits of Successful Entrepreneurs.

Ministry Marketing / Social Media Expert Pam Perry will show you how to use your book to build a business, essential marketing strategies every solopreneur and author should know.

Lashanda Henry aka Sistasense will be leading two sessions. One on how you can get paid for what you know and the other on list building and client attraction essentials.

The Brand Coach, Jai Stone will speak on how you can increase your brand recognition through social media.

Successful Blogger and Social Media Expert Lamar Tyler is going to share his Blogging Expertise: Profit, Presence, and Good PR.

Mommy Blogger and Brand Relationships Expert Onica Cupido offers her insight on how you can develop strong relationships with brands.

Multi-million dollar mompreneur Richelle Shaw is going to give you an inside look into her million dollar equation!

These speakers are experienced, successful entrepreneurs that you need to know and have in your circle. They have a wealth of information to share with you that will transform your business. When I listen to them speak I think of them as not just motivators, but divine educators genuinely invested in helping others live their best life.

Don’t wait. Early Bird registration for the SistaSense Power Circle Summit begins now. The first 30 to register will also receive an exclusive gift – 2 downloadable mp3 audios sessions on social media marketing and using technology to build your business online. Early bird registration is $30 and ends July 7th, 2011. You will kick yourself if you miss out on this event and then hear everyone talking about how powerful it was. Register now.

 

Online Visibility: 11 Ways to get More Exposure for Your Blog in 2011

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Bloggers might sometimes get the feeling that they are fighting an uphill battle because theirs is just one of millions of other blogs out there competing for the attention of their prospective audience. But if you develop a solid marketing plan for your blog and take consistent action toward the goals you set daily, weekly and monthly, before you know it, your Alexa rankings will be falling and your Google page rank will begin to rise which means you’ll be attracting more visitors.

Let’s dive right in to 11 tips for getting your blog seen more in 2011:

1. Post consistently

Having a consistent posting schedule gets both your readers and the search engines used to visiting your blog more often.

2. Know the basics of SEO and how to optimize your blog and your posts for the search engines.

If you are running a WordPress blog there are several free plugins that will help you to maximize your blog’s SEO from both a structural and a content perspective. Optimizing your blog helps you get more traffic and better search engine rankings.

3. Comment on other blogs in your topic

Visiting other blogs in your niche or topic, reading the posts and leaving relevant comments is an effective way to increase your visibility with both the blog’s author and your fellow commentators.

4. Guest post on popular blogs in your topic

Guest blogging gigs are a great way to create a win-win with other bloggers in your niche. You help them out by providing content that is suited to their blog and audience, your presence on their blog helps get you exposure with a whole new audience, and the readers get to experience a new perspective.

5. Send out press releases

Whenever you are planning a news-worthy event, send out a press release. Not only might you attract media attention, but you’ll get a ton of high page rank back links to your blog and a nice, if short-lived, flow of traffic to your blog.

6. Host a contest/giveaway

Who doesn’t want something for free? Host a contest or a giveaway where you offer up a valuable product or service in exchange for your readers helping to spread the word about your blog.

7. Join or host a blogging challenge

A blogging challenge can have many benefits including increased exposure for the host and the participants, you get motivated and inspired to blog more to keep up with your fellow challengers and you get a little traffic boost and more comments as other members of the challenge make the rounds to the various blogs.

8. Offer a free product

If you are building your opt-in email subscriber list, offer a free product for visitors to your blog who sign up. Invite subscribers to share your premium with their friends and make sure that it contains a link back to your blog.

9. Be active in social media

Work your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles to send traffic back and forth. Use a Facebook Fan Page to share valuable tips and info with your audience, host events and invite your followers and be a trusted resource that people want to follow.

10. Video marketing

Video marketing is an incredibly powerful way to gain some valuable exposure online. Create a series of videos containing useful how-to tips, recipes, instructions, or advice. Include a link back to your blog in the description box and a compelling call to action in the video. Share your videos on all of the top video sharing sites for lots of traffic and visibility.

11. Article marketing

This tried and true strategy is still effective today, but you’ve got to be committed to creating a high volume of quality articles with links back to your blog. Write articles for some of the top websites in your industry to establish yourself as an expert and draw attention to your blog.

As you focus on increasing your online visibility remember those qualities that make you unique and set you apart. There really is no competition because you are one of a kind. The goal then is to get yourself out there in the marketplace of ideas so that you can shine your brilliance for the world to see. Being modest and shy will not serve you, so if you don’t have the gumption to get out there and share what sets you apart then you may as well fold up your tent and go home.

If you have a vision and a mission to accomplish, then it is your responsibility to share the message that you have been given with a world that is waiting to hear what you have to say. Make 2011 your year to break through. Those who succeed are those who never give up working towards their goals.

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It’s Your Time to SHINE! The First 2011 Blogging Challenge

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Regular readers of my blog know I’m not one to back down from a challenge, so when I heard that Julie Isaacs of the Writing Spirit Blog (I just *love* that name) is throwing down a blogging challenge to kick 2011 off as, “The year of the blog.”

Julie says that the goal of this challenge is to get bloggers in the habit of blogging consistently and meaningfully. Strategies for blogging consistently is one of the topics that I enjoy writing about, but honestly the one I most often feel challenged by. But, we tend to teach that which we most need to learn, and so I will continue to write on that topic in hopes that it inspires me and encourages my readers.

So what is the whole SHINE thing about? Well, your blog is the most effective way for you to increase your online visibility, establish yourself as an expert, and share your message with the world. Julie uses the word SHINE to illustrate this point:

Stand out
Help
Inspire
Navigate
Engage

During this blogging challenge, I’ll be blogging about my favorite topics, which include:

  • Online marketing for writers, authors, speakers and coaches
  • Using your blog to attract your ideal clients
  • Growing YOU as you grow your business

It’s pretty simple to join us. Just visit Julie’s blog and follow the steps Julie has outlined:

1.  Decide how many times per week you want to blog–preferably twice a week or more

2.  Add a comment on this post with your blog address, and how many posts per week you’re committing to

3.  Use the hashtag #SHINEonline to communicate with other bloggers who are participating in this challenge

4.  Sign-up below if you would like to get blog tips and articles sent to you, along with blog challenge updates, and information on free teleconferences.

5. Start blogging! & SHINE on with your bad self. ;-)

http://blog.writingspirit.com/2011/01/2011-shine-online-blogging-challenge.html

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Online Visibility: Are You Ready to Be Discovered?

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Online visibility is all about being found online by the target audience who is looking for what you have to offer. With millions of other websites competing for your prospective clients’ attention, your challenge is to find a way to rise above the ‘noise’ or the many distractions on the Internet, and show up consistently where your target audience is already hanging out.

What inspired me to write this post today was a meeting I had this week with a prospective client. He found me on social media and while he has been cooking up his project, he has been observing what I’m up to online. He visited my blog, my Facebook profile, Fan Page and Twitter and then he sent me a Facebook Inbox message to ask about working with me. These days I have not been publicizing my consulting services too much because my schedule is full to overflowing with producing lots of content for my fabulous clients. But part of my vision for the life that I intend to create for myself includes doing more consulting, and speaking. In order to achieve success in those endeavors I must continue to build on my online visibility.

Towards that end I am preparing to be a guest on a radio show called, “Being, with Ron Ash,” on Wednesday, January 19 at 9am EST. Ron Ash is an author and Pastoral Counselor. This will be my third radio appearance, and the previous two interviews came about because the hosts found my website and resonated with my vision and mission. Ron also found me on Facebook.

So, I guess what I am trying to say here is that you’ve got to be relentless about your marketing. Get yourself out there! Write about the topics that you are passionate about on your blog. Take a stand for something that you believe in and defend it. There will be haters out there, but there will also be people who are attracted to your authenticity and sincerity. And to that last point, be who you are. The world does not need any more copy-cats. For so long I felt insecure because I was always comparing myself to other people and feeling like I did not measure up. Thank God I have learned to get over myself, let myself off the hook and learn to love myself for who I am–warts and all.

The best way to get discovered is to be everywhere all the time. Participate in social media, work your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles. Network with your peers and get on the ‘radar screen’ of those luminaries in your field that you would love to work with. Comment on blogs. Contribute articles to the major publications in your niche or topic. Guest blog for a few of the high profile blogs in your niche. Submit press releases when you are doing something newsworthy, and, oh yeah, do something newsworthy! Submitting press releases is an amazingly effective way to generate buzz, which is what you really want.

While you are getting out there, make sure that your house is in order. Make sure of the following:

  • Your blog should look great and has lots of valuable content for your new visitors to consume.
  • If you will be sending our press releases, make sure you’ve got a ‘Press or Media’ page with links to your media kit on your blog.
  • Put your email list opt-in box above the fold and in the upper-right hand section of your website.
  • Create an engaging intro video about yourself and post it on your blog.
  • Create a Facebook Fan Page with a keyword-optimized title and post valuable content there.
  • Share your friends’ content and they will reciprocate.

Gaining online visibility takes time and commitment. It will not happen overnight barring your appearing on the evening news for some reason. If you intend to get discovered by prospective clients you’ve got to be willing to lay a strong foundation and put in the work required.

Remember, there is no one else out there like you. No one else can do the genius work that you were sent to this planet to do. If God has given you a vision then it is your responsibility to bring it to fruition. You would not be given the desire without also having been given the means by which to fulfill that desire. It is your job to take the first step in faith. Feel free to contact me if you want to talk about me working with you to boost your online visibility.

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