But it’s been fun, it’s been real — and I absolutely LOVE the fact that anyone can have a  blog thanks to WordPress.com.

But check out my new digs at  Success Point Consulting.com

Later.

Here’s to your success,

Trina

I have been trying to limit my web browsing.  I am on the edge of information overload   – so many websites, so many links, so little time if I expect to get any work that I’ve promised to do for clients done.  My business success depends on my ability to get work done so that my clients can be successful.  So, as much as I hate to, I have decided to limit my web-time to only 10 sites.

So for the past few weeks, I kept a log of all the sites I visited and what sorts of stories were catching my attention.  I found that I could actually get to the same story in three or four different ways, so I started looking for the aggregators that seemed to pull together most of what I was interested in.

It’s been hard, tracking where I’ve been and what sites actually give me value in exchange for my time.  I can’t afford to be wasting much time.  So here’s the list I’ve come down to:

For information and news on the world of Social Media, I find I can learn just about everything I need to from three sites, Social Media Today, Mashable, and The Rise to the Top.  Some of the content is duplicated, but each has a different enough spin to make it interesting.  The Rise to the Top’s David Siteman Garland is quickly becoming one of my favorite resources.  I love his tagline, the #1 Non-Boring Resource for Growing Your Business.  And he’s not boring.  I get a lot of good take-aways from his information, he’s entertaining and engaging, and he seems to be able to condense information into easily digestible bites.

For straight-up news, I rely on CNN.  Oh sure, I glance through the sports news on other sites, but CNN has most of what I need.  I try not to spend too much time there, but I have a couple clients in the health care arena and they are always on the look-out for news and spins on health insurance reform and the like, so I feel like I need to stay on top of things.

 For connections, hands down for me it’s LinkedIn.  I love to browse the discussions in some of the groups, throwing in a comment here and there.  I probably don’t participate as much as I could, but I love to send private emails to people after I’ve read their questions and really try to help them succeed.  For me, LinkedIn is one of my most valuable connection tools and is absolutely vital to my business success and the success for many of my clients.

Because it’s too much to keep track of my Tweetstream, I rely on Hootsuite to filter out the noise.  It’s the place where I can categorize people and information to make it easier for me.  I don’t see all the Farmville, Mafia Wars and “so-and-so just connected with so-and-so” updates unless I want to. I can browse my different social media networks, submit tweets and updates, find people to follow, respond to people’s posts – all from one site.  It’s a great tool.  The more I use it, the more I like it.

But I do still browse on Facebook and want to be connected to my friends there.  I find it’s a place where all the different aspects of my life can merge.  There’s the friends from high school, there’s the colleagues from companies past, there’s new friends to be made, there’s events and activities that I don’t find out about any other way.  Even though I can get all the information I want from Hootsuite or my email inbox, I find I still like going out on Facebook and commenting on people’s links, reposting videos, and the like.

And finally, I have to keep my two “guilty pleasure” websites in the mix – BravoTV.com and Popcap Games.  Come on, admit it, you are curious about the REAL real lives of the Housewives, too.  I find I am fascinated by just about every Bravo show.   I never would have believed it, but I actually like the back stories of the Top Chef Masters or Patti Stenger’s blog.  And Popcap games – when I need a break, there’s nothing like a free game of Chuzzle  or Zuma’s Revenge.  They are fun and best of all, Free.  And I don’t have to announce to the world that I just achieved level 15 and need my friends to build me a barn.

So I’m curious to know, if you had to limit yourself to only 10 websites, what would they be?  Please leave your comments below.

Here’s to your success,

Trina

P.S.  Join Heather L. Tapia and me at Raisin Rack in Westerville tonight for a look at online marketing and content management strategies starting at 6:30 p.m.  RSVP at Abundance Share Prosper on Meetup.com or at http://abundancemarketingpro.eventbrite.com.  See you there!

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I had the privilege of presenting with Andrew Catapano of mywebWOW!com this morning at the Short North Business Association’s Educational Seminar series.  We had a small but engaged crowd.  They had lots of good questions.

I was going over the four Cs of successful online marketing – Content, Conversation, Community, and Commerce, but what is apparently burning in everyone’s minds is Twitter.  And more specifically, they were hungry for a nitty-gritty take-me-by-the-hand-and-show-me-a-strategy session on Twitter.  Well, I wasn’t quite prepared for that much detail but I’ve thought about their questions today and maybe this will give others struggling with those same issue some ideas.

So, in response to Joe Spinelli of Spinelli’s Deli, who very bluntly said a) I don’t know what to tweet about; and 2) just tweeting about sandwiches and the specials of the day is boring;

here are some possible Twitter campaign ideas.

1)       At the restaurant, have a laptop computer set up and encourage patrons to go over and tweet about coming in for lunch/dinner.  Make sure they mention your @Twittername.  Every 20^th Tweet mention (or 50^th or whatever number feels right for your crowd) gets a Free Dessert, or free cup of coffee, or free appetizer – some type of reward.  Promote it on Twitter (but not on Facebook or LinkedIn – make it a Twitter exclusive).  Have signs in your restaurant window.  Have the wait staff encourage Tweets.  As they are leaving, ask if they would Tweet about their good experience.  Someone would have to be checking Hootsuite or other application regularly to count the number of mentions, but it’s an easy type of campaign to measure.  Then, announce every winner with a Tweet that mentions their @Twittername.  Do this once a week.  The more you do it, the more reaction you will get.

2)      At the art gallery, promote an “Artist Answers Questions” event where the Artist responds to questions that have been sent in via Twitter.  Again, have a computer on hand so anyone who is in the gallery live still has to submit their question via Twitter to get it answered.  Promote it on Twitter to your community and to the Artist’s community and to any art-related groups for 10 days to two weeks prior to the event.  Start collecting the questions.  At the end of the event, send Tweets thanking everyone who participated and mentioning their @Twittername.  Maybe award virtual prizes for “best question” “funniest question” or “best stumper question.”

3)      For any kind of business, offer a discount or reward to anyone who calls the office or comes into the store and asks for “Larry.”  Only promote it on Twitter.  It could be anything of value.  Maybe a 25% discount for mentioning “Larry.”  They have to spend money to get the discount, so that’s good.  Or a $10 Visa gift card.  They have to give you their name, address, and email address in order to claim their prize.  That’s good, too.  And then, of course, you would send Tweets announcing everyone who “earned” a prize.   For a twist, maybe announce on Twitter that everyone who appears at X location at 6:00 p.m. with a nametag on that says “Larry” will be entered into a drawing for $200.  Do this for a week to 10 days and see what kind of reaction you get. 

4)      Choose a charity, like Operation Feed or the MDA Walk/Run, or Race for a Cure.  Send Tweets encouraging your followers to come to your location to drop off food, or sign up to sponsor a racer.  Offer a Buy One Meal/Get One Meal Free with every donation of 5 cans.  Again, every time someone drops off a can or signs up as a sponsor, mention them in a Tweet.  Make it a Twitter exclusive campaign and see what happens.  Do a different charity every quarter, or maybe even every month.

5)      Have a “We Love our Customers” Tweet day.  Promote that you are going to thank all your customers starting at 9:00 a.m. on X day.  Get as many of your customer’s @Twitternames as you can and on the appointed day, send out Tweets praising and thanking your customers for their business.  Send the Thank You Tweets continuously for 24 hours. Track how many times those Tweets get retweeted.  Wouldn’t you want to do business with a company that publicly thanked its customers?   Other people will want to, too. Do this once a quarter. 

These are just ideas that came to me this afternoon.  Depending on your target audience, there are so many creative, imaginative ways you can a) use Twitter Content to b) create Conversation to c) encourage your Community to d) increase your Commerce (the 4 Cs of social media success).

I would love to hear about your Twitter campaign ideas or stories about Twitter campaigns that worked or ones that flopped.  Leave your comments below.

Here’s to your success,

Trina

P.S.  It’s not exactly the same presentation, but I’ll be speaking on a similar topic at next week’s Abundance Marketing Series.  I’m going to be reviewing strategies on how to better manage your online content (hhmm, let me see, could one of those strategies be to hire me to write your blog, articles and press releases?).  I’d love to see you there.

RSVP at http://abundancemarketingpro.eventbrite.com

If you are at all in tune with the world of social media, you probably heard about all the changes Facebook has been making the past couple weeks.  One of the big changes is that Facebook   is going to start aggregating the data from all the websites you “like” on the web and is going to make that data available to marketers.

Now, wearing my small business consultant and marketer hat, I’m absolutely drooling at the possibilities of being able to talk to exactly who I want as a customer.  But wearing my advocate of privacy and “no one needs to know that I sometimes visit certain celebrity blogs” hat, I’m leery.

But Facebook already has an awesome database available for marketers.  And my clients and I are proof.  I was working with a client on Friday who showed me the ad she had put out on Facebook last week.  She is selling a customized Sham-moo Shammy package (very similar to the as-seen-on-TV ShamWow) as a promotional give-away for companies like car dealers, marinas, motor home manufacturers, and car enthusiasts.  She had very wisely targeted men in certain age categories, in certain professions, and with certain hobbies.  In about 2 days, she had garnered 161 clicks through to her website but no sales.  But she is only spending $.32 per click, so it wasn’t outrageously expensive.    I suggested some changes to her ad and to her conversion page, and showed her how to get a code for $50 in free Facebook ad credits, and she’ll be running it again this week.

But as we were working on her Facebook page, an ad popped up for a set of exercise CDs.  We commented on how eye-catching the ad was and I said I had never seen it before.  She said she sees it every day and then said, “I think I get it because my husband and I go dancing.”  Wow.  A consumer who knows why they are being targeted.   A few minutes later, it was for a fat-burning muffin.  A little bit later, we noticed an ad for a nutritional supplement.  So on a whim, we pulled up her profile.  Sure enough, among her interests are dancing and health.

Later that evening, I got on Facebook.  And on my home page, I have an ad, no, not for an exercise CD, not for a nutritional supplement, nothing nearly so healthy.  My ad is for Oscar Mayer hotdogs.  Oscar Mayer?    The next ad that pops up is for Taylor-made golf clubs.  That makes sense, I like to golf.  Then an ad for a bouquet of flowers appears.  Ok, I have a mom and it is Mother’s Day next week.  The next ad is for real estate funding.  Great targeting because I dabble in real estate investing and am connected to lots of real estate folks. 

And then another Oscar Mayer ad, this one touting a contest to get a ride in the Wienermobile.  Oh No!  How did they know?   Is it possible that Oscar Mayer somehow has a record of everyone who has ever ridden in the Wienermobile  (which I did in 2001 – see!). 

Never thought anyone would ever find out

 Did they somehow share that information with Facebook?  Believe me, there is nothing in my profile that screams hotdog lover.  Or is there?

Let’s see, I don’t have k ids, so that’s not it.  I’m female. Females tend to do the household shopping. So they may just be targeting females of a certain age.  I love golf, reading, and … Cleveland Indians baseball.  Ah, could it be the baseball?  Nothing else really makes sense.  It has to be that they are either targeting females, people who like baseball, or maybe even females who like baseball.  Or they might just be excluding people with healthy activities and lifestyles.  Whew, at least I think my secret fascination with the Wienermobile hasn’t been leaked, yet.

But the moral of the story:  if you are getting ads that don’t seem to be targeted to you, you may want to look at your profile and figure out why.  Then think about your product or service and try to come up with characteristics that would be shared by the majority of your target audience.   How could you get an ad in front of them?  There is going to be so much data available, it’ll be your own fault if you are talking to the wrong people.

As always, if you need help defining your ideal customer or other marketing needs, just let me know by dropping an email to SuccessPointConsulting@hotmail.com.

Here’s to your success,

Trina

P.S.  Heather Tapia’s Abundance Marketing Pro series continues tonight (Monday, May 3) at 6:30 p.m. at Raisin Rack in Westerville. Tonight’s topic:  Creating a Plan of Action.  Should be great.  Check it out.

P.S.S.  Most of you have heard, but just in case you haven’t — I’m now the Columbus Business Events Examiner for Examiner.com.  Send me your press releases and event announcements and I’ll do what I can to get your events promoted and reviewed.  Also looking for event-support types of news, like venues, caterers, DJs, event planners.  It’s gonna be fun!

I can’t say this is definitive, but as I review my notes, I think I have identified seven things businesses, both big and small, should do on Twitter to make it a more successful platform.

1.  Target a niche, talk to that niche, develop a niche.  So I started research this week at Dell.  I was fascinated by fact that Dell has 34 Twitter accounts, each aimed at a specific market.  Now that’s smart marketing. And each account only follows other Dell accounts — Dell Twitter managers do not read anyone else’s Tweets, except other Dell Tweets.  But between all the accounts, they have over 1.5 million followers.  Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t need to know what coupons Dell is offering on what accessories every day, but apparently a lot of other people do.  But each Dell Tweet account manager develops their own following and interacts with their own audience.  They are all different.    

2.  Another lesson from Dell is to use Twitter as a customer service tool.  A lot of the Dell Twitter managers (most of whom are happily pictured on their account pages) have running dialog with customers about back-ordered inventory, end dates of sales, how to special order items, and other customer service issues.  It’s very much like a public live chat.  But it does demonstrate Dell’s willingness to engage and reflects well on their customer service philosophy.  I definitely have a stronger feeling of trust in Dell after reading their Tweets.  That’s an effective use of the platform. 

3.  Have a mix of offers, information, replies, and personal Tweets.  Don’t just Tweet “about” your business, throw some offers out there.  Don’t just send people to other blogs or articles, Tweet about your own business and send them to your own website or blog.  If a customer or client asks a question, respond.  Ask your customers questions and ask for feedback.  It’s OK to have some personal Tweets (just got off the plane in Orlando) but there has to be more if you are presenting yourself as a business.  Mention other people, reTweet, reply.  The more you mix it up, the more engaged your followers become in you and  your brand.

4.  Do not use one of the standard Twitter backgrounds — make your own.  Make it professional, make it reflect your brand and your personality.  I find it odd that I’m recommending this, because really, you mostly see your Tweetstream’s Tweets, not their pages, but as I was researching, I could almost tell if I was going to be impressed by their Tweet activity the second I pulled up their profile.  And most of it was the first impression of the page background. And of course, it goes without saying that you MUST have a photo or logo, not one of the ugly Twitter default icons.

5.  Include photos and videos. The most influential Tweeters use a lot of photos and link to a lot of videos.  It adds interest, it gives the reader a fuller idea of who and what you are about.

6.  Make your profile description match your activity.  If your profile says you are a small business consultant, your Tweets should be about small business things — not ceramics.  If you say you are a mortgage banker, I expect to see Tweets about the financial markets, or home sales, or government regulations, not puppy housebreaking.  Oh sure, throw a couple Tweets out there about your personal struggles with the next Marley, but if that’s all you are going to Tweet about, then make it a personal Twitter account and don’t expect to drive business.

7.  Mention your Twitter handle in all your other online activities and drive people to Twitter to follow you.  Once I found some Twitter accounts I liked, I went to their Facebook, their LinkedIn, their websites, anywhere I could, to see how they were promoting their Twitter activity.  And it turns out that the ones I liked were promoting it a lot.  SO, you can find me on Twitter as @SuccessPointer.  Go ahead, follow me.  I’ll try to engage some of you in conversation. 

That’s Twitter.com/SuccessPointer.

It’s pretty clear that there are no hard and fast rules to using Twitter as professional networking tool, but I think incorporating these 7 characteristics into your Tweets will help make it as effective as possible for your small business.

Here’s to your success,

Trina

P.S. 

  Heather Tapia’s Why2 How2 Abundance Marketing series starts TONIGHT at 6:00 p.m. at Raisin Rack in Westerville.  For more information and to register, go to http://AbundanceMarketingPro.eventbrite.com

P.S.S.  Registration continues for SPEED NETWORKING, coming May 18th at The Meeting Place.  Go to Gemstone Partners to officially register.  It’s going to be fun.  Also, if you have a book, a discount, a do-dah of some sort that you would like to donate as a Door Prize for the event, let me know!  I love to promote my friends and their businesses.

One of the ways you get noticed by the search engines is to develop backlinks. Backlinks are exactly what they sound like — they are links which directs others towards your site; they are also often referred to as inbound links (IBL’s). In the world of search engine optimization, the number of backlinks your site has is an indication of how popular or important it is according to your peers (other site owners). These are especially important because search engines such as Google will give more credit to those sites with a good number of quality backlinks. So they will then consider these sites more relevant than others in the results pages of a search query and will show your site higher on in the rankings.

Most search engines will want websites to have a level playing field, and so will more often than not look for natural links that have been built slowly over time. Although it can be fairly easy to manipulate the links on a web page in order to achieve a higher ranking in the short term, it is a lot harder to influence a search engine with external backlinks from another site. This is why these count so highly in a search engine’s algorithm.

One of the best ways to achieve quality backlinks to your site in a fairly short time is Directory Submissions.  Why don’t more small business owners do this?  I know it may have been some years ago, but you actually had to buy an ad to be listed in the  yellow pages, or at least buy a telephone line.  It’s no different online.  You actually have to DO something to be listed in a directory.

 It takes time, it takes effort, but it gets results. Believe it or not, you actually have to submit the link for your site to directories in order to be listed. Many directories allow free submissions. There are dozens more that want you to pay for the privilege of being listed. If you can afford it, DO IT. There are many sites around which offer a service where you can submit your site details to numerous sites. Do a search, you’ll find them. In some industries (like legal, for instance) there are well over 2,000 potential directories your business can be listed in. Every one of those listings then becomes a backlink.

But another benefit of submitting to directories, in addition to creating backlinks, is getting a boost in traffic. Imagine, some people actually use directories that they know to search for businesses instead of just Google search. The key to getting a traffic boost from directories is to actually write out a good description of your product or service and use your targeted keywords. I know, it begins to sound like a broken record, but if you use the same targeted keywords on your site, in your LinkedIn, Twitter & Facebook posts and profiles, in articles that link back to your site, and also in business directories, you will start to become associated with those keywords in the eyes of the search engines. You will start to rank higher and be seen as more relevant. Isn’t that what you want?

I almost feel like the directories I tell clients to submit their site to are a closely guarded secret, but they really aren’t. This isn’t my complete list, but here are some ideas to get you started. You should make sure your business is listed in: Local.Yahoo.com, Google.com/maps, MerchantCircle.com, Brownbook.net, Cityslick.net and if you can afford it, PR.com.

There, now don’t tell me I’m not helping to make you successful online. I don’t get paid to advertise these directories (though occasionally clients pay me to help them listed on all of them ). But because you are friends of mine, I feel like I need to at least give you a hint.

Here’s to your success,

Trina

P.S.  We’re only 10 days away from the How to WOW! Now Seminar.  Have you registered yet?  HowtoWOWnow.eventbrite.com

There’s now a discount for friends of mywebWOW!com, which I would be glad to share.  Just let me know that you are going to attend and I’ll get you a discount code for 50% off the ticket price.  What are friends for?

I spent WAY too much time last night browsing. Any photo that made me laugh out loud, I downloaded. Any photo that I thought could be used in other contexts, I downloaded. I now have a catalog of about 85 photos and images, like the one to the right here, ready to be uploaded whenever I need them.  And since they are submitted to the site by users who agree to share, I don’t have to worry about copyright infringement when I use them.  Nice.

I surf forums all the time.  I think I belong to something like 34 of them at last count, in several different industries.  I still look at some of the legal discussions from time to time, but I spend a lot more of my time these days on the work-at-home, working mothers, small office/home office forums.  I find they are great places to find out information about what’s new and happening.  You also get a sense of what the issues are and can craft a stronger marketing message to those particular audiences.  The tips and techniques that get shared are incredible.  Who needs to buy an ebook?  Someone out there will tell you what they’ve learned, and if you don’t see it readily available, just ask and someone will answer.

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WAIT!  I have to interrupt this blog for an

SPEED NETWORKING is scheduled for May 18, 2010, at The Meeting Place.

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Anymore, I never buy a new piece of software or advise a client to use any online service without first browsing a couple forums to see what the positive and negative reports are.  The Warrior Forum is a great place for all things internet-marketing related.  If it doesn’t work, if the provider promises a money-back guarantee and they don’t honor it, if their upsells are too aggressive, you’ll find it discussed.  Or, if the product exceeds everyone’s expectations and they get 20 ideas on how to grow their business, you’ll see that discussion, too.

I’m using the forums mostly for information gathering, not to sell my services per se, which is good because most forums frown on blatant selling.  But I do get business.  It’s just a more subtle approach.  I answer a lot of questions and try to give people honest answers.  I refer them to my blog, or to other resources I know about.  In return, I get inquiries from people who want to know more about me.  Those inquiries often lead to connections on LinkedIn or Facebook, and new followers on Twitter.  Sometimes, those inquiries lead to sales of my content-writing packages or consulting services.

And don’t forget that other nugget that comes from being involved in forums, especially the more active ones — that precious backlink to your site that Google loves for search engine optimization purposes.  If you write your forum profile using your targeted keywords, and your “about you” box has the link to your website or blog, Google will find you and give you credit in the page rankings and search results.  Win-win for everyone.

Depending on the target audience, I encourage clients to get involved in one or two forums, in addition to LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.  If you are active on the forum, you will develop a following and start to be recognized as a expert.  That’s not a bad thing.  But sometimes, you don’t need to be active.  Just sign up, go out and observe.  Read the discussions.  See what resources people like.  See what they don’t care for.  There is a wealth of informatioon about your potential customers out there just waiting to be discovered.

For my list of favorite forums, email me at SuccessPointConsulting@hotmail.com.  Please put “Favorite forums” in the subject line.

Here’s to your success,

Trina

P.S.  We’re only 3 weeks away from the How to WOW! Now seminar.  Seating is limited, so reserve your spot NOW.  RSVP to http://howtowownow.eventbrite.com.

P.S.S.  My good friend, Heather Tapia, is running a series of classes entitled “Why2How2 Abundance Marketing” starting Monday, April 26.  Get more information and sign up at http://abundancemarketingpro.eventbrite.com

The problem is: they aren’t getting any sales off the internet.  They have a presence, yes,  but it’s not translating into dollars.

Can I help them?

In my analysis of their to-date efforts, I opened up their Twitter account and looked at all their 1,061 Tweets (4 to 6 a day for about a year now).  What struck me immediately was that I had no idea whose Tweets I was looking at.  Their picture was their logo, which is fine if you know them, not significant if you don’t.  About half of their Tweets were about the weather or current events, maybe a quarter of them were Re-Tweets of other people’s stuff (which is good if there is some sort of tie-in to you, which there typically wasn’t), and maybe a quarter actually mentioned a product or service they offer.  Every Tweet used a cloaked URL.

In 1,061 Tweets, the actual name of their company had not been used once.

The company name is not terribly long (it’s half the length of Success Point Consulting).   Honestly, it’s probably the same length as the cloaked URL.  “Why use the cloaked URL?” I asked.  So they could get reporting from Hootsuite.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I am all about tracking and measuring.  So I looked at their Hootsuite statistics.  The most clicks they had ever received on any one message over the past 12 months was 48 clicks, and that was a Tweet about support for relief efforts in Haiti.  Those Tweets didn’t go to their website, they went to a relief organization.  The next Tweet with the highest number of clicks got 14 people to click through to a Youtube video that had nothing to do with their company.  The rest of the top ten were 5 clicks or fewer.   Most of their Tweets are going unnoticed and the ones that are getting noticed are sending people to other sites. They are not engaging with anyone.

They are also following 3 times more people than are following them, but that’s another discussion …

So, as an experiment, I set up a couple of marketing-oriented Tweets and used the actual web address of the company’s home page instead of a cloaked url.  The next day, I was going through my usual morning routine in my consulting email account and I saw a Google Alert come through for their company name.  Surprise!  Google had picked up the Tweet that had their company name in it.  This was the first Tweet that had come through to Google Alerts.  The previous 28 Tweets or so since I had started working with them had been ignored.  Ever have one of the “Ah-ha!” moments?  Does a cloaked URL block Google from recording Tweets as backlinks and if we use the full company URL, will we get better ranking in Google?  Is this actually a SEO tip that I had somehow missed in all my previous research?

So I went surfing the web, trying to find an answer.  One place I went was SEOmoz.org, which does list url cloaking as a negative factor for Google rankings.  But I couldn’t find a whole lot of talk on the subject. 

My gut tells me that companies should be using their brand name on Twitter at least occasionally.   I understand the benefit of cloaked URLs and I use them myself, but I’m going to be more selective on where and when from now on. What about you?  If you pull up all of your company’s Tweets from the past year, are they clearly from your brand?  Would readers be able to learn anything about you and your company?  Do you try to use your company name in your Tweets, or do you rely strictly on cloaked urls?

In my mind, the jury is still out and I still have lots of work to do to start generating sales from Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn  for this company, but I feel I might be going in the right direction.  I’ve changed their mix of Tweets to about 75% marketing-oriented (I’m actually putting offers in the Tweets, how novel!) to only 25% Re-Tweets and comments on the general nature of the world. 

Please leave your thoughts and comments below.  If you need ideas on how to better utilize social media and other online marketing strategies, please give me a call at 614-753-5979 or email me at SuccessPointConsulting@hotmail.com

Trina

P.S.S.  Another friend, Dr. Gwen Dwiggins, runs an outstanding clinic for autistic children, The Accelerated Learning Clinic, 5158 Blazer Parkway, Dublin.  She is having an OPEN HOUSE on Saturday, April 10, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.  If you know anyone with an autistic child, please pass this information along. 

Google Alerts are great for finding out when you are mentioned on someone else’s blog, or in an article, or in an Answer in LinkedIn.  If you are submitting press releases to dozens of press release services, Google Alerts can give you exactly which services are distributing your releases, and which aren’t.  You’ll know what sites are promoting you.  It’s the easiest way to create a file of your online press clippings I’ve found.  It’s also a great tool for monitoring who is talking about your competitors, what blogs are actively talking about your areas of interest, and catching any negative reviews or bad-mouthing before it goes viral.

But what I have found with many small business owners that I consult with is that they set up Google Alerts, they get the email from Google every day or every week, they open it up, say, “Oh goody, my press release was published,” and go on with their day.

Wrong.

You got the information, now DO SOMETHING with it.  For instance, if a press release about your small business’ upcoming event was published by one of the online news agencies, go to the site, capture the URL, and send a tweet announcing you’ve been mentioned.  Don’t stop there.  Submit the URL to Digg, Redd It, StumbleUpon, and every other social bookmarking site you participate in.  Go to a couple forums and say, “Hey, PRNews just published our press release.”  Update your wall on Facebook, submit a little news items to each of your LinkedIn groups.   

I suggested this plan of action to a client and she responded with “Why should I promote their blog?  Aren’t I just sending traffic to them instead of to me?”  I had to pause for a second.  But really, why wouldn’t I want to promote a blog that is talking about my business?  Sure, I’m making an effort to make that blog successful, but I think that’s OK.  If that site publishes a mention about your small business, and their site viewership increases, what are the chances they will be interested in publishing the next release you send, or mentioning your small business again?  Pretty good, I’d say.

But Google Alerts can be used for so much more.  For instance, if you are a graphic designer looking for a new project, you can set up a Google Alert to look for “graphic designer wanted.”  You’ll get an Alert that has combed through Monster, Careerbuilder, Elance, GoBig, and other sites and condensed it down to a daily digest of potential projects.  so much easier and more convenient that going through each site separately.  It can work for just about any job or project search.  I’ve used it to identify companies who are actively looking for an online marketing consultant. 

Think about the topics you want to know about on a regular basis and create an Alert.  You’ll be amazed at how much information you get so easily.  I have found in my small business consulting practice that my topic research for certain clients has been cut to almost nothing because Google is doing it for me and delivering it right to my inbox.  It’s like having an intern doing your research and just presenting you with a summary of the latest news.  How cool is that?

I’m curious about how you use Google Alerts.  Please leave your comments below.

And as always, if I can help you create an online or offline marketing plan or help you get your business growing and moving toward your success point, please call me at (614) 753-5979 or email me at SuccessPointConsulting@hotmail.com.  I would be honored to help.

Here’s to your success,

Trina

And I’m here to tell you — Facebook advertising is the real deal.  You can target demographically and geographically, it’s cheaper than Google, there’s less competition, and small business owners are seeing results.  I just ran a little ad myself — I had a simple landing page offering a FREE Report and asked the respondents to fill out a short survey about their current online marketing activities – and got 6 very high-quality business leads in about 36 hours, for less than $100 ($82 to be exact).  I’m excited.

Facebook Ads provide two ways to advertise on the pages of Facebook. You can create an ad campaign that links to a landing page within your Web site, or you can advertise something on Facebook, such as your new Business Page or an application you have developed. You can also employ a Social ad. This shows your image and text alongside the social action you take on Facebook pages.

The targeting available for Facebook Ads is awesome.  You can choose  the location, gender, interests, relationship status and other demographics of your target audience.  For my test, I chose to target women, in Ohio, who were business owners and involved with service professions, like attorneys, accountants, insurance sales, etc.  And sure enough, every response I got was from a woman, from Ohio, and all but one is in an industry I was targeting.  And my guess once I dig a little deeper into her background, I bet I find she is or was connected somehow to a law firm.

In creating a Facebook Ad campaign you will need to decide which type of ad you want to run and provide the link the ad will lead visitors to.  The link does not appear in the ad — it’s behind the scenes.  The entire ad is a hotlink to the URL you select.  The ad title is restricted to 25 characters while the  text (body) must fit in 135 characters. If you choose to include a photo (which I recommend), it needs to be 110 by 80 pixels.  And like any good ad test, you should run at least 2 versions, if not 3 or 4 versions, to make sure you are getting the absolutely best response rate you can.

Very similar to the Google model, Facebook Ads can be run on a Pay for Clicks (CPC) or Pay for Views (CPM) model. During the ad creation process, you set your daily ad budget and the maximum bid, which is the most you are willing to pay per click. CPC ads are displayed in Facebook’s Ad Space, Home Page (or both), while CPM ads are shown only in the Ad Space. Facebook selects the best ad to run based on the cost per click or impression and ad performance.

After creating the ads you want to run, Facebook will approve your ads for use and suggest a max bid if you have bid too low.  This seems to take anywhere from 4 hours to 24 hours, which is very comparable to Google.  Through your Ad Management Page, Facebook provides ad data so you can track your progress, change the audience, or adjust other metrics as the campaign progresses.

And here’s a little tip for the day (you’ll never be able to say I didn’t help you out after this) — do a search for FREE Facebook Ad Credits and you’ll find several companies out there willing to give you $50 to $100 in Facebook advertising credits.  I did it — I took a $50 credit to test with — so my $82 campaign only cost $32 — and it would have only cost me $0 if I had shut it down a little earlier.

So go ahead, try it.  You just might find a new PPC platform that really performs for your small business.  If you need help coming up with a strong headline or ad copy, just ask me.  I’ll give you three or four versions for you to test for a very reasonable $80.00 — I’ll even do the set-up for you, if you want.  Call me at (614) 753-5979 or email me at SuccessPointConsulting@hotmail.com and I’ll do what I can to help you succeed.

Here’s to your success,

Trina

P.S.  Plans for Speed Networking at being finalized.  May 18 is the target.  Stay tuned!

P.P.S.  If you’re in the Columbus Ohio area, make plans to attend the How to WOW! Now seminar on April 29, 2010.  Local celebs like Gabe Speigel, Ryan Bauer, Bruce Heinemann, Shelley Moore, and Andrew Catapano are going to talk through the process of going from having a dream about owning a business to starting a business and then promoting your business online.  A portion of the proceeds from the night is going directly to Junior Achievement.  Make your plans now — it WILL sell out.