Steinar Knutsen » strategy

Two killer Facebook Page strategies to target specific users. This is good stuff!!!

Steinar — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 02:33:53 +0000

Facebook Pages are a great way to engage your target market online and here are two great tactics to more specifically target individual users or groups within your niche.

Listen or Download

Mentions in Facebook Page Updates

Mentioning others in your Facebook Page updates is a great way to gain significant exposure for your page. If the other Page’s setting include “Others” then your update will appear on their Page. Why is this so special? Because most folks don’t know this is possible and simply put comments on other Pages’ Walls using their personal profile – not good if your running a business Facebook Page marketing campaign.

1. Become a Fan or Like another page in which you would like to get some exposure

2. In your Facebook Page update use the “@” symbol and pick the name of that Page (or individual) from the dropdown menu that appears

3. Write something flattering or worthy of sharing. You do not want to spam the other Page. If you write something nice that their followers find valuable then it’s a win-win situation.

4. Depending on the setup used by the target Page, your update will either appear directly on their Wall or in a hidden portion of their Wall. To see posts by “others” click on the “filter” link at the top of the Wall.

Geo-targeting in Facebook Page Updates

Geo-targeting is great if you have a broad audience but would only like to speak to a specific portion. For example, you may have a shipping offer only good in the US or a discount only for Chicago residents. Facebook lets you specify who will see you update based on location and language. Very powerful stuff!

To do this simply select the “Custom” link in the lower right hand corner of the update field next to the Share button. Input your Location and/or Language criteria and that’s it. Enjoy!

Any other tips you have for targeting specific users with Facebook Pages? Would love to hear your thoughts!

7 Tools to Increase Social Media Efficiency and Save A Ton of Time

Steinar — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 01:14:33 +0000

Nearly everyone agrees that social media is a great way to reach and communicate with your market online. Weather it’s through Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, direct access to your target market has never been easier. The challenge, of course, is finding the time and resources to make the process efficient and effective. Following is my list of 7 Tools to Increase Social Media Efficiency:

1. Google Reader

This one might not be so obvious, but Google Reader is a great tool for market intelligence and brand management when it comes to social media. Basically, Google Reader allow you to subscribe to the RSS feeds on other websites, blogs, Facebook Pages and Twitter Searches that you want to track or find relevant to your market niche. You can also subscribe to Google Blog or News results containing your name, product or brand. Finally, sign up for BackTweets and track Twitter updates that link to your content.

Now you have a powerful one-stop-shop for getting up to speed on the latest news, trends, and brand mentions in your niche. Now, use this for inspiration in your next blog post, reply to people’s comments about you, and share links with your social network.

Congratulations! You just saved hours a week by setting up a proper system that pushes your content to you!

2. WordPress “Press This”

“Press This” is a often overlooked bookmarklet that comes with every WordPress blog. Essentially, it allows you to highlight text on a website and then easily quote the content in a blog post. So instead of copying and pasting text and links back and forth between a webpage and your WordPress post editor, you can now do it with the single click of a button. This is a huge time saver!!

3. Ping.fm

If you’re like most people using social media today you have accounts on multiple social media networks. Ping.fm allows you to update multiple platforms at once without having to go to each individual account. The beauty of this system is that you have central control over how information is distributed.

For example, when this blog post is published, Ping.fm will automatically send a link to Twitter, Facebook, linkedIn, and Delicious. If at any point I decide to change my distribution strategy all I only have to login to my Ping.fm account and make the changes there. This is much more efficient than re-routing my content on each individual network.

4. Smart Phone (iPhone, Droid, Blackberry, etc)

Today’s smart phones provide users with many of the same capabilities available to them on a laptop or desktop computer. However, most smart phones also have cameras and GPS capabilities that add visual interest and location-based information to your social media updates. The tools are so easy to use that literally within less than 60 seconds you can take a picture of something, tag your location, and update all of your networks with just a few clicks.

To do this from your desktop or laptop computer would take considerably longer and would be virtually impossible to complete using a standard cell phone.

5. TweetDeck or Hootsuite

Tweetdeck and Hootsuite suite are two applications that allow you to control your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn updates from one single location. This is very helpful because you no longer need to log into each individual account to post an update or to see what others have to say. Another great feature of these services is the ability to schedule or timestamp your updates for future release.

For example, if you knew that next week you were going to be announcing a new product, you could schedule your updates over the course of the next few days all at once to correspond with the upcoming product launch. This saves you the time and hassle of manually updating your accounts every day with Marketing copy you already have available now.

6. InstaPaper

InstaPaper is a free and very simple online tool that allows you to save a webpage or article for later reference. Rather than printing the article or saving it to your bookmarks or favorites where he can easily get lost, InstaPaper keeps everything organized and accessible across multiple devices by storing information in the cloud. This is particularly important if you don’t have time to read the article now and/or you would like to reference the article in an upcoming blog post.

For example, I can save something using the InstaPaper bookmarklet on my iMac desktop and it will be instantly available for viewing and sharing within my iPad InstaPaper App. Dozens of third-party applications are supported and the functionality continues to expand, so check out InstaPaper when you get a chance.

7. Posterous

Posterous is a terrific blogging platform of sorts that allows you to easily capture text, images & audio and then share this content across multiple social media networks automatically. The real differentiator is that you can e-mail content to your Posterous account, and it will use a smart filtering process to determine where and how that content is posted on your blog.

For example, you just took a picture on your cellphone and would like to post it to your Posterous account, but you would also like that picture to get posted to your Flickr account at the same time. In this case, you would e-mail your picture from your phone to Flickr@Posterous.com and Posterous would take care of the rest. Again, trying to do this manually would take considerably longer.

There are so many other tools and approaches that you could incorporate into your process to increase your social media efficiency. I hope you learned at least one new idea in this post. What other tools are you using that help make your social media life easier?

3 Reasons Why You Should Blog

Steinar — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 20:43:36 +0000

Believe it or not, some businesses spend a lot of money building fancy websites and pay-per-click advertising network but still do not blog. This might not be such a bad thing if they have endless financial resources but for those looking for a long-term position in search engines and influence online, there are several reasons to blog.

Blogging helps your business in several ways:

1. Sharing your Knowledge. Blogging allows you to share relevant information online in a controlled environment. We all have something to share and rather than repeat yourself each time you meet a new client, blogging is a great way to catalog your ideas and use them for future reference. It also helps you organize your thoughts and stay up to date with the current trends within your niche.

2. Controlling Your Content. You own your blog so you are in control of how it is displayed and who can see or comment on your content. It’s fine to post content on other sites, but at the end of the day those sites might go away, increase fees for access, or change the way they share information.

3. Driving Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Search engines like websites that have fresh content on a regular basis. Blogging enables you to easily update your content so it is consistently fresh. Using keywords and other SEO techniques in your copy will also help drive search engine indexing.

That’s just three reasons to blog – there are many more. What do you think? If you’re not blogging, why?

More Evidence that Social Media is Critical to Online Business Strategy

Steinar — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 01:14:33 +0000

I help companies map out their Internet marketing strategies and one component is often the use of social media. A common response is that their customers do not use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. I often argue this point, given the growing numbers and expanding demographics of those using social media.

Currently, three quarters of Internet users worldwide visit a social network or blog when they go online — that’s a 24% increase over last year.

Joe Average (the international version) spends 66% more time on these sites than he did a year ago — for example, your average user spent 6 hours on these sites in April 2010, while last year he spent 3 hours, 31 minutes.

Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia make an appearance among the world’s most popular brands.

via How the World Is Spending Its Time Online [STATS]

If your company is considering social media as a tool to reach your market online, engage with existing customers, or expand your brand to connect with new prospects, I recommend you get started with three platforms: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Facebook is the leading online social network with over 500M users. Facebook Pages are a great way for a business to leverage this volume. Pages can be custom branded to fit within your other online assets and provide an excellent channel to offer a new communications channel to your online community.

Twitter is the leading microblogging platform. Currently Google indexes Twitter content into their “Updates” results and it’s believe to provide future value in how search engines determine webpage rank. In other words, if you’re engaged with customers on Twitter, it’s an indication that your website has value and may have some level of influence over others. There certainly are a number of tracking tools that indicate this is directionally true.

YouTube is owned by Google and is the leading online video sharing site. It provides companies with the opportunity to engage with customers using video rather than static text and images. Statistics suggest that video is more engaging and website visitor retention rates are higher when video is present. Video doesn’t need to be a high production excercise and I recommend you take a more casual, conversational approach with video when using it to speak directly to your customers.

Not convinced yet that social media is right for your company? What’s holding you back?

Find Balance in Your Social Media Communications Strategy for a More Rewarding Experience

Steinar — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 15:36:05 +0000

Clients often ask me what they should tweet about once I set them up on Twitter. It’s a valid question, given that most new Twitter users shut down only days after getting started. The fact is, most of us are not wired to opening talk to strangers and find the fear of criticism paralyzing. We’re all victim to this at some degree.

Hopefully, the following 3 components will help get your head around how to approach your social media communications strategy. Start with the component that feels most comfortable and grow from there to create a complete picture of yourself for others to follow.

3 Essential Content Types for Effective Social Media Communication

Talk about …

Yourself – this gives your readers some clue about you as a person. People like to talk with people so make sure to inject a little about your personality, hobbies and daily life.
Your company, product or services – at the end of the day, if your goal is to sell something, find new customers, or engage with existing customers you must talk about what you have to offer. This is basic, but is a must.
Your industry or community – social media is about community so get involved. Something happening in town you think others might find interesting – share it with your followers? Developing news in your industry? Serve as the go-to-person within your niche for the latest news and share information as it comes across your desk.

WARNING: do only one of these three things and you risk turning people off.

Only talk about yourself and people will get bored or even annoyed.
Only talk about your company and you’ll come across as a pushy salesperson.
Only talk about your community or industry and you’ll just be a news source.

The trick is to have a balanced approach that provides your followers with a complete picture of you as a person, member of the community and provider of valuable products and services.

What do you think? Does this make sense as an approach to execute your social media communications strategy?

Year-to-Date Blog Traffic Sources Analysis Illustrates Content Distribution Strategy

Steinar — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 14:21:39 +0000

I check Google Analytics a lot … probably more than most people … like a couple times a day. It facinates me to see where traffic is coming from and what people are searching for on Google that drives them to my site(s).

My website traffic analyses are typically very in-depth, however I just wanted to share my traffic sources year-to-date for steinarknutsen.com to illustrate a couple points.

Helpful Insights from 1st Quarter 2010 Traffic Sources

No surprise, Google is the 1st source of traffic. I blog regularly and do a lot to drive SEO, so this makes sense. Same goes for image search traffic (#15)
Good mix of social media traffic from Twitter (#3), Facebook (#6) and LinkedIn (#13). I participate in all three of these networks regularly at the same level or mix with which I see incoming traffic. This is by design.
A couple new media based sources, including YoutTube (#4) and podcastingnews (#9). I optimize all my videos and have a couple podcasts on iTunes. Podcastingnews.com picked me up from a video series I did on … podcasting!
I comment on other blogs everyday so that why I’m getting good traffic from industry niche sites like Mashable, Fast Company, and Harvard Business Review.
My newsletter subscriber count is on the rise, but I only just started sharing info with them on a regular basis; hence, Aweber making the list (#14).

So what?

Well, what this tells me is that my strategy is working. The strategy is to create original content in multiple formats that’s convenient for my readers to consume. Not surprisingly, most of my customers come from Google, Twitter and Facebook. And yes, I’ve even met a client on YouTube!

What do your traffic sources look like? Why and what does that tell you about your content distribution strategy?

7 Key Questions to Ask Yourself as a Business Owner

Steinar — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 13:14:19 +0000

I met with a couple of seasoned business managers today to discuss business strategy and marketing plans to support long term growth.

On the surface it mostly boiled down to a series of questions that we as business owners must all ask ourselves.

7 Key questions to ask yourself as a business owner

What differentiates my business from the competition?
What percent of my time is spent on marketing vs. operations?
Where do I see my business in 3 months, 1 year and 3-5 years down the road?
What’s my exit strategy?
What’s my marketing & communications strategy?
What’s my ideal customer look like?
How will I manage growth and what resources are required to support change?

There are other important questions (lots more) but you get the idea.

Asking these tough questions on a regular basis helps reaffirm your purpose and mission as a business owner. Simply getting more clients, creating more products, and hiring more people is not enough.

What do you think? What other questions should we as business owners ask ourselves on a regular basis?

Repurposing existing content for an additional boost to your online marketing and communications strategy

Steinar — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 01:56:28 +0000

If you’re creating online content for your business, at some point it may make sense to repurpose existing content for an additional boost to your online marketing & communications strategy.

For example, let’s say you’re an avid blogger. Chances are you have a series to posts that can be organized in a fashion that somewhat resembles a short novel. Heck, even if it’s just five posts on a niche subject, surely it’s meaningful to package those posts together into one coherent piece of work.

Why? Because packaging your content helps readers consume it more easily and the easier it is for your customers and prospects to consume your content, the better.

Repurposing existing content also give you the opportunity to share your best work in a new and different way. It may look the same to you, but for your readers it somehow seems fresh. Let’s take a look at how this might work …

3 great ways to repurpose existing content

1. Create an ebook. This is so simple and requires no additional software. Simply copy and paste your blog posts into your favorite word processing program, such as MS Word or Apple Pages. Spend a little time organizing the content, creating a table of contents, building a title page, and updating the content to reflect any changes in your original work.

Paginate, add some simple headers and footers and print it out as a PDF. Apple Pages has PDF output capabilities built in. If you’re using MS Word you’ll need to use one of the dozens of free PDF creator apps or online tools. Now, upload the PDF to your website or email it to all your friends and fans. Easy, you’ve just created an ebook. Now go create another one!

2. Create a real book. If you’re in the business of meeting face-to-face with clients, it might make sense to make an actual printed soft bound or spiral book from your content.

This could be as simple as printing out your content and stapling it together; a quick visit to your local print shop where they can bind your pages for you; or using a site like LuLu.com which allows you to upload your content and create a true piece of work. I’ve seen some of these LuLu books and they’re as nice as anything your would find at the local bookstore.

Think about how great it would be to greet new clients with a copy of your latest book!!!

3. Create video or audio. Text is great, but what’s even better is when you take your blog posts and create a cool video or audio to compliment your content.

For example, open the audio recording app on your computer (MS Recorder or Apple Garageband), hit record, and read your blog post out load. Add some color to your text or some variation to the original piece for interest. Post the audio along with your blog post or start a podcast on iTunes. Maybe forward the audio to one of your clients in an email and see their reaction.

A better approach would be to record a video of the content. This could go two of several ways: 1) turn the video into a presentation (PowerPoint or KeyNote) and record the presentation with voiceover, or 2) an easier method would be to use your webcam and speak into the video camera while reading the content.

This takes practice and I recommend you learn the content so as not to actually read the words off a page. Once complete, submit your video to TubeMogul and share with YouTube and other popular sharing sites. Include a copy in your blog and your Facebook Page.

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So, there are three pretty straightforward methods of repurposing existing content to market your business online.

What do your think? Is it worth the effort to repurpose existing content? Have you tried this? What’s the results?

Focusing Your Blog on a Specific Niche to Organize Your Thoughts and Improve the Process of Creating Original Content

Steinar — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 14:28:38 +0000

Blogging is a geat way to share information and connect with people within your industry or area of interest, but without focus it will be difficult to generate content and for others to follow along. Focusing on a specific niche will help organize your thoughts and improve the process of creating original content.

What is a niche exactly? According to the dictionary:

A niche in the market is a specific area of marketing which has its own particular requirements, customers, and products.

For example, in the bicycle market, “mountain biking” might be considered a niche. There are sub-niches as well, such as “mountain bike equipment,” “mountain bike training” and “mountain bike vacations.” Each one of the sub-niches has a unique set of customers, products, and requirements to which you could speak.

What niche are you interested in? Are there sub-niches that speak more directly to your intended audience?

Take 20 minutes to brainstorm your target market and the potential niches that exist.
Now spend another 20 minutes brainstorming general topics to blog about that are of interest to these niches.
Next, craft the actual blog post titles to specifically identify what you’ll write about in your blog.
Finally, Put the results in a blogging editorial calendar as a roadmap.

In about an hour, you’ve successfully identified a target niche and outlined a series of blog posts. For inspiration, reflect on your own personal experience or find other articles on your sub-niche. This will make the blogging process more efficient, effective and rewarding.

What do you think? Will focusing on a specific niche help organize your thoughts and improve the process of creating original content for your blog?

Use Safari, MobileMe and Ping.fm to share browser bookmarks and content across iMac, iPhone and iPad

Steinar — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:53:45 +0000

Here’s a quick video to illustrate how I use Safari, MobileMe and Ping.fm to share browser bookmarks and content across my iMac, iPhone and iPad.

Why do I take this approach?

MobileMe syncs Safari bookmarks across any Apple device you setup with MobileMe and Safari
Safari is a great browser - fast, reliable, and compliant with most of the latest website components
I constantly switch between devices and need consistent access to the same bookmarks
Ping.fm allows you to centrally manage how you share and distribute content. Rather than setting up share controls in individual applications like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, I prefer to centrally control the content from my blog and use Ping.fm to handle the distribution.

What do you think? Do you see value in using Safari, MobileMe and Ping.fm to share browser bookmarks and content across multiple Apple devices?

PS – here’s how I made that finger cursor mouse on my Mac

Define Your Company’s Social Media Strategic Business Objectives Prior to Making a Significant Investment

Steinar — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 13:49:33 +0000

Defining your company’s social media strategic business objectives prior to making a significant investment is good sense. Like any marketing initiative, you should define what success will look like before jumping off the deep end.

Because social media is so broad and potentially resource intensive this is especially true. The fact is, a universally accepted social media ROI model has yet to emerge, so in the meantime make strategic planning a priority on the front end.

For most companies, that means hiring an experience social media marketer to advise on the logical first steps and help develop an appropriate execution plan. In that process, you might consider the following list of potential objectives, both tactical and strategic.

Source: New Site Media Group

Tactical Social Media Objectives:

Connect with existing customers and new prospects
Listen & engage in conversation with prospects, customers, and industry leaders
Share company information, industry news and “personal” information

Strategic Social Media Objectives:

Grow network (# of followers, email subscribers)
Evolve as a market leader (first-to-know, purchase influencer, trend-setter)

Strategic Business Goals

Grow new business (# of new customers, new customers acquisition rate)
Grow existing business (# of sales, average $ per order, total share of wallet)

What do you think? Is defining your company’s social media strategic business objectives important? How are you coming up with the answers?

10 Keys to Successful Local Business Social Media Marketing

Steinar — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 13:34:36 +0000

Building a successful local business social media marketing strategy takes time. There’s no silver bullet. Anyone who’s been doing this for a while will agree.

Of course, there are tools, processes, and steps to make it easier, but at the end of the day the point of social media is to authentically engage with people that share similar interests. Think of it as a virtual cocktail party.

Based on my experience, here are 10 Key to Successful Local Business Social Media Marketing:

Determine your goals – Increase web traffic? Increase new/existing customer growth rates? Increase average order value?
grow your prospect list?
Establish your presence – sign up on leading platforms and customize profiles
Engage with your local customers online at their place of convenience – ask & answer questions, provide valuable content, and build relationships with customers, prospects and influencers
Serve as a local trusted resource online by sharing relevant information on a consistent basis about your industry and product category
Implement compelling promotions – leverage scarcity, location, and time to drive demand among your local followers and fan base
Draw interest and listen to your customers and competition by following and commenting on local blogs, forums and discussion groups
Track everything – learn and respond to community trends and interactions
Be prepared to adapt – stay ahead as tools and platforms change rapidly
Avoid common pitfalls – fake reviews, poorly designed ads, unresponsiveness
Above All – Show You Actually Care!

What do you think? What did I leave off the list?

B2B Social Media Expecting Rapid Growth but Still a Small Piece of Overall Interactive Marketing Spend

Steinar — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 20:38:09 +0000

It may represent a small piece of overall interactive marketing spend, but B2B social media spend will see significant growth in the next few years.

Forrester Research forecasts that B2B social media marketing spending will grow from just $11 million last year to $54 million in 2014. That’s still tiny compared to the total $2.3 billion Forrester said B2B companies spent on interactive marketing last year and the $4.8 billion they are expected to spend in 2014.

via Why Social Media Makes Sense for B2B Marketers – The eMarketer Blog.

If you’re a marketer, what steps are you taking to leverage the growth of B2B social media?

Engage with Your Customers using Social Media

Steinar — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 17:15:36 +0000

Seems like a no brainer, but if your business is using social media to communicate with your market, you need to actually engage with your customers to make it work.

It would be a mistake to use Twitter as a one-way corporate megaphone, never interacting with your audience. That’s a quick route to an audience of zero. One of the most effective uses of social media is personal engagement and relationship building with your audience.

via 9 Killer Tips for Location-Based Marketing

As common sense as this seems I still see many people get this wrong.

My guess is that 1) they are not using the right tools to make engagement simple, 2) they are just using social media platforms as a conduit for generating links and brands mentions or 3) they do not have the right strategy set up to determine next steps once customers start engaging.

How do you engage with your customers using social media? What works for you?

Top 5 Reasons Not to Blog

Steinar — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 04:05:36 +0000

I work with all types of businesses and I always recommend that my clients start a blog. It is a bit selfish I suppose, because I find blogging fun and rewarding and secretly wish others would too. But the fact is, in my experience, most people don’t want to blog.

These are the top 5 reasons people tell me they do not want to blog:

I’m too busy to blog and just don’t have the time
I don’t know how to blog
I don’t know what I would say on my blog
Blogging is a waste of time with low ROI
I don’t want others to see what I’m doing

Most people don’t mention the fear of blogging, but we all know it’s there, so we should probably add it to the list too.

My job is to help my clients overcome some of these hurdles – some are technical or may be addressed with the right process or tools. The tough part, however, is to actually get people to blog and do it well.

I stumbled upon this quote from Josh Hanagarne on CopyBlogger which pretty much sums things up:

… there is one secret ingredient to the great blog recipe. And that secret ingredient is you.

via The Secret Ingredient to an Irresistible Blog | Copyblogger.

The point is, no matter how much training or coaching we take, how many great tools and systems we have set up to make blogging easy and effective, if you’re not into it, it’s just not going to work.

For me, it’s about writing and sharing content that I find interesting. It’s exciting to discover something new, see people visit my site and interact with them along the way. Oh, and it drives a lot of business.

What do you think? Just because someone doesn’t want to blog, should they exclude it from their internet marketing strategy?

Tactics to Drive More Targeted Search Engine Traffic to Your Blog

Steinar — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:58:05 +0000

If you’re marketing your brand, service, or products online, one of your goals should be to drive more targeted search engine traffic to your blog. An overall increase in traffic is fine, but it really boils down to who is visiting your sight, why they are visiting and what the call to action is once they consume your content.

If you are not speaking to a particular niche, you might find that although overall traffic volume is high, engagement is low.

Here are 5 tactics to drive more targeted search engine traffic:

Use a long-tail keyword strategy when creating your content. Think about what someone might use to find your content in Google and incorporate those phrases into your content. For a more scientific approach use a tool like Google Keyword Search Tool or Market Samurai.
Consistently add new content. Google likes new content and if you publish on a frequent basis, Google tends to index your site more regularly because you’re seen as more relavent. Set up Google Webmaster Tools to monitor the rate with which Google indexes your site.
Add images to your posts and optimize them so Google Images can index them. This not only adds visual interest to your posts but provides the necessary information so people can find your images when searching on Google.
Comment on other blogs and link back to related pages within your blog. Many people make the mistake of only linking back to their home page. Take the extra 10 seconds to link to an individual post instead so that Google has the opportunity to index backlinks to multiple pages throughout your site. Try to comment on blogs that have a high Google PageRank and Follow tags. Again, Market Samurai can help find these blogs.
Leverage your content and RSS feed by submitting posts to Friendfeed, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Technorati and other leading blog indexing sites. Google tends to rank results from these sites higher in search results, thus giving you and edge on the competition.

These aren’t all inclusive, but do you think these tactics would help drive more targeted search engine traffic to your blog?

Finding your Rhythm for Blogging, Social Media and Engaging Customers Online

Steinar — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:38:51 +0000

Whether you are new to blogging and social media or have been at it for a while, finding your rhythm can be a challenge and something that requires continuous improvement. This is especially true as the tools and platforms change in relation to your marketing strategy for engaging customers online.

This is my 100th post on this blog, so I thought it would be fitting to review my daily process. Let’s start with my goals.

My blogging and social media goals:

Stay informed of the latest news, trends and topics within my niche
Connect with other marketers, customers, and folks I find interesting
Share my thoughts and those of others with my network
Deliver valuable content to build my network, engage my market and grow my business online

Daily blogging, social media, and market engagement process:

I use Google Reader to find the latest news and keep my finger on the pulse of what happening within my niche. I subscribe to dozens of news sources, popular blogs and Google searches to find relevant articles, with which I can share, comment on, or use as inspiration for my next blog post. I usually check Google Reader 2-3 times a day for 5 minutes each and complete 1-2 actions as a result.
I use this blog as the main source for content creation and distribution. Creating content on my own domain allows me to maintain full control. Sure I post information on Facebook and Twitter, but anything with substantial content resides on my blog. I publish new posts every 1-2 days.
I use the WordPress ping.fm plugin to automatically share my blog RSS feed with Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, and a few other popular social media and bookmarking sites. Again, this allows me to maintain control rather than setting up 3rd party sites to receive my RSS feed. If I ever want to turn off my stream, I can control this from one central dashboard in ping.fm. Not everything flows through ping.fm – only content that I want to share with my entire network.
My iPhone is my Internet Marketing Remote Control. I can manage Twitter, check Google Reader, update WordPress posts, reply to comments on my blog, check in with Facebook friends and fans, snap images and record & publish podcast episodes from my iPhone with the click of a button. Of course, I can also use email and talk on the phone.
At night, I like to use Google Reader to answer questions on Twitter from people looking for help. I have several dozen search queries set up and RSS feeds organized in Google Reader to make this simple. Answering people’s questions on Twitter allows my to meet new people, learn something new, and share content I find helpful.

Keys to Success with Blogging and Social Media

The keys to successfull blogging and social media vary, depending on your particular situation. Here are a few things I find helpful:

Write original content. It’s OK to quote others, but the majority of your content should be original.
Find a frequency of engagement that suits you and be consistent.
Reply to comments, messages, and mentions quickly.
Write as if you were talking with your reader, but keep search engine optimization in mind.
Proactively promote your content by leveraging your RSS feed and providing links for people to find you.
Have a content creation strategy to help define what you will talk about and how that unfolds over time.

I hope you find this helpful as you continue to define or improve your process for blogging and engaging your market online through social media.

Any thoughts? What tools and process do you follow to increase your efficiency and effectiveness?

Monetize your blog by creating and selling a digital product online

Steinar — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:02:33 +0000

Creating a digital information product is the easiest first step toward monetizing your blog. It’s also one of the most profitable vs. advertising and affiliate marketing. Of course there are exceptions.

You may already have a good collection of content on your blog and it may just be a matter of repurposing that content and creating an ebook, an audio recording or a series of videos to package together into a cohesive product that readers can download for a fee.

… the biggest monetizing problem people face if they have a great relationship with their readers is they don’t know how to sell them something without turning them off.

via Lesson #10: Have Something to Sell (without losing your readers) | Copyblogger.

My goal this week is to brainstorm a few ideas for a product, identify content that I can repurpose, research my website visitor statistics for clues and put together a product I can have available for sale by Sunday night. I expect it will be a good mix of text, audio and video.

Have you created a product for sale on your site? How is that going? Any advice for folks just getting started with there first product?

Blogs are perhaps the most powerful online marketing tool available

Steinar — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:56:56 +0000

This quote was too good to pass up …

In other words, if you don’t have a blog, you’re missing out on perhaps the most powerful online marketing tool we have available today, regardless of whether you are focused on dominating one particular niche, or entering multiple small niches, or helping clients with their online marketing, or all of these things.

via My Notes From The Ed Dale Internet Marketing Seminar – Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak.

Yaro is correct, blogs provide serious marketing power. They equal the playing field in many respects and provide a platform for individuals to compete with the big boys. What’s more, search engines love blogs and if optimized, blogs can deliver website traffic much more readily than other forms of non-paid traffic.

What’s remarkable is that so many business owners still do not have a blog or if they have one they don’t post anything. This blows my mind. Some would rather pay for traffic I suppose – and don’t get me wrong there’s nothing wrong with that. Paid traffic makes sense in some cases, but blogging almost always makes sense for a business.

Blogging really helps accomplish several things.

Blogging is a way to express your knowledge, demonstrate your skills and share information with your market
Blogging is a great way to grow your network
Blogging forces you to stay ahead of the curve within your industry
Blogging is a great strategy to drive search engine optimization
Blogging is a great way to control your content rather than posting independent thoughts across 3rd party sites

And yet, blogging is not “easy.” It takes time, thought, and planning to do it well. But once you map out a your content distribution strategy and even fill out a blogging editorial calendar it can be quite rewarding, both personally and for your business.

Corporate Facebook Pages Proliferate and Attract Loyal Customer Base

Steinar — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 01:12:25 +0000

Corporate Facebook Pages continue to proliferate as more companies embrace the world’s largest social network and attempt to engage their market in what’s shaping up to be a very significant communications channel.

Customers who became a fan of DG on Facebook ended up being more loyal. Although they spent the same amount of money per visit, the frequency of their visits to DG increased. On an empirical scale, fans visited DG 20% more often then non-fans.

Fans were more likely to recommend DG to friends and had an average Net Promoter Score of 75, as compared to 53% for Facebook users who were not fans, and 66% for customers not on Facebook.

Fans had a higher emotional attachment to DG, 3.4 on a scale of 4, as compared to 3.0 for other customers.

via Report: Facebook Pages Create More Loyal Customers.

Personally, I have found Facebook Pages to be a great source for attracting prospects and engaging current customers. My Page has under 100 fans, yet in two months this has translated into 4 new customers.

In my experience, the best Pages have a consistent flow of content ~ maybe one new post a day. With so much activity flying by on Facebook these days, anything less frequent will be completely missed and could potentially hurt the brand. Customers like consistency and if the sign up as a fan they are relying on your brand to deliver.

How’s your company Facebook Page doing? Are fans engaging with your company on Facebook?

Search Engine Optimization: Back to Basics

Steinar — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:00:03 +0000

Search engine optimization is the process of implementing on-page and off-page tactics to drive search engine results placement. In other words, the stuff you do to help your site show up on Google.

Long-tail keywords refer to the combination of terms into a phrase that represents your site, your products and services, etc. Think of them as the words that people might use when searching for your website, company or products on Google. Much like any marketing strategy in general, choosing the right long-tail keywords has strategic implications much like choosing the right target market, niche, or micro niche. The more focused you are, the more relevant you are to that audience.

On-page optimization refers to the activities to incorporate on your website to drive search performance. This may include proper coding, the content itself, a site index, the frequency with with new content is published, etc.

Off-page optimization is the collection of activities you execute outside the scope of your site to improve indexing and drive traffic. This may include submitting your site to search engines and other directories, submitting your RSS feed to 3rd party sites for syndication, commenting on other blog posts with high PageRank to drive inbound links. The list goes on.

What do you think? Are your SEO tactics driving more, higher targeted visitors to your site? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

A popular subject – How to Podcast from your Mac

Steinar — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:25:32 +0000

Based on the traffic, comments, and backlinks I’m seeing, my series on how to podcast from your Mac is relatively popular. The numbers aren’t staggering but nearly 1000 visitors have come here to learn exactly how this all works.

So, here’s a summary of where we are in the series and what’s next.

You can also watch these on my YouTube Playlist: How to Podcast from Your Mac.

In upcoming episodes, I’ll cover:

How to host your podcast on WordPress and publish to iTunes
How to publish a video podcast from your Mac
How to include video, audio and pdf’s in your podcast
How to publicize your podcast on other podcasting networks beyond iTunes

Any other topics you would like me to explain on this subject?

Also, please subscribe to my RSS feed and newsletter to stay informed when these new episodes release.

Measuring ROI of Online Buzz vs. Traditional Ad Campaigns

Steinar — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:21:45 +0000

No doubt, companies see the value in online buzz, but quantifying the return on investment or comparable expense vs. traditional ad campaigns has been tough for most.

Nowadays, buzz around brands on the news, blogs, tweets and other social media that spreads through product launches, PR campaigns, earnings reports are as valuable as traditional ad campaigns. But buzz and social dialogue on the web is tough to quantify. General Sentiment has released a report that calculates the dollar value of the buzz, content, and conversation taking place online.

via The Value Of Online Buzz For The Top 20 Brands

My guess is that measuring social media marketing performance will become more sophisticated over 2010 as companies make significant investment in this channel. Either in-house or through 3rd party tools, measurement systems will evolve so that tracking ROI will become more streamlined.

The bottom line is if you’re not leading the discussion in your industry online, then someone else is, so take this opportunity while the iron is hot to get involved in creating your own buzz. This doesn’t need to be an elaborate or expensive endeavor.

For starters, I suggest you use your industry knowledge and passion for your market to create new and compelling content. This could be a series of videos, an ebook, or a new podcast that engages your audience. Put yourself in your customers shoes – what message or communication would excite them and create a little buzz?

This is the approach I’ve taken with my latest video tutorial series on How to Podcast from your Mac. The response has been terrific and my videos have been picked up by a few influential leaders in the podcasting market. I’m getting new traffic to my blog, comments on Twitter and Facebook, and requests for help. It’s a simple, yet highly effective method of getting your company’s face out there and generating interest.

What do you think? How is your company building online buzz and what’s working well? Are you measuring ROI vs. traditional ad campaigns?

Corporate social media strategy to drive customer engagement

Steinar — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:46:42 +0000

Engaging customers online through social media is a hot topic these days and for good reason. Twitter just passed the 75 million mark and Facebook continues to add 10′s of thousands of users each month. Thanks to my friend Steve Gaines for tweeting this story from eMarketer:

Most marketers say they are at least “prepared enough” to take advantage of new techniques in digital and social media, but more than one-third felt minimally prepared. Staff education and training was a substantial concern.

The largest group of respondents said some of their marketing staff had the skills to implement new customer engagement strategies, but that knowledge was generally restricted to personnel in digital roles. Only 17% said most or all of their staff was prepared, although 37% planned further investments in the area.

“Engaging with customers is becoming paramount and the yardstick by which we measure those brands that survive and those that don’t,” said David Eldridge, CEO of Alterian, in a statement. “Marketers now need to appeal to the individual and engage with customers on a one-to-one basis.”

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007486.

In my experience working with small to mid sized companies, I sense the need from companies to leverage social media to connect with customers and prospects but often the concern over time, resources, and company policy stand in their way.

The misconception is that social media requires an exorbitant amount of time. In fact, with the proper strategy, process and tools in place this is not necessarily the case. The problem is most companies sign up for individual social media platforms and learn as they go, often using the native UI, such as Twitter.com. Some take it to the next level and leverage a tool such as Tweetdeck, but at the end of they day they feel frustrated with the lack of results from their social media efforts.

Start with Strategy

I recommend that businesses start with a strategy for social media. What’s the goal? What’s the call to action? What’s in it for our customers? What tools, processes, and systems can we implement to drive ROI? How will we define and measure success? How can we not only participate, but lead the discussion within our niche. How will we scale our efforts over time? Who is in charge and how will we manage employees’ authority to engage customers online on behalf of the company and brand?

These are not easy questions and the answers will vary greatly based on the size, culture and resources within the company.

I encourage you to look at social media from a broad perspective. Don’t spin your wheels on a Twitter strategy or a Facebook strategy at first. It’s much bigger than that and the tools and platforms will change (remember MySpace?). Consider each platform as a piece of the overall strategy and outline individual initiatives for each community as it relates to the big picture.

Ask for Customer Feedback

Finally, ask for feedback from your customers early and often. Social media is a great way to empower your fans and build your brand on their terms. Loyal customers that buy-in to your strategy will help deliver your message, but you must engage with them in a meaningful way first. Asking for their help is the most sincere form of respect and they’ll happily provide feedback and support if they value your company’s products and services.

What do your think? What does your social media strategy look like and how will you drive customer engagement to lead your market online?

3 Reasons to Comment on 5 Blog Posts Per Day

Steinar — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 23:56:07 +0000

Creating your own unique content is well known as the best method to drive traffic to your website and share your knowledge on a given topic. It should not be considered work. Think is it more as an outlet for you to discuss what you’ve learned lately or explore a new topic in depth.

Another great channel to learn more about you niche and network with others in your industry is to read blog posts and leave comments as you go. I’m sure most of you read blogs, but do you leave comments?

Here are 3 reasons to comment on 5 blog posts per day:

Leaving a comment commits you to really think about what the author has said. Rather than quickly skimming blog posts, take a few minutes to reflect on the author’s position and craft a meaningful response or question. The benefit is that you can learn a lot about how you really feel about the topic and help determine your personal position on an issue.
Leaving comments is a great way to network with others within your niche. If you’re reading a commenting about something that truly interests you, then this should be fun and rewarding. Much like attending an endless cocktail party with others in your industry. Very cool.
Finally, leaving well crafted comments can serve as a great source to drive off-page search engine optimization. Most comment fields ask for your name, email and url. Fill these sections out and don’t be afraid to include your keywords along with your name. Also, use your keywords in the body of your comment and as anchor text should your include any links back to your site. Don’t abuse this approach . . . make sure our keywords add value and don’t distract from your message.

Clearly, commenting has is benefits, but many people struggle to find content to comment on. Personally, when I find an interesting blog (or anything with an RSS feed) I subscribe to it with Google Reader.

Each morning I spend 5-10 minutes scanning for intersting articles and comment on a few. I repeat this process in the evening. Each day I learn something new and the traffic from these comments continues to grow weekly.

What’s your niche? Would commenting on other blogs help you learn, connect, and drive traffic to your site? What’s holding you back?

The Future of the URL Shortener and All Those Links We Are Creating

Steinar — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 13:02:04 +0000

Everyone is getting into the URL shortening game these days. Google, YouTube, and Facebook are just a few joining the likes of the established players such as Bit.ly. And now Microsoft is jumping in. But there’s something weird about their URL.

via Fa.il: Bing’s URL Shortener Is Longer Than Bing’s Own Domain.

Seems like every link you see these days has been shortened by one of the popular URL shorteners, such as bit.ly or tinyurl. These services are great, especially when using a social network like Twitter where messages are limited to 140 characters.

It was inevitable that Microsoft would get in on the game, but it raises an important question. What happens to all those links when one of these URL shortener services goes under?

I see a couple major implications:

all your links old become broken
any search engine optimization benefit you enjoyed would now vanish

If you are a casual user of the Internet and social media, this is probably no big deal. But companies or individuals investing in the business of driving traffic online should beware. The rapid proliferation of URL shorteners should be a clue that ultimately some will not survive.

And then what?

Do you use URL shorteners? Have you considered the potential risks of handing control of your links over to a 3rd party?

Mobile Phones Will Serve as the Online Content Consumption Platform of Choice by 2013

Steinar — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 17:11:37 +0000

More evidence today from Gartner that mobile phones will serve as the online content consumption platform of choice by 2013. Is your company preparing for the shift? It’s happening now, so get on-board.

By 2013, mobile phones could easily surpass PCs as the way most people hop onto the Web. Gartner’s statistics show that the total number of PCs will reach 1.78 billion in three years, while the number of smartphones and Web-enabled phones will shoot past 1.82 billion units and continue to climb after that. This trend will force more Web sites to revamp their pages to make them easier to surf on a mobile gadget.

via Smartphones to dominate PCs in Gartner forecast | Business Tech – CNET News.

Consider the following tactics to make your site mobile friendly:

Create a mobile version of your website or if you’re using WordPress, install a mobile theme such as WP-Touch.
Use mobile friendly video, not flash. YouTube is a great choice and now supports high-definition. Some services, such as Vimeo, don’t play nice on many devices, including the iPhone.
Understand the bandwidth and screen size limitations (and opportunities) of mobile devices. Large images, files and other on-page elements create a barrier for users.
Consider more new media – audio and video – instead of just text. Text is difficult to read in some cases if not properly formatted, whereas optimized audio and video can potentially get your message across faster and with greater impact.
Use a website statistics analysis tool, such as Google Analytics to track visitor devices and navigation. You can learn a great deal about their behavior and tweak your content appropriately.

What are your plans to meet the needs of mobile users? What’s working for you?

Facebook is More Like Google and Why Your Business Needs a FaceBook Page

Steinar — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:25:30 +0000

In December, Facebook traffic reached 132 million unique visitors and continues to grow. Surprisingly, most small businesses claim “our customers don’t use Facebook!” Oh really?

Traditionally, we’ve compared Facebook to Twitter and MySpace, but with its mammoth size, Facebook looks more like Google …

… any comparison between Facebook and Twitter is meaningless and Facebook should actually be compared with Google.

via Facebook’s U.S. Traffic Reaches 132 Million Visitors.

If you have a business how are you leveraging Facebook? Do you have a Facebook Page, Application, or Ads? How’s that working?

5 ways to leverage social media to better engage customers

Steinar — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:31:46 +0000

Engaging customers through social media is not a trend, it is part of human nature. People simply want to feel like they have a voice, especially when dealing with a company they do business with.

This quote from eMarketer reinforces the idea that companies marketing on social media platforms need to take this to heart and make the extra effort to truly engage with their market:

Most businesses have realized that when it comes to social networks like Twitter or Facebook, simply broadcasting content isn’t quite enough. Consumers want companies to engage with them on social networks — not because they want to have a relationship, per say, with a brand of soap or shampoo, but because they appreciate the opportunity to give feedback on products, receive meaningful information from brands, and catch the occasional bargain, among other things.

via The eMarketer Blog.

Simple ways to engage customers with social media:

Actively search Twitter for people asking questions about your niche. For example search “how do i” [insert industry keywords]. Think of other leading indicators to surface questions and answer them directly.
Set up a blog search alert on Google and respond to any blog posts that mention your company name or brand. Include a link to your website or social media platform of choice.
Blog about your industry and your market. Invite customers to comment. Don’t edit the comments. Don’t hide the comments. Make the dialogue open and honest.
Setup a site similar to my Starbucks Idea and invite customers to provide innovative ideas. Make your customers part of the solution.
Reward customers that actively engage with you online somehow. Don’t make it some formal program. Make it a surprise and don’t publicize it. Let them do the promotion for you. That’s the power of social media

What do you think? How can companies leverage social media to better engage customers?

Don’t Stop, Don’t Think, Don’t Edit

Steinar — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 03:33:25 +0000

2010 is off to a running start and we all have goals we want to achieve this year at some level. Typically, my first advice is to write your goals down. It is such a simple thing that most people take for granted, yet it is so effective.

But then what? How do you get started?

This is especially difficult if you are in unchartered waters or working on a goal that has been nagging you for years. As with most things, consistency helps.

My friend Ed has some advice on this issue I found refreshing. Not that his approach is really anything new, but more that it is easier (and faster) if you do a little everyday:

The biggest single thing you can do to achieve whatever it is you want to achieve is this.

Get a kitchen timer, set it for thirty minutes, take everything off the hook, put the iPhone on airplane mode and take action in what ever you do.

Don’t Stop.

Don’t Think.

And for the love of the DIETY of your choice – DONT EDIT.

Do this for the first working week of 2010 and you will stun yourself with what you can achieve.

via So It’s 2010… | The Underachiever Life.

What do you think? What are you doing to achieve your goals this year?

Online holiday spending 15% increase and use of social media to educate consumers on brand and product attributes

Steinar — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 17:03:40 +0000

Consumers are relying on the Internet to help them define value as well as actually purchase goods and services. Not only was online holiday spending was up about 15% this year over 2008, but consumers’ enhanced Internet use revolved more around understanding brand and product attributes before purchase. We can already see savvy retailers responding to this shift by deploying Twitter and other social networking channels to keep consumers informed.

via American Consumption and the New Normal – The Conversation – Harvard Business Review.

… and yet, statistics indicate that only 2% of companies are actively engaged in social media.

How to generate inbound links with videos for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Steinar — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:04:49 +0000

Let’s discuss how to generate inbound links with videos for search engine optimization (SEO). Most folks don’t understand how video seo works and once you do, it can serve as a powerful means for driving traffic to your site.

Let’s use YouTube as an example. Here are the steps to optimize your video for inbound links (or backlinks).

Use you keywords in the Title (1st words if possible)
Use your keywords in the description
Use your keywords in the tags (use dashes to keep phrases whole; e.g., “real-estate-strategies”)
Put your url as the very first item in your description. For example, “htttp://www.mysite.com”. You must include “http” to make the link active.
Set up a Google Alert for your video title to see the the video spread and inbound links proliferate.

PRO TIP: Instead of uploading directly to YouTube, sign up for a free account at TubeMogul, which will syndicate your video to dozens of the leading video sharing sites.

For a good example, check out my Construction Site video on YouTube (over 250,000 views) or watch this quick tutorial on videos seo strategies:

What do you think? If you’re publishing video will this help generate inbound links?

13 Steps to Make Every Blog Post More SEO Friendly

Steinar — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 19:16:16 +0000

Below you’ll find 13 steps to make every blog post most SEO friendly. These steps leverage keyword research, social media, meta tags, and inbound linking strategies to optimize on-page and off-page tactics.

These steps are considered white-hat and assume your blog is already setup with a structure (code, tags, plugins, etc) that facilitates SEO. For example, you might consider WordPress with the All-in-One-SEO plugin, which helps you control meta tags, spiders, and rss to make the most of these SEO tactics.

13 Steps to Make Every Blog Post More SEO Friendly

Preparation
__ Identify your long-tail keyword phrase

On-Page Post Optimization
__ Include keywords in title
__ Include keywords in first 70 characters
__ Include keywords in at least one other place within post
__ Bold keywords throughout post
__ Include keywords in title, alt, and description of any images
__ Include keywords in tags or categories
__ Include keywords in Keyword meta tags
__ Include keywords in Description meta tags

Off-Page Post Optimization
__ Post to Digg with keywords
__ Post to Delicious with keywords
__ Post to StumbleUpon with keywords
__ Post to Twitter with keywords
__ Post 3 meaningful comments on other blog with keywords in your anchor text-based link

There is more you could do, but this is a good start.

What do you think? What other tactics do you use to individually optimize your blog posts?

What is your role online? Participant, Leader, Expert or Guru?

Steinar — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:49:12 +0000

Finding your voice online is a process that can take years. One question to consider when positioning yourself online is: Are you a participant, leader, expert, or guru? Determining your role will help define how you approach your market.

Let’s explore each role to help clarify which makes sense for you.

Participant

Participant is the most common role that people assume online. At some level we are all participants. Much like school, we join a club, an organization, or social network to participate and contribute to the community.

We find satisfaction being a part of the crowd and learn or grow as a result. For some, participation is the end goal and rewarding in itself.

If you run a business or use Internet marketing to promote a business, I suggest that you move beyond simple participation to leadership. If you’re not leading the discussion in your niche, someone else is!

Leader

Leadership is a quality we all demonstrate in some aspect of our lives. Whether it’s leading by example with your children, leading a team through a project, or stretching your limits to break through old paradigms, we all have the leadership qualities necessary to impact others.

Online, this might mean being the first to try something new and innovative, connecting with and educating others on a given topic, or building an online community of people with whom which you share a respectable level of trust, credibility and rapport.

Some go to school to learn how to be leaders, others learn through practice, and the lucky ones are born with it. At the end of the day, leadership is about influence and one’s ability to initiate change.

Expert

Have you worked in your field for at least 10 years? Do you regularly consult others within your niche as a thought leader? Have you authored a book, taught a class or been featured in the news as the authority within your niche? Well, you may qualify as an expert, depending on whom our ask.

Wikipedia defines an an expert as “a person with extensive knowledge or ability based on research, experience, or occupation and in a particular area of study.”

If you’re not an expert, there are many guides on how to become an expert, how to sound like an expert, and how to get expert status in just 4 weeks! Take each of these with a grain of salt, of course. Ultimately, you must feel comfortable and confident with your new “expert” status and many suggest that it could take a lifetime to achieve.

Of course, that was before the Internet and this is where things get interesting . . .

Guru

There is real debate about what defines a guru. For me, a guru is a leader and an expert within their field – someone that not only gets their niche, but has also built a sizable and loyal community around themselves and their niche. They continuously push the envelope to challenge status quo, are seemingly always the first to know, have a large following of people that listen closely, and have the ability to influence how others act on a mass scale.

There on many experts that don’t lead and probably more leaders that are not experts. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just human nature.

Here’s a good way to differentiate Expert vs. Guru: “Expert knows his stuff, contributes to industry related publications, but may or may not have fans and followers. Expert becomes a guru when he/she has his own volunteer evangelists and fans who help spread his/her message.” – Varju Luceno

What do you think? What is your role and where do you want to be? How will this factor into your Internet marketing strategy?

Create a Blogging Editorial Calendar for Consistent Content Creation (template included)

Steinar — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:51:27 +0000

Creating a blogging editorial calendar is a logical next step once you have set your Internet marketing goals for the year. For me, it’s about taking my goals and sub-goals for the year and translating them into a stream of blog posts that bring the discussion to life.

Many bloggers struggle finding new content to write about on a regular basis and a blogging editorial calendar helps organize your thoughts and map out a plan of attack. This is especially helpful is you have a mini-series on one subject you want to blog about over the course of a week, month or year.

It is by far easier to brainstorm and organize topics for your content now, than wait until it is time to write a new post. For example, yesterday I mapped out a new theme I wanted to discuss, broke it down into “chapters”, and then brainstormed individual blog posts on each topic. In 30 minutes, I came up with a very well organized stream of 98 blog posts that I’ll publish over the next 3 months.

The benefit of creating a calendar is two-fold. One, you’ll feel more organized and have the appropriate time allocated to discuss a topic that’s been on your mind. Two, your readers will appreciate a consistent flow of content around one or many topics, rather than random posts on seemingly disconnected topics.

Free Template Downloads

What do you think? Would a blogging editorial calendar help keep you organized and motivated to blog?

Setting SMART Goals for your 2010 Internet Marketing Strategy

Steinar — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 03:28:11 +0000

Listen or Download: Setting SMART Goals

Setting SMART goals is a proven approach to achieving success more quickly. As 2009 winds down, this is the perfect opportunity to examine your goals for 2010 and apply the SMART mnemonic or acronym to increase the likelihood your goals are met.

SMART stands for:

S – Specific
M – Measurable
A – Attainable
R – Realistic
T – Timely

Free Template Downloads:

Specific

You want to clearly define your goals to articulate specifically what you are trying to achieve. The question is what, how and why are you striving toward this goal?

What are you going to do? Use action words, such as create, sell, manage, or grow, etc. to bring a sense of energy to your goals.
Why are you doing this? What is the ultimate outcome? Why is this important and what impact will this have on you, your business, or your customers?
How are you going to do this? What are the sub-goals or action steps that will enable you to achieve your goal

The more specific you are, the greater your ability to identify success when it occurs. For example, “I will write and publish 21 blog posts (250-400 words) about skydiving equipment by March 1, 2010.“ In this example I used action words “write and publish”, specified the number, length, and topic of the blog posts and put a date on it. As we’ll discuss next, this goal is also measurable, attainable, realistic and timely.

Measurable

If you cannot measure your goals then you cannot manage your progress. Furthermore, it is far more difficult to achieve your objectives if a) you do not measure your progress or b) you do not measure the appropriate metrics. In some cases a progress chart, table or simple checklist might help.

For example, you might be trying to improve visitor conversion rates. Using a web statistics tool, such as Google Analytics, can help track vital statistics but make sure you understand and pick the right metric that defines success. You can get 1,000 visitors a day, but if no one buys, that metric is meaningless. Don’t get caught up trying to move the wrong target.

Attainable

Is your goal possible? Is it limited by your resources or require more time to achieve? I encourage you to set stretch goals for yourself to push your limits, but keep them within reach. The benefit is that you’ll see real progress toward success. The risk is that you do not achieve your goals and lose momentum or hope.

For example, you may have just launched a new blog and you want 20% of your visitors to sign up for your newsletter out of the gate. While this is a realistic rate that you could eventually achieve, it is unlikely to happen right away. A more attainable goal would be to grow your newsletter list by 5% each month.

Realistic

Is your goal realistic? You might want 5,000 newsletter subscribers, which is attainable, but is it realistic to achieve this goal by within 2 weeks? Maybe not. Be honest with yourself and your business when setting goals by keeping them realistic or you risk disappointment.

Timely

When is the deadline to achieve your goal? Next week, 3 months, by year end? Setting a specific date will help you identify your tactical sub-goals and action steps to achieve your goal within a given deadline. Map out these deadlines or milestones on a calendar. Plan rewards for yourself when you cross each line.

A common mistake is to generalize about timing. For example, avoid using descriptions such as “this year, next quarter, in the next two weeks.” Without a specific date, these deadlines will slip away.

In my experience, SMART goals help you reach your objectives more quickly with a defined path for success. I recommend writing them down and revisiting them frequently to check progress and adapt to changing circumstances. In most cases, you will over-achieve — either beating a deadline or delivering something of greater value.

What’s your experience setting goals for the new year? Do you use the SMART mnemonic?

Autoresponders: Questions to consider before building your community and asking customers to opt-in

Steinar — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 09:47:17 +0000

Before you dive in and sign up for an autoresponder, ask yourself:

Why specifically do you want or need an autoresponder?

This will depend greatly on your current situation …

If, for example, you already have a loyal following on your website, an autoresponder is a great way to capture the names and email addresses of those visitors so that you can initiate conversations more easily in the future.

… Or maybe, you have a new product you want to start selling to your readers. Setting up an autoresponder is a great way to build trust, credibility and rapport with your market, so that you have their attention and respect should you wish to discuss something new.

Finally, maybe you have a product or message that makes sense to deliver over time. A good example is a newsletter for pregnant women. Because subscribers are on a predictable calendar, it makes sense for them to hear from you on a weekly basis as the gestation process unfolds. In other cases, some autoresponders are used in a similar fashion to teach a set of lessons over the course of 10-12 weeks or even a year. It’s a great way to parse out the information in consumable sections or chapters that provide subscribers with direction and room to breath.

Define Success
As a first step, I suggest you write down your goals for an autoresponder as they relate to your overall Internet marketing strategy. It is important to identify exactly what action you want subscribers to take, what benefits they’ll get from subscribing and how you’ll measure success.

Measuring success might include:

an increase in site traffic,
an increase in subscriber rate,
more products sold,
higher average order values,
or more Facebook fans.

It all depends on what you are trying to achieve and how you position an autoresponder to help achieve your specific objective(s).

It is also important to remember that you can set up multiple autoresponders either for separate groups of people or for individual niches within a single group of people. If you take a strategic approach to segmenting your market, it is likely you will have some people on more than one list. This is good and in fact will please your subscribers if you can achieve this level of targeting with your communication.

Are you using an autoresponder? How’s that going? Did you set clear objectives before inviting people to opt-in?

The opportunity cost of obsessing over web design vs. consistent content creation (Audio)

Steinar — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:45:19 +0000

Listen or Download

In this audio I post I discuss the challenge of managing multiple day-to-day responsibilities vs. the opportunity to create unique and compelling content for your readers. The realty is that created content should be your #1 priority in terms of Internet Marketing. Everything else is secondary – not becuase it’s not important, but simply because content is proven as the leading tactic to engage your audience online.

The challenge is to find a schedule with which to post new content on a regular basis. It’s easier than ever these days to quickly produce and publish audio, video, images and text-based blog posts, but many folks simply can’t find the time or don’t have the right tools to make it easy and effective.

For me, it’s about publishing at least one blog post everyday and allocating a few hours once a week to tweak my site. What’s your strategy? What’s working for you?

Build a content distribution strategy, not a Twitter or social media strategy (Google Real-Time Search)

Steinar — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:50:35 +0000

The recent news of Google real-time search inspired me to share my thoughts on content and how we share information on the Internet. For those of you not up to speed, Google real-time search provides a subset of real-time search results within the standard results for popular keywords searches. Google real-time search includes Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, identi.ca and Jaiku.

The fact is Twitter will fade into the dust one day and social media will shift to new and different platforms over time. Instead of sinking all your eggs in one basket, I encourage you to think about a broader content distribution strategy rather than focus on one platform.

To be clear, by content distribution I mean two-way communication. Your message goes out and replies come back. The strategy boils down to what networks you connect with, why you connect with them and how you manage those relationships.

Use RSS to Distribute Content

RSS (most commonly expanded as “Really Simple Syndication”) is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format.

via RSS – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

RSS is nothing new, yet often misunderstood. I’m not claiming to be an expert on the subject, but I will say it’s worth understanding how to publish your RSS feed, either from a blog or from some other source in which you contribute. For starters, I recommend submitting your blog RSS feed to Technorati, MyBloglog, Friendfeed, Google Reader. You might consider these RSS aggregators that can help get more eyes on your content.

On the social media front, submit your blog RSS feed to Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, identi.ca, BrightKite, Bebo and others. The point is that not everyone “hangs out” on Twitter and if you are truly trying to reach more people within your target market (aka, internet marketing), you need to have a voice on multiple social media platforms. I’m sure some of you will disagree with this and I welcome your feedback.

Use RSS to Manage the Discussion

On the flip side, RSS is also useful for collecting, monitoring and responding to content posted by others that is either directly or indirectly speaking to your interest, industry or niche. Virtually every website has an RSS feed you can subscribe to today. You can subscribe to RSS feeds for a particular search phrase. You can monitor social media platforms remotely with RSS feeds.

Honestly, there is very little need to physically visit these individual sites anymore, other than to tweak your profile or add new connections. Of, course even those functions are moving off-page as well as new tools pop-up to handle administrative tasks such as this. Beware: some deliver great benefit, while others may cause you to lose control.

For me, Google Reader is the ultimate platform to manage RSS subscriptions and engage with people from multiple websites at once. Sure, I use Tweetdeck for Twitter, but it’s much bigger than than that. From Google Reader I can check updates from people, store items of interest, share content, and reply to people all in one place. It’s really simplied my life.

Build Your Content Distribution Strategy

The beauty of the web is that often there are multiple solutions to the same problem. For me, the best way to map out my strategy was to put pen to paper and start drawing out how information is shared and how my network can be connected to increase reach, efficiency, and overall effectiveness. You could also use presentation software or a mind mapping application such as Bubbl.us.

I suggest you start by exploring Friendfeed, Ping.fm, and Posterous. These tools manage multiple RSS feeds in a centralized manner and can direct inbound and outbound activity from you and your connections. I also recommend you start with a single distribution point for all of your original content – for me, this is my blog.

What’s your content distributions strategy? What’s working for you? What would make it easier?

Social Media Marketing Strategy – Key Considerations

Steinar — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:40:15 +0000

Following is a quick overview of the key considerations for developing your business Social Media Marketing Strategy. It is in no way all inclusive, but does highlight some of the considerations important to an effective strategy.

Social Media Strategy – Key Considerations

B2B Social Media Communications Strategy

Steinar — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:52:19 +0000

Q: I am working on a B2B communication Strategy and need to know IF and HOW social media is used when communicating with customers?

via LinkedIn Answers | LinkedIn

A: Social media is used for communicating with customers. There are at least two emerging trends in this area.

The first trend is to use social media to connect and engage with prospects and customers. The goal is to listen to their needs and leverage social media to build trust, credibility and rapport. This is also an opportunity to sell them products, but approach pitching your product or service with caution. Frequent selling can come across as too aggressive and may actually turn customers away.

The second trend is to use social media to monitor and respond to customer service issues. For example, you might find that customers are unhappy with a product feature. You can then ask questions for clarity and share your solution. In the very least, social media gives you a new channel to learn about issues much more quickly and cost-effectively than other approaches. Of course, this depends on your customer participation in the social network.

Hope this helps,
Steinar

Revamp Your 2010 Social Media Strategy

Steinar — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:03:27 +0000

Look beyond traffic and links and you will find the real value.
Social media, and by that I’m lumping together blogs, RSS, social networking and social book marking sites, presents the marketer with a rich set of new tools to help in the effort to generate new business.

But, if that’s the only way you view social media, as a set of tools to perform a set of tactics to reach the set of objectives you have always tried to reach with your marketing, then not only are you really missing the opportunity, you will probably find yourself wondering what all the fuss is about.

via ducttapemarketing.com

As John points out in Duct Tape Marketing, social media is more than a set of tools. For personal use, social media might include the use of one network, but for businesses it’s usually the culmination of several social media sites, interlinked by RSS feeds that drive true connectedness.

For 2010, take some time to map out your strategy. Are you posting on Twitter, using Tweetdeck and physcially dragging and posting content in multiple places? Ask yourself if there is a better way – the answer is most likely yes. I’m not saying it’s easy to identify the best strategy or map out all the possibilities, but if you look at the big picture and outline your process, you’re bound to find some inefficiencies.

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How Web 2.0 Affects SEO Strategy

Steinar — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:23:10 +0000

Funny to find this article from May 2007 … so many small businesses still fail to understand the very basic strategies of Internet Marketing. Not you of course – those other guys.

Some Web 2.0 content management systems, such as blogs and wikis, are primed and relatively optimal for search engine visibility straight out of the box. Google, in particular, seems to adore blogs. Blogs and wikis have essentially replaced outdated forums, third-party product reviews, comments in guest books, and user groups because specific elements inherent to blogs and wikis are naturally search engine optimized. They’re textually rich, extensively interlinked, frequently updated, and rooted in semantic markup.

via How Web 2.0 Affects SEO Strategy – ClickZ

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