Author Archive

Twitter is a great tool to help your build business.

Here’s a list of ways you can implement Twitter to help increase your business.

• Customer Relations
• Crisis Management
• Corporate Reputation Management
• Team Building
• Issue Advocacy
• Product Promotion and Sales
• Internal Communication
• Lead Generation
• Crowd Sourcing
• Customer References
• Testimonies
• Announcements
• Professional Networking
• Traffic Generation
• Live Event Coverage
• Couponing

For other ideas, read this great article from Chris Brogan, 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business

What else would you add? How are you using Twitter for your business? I would love to hear from you.

Have you read my new book “Your Twitter Business Toolbox“? If not, it is a must read. Click here to download the first 10 pages for FREE.

______________________________________________________________________________

As we all know, Social Media is huge and I am sure you have questions about how you can leverage it to increase your influence, create raving fans and pocket more cash.

Now’s your chance to get YOUR questions answered.

I am hosting a FREE TELE-CALL with nationally known author and speaker Shama and Chris Patterson (a powerhouse in the internet landscape).

Go to www.thesecretsofsocialmedia.com/ask-shama, ask your question or just simply register to listen in on the call.

This is not a pitch fest. Our goal is to simply help you get the answers you need, so that you can better leverage Social Media for you and your business.

The call will be on Thursday, July 16 at 9 PM (EST) and will go for 1 hour.

Go and register now at www.thesecretsofsocialmedia.com/ask-shama

I am looking forward to having you on the call.

To learn more about Shama go to www.shama.tv and Chris Patterson go to www.insociamemdia.com

Some people believe in scatter marketing. This is where you throw your marketing message anywhere and everywhere and hope it sticks. In my view, this is the way of marketing for those who lack knowledge or training. You need a proven marketing plan!

To run a successful online marketing campaign, you must know the numbers. Knowing the numbers can help you in many areas, such as: where to spend the most of your money and energies, what is working and what is not, finding out where the right people are and so forth.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Success Tip: A word of warning, DO NOT SPAM social networking communities. If you do, you will be ostracized quickly by its members. Marketing effectively is part science and part art. It is a mixture of creative genius, research and testing. Very few people can pull off successful campaigns. In fact, all successful companies/websites have a team behind them. If you are really serious about being successful with your online endeavors, you must hire a competent & proven internet marketing group or be a bona fide expert yourself.  For more information or for recommendations, contact me directly at 407-459-7774. We can discuss how to help you achieve your marketing goals. Great companies such as Coca-Cola, New York Times, Nickelodeon, Kanye West Foundation, Strang Communications and many more, have used our services.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Let’s look at some interesting numbers for Twitter. As we look at them, take time to creatively think about how you can use this information to leverage the Twitter community for your own online marketing campaigns.

The Fastest Growing Member Community Destinations

At the #1 spot:  Twitter with a whopping 1,382% yearly growth rate.

As of Feb. 2009, Twitter had 7 million users and still growing. Do you think Twitter might be a great place to get your message out? Let’s keep going and find out.

Twitter’s Global Reach

1.97% of all Internet users worldwide visit Twitter, which is up 254.6% over the last 3 months.

Average Time Spent on Site

Why is knowing time spent on a site important? Simple, it means people like what they see. It means that you are bringing value to the viewer. The more time a person spends on your site usually means they will tell others about your site. And, if you have a product to sell, then higher your chances are that they will purchase from you.

Remember this Important Tip:  People don’t buy from websites, they buy from people.

Alexa.com ranks Twitter in the 42nd position, with an average time on site as 9.1 minutes. The Global Index Chart from Nielsen puts the average duration on a web page viewed at 0:00:51.

As you are planning out your marketing strategy, ask yourself this, “How can I get Twitter users to spend more time on my site?” Your answer will come from a combination of creative genius, the right ingredients and testing.

Let’s look at another important element: Age Demographics

1^st place – ages 35-49 (41.7%)
2^nd place – ages 25-34 (19.6%)
3^rd place – ages 55+ (16.6%)

Why are these numbers important?

1-       You need to gear your message to the appropriate age group. What age group does your product or service cater to? If you have a product designed for ages 2 to 17, you may not want to use Twitter as one of your main sources for marketing.

2-      These numbers can help you determine your branding and messaging style.  If you are going for the sweet spot (ages 35-49) then you might not want to use a marketing message geared to the 18-24 age group.

There are many more numbers we could look at, but these are the main ones to consider when determining your marketing outlets.

To be successful in marketing, it is crucial to discover the – who, what, where and when of every social medium you are considering. Understanding these elements will help you make clear and precise marketing decisions.

Coming up soon, I will show you research on Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace.

Until then – Happy Marketing!
Bo Cable

One thing I really enjoy about working in the world of the internet is vast number of people you get to meet and learn from. That’s why I have asked a friend of mine Phil Strong to come and write the final principle in this series.

Phil calls himself a social entrepreneur. He and his wife Kathy start businesses with a view to growing others. The list of his business ventures, past and present, include owning a building company, a national real estate company, an on-line shop for families, a financial services company, and millions of dollars of property. All these businesses were formed with a purpose of growing the people inside them, to see them released into their own futures. Follow Phil on Twitter – @strongphil.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Key To Guaranteeing Your Desired Outcome And Creating Maximum Impact

If you’ve ever played blindfold games as a kid, at parties, or team building exercises you’ll know what it feels like to walk blind.  That uneasy feeling of not knowing which direction you’re going and uncertain if you’ll bump your knees or walk off the edge of a step.  The loss of total control is not a nice feeling and a large part of our comfort comes from the trust you have with the person who is leading you.  (If you’re doing this exercise by yourself it’s definitely a scary experience!)

The life of an online marketer is kind of like this – a ‘walk in the dark’ experience for most of us – especially at first.  The question is “what do we have to do to walk with our eyes open?”

Principle #5 gives you the answer to this question and, in my view, helps you to guarantee your desired outcome.  If you had the key to creating the Social Media Marketing Explosion you were after, would you be happy?  Of course you would.

Here is Principe #5:

A SYSTEM GUARANTEES YOUR RESULT

A system is a predetermined set of activities that have been tested to generate specific outcomes.

I’ve spent a lot of my working life studying people I consider to be successful in many areas.  When I asked them how I could be successful they all shared the same principle:

Success is about doing the basic things the right way.

So I’ve translated this into all aspects of my life by identifying the “basic things” I need to be doing on a regular basis to propel me towards my goals.

Your system for creating a Social Media Marketing Explosion can be exactly the same.

The first step is working out what you want the end result to be, i.e. your desired outcome.  Then it’s a matter of knowing what the regular activities are you need to complete that will lead you closer and closer to your desired outcome.  And then it’s a matter of setting the regimented discipline of implementing those activities.  This is a system!

When I am implementing a system in an area that is not natural for me (and Social Media Marketing is definitely this for me!) I like to make it really easy for me to follow.  The way that I do this is to create a check list for me to follow.  This becomes a list of daily or weekly activities that I need to follow.  These are activities that I have learned from experts and are proven to lead me to the result I desire.

That’s why I learn Social Media Marketing from Bo Cable.  I don’t mean this as a cheap advertisement, but I share it to make a point.  I don’t know what to do so I ask an expert – him.  He shares with me the exact steps I need to take and I follow them with regular discipline.  This leads me towards my goals.

To summarize this thought process I’ve put the actions into four steps for you:

1. Identify your desired outcome – what is your goal in the area of Social Media?

2. Confirm the regular actions that will lead you towards your goal.

3. Build a system that will help you to implement these actions with disciplined regularity.

4. Leverage those actions by repeating them often.

Finally, why would you want to do it this way?  Because time is money.

Your time is valuable and the best thing you can do to help yourself is develop a system that helps you to make the best use of your time.  Your system will help you to leverage your time so that you can achieve more and more with less and less time.  And, as a result of this increased exposure on the internet, your activity will be leveraged because you are in more and more places at the same time.

The result?  The explosion you are after!

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Phil Strong is an international author and speaker who teaches people about money.  Phil is developing his online presence and seeking to build his own Social Media Marketing Explosion by helping as many people as he can with their financial education.  You can access more of Phil’s information at http://philstrong.com.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

To stand out above the crowd, you need to be a highly creative person. Look at some of the greatest marketers of our time; Seth Godin, Jay Abraham, Rich Schefren, Dan Kennedy – all are highly creative people.

I have asked a good friend of mine Rick Hubbell to write principle #4 – Developing Your Creativity for Maximum Impact.

Rick is a very innovative person who has helped many large corporations and individuals meet and exceed their goals by using the power of creativity.  Rick is in the process of developing a series on creativity and as soon as it is available, I will let you know. I hope you get a lot out of this principle as it is my goal is to help you leverage social media and the internet for profit and influence.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————

Developing Your Creativity for Maximum Impact – Part I

Highly creative people brighten life and make things better. These original thinkers have unique talents that inspire and ideas that solve problems. They brim with potential to improve the world.

Yet most often, creative types live well below their possibilities, particularly as professionals. Why?

To lump all ‘creatives’ together is too simplified, yet many years working with them – and being one myself – have taught me unconventional tactics that work in many, if not most cases. If you apply yourself, there are ways to produce uncommon results through YOUR creativity without settling, selling out or starving.

No one said it was easy – but it’s possible. Here is a key to doing it…

One Precious Key Instead of All the Regurgitated Principles You See Everywhere Online

Ready?

Key: No matter how gifted you are, do not live life like you are entitled to be an exception – but don’t underestimate yourself either.

What I mean by that is that a HUGE percentage of creatives, and I mean HUGE, go through life waiting for their ship to come in – dabbling, tinkering, settling, wishing and hoping – rather than swimming out to meet it.

Grab a latte, a smoothie or some tea, perch yourself in a comfortable spot and let’s chat.

Misleading Overnight Success Stories

In the US we tend to have so much media exposure that everyone starts feeling like they need to be a wonder model or an overnight sensation, otherwise something must be wrong with us. We all need to be DaVinci, Rembrandt, Apple, Twitter, the cool non-conforming urban artist or Dave Matthews, because, after all – that’s our destiny. The problem comes when we entertain the idea that we should be entitled to such a radically exceptional outcome – like it’s supposed to float down when someone finally recognizes the true measure of our talents.

Yes, someone wins the lottery and a streetcorner musician is heard by a producer and becomes a millionaire over night – but don’t play those odds with your life. If those things happen to you or me -great. In the meantime, I am still going to maximize my life with the talents I’ve been given:

• employing discipline
• mastering my craft
• sharing with others in ways they may connect with my creativity
• creating finished products and
• doing all these things consistently.

On the other hand, once we start navigating life with the ‘entitled-to-be-an-exception-because-our-creative-gift-is-so-special’ mindset, we are headed for disappointment. Those things always depends on someone else.

(Before you feel like I might be killing your creative buzz-dream with bad vibes dude -in no way am I saying don’t dream as big as you feel is right in your heart. Not at all.)

Just get involved with your destiny and start developing your creativity daily for maximum impact. You will likely be pleased with the results.

Rick Hubbell is a status quo challenger, international business consultant and creativity coach who loves helping others excel. Contact him at rickh@rickhubbell.com for lessons from this series or for more information on his products & services.