Patsi Krakoff | Writing On The Web by Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad

Writing On The Web by Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad

Content Marketing Strategies for Smart Professionals

Author Archive for Patsi Krakoff – Page 70

4 Ways to Keep Your Brain Healthy:
Think Heart, Eat Happy

By Patsi Krakoff

Monday, June 29th, 2009

Yesterday I gave a talk at the Lake Chapala Society about "4 Ways to Keep Your Brain Healthy." As a former psychologist, I have a passion for sharing what neuroscientists are discovering about the brain.

The four areas you need to pay attention to for your brain are mental challenges, cardio exercise, healthy diet, and happiness. I call this the "Think-Heart-Eat-Happy" brain program.

The most important thing to do for your brain, at any age, is to get regular physical exercise that raises your heart rate to around 60-70% of maximum. This will elevate levels of BDNF: Brain Derived Neurotropic Factor, a protein that is crucial for the growth of neurons and their communication networks. It's called "Miracle Gro" for the brain, it's that important.

Categories : Coaching/Personal Development, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks, On Writing Better

Do You Understand the Archimedes Effect?

By Patsi Krakoff

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

I love my job. My boss lets me play tennis everyday, as long as I get my work done. I'm joking, of course, since I'm self-employed. I really do have a dream life. So how can you do the same thing, leverage what you know, teach it to others, and make money working from home doing what you love?

Today I read about the Archimedes Effect from Chris Brogan, who's new book is called Trust Agent:

The Archimedes Effect

Understanding leverage is what separates the hobbyists from the professionals. Do you understand how to take what you’re doing in one instance and extend it out into something bigger or better elsewhere? This is what brought Madonna from just another singer into being a worldwide brand.

Leverage is behind all the most powerful people in the world, but it all starts somewhere. Gary Vaynerchuk leveraged his wine store into his video project and took that into his media project and his book deal. Gary bleeds leverage.

Do you understand the Archimedes Effect?

Categories : Content Marketing

Don’t Forget Facebook: Here’s a Big Source of Readers

By Patsi Krakoff

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

I'm really upset at the recent article about Facebook over on Copyblogger. Here I've been spending valuable and scarce free time over on Twitter, ignoring Facebook. Now I've just found out I might be missing a crucial traffic builder.

I'm not completely missing the boat, I do have some presence over there at Facebook, just not visiting it daily. My blog posts and twitter updates are automatically fed into my Facebook page. It's a good thing, too. Turns out there's a huge pool of potential readers on Facebook and we need to be nurturing them too.

Go read this article and make up your own mind about where to spend your marketing minutes…

How Facebook is Gunning for Google (And Killing SEO) by Mike Wasylik

(And for those of you who care why I've been so absent on blogs and emails lately, I've been in an intensive Spanish course for the past two weeks. It's beginning to cramp my work and play time, and anyone who knows me will understand that my time on the tennis courts is sacred. You can shorten my work day, but don't you dare try to shorten my tennis time. Something has to go, and it's my time spent blogging, tweeting and surfing other sites … Pero hablo bien Espanol ahora!)

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Online Marketing

Best Tip for Using Twitter?

By Patsi Krakoff

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

What is your one tip on how B2B marketers should leverage social media? This is what I was asked by ClickDocs, a great source of information on content marketing. You can read other insights from other experts here. Here’s my answer:

Small business professionals who want to attract people for their products and services through Twitter often start off on the wrong foot. They look at it and answer the question, “What are you doing?” Who cares?

Start off by doing a search for keywords in your field. Use the search button at the bottom of the page and type in “Need help with …XYZ” and see what comes up.

On any day, people are asking for help with things on Twitter. You can answer their questions, refer them to your blog, and offer to help. Be sure to follow them when you do.

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Online Marketing

5 Key Principles of Content Marketing

By Patsi Krakoff

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

I know a lot of people trying to figure out how to supplement their incomes with an Internet business. Some of them ask me how to go about it. While that's a huge endeavor involving many pieces, the key is writing on the web using content marketing.

What you publish on web pages works to attract a targeted audience of people who are interested in finding solutions to their problems.

Remember, the number one reason people use the Web is to get information.

That's why I recommend starting with a blog. A blog is a communications and publishing tool you can use to attract readers, those people who are your ideal prospects. Of course the next question is "What do I write about?"

That's where you need to learn how to do Content Marketing.

What are the principles of Content Marketing to abide by? Here are some good tips from Velocity UK, a marketing consultancy firm who just published a great B2B Content Marketing Workbook.

Content marketing plays by different rules than traditional, ‘broadcast-style’ marketing, here are some of the key ones:

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing

MindTram Is a Gold Mine for Book Lovers

By Patsi Krakoff

Sunday, June 14th, 2009

I'm a firm believer in reading books and am amazed at how many people don't read them daily. I carry my Kindle with me and if I have to wait, I use the time to read.

(I read a quote somewhere and can't find it now, but it said something like …'one who can read books but doesn't is on a par with one who can't read'. I think it was Oscar Wilde but like I said, I can't find it now. Let me know if it rings a bell for you.)

I am thrilled to find a site called MindTram by Colin Ude-Lewis. Colin does what I do: reads and marks up books with yellow highlighter and makes notes. But he goes a step further. He makes his notes available to you. I've just signed up for his service, Wisdom Notes.

For a small subscription fee, you can get his notes and quotes on a huge library of self-development, philosophy and business books. This is a true treasure trove for anyone who loves books, and loves expanding their thinking and knowledge. It's also a great source of content ideas for blogs and newsletters.

Colin is an executive coach in Europe at Lewis Fields.

Categories : Books, Content Marketing, On Writing Better

Content Marketing Is “Issues” Marketing: Velocity UK

By Patsi Krakoff

Saturday, June 13th, 2009

I just heard about this on Twitter and downloaded a fab content marketing ebook published by Velocity UK, a consulting-led B2B marketing agency specializing in technology markets.

Doug Kessler is the author, it's well designed and power-packed. Please go download it here: The B2B Content Marketing Workbook – Thought Leadership for B2B Lead Generation and Beyond.

What stands out for me – besides the great design – is the melding of concepts of thought leadership and content marketing. And making the link between "issues" and content marketing. (Reminds me of a Friends sitcom clip where one of the girls repeats "He's got issues!")

Think about it. In this beautiful Web 2.0 world, you no longer write about your products and services. It's all about the issues your customers have. We should be calling this Issue Marketing to be real.

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing

I Had Twitter for Breakfast…

By Patsi Krakoff

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

By TwitterButtons.net

Twitter is eating me up. I start my work day just fine, but then I got distracted by an article on Twitter in Time Magazine, and an hour later woke up from Twitter plunging.

If you're still scratching your head about how to use it, or if you should use it or not, here's a series of articles from Time that will help you decide:

How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live

10 Ways Twitter Will Change American Business

Top Ten Celebrity Twitter Feeds

Let's put it this way: you can waste time with Twitter, or not. It can be a BIG source of traffic back to your blog or website, if you use it properly. At the minimum, you should set it up so your blog updates are automatically fed into your Twitter updates. Use TwitterFeed.com for this.

If you're a small business looking to sell products and services to other businesses, you need to start using Twitter. I don't know about other social networking sites. Well, I do know about them (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) but I'm just not spending time on those like I do on Twitter.

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Online Marketing

A Story Teller’s Mindset:
Key to Great Content Marketing

By Patsi Krakoff

Monday, June 8th, 2009

The hardest thing about writing good content for marketing is coming up with stories to tell. There's no lack of knowledge, or research, or interesting concepts to blog about, or to write white papers about.

I read one or two books a week, full of interesting information I can share with you here. But it's dry without my telling you a story of how that information comes to life in the real world.

What's needed is a story-teller's mindset. I'm working on that, but it's not something that comes naturally to me. I'm observing people who have that already.

Like Eric, Tall Eric, down at the tennis courts. If I mention coffee, he's got a story. Okay, so that can be a bit annoying if you're in a hurry, but he's usually got my attention for a couple of minutes. There may be a point to his story…or not.

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, On Writing Better, Online Marketing, Writing for the Web, Writing Great Blog Content

Confirmation Biases: More Brain-Based
Content Marketing

By Patsi Krakoff

Thursday, June 4th, 2009

There are two ways to communicate about a problem, the traditional way and the brain-based way. This goes for writing a blog post, an email, a web page, an article, or a newsletter. In fact, for all of your content marketing, think about how your readers may be reacting to what you say.

Traditionally, the way to write about a problem, the way I was taught in graduate school and the way most of us in business or academia were taught, is to:

Define the problem
Analyze the problem
Provide options
Recommend a solution

Let's look at a better way, based on research from brain-based neuroscience:

1. Get attention
2. Stimulate desire
3. Reinforce with reasons

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, On Writing Better

Author Archive for Patsi Krakoff – Page 70

4 Ways to Keep Your Brain Healthy:
Think Heart, Eat Happy

Do You Understand the Archimedes Effect?

Don’t Forget Facebook: Here’s a Big Source of Readers

Best Tip for Using Twitter?

5 Key Principles of Content Marketing

MindTram Is a Gold Mine for Book Lovers

Content Marketing Is “Issues” Marketing: Velocity UK

I Had Twitter for Breakfast…

A Story Teller’s Mindset:
Key to Great Content Marketing

Confirmation Biases: More Brain-Based
Content Marketing

Content for Coaches and Consultants

Serenity Virtual Assistant Services

Social Buzz Club