social media marketing | 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

Archive for social media marketing – Page 4

Connect Your Blog to Facebook Automatically

By Patsi Krakoff

Friday, February 18th, 2011

UPDATE: From Karen, January 21, 2012

Unfortunately, Facebook has disabled this process as of September 2011 and it no longer works. We have to post a link to our blogs in the status or copy and paste as a rich text note.

From Patsi, February 2012: We apologize for not updating this post earlier, but things change constantly on the Web, and Facebook is notorious for it’s constant shifts. I no longer update any social media automatically, but am posting manually (read why here, Say NO to Auto-Feeds: Your Blog & Facebook, Social Sites). This is time-consuming and may require a virtual assistant for some of you. I recommend SerenityVA.com.

Guest Post from AnnaLaura Brown:

Are your blog posts fed automatically into Facebook?

The other day I was horrified to learn that a dear client was manually posting his blog articles to Facebook. Yikes! No wonder blogging seems tiresome and time-consuming.

I took my pencil and rapped him on the knuckles, gave him a virtual scowl and promised to write a post about how to do this. It had been so long since I set this up myself, I was a bit rusty on the steps required. So I asked Facebook expert Annalaura Brown to write this guest post.

How to Automatically Link Blog Posts to Facebook

Automatically linking your blog posts to Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin can get you some great publicity and traffic but it can be challenging to figure out how to make it all work. Fortunately you have a couple of different options for each one.

Facebook

1. Use the networked blogs application. This is my personal favorite. To get started type in networked blogs into the search box and you will pull up the application.

You click on the ‘register a blog‘ link you see in the capture photo above and it will walk you through the process. The first time you will have a few extra steps to complete to verify that you are the blog owner but after that you can register as many blogs as you own. Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks, Social Media Stuff

Tags : Attracting Clients, blog marketing, blog traffic, business blogging, Content Marketing, content marketing with blogs, social media marketing, Web traffic

10 Ways to Use Facebook as a List Building Tool

By Patsi Krakoff

Friday, December 3rd, 2010

(Annalaura Brown is guest blogging this week, while Patsi’s on vacation.)

Facebook can be a powerful list building tool if you know how to use it properly as such. Here are ten ways you can use FB to build your email list and increase your online business income.

Share your blog posts.

You can do this automatically by using one of several tools such as ping.fm or networked blogs. Both of these tools allow you to post a blog post on your blog and then have the post automatically show up on your profile or fan page or both. Ping.fm puts it in your status update while networked blogs puts an image and a summary of the post on your wall. You will find that many people will read your blog posts from FB, comment, subscribe to your list etc.

2. Share your compelling opt-in offer.

You want to of course do this on your blog but they are additional ways that you can do it on FB too. Some examples of ways that work to do this are:

Include in a status update along with some cleverly written text
Put it as a link on your fan page along with an explanation
Put it with a description of a video that you upload to FB.

3. Use the notes application.

This is Facebook’s way of allowing you to write blog posts directly on FB. You can write notes with text and pictures and tag your friends to draw their attention to it. Make sure to avoid tagging too many people or tagging people who might not appreciate the gesture. You also want to always offer value with a link at the bottom to your opt-in offer. Avoid writing notes that may be seen as spam by others.

4. Share videos.

Videos are very popular on FB and if you do it right, your video may even go viral and be shared by others and create even more visibility for you and your offer. Make sure to include the link to your opt-in offer with the description part of your video.

5. Offer your offer as a solution to people’s problems. Read More→

Categories : Content Marketing, List Building Tips, Social Media Stuff

Tags : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, social media marketing, writing on the web

How’s Your LinkedIn Profile?

By Patsi Krakoff

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

(Note from Patsi who is on vacation: This week I asked Phyllis Miller to write a guest post on social media resources. This is excellent advice you need to know and act on. And, if you haven’t already, connect with me on LinkedIn…)

I will be the first to admit that, when three years ago I received an invitation to LinkedIn.com, I joined without a clue as to what I was joining or doing.

Three years later I know that any professional who does not take the opportunity of a free and well-written LinkedIn profile is “cutting off his/her nose to spite his/her face.”

And this is true whether the professional plans to ever actually make connections on LinkedIn.

Why is this LinkedIn profile so important?

Let’s say you are a lawyer. You have written many legal articles for print publications (some with online sites) and you have served on various bar association committees.

If a prospective client were to “google” you, some of these legal articles and some references to you on bar association committees would appear in the search results.

Yes, if your firm has a website your firm profile will be there. But most of these firm profiles are one very long paragraph with rather stilted language.

None of the above provides a well-rounded look at who you are as a legal professional.

What you need is a well-formatted LinkedIn profile that people are accustomed to reading for others and would be able to easily read about you.

By setting up an effective profile, you can offer a range of professional information that will enable prospective clients to quickly learn about you – and hopefully do business with you.

And the good thing about your profile is that you can always add to it and revise it whenever you want. (In fact, if your law firm changes its name – due to a loss or gain of a partner, for example – remember to change the firm name throughout your profile.)

Be sure to include a good headshot of yourself and choose the option of your whole name appearing on your profile rather than just your first name and the first initial of your last name.

Bonus tip: LinkedIn offers company pages (still in beta as of this writing) and has just rolled out product and service tabs for these company pages. Here is a blog post to help you take advantage of these new opportunities: http://www.millermosaicllc.com/linkedin/new-linkedin-company-feature/

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) and her social media marketing business partner Yael K. Miller (@MillerMosaicLLC on Twitter) offer a Professional Setup service. See http://www.millermosaicllc.com/linkedin-professional-setup/

Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Social Media Stuff

Tags : Attracting Clients, blog marketing, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, social media marketing, Writing for the Web

Smart Time-Saving Tips on Blogging…

By Patsi Krakoff

Monday, November 1st, 2010

What are the steps you need to follow to ensure each blog post is optimized for search engines as well as for your readers’ interests? Oh my… there are a lot. But to keep me out of overwhelm, I wrote them down, and put them into a flow chart.

This is good for days when I’m brain dead and likely to forget something important. But it’s also a good chart for anyone working with a V.A. or assistant who needs to take over some of the tasks for you.

I recently designed and recorded a presentation for the Content Marketing Institute on everything that goes into creating and publishing a quality blog post. It’s published on a neat tool called Brain Shark: you make a power point presentation, then record the notes over the phone. How neat is that?

I’d like to share it with you here. Tell me what you think:

I realized after I watched this that my diagrams are way too small on this screen. So I’ve decided to republish them below, larger.

And here is the flow chart of all the steps I use for posting on my blog: Read More→

Categories : Content Marketing, How to...Tips, Managing Your Ezine & Blog Tasks, Online Marketing, Social Media Stuff

Tags : blog formatting, business blog training, business blogging, Content Marketing, Content Marketing Institute, content marketing with blogs, how to start blogging, Online Marketing, SEO, social media marketing, Writing for the Web

Social Networking for Business: What’s Right for Yours?

By Patsi Krakoff

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

(As I’m on vacation for a week, I’ve invited Sydni Craig-Hart to share social networking tips.)

The big 3: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Everybody who’s anybody has a profile in each. And it seems everybody is preaching the same thing:

You HAVE to have a Facebook Fan Page
You HAVE to be on Twitter
You HAVE to join LinkedIn and participate in groups

But, do you HAVE to this? Will your business fall in the water if you don’t?

The answer depends on your target audience.

Remember, your target audience determines where you should be and how you spend your time. If your target audience spends their day on Twitter, then that’s where you should be engaging with them. While it may be a little challenging to have a full-fledged conversation, you can still interact and find out what their challenges are, participate in the conversation when they are looking for solutions and be a trusted advisor.

The same could be true if your target audience hangs out on Facebook. Maybe they prefer to interact there because there’s no character limit (like the 140 characters on Twitter.) They may like the back and forth conversation of posting comments on each others’ wall and seeing their updates throughout the day.

The point is, participating in social networking is like participating in live networking. You should only attend the “events” that make sense for you and your business. You should only be spending your time where your target audience is hanging out – otherwise you’ll miss the boat completely.

Nothing is more frustrating than spending your efforts pursuing a particular marketing strategy only to find that it generates ZERO results. Has that ever happened to you? If so, it’s likely because the strategy (or in this case the platform) didn’t fit your business. You may be chasing an opportunity that doesn’t even interest your target audience — and they’re not going to go looking for you either.

In order to provide the solution to a problem, you need to be visible when your ideal prospects need you. Marketing you and your services is simply about educating your target audience about how you can solve their problems. You can’t be a day late to the party.

Take the time to do your research and find out EXACTLY which social networks your target market is hanging out in. This will tell you where you should be spending your time. And most importantly, you will see the return on your time investment as you’ll be connecting directly with the people who are already looking for you. Read More→

Categories : Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Media Stuff

Tags : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, content marketing with blogs, Online Marketing, social media marketing

Content Marketing Results: 18 Ways to NOT Get Blog Traffic

By Patsi Krakoff

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

What do you need to know about about the way people read online to make your content marketing efforts pay off?

What are you doing or not doing on your blog that screws up your traffic?

At least a few times a week I get an email from a smart professional who struggles with making their web marketing work to get found, get known and get clients. Here’s a typical one…

“Okay, Patsi, I’ve been following you for a while now, and your blog writing tips have helped. I’m posting twice a week, but I’m still not getting comments, and my traffic stats stink. Can you take a look?”

Of course, I have to point people to my consulting services if they want me to spend time doing a good analysis and provide specific solutions.

But often the problems and the solutions are common and universal. I can almost predict where the low traffic problems come from based on looking at a lot of blogs over the last five years.

Here’s a general overview of things I see many people doing on blogs that don’t bring good results:

Frequency: Not posting enough
Headline: not compelling or even clear
Content: No clearly defined problem and solution, no answer to the “so what?” question
Content: No keyword usage in headline, first paragraph, or in body
Content: Too broad and general, need to hone it down to specifics, need to personalize it
Formatting: Too many long blocks of text, need shorter paragraphs, subheadings
Engagement: Too author-centric, not enough asking readers questions, addressing them as “you”
Engagement: Not enough client stories, no quotes from other people Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Writing Great Blog Content

Tags : Attracting Clients, blog content, blog formatting, blog marketing, blog traffic, blog writing, business blogging, content marketing with blogs, social media marketing, web marketing, web traffic search traffic

Blog Marketing: How Readers Find Your Business

By Patsi Krakoff

Monday, July 26th, 2010

What’s your favorite excuse for not blogging for your business? Here are some that I hear:

“I don’t have time to blog.”
“My clients aren’t surfing the Web reading blogs.”
“Oh, that means I’ve got to write about my business every week?”

And yet, if these same professionals realized that a business blog is the best way to get found online, the best way to connect with potential clients, and the pathway to turning readers into clients, they might see things a little differently.

Here’s a drawing I made that shows how readers find your blog and become clients.

There are over a billion people connected to the Internet. I’m willing to bet my lunch money that quite a few of them fall into the category of “your ideal clients.”

It’s not likely they go online looking for you, your business or your blog. I’m not saying that. But they do go to search engines and they type in questions with keywords.

And they do go to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Here’s what this looks like, how readers find your blog, in this Smart Draw diagram I did:

Like any diagram, it’s simplified. Read More→

Categories : About Blogs, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Pathway to Profits, Social Media Stuff

Tags : Attracting Clients, blog marketing, blog traffic, business blogs, content marketing with blogs, converting readers to clients, Online Marketing, social media marketing, web traffic search traffic, Writing for the Web

Online Reputation? 4 Tips

By Patsi Krakoff

Friday, July 9th, 2010

Friday’s guest post is by Robert Stretch, author of VA Mortgage Center blog:

For business people, few things are more important than reputation. Thanks to the worldwide web — which sometimes feels as vast as a universe-wide web — monitoring your online reputation demands serious attention.

Only a few belittling remarks can spread like wildfire online, and damage your online image in no time.

By taking some simple precautionary steps, you can not only reduce invalid criticisms about you, but you can also promote yourself. In fact, having a good online reputation is essential to branding yourself or your business.

Just last week, BtoB Magazine Online reported that Dow Jones hired an online marketing company. The company, Marchex Inc., will work with Dow Jones Local Media Group to make an exclusive online reputation management plan.

By doing so, Dow Jones’ customers get the privilege of responding to blog posts, news and any mention of DJ in social networks.

Not everybody or every company has the resources to hire a third-party that monitors their online rep. Dow Jones is several steps ahead of where some small businesses are. For one thing, the company already owns dowjones.com, dowjones.net and dowjones.org.

Why? Well, it wouldn’t look great if one of those got bought by an angry customer whose goal is to take down the company.

Here are the 4 things you should be doing at a minimum to protect and improve your online reputation, no matter how big or how small your company is. Read More→

Categories : Attracting Clients, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Media Stuff

Tags : Attracting Clients, blog marketing, business blogging, Content Marketing, content marketing with blogs, online reputation, social media marketing, web marketing

Archive for social media marketing – Page 4

Content for Coaches and Consultants

Serenity Virtual Assistant Services

Social Buzz Club

Archive for social media marketing – Page 4

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Content for Coaches and Consultants

Serenity Virtual Assistant Services

Social Buzz Club