2 Tools to Discover Relevant Content to Share with Your Fans and Followers

By Lisa Nelson  |  Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media

After (or even before) you set up your social media profiles you need to develop a strategy for how you will utilize social media to grow your business. Part of the strategy is to implement content marketing where you are consistently and regularly sharing your knowledge, highlighting your area of expertise so when they need the service you provide they know exactly who to contact… you.

One overwhelming piece that goes with managing social media profiles is the amount of content you must produce. For example, the Twitter platform moves quickly. Some recommend you share one or more tweets every hour. Facebook and Google+ are more reasonable at around two updates daily, with LinkedIn being once a day… BUT this is day after day, week after week, month after month…. It can get to be overwhelming.

You can share great content with your fans and followers that is not always your own. You will still become recognized as an expert in your area, but you will also be recognized as a valuable resource.

So, how do you find great, engaging content that is quick and easy to share with your fans and followers?

#1 ContentGems

I’ve been using ContentGems for several months now and it has worked well for what I need. ContentGems monitors online sources, including news sources, blogs, and social media accounts, and will filter results based on keywords you set. You can then scroll the results and schedule the updates to send directly from ContentGems or using a third party platform, such as Hootsuite.

In case it’s useful, I’ve recorded a quick video showing how I use it:

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Are Your Blog Posts Fully Optimized?

By Lisa Nelson  |  Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media

Content marketing is an effective technique for driving traffic to your website. This technique involves the creation and consistent distribution of valuable, relevant content to attract a specific audience (i.e. your target market).

The foundation of content market is, well, the content. The blog posts you write.

Are your blog posts fully optimized?

Here are 10 tips for optimizing your blog post BEFORE you publish it and begin content marketing.

  1. Enticing Headline
    Your headline should include your keyword(s) for the blog post, so it is very clear to search engines the information contained within the post. Plus you want it to contain the actual words and phrases that people enter into google when they do a search on the particular topic.
  2. URL Contains Keywords
    The URL for the web page (blog post) is one of the first pieces “crawled” by search engines to determine page content. Make sure it includes your keyword for the article. If you are implementing #1 above, then it’s an easy rule of thumb to make sure your url is always the title of your blog post.
  3. Keywords in Copy
    Do not “stuff” your article with keywords. You do want to include keywords, but they should naturally flow within your copy.
  4. Keywords in meta-description
    A meta description is an HTML attribute providing a concise summary of the blog post content. It is most often used by search engines and displayed in search results. See the below image. Continue Reading…

5 Steps To Effectively Use Content Marketing to Grow Your Business

By Lisa Nelson  |  Marketing, Social Media

1. Know Who You Want to Attract
Before you can create content that appeals to your target market (and potential clients), you need to know what they are struggling with, what they want to know, and how they want it. Do they want to read, listen, watch, etc? (Always good to simply ask your current clients and subscribers to learn the answer.) Once you know what they want and how they want it…deliver. If you seek clients dealing with food allergies, provide content relevant to this audience. Don’t be all over the place in your content generation…one day food allergies, the next about dieting, and a third about foods to reduce stress. Your target audience is dealing with food allergies, be consistent in what you right about to highlight yourself as someone who specializing in this area.

2. Be consistent with your publishing.
Certain pieces of content imply different levels of consistency when it comes to creating and delivering content. How often you want to publish may impact the form of content marketing that will work best for you. For example, consistency is expected with blogs, newsletters, magazines, and podcasting. Consistency is wise, but not required when it comes to videos, ebooks, webinars, and infographics. If you know you will be inconsistent, go with content where consistency does not hinder results, such as guest blog posting.

3. Leverage audiences of others.
Guest blog posting is a great example of how to leverage someone else’s audience. Someone else has taken the time to grow a following. If you provide a guest post/article that includes where to learn more about you, this is one strategy to grow your own following. Keep in mind, whatever content you provide to someone else needs to be of value to their audience…they are not going to accept just anything. Another example would be to teach a class hosted by someone else and to someone else’s audience.

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Use These Stats to Guide Your Marketing Plan

By Lisa Nelson  |  Marketing

Hard to believe we are close to the halfway point for 2014. I came across this infographic by webdam.com and it provides a good opportunity to think back on the marketing plan you set for this year.

1. Did you implement?
2. Is it working?

Go ahead and review the below infographic. A couple take away’s:

1. Using a video on your landing pages will significantly increase conversion rates.
2. Visuals are processed much, MUCH faster than text.
3. Use client testimonials for increased marketing effectiveness.
4. Include social sharing buttons in your emails.

2014 Marketing Statistics Infographic

How to Create the Perfect Facebook or Twitter Post

By Lisa Nelson  |  Marketing, Social Media

Each social media platform has a different audience and different form of communication. What is appropriate for Twitter is not necessarily the best choice for Facebook and vice versa. If you are utilizing social media as a means to grow your business, you need to understand how to best utilize each platform…don’t just join and start “throwing stuff out there”. Do a little research on how best to engage on each social media platform first.

As an example, let’s compare what tends to work between Twitter and Facebook.

Twitter:

  1. Have a clear call to action
  2. Avoid abbreviations and ALL CAPS
  3. Shorten links
  4. Questions and facts work well
  5. Retweet relevant content
  6. Use mentions to prompt those you want to engage with

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3 Must Have’s for a Website to Generate Income

By Lisa Nelson  |  Email Marketing, Marketing, Website

Don’t think of your website as a glorified business card. Think of your website as your business hub. All online marketing efforts should funnel into your website, BUT when that traffic comes in you need to some key components to convert sales and generate income.

Yes, you do want an attractive website with a good design. However, if you want to make sales online you need to consider more than just text and images.

  1. Blog — Blogs are an easy way for you to highlight your expertise while sharing valuable tips and resources your target market seek. Consistently providing new content via a blog keeps both your target market engaged and google regularly scanning your site.
    • Video — Blogs can be text or video format. Video is a more powerful way to connect with a potential client. It allows a relationship to grow faster because you are providing a face and voice for your potential client to connect with. Plus, YouTube searches are at times as high as Google searches.

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3 Title Tips to Entice Readers to Sign Up for Your Freebie

By Lisa Nelson  |  Social Media

An important piece of being successful online is the ability to “grow your list”. Most people on the web do not make a purchase the first time they see you or come across your website. They need to hear from you repeatedly so they get to “know, like, and trust” you. Then they’ll be ready to buy.

However, if all you have is a web page with no way to bring people back….how are you going to contact someone more than once?

So, you need a landing page that offers an enticing “freebie” in exchange for their name and email. Then, you can follow up with them on a regular basis, continue to showcase your expertise, and the services you provide.

If you are not familiar with landing pages, please review this information:

What is a landing page?

One decision you have to make with a landing page is what to offer. Will it be a free report (pdf download), audio education (mp3 file), video training, combination of one of these three? You have many options and need to decide the format.

However, the format is not necessarily what is going to make the biggest impact on whether or not you get people taking you up on your offer.

You need an enticing freebie title! Continue Reading…

How to Have a “Bare Bones” Online Presence to Market ‘in person’ Appointments

By Lisa Nelson  |  Marketing, Website

I was contacted a few weeks ago by an individual looking to discuss his online presence. He had a website set up quite awhile back that was eventually discontinued due to lack of results….his main goal being to increase in person appointments.

As is often the case, budget was tight so looking for the most cost effective methods for using the virtual world to grow his in person practice.

Let’s talk “bare bones”…

1. Marketing plan

First, before you do ANYTHING, you need to have a marketing plan. There is no point in putting up anything online if you do not know how you will use it. This is not a “build and they will come” scenario. If you set up a website, you need a plan for driving traffic to that website.

Also, consistency is key online. You can’t just start a virtual presence (let’s say a Facebook page), use it a week or two and then drop off. Building a following online that leads to in person clients takes time. Have a plan!

2. Collect names and emails

Most people will not buy or schedule an appointment the first time they come across you on the web. You need to collect their name and email address so you can follow up with them. You need more than “sign up for my newsletter” to accomplish this. Think….how much email do you get? Do you really want to sign up for more in exchange for nothing? No. You need to provide your potential clients with an enticing offer that they just can’t pass up. This might be a tip sheet, free report, audio exercise/training, video series….anything they get in exchange for giving you their name and email. This “freebie” you offer needs to not only be of value to your target market, but also should highlight your expertise so they start thinking of you as the go to expert when they are ready to purchase.

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How to Sell an Ebook from Your Website

By Lisa Nelson  |  Website

Do you have your ebook written and you’re now ready to make it available for purchase on your website? If so, here are your next steps on how to sell an ebook:

1. Save your ebook as a pdf with an appropriate title.

Let’s pretend the title of this blog post was actually an ebook. When I save this word document I save it with the title of “How to Sell an Ebook from Your Website”. Works find in a file folder on my computer, not so great once uploaded online. If my intention was to upload this for use online, I’d save it as “how-to-sell-an-ebook” or something like that. All lowercase with words separated by dashes – no blank spaces.

2. Upload the ebook to your webhost.

You have two options here. The first is to upload directly to your webhost via your control panel. This means your ebook will be located at a URL somewhat like https://detailprojectmanagement.com/how-to-sell-an-ebook.pdf. If you have a WordPress based website, the second choice is to upload the pdf as a media file. In this case the URL will be something like https://detailprojectmanagement.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/how-to-sell-an-ebook.pdf.

Once you have your ebook uploaded note the URL. You’ll need it later.

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Are you collecting names and email addresses?

By Lisa Nelson  |  Email Marketing, Marketing

Do you need to have a fully functioning website before you start collecting the names and emails of individuals interested in your services?

No.

The sooner you start collecting contact information for individuals interested in what you have to offer, the better.

When marketing your services online it takes time to foster a relationship. Potential clients need to get to know and trust you. An offline relationship can grow much faster because face to face communication allows you to learn so much faster who someone is, do you like them, and do you trust them. Online it takes many different points of contact, or “touches”, before someone feels confident working with you. This is all part of your email marketing strategy.

An aside: The above point is why video is becoming so popular and such a useful marketing tool. While it’s still not the same as face to face communication, it does allow someone to see and hear you. This is an invaluable way to let potential clients learn who you are faster.

Since it takes time to foster a working relationship online, the sooner you begin developing these relationships the better for your business goals long term. Waiting until a website or program is complete and fully functioning isn’t necessary. All you need is a landing page that offers visitors an “irresistible offer”, so they provide you with their name and email in order to receive the “freebie”.

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