3 ways to generate leads through social media #30DSM – Day 26: 30 Days of Social Media

How can you use social media to attract prospects to your business?  Assuming you’re offering a sound product, a compelling offer, and are talking to the right customer, social media tools make generating leads inexpensive and time-efficient.

In today’s 30 Days of Social Media lesson Clare Lancaster gives you three ways to generate leads through social media.

Take a look.

---

3 ways to generate leads through social media

by Clare Lancaster

Social media is an effective way to generate leads for your service-based business. You can build your reputation within your industry, connect with potential customers and strategic partners and use it to drive traffic to your website.

Here are three ways to use social media to generate leads.

Build your reputation

Participating in social media – through online networking, blogging and rich media – can help you build your reputation within your industry.

Building your reputation online has three great benefits – your credibility goes up, people perceive your business to be successful and a level of trust is established.

How do you start? Demonstrate your knowledge and expertise by providing useful content, helping people with questions and recommendations and commenting on blogs within your industry.

Build relationships

Social networking online allows you to build solid relationships that can result in lead generation for your business.

Start talking to people in complimentary industries, help them out by referring client enquiries and you could just find yourself in a strategic partnership.

Social networks like Twitter. have broken down traditional barriers to thought leaders – find out who they are, add them to your network and start a conversation. Building solid relationships with influencers and other authorities can result in a boost to your business.

Twitter also allows you to connect directly with media professionals – building relationships with individuals and proving them with information they need could return media opportunities to promote your business.

Always remember when building relationships – it’s all about giving, not taking.

Attract website visitors

There’s a variety of ways to use social networking to attract visitors to your website. Here are two techniques.

1. Use social networks to distribute your content by posting a link to your Twitter or Facebook profiles and adding content distribution buttons to your web page (e.g. Tweetmeme). The first step here is to create content worth distributing – if it’s not good, no one will want to pass it on to their network.
2. Create a landing page for your social media profiles. People will click on your website link in your profile to find out more information about you. Make the most of their interest with a dedicated landing page that explains what you do – how you can help that person and provide a call to action detailing what they should do next.

---

Clare Lancaster – Dot Marketing

Clare Lancaster is the founder of Dot Marketing an online strategy and marketing consultancy and has been working on the Internet since 2001. She writes a business and online marketing blog for small business owners and has recently launched www.twitterguide.com.au.

Visit www.clarelancaster.com.au to find out more or follow her on Twitter.

TODAY’S TASK
Generating a new lead can be as simple as picking up some new followers on Twitter. The key (with leads of any type) is that they be relevant and possible clients. If there is a higher than 0% chance that they may be interested in your products or services, then they are a valuable lead.

What is your area of thought leadership? Post a Tweet today providing valuable content (a link to a newsletter, an article on your website, some information that tells people what you do) and offer people an opportunity to find out more about you.

Suzi’s Note: Leads are people too
Generating leads is only one part of the sales equation. Having umpteen followers and a database of thousands is only valuable if you can continue to build value into the relationships in order to, at some point, have some financial exchange with that lead (either directly or indirectly). Remember leads are people, not just names.

Ready for Your own radio show? Podcasting makes it easy. #30DSM – Day 25: 30 Days of Social Media

You may have heard that podcasting is one of the best ways to demonstrate expertise in a niche and reach broader audiences with your knowledge, with the goal of increasing customers and revenue. Since early 2009 the Australian Businesswomen’s Network has featured audio interviews with inspiring women as part of its monthly Women in Business eNewsletter. It’s another way for us to bring to you practical tips and strategies.

But what is podcasting, what are the benefits and how exactly how do you podcast?

Today’s guest blogger is Bianca Wirth of Wirth Consulting. In today’s 30 Days of Social Media lesson she explains how to get started in podcasting.

If you have “golden tonsils” and want to look closer at podcasting, we’ve included a link to a more detailed article that Bianca wrote for a recent Australian Businesswomen’s Network newsletter.

---

Podcasting. Getting Started.

by Bianca Wirth

Let’s start with what podcasting is.

The concept of podcasting is that of an on-demand audio program that individuals or businesses record and post to their website and podcasting tools such as iTunes. You could essentially think of a podcast as a radio program you can listen to anytime.

For a business the benefits of podcasting includes:

• Gaining credibility as an expert in your field
• Low cost advertising of your products and services
• Building a broader customer and partner network
• Reaching audiences with different preferences for consuming knowledge

The last point is quite important – if you already have an eBook or you have articles on your website for your customers then why add another delivery method? Liken it to ice-cream: not everyone likes chocolate or strawberry or double-choc cappuccino. Likewise not everyone has the time or inclination to read an eBook or an article. By recording this material as a podcast you make it easier for your (potential) customers to hear what you have to say.

How exactly would you go about podcasting?

There are three key steps:

1. Define your goals - like every new undertaking in your business you need to define what you want to achieve from it. Do you want to charge customers for a regular series of podcasts to increase your revenue? Do you want to build a larger base of customers? Do you want to increase your perception as an expert? Or do you simply want to provide value-add to your existing customers? The answers to these questions will help you define which technologies, tools and delivery model you use.
2. Define how often you will podcast - for example determine whether you want to simply create a couple of podcasts of existing written material or whether you want to develop a series of podcasts focussing on a new topic each month.
3. Develop a list of podcast topics and set dates - once you have defined how often you will podcast develop a list of topics. Then assign them to your calendar, add the schedule to your website and send your customers an email letting them know what and when you will be podcasting.

Once you have defined your goals, topics and schedule it’s time to obtain the technology to record, edit and publish your podcasts.
Continues…

---

So, now you know how to plan for podcasting. Now what?

For Bianca’s steps to

1. recording
2. editing
3. transcribing and
4. publishing

podcasts read the rest of her article on the Australian Businesswomen’s Network website.

---

Bianca Wirth is a Business Technology Coach with over 12 years experience working for global technology companies.  Bianca has developed the “Triple A” methodology – Animate, Accelerate and Automate – to teach small businesses how to use technology to increase sales. Sign up for her free weekly “Short N Sweet Tech Tips”.

Phone: 0458 121 824
Email: info@wirthconsulting.com.au
Website: www.wirthconsulting.com.au

---

TODAY’S TASK

• Like anything, Podcasting can be done badly, and it can be done well. If you feel that an audio medium is a good way for you to go and you’re willing to do the work, podcasting is a great way to syndicate your message far and wide (e.g. with submissions to itunes you reach a totally new audience). Step One though may be to read the rest of Bianca’s article – Podcasting: The What, Why and How.
• Do you have a podcast? Let us know the details so that we can check it out.

Resources:

Secrets of Podcasting – Audio blogging for the masses by Bart G. Farkas

Developing compelling products in the social context #30DSM – Day 24: 30 Days of Social Media

How can social media help you create your next product? In today’s post Denise Tung shows us how to research ideas, validate our concepts and launch our latest, greatest venture.

---

Developing compelling products in the social context

by Denise Tung

We’ve learned at length about the benefits of Twitter as an information network for communities of interest (my personal RSS feed of choice!). Twitter continues to innovate in this arena with the trailing of Twitter Lists to improve the organisation of such information within communities.

The notion of communities and social networks however is a much bigger playing field than just Twitter. Entrepreneurs in this day and age have a limitless amount of free/low cost online tools that can potentially deliver value to businesses, big or small across a range of disciplines. This post will focus on these tools that support your Product Development activities.

By typical product development stages, you have:

1. Ideas generation: in this phase, product, process or service related concepts are created in an unstructured, at times macro level. On generating ideas, the social sphere is a wealth of information that can help seed your idea from the get go. The likes of Social Mention can help you search through the web for conversations and opinions on a certain topic (my previous post talks about its merits further).

In terms of keeping track of your ideas, there is ideas management software such as Spigot that enables ideas to be captured from internal folks as well as customers in the one spot. These same tools have also raised the bar in sophistication, allowing businesses to rank, assess and prioritise ideas in a collaborative manner with key stakeholders such as customers, partners and employees.

2. Concept validation:

Aside from formal approach of investing in ideas management software, existing communities in social networks such as Twitter, FriendFeed and identi.ca , is the easiest and quickest way of validating your concept (all done confidentially, of course!).

But before you start DM’ing your followers (followees!) with your latest idea, be sure that your community: 1. Represents your business’ target market or customer segment; and 2. Is happy to provide you with good feedback on your idea. (Ideally this group would be the same group of people who you can test the final product or service on during the test/market launch phase.)

3. Development phase:

Kicking off development requires some orchestration amongst various functions (even if it’s you doing all these on your own!). If you’re like me, you would want to be clear about whether you will hit your target launch date along the way. Project management tools such as Basecamp help you set and allocate tasks, track progress against milestones via a secure online environment.

4. Test and Launch:

Refining the final product is also important in the process of maximising appeal and ultimately sales and revenue. You can return to the same group of people from the validation phase and use traditional phone calls and emails to undertake this step.

Emerging beneath the cracks is potentially a complimentary approach to customer interaction: Google Wave holds a lot of promise in tapping into your customer base to refine and improve your product offering. I can confidently say this as Google is currently using it to refine Wave itself!

Which then leaves us at market launch, but that’s for another day!

---

Denise works at Media Monitors as head of Product Development and has a new love for everything social media. Prior to this she worked in the telecommunications industry for over 8 years where she designed and launched 2 ‘Australia’ first’ services: Voice over IP for business at Singtel Optus and 3G mobile based Broadband product for residential customers at Virgin Mobile. She has also presented at mobile communications based conferences, including the 2007 IMS Asia and the 2007 Fixed Mobile Convergence Alliance funded by British Telecom.  She’s a self confessed workaholic who loves her 2 year old daughter (a lot), prefers to microblog than blog and occasionally teaches Cycle and BodyAttack at the gym.

Contact Denise here:

• Twitter:  twitter.com/schmediachick
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/denisetung
• Blog: schmediachick.wordpress.com

---

TODAY’s TASK

Check out the links in this post. Denise has provided some great online resources. (I’m still discovering Google Wave, so if you’re having a good experience using it, let us know.)

QUALITY NOT QUANTITY – How to get targeted Twitter followers #30DSM – Day 23: 30 Days of Social Media

Success on Twitter is about more than getting lots of followers. Who is following you is more important that how many people are following you. How do you get targeted followers?

Today’s 30 Days of Social Media lesson is from Sarah Prout and explains just how to do that.

---

Twitter is about the quality of followers and not the quantity. The truth is that a vast proportion of people that have thousands of followers have used automated systems that seek to get their numbers up quickly without regard for the type of followers they are attracting. It’s far more beneficial to have 2000 targeted followers than 20k filled with spammers, bots and random people from around the globe.

When I wrote The Twitter Success Blueprint (ebook) I had experimented with dozens of techniques; from following everyone in the hope they’d follow me back – to adding everyone that was following high-profile people on Twitter. This did not work. It was only when I discovered the power of key words to program into my automation software that I started to get better results.

I see this as a three-step process and an excellent habit to form early on to avoid having to clean up your tweet stream on a massive scale.

1. Block all spam/bots without question. Any time you see a spammy fraudster pop up in your tweet stream you should click the block button. It shows support that Twitter is a platform for authentic communication only.
2. Find and follow people within your niche. Use keywords and follow hashtags (#) that relate to your specific industry.
3. Engage with as many people as possible. This might seem a little impossible, but try and take an interest in what other people are doing.  Ask questions, compliment people and open the door to build a sense of community. The people that aren’t interested will naturally disappear.

I recently did some Twitter coaching for a small group of entrepreneurs.  They seemed amazed that I contradicted everything that they had been taught about social media so far. Sometimes I feel a slight sense of trepidation when I have to tell them that they’re going about things the wrong way and that hiding behind a company façade will not provide the results they desire.

I always manage to get them to see the importance of authentic connection on Twitter and how relationship building is the key.  There is no way you can achieve this without adding a personal touch and showing the humanized aspect to the marketing model of social media.

When coaching, I like to use amazing examples of vibrant people on Twitter that have achieved awesome results. People like Gary Vaynerchuck (@garyvee) have created so much attention with social media just for being present and active. He’s a prime example of how to maximize active engagement. His fun and outgoing personality on Twitter and Facebook has cemented his corporate brand directly from his excellent personal branding.

Too many people out there in the Twitterverse fantasize about tweeting out a link (sometimes repeatedly) and it converting into PayPal sales.  The truth is that if there is no personal connection then there is no sale, web traffic or buzz surrounding your brand and business.  Above all, Twitter is about engaging your followers and generating enough curiosity to build your reputation and drive traffic to your site.  This packs more of a punch if your followers are targeted and you’ve actively maintained a level of quality.

A friend of mine is about to release a service called Twit Cleaner. Twit Cleaner downloads your friends list, then analyses them all for sketchy behavior (spammers, bots, dead accounts..) And yes, the scan is completely free. Once they’ve found the dodgy users, @TheTwitCleaner will DM you a report so you can see who you’d like removed. For a small fee Twit Cleaner will automatically unfollow them, or you can do it manually. Of course, anyone you don’t want unfollowed, they’ll leave (shy friends, helpful bots etc).

I personally think this service is amazing and very innovative.  It supports and promotes authenticity and will be an invaluable resource to people that wish to clean up their tweet streams and generate genuine business connections once and for all.

---

Sarah Prout is the founder of SPROUT PUBLISHING, award-winning entrepreneur, author, publisher, business coach, online socialite and mother of 2 little darlings.

The highly anticipated eCourse is soon to be released called SPROUT BUZZ. It’s a PUBLISHING BOOTCAMP with step-by-step tasks to flaunt your business, raise your profile and boost your brand in just 30 days!

www.sproutpublishing.com

Follow Sarah on Twitter

---

TODAY’S TASK

Find and follow some people within your niche. Use keywords that relate to your  industry as well as #hashtags to see what conversations are going on right now.

Until tomorrrow,

Suzi

Keep up with the flood of useful information online #30DSM – Day 22: 30 Days of Social Media

Keeping up with news, latest trends, industry happenings and research is important for any business. But when there’s so much information available, how do you get to see what’s most relevant for you?

Firstly, if your email inbox is anything like mine you’ve now doubt thrown your arms up in frustration many a time thinking “there’s gotta be a better way to manager information”.

Traditional media e.g. emails, newsletters, mail – had information PUSHED at us. Social media (and a special tool called RSS whose familiar symbol you’ve no doubt seen on websites and blog) allow us to PULL the information we need, and thereby have more control over the messages that come our way each day.

Today’s contributor is Ken Burgin of Profitable Hospitality. In this post he takes a look at an easy way for us to aggregate the most useful information and make it easy to access.

---

Keeping up with the flood of useful information online

by Ken Burgin

You may occasionally want to turn off the outside world, but there’s a huge amount of top quality business information available if you can keep up with it. A new system called RSS may be the answer.

You may find an informative website, a blog with regular and stimulating updates, or a government site with industry-critical news releases. It may be to do with food & beverage, but it could also be related to your private enthusiasm for tropical fish or motor bikes. These days, someone is writing passionately about every subject imaginable!

One way to keep track of online information is to ‘subscribe’ to it using a system called RSS (Really Simple Syndication). This way, it comes to you.

RSS is like ‘automated web surfing’, gathering news efficiently and instantly on the subjects you are most interested in. If the web publishers offer their information with an RSS ‘feed’, it only takes one click to start gathering the current and future news it offers.

An RSS feed sets up a hidden page that normal websites don’t have. This page contains the contents (or the first few paragraphs) in a simple format and updates whenever a new post is written. This format allows the posts to be read by a program called an RSS Reader.

The advantage to using an RSS or News Reader instead of visiting the actual blog or web page is that it’s much faster, especially if you wish to read the new content of dozens of websites or blogs every day. You will know it’s offering an RSS feed when it displays one of the orange symbols like those above, or invites you to ‘Subscribe with RSS’. Check the example on the right of the Profitable Hospitality Hot & Cool Blog.

A good News Reader to start with is Google Reader and (it’s free).

When you see a blog or website that offers an RSS feed, you either click on the RSS icon on the page you are subscribing to or copy the Location (URL) of the service and paste it into the channel of the RSS Reader by following the instructions in that application. Obviously clicking the orange button is a lot easier.

Now whenever you check back to the Reader, it has gathered updates from all the feed channels you are interested in. Click through them one by one and if the first few sentences interest you, read the whole story. If not, move on to the next one.

It’s a bit like how we read a magazine — it covers your general interests, but leafing through the pages you will see some articles that you read all through and others that you don’t. But this time the magazine has been delivered to your desktop.

There’s a ton of very valuable information available online, so let’s hope your competitors haven’t heard of RSS yet.

---

Ken Burgin gained his reputation as a successful restaurant and cafe operator in Sydney, Australia. After managing hundreds of thousands of customers and more than a thousand of staff over ten years, Ken sold his businesses and moved to working with restaurants, hotels, cafes and clubs in an advisory role.

He knows the pressures that face hospitality operators, and is committed to offering services and systems to make management easier and less stressful. Visit his website at Profitable Hospitality.

---

TODAY’S TASK
Set up a Google Reader account and start to subscribe via RSS what used to come to you as an email.

Until tomorrow,

Suzi

Additional Resources – RSS Readers

Web: Bloglines
Mac OS X: NetNewsWire
Windows: NewsGator

Is your online presence sabotaging your business brand? #30DSM – Day 21: 30 Days of Social Media

It’s so easy to set up an online profile these days that it also becomes easy (especially if you’re using a lot of social media tools) to develop brand inconsistency as you populate multiple online spaces with your company information.

While this mistake may not ‘make or break’ your effectiveness online having a cohesive online presence can only help to advance your marketing and branding efforts across the web.

Australian Businesswomen’s Network member Cat Matson of Alito is today’s 30 Days of Social Media contributor. In this post she provides us with some easy ways to keep our brand consistent.

[At the bottom of this post you'll find additional ideas and ways to be proactive in securing your brand congruence.]

---

How to Manage Your Online Brand – Consistency and Congruence

by Cat Matson

Do you have a Facebook profile? LinkedIn? Do you use Twitter, have a blog or a website or use other social networking platforms, like the ABN’s online communities? Do you use email stationery or signatures with tag-lines or links to various profiles?

If I looked at each of those profiles today, would they present a consistent, congruent message of who you are? Would they support the marketing message you broadcast when you’ve got your ‘Business Owner’ hat on? Or do they work against you?

The thing I find most exciting about online marketing is how effectively I can build relationships. In the ‘old’ days, I would attend networking functions, meet a handful of people and then, in order to build on the relationship, I would need to meet face-to-face or find other ways to ‘stay in touch’. But with online marketing, particularly the new social networking platforms, I can engage in meaningful, everyday conversations with people I would otherwise not get the chance to.

However, just as with ‘traditional’ marketing, if you want it to be effective, your message needs to be consistent. It’s not about necessarily saying the same words in each context, rather you need to present a consistent ‘voice’.

Here are my fundamental ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’.

Do:

• Be yourself
• Be aware of how public the online space really is
• Use your real name in social networking platforms
• Clarify your purpose for using a particular online platform and learn the etiquette for that platform. From that foundation, engage appropriately for the context.
• Review your foundational marketing pieces – website, blog, paper-based collateral, business cards – do they present a united front?

Don’t:

• Use some abstract user name in social networking sites that could be misconstrued as a login for a porn site or alternate reality game
• Use a photo that doesn’t match your desired image
• Throw together a website or blog that doesn’t live up to your professional image – a site that detracts from your brand image does more damage than no site at all
• Use online tactics that don’t ‘sit’ well with you

Online networking is really just ‘traditional’ networking in hyper-drive – but it’s still all about connections, engagement, relationships and trust. And to do that you need to be genuine and authentic.

---

Cat works with dynamic, savvy, funky and entrepreneurial business women, helping them align their strategy and marketing with their actions and therefore results. She is particularly excited about using Web 2.0 strategies to accelerate marketing results.

Website: www.alito.com.au
Email: cat@alito.com.au
Twitter: twitter.com/catmatson

---

ADDITIONAL TIPS FOR MANAGING YOUR ONLINE BRAND

GRAB YOUR SPACE. PROTECT YOUR NAME.

Identity theft of a different kind can occur online as people register usernames that are perhaps not their own, in order to make the most of search traffic.

Whether you’re using them yet or not, grab your brand URLS on all the key social media spaces. Position placeholders and even redirect spaces to your site if you’re not yet ready to use them, but best to grab your company names and brands while they are available. You can also grab names that contain keywords that are relevant to your industry.

For example the Australian Businesswomen’s Network has the Twitter  names MentoringWomen and also WomenNetworking. While we don’t tweet from these names, they are placeholders that direct visits back to our main account(s).

SOME PLACES TO RESERVE YOUR BRANDS

• Twitter (Grab your user name – usually your identity – as well as company brand names)
• Facebook (Grab your user name – usually your identity – as well as company brand names for Groups and Pages.)
• LinkedIn (Reserver your user name and group names.)
• YouTube (Reserve your own name and your Channel.)
• Ning (Reserve a name that you may use in the future.)

Have I missed some? Add them to Comments below.

TODAY’S TASK

• Do an online presence audit. Do you need to bring some of your online branding more into line with your corporate brand?
• Do you need to reserve your name on some of the more public online spaces that you may choose to play in in the future?

While you may choose to park these names for now, it means that you ‘own’ them and direct them to your active online spaces.

Until tomorrow,

Suzi

Key attributes of a successful blog #30DSM – Day 20: 30 Days of Social Media

That statistics about how many blogs are started each day are staggering. But, regardless of what’s popular, is a blog a social media tool that is right for you and your business?

Today’s 30 Days of Social Media lesson comes from an article that business owner Bobbie Pecev contributed for a recent newsletter.

[Take a look at the end of this post for how your blog can replace your website.]

Key attributes of a successful blog, by Bobbie Pecev

There has been a lot of buzz on the “net” in relation to blogging, yet only a small number of businesses have effectively realised the benefit of this flexible and yet powerful marketing tool. Blogging offers a wide range of options and benefits for small and large business organisations alike.

Some of the benefits of establishing a blog include:

• Attracting prospects and developing new business opportunities
• Positioning yourself as an expert
• Positioning your business as a leader in the field
• Lead generation
• Brand awareness
• Search Engine marketing and visibility
• Business differentiation

Establishing a blog is not rocket science, though it does require appreciation of a few simple rules that anyone can follow:

1. Focus on your target

A blog needs to focus on a target and discuss topics related to that target. Know your audience.

2. Write catchy headlines

Headlines are like advertisements for your posts – if they’re not good, no one will read your posts.

3. Use a solid introductory paragraph

A successful introduction captures your readers’ attention and encourages them to continue reading.

4. Boost readability

Many blogs are hard to read. To ensure readability you must have an appropriate font size (larger than 10 pixels) and spacing between lines is a must.

Increase readability by making appropriate use of bullet points, bold text and italics to highlight key pieces of your article. Let your readers know where to focus.

5. Interact with readers

A blog is really a conversation. It starts with your post, but it continues with comments from readers. Encourage readers’ interaction by posting questions, polls and contests.

6. Provide more than just text

Where appropriate try to add a visual element (videos, podcast or photos) within your posts to elaborate the discussion. However, everything should be within reason – too many images can break your content flow and can be more damaging than useful.

7. References

Support your posts with links to other web pages that are relevant to your content.

8. Short and concise

Give the maximum amount of information with the least amount of words. Visitors like to easily find information and skim through your entries.

9. RSS feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds are very important as they provide an alternative way to read a blog without always actually visiting the blog.

10. Keep it fresh

Nothing is more discouraging to prospective readers than returning to a blog to find old or outdated material. Create a schedule and stick to it.

My three favourite blogs:

1. ProBlogger – one of the most popular and successful Australian blogs with extensive information on blogging.
2. Flying Solo - great resources for small businesses
3. WordPress - free to use and easy to set up blogging publishing platform. To learn about WordPress and how to use it, check Getting Started with WordPress.

How to measure your blog’s success

Once you start blogging it’s important to keep track of your blog’s success. You can measure the success of your blog by the number of comments (from your readers) and the number of trackbacks (from other bloggers).

Blogging success does not happen overnight. If you want a successful blog be prepared to work hard to promote your blog. Eventually, your hard work will pay off as your blog traffic increases and your business achieves significant growth and popularity. The key is not to give up!

_______________________________________________________________________

Bobbie Pecev is the owner of Skilled IT Consulting – an online company specialising in website design, development, eCommerce, CMS, online marketing and SEO. For more information:

Website: www.skilledit.com.au
Phone: 02 9477 4491
Email: info@skilledit.com.au

_______________________________________________________________________

BONUS: How your blog can replace your website

WordPress has made it simple to create a website using blog software and its extensive and adaptable web 2.0 functionality. You may have noticed that this Blog looks a lot like a website. That’s cause WordPress’s themes are fantastic and by adding a range of plugins (addons that can include your Twitter feed, analytics, widgets, SEO packs etc.) you can have a powerhouse of a website as either your main site or for a particular product or project. For more tune into next week’s Leverage Yourself with Online Buzz webinar.

TODAY’S TASK

Subscribe to Problogger’s daily posts via his website. I find that his daily tips not only add to my knowledge bank but also remind me to stay active and post regularly.

Also, pick up a copy of his book Problogger – Secrets to Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure income (Darren Rowse is a Melbournian who’s made a big name for himself internationally.)

How to use video to promote your business (even if you’re terrified of the camera): #30DSM – Day 19: 30 Days of Social Media

Using video is a great way to demonstrate your products and services.  Having your content on popular sites like YouTube let’s you use social media to get site visits, and to spread your message. (YouTube is so popular that videos hosted there make up a lot of the top search results on many search terms.)

At the Australian Businesswomen’s Network we’ve started to play with video (both to-camera and also using alternative methods) at our own channel herBusiness. It’s early days but we’ll build a library of business how-to videos to share business tips with our women in business community.

If you’re comfortable in front of a camera then by all means go ahead and shoot clips (keep them short) with you looking straight to camera.

Alternatively there are some clever ways to use video without the need to get out of your pyjamas! ABN Member Kate Tribe is one example of a business owner using video – without having to stress about being ‘on film’.

USE SCREEN SHOTS WITH VOICEOVER

Kate Tribe of Tribe Research launched her new research tool “Tribal Tool Kit” using screen shots and voiceover.

” When I did my first public speaking appearances I was stressed by having to present in public. When I decided to use video, friends said I should really get in front of a camera — but thinking about doing a shoot to camera caused me a lot of stress. I wanted, however, to demonstrate my new product using visuals, not just words.

So, I created a video using screen shots and then recorded a voiceover. It took a few takes of the voice recording but in the end I got what I needed.

I’ve set up a channel on YouTube to host the videos. It’s free and it’s easy to embed the code from YouTube right into my website.

I then use my social networks to promote links to the Videos.

Customers have told us that they find the videos really useful.”

While Kate used imovie on her Mac and a separate voice recorder, she could also have used:

• Keynote – Mac – (allows you to record voice over the slides)
• Powerpoint (allows you to record voice over the slides)
• Quicktime Player
• SnapzPro

FOR THE BRAVE AND THE EXTROVERTS

Recording videos with you as the spokesperson is also fun and can work well to build your brand. It does, however, take a little more skill and (ideally) requires that you WANT to get good at presenting. (Remember you are representing your business so get honest feedback as to whether you videos help or hinder your branding. Some of us are better at visual mediums than others.)

I have found that having a basic script or bullet points and then working off the cuff is what works for me.

Tools like Video Cue allow you to cheat and use a Video Cue (that is cleverly positioned just below your eye level) so that you can read your presentation (it even allows you to speed up or slow down the recording) while filming.

If you want to avoid having to also become an editor (or hiring one) then you’ll need to practice getting a shot right in one recording, or live with less than perfect footage. (YouTube has made shaky-cam very acceptable if your content is good so I wouldn’t be too fussed if you are not a one-take wonder.)

Resources:

Kate Tribe – Tribal Research and the Tribal Took Kit

Tribal Tool-Kit is a platform to help you get to know your tribe with quick temperature checks that are easily to understand.

Contact Kate Tribe at:

• Twitter – @katetribe
• Kate’s YouTube channel
• Kate’s Tribe Research website

Get yourself a MinoHD. Still hard to find in Australia this mobile-phone size camera produces excellent quality video and suits the most novice of users.

A great resource for how to make the most of You Tube for your business is the YouTube for Dummies book. (I know… I’m a fan of the Dummies range of books!)

TODAY’S TASK

• Get onto YouTube and reserve your company channel. Whether you decide today or later that you want to use it, it’s worth reserving the name.
• If you’re ready to start using video then share the links with us here!

Until tomorrow,

Suzi

P.S. If you’re using video let us know. Post a comment with a link to your videos and we’ll take a look!

Using video is a big subject and much too big to cover off in one blog post. It is however worth considering as an extension of your social media activity. YouTube is not your only hosting option (by far) but is the most well known. I recommend you start studying the use of video. The Australian Businesswomen’s Network will also run a webinar soon on its use to get women in business started using this powerful too.

Social Networks – Which One is Right for You? #30DSM – Day 18: 30 Days of Social Media

What are your goals? Who is your audience? What is your Capacity? What is your commitment?

Tune in to Aliza Sherman (AKA The Digital Marketer) as she presents at the Blog World Expo in California.

Loading this <a href="http://www.yubby.com/" mce_href="http://www.yubby.com/">Yubby.com</a> video widget.

Some highlights from her presentation:

To keep your social media sites alive you need to post regularly. Popularity has nothing to do with quantity – it has more to do with quality. If you’re posting once a week and people love what you say, then people will wait for yoru posts. It’s about that more than about more regular posting. Blathering on constantly doesn’t mean success.

Social Media Overload  — There’s constantly something new by way of networks – but which ones are important to know about?  YouTube is hugely popular, but maybe Vimeo is more suitable (and less cluttered) and a great place to host your video.

• Ustream.tv – Live Streaming
• YouTube – you upload your video
• Seesmic Video – a Video microblog

Social media starting with blogging. Blogging turned a static website into an interactive environment – there was now a social aspect allowing people to comment on each others comments. As a marketer to have a loyal community of marketers is very powerful word of mouth.

A blog post can be your opinion, but doesn’t have to be meaningful opinions – it can be something you’ve read that you want to comment on, a link to another blogger’s post, a review, about your products or services, but more likely it’s an opinion piece that reveals who you are.

Her Tips:

• Become a resource – connect people to items of interest
• Microblog – it’s easier than blogging and faster
• Only commit to the networks you can actively participate in

TODAY’S POST
Take a look at this presentation by Aliza Sherman. I think she’s great.

Facebook for Business – The Webinar – #30DSM – Day 17: 30 Days of Social Media

This week 1,000 business owners joined the Facebook for Business webinar presented by Citrix GoTo Webinar as part of their Lunch and Learn series.

Nett Magazine editor Josh Mehlman moderated and The Australian Businesswomen’s Network was featured as the case study while Brian Giesen of Ogilvy presented compelling evidence and raised critical strategic questions that anyone serious about using Facebook for business ought to consider.

With over 300 million users world wide (and over 8 million of those in Australia) it seems that if you’re not on Facebook then you ought to be.

In today’s instalment of 30 Days of Social Media I invite you to watch the webinar (or review it if you were online with us this week during the live session) and also to take a look at a new resource to enhance your Facebook Page.

Facebook for Business – Your Free Access to the Webinar

• Here is a link to the Facebook for Business webinar. It’s free, it’s an hour long and I know you’ll get great value from it.
• Here also is a link to the slides should you also need to reference them.

(Note to Mac Users: If you’re using Mac viewing the webinar can be a little tricky. I know, I know! See notes at bottom of this post for viewing tips.)

Bonus Resource – From The Digital Marketer

This week I listened to this great podcast from The Digital Marketer. Titled ‘How to enhance your Facebook Page’, the information provided really complements what’s covered in the webinar.

TODAY’S TASK

Find a couple of hours over the weekend to work on your Facebook page. A couple of key things to do:

• Get your vanity URL (A vanity URL is a domain name, created to point to something to which it is related and indicated in the name of the URL)
• Build the basic elements of your page
• Add promotion of your page to your website, email footer, newsletter or blog or Twitter!

Additional Resources:

Citrix Online

The Digital Marketer

Nett Magazine

*Note, Mac users may have trouble seeing this webinar. Citrix is trying to fix this issue but for now there is no solution. It is recommended that Mac users download the VLC Media Player, which is a free download, (www.download.com) to play the webinar without issue.

« Previous Page — Next Page »