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How the Football Captain and the Guitarist Sold Out the Stadium!

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It Starts with Someone Who Cares about the Audience

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When I’m asked to do an off-site, I sit down the with event planner to discuss what the people attending might want or need to know. Hands down the most requested topic is how can they use social media to get people talking about the brand and their products?

It’s all about stories.
We’ve been hearing and telling stories all of our lives.
It shouldn’t be that hard.

5 Critical Steps to Spreading an Irresistible Social Media Story

If you remember back to university, you know the power of friends sharing stories. Good news, bad news, rumors and truths can fly through a school fast enough to make any news network jealous.

Here are the five critical steps to making that happen for you in the social business community.

  1. Build your network before you need it. It all starts with community. No matter how irresistible our message, we’ll have trouble sharing it without relationships. Building a network is more natural and easy, if we do before we need them to do something for us.
  2. Be known for one thing. Sure you can do many things, but many things are hard to remember. One thing stands out and is easily shareable. To go back to the college analogy, if I say he’s the captain of the football team or she’s plays lead guitar in the coolest rock band, you already know that other kids into sports they want to connect with him and other kids into rock want to connect with her.

    The same works now … If you are known for one thing, that one thing you are jumps to my mind when I meet someone who might need that one thing. If you’re a freelance blog writer, every time I meet someone with a growing blog, I’ll mention your name. If you’re one of a million writers who writes for blogs, magazines, websites, menus, and whatever. I’m less likely to remember exactly what you do and far less likely to share your name. When you’re one thing everyone knows what they can count on you to do and how you connect to their universe.

  3. Make folks feel proud, important, part of something bigger than then are alone when they do. Talking in the language of the people you want to help you. Make the message about them, not about you. The football captain who frames his message “Are you ready to rock the game tonight?” gets a better response than the one who says “Come to our game tonight. Show your spirit!”

    The savvy football captain says, “The team goes all out when you’re there! You rock the stands. We’ll rock the field!! RockTheGame!!”

    Let’s stay with the savvy football captain … he shows Booster Club how it’s in their interest to donate $500 worth of iTunes and permission for a concert by pointing out that they’re all on a quest to get folks to the big game. Then, he contacts the girl lead guitarist and persuades her band that a sell-out game would make a great after-concert venue.

  4. Make it easy, fun, and meaningful to share it. The Booster Club enlists the campus TV station to announce a contest for the entire school. Every ticket sold to the big game will be entered into a raffle for that $500 iTunes gift card to keep rocking.
  5. Reward and celebrate the people who do. When the game beats attendance records concert by the coolest rock band — after the game in the school quad to rock the school spirit!

We all value our friends’ attention.
We all value the time we spend with them.
We all value it when they engage with us and listen to what we’re saying.
It’s a natural next step to make it a value for them to invest in us too.

All we have to do to get them to share our story is to make them proud to be part of it.

How are you making your friends, colleagues, customers, and clients part of what you’re trying to do?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

The Inverted Pyramid — A Simple Approach to Catch Audience Attention

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A Guest Post by
Rahil Muzafar

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What Is the Inverted Pyramid

Inverted Pyramid is a term well known in the field of journalism, and it refers to a particular structure of laying out a story. While following the Inverted Pyramid structure, you need to start from the most important part of the story/news. The idea is to give the crux of the story in the headline, or the first two three lines.

You might not have noticed this approach because you are used to this style. However, imagine if journalists weren’t employing this approach, and taking the route of story tellers, they will have to start from the scratch and the culmination will come in the end. And even though, reading the newspaper (or watching a news channel) might not have been such a gloomy experience if this approach wasn’t at play, but it is this approach that provides the journalist or reporters what they are looking for, and that’s … reader’s attention.

Is the Inverted Pyramind recommended for all types of writers?

The approach is commonly used by journalists, but not all types of writers. For example the novelists can’t start from the conclusion and then follow it with the rest of the story, but they’re lucky in the sense that their targeted audience is ready to devote some time in reading the novel. But in case of journalists, they don’t get the audience with such leisure time (nobody would prefer going through the doom and gloom news in their leisure time). However, web writers can learn a thing or two from the approach.

What’s in it for web writers?

If you notice, web surfers are actually more in rush, as compared to someone with newspaper in his/her hands. In their bid to scan through hundreds of Google results or web pages in a matter of minutes, they usually just glance through the titles or headlines. And if it fails to grab their attention, they are gone. Thus, one of the most important skills a web writer can learn is to form a headline that will be a magnet for clicks. Now, I’ve worked with a number of writers and some of them are naturally gifted in this regard, and they can come up with more interesting and catchy titles as compared to their counterparts, who might be equally good at writing, still not able to churn out good titles. But if you lack in creativity, you can simply use the “inverted pyramid” approach to overcome this weakness.

How to use the “Inverted Pyramid” approach?

It’s quite straight forward, all you need to do is to think of the most important part of the story, article, blog post, or marketing copy. It’s the part that you think can catch the attention of your targeted audience, and then use that particular information in the title. Note that it is not some revolutionary idea. In fact you see this approach being used a lot while surfing through the web. Remember all those headlines promising overnight riches or miraculous results, that’s inverted pyramid for you and you can use it as well in your writing, from now on.


Bonus Tip:

At times, writers get obsessed with SEO and goes to the extent of spoiling the titles in a bid to add certain keywords in the titles, especially the dry ones like Norton 360 Discount or System Mechanic Coupon. Whilst having keywords or key phrases in the title can surely boost your chances for getting ranked for those keywords, you should make sure that the inclusion of the keywords is not done the cost of ruining the main purpose of the title i.e. attracting the readers.

Rahil Muzafar

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Author’s Bio:

Rahil is an Internet Marketing expert. He works for various coupon codes and discount websites, for example www.verybestsoftware.net that shares different types of deals and discounts for software like Norton 360, System Mechanic, or Acronis.

Thanks! Rahil!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

What Narrow Niche Already Loves What You Do?

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Recently at SOBCon NW, I had a familiar conversation with someone trying to start a business of her own. We talked about her skills, her past successes, and the people she liked working with with. I asked her what she was thinking about building about business around. She told me her concept.

It was huge.

The territory she was trying to cover was way too wide for a first step. Because the content base was so huge the audience would include almost every person from 21 to 65 near the idea of business, social media, or tech in any place in the world.

It’s no wonder she didn’t feel qualified to be an expert. Who would?
No one can be an expert of everything for everyone in the world.

I asked her one question … Who already loves what you do?

What Narrow Niche Already Loves What You Do?

Ever tried to read all of Wikipedia? It’s hard to keep all of that knowledge connected and meaningful without a reality to hang it on. Ever tried to learn a new vocabulary word a day? If the words don’t relate to each other, they fade away as fast as they came. Put a narrow context around a vocabulary you want to learn or an idea you want to explore and suddenly you’re making traction.

It’s the narrow context that allows us to see relationships and apply what we know to the next new thing we learn.
Here’s a few ways that narrowing your niche can build your expertise:

  • When we choose a narrow niche, we can go deeply vertical. We get to know one certain group of people very well. We know who we’re talking to. We know which words are their vocabulary, which metaphors are theirs, which ideas get them to move.
  • When we choose a narrow niche, we “get” the world of that customer group. We can predict the ways they make decisions. We can imagine what they worry about. We decide what features and benefits serve them well and what will be just so much more noise to what they’re trying to do without.
  • When we choose a narrow niche, we can closely study the specific problems of that singular customer group. We get to know what frustrates them, what they yearn for, wish for, and which they never saw again. We have special insight into their view.

      • And as a result of narrowing our niche, they quickly recognize that we “get” them, that we’ve built a product or service that was made for them, and they become our fans. Then convince their friends to become our fans too.

      And narrowing your niche can build your business as well because …

  • When we choose a narrow niche, it’s easy for others to see who we serve. People look who we work with and the commonalities show. All of Mike’s clients are families with small children. All of Britta’s clients are tech CEOs. Marti specializes in launch stage startups.
  • When we choose a narrow niche, people within that niche tell each other about us. Soon enough folks outside the niche ask if we can do it for them too.
  • When we choose a narrow niche, it’s easy for people to share what we do with their friends. When we we’re one thing, they think of us when they meet anyone who has that need. We’re shareable.

It’s true that you can’t be expert at everything for everyone. But who’d want to?
Make a decision to be irresistible to one specific group. Then we can move out slowly to the group that stands right next to them.

Who already loves what you do? Be an expert to them first.

Who is that group for you?

Be irresistible

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Let Your Human Out: Build Connections With Your Small Business Marketing

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A Guest Post by
Stacey Acevero

Online marketing is really based on relationships, but living in a virtual world
where people can talk to one another, buy from one another and follow one another
without ever having to make a face-to-face connection can de-humanize the
marketing process.

If your marketing efforts aren’t generating the results you hoped for, try these 3
ways you can come out from behind your corporate cage and strengthen the bond
between you and your consumers.

1. Introduce the faces behind your brand.

Imbed video of conversational interviews with your management and staff
in online press releases, on your website and on your social channels. You
can also provide photos and profiles of the employees who will be the official
tweeters and bloggers for your company.

A study by The Next Web found that Facebook updates with photos receive
300 percent more engagement. Capture that increased engagement by
having your employees post on your Facebook page, tweet, like, comment

and communicate through LinkedIn using their corporate photos and
profiles.

2. Highlight corporate events on your Facebook page

Give followers an opportunity to see the best in your employees by uploading
videos of corporate philanthropic events. For example, members of your
staff might volunteer at a 5K run for the American Heart Association. Have
them all wear company shirts and showcase their presence at the event.

You can also invite employees to submit videos of their personal
philanthropic projects. Establish a monthly employee volunteer spotlight
column to introduce people in your company who are making a difference in
their community.

3. Respond to ALL comments

Businesses big and small are learning that the effect of a negative comment
can be hugely destructive. In fact, a recent study by InsideView found a
negative review on YouTube, Facebook or Twitter can cost a company 30
customers.

So it makes sense that companies respond quickly to negative comments.
This is where a human touch can ease ruffled feathers. Your reaction should
be personal and compassionate. Sometimes providing a sense of humor
can diffuse situations as well – invest time and training for the person who
will be the face of your brand in the midst of criticism on your social media
platforms.

However, it’s almost worse to receive a positive comment via your social
media channels and not respond. If someone has gone to the trouble to
say something good about your brand, thank them and then engage them
further. They may be open to letting you retweet, share and incorporate
their feedback into your press releases, website or email marketing.

Businesses and buyers are two intelligent species that can live in harmony together.
It takes a commitment to creating relationships and a willingness to continue
conversations.

Add a human touch to your online marketing strategies and your business will move up the evolutionary chain.

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Author’s Bio: Stacey Acevero is Social Media Manager for Vocus/PRWeb. Public Relations, SEO, marketing, small business and social media nerd. U.S. Air Force auxiliary 2nd Lieutenant and Mission Scanner. Organizer and sponsor of charity events. You can find Stacey on Twitter as @sacevero

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Are You Afraid of Getting Personal in Business?

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Guest Post
by Annabel Candy

Would you like to build stronger relationships with your potential clients and create trust faster?

Me too and I’m finally making in roads. It took me 1o years to work out how to get my clients to trust me or, more accurately, to accidentally discover how to build their trust faster, but now I’ve cracked it I’m never going back.

When I first set up my own business in 1998 I didn’t know much about the business world and I lacked confidence. I felt as if I didn’t fit in. In my mind business people were hard-nosed professionals, wearers of suits and time poor workaholics.

To make things worse it wasn’t just that I felt as if I didn’t fit in. I really didn’t. I worked from home on a small island in New Zealand and all my clients were a 30 minute ferry ride away in the city.

They had real jobs in real offices. They were real business people and I was just a pretender, a business wannabe.

To make sure my prospective clients didn’t find out that I worked from home I played safe. I invested in a great logo in a timeless design and chose safe corporate colors of blue and grey.

My branding, which carried through to my website and business cards, looked classy and professional but it didn’t have any personality. It just wasn’t me.

Being new to business I did what I had to do to start finding work. I got the yellow pages out and started cold calling.

My business is web design and web copywriting. I had an MA in Design for Interactive Media and two years experience designing, writing and setting up effective websites but getting work was still hard. Like pulling nails in fact, and during the nine years I ran that business I never once got a job unless I met a client face to face.

Even after we got our first few jobs and started getting leads through the search engines and word of mouth recommendations, I still had to meet people before they’d give me the job.

But over the past few years my business has turned around and so have my clients. All of a sudden I have clients in faraway places who’ve never met me and couldn’t even if they wanted to. Even though I live in a small Australian vacation resort town I now have clients all over the world.

So what changed?

Two years ago I started blogging. I set up a blog called Get In the Hot Spot because I wanted to learn about social media and blogging to help my web design clients.

I wrote about travel but my blog posts often strayed into personal development or just personal stories.

My blog was definitely not a marketing tool for my business but gradually people started contacting me and asking if they could work with me even though they’d never met me.

People all around the world suddenly wanted to work with me not because they knew my qualifications or work experience, but because of personal experiences I’d shared on my blog.

Looking back to when I was new to business I made a big mistake by always putting up a professional front. I hid my personality and values behind what I thought was business-like behavior.

But sharing personal stories has helped build trust and grow my business much more effectively. Whereas before I probably came across as one of those boring experts we all try to avoid, now people see me as a real person, someone they wanted to hang out with online and offline, someone flawed like them and someone they’d enjoy working with.

These days I still have my safe, grey and blue corporate website for my web design business Mucho but my fun blog Get In the Hot Spot has really taken over. To give you an idea of the difference in branding check out the logos.


Which business would you prefer to work with?

 

How to Get Personal in Business

Blogging helped me grow my business so well that I eventually set up a separate blog where I could share my business and online marketing tips. But I’m careful that, although the topic is business, the writing style is still fun and shows my personality. I often share personal stories there too if they’re relevant.

You don’t have to have a blog to share your personal side with your clients and show your personality. You can do it on your website, through Twitter or Facebook or anywhere else you connect with your clients both on and offline.

Of course there are parameters and you don’t want to over share, but these are my tips for humanizing your business by sharing personal stories:

  1. Be personal but still professional. Make sure your language and stories are family friendly.
  2. Tell stories that people can connect with and choose personal themes like childhood, family or holidays that everyone can relate to.
  3. Keep it interesting – short, sharp injections of personal stories are good. Lessons learned are always popular. Endless rambling monologues about you aren’t.
  4. Inject humor into your story. Everyone likes to laugh and a smile or chuckle will make people relate to you faster.
  5. It’s a two way street. Don’t forget to pay an interest in your client’s personal life too and ask them about their family or vacation plans. It will let them know you care about them as people, not just as potential clients, and help you find common ground.

What are your experiences? Do you share personal stories with your clients?

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Annabel Candy is a copywriter, web designer and travel fiend. She wrote Successful Blogging in 12 Simple Steps to help other small business owners and writers tap into the power of blogging. Annabel shares her blogging tips at Successful Blogging and her travel stories and personal writing at Get In the Hot Spot.

Thanks, Annabel, for sharing your story!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

5 Steps To Create a Solidly Successful Online Product

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A Guest Post by
Rahil Muzafar

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We know that almost all products, no matter how good or bad they are, have a certain life cycle, and once a product has ran its lifecycle, the business needs to modify, innovate, or even create new products to survive. So, whether you are an old online business or a new one, you can benefit from having a step by step course-of-action for product creation, because you will need it sooner than later.

Online businesses should not be treated differently from their offline counterparts, as far as product creation is concerned. In both cases, the businesses have to come up with a product, or service that some customers are looking for, while expecting some rewards (AKA profits) for doing so. The only difference is probably in the nature of the products, for example, in cyber world, even a website that offers a very basic service like accumulating news on a specific topic at a single platform is still a product, regardless of how profitable or unprofitable it turns out to be.

Following are five basic steps that you should adhere to, when creating a new online product, regardless of how small or how big the product is supposed to be.

Step 1 – Idea

First step in product developments of all sorts is the idea, whether it is unique or just inspired by an already successful business model. The idea for an online product should be based on solving an unattended problem or a particular need of Internet users. Mindlessly copying some get rich quick schemes with the purpose of earning some extra income doesn’t really stand for an idea.

Remember that the web might appear to be already cluttered by all types of business, but a little out-of-the-box thinking will reveal many untapped markets, however you will be able to see these opportunities only if you are not driven by “overnight riches” dreams.

Step 2 – Scrutinizing

Next step is to brood over the idea, while considering all aspects. This phase is very important, still most entrepreneurs, in sheer excitement, neglect this very important step, and go straight from idea to development phase. It’s important that you take some time and wait for the excitement to settle down, only then you will be able to see the glitches in your plot. Once the initial excitement fades out, you will see that it’s not really a walk in the park.

Step 3 – Marketing Strategy

Some businesses devise a marketing strategy after the product is ready. Ideally, you should be wearing your marketing hat even before you get into the development phase. Having a marketing strategy, or more importantly the target market in mind will help you come up with a product/service that caters to the specific type of customers you are going to target. Thinking from the perspective of a marketer will give you an idea of the cost, and profit margins. Otherwise, it’s quite possible that once you’ve invested your time or resources in the product development, you will discover that you aren’t left with enough money or resources to invest on marketing.

Step 4 – Product Development:

Once you’ve mulled over the idea a number of times, and devised a marketing plan, it’s now time to develop the product. This should be easy, because you’ve successfully gone through the planning phase.

When developing product, think of your customers, and what they’d be looking for, and not what you’re looking for.

Step 5 – Test Marketing

Before you go full throttle with your marketing strategy, you must do the test marketing. Test marketing is quite the same like the actual marketing, but on a smaller scale, while targeting a small test group. Thanks to the Internet, you can use the power of social media to identify your target customers and check the initial response. If it’s good, you should set the wheels in motion, and if they are finding faults in your product/services, be thankful that you’ve avoided a bigger setback, and get back to make necessary changes before launching the final product into the market.

Rahil Muzafar

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Author’s Bio:

This article was contributed by Rahil, who is an Internet Marketer, specializing in making available discounts (like this) and coupon codes (click to see) opportunities. At his website, you will find all kinds of coupon codes and discounts, from hosting packages to stuff like 4inkjets or 123inkjet. Feel free to avail these deals to save on popular online products.

Thanks! Rahil!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!