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Become a Media Superstar for Your Business

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You’ve seen the expert guests on television, in publications and online. And you’re thinking to yourself, How did they get that nice exposure? Well, it wasn’t magic and these folks weren’t “discovered.” Rather, they took specific steps to get the attention of media outlets that could help spread their message to relevant markets.

Jill SalzmanWe’re so lucky to have PR & media superstar Jill Salzman, speaker, author and founder of FoundingMoms.com as guest host for our March 2013 Sobcon chat on Thursday, March, 21. We’ll be discussing these questions about working with the media:

  • What are first steps to developing a PR plan for your business?
  • What’s the best way to approach the media?
  • Tips for working with bloggers?
  • Any “don’ts” when dealing with the media?
  • Should you have a press kit? If yes, what should it include?

More About Jill

Jill Salzman is currently growing her third entrepreneurial venture, The Founding Moms, the world’s first and only kid-friendly collective of monthly meetups for mom entrepreneurs.  A graduate of Brown University and law school, she started a music management firm and then launched a baby jewelry company before creating her current venture. Jill has been featured in national media outlets including People Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, Daily Candy Kids, NBC5 and WGN TV.  

She is the author of Found It: A Field Guide for Mom Entrepreneurs, a columnist for NBC Chicago, has been published in The New York Times and gave her very own TED talk on 11/11/11. In her spare time, Jill enjoys kloofing, baking, and erasing her daughters’ crayon artwork from the kitchen walls.

Join us Thursday, March 21, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Central Time for our Sobcon Twitter chat and get started on claiming your fame!

Steps to Optimize Your E-Commerce SEO

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By Brian Taylor

Optimizing the SEO on your e-commerce website is vital to selling more product. It will help your pages rank better on the search engines and keep prospective buyers on your pages longer, increasing conversions and sales. With that in mind we have put together a list of steps that you can use to optimize your e-commerce site’s SEO.

Read them, use them and watch them help increase your revenues greatly.

Concentrate more on each product page

Every single product that you have should have its own product page where as many questions can be answered as possible. It will need a great description, a unique title tag and unique description tags as well. Not only that but it should have relevant internal and external links and have all the social media sharing buttons as well so that it can be ‘shared’ online. Think of every product page as its own website and make sure that:

  • As many questions are answered about the product as possible so that a customer doesn’t have to ‘leave’ the page to finds an answer.
  • All technical specs about the product are included on the page.
  • The product title, the manufacturer of the product and the SKU are text, not images.

Take advantage of category and brand pages

These pages are very important. The average person is not going to be very specific when they first start searching for something online. For example, they won’t search for a ‘Honda Civic DL Sedan’ they will search for a ‘mid-sized car’ and then refine their search as they go. If you have a well done category page with all the possibilities listed someone who’s searching will be taken to the category page first and then be able to refine their search right on your website without leaving. These so-called ‘umbrella pages’ need to:

  • Have all the basic info for each product.
  • Have a descriptive category title on page and META.
  • Include at least a paragraph of content describing them to help prospective customers know what’s being shown as specifically as possible.

Create unique categories to group products

Even though you already have everything listed on your website you should create unique categories to be able to attract even more attention to specific items, like sale items at the end of summer for example. Most e-commerce sites won’t make a new page for ‘bikinis on sale’ but instead just make a ‘note’ on the existing webpage that they’re on sale.

Better to create an entirely new category (and page) to display these items so that they won’t be scattered all over your site but will all be grouped and found in one location.

Heavily incentivize user reviews

This may be the most important step. User reviews are the life-blood of many e-commerce websites. Just like positive reviews about movies will have people lining up at the theater for a new flick, positive user reviews will attract people to your site through SEO. And once they land, they will help persuade them to make a purchase.

The best thing you can do to get reviews is to give your customers an incentive to leave one like an extra discount or something similar. The more reviews the better and, if possible (and it is possible) they should be placed on the product page itself for even more selling power.

If you follow these steps your website will attract, convert and sell more products so don’t hesitate to start using them all ASAP and watch as your sales and revenues start to increase.

Author’s Bio:
Brian Taylor is the VP, Business Development at Forix SEO in Portland, OR. a team of crack SEO experts with an impressive record when it comes to results, experience, and expertise. Forix offers affordable and ethical SEO services in Portland helping small businesses with their Internet marketing needs.

How Do We Get More Social With Our Clients?

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Whether you run a small, mid-sized or large company, how social you are with your customers can go a long way in determining just how successful you are destined to be.

Whether they feel like they can’t properly engage their return on investment (ROI), don’t want to make the time and effort or are essentially ill-informed on how to properly run social media campaigns, there are still many businesses that are missing the boat when it comes to socially engaging consumers.

So, how can you and/or your marketing team (where applicable) get the most out of what social media has to offer moving forward?

Among the tricks of the social trade:

1. Be a good listener – Even if your business is just using social media sporadically, you can pick up a ton of valuable chatter by listening to what is being said about you and your industry in general. If you do not use Facebook, Twitter, Google+ for any other reason, use them to hear the conversations. You can pick up valuable discussions as to what consumers need more and less of, along with what their most used questions and issues are;

2. Be a consistent presence – Like many other things in life, you need to be constantly active in social media to truly benefit from it. Just being a casual social media participant leaves you and your company with several problems. First, you are not there regularly to see and hear what is going on. Secondly, you won’t be viewed as an authority in your industry if you just pop in and out on the social channels. Finally, you miss out on potential sales from those consumers who do not yet have the product or service they need;

3. Be someone who engages – One of a number of reasons consumers are on social media for starters is they come looking for answers and solutions to their questions and problems. With social media, you can respond to them in a real-time fashion, something you can’t do through traditional means like in-person store visits or phone calls. Actively engage consumers that are both present and potential customers with you, showing them you want to be the go-to man or woman for their shopping needs;

4. Be void of spamming – With all the positives that social media can offer you as a business owner, never use it to spam consumers. The spammer is the individual or company that inundates consumers with messages, mostly trying to push a sale down their throats. Some consumers will automatically revolt against this, feeling like you are being too pushy. Use your social media tweets and shares to answer questions, solve problems, along with educating the consumer. The latter can be easily done via links to tutorials and other items you hopefully have on your website;

5. Be human – Finally, make your social media posts fun and entertaining from time to time. Yes, your main goal is to draw people back to your website, but you can’t be about sales and business 100 percent of the time. Show those who view your SM posts that you and your company are just like them, doing this by interjecting some humor into your posts. You should also humanize your entire office team by either getting them to post or talking about them (images are great) from time to time. Being social is just that, putting a social side to your business.

So, how do you as a business owner go about getting the most out of social media in 2013?

Photo credit: dimespring.com

About the Author: With 23 years’ writing experience, Dave Thomas covers social media and business topics, including Internet reputation management.

Solve Communication Breakdowns with Your Blog

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By Brian Milne

Communication Breakdown,
It’s always the same,
Havin’ a nervous breakdown,
Drive me insane!

– Led Zeppelin, “Communication Breakdown”

Is it just me, or is all of this technology that’s “connecting us” actually discouraging real communication.

By definition, communication is an “exchange of information,” but even Webster suggests it should include a “personal rapport.”

But in today’s fast-paced, attention-deficit world, personal phone calls have given way to occasional emails and text messages. And, in many cases today, those one-on-one messages are being replaced by shotgun Facebook and Twitter blasts to a faceless social mediasphere.

So what about those defining moments in life, or business, that warrant more than 140 characters? Babies being born, companies doing actual good in the community and for the environment?

Those are the types of communications blogs were made for. Whether it’s a personal or corporate platform, your blog is your most important communication tool online.

Not only does the blog allow you to let your hair down, and write more freely about topics that will engage users, but it allows you to share that narrative with hundreds, thousands, even millions of readers.

And it allows you to complement your prose with strong images, videos and all of the other assets and plugins we can integrate into our blogs today.

But how do you make sure your blog doesn’t turn into another source of one-sided noise in this overly-saturated blogosphere? Here are six tips to help turn your blog into a two-way communication tool.

Use the Blog Often, and Well

They say quality over quantity. I say quantity AND quality.

For a majority of the blogosphere, blogs are successful because they do both. Their content is solid, so it gets shared. Their content is frequent, so it gets traffic.

A good blog is a two-headed monster, and you have to feed it often if you want your site to become a beast to be reckoned with online.

Don’t have time to blog as often as you’d like? Here are 10 tips for finding more time to blog.

Use the Blog to Keep Connections Updated

Ever have a situation where you’re traveling in a remote place, or are in the middle of an adventure and don’t have time to update all of your friends on your whereabouts? The blog is a great vehicle for updating the masses on your situation.

I used this same approach in 2007 when I paddled nearly 100 miles of California’s coast, and again this past fall with a photo blog from McCovey Cove during the World Series.

Posting updates to your blog will not only keep your friends and family informed, but it also saves you time so you don’t have to reach out to everyone in your social circle to give them a unique update.

Use the Blog to Share and Engage

For corporate blogs, running diaries like the examples above probably aren’t realistic, but taking the same, real-time updates approach will work for major events and conferences when content ideas are coming your way at a furious pace.

Take advantage of these events (which are content gold mines) by posting frequently around the topics and using social media (and the appropriate hashtags) to promote your work, because these types of milestones are often more timely and newsworthy than everyday posts.

Use the Blog to Collaborate

Have you ever thought of your blog as a collaboration tool?

Active online communities and blogs have amazing potential when it comes to collaborating online.

Turn your blog into a collaboration tool by: concluding posts with open-ended questions to drive reader comments, driving interaction through mobile engagement, and embedding polls, surveys and forms to pull user-generated content from the community.

The key is driving at that engagement and making sure your blog isn’t just a one-way communication.

Use the Blog to Motivate

The best part about having a phone conversation with a friend, colleague or mentor that you respect, is that the call is a two-way conversation.

Two-way conversations help resolve issues, breed new ideas and inspire and motivate both sides to strive for more.

Take the same approach on your blog.

The best posts in the blogosphere (think about all of the great content here on Successful-Blog.com) motivate and inspire, and your blog shouldn’t be any different.

Use the Blog to Listen

In conclusion, don’t just treat your blog as a one-way communication tool. Allow for comments on your posts.

Listen to and engage with those in the comments section and continue the conversation beyond the author tagline.

Take the discussion to your social networks to engage more connections in your social circle, and, gulp, even offline in the real world.

Imagine that, actually communicating with folks offline.

Robert Plant would be proud.

Author’s Bio: Brian Milne is the founder of the Hyped Blog Network and Meadows Interactive, an authorized seller of the WorkTraits behavioral assessment and work compatibility program. Share your communication tips and challenges with him on Twitter @BMilneSLO.

How to Become a Psychic Blogger

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By Nathalie Lussier

How To Write The Blog Post Your Reader Really Needs From You Now

Are you a psychic bloggerIdeas. We all have them. Ideas for blog posts, new projects, and things we need to remember to buy at the grocery store.

Sometimes you get a flash of inspiration for a blog post, and if you have the time to sit down and write it, that blog post can turn out to be the exact thing your reader needed at that moment. Other times, you find yourself re-reading your piece and asking yourself what you were thinking when you penned that jumble of words.

It happens to all of us. In today’s post I’m going to talk about the tricks I’ve learned in my 10 years of blogging, that have allowed me to read the minds of my readers. I regularly get emails and comments from my audience telling me that my post came at just the right time for them, or that I must be psychic because that’s exactly what they were wondering about.

Do your blog posts currently hit the “psychic spot” for your reader? If not, keep reading to find out how you can hone your idea generating and selecting process, to deliver the best content on a consistent basis.

TRICK #1: Know Who You’re Talking To

When brainstorming for a blog or video post, can you think of a specific person, reader or client of yours who would benefit from what you’re writing about? Who is this reader? Whether you are writing for industry leaders or newbies, knowing exactly who you’re talking to and how they’re going to take action based on the information, stories, or advice you share with them is key.

For example, when I first started my blogging career as the Raw Foods Witch, I used to write to my peers. I just didn’t know any better, I thought that the world was full of raw foodists.

Silly? Absolutely.

It was only when I shifted my attention towards the everyday person who wanted to eat healthy but didn’t really know how, that I was able to capture my readers’ attention.

Today, at Nathalie Lussier Media, I talk a lot about technology, and I need to remember what my audiences’ burning questions are so I can share the most relevant new tech tools.

I would never do a video about a complex programming solution, because I know that my audience is not filled with not software engineers like myself and this information just won’t resonate with them. Instead, I talk about ‘done for you plug-ins’ and solutions that solve their problems easily with no coding required. By focusing on what my readers need to know, I can connect directly to them.

TRICK #2: Ask For Feedback

I often hear these statements. ‘I know there are people out there, but no one is reading my blog’ or ‘I’m not really sure who reads my blog.’ Does this sound familiar?

If you don’t have a large readership on your blog, simply asking your current readers to leave a comment should get the ball rolling. Alternatively, you can send out a survey and ask people what they need help with and what they wish they knew how to do better.

Beyond just asking, you also need to connect with people more than you might currently be doing.

TRICK #3: Connect With Your Current Readers

Before you build your castle in the sky, I highly recommend that you get in touch with your audience, the real people who are actually reading the words that you write and find out what they need from you the most.

Send the people who comment on your blog a quick e-mail asking them what you can do for them and what kind of content would really change their lives.

TRICK #4: Answer The Burning Qs

The benefit of blogging and creating great content is that you only have to do it once, and it lives on the Internet forever. If you find yourself getting the same question from your readers all the time, share the answer in a blog post.

Not only will this save you the time of answering this question over and over, you will actually attract more people who need that particular problem solved just like your original audience.

So here’s your filter question for the next time you sit down to write a blog post or create a video: Do I know a specific person in my audience who will benefit from me answering this question?

Follow these 4 tricks and get ready to have people showing up and telling you how amazing you are, because you’ve actually tapped into what they need from you the most.

Are you ready to join in the exclusive club of psychic bloggers who comes up with the best content all the time? Leave a comment below with any tips or tricks you’ve found for getting great blog post ideas.

Author’s Bio: Nathalie Lussier is a digital strategist for the ambitious business owner. She’s the creator of the Website Checkup Tool, a free tool that gives you specific steps to improve your site’s traffic and conversions, no matter stage of business you’re at right now.

Image via CC by Thomas Hawk

3 Killer Collaboration Tools

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Great collaboration is about sharing, accessibility, and trust. As more and more people are telecommuting and working with remote teams, it can be tricky trying to coordinate tasks and stay connected.

Today’s tip includes three of my favorite remote collaboration tools that I use every single day.

Flow by MetaLabs

Flow app

You know how, when you’re doing something you love, time just slips away unnoticed? They call that the state of flow, and this app is appropriately named. It’s available as a web interface as well as an iPhone app, and it keeps the whole team together.

I get notifications when someone posts to a Flow task, it kills the whole chain-of-emails torture, and everything syncs up nicely. It’s so easy and fast, I have been able to provide input on an urgent Flow task while standing in line at Disneyland.

HipChat by Atlassian

HipChat

When you’re working in the same office, you can yell through the wall when you have quick questions (or if you want to talk about the latest Survivor episode). HipChat gives you the same immediacy, with public and private text chat rooms, notifications, and file sharing. It’s totally cross-platform on mobile, and available as a web client or desktop app.

Picture this scenario…you are on the phone with a client and they ask a question you can’t answer. You pop into HipChat, and get the answer from another member of your team, without skipping a beat. You look like a genius.

Google+ Hangouts

Google+ Hangout

Sometimes text just isn’t enough. If you really want to build strong team relationships, there’s no substitute for face-to-face. Google+ Hangouts are a wonderful solution for remote teams to share project information and — hangout. They are so simple to set up and use that there’s no excuse for not trying it yet. How else are you going to bust that colleague you suspect is working in their pajamas?

How do you collaborate with remote colleagues? Share your favorite tools in the comments.

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Twitter as @rhogroupee