The latest app I've been using on Twitter is Tweet Burner, a tool that allows me to shorten a link down to a much smaller URL that will fit within the 140 characters Twitter allows per Tweet.
But Tweet Burner goes beyond tinyurl and other similar services by allowing me to track how many click-throughs my new, shortened, link is receiving.
Here's a case in point. It is 2:29 AM here in Texas (I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep). So I decided to Twitter for a while until I could hit the pillow again (that's when you KNOW Twitter is addicting).
I checked Tweet Burner to see how my stats were looking and saw that several of my Tweets from earlier in the day (or actually yesterday) had gotten a lot of clicks. Impressed, I created a new Tweet Burner link to an article I wrote a couple of weeks ago to see what would happen.
After checking a few emails, I went back to Tweet Burner and saw that I already had 8 new visitors to that article as a result of my Tweet not more than 15 minutes earlier.
Two things to note: Most of my followers reside here in North America, so they are all Twittering in the wee hours of the morning too. This is obviously not the optimal time of day to reach North American followers.
And second, I don't have a lot of followers. At this time, less than 100 people hang onto my pearls of wisdom, but I was still able to get traffic to this blog from just one Tweet. What if I Tweet about it several times throughout the day? And what will happen months from now when I have many more followers?
I am just beginning to see the potential of Twitter, but even though these numbers are still modest, my 8 new visitors in 15 minutes proves to me how powerful Tweeting can be.
The biggest complaint I hear about using Twitter as a marketing tool is that after you write a Tweet, It quickly scrolls down the page as other people add their Tweets. In short order, your Tweet moves completely off the page and becomes all but invisible.
This, the Twitter critics say, means that a Tweet has a very short shelf life before it is gone forever.
True and true, but this argument misses the point.
These people are still thinking broadcast marketing, wherein there is a single sender of a message and many hearers of that message. The old marketing paradigm always tries to reach masses of hearers in hopes that a few will convert to customers.
But Twitter is part of a new paradigm and operates by different rules.
The way around the “scrolling off the page” problem begins with Tweeting numerous times throughout the day. Tweeting is not an activity that you can do one time and wait for the money to come rolling in.
If you are promoting a new book, or a new article on your blog, or a new video you just posted on YouTube, Tweet about it often. Some people who missed it earlier in the day will see your Tweet later on.
However, this does not give you license to use Twitter to spam your followers. Unlike email recipients, followers have recourse against spammers. All they have to do is block or unfollow the spammer and they never have to hear from the culprit again.
If your Tweets point to valuable, insightful, useful content that solves problems, you will come to be regarded as a trusted source. Think of Seth Godin’s Purple Cow concept and point your followers to something truly remarkable.
Next, don’t just Tweet about the same thing over and over again. That gets tiresome and will again be regarded as spam. As we talked about in yesterday;s post, Thought Leadership With Twitter - Even Your Old Content Can Remain King, Tweet about your old content as well as your new. Let people know about an informative article that you wrote two years ago as long as it is still relevant.
When you do this, not only will your Tweets have variety, you will also keep your old blog posts and articles working for you.
Regularly Tweeting about old, but good, content keeps that content on the top shelf and can turn your followers into fans as they see the quality and quantity of your body of work.
Now, you may have noticed, clever folks that you are, that I still haven’t really solved the problem of Tweets scrolling off the front page. Well I am about to.
Here is the real secret to using Twitter as a marketing tool. What I am about to tell you is so important that you may want you to tattoo it to your forehead in reverse font so you can see it every time you stand in front of a mirror (if you're into that sort of thing):
The real purpose of Twittering is not to mass broadcast your message, but to convert a handful of evangelists to your cause.
If you Tweet about quality informative content that solves other people’s problems, a few followers will become fans, and a few fans will become evangelists. And your evangelists will Tweet about you, blog about you, put links to your site on their sites, write complimentary book reviews on Amazon, and tell their friends that they must read your stuff or watch your YouTube videos.
And then it won’t matter if your original Tweet scrolls off the page because now you have others spreading the word about you.
Let me give you two examples. I am an evangelist for Marcia Yudkin and David Meerman Scott. The quality of their work is so good that if either of them wrote a book on how to become a dog catcher, I would not only buy it but tell all my friends to buy it too.
I can’t help but write about them and tell anyone who hasn’t yet learned to duck and hide when I walk into a room, all about the latest thing I read by either one of them. I am an evangelist.
And that is the whole point of marketing with Twitter – to find evangelists who will proclaim the good news about your work.
Content is king on the internet. The more quality content you produce and put up on the web, the more notice you will garner. Google will bless you with higher search engine juice, visitors will find your website in droves, other people on the web will Tweat or blog about your content, and before long you will find yourself basking in the light of being a “micro celebrity” within your field.
Or … at least that’s how it’s supposed to work.
In the real world, fame and fortune seldom come easily. Content may be king, but it’s still a game of king of the hill. Your latest article may put you on top of that hill today, but tomorrow, someone else’s content may push you off. In journalism, this is referred to as a “news cycle.” The next news item is constantly pushing the last one off of page one.
So what is an internet marketer to do? The answer is to continue to produce quality content. Write great blog articles, write great articles for article submission sites like ezinearticles.com, create great videos for YouTube, and record great podcasts.
But don’t let the king of the hill game make your great content grow stale.
Focus most of your efforts on creating “evergreen content” that is always timely. Solve problems that will always need to be solved. Discuss goals people always want to achieve.
If your content is of long term or continuing relevance, it need not grow stale on the web. At least not with a tool like Twitter available.
I’ve noticed that there are two categories of people using Twitter. The first group are the cheesy salespeople who have little care about engaging others. They just want to sell their wares and view Twitter as just another venue to get the word out about how awesome they are and how awesome their product is.
The second group are the problem solvers. These are the people who are in business to solve certain problems and they use Twitter to point their followers to solutions.
You can tell who these problem solvers are by what they Tweat about. They are just as likely to tell you about a great article written by someone else as they are their own content. They are the people you constantly learn from, the people who give you lots of those “aha” moments.
But these people also Tweat about their own content as well. When their content solves problems, they can legitimately send their followers to that stuff as well.
Let me give you an example: An old friend of mine from high school (ok I'm old, but she is extremely young) is now a relationship coach named Kathy Dawson, who helps couples nurture and grow their marriages, solve communication problems, and manage the pressures that come with raising children - while still trying to have a fulfilling relationship together.
In other words, Kathy solves problems that have always, and will always, need to be solved by couples in committed relationships. Her articles will always be timely because relationships will always need work.
Because Kathy has accumulated a wealth of great content, she has a lot to Tweat about. She can not only Tweat about her latest articles or her upcoming speaking engagements, she can also Tweat about articles she wrote two or three years ago because those articles are still timely.
And each time she Tweats, she can add one more link to her old article, gain more visitors to her website, help one more person solve a problem, and move up one more notch on the Google ladder.
This is because Google gives much more credence (and higher search rankings) to links that point to varieties of content within a website rather than when links all point to the home page. Links that point to articles within the site tell Google that the site is rich in content and is a valuable piece of internet real estate.
If some of Kathy's Twitter followers like her article, they may Tweat about it or mention it in their blogs, creating a viral marketing effect, compounding the number of links pointing to her site.
In so doing, she can conquer the hill once and for all. Her content will not grow stale, and will not get shoved off every time newer content is posted by someone else.
Twitter enables all of us who produce content to keep that content working. Rather than allowing an old blog article to get lost deep in your blog’s achieves, Twitter gives you a chance to take it out, dust it off and show it to new people who may benefit from it.
Writing and posting articles online is a proven way to get targeted traffic to any website. Moreover, these articles also help your site to get higher rankings on search engines like Google or Yahoo.
This video by Lisa Sparks shows you how one article, submitted to one article submission site, can get picked up by hundreds of other websites across the net. And all of those new sites point links back to your site. Other than chocolate, what could be better than that?
Now that you've seen how powerful article marketing can be on its own, let's tweak the process a little by adding the power of Twitter to an article marketing campaign.
In some ways there is a bit of overlap between what Herring says here and what I wrote about yesterday regarding blogging. One of the 10 Reasons To Use a Blog To Drive Your Personal Branding Campaign had to do with how you can write a Tweat about your various blog posts to drive more traffic them and get more search engine exposure.
"Your blog gives you something to talk about on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or other social networking tools. Many people misuse social networking sites as mere platforms to be carnival barkers shouting about their wares.
The better social networkers use them to point to valuable content that solves problems and addresses the needs of their market. If the theme of your blog is offering solutions to certain problems, you can mention each new article, and even refer back to your old articles, every time you Tweat on Twitter or post on LinkedIn or Facebook."
Now (and I am asking myself why I didn't think of this too) Jeff Herring shows that your Twittering can turn a spotlight on your online articles as well. All of your efforts online can create links to your website, your social networking endeavors can help to create a personal brand for yourself and your business.
As Lisa pointed out so well, article marketing is a viral engine to drive traffic. Adding Twitter to the process adds more fuel to this engine.
Tweating about your articles and blog posts keep them active and keep them from growing stale. The more content you put on the web, be it in the form of blog posts, articles, YouTube videos, etc., the more material you have to Tweat about again and again and again.
And each Tweat you write is like putting your articles on steroids.
On the internet, content is king. And building a personal brand is all about creating and giving away lots of quality content in order to create an audience.
And that, of course, is the rub. When I talk to people who want to become recognized authorities in their fields, ie "micro celebrities," a good number of them HATE writing. The idea of writing a book, even though they may be incredibly knowledgeable about their topic, is just too daunting to consider.
Yet having written a book is the very best credential anyone can have in any field. The value of being titled "author" cannot be exaggerated.
But there are other types of content that can be just as valuable. Writing ebooks, producing videos, conducting seminars and training, writing articles for print magazines, or producing audio materials can all go a long way toward establishing a professional as an expert in his or her field.
So how does a very busy person, who may or may not like to write, create this kind of content?
My answer is blogging.
A blog should be the engine that drives any personal branding campaign.
And if done properly, writing a blog can be done with minimal effort, PLUS blogging can be done within even the busiest of work schedules (I'll prove this shortly).
Here are 10 reasons to use a blog as the engine to drive your own personal branding campaign:
With just a minimal time commitment, regularly writing a blog can help you organize your knowledge and material into a book or other project. In fact, you will find that blogging will almost write your book for you.
Blogging builds an audience and establishes you as an expert BEFORE your book is published. In the publishing industry, this is called having a “platform.” Readers can discover you through your blog and you can have a built-in list of people ready to buy your book (or other project) as soon as it comes out.
Readers may also post comments on your blog articles, which give you instant feedback and may also give you anecdotes or additional information you may wish to include in your book.
A surprising number of excellent blog posts contain very little original writing. Many bloggers find relevant material on the internet or print books and quote or link to them, adding their own comments to another author’s articles. Of course you want to always give proper credit to your sources and provide links to them as well.
You can monetize your blog and earn money while you are writing your book. You can place Adsense ads, link to books and other materials on Amazon.com, and earn affiliate commissions long before your book is published. If you have written other books, ebooks or your own digital materials, you can also link to these products and earn money selling them as well. Additionally if you conduct paid speaking engagements or offer consulting services, your blog can also create more revenue for this work.
You can find material to write about quickly and easily by setting up Google Alerts that will send relevant information directly to you by email. Google Alerts is a little like doing a one-time Google search on a topic and getting all new updates on that topic sent to you as soon as new content appears on the internet. Go to http://www.google.com/alerts for more information.
You can also find information to write about quickly and easily at social bookmarking sites like Digg.com, delicious.com, reddit.com, YouTube.com, Fark.com, and stumbleupon.com. These sites are bookmarking tools used by thousands (maybe millions) of other people to bookmark websites and news items related to whatever topic they choose. Searching a social bookmarking site rather than a search engine allows you to know that the sites you find were ranked by people as being relevant to a certain topic. Whereas the search engines simply rely on algorithms to categorize various sites.
If you don’t feel like writing, you might simply post a YouTube video related to your blog’s topic. While a video cannot be incorporated into your book, it still may attract new readers or get your blog noticed by search engines. You may also simply post an audio recording on your blog as a podcast. Podcasting is easier than writing and still attracts visitors to your site.
Your blog gives you something to talk about on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or other social networking tools. Many people misuse social networking sites as mere platforms to be carnival barkers shouting about their wares. The better social networkers use them to point to valuable content that solves problems and addresses the needs of their market. If the theme of your blog is offering solutions to certain problems, you can mention each new article, and even refer back to your old articles, every time you Tweat on Twitter or post on LinkedIn or Facebook.
Finally, and to my mind one of the most innovative way to use your blog, you can use it as a means to network with others in your field. You can contact experts and ask if you can interview them. Then you can post either a written transcript or a podcast of the interview (or both). In the process you have made a valuable contact, given that person free publicity and, if that person is also blogger, you may attract some of that person’s readers to your own blog.
Have I challenged you to get busy writing a blog? If your goal is to establish a personal brand, then a blog is the core of your online marketing efforts. No other online marketing tool even comes close to the effectiveness of a blog.
And as you’ve seen, writing a blog does not need to be a major time commitment to be effective.
I just got a Tweat (which I promptly ReTweated) from Mark Joiner's Twit Marketing, called "How to Make Money on Twitter."
This Tweat contained a link to an article by Jason Tyfon that really spells out how (and more importantly, how not) to promote a business on Twitter.
The problem that Jason writes about is something I've written about as well in an article called "The Science of ReTweats - A Social Networking Strategy", namely too many people are using Twitter as a means to push their offerings. Their efforts are merely thinly disguised sales pitches.
Yes, even the worst of these Tweats create links to your website, but is it worth it to lose your credibility? Twitter is first and last a "Social Networking" tool. That means its strength is in its power as a personal branding mechanism.
And as I've said before, the core to any personal branding effort is to 1) Create name recognition, and 2) position yourself as a solution to a business problem.
If your Tweats offer real solutions to problems, your readers will follow you, ReTweat your posts and create a viral marketing effect for you. And you will make more money using Twitter than if you simply pitch products.
Brian Carroll’s “B2B Lead Generation Blog” is always a source of really good information to anyone who needs customers and sales (do any of you fit this category?). But his recent article, Can a social media like Twitter boost your lead generation results? is especially enlightening.
I have dabbled on and off with Twitter for about a year now, without actually going all in (to use the famous poker term). But Carroll’s thoughts have me taking a new look at the popular social media site.
For those of you who don’t know, Twitter is sort of like a blog that limits your posts (called “Tweets” in the Twitter world) to 140 characters. It is precisely because they are so short and sweet that has spurred Twitter’s popularity. People who would not read blog posts of the length typically found on sites like my own, avidly read tweets from many people on Twitter.
Brian Carroll describes some of the lead generation uses he has discovered for Twitter:
Well, I’ve started to use my Twitter account a lot more, and I’ve found some productive uses for the application:
Sent mini survey question and got answers quickly
Promoted new blog posts and upcoming webinars
Shared articles, resources, and blog posts that I found interesting
Learned what topics my network finds interesting faster
Discovered some useful blog posts and resources by using tweetscan.com
To these uses, let me also add one of my own. I constantly encourage my clients to start blogging as a way to get the work out about their businesses. But as you can well imagine, most business people or professionals are short on time.
Now, thanks to Brian’s thoughts, I can encourage them to start posting on Twitter.
Anyone, no matter how busy, can write 140 characters.
Note: Last week, I started a series of articles on how to integrate online and offline social networking.
While researching this topic, I ran across this excellent article by Andy Britnell. Although he primarily focuses on offline social networking, his lesson is just as applicable for those using Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
I have been networking for many years and attended nearly every sort of networking event imaginable. I now recognise the benefit of seeing networking as an art rather than a technique. Rather than provide you with 7 tips on how to improve your networking effectiveness, I'd like to pass on a story that gives us a different view of how to network which I think is worth sharing:
I was always impressed with a particular person in my networking group who managed not only to provide quality referrals but received a lot as well. As I am a student of success I decided to find out what his secret was.
I noticed a number of tactics and strategies that he used, such as listening intently when people were doing their 60 second infomercials,writing down relevant facts, clarifying what was being offered and what was of value in the product or service, and who specifically that person needed to get connected to. He also was very good as a host during networking meetings and had a skill of engaging new visitors and pointing them in the direction of people in the room who would be useful connections.
This still didn't answer the question of why he was successful at networking, as others used the same techniques with less success. I decided to approach him and determine what the secret was.
His answer surprised me. He said it was his purpose in life to help other people succeed and he believed that everyone had something of value to offer in business - they just needed to articulate that value. He felt it was his job to help people to grow their business and in order to do that he needed to be clear on their outcomes and passion in business. In encouraging them to talk about this he helped them to become inspired and motivated about their business.
So rather than clever techniques or strategies it was the intention, values and beliefs that this person held which made him successful. It seems to me that this story proves that the more we help other people succeed in their business and pass on our kernels of knowledge about how to be effective, the more we become successful and effective ourselves.
Andy Britnell is an executive coach who works with high achievers in both the private and public sectors who wish to fulfil more of their potential by thinking and behaving more effectively.
“Personal Branding” is a term that gets bandied about business circles a lot these days, but few professionals seem to have a firm grasp of what it really means or what its potential is.
Personal branding is the strategy of marketing yourself using the same methods a major corporation might brand and market one of its products. When used effectively, you can use these techniques to “position” yourself in the minds or your prospective clients, employers or buyers.
Here’s an example: Several years ago I volunteered to teach job-search workshops through a non-profit organization that helped unemployed people find new jobs. One of the things I repeatedly drove home to the people in my classes was to think of themselves as solutions to specific problems.
It was all about positioning.
They could either join the ranks of thousands of other job seekers who mass mailed resumes out to hundreds of companies, or they could package themselves as the answers to pressing problems that targeted companies had to solve.
The point here is that no company will hire someone just because they want to sign another paycheck. People get hired because the company has a problem that must be solved. And the person who is hired is the person who impresses them most that they are the solution to that problem.
Now let’s think about a group of people who (at least in the U.S.A.) seek employment every November. Politicians.
Politicians are the ultimate role models for personal branding. And like them or not, they provide great lessons for anyone who wants to attract new clients, new business or a new employer.
The first thing politicians must establish is name recognition. Even those people who are running for the jobs at the bottom of the ballot must have some sort of name recognition.
As much as I try to be an informed voter, I always walk into the polling booth and find that I know nothing about the people who are running for dog catcher or judge of some obscure district. So what do we all do in such an instance? We look at the names to see if we recognize that person.
But as Caroline Kennedy learned when she threw her hat into the ring for the New York senate seat, name recognition is not enough. It will only take you so far, but if you can’t show that you can do the job, name recognition alone will not take you to the finish line.
The second element of personal branding is the ability to solve problems. If you want to be my lawyer, it certainly helps if I recognize your name, but I also want to feel confident that you can solve my legal problem.
Barrack Obama won the presidential election not just because he had established a lot of name recognition, but also because more people perceived him, rightly or wrongly, as the better solution to the nation’s problems than they did John McCain.
Personal branding means that you position yourself in your prospects’ minds as a solution to their problems. Sarah Palin and Caroline Kennedy ran into the Katie Courics of the world who asked tough questions. And when this happens to you, you had better be able to articulate your solutions to the problems that are keeping your prospects awake at night.
Or better yet, present your solutions up front before you get to these interviews. The internet gives you many, many ways to get your ideas known. Write about your solutions on a blog, post YouTube videos, do a lot of public speaking, write articles, write books, conduct your own versions of town hall meetings.
And all the time, remember YOU are the solution to a problem or set of problems. People will buy you if they recognize your name and perceive you to be the solution to their problems.
I just got an interesting Tweat from Dan Zarrella, who I follow on Twitter. Dan calls himself a "social media and viral marketing scientist" because he studies how information spreads through social networks.
This week I began a series of articles about Integrating Online and Offline Social Networking in which I wrote about how way too much of the activities of people using tools like blogs, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, are little more than one-way shout outs.
In other words, many of us (myself included) are not using these tools to their full potential. Our (or at least my) behavior is a lot like those guys you see at Chamber of Commerce events who flit around from person to person handing out business cards and delivering a canned "elevator speech."
But in the offline world, we would all be much better off with a mere 25 names in our Roledex, than a massive collection of business cards, provided those 25 names are people we regularly call, have lunch with, send birthday cards to, send newspaper clippings, get to know their familes, and truly engage with.
The same holds true with online social networking.
Twitter is one of those marvelous tools that holds so much potential, yet is too often used as a way to deliver canned elevator speeches.
Which leads me back to Dan Zarrella and his work as a social networking scientist. The Tweet he sent me was about The Science of Retweats. "Tweets" refer to messages someone sends you on Twitter, which you may or may not "ReTweet" or forward on to others.
ReTweeting is where your message takes on legs and can spread all over the internet via one person on a social networking site passing your message on to others and these others passing them on to even more people, and so on.
This is what viral marketing is all about. Your message spreads from one person to another like a cold or flu. Except, of course, that you are are not spreading a disease, but valuable content.
The untapped potential of social networking tools is nothing short of breath taking.
"Hollcraft went from being a high school freshman in Portland, Oregon to an emerging artist aspiring to a deal from a major label. Her focus on providing tons of free music on MySpace and her own site, plus free editions of her personal manga (Japanese-style comics), generated a World Wide Rave.
Hollcraft and Nachtigal (Hollcroft's manager) figured that if they became big on MySpace, they could use that status as a compelling way to interest the record labels. “Bec’s MySpace page has been our most active page in promoting, getting feedback, and staying in contact with both fans and potential fans,” Nachtigal says.
“MySpace was the best vehicle for Bec because both fans and labels were spending a lot of time there. We decided that our strategy for shopping [ for a record label] or ‘going it alone’ [publishing and selling music themselves, without a label], would be virtually identical, so we began having Bec spend a lot of time and energy working her MySpace pages.
Bec was able to contribute a huge part in furthering her own career and getting an idea of who her supporters are.”
Bec's fame spread from fan to fan virally, just as your content and ideas can spread from Tweet to Retweet or from blog to blog, if you use the tools of social networking properly.
Viral marketing hinges upon your willingness to engage others, give some of your ideas and content away for free, and make real, true friends online (as opposed to the artificial form of "friends" that passes for networking online).
Check out Dan Zarrella, David Meerman Scott and Bec Hollcroft today for some inspiring ideas on how to get your ideas and reputation spreading virally through social networking.
NOT USING NON-SPAM EMAIL MARKETING FOR YOUR BUSINESS YET? Learn why email marketing is the easiest, most effective and most affordable way to get new clients. Download my free ebook and receive tips, ideas and case studies to help you get more new customers at http://www.trafficwave.net/lcp/chbrown/emailmarketing/6604. -----------------------------------------
Note: I originally wrote this article in 2006, but decided to reprint it for lawyers and other professionals who are finding it a struggle to get new clients during our tough economy. In many ways, it might be even more relevant today than it was when I first wrote it.
The road to rainmaking success for any professional involves communicating your area of expertise to potential clients through writing and speaking. It is rare to find a successful rainmaker who has not made use of one or both of these two communication formats.
Because of this, attorneys have a distinct advantage over other professionals. The very nature of practicing law already involves both writing and speaking.
Although most of a lawyer’s writing is directed toward other lawyers, most of this written material can be easily reframed to address the questions and concerns of non-lawyers. The typical attorney has filing cabinets full of written material he or she has already produced. With minimal effort, briefs, letters, wills, trust agreements and contracts can all be reworked and revised to become information products like tip sheets, articles, booklets, white papers, speeches and even full-length books.
Moreover, an attorney must read a great many cases, statutes, law journals, court opinions, briefs and letters written by opposing attorneys, and continuing legal education materials. Each of these materials can also be used as the foundation for producing information products.
Here are a few ideas to help get the rainmaking process started:
Begin with written materials you have already created. How might potential clients benefit from this information? Can you develop a brief you have written to warn business clients of some pitfalls to be aware of when signing a contract? Can you turn a pre-nuptial agreement into a short article on things to consider when entering into such an agreement?
Look for ideas that can be turned into tips sheet articles or a frequently asked questions (FAQs) articles. These are not only popular with readers and magazine editors, they are very easy to write.
If you are wanting to attract business clients, seek out the trade publications that service those target industries. Trade magazines are very open to articles written by non-professional writers. When your articles appear in these trade publications, you position yourself as an expert in the legal needs of that specific industry group.
Start a blog on a legal niche that you want to get more work in. If you only write two or three paragraphs a day, your material will grow quite rapidly. This material can then be revised into publishable articles. And don’t think starting a blog requires any technical skills. If you can send an email, you can start a blog in less than 15 minutes. Check out blogger.com to see just how easy it is.
Repackage the same written material you have been turning into articles and now create speech outlines and handouts to give to your audience. Once you have written a single article on a subject, you should be able to get speaking engagements on that same topic.
Repackage your written material once again to create press releases. Tip sheets make great inserts in a press package if the topic is of interest to the publication’s readers.
As you start to accumulate more and more written material, you may suddenly realize that just a little more effort could turn it all into a full-length book. Blogging (as long as you have been diligent about writing 2-3 paragraphs a day) especially has a way of writing a book for you, almost without your being aware how much material you have been writing.
A book is the ultimate rainmaking tool. Your topic may be too specialized to make a lot of money on book sales, but as a way to attract new clients, a book has few equals.
Remember, everything you write or ever have written, can be turned into information products. Non-lawyers find the law very interesting. As long as you can write to non-lawyers and remove jargon from your prose, you will find a receptive audience for your articles and other writings.
COPYRIGHT(C)2006, Charles Brown. All rights reserved.
The more I've been hanging out on sites like Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook, the more I've noticed that the typical user of these tools (myself included) are failing to use them as NETWORKING tools. I noticed this the other day when I realized that most of my tweats were little more than broadcasts.
In other words, I was doing what ordinarily makes me cringe when I see other marketers doing: Shouting out a one-way message with little thought of creating a conversation.
(Sigh) Will we/I never learn?
Social networking is about creating a conversation.
These remarkable new tools are wasted if we merely try to use them as new platforms from which to conduct old school marketing. The whole point of creating a list of "followers" or "friends" or "contacts," depending upon which social networking tool you are using, is to create a two-way dialogue with the people on your list.
All this leads me to the conclusion that we/I need to pull out some of the very best ideas on business networking from the pre-internet days, and put them into practice.
Case in point: One of my favorite business books of all time is Harvey MacKay's Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive. It was written before we all had email, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or any of the other social networking tools.
MacKay simply went about networking by being a friend in the traditional sense of the word, not a "friend" where we add a new person to our site with no knowledge of who this person is.
He developed a remarkable tool called the "MacKay 66" which was a checklist of 66 bits of information everyone of the salespeople who worked for him had to fill out about every buyer they called on.
The MacKay 66 had things like birthdates of not only the contact, but of his (they were mostly men in those days) wife and children. It also included things like what college the buyer attended or what his interests were.
But it was how MacKay and his people used this checklist that was so incredible. Not only did these buyers get birthday cards or calls, but so did his wife and children. If his alma mater was in the news, a newspaper clipping was mailed to him. If his team won (or lost) a big game, he got a clipping on that too.
MacKay's big lesson, of course, was not to just learn about a buyer per se, but about all your friends and business contacts. Keep up with them, send them useful information.
Modern Application: I have a client who is an avid deer hunter and outdoorsman. I realize now as I am writing this, that I ought to go into Goole Alerts and have emails sent to me about deer hunting every day. And I should especially have alerts sent to me about his industry and things that might interest him.
His wife absolutely loves horses and they own two of them. She rides in equestrian events all over. Why am I not sending her information about her interests as well?
Well obviously, I have work to do, so I need to get to it.
In the next article, we will explore this idea of integrating your online and offline social networking more.
Note: This article originally appeared on my other blog, Dynamic Copywriting on June 11, 2008. But I thought it was even more timely today for professionals seeking new clients during a recession.
Let's face the facts. Even if the president doesn't want to use the "R" word, we are already well into a tough economy. That means it is going to be harder for professionals like doctors, lawyers, consultants, accountants and others to attract new clients or get more business from their existing clients.
However there are a few steps professionals can take to still get business coming in the door, regardless of the economy:
Create "bait" information pieces like ebooks, downloadable audio files or videos, white papers, tip sheets or other digital booklets that provide valuable, free information for prospective clients.
These bait pieces are soft sell devices like, "8 Ways to Save on Property Taxes," "5 Ways to Avoid Getting Sued," or "How to Keep Your Children Well This Winter."
But a hard sell piece like, "10 Reasons Good, Hailey and Knight Should Be Your Accounting Firm" is not a good bait piece.
Turn every advertisement into a direct response ad – even Yellow Page or directory ads.
There are two types of advertisements, "awareness" ads and "direct response" ads. Awareness ads just tell prospects that you exist and if they have nothing better to do with their time, to give you a call.
Direct response ads entice readers to take action, such as to call your office or visit your website in order to get your white paper or tip sheet. When you advertise this way, you can actually measure how effective the ad is and make changes along the way.
Build a list. When people respond to your direct respond ads, collect these "opt in" leads to build a list. This concept is called "Permission Marketing" (based on the book by that name written by Seth Godin). This list of people who have requested your free information may become your most valuable resource, so take good care of it.
Make your website a resource for people who are prospective and existing clients. Don't be afraid to give away free information, but create more white papers, tip sheets, checklists, frequently asked questions (FAQs), and case studies about some of your clients success stories.
It may sound counter intuitive to give away free information, but you will find that it pays dividends. It gives visitors a reason to keep coming back to your site and it establishes your credibility as an expert in your field.
For those of us who sell our services and knowledge, a tough economy is a time to roll up our sleeves and work smarter. But if you do work smarter, use direct response advertising, build a list and create a website that your prospects view as a resource, you will be rewarded while your competitors tread water.
I consult with businesses on the strategic use of social media, web marketing and email marketing. I also speak and conduct workshops on social media marketing for organizations.
My team offers outsource solutions and training for companies needing to engage with their target market with social media.
Contact me at 817-501-6892 or by email at: or chbrown/at/webmarketing-coach.com.
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