Archives for July 2011

3 Steps to Attract 1000 Fans

You’ve created your blog and you’re wondering why you’re not getting traffic? You have to actually tell people about all the great things that you have created for them! Wouldn’t it be great to be able to create something that will just work by itself so that you can concentrate on your business? This is where social networking enters the marketing arena. This will be a very tactical post that tells you exactly how to accomplish getting more fans, so let’s get started!

Twitter

Set Up Your Profile Have you set your profile? Really, go look at it. Do you have your picture out there? 95% of people will not connect to others who have not put their picture on their profile. Why? Because they feel like they are trying to hide something or are otherwise dishonest. Is your bio blank? Go ahead and add some information there such as where you live, what you do, where you work, who your best customer is. It doesn’t need to go into really personal details, but give people something to help you and determine if they want to connect with you. Lastly you’ll want to create a background for your profile. It makes you stand out!

Find Software I’m willing to bet that you don’t have time to be interrupt your work 10 times a day to make sure you tweet something to your followers. Wait! I’ll have followers?! Yes, what you have to say is important and people will follow you to hear what you have to say. Wouldn’t it be great to have a system to automatically take care of making sure you connect with your present and future clients? The software I use for this task is called Tweet Adder. Tweet Adder is great because it works silently in the background on your behalf. They even have a 30-Day free trial.

Add People I’m sure that you know the top performers in your industry. Wouldn’t it be great to find out who is following those people and wouldn’t it be even better if those people followed you too? Or, better yet, wouldn’t you like to know who the influencers in your industry are following? Simply set up the software to follow the followers of your influential people along with who the influencers follow and set the software to follow back all who follow you and you’re on your way to creating your first 100 fans in record time!

Start Tweeting This seems pretty obvious; however, you’d be surprised at how many people simply do not do this. Tweet about what is new and interesting in your business. Are you having a new product promotion? Will your store hours be changing for the season? Is there something your current customers should be thinking about or doing to make things easier for themselves? Tell them about it and include a link back to your website to get more information or make an appointment. Tweetmeme is a great free plug-in for tweeting about what you have just posted on your blog.

Facebook

Create a Fan Page Create a Fan Page for your business so that people can read about the new and interesting things that your business is doing. Set up an opt-in area with some valuable content that you give away for free when people click the “like” button on your fan page. That way they stay up-to-date with your business. This will help you to build your prospective customer list. Set your blog up with Networked Blogs and your blog posts will automatically appear on your Fan Page.

Invite Friends Invite your friends to like your business fan page so that they can stay up to date with what your business is doing and when they hear of someone needing your products or services, they can refer them.

Ask High Profile People to Become Fans You’d be surprised at how many influential people will actually help you on your way by liking your business fan page. They remember what it was like when they started out and once others see that they are following you, their fans will want to follow you too!

Post Regularly When you post to your blog, you’ll want to also tweet about each post and place a bit of the article on your fan page with a link back to your blog. You can set up your blog to automatically publish to your fan page so that you don’t have to update your fan page. It is automatically done for you! I love it when the computers work for me.

Top Lists

Create a Title The best way to start to create a top whatever list is to just create a title. Once you have the title, you can go about the work to create the list. Top lists drive close to 30% more traffic compared to other types of posts and they’re so easy to create.

Outsource If you don’t have the time to create your list, you can outsource it. I would recommend posting an ad on Fiverr.com and see if you can find someone to do the work for you.

Post Of course, once you have the post created, you’ll want to post it to your blog and watch to see how much traffic you receive. You’ll be amazed.

Twitter/Facebook Yes, once again, you’ll want to tweet and post to your Fan page that you have a new post on your blog. If you’ve already set Tweetmeme and Networked Blogs up to go automatically, it’s already been done for you!

Heat Wave Kills Electronics

By SoftwareGirl

Do what you can over the next several weeks to keep as cool as possible! That goes for your electronics too. As the heat wave in the US continues to move East and get even hotter, remember to keep your electronics out of the heat and do not leave them in your vehicle. That includes your GPS device, cell phone, laptops, all your electronics. The excessive heat can warp the circuit boards, keyboards, and the screens.

Leaving electronics in the trunk of your vehicle will expose your equipment to temperatures in excess of 115 degrees. If you find yourself out with your electronics, just take them with you. It’s much less hassle than having to repair or replace and reprogram everything.

If you have sprinkler system or alarm system circuitry in your garage and the temperatures are creeping over 110 degrees, it’s time to think about moving a fan into the garage to attempt to cool things down there too.

Venturing out to the pool to keep cool? Don’t leave your iPad or laptop on a metal table as that will cause issues as well. It’s best to keep the electronics inside where it is much cooler. Think cool thoughts everyone and we’ll get through this!

Blogging for Business Growth

By SoftwareGirl

Gone are the days when having a website meant that you had a cute picture of your store front with your business name, address, phone number and hours of operation. Today’s website needs to include a blog, social network connections, free give-away items, an area to get more information from the business, an area to submit an e-mail from the website, items for sale and in some cases an events calendar.

Does that sound like a lot of hats to wear in addition to your normal day-to-day operations? Actually, it’s a blessing rather than a curse. It’s a blessing because you don’t have to do everything yourself. You are able to hire someone else to do some of the work for you at a reasonable rate. Other tasks can be created once and automated so that you can get back to the normal operations of your business.

The websites of today can introduce several additional streams of passive and residual income to your bottom line. The optin area is used to gather names and email addresses for people who are interested in learning more about what you have to offer or perhaps to receive your monthly newsletter. The email addresses are fed to your auto-responder software to send out communication to your current and prospective customers to let them know key items about your business.

For instance, let’s say you have a heating, ventilation and air conditioning business. Every fall it starts to get cold and every spring it starts to get warm. Every month we’re supposed to change the filter in our systems. What if every summer, your email system automatically began to notify customers that they needed to contact your company to set up an appointment to have their furnace serviced to take advantage of the Early Bird special? What if every winter, your email system automatically began to notify customers that they needed to contact your company to set up an appointment to have their air conditioner serviced to take advantage of the Spring Early Bird special?

Customers might even choose to schedule their appointments and pay for the service prior to you performing the service. It’s convenient for them and would remove some receivables from your books. WooHoo! Instant cash flow! I can see your accountant clicking their heals already.

Your blog could be used to educate your customers on the proper way to install a filter or drain a sprinkler system. It could also be used to let your current and prospective customers that you regularly maintain the local soup kitchen for no charge just because you like to give back to your community. Your blog gives your business a human touch to an otherwise cold relationship. If your little business will be doing an exhibit at the local home and garden show, you can let your customers know to stop by and see you to pick up their coupon for one of your services along with something nice to drink. People like to do business with people whom they know, like and trust. You may not have time and resources to meet and greet all your customers, so put some systems in place to do that work for you.

Take a look at the website you have today. If your website is more like an unlit billboard in the night than a fully interactive, systematized money-making machine, consider having an Action Strategy Session with me so that you can begin adding more to your bottom line before your competition gets a hold of this valuable information. The normal investment for this service is $349.00. The Action Strategy Session is even priced for today’s economy because you can take advantage of the Take Action Special for $97.00. You may just find there are 10-15 different income streams that you can take advantage of that you hadn’t even thought about before your Session. Reserve your time at I’m always happy to help!