Are you having a hard time driving traffic to your blog?  Here are a couple of easy tips on how to share your blog post on Facebook.  Remember it is your responsibility to get the word out about your business, website or blog – not their job to come find it.  Don’t forget – you need to make it easy for people to share you online through social media share buttons.

I have a client named Peggy.  She had a morning routine that included cleaning the house, working out and quiet reflective time before she started her work day.  Peggy was driving herself crazy because she never got started before 10 am but always intended to start working much earlier in the day.  The end result was she worked far past her desired workday and felt constantly pulled in 50 different directions at any given time.

How many of you can relate to this?  When you started your business, did you dream of freedom?   Did you imagine having all the time in the world to spend with your family and friends?

Is the reality different from what you expected?  Most business owners have a tough time moving from employee to entrepreneur.

Making that step comes from understanding what you do best and focusing on doing just that.  And then, DELEGATING the rest.  There it is that nasty 8 letter word – delegate.

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If you’re like many business owners, you know you need to embrace social media but you may not be sure entirely how to make it worth your time.  Facebook is no exception!  Just because you have a Facebook page for your business or service doesn’t mean you’re engaging your audience and making the most of the medium.

Here’s 3 steps to help you make the most of your Facebook timeline!

Step One: Who sees that again?

Remember, you have a variety of traffic who can view your Facebook page.   You may not want every group to see every item that you post.  Spend some time deciding which groups you would like to display your content to.  You can use the Facebook categories to tweak what content shows up to various people.  For instance, you may want to limit your truly personal messages to close friends while everyone can see business related posts.  Some common ways to organize your information are shown below:

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It is definitely a tedious task, but it is so important to take the time to measure the results of campaigns that you’re sending out.  It isn’t enough to just send them out, you have to know if they’re working too!

The key think you want to look at is conversions.  This can be sales, newsletter signups, or form submission but you want to look at the goal of the campaign and see if you’re converting sends to that goal.  Look at those conversions and then ask yourself some questions.  How much time did you spend on that conversion?  How much money did you spend on the conversion?  If you were selling a product, what was your return on investment (ROI)?

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Facebook advertising is a very powerful (and still fairly inexpensive) way to reach your audience precisely.  Facebook been instrumental in the growth of decisive minds – so I thought I would share some quick tips on creating a Facebook ad or Sponsored story.

How do you create a sponsored story or ad?  Simply visit www.facebook.com/ads/create and get started with a simple, three-step process, first using your existing Facebook account as your login.  (No one will be able to see your personal details.)

You can define your target audience based on existing profile categories: (This is where Facebook gets its power)

• Location

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Have you been working very hard at building your list?  Do you create customized, personalized e-mails that share valuable content with your audience?  But, then nobody reads them?  Super frustrating.  So, how do you get people to open your e-mails – here are three tips for you:

Come from a place of being helpful not just looking for a sale?   If you only send e-mails when you have something to sell – then people will only open the emails when they feel like buying something (not often).   If you offer helpful content in *every* e-mail (whether you are selling or not) – your prospects will look forward to your emails and happily open them.

Pique curiosity — People get hundreds of emails a day.  What are you doing to make your e-mail stand out?  Scan your e-mails – which ones are YOU opening?  Be careful here.  You can really annoy your subscribers if you they open an e-mail that promises interesting content – but is just huge sales pitch.  Respect your audience – and they’ll respect you.

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I just love it when I look into the social media crystal ball to predict the future and I’m right.  For the past six months I’ve been saying that images are going to be *much* more important in Facebook – and the new timeline layout shows that I’m right.

To really understand the new timeline and what it means,  it is really helpful to look at Facebook’s own goals.

They want to sell advertising.  It’s as simple as that.  And to do so, they need to pack in as many ads as possible.

One of the main ways the new Timeline format fits in with these goals occurs thanks to Facebook’s new Edge Rank algorithm.  Edge Rank gives a new priority to photos, closely followed by illustrated links and videos.

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Speaking is one of the best possible ways to boost your expert profile.  Today, I spent a few hours with my private coaching clients going over their speaker’s sheets.  Yes, it is that important.  (For those of you are are new here… a speaker’s sheet is a packet of information with your picture, bio and topics you can speak about.)  Everyone who is a coach or expert needs a speaker’s sheet.

Once that is taken care of, the next step is to find some places to speak.  Remember, that teleseminars and webinars count too (and sometimes are an easier place to get started).

Here are three great ways to find speaking gigs (even if you are just starting out – and even if you are aiming for webinars and not live events).

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No one wants to wake up and see that their website has been replaced with a screen that says “HACKED” and yet it is becoming more and more common. Perhaps you heard about New York Times and other major sites getting hacked recently. When this happens, there are a lot of questions people ask; today’s post will cover the top 5 questions people ask about website security.

1. How many websites get hacked each week?

One 17 year old hacker admitted to hacking 50,000 websites in one week. That was in 2009. The numbers of hackers and their abilities to hack into websites have been increasing. Perhaps you thought with the millions of websites odds were in your favor of not getting hacked. The hackers are increasing the odds in their favor so that it is simply a matter of time before any particular website gets hacked.

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Do you feel a little tongue tied when it comes to social media?   I think we all are from time to time.  You know that posting frequently is one of the best ways to build your community and credibility.  And, you also want to create content that engages your audience so that they’ll keep coming back for more.   Honestly, it took me a while to get the balance exactly right for my audience — and I’m still tweaking what works.    I’ve found that the posts that get the most engagement are interesting, engaging and add value.

Think about how each post adds value to the conversation.  Use what I call the “party test”.  “You don’t exactly go to a party and start spouting off what you had for breakfast (unless you are recommending a great new breakfast place).  You might tell someone about you and your business – if it is in context with the rest of the conversation.  Social media works the same way.  Make sure that your content is relevant.

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