SoloSavvy Blog for Solo Entrepreneurs » Internet Marketing

How To Get More Blog Comments

Jessica Swanson — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:00:36 +0000

Active commenting is one of the first signs that a blog has some real life—with it comes more readers, so put in the work it takes to grow this important tool.

Small business owners can easily take advantage of this tool now that so many people know what it is and know how to interact, but…you can do a few things to stimulate this interaction and draw more conversation.

1) Ask for comments. Sometimes just creating a post and inviting your readers to add comments can be just what you need to get them flowing. Commenting is a habit that you need to help build in your readership.

2) Ask questions and seek opinions. From time to time, ask your readers what they think of something or what they have done that works or how they have addressed a particularly challenging situation. You don’t need to have all the answers.

3) Comment on comments. When readers comment, you can encourage additional conversation by responding and showing that comments are welcome, even if the comment calls something you said into question. I’m guilty of ignoring this far too often.
I’ll get better, I swear!

4) Show some humanness. No matter what your blog topic is, readers like to know that the author is a human being. It’s OK to let that show and to add personal thoughts. Only you can determine how far to go with this, but I know that your readers will connect the more they know your story

5) Stir the pot from time to time. You don’t have to be a celebrity gossip blogger to stir up a little controversy. Often some of my best interactions come from topics that people are decidedly passionate about.

6) Make comment participation a game. Keep score and reward your most active commentators. I have installed the WP Top Commentators plug-in that keeps track of how many comments a particular reader makes and rewards them with a link. You can see it in
the left sidebar.

7) Make sure commenting is easy. Publish your comment feed and consider adding a Subscribe to Comments plug-in so that people get a notice when someone else comments on a post they are active on.

How To Promote Your Twitter Profile

Jessica Swanson — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:00:20 +0000

Obviously, you want your target market to have plenty of opportunities to find your Twitter account and follow you.
Here are a few ways to promote your Twitter profile:

Your Email Signature. It’s becoming common practice to include your Twitter handle in your email signature. You probably already place your blog or website URL in your email signature, so why not add your Twitter handle as well?

Your Website. Obviously, you want to have a Twitter icon on your website so that people who visit your website have a chance to follow you on Twitter.

Your Blog. Your blog is a great place to promote your Twitter account because you are already reaching an online audience. You should take a two-step approach. First, place a Twitter icon in your blog’s sidebar and second, promote your Twitter handle in your posts every so often.

Your Ezine. If you have an email newsletter, you can write about Twitter and link to your profile or put it at the bottom of your template, so that each email has a link to your account.

Presentations. If you do any public or online speaking why not include your Twitter account on the last slide of your presentation?

Your Business Card. I highly recommend including your Twitter handle on your business card.

Your Articles. Whenever you write an article for a magazine, news website or guest post on a blog, include your Twitter handle in your byline.

Promotional Products. If you’re really serious about promoting Twitter, you can certainly take it to the next level:
- Twitter T-shirts: http://www.twitter-tshirts.com
- Twitter mugs: http://www.zazzle.com/twitter+mugs
- Twitter bumper stickers: http://www.zazzle.com/twitter+bumperstickers

So, if you want to bring in loads of new Twitter followers, make sure to promote your Twitter profile in as many places as possible.

What To Tweet About – 10 Tips For Writing Powerful Press Releases

Jessica Swanson — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:00:10 +0000

When you write a press release, it’s important that it becomes a powerful marketing tool for you and your small business. You certainly don’t want to invest your time writing and distributing your release, only to discover that it didn’t bring you any traffic, leads or sales.
To ensure that your press release writing efforts are not in vain, here are ten tips for writing powerful press releases that work:

1) Provide Newsworthy Content. Make sure that your press release is timely and relevant to your readers. You can accomplish this by tying your story to current events, recent headlines or social trends.

2) Write Like a Reporter. When writing your release, use third-person (he, she, etc.) and a reporter-like format. Take a look at today’s newspaper to reacquaint yourself with the way that journalists write articles.

3) Capture Your Reader’s Attention Instantly. You only have a few seconds to capture your reader’s interest. Therefore, take time to create a compelling headline and a strong first paragraph.

4) Use Important Keywords. In order to optimize your press release for the search engines, identify what keyword phrase your readers will use when searching for your topic. For instance, if you are writing a press release about a new Twitter application that you invented, your important keyword phrase is: “new Twitter applications.” Incorporate your keyword phrase into your headline and throughout the body of your release.

5) Utilize Links, Files, Images and Videos. Many press release distribution services allow you to insert relevant files, images, links and videos to augment your press release. This allows your readers the chance to interact more fully and completely with your small business.

6) Provide Solutions. Illustrate to your readers how your small business has solved real-life problems for your clients and customers. In addition, if you can insert testimonials into your release, it will further enhance its effectiveness.

7) Just The Facts. Avoid exaggerations, hype or embellishments. Remember that today’s consumers are highly skeptical and that it’s important to establish an atmosphere of trust with your readers. The “truth and nothing but the truth” should be your small business motto.

Be Concise. Avoid long, drawn-out paragraphs, excessive use of adjectives and unnecessary redundancy. Make sure that your release is straight-forward and to the point. Save your flowery language for your poetry class.

9) Proofread. Don’t forget to proofread your press release for spelling and grammatical errors. Simple proofreading errors will instantly discredit your company’s professionalism.

10) Provide a Clear Call To Action. It should be crystal clear exactly what you want your readers to do after they read your press release. Do you want them to call a 1-800 number? Visit a website? Download a free offer? If you don’t tell your readers what to do, chances are they won’t do anything.

It’s important to remember that press releases work. However, you do need to follow a few simple tips to ensure that your press release will be successful.

Stand Out by Engaging Your Audience: Here’s How

Nancy Marmolejo — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 12:00:49 +0000

Yesterday I posted about engaging your followers… and how it’s not always that easy. Remember that first high school dance? Remember any social situation where you felt awkward? Nobody started off knowing how to flawlessly engage. We’re all learning on our feet!

Here’s a real life example of people jumping into a topic and getting lots of visibility from it.

I love to post “Elephant Under the Rug” topics… things that are on my mind that nobody seems to be talking about (but they SHOULD be talking about).

For instance, I’m up to my ears in telesummits. Like any cool idea, once it gets overdone it ceases to be cool and turns into a parody of itself.

So I posted a thought on Facebook:

Nancy Marmolejo I’m happy that so many people are doing telesummits to build their businesses, but I’m getting numb to SO MANY of them. How about we mash it up a bit peeps? Who said each call has to be 60 minutes? Let’s break the mold, it’s getting moldy!!

That single update was followed by a slew of reactions… all supportive of my opinion. This isn’t even all of the comments, but gives you a good idea of what can happen when you post a provocative topic.

And guess what I’m working on now? I’ll tell you at the end of this post.

Ej Shames agreed!! 20 min is a good amount of time. !!

Lisa Kline Agreed. My attention span for these is about 20 minutes.

Ken Donaldson I like it…I’ll start immediately…The 20 minute telesummit.com!!

Ej Shames oohhh.. Ken!! you are fast!!

Nancy Marmolejo People, we are moving and shaking things up. Seriously… Ken you get that going and make sure you have EJ as a guest. She’s got an 18 min and 40 second talk!!

Shawn Driscoll You’ve heard me say it before Nancy..the adult mind can only stay ‘passive listener’ for a maximum of 20 minutes. Then–multitasking, mindwandering, and all that numbs us from taking more in takes over. Engage folks…..or lose them. Love the idea of a 15 minute format! or 18.5 minutes even better!

Terri McMahon Zwierzynski I think we’ve got something here with the 20 minutes max concept!

MaryPat Kavanagh What an amazing conversation! I LOVE it!

Stacy Newman Karacostas Great ideas here! I too am suffering a bit of telesummit overwhelm lately. And I LOVE both giving and listening to twenty minute talks. You can get enough meat in there without losing folks.

Ej, I’m with you on the transcripts. I’m a super-fast reader and a so-so listener so I’d rather read the transcripts than listen to the audio.

On a slightly different note, I’d also like to put forth a motion that presentations at live events last no more than 1:15. My attention span, my back and my bladder all have trouble making it much longer and it seems the new trend is a tortuous 1:30.

Pat Fortin Mussieux I’m with you, Nancy – I’m a person of few, but powerful, words! Yup – shake it up, baby……

Stacey Hylen Yes I agree and this will be my 4th year doing Business Optimization Week and @Nancy you were my only 2 time speaker since you got such rave reviews! I am going to shake it up this year.

I hosted another event www.RapidProfitBoosters.com last year and it was all 20 mins per speaker. The funny thing is that I heard one of my speakers at anohter event the same month and he did the same content in an hour that he presented in 20 mins in my interview!!

Nili Marcia Remembering the line “Half again.” from A River Runs Through It where father edited son’s writing, telling him to cut it in half. Being forced to be succinct makes us think more clearly. I’m not too thrilled by the flip side, though, which is short =’s shallow.

And here’s the answer to what I’m working on right now: you got it, a 20 minute presentation!

Feeling inspired? Here are some immediate action steps you can take:

Find an “Elephant Under the Rug” topic and see how your audience responds. (Note: don’t turn it into a bitchfest, be sure to focus on solutions)

Share an intelligent comment or idea in response to someone else’s update

Practice a compelling 20 minute presentation that does the job!

What To Tweet About – 5 Tips For The Small Business Owner

Jessica Swanson — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:00:42 +0000

There are countless topics within your industry to Tweet about. However, there are a few guidelines to keep in mind. First and foremost, don’t forget that your Tweets can never be deleted; they exist in the Twitter universe forever and ever. So, don’t Tweet anything that you wouldn’t want your sweet, little-old grandma to read!

In addition, if you want to become a bonafide Twitter rockstar, then each of your Tweets should contain ONE of the following FIVE elements:

1) Educational. It’s vital that some of your Tweets offer educational value to your followers. This can be a tip, link to a blog post, or a new strategy that you want to share. As you begin Tweeting educational Tweets to your followers, it won’t take long before you are viewed as an expert in your particular industry.

2) Interesting. No boring tweets allowed! There’s only so many times that you can announce what you had for breakfast before your followers start yawning and pushing the unfollow button. So, even though you want your posts to be squeaky-clean and positive, stay away from Tweets that only your kids would find interesting.

3) Funny. Tweets that are funny are always a refreshing change from the norm and will never go out of style. Try telling a joke in your industry or relating a story that will make your followers chuckle. Laughter is great marketing medicine.

4) Interactive. There’s nothing more important on Twitter than interacting with your followers. You can do this on a casual level by asking them questions, replying to their comments or RTing interesting Tweets. Or, you can take it a step further and engage your audience with fun Twitter quizzes and polls. It’s important to remember that the main reason you are on Twitter is to engage with your followers.

5) Arouse Curiosity. Once in a while, you want to ask a titillating question or make an intriguing statement that will compel your followers to take action and discover the answer. One simple way you can do this is by asking them an interesting question and then directing them to the answer in your blog post. The main point is that you want to entice your followers to take action and click over to a blog post, article, video, podcast or your website.

No matter what you Tweet about, it’s essential that your tweets are relevant to your followers. If you make a point to make each Tweet educational, interesting, funny, interactive or titillating, you will be well on your way to a virtual PhD in Twittering.

Find Time to Explore Your Inner Twitter

Paula Eder — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 21:00:18 +0000

Finding time to engage with tweeps on Twitter, while not losing yourself to cyberspace, is an ongoing challenge. In previous posts we’ve talked about using a timer to manage your Twitter time (as well as your time on other social networking sites).

If you haven’t found the time to buy yourself a timer yet, here’s an elegant little idea from Inner Twitter for bringing mindfulness to your Twitter time.

How does it work? When you go to the Inner Twitter site you’re offered three different tweeps to follow. Each one sends out a “chime” message on different time schedule. As a follower of a user with a particular chime schedule you’ll receive the chime at its designated time, and then you can choose how to respond to it. Here’s a sample message from @mindful15:

……..*chime*…………..Mon May 17 10:29:01 2010

How might you respond to this chime when it arrives in your Twitter feed? Here are a few suggestions from Inner Twitter:

1. Stop.

2. Let any tension you are carrying drain away.

3. Meditate on your breathing.

4. Notice whatever is immediately before you.

5. Potentially share your observations.

Please don’t feel like you must follow these steps. You may observe the chime in anyway you wish. It’s completely up to you. The idea is to just stop every once in a while.

Do you currently find ways to give yourself small breaks during your on-line work? Would something like Inner Twitter be helpful to you? Do you have other ideas that you’d like to share? (I’d love to hear!)

Here’s to your time and internet success!?

Hosting Your Own Teleclass? 6 Dos and Don’ts for a Successful Outcome

Tracey Lawton — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 20:00:31 +0000

Hosting teleclasses is one of my absolute favorite list building strategies. Apart from being easy to do, it’s a great way to interact with my audience and get to know them, and also let them get to know me. But as with anything new there’s always a learning curve involved.

Over the years I’ve developed my own style for hosting teleclasses and found some shortcuts that allow me to present my content so that everything flows smoothly. Today I’d like to share with you my top six dos and don’ts for hosting teleclasses so that you can shorten your learning curve when you’re ready to host your own teleclasses:

1. Do prepare notes and timings. Even though you want your information to flow naturally from one point to the next, it’s also really important to have a plan and something to refer to so that you can stay on track. Planning out your topic timings means that you’ll also be able to deliver all of the information that you want to share, and within the timeframe that you’ve allocated. It also shows that you respect your attendee’s time too by sticking to your published schedule.

2. Don’t staple your notes together but do number your pages. I realize this may sound like a contradiction – if your notes are not stapled together you could easily lose your page (which is why I tell you to number them). However it’s so much easier to turn pages that are not bound than it is to fiddle around turning pages that are stapled. And any added distraction will only cause you to lose focus when you’re presenting your teleclass.

3. Do make sure you’re comfortable. This goes from the room you’re presenting in to the clothing that you’re wearing (and everything inbetween). Okay, I know it’s a teleclass and no-one can see you, but if you’re not comfortable with what you’re wearing and constantly fiddling around with it, you will come across as sounding distracted and not focused. This also goes for your surroundings too – if they’re not conducive to delivering your information, i.e. background noise, it will come through in your delivery and your attendees will sense that.

4. Do give yourself plenty of room. When I host my teleclasses I prefer to sit on the floor rather than sit at my desk. This allows me plenty of space to lay out my notes and any other materials that I may have without having to have everything bundled together on my desk. And it also goes to point three above – I’m much more comfortable sat on the floor with plenty of space around me which means that I’ll be able to focus much better.

5. Do be respectful of your attendee’s time. This means making sure you stick to your teleclass timings and if necessary ensure that you have a timer or watch in front of you at all times. Personally I take off my watch and have it on the floor in front of me so I can see the time throughout my call.

6. Do mute your attendees out during your presentation. This is important because you will get a much better quality recording if the line is completely clear of any background noise; and it also means your attendees get a clear line too. You can always open up the lines for questions at the end of your call.

Follow these simple steps above and you’ll soon be on your way to hosting your own successful teleclasses.

About the author: Online Business Development Strategist, Tracey Lawton, teaches online solo service professionals how to create the essential online marketing and office organization systems needed so that they can create a more streamlined, systemized, and automated online business. Check out http://www.officeorganizationsuccess.com for fr.ee how-to articles, resources, tips, and tools, and sign up for your fr.ee “Office Organization Success Toolkit”.

Wish, Hope, and Pray Marketing

Sue Painter — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 14:00:10 +0000

With apologies to one of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Gilbert, I want to ask you to assess your marketing with a cold eye and an honest look. Tell me…..is your marketing system based on the wish, hope, and pray method? Here are some signs that it is:

No one in your organization has a clear mission of responsibility for creating and running a constant marketing system.
Marketing falls to the back of the list after client services, bookkeeping, scheduling, errands, and dusting the office.
Networking in the community and on the Internet is catch-as-catch-can and is handed off to the least busiest person.
You have no idea how many new customers you have gained in the last 30, 60, or 90 days.
You have no idea how many customers you haven’t heard from in the last 30, 60, or 90 days.
You don’t really like to market, think it is hard to do, and believe that great customer service alone will do the trick.
Your marketing system consists of trying to upsell existing clients when they are in (think about the hair salon syndrome….you can’t get out of there without running the gauntlet of hair product, make-up, and spa service suggestions every single time you are there).

If even one of these hits home, you are in the wish, hope, and pray mode and you need to get out of it, fast! Consider your business as a three legged stool, the three legs being marketing, customer service, and expertise. Each of the three legs is completely dependent on the other two, as the stool won’t work without them all.

Your expertise is what you do, your magic, your passionate purpose.
Your customer service is all the things you develop and carry out to ensure your customers get 5-star treatment, including how you take care of displeasure and disappointment when it occurs.
Your marketing is a planned, ongoing, automated system that feeds you a constant flow of potential new customers.

Each leg of the stool is key, and each is as important as the other. If you have sawed off a leg by your disinterest, busyness, or avoidance, I suggest you wish, hope, and pray before you sit yourself on the stool. You may balance for a little while, but in the end you’ll be on the ground. And that’s one place no solopreneur wants to be.

Increase Product Sales with These 3 Types of Special Offers

Tracey Lawton — Wed, 19 May 2010 20:00:17 +0000

When you’re an online solo service professional (solopreneur) it’s crucial that you move away from the hours-for-dollars business model and create a multiple streams of income business, i.e. your income comes from a variety of different sources:

Passive income through the sale of information products.
Leveraged income by creating and running group programs.
One-on-one client income; this is your highest level service and you only work with a few clients at this level.

Creating passive income in your business through the sale of information products is at the heart of a multiple streams of income business. And once sales are going well you can be generating a consistent income each and every month.

Sometimes, though, you need to give sales a little helping hand, particularly if you’re launching a new product. Today I’d like to share with you three ways in which you can increase your product sales through using special offers.

1. Create a coupon. If your shopping cart service allows you to do this, coupons are a really quick and easy way to offer a discount. You have lots of options when it comes to creating coupons; you can set them up for a dollar amount, a percentage amount, a specified time period, or even a minimum purchase amount. Simply create a coupon in your shopping cart, give it a name (which is the coupon code), and then tell your customers the code they need to input at the checkout in order to get the discount.

2. Create a time sensitive discount. This follows on from the point above and involves creating a coupon; however the reason that I really like this special offer is that you can set the expiration date on your coupons too. This is really handy if you want to run a special promotion through to, say, midnight on a certain date (you know the type of offer I mean – this is very common). But what’s so neat is that you don’t have to be sat at your PC at midnight to switch the pricing over – the coupon will automatically expire and your pricing will revert to normal – completely automated!

3. Offer a bonus product. For a certain period of time you could also offer a bonus product; this could be another one of your lower-priced products, or a special teleclass or report, or anything else that you think will add value to the product you are currently promoting. Very often someone will buy your product because they’re getting your bonus too. Also set a deadline on the bonus to encourage your customers to take action. This could be purchase before a certain date or offer a limited number of bonuses.

Don’t just save these ideas for when you’re launching a new product; use them when you want to re-launch an existing product, get sales moving for one of your other products, or you simply want to give your business a boost.

4 Easy Ways to Integrate List Building Into Your Current Online Marketing

Rebecca Zwar — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 18:07:10 +0000

If you’ve spent much time marketing anything online, you’ve probably heard the mantra “The money is in the list”. And that’s usually true, especially if you’re consciously building a list of targeted subscribers – people who want and need the types of services or products you provide.

One thing clients often say is “How can I be sure my list is targeted? I can’t control who signs up!”

So before we get into the ways to integrate your list building efforts, here are a few tips to ensure that all those new signups are really targeted to what you offer:

- First and foremost, do you have a freebie? If not, you should! That is, by far, the easiest way to get people to actually sign up. Most people do NOT want any more emails in their inbox than absolutely necessary, and generally won’t sign up to get a newsletter if there’s not anything else in it for them. So create a freebie that hits a nerve for them, and makes them “gotta have it”. You can get ideas from questions that clients ask you over and over again, or by polling clients or even your network on Facebook and Twitter to find out what their burning questions are.

-Use language that excludes people that aren’t right for you. So if you’re a coach for single parents, mention single parents in your freebie title. As an example, my freebie is “11 Easy & Effective Steps to Creating a Search Engine and Social Media Friendly Business Blog“. If someone stumbles across my website, but doesn’t have a business blog, or they don’t care about search engine and social media traffic, that freebie won’t speak to them. They won’t care about that info, and so they won’t signup. This ensures that the people that sign up want the kind of expert advice that you’re providing.

Take a good hard look at your current freebie or newsletter signup. Is it speaking right to your ideal clients? Is it compelling – something that will help them solve a problem they’re currently having?

You may decide it’s time to change things up a bit, and now’s the time to do it!

Once you’re confident that what you’re offering speaks right to your ideal client, here are the 4 Easy Ways to Integrate List Building Into Your Current Online Marketing:

1. Your Website or Blog – this may seem basic, but do you have your freebie and signup displayed prominently on your site? All to often I see clients wondering why nobody is signing up for their list, but when I check out their site, it’s very hard to find their signup. It’s at the bottom of the page, or on one page but not another. You want to display your freebie & signup consistently on every page, as close to the top as you can get it. Ask a friend or family member to sign up for your newsletter, and you’ll get a much more honest picture of how easy-to-spot and compelling your offer is. If the text blends into the rest of the page, or the page is too busy, you might consider having an ebook cover designed – this gives more pizzazz to your offer, and also increases the perceived value.

2. Your Resource Box on Article Directories – are you using article marketing for your business? If so, do you mention your freebie (with a link to sign up) in your Resource Box? Why not? That is a great place to encourage signups. They’ve read your article and hopefully have found it of value, but they’re not on your site! If they leave now, they won’t have any idea that you offer a great freebie related to that exact topic!

3. Your Social Media Profiles – if you’re active on social media, you probably have your website listed. Hopefully, you have a well crafted business description that speaks to your ideal client, and tells them exactly how you can help them. But did you know that you can actually provide a way for them to sign up right from within Facebook? You can use the Profile HTML app or the Static FBML app to display html code right on the sidebar of your personal profile or on your Fan Page.

On Twitter you can have a custom Twitter background created that gives visitors more info about you, and directs them where to go to sign up for your freebie.

On your YouTube videos, add the signup link to the description box, or use the annotation feature to add the web address right onto the video itself.

If you’re already using social media regularly, then let it work double-time and help you with your list building efforts!

4. Your Offline Marketing Materials – just because list building is thought of as an online tool, there’s no reason you can’t promote your freebie on all your offline marketing materials as well! Create a short, compelling description of your freebie, and add that to your business cards, postcards, invoices, proposals, or any other offline correspondance. This will give you leverage to build your list with people that may not be as active online, but are still a good fit for you.