Category Archives: Building Visibility

Selling Your Expertise on LinkedIn – 7 Makeover Tips for a LinkedIn Profile

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Image from Microsoft Office

After watching an episode of Pimp My Ride on MTV where an old and nearly broken down car was being renovated into a car with a new life and an extremely loud sound system, I recently wondered how I can do the same to my LinkedIn profile. I wanted to make selling myself not sound like a broken record and add a little life to a dull LinkedIn Profile. So I gave myself a homework assignment of fixing my LinkedIn profile and finding what works to become visible and stand out from the rest.

Have you ever wondered how to stand out from the crowd on LinkedIn? Recently, I gave my LinkedIn profile a makeover and have been surprised by the results. Even with a degree in marketing, I too, have to go back to the drawing board and figure out what message is going to connect with my clients or future audience.

Image from Microsoft Office

Here are 7 LinkedIn makeover tips I have learned:

1.) Headline

This is probably the most important part of LinkedIn. It is where someone can make his or her first impressions of you; it is your slogan. Or think of it as an elevator pitch in one line or less. To come up with the best headline for myself, I researched others in the industry to see what they are saying.

Mary Lassiter

If you are in transition or unemployed, here are some example you can use in your headline:

  • Experienced sales representative seeking new opportunities
  • Open to new opportunities and seeking a career in clothing design
  • Marketing professional in transition

Need more ideas for a headline? Look at this example.

To make your headline stand out here are some bullet points or characters you can use:

  • Traditional bullets: ●•◆■ ♦ ◊
  • Arrows: ☛ ☚ ☜ ☝ ☞ ☟ ⇨ ► ◄ ► »
  • Email: ✉ ✍ ✎ ✏ ✑ ⌨
  • Phone: ✆ ☎ ☏
  • Stars: ★☆ ✪✰✯
  • Ticks: ✘✔ ☐☒☑
  • Other fun symbols: ☃ ☂ ☁ ☀♥☺♪♫ ♠ ♣ ♥ ♦ ▌↔ ☠ ♘ ♝

You can find more ideas at the Linkedin Makeover website. Also for using Wingdings symbols for social media click here.

2.) Photo

Image from Microsoft OfficeImage from Microsoft Office

Strike a pose! Uh Oh! You don’t have to be a model but you do need a good photo. A good photo is a balance between professionalism and approachability, making you look good but also real. Here are some suggestions from the professionals:

  • Pleasant smile – Make someone feel welcome, show those pearly whites.
  • An interesting angle – Try not to do a mug shot but rather a shot that shows confidence such as tilting your head slightly or looking over your shoulder at the camera.
  • Dress the part with professional attire – What would you wear to an interview or business meeting? Jeans and t-shirt or business suit?
  • Simple background – Colors can alter emotions; blue or green can convey trust and confidence.
  • A sign of your personality - Is it your pose? Is it a prop?Think about how to make your photo more memorable.

Here is another interesting observation: To wear glasses or not to wear glasses?

3.) Custom URL

Mary Lassiter

This is part of your branding. Try to have the same name across all social media platforms. If you don’t change the URL, it is just a really long bunch of meaningless words, numbers and slashes that will look really weird on a business card (plus who is going to want to type that long address anyways?). This will also help with search engine optimization when someone is looking for you.

Ready to change your URL on LinkedIn? Here is how to change it: click on “Edit profile,” then, “Public profile.” In the right-hand column, select “Your URL” and type in a URL that actually has something to do with your name or brand name that you have chosen for all the social media platforms.

4.) Summary

This is your advertisement and probably the hardest part of a LinkedIn Profile to create. This is your chance to write a cover letter before the resume, a chance to explain your experiences. Demonstrate your passion for your work and tell us what separates you from the world. You can explain what you do for clients and employers, why and how you do it, and your accomplishments. Remember, you are human and you need to make a connection with the human resources department or with a potential client and explain what you can do for them. Let your enthusiasm show with a call to action! Here are some excellent examples.

5.) Experience

Add a basic explanation of your roles and responsibilities by emphasizing your successes and by including quantitative results. This section does not need to include every experience. If you had jobs that do not support your present business goals, just put titles and date ranges for those jobs. For more relevant experience, add more detail in the form of bullet points or narratives about your many achievements.

Image from: http://careerservices.linkedin.com/profile/

6.) Skills

Keywords are important and create a way to help people find you. LinkedIn will suggest specific skills that are the most common based on your experience. If the keywords that LinkedIn picked are relevant to you, then use them. However, to really stand out from the other fish in the pond, use keywords that are used by your customers and clients. This could mean doing some searching on Google and LinkedIn to see what others in your industry are using.

Mary Lassiter

Get your colleagues to endorse your skills!

7.) Recommendations

Although most recommendations are solicited, most of us can’t help reading testimonials. Recommendations make you look like a real human with experience and knowledge and with customers, clients and co-workers willing to tell their experience working with you. Besides just having you doing all the talking on LinkedIn, it allows others to leave comments about you and therefore adds a sense of depth to you. Recommendations are like good karma; be the first to write one and chances are good that someone will write one for you.

Need help creating a recommendation? Try this recommendation generator. 

Start writing those recommendations … Pass on the good karma!

…

Did you find this post helpful? Do you have any tips for LinkedIn Profiles? Let us know your thoughts.

5 Reasons to Use LinkedIn

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Image from: http://nowsourcing.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/linkedin-motivation.jpg

This week, we will be getting into the niche social media platform of LinkedIn. Some topics we will explore are: reasons to be on LinkedIn, making a profile stand out, groups and ways to grow a business on LinkedIn.

To better define LinkedIn, it is a social networking website for professional occupations and used mainly for professional networking. As of June 2012, LinkedIn has 175 million registered users. Using the site Quantcast to profile the demographics of LinkedIn users we find that: 51% are male and 49 % are female with the dominant age range being 25 to 64 years old but with a growing number of 18 to 24 year olds. Most users have a college education or a graduate degree.

Quantcast.com – Gender Profile on LinkedIn

Quantcast.com – Age Profile on LinkedIn

Quantcast.com – Education Profile on LinkedIn

Is LinkedIn right for me? It all depends on your profession and your goal. For me, LinkedIn is a great tool for developing business and establishing contacts a world away.

When making a move from France to the United States this year, LinkedIn was a lifesaver of sorts. It was not easy to make connections and network with the Atlantic Ocean in the way and I can’t even imagine trying to make a complete life-changing jump across the pond without the use of the internet and social media platforms. When I knew I was getting on the airplane to come back to the States this past June, I used LinkedIn to join groups in the Philadelphia area that were marketing specific and then slowly started to build a network of contacts. Once I joined a group, I would individually reach out and connect to members by asking if they knew of networking opportunities or would be willing to just go out for coffee to help me better understand the lay of the land and opportunities that were available. Eventually I established a network of resources that made it easier to hit the ground running when I got off the plane this past August.

Uh Oh! LinkedIn may not be for everyone. For instance, someone in certain technical fields where people don’t normally do a lot of networking may have a harder time finding other colleagues actively using LinkedIn to connect with others in potential companies. Nonetheless, there is no harm in trying and the basic profile on LinkedIn is free.

5 Reasons to use LinkedIn:

1.) Build connections on a social CRM

Image from: http://4.bp.blogspot.com

This is a good way to connect with past colleagues and connect with businesses, clients or new contacts and group them all in one place. I call LinkedIn a Social CRM (customer relationship management platform) because it enables you to manage all your contacts and keep up to date in real time with the latest job titles and companies.

2.) Increase Your Credibility

By building a profile on LinkedIn with all of your past jobs, project experience, and qualifications, and then getting recommendations from colleagues, you can build credibility. For authors of blogs, journalists, or marketers like myself, by posting on group pages and responding to questions or debates we can position ourselves as an expert in our field and it is just one more way to build our online footprint for seeking opportunities.

3.) Keep up to date with the latest trends

LinkedIn focuses on professional niches and it is a great way to see what competitors are doing and are achieving. With the LinkedIn user groups, it can also be a forums for sharing news or best practices specific to your industry.

4.) Integrate into a new job

Image From: http://www.euroscience.org/

Find a new job from your contacts and connect with decision makers. Thousands of potential clients are accessible through LinkedIn. Also there are jobs being posted by companies and recruiters and LinkedIn can be a useful way to connect and apply for a new job.

5.) Drive traffic to your website

Image from: http://www.seotrafficsearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/social-media.jpg

Building a group page a or company page is a great way to build contacts or bring followers to your brand or blog and then ultimately get more traffic to your website. Check out Two Point Uh Oh’s Page.

To conclude we finish with an infographic of what users do on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Infographic: What LinkedIn Users Do on LinkedIn – http://www.linkedstrategies.com/linkedin-infographic-what-linkedin-users-do-on-linkedin/

 

Frequency and Measuring Success on Facebook

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Is Your Facebook Campaign Working? Are you building an Audience?

We save the best for last by covering the frequency of posting and analyzing the results.

Ever feel like no one is looking at your posts? Why aren’t people commenting? No one ‘likes’ your posts?

UH OH!

DON’T WORRY, YOU ARE NOT ALONE! When building a community online, it does not happen overnight. It takes lots of patience and going back to the drawing board. It is like what I was taught in business development, that there are usually more times someone says ‘no,’ before one client is ever made (or in this case a ‘fan’ or ‘like’ is made). With a Facebook page, we now have the tools to determine if our message is really working with our audience and change it for success. With Facebook Insights, we can analyze what our audience likes best and run with it.

Frequency of Posting on Facebook

To be annoying or not to be annoying that is the question? If Shakespeare would have only written about Facebook posts … Let’s look a little closer into building an audience on Facebook by the frequency and timing per day.

The consensus with bloggers and other social media gurus are that posting once a day is the right amount to keep the audience engaged. Looking across the board of top brands that have actively posted on Facebook, the average comes out to once a day. As seen by this graphic below by Social Bakers:

Social Bakers – brand comparison per posts per day

Posting more than once a day as demonstrated by the chart below by Track Social shows a lack of response after the first post:

Track Social – Response Post Frequency

UH OH! For us at Two Point Uh Oh!, We have our day jobs and posting once a week is all we can do right now. That is ok too, because we are a smaller blog with a smaller audience that is growing. As we grow our posts, our frequency will grow as well. Right now, we are still seeing a our audience grow and what they like on Facebook with only posting once a week.

Timing is Key

What is the best time of the day to post? Think about the times when you are most likely to read the news or check Facebook. Would it be in the morning? Weekday or Weekend?

For Facebook: Weekends and evenings are the time when people are most likely to share or like posts.

Science Office Book – When to Post on Facebook

 

Uh Oh! Typically when we post for Two Point Uh Oh, we have been on French time and not on USA time. So we have to be careful when we post to reach our audience. Do you have a geographic area where your customers are located?

Analyzing Results: Facebook Insights

So we can now look and see if we are posting the right content and what time and days of the week we are getting the best response rate. We can also see the demographics and build a more tailored message.

From the insights we can track the following:

User Insights: This is the number of fans or ‘likes’ and daily active users. It also includes demographics, page views.

Interactions Insights: This is the amount of activity (wall posts, the post’s likes, posts on the comments or post impressions). It also includes mentions, discussions, reviews, wall posts and video posts.

The next question is: what do you want to measure?

By determining what you want to measure, we can track for success. These are a few of the typical measurements used to determine success rates on Facebook: if the fan size is growing, the average number of comments or likes, and the amount of page views, etc. For more detailed information of Facebook Insights, click here.

What is working for you? Have you found a trick to posting on Facebook? We would like to hear from you.

7 Posts to Engage Your Audience on Facebook

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Last week we covered building a Facebook Page with the goal of building the Facebook Page as a platform for interaction of fans. The best way to grow the audience on Facebook is to start posting on the Facebook Page Wall and finding what content creates engagement. This week we continue the series on Facebook Pages where we will look at the types of common posts. Finally next week, we will cover frequency of posts and then how to analyze the results to determine if the posts are engaging the audience.

Engagement is connecting with the customer or audience. Here are some common posts on Facebook Pages that get the audience talking:

1.)    Pictures

We have all heard the phrase, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Then think of it in Facebook terms, “a picture on Facebook is worth a thousand fans.” So what pictures get the most attention on Facebook? Simple, high quality and clear to understand photos or images that are relevant to your company or blog. Try to keep text descriptions short and always remember to link back to your website or Facebook Page. Use photo albums to showcase your product or service.

Here is an example of an eye catching bicycle from High Road Velo Tours. It is relevant because it deals with a cycling company. Look at how many people either ‘liked’ it or shared it? Uh oh - apparently this one did not connect to as many fans as our following examples, but I think it is a great eye catching photo.

2.)    Videos

These posts tend to be the most compelling and popular formats for Facebook posts. These are great for driving awareness to your product for promotion or branding purposes. Try to use compelling content and keep the videos short, between 60 to 90 seconds. Some interesting alternatives for videos can be customer experiences with a product or service.

One example is Trust and Travel’s videos on Facebook of their Italian vacation villas. They invite you to come inside and experience the villa with an authentic story for each of their vacation rentals:

3.)    Questions

This could be a musical question, brand trivia, polls, open ended, fill in the blank, either / or questions, click “like” if … Ask a question to gather input from your audience. Try to avoid specifics and ask general questions that most people can answer.

A creative way to ask a question is to get your audience to fill in the blank and make it into a fun dialogue. Here is an example from Fancy Feast cat food:

http://mashable.com/2012/07/05/facebook-build-engagement/

4.)    Promotions

Another great way to engage the audience is through offering a reward to become a fan on Facebook. Is it a chance to win an iPhone? Or a coupon for 10% off their next purchase?

Some examples can be giveaways, coupons, contests, first to comment wins …

Here is a creative example used by Ikea in their Tag Yourself Contest, where they uploaded photos of their products and asked their fans to tag themselves in the photos. The first person to tag themselves in the photo won the product. Here is a picture and video of the Facebook page:

5.)    Links

Links are probably one of the most common posts on Facebook. It can be a link to a news article, a blog post, a sale, etc. State in one line or less the relevance to your company or blog. Here is an example of Trader Joe’s Halloween Cookies and it links back to a description of the product.

6.)    Tips

These can be helpful reminders to fans that relate to timely topics and helpful resources such as remembering to start filing your taxes before April 15 (at least for the USA).

Or here is a great example tip for Facebook, about remembering to change your password so your account does not get compromised.

7.)    Quotes

This is also a classic and probably one or the more common posts. Here is an example of a quote:

“Do not wait for your ship to come in, swim out to it.” – Unknown.

Now if I were using this for Two Point Uh Oh, I would comment after it and say, ‘Jump in the water and get your Facebook pages going.’

Next week we are back with our last post on Facebook discussing frequency of posts and tracking feedback for success. Tell us what you think, are these posts working well for you? What is your favorite type post on Facebook?

Here are some other helpful resources: Free Ebook: How to Attract Customers with Facebook

6 Unconventional Posts to Liven Up Your Blog

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Last week, we talked about beating writer’s block and laying the groundwork for your blog using standard posts that resemble articles. For the following weeks, we’ll look at some more unconventional posts.

Today we’re covering posts that are only somewhat different to the standard article mode. They are still posts imparting information from you to your readers, but they may take a different structure or approach. You may not use these types of posts as often as standard posts, but they can certainly help liven up your blog.

1. The Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Post

Whatever your business is, your clients have questions about it. I bet you hear them asking the same ones over and over again. These are the Frequently Asked Questions, or the FAQs. An FAQ page has become a standard feature on many websites, but you can include one in your blog. Or you might opt to turn each question in your FAQ list into a post of its own. Here’s a good example of how to use FAQs from the Paris-based Horton Tax Services.

2. The Should Ask Questions (SAQ) Post

Almost as often as Frequently Asked Questions, however, there are questions your clients don’t ask but you wish they would. They may not know to ask these questions. But you, as the expert, can take the opportunity to educate them. These types of questions are the Should Ask Questions, or the SAQs. If you offer a product or service that requires your first-timer client to consider a lot of different aspects, you may want to help them out with an SAQ. For example, anyone launching a business, buying a home, or designing a website for the first time doesn’t know what they don’t know. But you do! So help them out with an SAQ post. Here are some examples:

3. The Review Post

A useful review can help readers make quick decisions, saving them time and sparing them frustration. Consider including some in your post mix. For example, if you teach yoga, review some yoga props, a line of clothes, or a new book. If you’re a business coach, review time-saving business apps for the smartphone. If you travel a lot to cities your clients also frequent, review the restaurants and hotels you visit from a business traveler’s point of view. Your clients will appreciate your tips!

Here’s an example of a review from OM Yoga: Product Review: Lululemon’s “The Mat”

4. The Interview Post 

Let’s say you want to find out what other experts in your niche think about a particular topic. Why not interview them for your blog? Not only will interviewing an established expert introduce your audience to new ideas, it will also reach that expert’s fan base, increasing your blog’s exposure. Interviews don’t need to be complicated or time-consuming. Face-to-face is great, but you can also send a set of written questions to your subject, who can answer at his or her leisure. A follow-up phone or Skype call should help answer any lingering questions. That’s how Alexis conducted her interview with social media strategist Mina Zaher. Paris-based author Janet Skeslien Charles frequently interviews anglophone writers who are either living in Paris or passing through, giving readers a nice little window into the contemporary literary scene.

5. The Guest Blogger  Post

If you ever begin feeling overwhelmed by your blog and want to take a break, consider inviting  a guest blogger. This can be another expert or someone with an experience to share that would be interesting to your readers. Inviting guest bloggers is a win-win for all sides. Your guest reaches a new audience, your audience hears another perspective, and you get a break! Check out these guest posts from Elements, a web marketing and design agency.

6. The Checklist Post

Do your clients need to prepare before they come see you? For example, if we’re going to help someone with their website, we need them to provide us their website copy, their logo, the photos they want to use, and a host of other things. A checklist is a great way to help your clients prepare for working with you. You can get creative here. If you’re a yoga teacher, use a checklist to help students troubleshoot a posture. If you’re a tour guide, include a checklist of what to wear and bring on the tour. I love checklists of what to pack for a triathlon. With three sports to think about, swimming, biking, and running, there is a lot of gear to remember. If you forget the wrong thing, such as goggles for the swim portion, it can slow down your time and diminish your experience. Take it from me, checklists can be extremely handy. Even handier would be a PDF version that your readers can download.

So there you have it. Six new kinds of posts to play with for your blog. Which of these posts have you already tried? How have they worked for you?

Check back next week for even more post types!

To Blog or Not To Blog, Part II – Getting Started

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In previous posts, we covered some reasons why you might want to blog, we learned more about the process from a social media strategist, and we discussed how to name a blog. Hopefully you now see how letting your audience get to know you through a blog builds community and trust, establishes you as an expert, and benefits your business. Today we’re going to cover how to begin.

3 Things to Understand Before You Start Blogging

1. Understand why you’re blogging. 
There are many reasons to blog as a small business owner, such as making yourself visible, establishing your expertise, providing value, engaging your readers, building community, attracting clients, and ultimately making money. But if you’re just starting to build your online presence, step one is to engage your readers by providing value. During the first few weeks or months in the life of most blogs, the traffic is quite light and the readers are few. A small readership allows you to try things out and see what your audience responds to. Since it’ll take some time to get a feel for blogging, this is actually good news and should alleviate some of the pressure you might be feeling. It’s OK to start slow and experiment!

2. Understand who you’re addressing.
It’s important to know the audience you’re targeting. Sometimes the target audience for the content of your blog and the people you’re trying to reach on a business level are the same, and sometimes they’re slightly different. To make this clearer, let’s contrast two examples:

Heather Stimmler-Hall, the author of Secrets of Paris, is a travel writer and Paris specialist who arranges private, guided tours of Paris. Her blog is targeted to Paris lovers who want to discover the hidden side of the City of Light. In her case, her target audience and her potential clients are one and the same.

The Interpreter Diaries is written by a conference interpreter and trainer. It’s targeted to future and current students of interpreting and to newly qualified interpreters. The author is providing a fantastic service that has made her visible in the broader interpreting community. When it comes to new work offers, however, it’s not the students and new interpreters who reach out to her, it’s the institutions they train and work in.

The approach you choose for your own blog will depend on your long-term goals, your industry, and your competitors.

3. Understand what your competitors are already doing.
Some sectors are already inundated with bloggers. The web and social media sector is a great example. A simple Google search will return hundreds of blogs on the topic. But when we searched to find blogs targeted to newbies, we were surprised that we couldn’t find any that met our standards! There’s lots of great information out there, but most of it soon gets too complex for the true beginner. We saw an opportunity to take a unique perspective, to put our storytelling and teaching skills to good use, and to provide value to the ongoing conversation.

Another great example is novelist Timothy Jay Smith’s blog, targeted to lovers of writing and good literature. Tim loves thinking about the writing process, but when he saw how many blogs already cover this topic, he decided to personalize his focus. Having had an exceptional career working in over forty countries and traveling in another sixty simply for pleasure, Timothy realized the stories he writes and cares about have grown from the places he’s been and the people he’s met. Now, he writes about those experiences and how they inspired his work, including his newly-released novel, “Cooper’s Promise.”

If the subject you want to blog about is already covered, there’s no need to be discouraged. Instead, find an opportunity to showcase your unique point of view and your specialty.

Next Steps:

Look at all the blog examples we mentioned here and in earlier posts, and spend some time researching already existing blogs in your sector. Make a list of what you like and what you don’t like, and begin to get a sense of what you might want to include in your own blog. Try to determine the subject you’ll cover and the slant you’ll take, and begin to think about who your target audience is. We’ll dig deeper in the blogging how-tos over the next few weeks!

Name That Blog! 5 Tips for Creating Your Blog Name

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Photo via weblogbetter.com

Your blog is your brand new project. It may only be a blank computer screen at the moment, but it is full of hope and potential. With the proper care and nurturing, your blog will grow up to be vibrant and strong and accomplish many things. In this way, your blog is like a baby. For it to fully come into its own, it needs a unique name that identifies it, tells the world what it’s about, and helps people find it.

Naming your blog is probably one of the hardest parts of the blog strategy. You have to start with the spark of the idea that inspired you, develop that into a solid concept, and imagine how your concept will grow and be shaped in the future. Besides brainstorming and writing your ideas on paper, here are 5 essential tips to keep in mind when naming your blog.

1.  Make sure your title represents your blog content.

When you create a blog name, you are in essence creating a brand name. Do you have a name for your business already? Can your blog have the same name?

If you don’t have a business name already, think of what your blog represents and try to find a title that reflects your business and your blog content.

Let’s take a look at our own name, Two Point Uh Oh. This is a blog about mastering the web and social media for beginners. We came up with the name by taking a catchy, web-savvy phrase, “Two Point Oh,” and putting a spin on it by adding the phrase “uh oh.” Our title juxtaposes the savvy with that lost feeling of not knowing what the heck we’re doing when faced with a challenge! The title captures our brand perfectly. When it comes to the web, it doesn’t matter if you’re a newbie or super savvy, you’ll run into an “uh oh!” sooner or later!

Our title also displays a sense of humor, and hopefully brands us as playful educators and consultants in this area.

2.  Keep your blog name short and easy to remember.

If you select a long name such as http://www.longnamesinblogsarehardtoremember.com, chances are slim that anyone will remember it. Keep it short but pertinent.

3.  Think about how your name will travel across social media.

Photo via vizibility.net

We haven’t begun our discussion about social media yet, so this point might seem a bit premature. However, it’s worth keeping in mind that your blog’s name will most likely have to travel across other platforms. Our blog is @twopointuhoh on Twitter and http://www.facebook.com/twopointuhoh on Facebook. We considered these elements before we settled on a final name.

In contrast, when Alexis Niki was producing her web series My Bitchy Witchy Paris Vacation, she had already branded her project when she realized the title was too long for Twitter and Facebook. To make matters worse, she set up her Facebook page, YouTube channel, and Twitter feed at different times in the process. As a consequence, on Facebook, her page is http://www.facebook.com/MBWPV, on Twitter the series is under @BWtheFilm, and on YouTube she’s under AlexisNiki2010. Confusing? You bet!

Uh oh! (See what we mean about the pertinence of our blog name?)

4.  Ensure that the domain name is available.

Finding a great domain name that is still available is increasingly challenging. We covered how to check if a domain is available in a previous post. Now let’s talk a little more about the process of narrowing down your choices.

When I was looking for a domain name for my cycling business, I really wanted something with a double-V theme. All of my first choices were taken, but after a day and a half of brainstorming and looking in the dictionary and online for inspiration, I came up with Veni Vidi, Vélo, which means “we came, we saw, we cycled” in a mix of Latin and French. It was the perfect name to describe my cycling business, which takes tourists on a two-wheeled athletic tour of France. It only took a matter of seconds to look it up and verify that it was still available.

5.       Include words that your potential readers might Google in order to find you.

What do you do when you’re looking for something on the Internet? You type in key words, and then your search engine shows you a list of sites that might be relevant to you. If your business makes widgets, and if people might Google “widgets” in order to find you, it could be useful to have this word in your title.

Let’s look at two of the blogs we’ve already highlighted in previous posts:

  • The Interpreter Diaries – Michelle Hof, the author of this blog, is a professional conference interpreter and trainer. Her audience is made up of other professional interpreters or interpreting trainees. Having the word “interpreter” in her title increases her chances of showing up in relevant search results.
  • King’s Road Rocks – Mina Zaher’s blog focuses on the neighborhood of Chelsea in London. King’s Road is Chelsea’s main street. Again, anyone searching for “King’s Road” has a better chance of finding Mina’s page because she included those words in her blog title.

I hope that clarifies the blog-naming process. Feel free to leave us your questions or comments. Next week, we continue our series on blogging.

To Blog Or Not To Blog — Part I

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If you’ve been following us from the beginning, you’ve probably figured out that each of our posts adds to a greater narrative about building an online presence. We hope that the topics we’ve covered so far have shed some light on how things work on the Internet. (If you’ve missed some posts and want to catch up, please go to our Getting Started page.)

Now we’re about to enter a new phase in our story, namely creating your online content. This is where the fun begins! Our topic for the next several weeks is blogging. Let’s dive in

What is a Blog?

The word “blog” is short for “web log,” an online record of news, activities, thoughts, and views. Most blogs have certain characteristics in common:

  • They focus on a particular topic.
  • They are regularly updated in blocks of content called “posts.”
  • Posts consists of news, announcements, articles, opinions, experiences, or musings.
  • Blogs have the capacity to be interactive by allowing comments from readers.

Do I Have to Blog Just Because I’m Online?

© Photo: Jayel Aheram / Flickr

The short answer is, no, you don’t have to blog just because you’re online. In fact, absolutely do not blog if your only reason is a nagging feeling saying you SHOULD. The last thing you need is one more weekly task on your to-do list. Until you can see clearly how and why a blog will help your business, don’t start one.

That said, depending on who you are and what you’re trying to accomplish, blogging might be the single best thing you could do for your visibility.

If you’re sitting on the fence about blogging, don’t make any decisions yet. Follow our posts on blogging for the next couple of weeks. I guarantee you by the end of our series you’ll have a much better sense of whether or not blogging is right for you.

The Power of Blogging

© Photo: Leszek.Leszczynski/Flickr

Let’s imagine you’re looking to hire a graphic designer to design your logo. You go online and you do a Google search. You find two websites of graphic designers in your area, one named Sally and the other named Pat. You check out each of the sites, browse Sally and Pat’s portfolios, read their bios, and learn about their services.

Let’s say at this point you like both of their work equally. And let’s say, just for argument’s sake, that both of the designers charge about the same.

But Sally has something Pat doesn’t have–a blog. In it, Sally writes about her inspirations and includes travel photos of scenes, people, items, and colors that strike her. She talks about how she found a creative solution to a client’s design problem. She shares a nice note of thanks she received from another client. She’s also posted some very helpful articles, such as “What To Consider When Hiring A Graphic Designer,” and “7 Tips For Creating Stand-Out Logos.”

Who are you more tempted to hire?

Sally, of course.

Why?

Because after reading Sally’s blog, you feel you know her better than Pat. You’ve decided you like her approach and her personality. Besides, she’s already helped you. Thanks to her logo article, you’re clearer about your needs than you were before reading her blog. Her answer to the question you left in the comment section was especially constructive. Why wouldn’t you hire Sally?

What Sally Is Doing Right

Sally’s blog creates an avenue of engagement, transforming what might have been a static, brochure-like website into an interactive platform for conversation. Using a relaxed but professional tone, she posts only content that is interesting and valuable to her target audience—people looking to hire graphic designers. She also doesn’t forget to entertain us through beautiful images and colors. Occasionally, she does post promotional items, such as a note from a client or an award she won, but in this context, it doesn’t bother us. In fact, we feel happy for her! She’s obviously a competent professional and we’re sure the accolades are well deserved, right?

Did you see what just happened?

Sally’s blog created trust. We haven’t even met her in person, but we already feel confident in her professional abilities.

Wow. That’s pretty powerful!

Blogging is About Relationships—Not Sales

Sally’s blog didn’t try to sell us her services. Instead, she engages her readers by sharing her work, her inspirations, and her knowledge. Some of her followers have no intention of hiring a graphic designer, they just like what she has to say. That’s fine with Sally. She doesn’t need to convert every reader into a customer, and she enjoys having fans. But make no mistake about it—Sally’s blog is designed for potential clients actively looking to hire a graphic designer. It’s a marketing tool that closes sales. It just happens to do it in a way that is fun, human, and engaging.

Three Engaging Blogs

In closing, we leave you with three of our favorite professional blogs that we think do a great job engaging their target audience. Check them out and let us know what you think!

1. Trust and Travel: A travel agency specializing in the rental of historic Italian villas and country estates. Their mission is to help you experience an extraordinary Italian vacation.

2. The Rude Baguette: An edgy blog covering the French startup scene.

3. The Interpreter Diaries: Written by a freelance interpreter, this blog takes readers through the different phases of an interpreter’s life and work.

If you’re considering a blog for your business, have you thought about how you might use it to build trust and create relationships with your target audience?

Next week, To Blog Or Not To Blog, Part II.

2 Keys To Sticking With Your New Years Resolutions For Your Online Presence

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Photo by Lane 4 Imaging

Every year at this time, people take to my local pool after sitting on the couch all year. With their New Year’s fitness resolutions fresh in their minds, they jump in the fast lane. This is the lane I enjoy sharing with other competitors. What do these new swimmers do? A slow breaststroke right down the center of the lane. It’s OK, my competitor friends and I know all we have to do is wait. January begins with the swimming pool full by 7:00 AM, but it ends with most people having quit and gone home. There are two key reasons New Years resolutions fail.

1. We Don’t Manage Our Expectations

I support people’s desire to get fit, but year after year I see them begin with unrealistic expectations and really bad pool etiquette. This is deadly combination that almost always leads to the early abandonment of their New Year’s fitness resolutions.

When I interview newbies who are interested in competitive swimming or triathlons, most have never had an athletic background. They usually don’t understand that it takes about 16 weeks of steady work to see results and an increase in their fitness level. Fitness isn’t as simple as the TV infomercials make it look. There’s no such thing as instant results with a thigh master or an eight minute ab routine. You can’t banish the bulge in 3 weeks or less.  If this is the mind set people bring to their fitness routines, then I’m not surprised they become discouraged and quit.

Increasing and maintaining your level of fitness is just like building and maintaining your online presence. It’s a lengthy process, a marathon rather than a sprint. If you go into it expecting instant and miraculous results overnight, you will be disappointed. Overnight success is unrealistic. People who are able to manage and adjust their expectations have a better chance of sticking with online marketing long enough to see results. People who become frustrated and discouraged when their expectations aren’t met often quit too soon.

2. We Don’t Set Milestones

Photo by Jram23

Going from never having exercised to competing in a triathlon is a big goal that takes time to achieve. But we human beings are motivated by quick results. The key here is to set milestones so we have some way of measuring our progress along the way. For new exercisers, these can be time trials where you race the against the clock to beat your previous time, or signing up for a 5K race with a first-step goal of finishing. From there, you can create a training plan to meet your milestones, all in the service of your larger fitness goal. This year I’ve started a 30-week training plan toward a long distance triathlon. My motivation is staying fit and healthy, having a good-looking body, and being able to eat chocolate without packing on the pounds. But these things are hard to measure in the short term, so I need more immediate, concrete goals to track my progress. I know that without the triathlon and the milestones to focus on and work toward, swimming random strokes and distances in the pool every day would quickly become meaningless and boring.

It’s the same with building an online presence. When your overall goal is hard to measure and evaluate in the short term, the importance of milestones can’t be underestimated.

Setting Milestones—An Example

Photo by gnuckx

One of your milestones might be to build a community of people interested in you and your product or service. How will you find them?

When I started university, I didn’t have many friends. Most of my fellow students liked to go out drinking and partying. But I needed to be fresh in the mornings so I could get in my swim, bike ride, or long run. I felt alone most of the time, so I decided to do something about it. I set a goal of finding other people like myself with similar interests. First I brainstormed a list of qualities of the people who I wanted to meet. I decided I could find the combination of fun, socializing, and physical activity I was looking for in salsa dancing or ballroom dancing classes.  Believe it or not, on the first night of my first salsa class I met the man who would become my husband—a triathlete like me!

We sometimes forget to take a moment to think through our problems. Take pen and paper and brainstorm your way to greater clarity. Get your ideas down in writing. What are the qualities of your ideal online audience or community? Where can you find them? Once you’ve identified those places, go join them and become a part of that community.

Managed Expectations + Milestones = Step-by-Step Success

Photo by lindz graham

Breaking down your larger goal of “marketing online” into milestones gives you smaller, more concrete steps to focus on.  Building an online presence can be frustrating at times. By breaking it down into measureable, “doable” pieces you can help yourself stay positive and motivated. There’s a big difference between, “I want to find clients,” and “My ideal clients are moms, ages 25-45, who have never exercised before but want to participate in a triathlon. I know they belong to Go Mom Triathlete Forum, and that one of the most popular mom triathlete bloggers is Mom Racer. I’ll send her an email and see if she’s willing to be interviewed for my fitness site.” If you stay on the level of, “I want to find clients,” but a month passes without any change, you’ll be frustrated. If in that same month you’ve worked toward a milestone by publishing an interview with a leading spokesperson in the community you want to reach and your blog followers and facebook page members have increased by ten percent, you’ll know you’re on the right track!

Six Key Ways We Communicate With and Without Web 2.0

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Photo by Sure2Talk

Evolving technology has always shaped the way we communicate.

Imagine a love letter being penned by a young suitor in the 19th century. His fingers grip the quill, his mind searches for the perfect words to express the power of his emotions. Imagine the moment three weeks later when his beloved tears open that very same letter with breathless anticipation. Romantic, isn’t it? I can almost feel myself swooning.

Fast forward about a hundred years. Imagine two young lovers before the advent of email or cell phones. They call each other on their landlines at the same time every day. Sometimes they do their homework or listen to the radio, but often they simply enjoy being silent together. That’s romantic, too, isn’t it?

Now imagine those same teenaged lovebirds today, texting one another sweet nothings via their mobile phones in the middle of class. This modern-day version of note-passing, like its pen-and-paper predecessor, drives teachers up a wall. But teens? They think it’s romantic.

As the times and technology change, so does the way we communicate. But as the examples above show, communication itself is not about technology—it’s about the human interaction.

Below, I’ve listed six key ways we communicate in our business lives. I’ve also listed offline and online methods of delivering that communication.

1.   Publishing and Distributing Information

Businesses publish information to update existing customers and to let prospective customers know who they are, what they do, and where to find them. Offline methods of delivering this information include printed brochures, articles in trade or professional journals, books, and printed newsletters, postcards, invitations, or special offers sent through the postal mail. Today’s online counterparts are websites, downloadable media kits and e-brochures, blog posts, online articles, ebooks, slideshare presentations, videos, as well as emailed newsletters, postcards, and invitations.

2. Networking and Building Community

Whether in a formal business setting or in a more relaxed, social environment, meeting new people and staying in contact is an integral part of communicating. Offline occasions for networking and building community include industry events, conferences, the office Christmas party, or the weekly golf game. They can also include church groups, charity events, or your child’s music recital. Online counterparts include the social networks, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. They also include blogs, groups, and forums created around a cause, a charity, or a shared interest. Just as in real life, some online platforms are focused on business, others are more social, and either can lead to unexpected connections and opportunities.

3. Establishing Expertise

How do you stand out amongst your competitors? By showing the world that you’re the go-to expert in your field. Offline occasions include writing books and articles, teaching and mentoring, delivering talks and presentations, speaking at graduations, and sitting on juries. Online counterparts include writing ebooks, articles, and blogs, posting video or slides from your live presentations, creating a podcast, teaching a webinar, or answering and asking questions in industry-appropriate forums and groups.

4. Collaborating With Others

If you have a large project you’re working on, a group or  association you want to create, or a cause you want to promote, you need to communicate with your collaborators. Offline occasions are limited to face-to-face meetings, telephone exchanges, faxes, or postal mail. Online opportunities are much broader and include online meetings, wikis, shared documents, chat and instant messaging, groups, forums, and email. Another advantage of online collaboration is that you’re less restricted by geography. Collaborators can be in other cities or even in other countries.

5. Keeping Up With Your Industry and Sharing Information

No matter what business you’re in, you need to keep up with the latest happenings. Offline resources include chatting with colleagues, attending conferences, talks, presentations, and events, or reading trade publications. Online counterparts include writing or reading blogs, exchanges on the social networks and in online groups, and using content curation and aggregation tools. Web 2.0 allows you to track the latest news as it’s happening and to share it quickly and easily with others.

6. Listening and Responding to Customers

Web 2.0 has revolutionized the relationship between businesses and customers. In the not so distant past, a customer with a complaint would be forced to follow the protocol established by the business. Their options were limited: call the customer service line or go stand in line somewhere. Today, they have many more options—and they use them. They can contact a business publicly via their Twitter feed or Facebook page. They can read reviews on blogs or forums before purchasing, or write their own reviews. If they are happy with the way their complaint is handled, they will often express their gratitude. People don’t expect businesses to be perfect, but they do expect responsiveness and a willingness to help them when there’s a problem. Businesses who get this make it easy for their customers to reach them offline and online, and they set up monitoring tools to alert them of what customers are saying.

By putting the emphasis on communication rather than on technology, you can begin to see the parallels between offline and online communication tools. Just like today’s texting teen has a lot in common with our 19th century letter-writer, a printed brochure has a lot in common with a video on the home page of your website. Hopefully this makes it easier to begin to understand what might be right for your business. As of next week, we’ll begin looking at some of the technologies themselves. In the meantime, feel free to continue the list. Did I miss anything?

As United found out in the video below, frustrating your customers by not responding to them in a timely and satisfactory manner can result in a song being written about you. Uh oh!