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Using Twitter to Connect and Engage

Businesses have been learning about how to use social media to promote their brand, spread goodwill, and market their products and services. However, some entrepreneurs and marketers are still getting it wrong, in that they view it as mostly a numbers game, and with their use of bait-and-switch tactics to get a lot of people following them, and then subsequently bombarding everyone with promotional material.

Social media is not about bombardment with information. Rather, marketing through social media involves connecting and engaging with your audience. Whether you are marketing a well known brand, or just starting out a business, it pays to know your niche, and to truly connect to the people who have genuine interest.

Take Twitter, for instance. Twitter is an excellent platform for connecting to friends, but it’s also a great way to research current trends and discussions. It’s also a great way to bring out a message to people whom you might not necessarily know.

The problem here, as with any platform or application, is the tendency for misuse. For instance, there’s the presence of bots and spammers. Because of an open API, some have developed software for following people automatically based on keywords. And there are software that automatically push posts on schedule. And as for spammers, Twitter is abuzz with unscrupulous marketers who do bait-and-switch tactics. First they follow you, seemingly like genuine users. And then when they have a good number of followers already they start regularly posting inspirational and business quotes, but what you won’t notice is that these usually include links to affiliate schemes.

Not that there’s anything wrong with affiliate schemes, but what I take issue with here is how the marketers seem to lure users into following, and then switching to what is practically spam.

For any marketing to succeed on Twitter, I think the best way to go about with it is by genuinely connecting with individuals. Join the discussions. Or better yet, start it. Once there is a connection, people start trusting you. They trust your recommendations. There’s nothing wrong with using social media as a platform for marketing. The important thing here is to remain human, and to remain genuine in your enthusiasm toward your brand, company or product.

Try growing your Twitter network today. Join in on the discussions. Be relevant, and be real.

Four Simple Ways to Increase Your Email List

An email list is essentially a list of subscribers that have provided their contact information to the blog site, in hopes of receiving valuable information, offers and updates to posts which are made through the business blog. It can be an essential marketing tool, when built correctly and visitors are constantly being added to the repertoire of subscribers.

There are many ways that you can add to the subscribers list, or the email list. Here are four of the most effective ways to convert readers into subscribers, by adding these subscribers to the email list:

1. Give viewers a reason to sign up for the list. Incentive is essential when building the blog list. Use incentive through the use of valuable information, subscriber only offers and specialized information which can provide the reader with something positive. Using incentive, you can substantially increase the blog subscriber list.

2. Make the list easily accessible to readers to join. Use bars that contain simple forms like name and email address in order to subscribe. Making the subscription process long can be a deterrent for members that spend only mere seconds viewing and judging a blog.

3. Narrow the list by using a confirmation link within an email that must be clicked upon in order to complete the registration to the list. This does not inhibit the list, but will ensure that those signing up for the list are genuinely interested in the services and information which is being offered, which will convert better into sales.

4. Keep the number of emails which are sent to the subscribers low. This can help to maintain the list, and reduce the amount of subscribers that make the decision to unsubscribe as there are too many emails being sent from the blog. Send only emails that contain updates at various intervals, key information and special offers available to subscribers.

Make Your Posts More Memorable With the Inverted Pyramid Technique

I’ve been listening to Made to Stick on audiobook and it’s inspiring me in the way I blog. This book is already being called one of the best business books ever written because it shows clearly how to make you ideas memorable, or sticky (as the authors call it).

One of the things the authors state is that simplicity is very important if you want to create memorable ideas. When they simplicity, they mean finding your core message and cutting out the extraneous elements. By doing this, it makes it much easier for people to remember your idea.

This principle is definitely a great idea when working online, because – let’s face it – most people going online are very busy and have tons of distractions. If you communicate more than one core message, your messages will probably get lost in the noise of online information.

Let’s apply this principle to blogging. If you want your posts to be memorable, to be remembered even months later, you need to be able to just say one thing. Have a central theme for each of your posts.

Remember from English college class when the professor gave you the first step for creating a good term paper: come up with a great thesis statement – not two or more. And then as you write your paper, make sure the rest of your paper supports that statement.

Sadly, too often my posts don’t have a clear thesis statement but go into many different tangents and are hard to follow. Also, I find myself covering too many topics in a single post.

The Inverted Pyramid Journalism Technique

One of the tools that’s helped me write more focused posts comes from the world of journalism. I found out about it in Made to Stick. It’s called the inverted pyramid and it helps journalists craft their stories.

It’s called the inverted pyramid because at the top of an inverted pyramid is the widest part, which represents the most important part of the story. This is like a thesis statement and should go at the beginning of the story. You want the most crucial information at the beginning of the post to “hook” your reader and get them to read more of your post. For the rest of the story, savvy journalists will share details supporting the core message. Each succeeding paragraph is less and less important than the opening paragraph that contains the core message.

Sometimes the most crucial information is not the apparent right away so don’t be afraid to take some time to think of the most important info and then craft a relevant title and opening paragraph based on that info.

Also, this technique also works for non-writers. If your preferred medium is something like audio or video, you can get a lot of value from the technique. In your audio podcast or video, start it off with the most important info to grab the attention of your audience. Then craft the rest of your audio or video content with material that supports that info.

Improve Your Blog Posts by Letting Them Simmer

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From thefreedictionary.com:

simmer To be in a state of gentle ferment: thoughts simmering in the back of her mind.

Some of my most well received blog posts have been ones that I’ve let simmer for a couple days before publishing them. What I say simmer, what I basically mean is not creating your blog post in one sitting. Instead, you come up with the initial blog post topic and then mull over it for a couple of days. During this time period, I often do these three things to facilitate the simmering process:

  1. Take notes
  2. Do research
  3. Create a rough draft

1. Take Notes

Taking notes is very important because it keeps you from losing or forgetting a good idea for your post. Fortunately, our minds will often give us great ideas without our effort. However, we often get these ideas when we least expect it (in the shower, while driving, right after waking up, etc.). Therefore, it’s good to have a way to capture your ideas easily – whether you have some index cards by your bed or you use your smartphone as a voice recorder while driving.

2. Do Research

Research can form a valuable section of your blog post. By pointing to other sources, you give credibility to your views as well as point your readers to other perspectives on the same topic.

A couple days before you sit down to create your post, consume online content about your topic. Of course, taking notes works hand in hand with doing research, so keep your PDA or a pen and paper handy to capture interesting ideas.

If you’re really ambitious, I recommended reading a book or two on your subject.

One last thing on this point: don’t make your post just like a mini-research paper. Make sure to also include your personal experience since blogging is a personal medium and more importantly, your experience is the best source for content.

3. Create a Rough Draft

I don’t usually create a rough draft, but for the posts I let simmer, I’ve found it very helpful to create a rough draft. Rough drafts help a lot because those posts tend to be much longer and more in-depth than the average 200-400 word post. A rough draft can make the process more manageable so you don’t get overwhelmed with all the information you’ve accumulated. Also, if I’ve collected a great deal of data, I’ll create an outline too to organize the data before I write the rough draft.

Advantages and Disadvantages

You’ll end up with higher quality posts by letting them simmer first. These type of posts will be more in-depth than the vast majority of posts already out there. Your posts will stand out, attract links and traffic, and build your online reputation.

However, as you probably can tell, it takes time to develop these posts. Your post frequency will suffer if your try to do the simmering process on every single post. So, if you want to post multiple times a week, you probably can’t let every post simmer because simmering takes time.

Still, I would try to use the process 1-2 times a month. This strategy provides a balance between post frequency and post quality. You can post multiple times a week and still creating that memorable, longer, more in-depth post once or twice a month.

Over to You

Have you ever tried to let your blog posts simmer? If you have, what was your experience?

10 Blog Post Ideas That Showcase Your Experience

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In my last post, I wrote that sharing your experience is a great way to blog. Your experience from running a business can provide many interesting blog post topics.

With that in mind, here are some ideas and questions to consider to help you get started.

1. Are there common problems in your industry that you have solved? Write about your experience solving these problems.

2. If you sell many products, what are your favorite products and why? Product reviews are very useful for many people. Also, make sure to include the product name in your title. This will help you get more search engine traffic.

3. Blog about the most interesting people you’ve interacted with in your business.  These people could be customers, employees, business partners, competitors, or even other business bloggers.

4. Humor is usually a great angle to take in your blog posts.  Think of the funniest moments you’ve had while running your business and share it in a couple of blog posts.

5. How did you get involved in your industry? Tell the story of how you first got interested in your niche.

6. How did you start your business? Tell the story of how you first got your business going.

7. Write about a typical day at work.  Make sure to go in-depth and cover the whole work day.

8. Write about the most enjoyable part of running your business.

9. Write about the most difficult part.

10. In your interactions with people outside your industry, what are some common misconceptions they have about it?