Karen Skidmore's Kick-Ass Blog | CanDoCanBe

Feeling Twrustrated? Free Twitter Checklist to help you out

Just in case you haven't seen my Twitter feed last week, thought I better share with my blog readers my brand new Twitter Checklist for Small Businesses.

It has been getting some great reviews so if you are interested, you can hope on over to http://www.candocanbe.com/Twitter_Business_Checklist.php and get your hands on a copy too.

If you have any more checks to be added to the checklist, add them as a comment below or drop me a DM or email.  I'm sure there will be plenty of new ideas and suggestions as Twitter continues to grow and evolve.

Oh, and if you would like to follow me on Twitter, I'm at www.Twitter.com/CanDoCanBe

Have you finished your website yet?

Websites are often something that sits on your to-do-list, waiting to be ticked off.

You spend a few sessions with a web designer or graphic designer, write your copy and get it published.  Tah-Dah! It's live. Your website is complete!

But actually your website work has only just begun.  A website is NOT something that just gets ticked off from your marketing list.  A website is actually an evolving tool which needs to be nurtured, cared for and grown to keep up with your business.

One of 1-2-1 clients was getting very frustrated with her new website the other week.  She had decided to set one up using www.mrsite.com [a great way of getting a very affordable, user-friendly website up and running very quickly].  But after a week of playing around with different templates and writing copy for her 5 pages, she was pulling her hair out.

I shouted "Move away from the website!!!"  It was time to take a break and stop trying to make it perfect.

My advice to her was to leave her website alone for a week and then come back to it for an hour or two every week over the next month or so. No more, no less.  The site was working, the right pages were up, people where able to book a place on the workshop she was launching - but to keep fiddling to make it perfect before "launching" was just driving her nuts!

You see, a website should never be finished.  When you run your own business, you are probably evolving and growing at a rate of knots.  You start working with clients you hadn't thought possible, you create products and partnerships you hadn't quite planned for.  You are being flexible to meet the needs and demands of your clients [or you should be!].

And your website has to reflect this.  It's not a corporate brochure that once printed, has to be thrown out when out of date.  It's moving and evolving marketing tool that you need to be reviewing at least once a month. 

Have you finished your website, yet?  Good - so you shouldn't have!

Doesn't blogging & social media take up so much time?

I was speaking at a networking lunch this week sharing some tips and ideas on how to use blogging in one's business.  And the same old question came up "But doesn't all that stuff take a lot your time?"

Let's get this straight. All marketing takes time!

Driving to a networking lunch, spending 2 hours eating, talking and sharing business ideas, driving back from to your office, following up any contacts you met and sending them the info you promised - this all takes time!

Is it time well spent?  Well, hopefully yes especially if you met some interesting new contacts and some of those new contacts told others about you and your business.  Networking is an incredibly effective marketing tool.

So, why wouldn't using tools like blogging, twitter, facebook and all the other social tools out there take time to use, too?

And if the time you spend on twitter, facebook and writing your blog is used effectively - it will be time well spent too!

PLUS! anything you do online has the added benefit of being there forever.  Blog posts, twitter links and facebook photos can be found today, tomorrow and forever more.  So, yes blogging and social media does take up your time but before you use a lack of time as an excuse not to use these tools in your business, ask yourself how effective your marketing time is at the moment?

Twitter Stories: How has twitter worked this week?

Twitter: Is it a waste of time or productive business tool?

Not wanting to try to convince the unconvincables, I thought I would just list a few specific examples of how twitter has been useful - and possibly highly profitable - to me and my network just in the last few days.

I'll let you decide whether to embrace twitter or not.

1. Had a registration for my TeleSeminar Masterclass from one of my Twitter followers. She was not on my mailing list nor had I had any commnunication with her before.  She booked because of what she read on my tweets

2. Was able to refer my brother, who runs his own mobile tech biz, to someone who I was following on twitter. They were requesting info on anyone who could help them build an app for iphones.  Wait and see whether that turns in to direct business

3. One of my newsletter subscribers came to me asking if I knew someone who had been recommended to her through twitter. One of her colleagues had tweeted that they were looking for an expert to join a panel for a workshop they were planning. she got 2 recommendations in as many seconds.

4. One of my clients is running a fab new teleclass in a week or so. I tweeted her link and one of my followers re-tweeted to his followers. I also saw that one of his followers re-tweeted his re-tweet of my tweet. [follow my drift?]  Within 24 hours of the orginal tweet, more than 2,000 people would have received that tweet.  (And imagine if your tweet is re-tweeted by someone with 20,000+ followers. Powerful, hey?)

5. Was contacted via twitter by someone who runs a social networking site. We spoke on the phone and he gave me a guided tour of the site.  Would I have accepted his phone call if we hadn't been tweeting each other? Probably not.  I am now signed up and sorting out my new profile this Friday to try out the site.

6. Was able to put a new follower in touch with a local networking group I knew of in her area.  By reading her short twitter biog I noticed where she lived and asked if she knew of the group. She hadn't been but is now intending on going to the next meeting.

7. May have got myself a date with George Clooney - but you don't want to read about that story, do you ;0)

What twitter stories can you share this week?

Are your clients eating more beans and less organic?

Yet more figures have come out today highlighting the downturn of our economy and how retail customers are changing their shopping habits.

The BBC are reporting that there is an increase of 22.6% in Baked Beans sales and 11% decrease in the amount of organic foods purchased. 

Not surprising really when everyone, me included, is looking at prices more carefully and making decisions on how they can decrease the price of their shopping basket.

But what about your clients?  Have you been able to take a step back and work out what your clients are doing at the moment?

People haven't stopped spending - they are just spending their money more wisely.  And this will be true of your clients, too.

So either get a survey out or pick up the phone and call a few target clients.  It doesn't matter what you actually do to find out, but find out you must.

Find out what your clients are spending more on and less on.  And you can still grow your business by offering more beans instead.

How do you request friends on facebook?

How many social networking sites are you a member of now?  There is every chance that if you are active online, then you are just not a member of one site, you are a member of probably 3 or even much, much more.

And if you are an active online social networker, are you building a friend list of thousands or growing organically?

Everyone on the internet may have different strategies and ways of building their brand online - but how many of these people network online the same way that they do offline?

Most social networking sites, such as facebook and LinkedIn, have the facility of letting you add a message when you send out a friend request or invitation to connect (wording depending on which site you are on).  Yet, hardly anyone uses it.

If you were are at a face-to-face networking event, would you consider barging in to a group of people and start shoving your business card in to everyone's hands?

No, probably you wouldn't. (At least I hope you wouldn't!)

You would introduce yourself.  Probably shake a hand and ask who the other person was.  You would start a conversation.

So, why can't people do this online?  It seems too easy to go down a big list of contacts and click the friend request button in the vague hope that the other person will confirm that request quicker than you can wink.

Now, if you are building a mailing list so that you can start sending out sales messages, then you go for it.  You may as well start shoving business cards out at networking events and hiring a team of telesales reps to call from a list of yellow pages.  You will get the same hit rate!

If you are networking online and using the social networking sites to build your brand, raise awareness of your business and generally reach out to potential clients and customers, then stop and ask yourself how you are inviting people to join your network.

If you would shake someone by the hand and introduce yourself at a face-to-face meeting, do the same online.  It may take longer in the short term, but the relationships will be stronger in the long term.

Each business needs its own separate website

If you have already been trading for a while and have had a website up and running for a few years, it could be an easy option to use this existing website to market your new business.

However, it couldconfuse both your target customers and the search engines.

Just this morning, I had a call from a lady who has been running a successful wedding dress business for the past 20 years.  About a year ago she decided to go in to the new and upcoming market of selling prom dresses and she decided to continue to use the successful wedding dress website to "host" her prom dress collections.

However, she has already found that it is taking some time for her prom dress pages to be found high up on the old google search rankings.  And although her prom dress pages where well optimised with the targeted key word phrases, her home page was still obviously all about wedding dresses.

Creating new websites is no longer an expensive nor complicated process.  Using blogging technology, for example, allows you to create new websites for very little money or techy expertise.  And the great thing about using a blog to create your new website is that they will be found far quicker by the search engines because of the amount of content you can add.

So if you are planning on moving your business focus or intend to set up a couple of different businessses then always plan to create a separate website for each of your business focuses.

Great for the search engines and even better for your customers.

How to Choose an SEO Consultant

Knowing about how SEO (search engine optimisation) is one thing, but hiring an expert who can help you with SEO is another!  If it is an area that you don't much about (and to be honest, most of us feel this way about SEO don't we?), it can be pretty daunting finding someone who you feel you can trust and who won't rip you off.

But out-sourcing your SEO to an expert can be the best business decision you can make if you are serious about your online marketing strategy, and having had a coffee with Sam McArthur the other day, I thought you would be interested in her latest newsletter article:  How to choose an SEO Consultant.  Over to you, Sam.

For many small businesses starting out in search engine optimisation (SEO), one of the first things they look for is an SEO consultant who can help them decipher the jargon and understand how their website can rank highly in the search engines. However, as with any service, what an SEO consultant offers can vary hugely from one person to another, offering different promises and outcomes which can make the process of choosing the right person to work with quite difficult.

So what should you look out for when looking to choose someone to help you with your search engine optimisation?

1. Transparent Service:  Any consultant you hire, whether they’re offering search engine optimisation or even financial services, should be completely open about what they’re going to do for you. This is particularly important with SEO as it will involve your website which you own. You need to be told what kind of access they need to your website, what changes will be made, what the main processes involved are so that you know when you need to be involved. The process works two ways and your consultant should be working with you at each stage of the process they outline to you. They should not hide anything from you or refer to any ‘special’ techniques they claim to use.

2. Guarantees: No consultant worth bothering with will make guarantees as to rankings. No one can guarantee specific rankings in the search engines as the way that search engines rank sites is information that only the search engines themselves have. Absolutely no one else has this information, therefore no consultant can possibly make guarantees. Don’t touch anyone who guarantees rankings of any kind. I would even be dubious if you’re guaranteed specific traffic figures as no one can predict how many people will click on your listings from the search results.

3. Access to Your Website:  Any one optimising your website will need access to your site (to your web pages), unless you are competent at making changes to them yourself or you pass this onto your web developer. This is important as the optimisation involves making changes to your web pages. If any consultant says they don’t need access then you need to question this.

Some companies send traffic to sites via doorway pages hosted externally from a website and can literally turn traffic on and off, therefore when you decide you no longer want to work from them, your traffic stops overnight. This is one of the many cowboy tactics some search consultants use and we’ve written about some of these previously in Marketing Karma. Other tactics used could even lead to your site being banned from the search engines, so you need to make sure you’re crystal clear about what work will be done to your site (as in 1 above).

4. Relationship:  As with many companies you work with, you need to build a good working relationship. People buy from people so make sure you have a good rapport with whoever you choose. This can be particularly important if things don’t go as smoothly as planned, then any differences can be ironed out more amicably.

5. SEO Success:  Your consultant should talk about conversions through your site, return on investment and how much you’re making from your online marketing. If all your consultant is interested in is rankings, then avoid using them. Any consultant worth their salt will be interested in the return you’re getting from any campaign, advise on how you can make improvements to your website to encourage more conversions, even advise on how your online and offline fit together within your whole marketing mix. Don’t trust anyone who has no interest in this as rankings are no measure of success!

Finally, there’s no harm in asking for references and case studies of other companies the consultant has worked with. You can then get an idea of the results the consultant has gained for them. Also make sure you know what is required from you so that you understand the amount of input you're expected to contribute and that you can actually commit to your part of the process!

For more information on dodgy SEO tactics, download our white paper on Cheap SEO Services (in pdf format)

For more information about Sam and to sign up for her email newsletter visit her website:  www.forty-first.co.uk

Guided tour of the new facebook

If anyone is interested in a quick 10 minute show and tell of how to use the new look facebook, Mari Smith – the Queen of Facebook – has produced this video. 

If you are on facebook and wondering how on earth to use it better to promote your business, then kick back, watch and learn.

How do you get people to follow you on twitter?

It seems my last blog post on twitter has inspired many of you to look at/revisit twitter and see it as a possible valuable tool for your business.

But one question I had when I first started and one that I know others have asked me since is “How do you get people to follow you on twitter?”

First of all, I don’t think you need to strive to “get” people to follow you.  Remember Twitter is permission based so if someone has enough of you, you’re gone and out of their twitter feed instantly.

Having only been on twitter for just over a month, I have already experienced the twitter spammers and they are certainly out to “get” followers.  So, go with the attitude of attracting rather than getting.

Now that we have re-framed the question to “How to attract people to me on Twitter?” here are some of the ways I have seen that worked for me and resulted in attracting 98 followers in 4 weeks (at the time of writing) which I am quite proud of really!

• Don’t go out and starting adding hundreds and thousands of people to your follow list expecting people to just reciprocate.  First of all, how can you really follow 1,698 people when you are new to twitter (of course if you are The Scobleizer, you can – he is now following 21,004 people with 34,554 followers!) and secondly, IMHO if you are following 1,698 people but only have 34 following back, it just gives an impression that you are out to twam (is that short for twitter spam?!)
• Do start conversations with people that you follow.  When someone replies to you, others in their tweeter feed will see your name & so may click through to see who they are following & having a conversation with.  And if you build up a good enough relationship with that person, they must give a “shout-out” to your name in their tweeter feed.
• Do have an interesting & informal profile but don’t put up your “corporate tagline” or be “overly-friendly”   Remember, Twitter is fun and engaging, so reflect your personality & be interesting.
• Do link your twitter feed to your website, blog or newsletter.  Download a twitter widget to your sites and it can be an easy way of signposting your subscribers to other parts of your business to your twitter feed.
• Don’t twitter crap! Your twitter feed is going to be THE attraction for people to follow. If your twitter feed is full of useless information, then people won’t follow you from what they see on your home page.  Give value, offer help & support and engage in the twitter conversation – There is just no need to twit about your cats every day (unless you are promoting an online club for cat owners, obviously )

I’m sure I will have plenty more to share with you over the coming months, so do make sure you subscribe to this blog feed (top right hand corner) or join me on twitter – my twit name is @CanDoCanBe.

And if anyone from Twitland out there can add to these pointers, please leave a comment. I know I have still much to learn!