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Facebook Tips: How to Put Your Friends into Lists

admin — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 23:57:09 +0000

Video is best viewed full screen. So hit play on the video and then click the button in the bottom right hand corner of the video that has all the arrows going all different ways. That’ll show the video the size of your entire screen.

Sweet Facebook Secrets from a 98-year Old Cookie Company

admin — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 22:27:38 +0000

Who Else Wants 8,200 likes and 2,300 comments on their Next Facebook Status Update?

Today’s tip comes from a chapter from Oreo cookie’s playbook. Take a look at some of their recent Facebook Fan Page Status Updates and staggering statistics.

“Ever try dunking an Oreo cookie with a fork or anything else?” 8,200 likes and 2,300 comments
“Pick a flavor, any flavor! If you could create a new Oreo cream flavor, what would it be?” 7,100 likes, 12,500 comments
“Pop quiz: Twist, lick, then…” 6,500 likes, 6,200 comments

Would you like these same sort of comments and likes on your fan page? Or how about even a 1/10th of those likes & comments?

(Hell, ya!)

It’s hard to resist that masterful combination of crunchy chocolate cookies and sweet creamy filling. Oreo has over the years created a strong brand, in fact 491 billion Oreo cookies have been sold since they were first introduced in 1912.

So what’s their secret to success and how can you transfer this secret to success into your own Facebook Fan Page?

Let’s look at the classic combination of crunchy and creamy and apply that to the types of status updates you make.

Think of any of the promotional status updates, videos and tweets you make as ‘crunchy’ marketing.

Then picture the valuable content you provide as the creamy center.

If you package your creamy (rich, problem-solving information) content around the crunchy (promotional) cookie you can please a lot more people AND get what you want…more people to pay you money for the work that you do or product/service that you provide.

Play with me a bit more with this analogy. (I promise you can run out to munch on some Oreos in just a minute)

Many people don’t like the crunchiness of the Oreo cookie just like many people get really cranky when people or companies self-promote. And often heart-centered entrepreneurs don’t like being self-promotional or crunchy themselves.

How do you make your Oreo cookies less crunchy?

Most people…dip them in MILK! (Remember Oreo’s are Milk’s Favorite cookie!)

What’s the milk in your marketing?

How do you make your promotional marketing more palatable?

May I suggest that the milk be…conversation?

How do you start a conversation?

ASK questions! Ask questions about what people think about your content, your industry, the way they use your products or services. Ask about how you can support them and service them better. Ask them about how they are.

So what do you think about my Oreo Marketing Secret? Please share your comments below or on our Facebook Fan Page.

6 Time Tested Psychological Forces That’ll Speed Your Social Media Success

admin — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:00:40 +0000

Would you like the good news or the bad news first? Feel free to read the next two statements in whichever order you choose

Bad News: I don’t have any quick and easy tips for you today. I’m afraid I’m going to ask you to really think about your social media marketing today.
GoodNews: Taking this time to really think about this post and analyze your own social media marketing strategy just might be the key to speeding up your social media marketing success.

So let’s get started…

In the marketing/psychology classic, Influence: Science and Practice
by Dr. Robert Cialdini there are 6 powerful influence elements identified. They are:

Reciprocity
Social Proof
Liking
Authority
Scarcity
Commitment and Consistency

In your social media efforts, how are you including these 6 elements of influence? You get points here if you have a squeeze page or pink spoon. Give yourself 1 point for each. You can give yourself more points if you figure out a way you could provide MORE value in each of those giveaways?

What if you could make the content so valuable that people just had to share with others how awesome it was? Spending a little more time adding value to your free content just might give more points for #2.

In the case of liking, this influence element is why niche marketing works so well. When you are speaking specifically to a targeted group of people you can easily create a sense of similarity, association and familiarity.

By having a blog and regularly posting you are giving yourself points for #4 and #6.

In what ways can you think of to influence by use of scarcity? I’d love to hear your comments below.

Getting the Most from the 3 Types of Social Media Marketing?

christina — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 08:00:32 +0000

When I’m out speaking or networking I always ask the question “What is Social Media Marketing?” I’m always amazed at the answers I get but it usually centers around 3 areas.

Social Media Marketing is about Networking. The interaction of people who share similar interests. This is what you do on Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter.
Social Media Marketing is about Sharing. The content (video, pictures, podcasts, blogs, etc) that you find interesting. This is what you do on Digg, Mixx, Del.icio.us and StumbleUpon.
Social Media Marketing is about Publishing. The distribution of content (video, pictures, podcasts, blogs, etc) This is what you do on Wikipedia, Forums, YouTube and Blogs.

Being able to leverage these 3 types is where the power lies. Does your social media marketing strategy include tactics and techniques for leveraging each of these 3 areas?

#1 Proven Way to Get More Subscribers and Clients Using Social Media

christina — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 08:00:17 +0000

Have you been spending hours on Facebook and Twitter and ready to throw your hands up because you feel that it’s completely worthless?

The number one mistake I see over and over again is when clients send out link after link asking people to subscribe to their newsletter or ezine and then come to me saying social media doesn’t work.

The problem here is not social media. The problem is no one wants to sign up for another stupid newsletter. You’re not helping them solve their problems. In fact,

by asking them to subscribe to your newsletter or ezine you are just adding another problem to their already information over-loaded life.

So what’s the solution?

Providing quick and easy solutions to your target audiences problems and requesting a name and email address in exchange for receiving that information. THEN as a bonus you can add them to your newsletter or ezine.

In this case the fact that you’ve solved a problem for them makes them 10 times more likely to actually read your newsletter in the future because they already view you as an expert or a solution provider.

4 Ways to Leverage Content

christina — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 08:00:06 +0000

Content is KING! Have you heard that? Are you frantically pumping out articles and blogs but still not seeing results? If so, STOP! Take a deep breath. Imagine the possibility…

What if you could just leverage the content you’ve already produced to bring in visitors to your website, blog or social media profile?

In my Mile High Email and Flight Accelerator Program I teach over 100 techniques for Leveraging Content. Here I tell you about the 4 strategic ways you can leverage content.

Change the Medium – turn a blog into a podcast or a podcast into an article or video
Enhance the Distribution – use a free service like TubeMogul.com to distribute your content
Repurpose – create a poll about the topic
Initiate Conversation – Ask questions about your content on your social networking sites

To Your Social Media Success,

Mande

P.S. If you like thise tip and want more help in getting your email and social media marketing off the ground check out my Mile High Email & Social Media Flight Accelerator.

Are You Reaching Out to Bloggers?

admin — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 07:00:53 +0000

In the old economy, if you wanted your product or business to get a lot of attention you might try to form relationships with the writer for the local or national paper, television station or magazine. These ‘media outlet’s’ dominated the communication between ‘big business’ and ‘consumer’. With the decline of readership in newspapers and magazines and more people getting their news online, have things changed all that much or are they really the same?

With the advent of social media, it no longer was necessary for someone or a company to have lots of money to have a readership. Now we have “Influencer Marketing“. Influencers are people who exercise influence over a group of buyers. The Word of Mouth Marketing Association defines an influencer as ‘A person who has a greater than average reach or impact through word of mouth in a relevant marketplace”.

In the case of HOW you reach out to the “influencers” I’d say things are the same BUT its the “influencers” who have changed. Today getting the attention of a top industry blogger might do more for getting your product or business noticed than an interview by the local television station.

Let’s look at some quick tips for how to reach out to bloggers–espeically if you have NO idea how to get started.

First, do your homework. Find out who the bloggers are in your industry and subscribe to their blogs. Spend time reading what they write about and HOW they write about products.

So how do you find out who blogs about your industry? Check out these sites:

Alltop – the Internet’s magazine rack.
Google Blogsearch – search by topic.
Twitter Search – find bloggers by what they tweet about.
Postrank Topics – search by topic.

Next, its time to build a relationship. In the Web 2.0 world that’s pretty easy.

Start by following them on Twitter. (Quick tip…to find out someone’s twitter name google ” ‘their name’ on twitter” and the first thing that will usually come up is that person’s Twitter link)
Listen to their tweets. ReTweet (RT) their message to your followers if you find the information valuable and useful.
Comment on their blog posts
Set up Google Alerts and comment on articles they write

Spending a few months ‘listening’ and responding to what they talk about will make it all that much easier when it comes time to send an email asking for help. Don’t try to push your product or agenda on someone until you’ve done steps 1-4 a few times.

See its just like when you used to read articles in the local paper by the business writer and study their style before reaching out to them. Same process different medium.

My Challenge for you…Can you add 2-3 hours per month to your marketing mix to start researching influential bloggers in your industry? If you spend 30 minutes today finding and subscribing to their blogs then next week you can spend 15 minutes reading their posts. Week after that read for another 15 minutes. In a month you should have a good handle on what type of style the blogger has and have the confidence to start conversations with them on Twitter or leave comments on their blog.

Good luck!

What are Tags or Content Tags?

admin — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 07:00:56 +0000

Tags are tiny bits of information that are assigned to a piece of information (picture, video, blog post) that help to describe an item and allow it to be found again in the various search engines. Tags are generally chosen by the person who posted the content but can usually be added by other parties in a Web 2.0 environment.

If you haven’t started using tags because you haven’t understood them, now is the time to get started. Don’t worry if you haven’t, if you’ve been blogging you can always go back later and tag the content with keyword rich terms at any point.

If you’ve done any keyword research be sure to add relevant keywords to each blog post, picture or video you post.

Also start looking at the tags that others use and feel free to swipe and use on your own when relevant. The beauty in this is that I might think to tag this post with the following “tags, content tags, social bookmarking” but found it also might be useful to tag with “tag, tagging, classification, knowledge management”. Had I not looked around to see what others were calling this type of content I would have never have though of it in that way.

Happy Tagging!

The Key to Making Your Web Experience Better

admin — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 07:00:48 +0000

How many times a day do you browse the web? What’s your experience with wait times to download web pages? Are you still bombarded with pop-up ads even with a pop-up blocker? Your internet browser may be to blame.

My recommendation after years of use and satisfaction is Firefox over Internet Explorer or AOL.Here are 5 reasons why you should make the switch:

It’ll save you time. Using Firefox is like trading your minivan for a sports car. Pages will load faster and search results will show up faster.
It’s safe and open-source. All possible security threats are addressed faster which means less downtime for you.
It’s really easy to use. The cutting-edge features are really intuitive and will make your browsing experience much more enjoyable.
Thousands of ways to customize. By installing “add-ons” (which is really simple to do) you can change the look of the browser, view useful toolbars (like seoquake), get the latest scores and highlights or even financial news right in your browser.
It’s FREE.

Go ahead and head over to Firefox and download today.

P.S. If you don’t have an email program or don’t like Microsoft Outlook, Firefox also has a great email program called Thunderbird. I use it and swear by it!

FREE Way to Get New Fans for Your Facebook Fan Page

admin — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 07:00:52 +0000

Could you create a special report, audio or video with really juicy content for your target audience? Maybe a physical product you’ve charged for before but now you could offer the digital version. Sure you can! Why not try offering this content to Facebook Fans Only! You can either create a custom landing page within a Fan Page to ask people to opt-in to receive the content OR you can ask that once people become Fans of your page to write on the wall. This will give you the ability as the administrator of the page to send them an email with a link to download the special content. Don’t overuse this strategy but its great for a quarterly or semi-annually promotion.

Here are 5 quick ways to promote this FREE content giveaway:

Tweet it yourself
Ask your clients/customers to tweet it or Facebook status update it
Add it to the signature of your emails
Announce it in your eNewsletter
Write and submit a free press release about it

Feel free to post a link to your Fan Page here and let us know how you’re doing!