Posted by JulieD, 8:51 amSeptember 28, 2009 under How-To, Marketing, Video | 
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Too many small and local business still don’t have a website. Find out why you need to take control of your online presence (even if you didn’t know you had one!)
Posted by JulieD, 7:46 amMay 28, 2009 under Advertising, Marketing, Writing, online | Read the First Comment
Recently, I was building a new Twitter persona for a business and trying to figure out how to gain exposure.
I started by using Twitter’s search function to find people who were tweeting about the same topic. Then I followed as many as I could find. (I’m continuing to add to the list each day.)
Why?
Well, a lot of Tweeple (that’s Twitter People, in case you haven’t heard) like to follow anyone who follows them. Sure, it makes keeping up with tweets hard, but from a business point of view it makes sense: the more people you follow and are followed by, the more chance there is of someone reading your tweets. If you are targeting your followers through keyword searches, then you have found your audience. And — because of the auto-follow etiquette — they have found you.
After monitoring the profile for a while and manually following people who followed me I quickly realized I needed to automate the process and focus my energies on creating great content.
Dave Taylor has posted an excellent tutorial (with screenshots, hoorah!) taught me how to use TweetLater to handle the automation. TweetLater has other useful tools too, but for now I’m using it to
I’m scanning tweets and jumping in to conversations, and tweeting whenever the business has some news or a new blog post. I”m also engaging with people who write back to thank me for the welcome message, and many have.
I have started to see increased traffic on the business website with this unobtrusive and, frankly fun form of marketing. It feels collaborative and light-hearted and nothing like “sales”!
Posted by JulieD, 8:27 amNovember 10, 2008 under Marketing | Be the First to Comment
This morning my local radio station interviewed some of the people attending and organizing the Bench2Business conference, which is aimed at “aspiring and established scientists and entrepreneurs of color”.
Everyone they interviewed was really positive. No-one wasted time complaining about the inequities of the past or present, but instead talked about creating opportunities and role models.
Even more tellingly, one of the organizers sidestepped the moral issues altogether and pressed on to economics, saying,
You just cannot leave 30% of your society sitting on a side line and think you’re going to drive an economy in this country.
see original article
See? That’s a message people can rally around, because it promises something for everyone. He’s saying, “no matter what your position on race or equality or affirmative action, or politics or economic theory, you will be richer if you espouse my cause.”
If you want to persuade people to agree with you, buy your product, espouse your ideas, let them see what’s in it for them.
Posted by JulieD, 8:30 amNovember 7, 2008 under Down Is Up | Be the First to Comment
…Has an equal and opposite reaction.
It’s true in physics, and OK it’s slightly less true in business but bear with me.
In every downturn there are opportunities for those who are willing to look for them.
Today I noticed a local furniture store that was going out of business after 81 years. It’s sad and awful for the people involved, and you and I could spend a lot of time wallowing in an analysis of the terrible direction the economy is taking.
Or we could think: who can benefit from this?
It seem to me that even in the death of a furniture store there is opportunity.
Opportunity for:
What is going on around you and are you flexible enough to make it work for you?
Posted by JulieD, 11:56 amNovember 6, 2008 under How-To, Marketing, online | Be the First to Comment
Want to build a huge list of pre-qualified prospects? Take tip from the President-Elect.
In trying to figure out how Barak Obama won the election, the pundits agree that his organization was great a using new media to keep in touch with and build their base.
So how exactly did they get people to sign up?
One brilliant example came before Obama announced his pick for his running mate. The campaign gave people the chance to be the first to know who he had picked by signing up for text messages or an email — no more waiting around for traditional news outlets to tell them the news. All you had to do was give the campaign a way to contact you and you could get a jump on even the media in-crowd. Who wouldn’t love that?
Of course, this meant you were added to their database, but people didn’t seem to care because, pay attention now, they were getting something they valued in return.
Is there something you can offer your potential clients in exchange for their contact info?
Can you offer them a “buy one, get one 50% off” deal on their first purchase? Can you give them a free, exclusive, special report (or ‘white paper’) when they sign up for your newsletter? Can you give them something that will provide real value for them in exchange for their permission to keep in touch?
Create value, create releationships, create business.
