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Are You Using Twitter Effectively for Your Business?
Would you like to get more followers, find your ideal customers, and reach more people with your message? Are you getting overwhelmed by the Twitter Buzz? Who would have thought that 140 characters could have such punch? Twitter is more than people posting what they are up to or what they eating. Twitter is a very effective business tool if used correctly.
Twitter can do the following for you if used with intention:
- Build and nurture a community or tribe of followers – In order to build your community, you need to interact with the people who comment or retweet your content. Reply to comments or ask questions about posts that resonate with you. Thank people for following you. Suggest followers to others #FF (Follow Friday). You are also building your credibility and visibility online.
2. Drive traffic to your website – Share great content from your website or blog. Provide a brief bio that grabs people’s attention and refers them to your website to learn more about you. Tweet about your free offerings that give people value.
3. Help you do research – #hashtags are like file folders where you can search by a hashtags and find who else is tweeting about your topic. For example, if you wanted #speaker to find out who is looking for speakers, you would search #speaker. Consider asking your followers a question about what you are researching. You are bound to have an answer from someone. You have a wealth of knowledge right at your fingertips.
4. Promote your products or services – If you wanted to share that you are a speaker, you could share some information and #speaker so you tweet would be put in the virtual folder.
5. Find your ideal customers. If you want to build the know, like, and trust factor so people will feel comfortable doing business with you, share a little bit about who you are. Be a REAL person instead of some text. Offer live tweets while you watch TV or tweet about trending topics. Tweet about the books you are reading or share a quote from one.
Twitter in business is not just self-promotion. If you are constantly tweeting about buy this or buy that, you can expect people to unfollow you. People do not want to be sold to. Twitter is a social platform so be social. Your tweets should provide value by inspiring, educating, or entertaining. By the way, thought provoking questions are also valuable in getting mentions and interactions. Engagement is key in social media. Create some Twitter Buzz by sharing this post!
3 Easy Steps for Virtual Event Profit – Guest Blog Post
Guest Blog Post – Lori Isacheson
Whether you’re brand new to the online world or an old hat, you’ve probably been involved in at least one virtual event. If you have a lot of great information and content you should be turning to hosting your own virtual events.
Webinars, teleseminars, and live Q & A sessions are becoming increasingly popular as our quest for knowledge – and our Internet speeds – grow.
That’s good news for Internet entrepreneurs. Virtual events offer you a great opportunity to reach more people in your market in less time, and with less expense, than ever before.
Now the only question is, can you turn a profit, even on free events? It’s easy, if you follow this three-step plan:
1. Make sure you have a strong backend offer – you should be collecting names and emails from the get-go, and a virtual event is the perfect vehicle for building a mailing list. Follow up with this list or your just leaving money on the table.
2. Make sure you have an offer for attendees – this can be a product of your own, a coaching session or an affiliate link for a related product, but you should be promoting something during your event. (Just don’t get carried away – participants don’t want to feel they are only invited so you can sell to them!)
3. Turn your completed teleseminars or webinars into a product – hopefully you’ve embraced the idea of repurposing your content in your online business, and virtual events are no different. Just be careful that any guest speakers or JV partners are aware of and in agreement with your plans.
Here are a few ideas for turning those events into paid products:
* Bundle and sell a series of audios or videos on your website.
* Offer the recordings and/or transcriptions by charging them as an upsell.
* Have the audios or videos transcribed and turn them into eReports.
* Turn your transcripts into brandable eBooks your affiliates can give away.
These are just a few examples of how you can turn your free or low-cost events into long-term money makers. How many more can you think of?
Whether you choose to offer a free or a paid virtual event, your ultimate goal should be to make money. After all, you’re not in business to lose money, right?
Virtual event planning doesn’t have to be a stress-fest! Check out the Virtual Event Game Plan, complementary 3 part video training series, to see how easy you can inject virtual events comfortably into your online marketing plans.
As a Rescuepreneur & OBM for over 6 years, Lori Isachsen supports numerous clients to expand their businesses with the “art of virtual events”. Through coaching, training and project management of online virtual events, programs and product launches, she’s able to rescue more business owners so they CAN focus, grow and increase profits with the organizational and technological support needed.
Find out more at http://www.onlinexpertrescue.com
5 Top Entrepreneur Summer Reads
In the heat of summer, you do not want to lose the sizzle of your business! This is a great time to catch up reading, take a few notes, and think about how you can implement what you learn into business. When do you get the time to catch up on some of your reading?
Books that will make your summer sizzle include:
POP!: Create the Perfect Pitch, Tagline, and Title for Anything by Sam Horn
I love this book! It is an easy read chalked full of tips and brainstorming ideas to create ideas that literally POP! and grab people’s attention and leaving wanting to find out MORE!
The Success Principles by Jack Canfield
I highly recommend this book as I was a graduate of The Success Principles Coaching program. Simply sectioned reads that can get you onto the road to success in no time flat. This is literally the self-help bible of books!
Start with Why by Simon Sinek
Sinek’s thought provoking style really help you self reflect on where you are going and whether or not you are doing what you doing intentionally. Great reminder to align with your values and beliefs and ultimately your – WHY!
The 4 Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss
Imagine if you could have more play time in your life – what would that be like? Tim Ferriss has a unique approach to streamline the clutter of life and getting down to the heart of the matter so you can live more and LOVE it!
Okay …maybe I am just a little bias…. The Entrepreneurial Mom’s Guide to Growing a Business, Raising a Family, and Creating a Life You Love by Debra Kasowski
Life can get crazy as mom! I get it. Many mom’s wonder how the can achieve their dreams without compromising the dream or vision they have for their family. Society send us so many messages but you must ultimately decide who’s life are you living! I share tons of tips and techniques that have worked for me in growing my business and raising my family. But just waiting I am just in the beginning of the teens years so their can be a sequel!
Let us know what your favorite reads are! Boost business and innovation everywhere!
Filling Your Pipeline with Quality Referrals
Think about this: if you want to hire the best relocating company for your moving needs, you’d ask your colleagues, friends or associates to give you details of a moving company they recommend. It is the same with your business, to stay afloat, your business needs to be constantly getting new referrals. Here are some of the things you can do to fill your pipeline with quality referrals:
Deliver on your promises
To gain quality referrals you need to be referable. Give your customers high quality services that will cause them to give you unsolicited publicity.
Make your prospects feel special
Take a personal approach when you connect with potential customers. Make them feel special by sending them personalized emails, letters, postcards or direct messages on social media sites.
Collaborate with other specialists
The easiest way to get referrals is by holding collaborative webinars with specialists in your area of business. Partnering with specialists will help your nurture relationships with potential customers which can help you generate high-quality referrals.
Do not wait until the drought season before you ask for referrals
Do not wait for your pipeline to be dry before you ask for referrals. For your business to have high quality referrals, create a consistent referral system. This is how you can create a consistent referral system:
1) Exchange referrals with credible service providers
Ask your affiliates or business connections to refer your services to their clients as you refer their services to your clients.
2) Show gratitude
Send thank you messages or complimentary gifts to your referential sources.
3) Create multiple referential methods
Some of your clients may not be comfortable with asking people to use your services. You can ask this type of clients to write testimonials about your services. You can create links in your emails that can be easily used to share your content on social networking sites.
4) Ask for referrals
If you are uncomfortable about asking for referrals, you will have a hard time having high quality referrals. You are in business, so let people know that you have competitive services to offers. If you generate website traffic mostly from Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites, ask people in your network to re-tweet or share your messages.
Remember you don’t have to wait until your pipeline is dry. Do one thing each day to make sure you fill your pipeline with quality referrals.
How do you fill your pipeline of referrals? Share this post and comment on how build your pipeline made a difference in your business.