Grow your followers 15 minutes a day

Posted on August 29, 2016 by admin

By Rhonda Campbell

15 minutes a day is all it takes to grow your followers. But, you have to spend 15 focused minutes every day performing at least one growth initiative.

Examples of growth initiatives are:

  • Asking and answering LinkedIn group questions. Join groups that cover subjects that you have experience working in. If you’re a nurse, join a regional or national nurse or healthcare LinkedIn group. Add in a few groups that you’re socially interested in. These groups include alumni, current and former employer and hobby groups.
  • Publishing educational videos on YouTube and Vimeo. Provide keyword rich descriptions with videos to attract search engine attention. Keywords in descriptions also help the right people to find your videos, so that you can grow your followers.
  • Posting questions in Google Plus groups that lead to answers that help identify areas of expertise that group members have. Also, ask questions that offer solutions that several group members are looking for (but may be too tentative to ask for on their own).

Work social media platforms that yield the best results

Choose one social media platform to engage followers and potential supporters on. Consider working one social media platform a week to see which platform grows your followers the most. You may find that:

  • Twitter yields the best traction for your book covers, motivational quotes or business event photos
  • Google Plus works best when sharing surveys
  • Facebook is good when conducting private online chats
  • LinkedIn is great to use to share longer forms of written content and when seeking new business partners, freelance clients or a new job
  • MySpace puts your videos in front of a more narrowly defined audience better than YouTube
  • ScoopIt is effective at presenting you as a subject matter expert, especially if you publish several pieces of related content a day
  • Podcasts work well with marketing or advertising joint ventures, particularly when messages are presented in interview for discussion format

Use social media scheduling tools like StumbleUpon, HootSuite, Sprout and Vista Print to save time. These apps are great ways to keep your message in front of current and potential supporters.

Get Active Outside Social Media To Grow Your Followers

But, don’t limit your engagement with followers to social media scheduling apps. Actually, log into social media platforms and ask and answer questions, respond to surveys, “Like” other posters’ content, follow influencers and post motivational messages, photos and videos. Be comical, informative, open and honest.

Fill out your social media profile. Include a link to your website in your profile. Decide on topics that you are going to raise and respond to. Share information that sets you apart as a specialist in one to three areas. Respond to private comments that other social media platform users send you. It’s a great way to build relationships.

You can be active at social media platforms while you’re working on a new blog posts, updating your website tips or writing out the script to an upcoming YouTube video. The important thing is to be consistent and to define the topics that you are going to comment about or ask and answer questions on. Again, choose topics that align with your products, services and brand.

Devote 15 minutes a day to grow your followers. Do it for three months and the payoff could be significant. If you want to realize sizable growth, devote 30 minutes or more to online and offline marketing activities. It’s also important that you keep a list of contacts you make. These are people who you complete joint business endeavors with. These are also people who have requested to receive marketing, advertising and other communications from you.

Posted in Growing Business | Tagged | 1 Comment

Market Your Small Business Website

Posted on August 21, 2016 by admin

By Rhonda Campbell
Wouldn’t it be great if everyone on the Internet clicked over to your business website? You could be sitting on a pile of money.

But, that’s not how it works. Just because more than two billion people access the Internet doesn’t mean that your small business website will even receive 10,000 visitors a year.

Don’t give up. Your small business website can work.


Each visitor to your website can tell 10 or more of her friends about your service and products.

Create Relationships with Small Business Website Visitors

To reap this benefit, get to know your small business website visitors. Develop relationships with them. To do this:

  • Design engaging Twitter pages. Add custom pictures and videos to your Twitter pages. Add a link to your small business website at your Twitter profile. Tweet your opinions about hot topics. Also tweet about government regulations impacting your industry.
  • Build Facebook pages that highlight your products or services. Highlight sales and discounts. Post about community events that your company will participate in. Boost posts by adding pictures.
  • Create newsletters. Allow customers to subscribe for free. By adding opt-out links at the bottom of each newsletter, you can build subscriber trust.
  • Feature your small business website articles in digital magazines using tools like Scoopit.com and Jing.com.
  • Develop and market audio recordings. Vocaroo.com and Soundcloud.com are tools that you could use to create audio recordings.
  • Add a blog to your small business website. To grow blog traffic, post new content at least once a week.

Software Makes it Easy for You to Stay in Touch with Customers

Constant Contact, LetterPop, iContact and Vertical Response are types of companies that take the hard work out of designing and publishing company newsletters. When working with these companies, choose from a variety of templates that these companies offer. Click and drag newsletter sections to complete issue designs. Build and grow subscriber lists in seconds.

You can also create electronic newsletters using software like Microsoft or Mac Word. The drawback is that, with these tools, you need to create a database to keep your subscriber lists current.

More Ways to Market Business Products and Services Online

More actions that you can take to market your small business website follow:

  • Schedule interviews on Internet radio talk shows. Blog Talk Radio, Blake Radio and National Public Radio work with dozens of talk radio show hosts. Request an interview with these hosts. Send a cover letter that includes the name of your small business. Also, include the products or services that you sell. Provide a brief statement that details how your business will benefit the radio show’s listeners. For example, will your products or services save listeners time or increase their savings?
  • Create and distribute electronic postcards.
  • Host video conferences or web seminars. Charge attendees a fee to tune in. Free video or seminar hosting tools you can use include Any Meeting, Yugma, Mega Meeting, Stealth Seminar and Go To Meeting. Provide valuable information during seminars. Don’t create a video conference or web seminar unless you offer at least 3 points of advice.
  • Develop and send prospects product catalogs.
  • Invite shoppers to attend product or service open houses. It’s similar to sponsoring your own trade show. Put your best and newest products and services on display.
  • Write and distribute press releases to targeted media outlets. As a tip, include your small business website URL, telephone number and email address in press releases. Examples of press release distribution services are PRWeb, PR Buzz, PR Log, Business Wire, Web Wire and e-Releases.

Small Business Website Marketing Roundup

Social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Myspace can make it easier for you to connect with prospects. You can build professional pages at these social networks and send regular posts or tweets to followers. By taking advantage of radio interviews, press releases, electronic postcards, web seminars and newsletters, you can connect with current and prospective customers. You can also build consumer trust in your small business website and strengthen your bottom line.

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Posted in Growing Business | Tagged | 1 Comment

Job search pitfalls to watch for

Posted on August 13, 2016 by admin

By Belinda Johnson

Job search pitfalls could derail your best employment efforts. Don’t let this happen this year. Get more out of your hunt by adding the following job hunting actions to your career advancement plans, while subtracting these other behaviors.

 

Job search no-nos

Steer clear of the casual approach – As you start your job hunt, this cannot be overstated. Create a winning online profile. Although your holiday party picture (your smile bright and memorable) shows off your features, it may not create the right impression on employers and hiring managers. Instead of posting a casual picture with your online profile, add a professional picture. Throughout every step of your job search, present the same impression with your online profile as you would if you walked into a hiring manager’s office for an in-person interview.


Don’t share what you wouldn’t want posted on a billboard – Technology has made it possible for IT professionals and other hiring managers to not only search your online profile, but to also search online messages that you author. Although what you do with your time away from work is your personal business, messages, comments, videos and pictures  that you post and respond to could be used disqualify you for great opportunities that you find during your job search.

Stay away from work hour postings – Content isn’t the only thing that hiring managers pay attention to. Your job search could be stalled if you post online messages and other content during work hours. Think about it? If you post to social media accounts, etc. during work hours, it could send the message to hiring managers that you engage in personal pursuits on work time. This isn’t a plus if you’re currently employed and conducting a job search to find better employment.

Your attitude matters a lot

Cut down on the complaints – This one is especially important if you are currently employed and looking for a new job. It might be tempting, but, don’t complain to coworkers and/or supervisors about how much you dislike your current job. These same people could write a strong recommendation letter for you, a letter that could improve your chances of securing the role you want during your job search.

Fall out of touch with former colleagues – Remember former colleagues, including supervisors and managers that you worked with during your job search. Actions that you could take to stay in touch with former colleagues include sending former colleagues holiday postcards, birthday greetings, anniversary messages or “hello” telephone calls. Keep in touch because you sincerely want to sustain and enrich these relationships. Before closing each communication, let former colleagues know that you’re in the process of a job search. Be sure to let them know what type of role you’re seeking.


Of all the job search pitfalls that you should steer clear of, falling out of touch with former colleagues could be one of the more impactful. Each person who you know likely knows dozens of other people who could aid you in your job search. Stay positive during your job hunt, avoiding falling into the habit of complaining. And pay attention to the image that you create online and offline by creating professional posts, messages and liking content that keeps you in a professional and positive light.

Posted in Employment and Finding Jobs | Tagged | 1 Comment

Free writer inbound marketing courses

Posted on July 30, 2016 by admin

By Rhonda Campbell

inbound marketing training

Picture by Mosborne01

Free inbound marketing courses may gift you with at least three benefits. Take just one of the courses and you may learn a new way to optimize your website for those friendly search engine crawlers. Don’t go light with this benefit.


Search engine optimization equals website, blog and social media traffic, the oxygen of a digital enterprise.

Successful writers love traffic jams

Low to no traffic is like opening a store and hoping for sales even though not a single person ever walks through the front door. You have to attract loads of the right visitors. But, if you’ve been marketing online for just three months, you already know how important traffic is.

It’s up to you to turn those first time visitors into repeat visitors. One of the companies that provides free inbound marketing courses for writers also trains writers on how to keep visitors returning.

The other two benefits associated with the free inbound marketing courses are knowledge to build a stronger brand and — writers may not love this one — realization that, despite how often (or how long) that you have been marketing your books, novels or freelance writer portfolio, there’s still a lot that you don’t know.

Regardless of your marketing results and regardless of how many inbound marketing courses that you complete, never lose sight of the fact that you don’t know everything. This is a good thing. Openness to improvement can easily spell continual growth, what you want.

List of free writer inbound marketing courses

Hopefully, you didn’t skip ahead to hurry and see the list of free writer inbound marketing courses. Because a reminder that there’s always a lot to learn is not one that you want to miss. And the free courses are:

• HubSpot Inbound Marketing Certification – http://certification.hubspot.com/inbound-certification
• Google Online Marketing Challenge – https://www.google.com/onlinechallenge/dmc/index.html
• GCF Learn Free – http://www.gcflearnfree.org/socialmedia
• Copy Blogger Content Marketing – http://www.copyblogger.com/content-marketing-codex/
• HootSuite Podium – https://hootsuite.com/pages/education
• Quick Sprout – https://www.quicksprout.com/the-advanced-guide-to-content-marketing/

Some freelance writers also teach free writer inbound marketing courses. Writers can also find free inbound marketing courses that are embedded in larger training programs. These courses aren’t always free. If they are, they may not offer a certification.

Earn an inbound marketing certification? Add it to your freelance writer resume and to your online writer portfolio. Also, incorporate lessons that you have changed in your website, blog and social media designs and posts.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 1 Comment

How to get more links

Posted on July 10, 2016 by admin

By Avery Baxter
Great content is the best way to get more links. Think data rich content like academic papers, high definition images, static free videos, powerful quotes, statistic rich infographics, slideshows and comedic write-ups.

Images Explode Links and Traffic

Written, audio, video and image (graphics and pictures) content apply. Social Media Today shares that written content with images grabs 94% more attention than content missing images, whether you are trying to get more links or simply want to share a picturesque story. HubSpot says that color goes a long way when it comes to images. In fact, color images increase a person’s interest in reading content by a whopping 80%.


Original pictures get the best traction. Getting your hands on original pictures is as easy as capturing images using your cell phone. If you have basic photography skills, you could capture the emotion, style and texture of trees, animals, sporting events, festivals and people. If your budget permits, you can also get pictures from companies like iStock Photo and ThinkStock Photos.

Other photo libraries require acknowledgement in a byline. Some of these places are Free Digital Photos and Flickr. Wikimedia Commons is another place where you can get free photos. However, I think Wikimedia Commons is limited in the range of high quality photos.

Tell a Story to Get More Links

To use the images at Wikimedia Commons, all you generally need is to acknowledge the name of the photographer, which you can do by simply adding the photographer’s name in the image caption box of the content management system that you use to publish content. Speaking of images, to get more links, add a story to images.

A little girl and her mother weren’t out to get more links when they posted a picture of the girl wearing glasses to social media. it was the story that attracted millions of viewers, readers and supporters. At the heart of the story was bullying. Huffington Post wrote a story about the girl and how her photo got more than four million shares. Last I heard, more than six million people have gotten behind the story.

It’s these types of stories that capture people’s hearts and interest, that help you to get more links. In this case, a personal, emotional appeal went a long way, continues to go a long way.

Data rich written content could also help you to get more links. Remember when you were in school? How many times did you add information from scientific, well researched and stat driven documents into your school papers? The more footnotes, firsthand interviews and statistics there were in the documents, the more reliable you may have believed that the documents were.


“If I add this content to my school paper, my school paper will be better,” you likely thought. Add relevant facts, stats images and firsthand interviews to your content and other people could think that adding your content to their websites, blogs and direct email will make their content better. Outcome – you get more links.

Posted in Growing Business | Tagged | 1 Comment