Author: Lisa Chapman

“What would happen if your blog disappeared one day?”

Of the 70+ emails I received one day last week, that message caught my eye. It was written by Cathy Stucker, The Idea Lady. You may remember that I interviewed her last summer about her great service BloggerLinkUp (to help bloggers find guest bloggers, and writers find guest blogging gigs.)

Her Husband’s Blog Crisis (almost)

In the email, Cathy tells the story:

“I was doing some file maintenance and deleted the test version of his site. What I didn’t realize was that the live version used the same data base the test version had used. Oops.”

Ohno!

Everything wiped out. I don’t know about you, but I would’ve had the shakes. Gut-wrenching scared. (Well, maybe not that bad … but close.) To date, I’ve written 90+ posts, 45,000+ words, images – what if they were all gone?

Cathy seemed to handle it all with ease and grace. Because, being The Idea lady, she and her husband used their smarts and had it covered. Both the hosting company AND her husband had recent backups. So all they had to do was a few minutes’ work and he was back on track. Yay!

How to Protect Your Blog

The Idea Lady suggests that everyone with a blog:

• Back up REGULARLY. (I personally like automated, realtime backups.)
• Store backups OFFLINE, too.
• Make sure that you back up the database AND the design files – especially for WordPress.

Cathy Shares the Answers – How To:

Back up a self-hosted WordPress blog

Back up a WordPress.com blog

Back up a Blogger blog

For other blog platforms, search for “automated blog back up for __________” and, of course, fill in with your blog platform.

Thanks a million, Cathy. You may have just “saved” someone’s life or business stories – the powerful marketing juice on which marketers depend.

What blog backup services have you found – good or not so good?

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book has a name change! The Net-Powered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide will be available very soon. With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

How to Reach Your Target Audience

In addition to your primary site, social media sites leverage your messages online. The wonder of social media is that it naturally connects people who have similar interests. You want to reach your friends, and your friends’ friends.

When you engage in discussions online through social media, your message can even “go viral”, gaining momentum and reaching well beyond your friends’ friends. The ultimate goal of an internet marketing campaign is to create a meaningful message that reaches its target audience and is virally spread to others who are interested in the topic.

Social Media Plan Fundamentals

Build your social media presence and interaction very deliberately. Certain basic fundamentals will make your social media efforts most rewarding:

• Write down your business goals.
• Find and listen to the conversations that are already taking place online about you, your products, your competitors, and your competitors’ products.
• Find and listen to your ideal customers’ needs. Remember, when you offer a solution that solves a pressing problem, fulfills an urgent need, or gives them hope and joy, people will eagerly buy it.
• Choose key social media sites for your target niche and establish your online profile.
• Integrate those sites for maximum exposure, brand-building, and traffic.
• Engage in conversations.
• Build your network or following. Build your email database.
• Track and monitor activity and results.
• Tweak to continually improve results.
• Repeat.

Listen, Engage, Add Valuable Content

A site that allows users to interact and add content (comments, links, photos, video, etc.) is social. Use first person. Make your interaction sound and feel genuine. The people you meet online will be attracted to you (and what you offer) when you add helpful, meaningful input. If you’re new to social media, it is widely recommended that you first LISTEN to the conversation in order to become familiar with its unique style and flow.

Do you have success tips for getting your work associates to support this process?

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

.. _____ ..

ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book has a name change! The Net-Powered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide will be available very soon. With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

Don’t Keep Losing Your Shirt!

It’s all about the numbers, so here’s the down and dirty. It sounds harder than it is. Follow this step-by-step and you’ll go from losing money to making money.

When people search for your chosen keyword, Google, Yahoo! and Facebook display your ad that contains a link to your site. The keywords you choose are critical to the success of your campaign. First, decide how much you’re willing to spend on the campaign AND what returns will make that campaign profitable.

Ad campaigns use a pay-per-click (PPC) model. With PPC, you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. Facebook also offers a cost-per-impressions ad model, or CPM. With CPM, you pay per thousand impressions, whether they click or not.

Calculate the Payback

Start by calculating your conversion ratio: Divide your monthly click-throughs by your monthly sales revenue from those click-throughs. Then, to convert that number into a percentage, simply multiply it by 100. For instance, if you get 10,000 click-throughs and sell 250 products, your conversion ratio is (250/10,000) x 100 = 2.5%. Or, for every 100 click-throughs, you sell 2.5 products.

You charge $125 for the product, so for forecasting purposes, your revenue from that ad should be $125 x 2.5 = $312.50 for every 100 click-throughs.

To determine how much you can bid on a keyword in the campaign, divide your revenue per 100 click-throughs by 100 ($312.50 / 100 = $3.12) and this is your breakeven bid – $3.12. This is the most you are willing to pay for that keyword, anticipating breaking even. If you paid more, you would anticipate losing money.

Increase Your Ad Profits

When you use longer tail keywords that are less expensive and your click-throughs remain high, your profitability increases. Experiment and tweak the ad, sales page, or call to action to increase the click-throughs, thus further increasing profitability.

Each of the advertising programs works a bit differently, and it’s quite important to spend time learning the ins and outs before you dive in. If you don’t, you could waste a lot of time and money. Each of them offers instruction, but the real tips are often available in forums, articles or blog posts on specific topics. Search Google for information like, “How does Google AdWords work?” or “How does Yahoo! Search Marketing work?” for consumers’ explanation of their experiences and insider tips.

Do you have success stories or tips for profitable ad campaigns?

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

.. _____ ..

ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book has a name change! The Net-Powered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide will be available very soon. With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

What Works?

There’s a virtual explosion of social media tactics and tools available to help you in your online marketing campaign. How do you choose those that ‘fit’ your company?

Start with a great social media STRATEGY. Developing one always revolves around your marketing goals and objectives. Examples of some of the more fundamental social media goals include:

• To increase overall awareness and/or goodwill
• To increase engagement
• To increase referrals
• To increase conversions/sales

Ideally, you want to build a loyal base of Brand Advocates – individuals who “blow your horn” for you. They absolutely LOVE your company – and they will trumpet the benefits you provide – a totally unpaid army of PR agents.

Real World Social Media Strategy – Case Examples

Strategy – Brand Advocates:

360i Digital Marketing invited select bloggers to an exclusive screening of NBC’s “Kings,” which included a set tour and Q&A with the cast and Executive Producer, resulting in advocacy well above traditional Digital Word Of Mouth benchmarks.

Strategy – Tie-in to Offline TV:

NBC’s “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” Facebook Page leverages the show’s interactive nature.

Strategy – Make a “Task” Fun:

H&R Block found that in order to truly engage taxpaying consumers in a meaningful way, they’d have to set up shop in a variety of social environments, making taxes funny, interesting and/or personal – depending on the audience and unique attributes of each platform. On MySpace and YouTube, H&R Block created the spoof character Truman Greene, who sang parody songs about his love of taxes.

Strategy – Focus on the Consumer

Skittles took quite a different route. In a bold move, the candy brand re-launched its Web site and put the focus almost entirely on consumer-driven conversation. For the new site, primary navigation was designed to overlay three main conversation hubs: Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, along with “official” content such as product information.

Strategy – Celebrity Attention:

Vitamin Water launched a campaign starring LeBron James and Kobe Bryant, putting an existing social platform, Facebook, at the center of its hub and spoke architecture.

Commonalities

Successful strategies all have one very important thing in common – they KNOW their audience. Keeping their audiences’ passions in mind, strategies directly appeal to them, their online content engages them, and they have areal opportunity to achieve their objectives by developing these relationships.

(Thanks to 360i Digital Marketing for the inspiration.)

What online strategies have worked for you? What HASN’T worked?

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

.. _____ ..

ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book has a name change! The Net-Powered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide will be available very soon. With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

Stories, Test Results and Lessons Learned

In this time of information overload, contradictory messages, and fast-changing marketing ‘Best Practices”, some of the most intriguing advice comes from real experiences from real companies. So I took great interest in the MarketingSherpa’s Wisdom Report 2011, which shares a collection of their best marketing case studies and customer insights.

Over-arching lesson: COMMUNICATE

Companies tended to focus on marketing fundamentals in 2009. They took stock of basics and planned strategies and tactics for their 2010 campaigns. This makes enormous sense, since 2009 exploded with new tools and thought leaders who convinced us that without a strategy to achieve our goals, we wouldn’t achieve them.

So 2010 was a year for the execution of those strategies, in which companies, large and small, focused on their communication. Some extended the simplest expressions of “Thanks”, while others spent untold hours and budgets devising complex social media marketing strategies and tactical campaigns.

A few marketing case study excerpts from Marketing Sherpa’s report are intriguing, as you consider key elements in your digital communication strategy:

LESS IS MORE

“Since digital marketing is cheap (and often free), we tend to over-do it.

More links, more content, more email newsletters, more pages…

Seth Godin once said:

“Once you overload the user, you train them not to pay attention. More clutter isn’t free and is a permanent shift, desensitization to ALL the information, not just the last bit. More is not always better. In fact, more is almost never better.”

“Put simply, try reducing your company’s newsletter to above the fold or limit it to just one link.”

(Contributor credit: Nathan Potter, IDES, www.ides.com)

GUERRILLA MARKETING TRIUMPHS IN BAD ECONOMY

For one client in the business of education: “In this down economy, the pursuit of new students becomes challenging. Our marketing / communications department worked to strengthen our email marketing campaigns with great results. We added student testimonials to our campaign and prospective students responded to our present students.

“We also began to ask our present students to refer their colleagues and friends to us with an email campaign that succeeded beyond our estimation. One can prosper in a down economy by looking at guerrilla marketing tactics to reach prospective customers.

(Contributor credit: Dr. Raymond Guilette, The National Graduate School, www.ngs.edu)

EMAIL MARKETING

MarketingSherpa’s client wanted to increase renewal rates among members completing their first year of email marketing membership.

According to their client: “After pouring over MarketingSherpa’s Best Practices in Email Marketing Handbook, (excerpts at this link) we

recommended a “postcard”-type email format to deliver single-focused messaging. The outcome was a series of email blasts, by life stage segment, that were blasted every two weeks, PLUS a series of “special” emails that universal appeal, which were blasted based on calendar date or triggered event.

“Open rates of the first “Welcome” email were 2.5x higher than the previous benchmark and clickthrough rates nearly 300% higher. Open rates of the first

Segment-specific email were nearly 350% higher than the benchmark and clickthroughs, depending on the subject matter in the email, were well above benchmark metrics.

“After 16 weeks of blasting, segments were still at 30% open rates and 15% clickthrough rates. Event-triggered emails enjoy open rates of 50-80% with clickthrough rates between 70 and 95%. While retention rates are just starting to be measured, we know we increased engagement with the brand, so we’re hopeful that we see that reflected in renewal rates.”

(Contributor credit: Carolyn Goodman, Goodman Marketing Partners, www.goodmanmarketing.com

What communication tips do you have to share from YOUR experiences?

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

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More Similarities to Profiles

Launched today, Mashable reported on Facebook’s new Page redesign – giving users an experience more consistent with Profiles. Right away, you’ll notice the differences in the new layout. The new Page redesign will also operate more like Profiles. According to Rohit Dhawan, lead product manager for Facebook Pages, “We strongly believe you should have consistent experiences when possible.”

The redesign rollout was not completely unexpected, since it debuted in late 2010, when they accidentally launched it, but very quickly took it down, due to features that were apparently ill-conceived. But now, just a few short months later, they’re back at it with a much more thorough approach that’ll make it easier for everyone to learn and use.

“A Page can now use Facebook as if they were an individual with the ability to interact with other pages,” Dhawan said. “It provides interesting content when people are visiting the Page.”

Creative Facebook Page Photos

Pages can also now display photos at the top. Take a look at some creative facebook photo design elements, including segmenting photos and upside-down photos. A great way to distinguish your Page from your competitors’!

Other Important Changes

Some of the behind-the-scenes changes make social networking on Facebook more meaningful. Important changes include:

• Page Admins have the ability to post and comment on other Facebook Pages through the “Login as Page” feature
• The left-hand menu for editing pages has been removed in favor of a new navigation menu
• Brand info can be placed at the top of the Page under the main title
• A new section shows users how many of their friends have also “liked” that particular page
• Most popular content will gravitate to the top

Test it and Tweak

Admins have until March 10^th to preview and play with their design elements. After that, Facebook will automatically update all Pages to the new design. In the meantime, have fun with their Page Tour and a manual that explains the new design.

What do you see as the pros and cons of Facebook’s new Page redesign? Any suggestions for other Admins?

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book, How to Make Money Online With Social Media: A Step-by-Step Guide for Entrepreneurs will be available very soon. With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

Drill Down to the Basics

Privacy issues surrounding social media marketing, and Facebook in particular, have been big news for quite some time now – especially since Mark Zuckerberg’s own Facebook Fan Page was hacked. After all, if they can hack HIM, what else is possible?

Privacy is a concern for all of us, especially if your business is starting to ramp up its social media marketing as an important component of a comprehensive marketing strategy.

Privacy Policy Changes – Unpredictable and Unannounced

Did you know that most social media platforms can change any privacy policy at will, without even announcing it? You likely agreed to that when you signed up for an account. It’s in the fine print of the Terms and Conditions that 99.99% of us don’t bother to read. Or, if you did, you agreed to the Terms anyway, not thinking about all the ‘what ifs” involved. That’s what attorneys spend their time thinking about, right? Not busy business folks.

Facebook, for example, has over 170 privacy setting options. It’s overwhelming. Who actually goes through all those to determine what’s most important, and not?

“10 Privacy Settings Every User Needs to Know”

Stan Schroeder comes to the rescue with exactly that research and a Mashable article to help you narrow that 170 down to the ten essential privacy issues:

• Sharing on Facebook – who can see what you share
• Existing photos – who can see your albums and wall photos
• Checking in to Places – lets your friends check you into Places
• Connecting – how people can find you on Facebook
• Apps you use – individual settings for dozens of already active apps
• Instant personalization – third party websites use of your info
• Info accessible to your friends – info available to your friends’ apps and websites
• Public search – what search engines reveal about you
• Friend lists – grouping friends into separate lists
• Enabling HTTPS – security: Hacking or ‘account sniffing’

It’s a great article, and certainly worth your time to investigate which items affect you, and how. Schroeder makes it simple, with screenshots and non-technical summaries. FINALLY! We all appreciate your time and insights, Stan.

What other Privacy concerns do you have? Any suggestions from your own experiences?

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

.. _____ ..

ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book, How to Make Money Online With Social Media: A Step-by-Step Guide for Entrepreneurs will be available very soon. With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

A valuable tool for Internet marketing

You’ve gotten out there and created a Facebook page for your business, but now you face the challenge of convincing current and potential customers to pay attention. One way to accomplish this is by creating a special landing page featuring a call-to-action asking visitors who are not currently marked as fans to indicate that they “Like” you, allowing your updates to be sent directly to their personal Facebook walls.

How do you do it?

Creating and configuring a call-to-action and landing page is fairly easy, and even novice users should be able to have one up and running quickly thanks to a step by step guide from the marketing professionals at HubSpot.

• First, create a call-to-action graphic. They are available free at a number of places around the Internet, and Hubspot has a free generator as well.
  • Include a basic introduction and make the “Like” button easy to spot, then save it on your personal web space so that you can link to it later.

• Next, you must enable the “Static FBML” app on Facebook. This creates a box on your Facebook page in which you can render HTML or FBML.

• Plug your image’s Web address into the FBML (Facebook Markup Language) code provided by HubSpot.

• Paste the full FBML code into the proper box inside the “Static FBML” app, name your page and save the changes.

• Finally, set your new landing page as the default view for visitors by clicking on the “Wall” tab and selecting “Settings,” then “View Settings.” Under the list “Default Landing Tab for Everyone Else,” select the name of your landing page and it’s done.

Other uses

In addition to gathering followers, landing pages can be used to promote special deals, call attention to new products, or draw visitors in with an attractive and engaging splash page.

Fast, free, simple, and effective. Why don’t you have one?

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

.. _____ ..

ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book, How to Make Money Online With Social Media: A Step-by-Step Guide for Entrepreneurs will be available very soon. With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

Huge Numbers May Not Mean Huge Conversion

With Twitter followers numbering 1.2 million, Alyssa Milano sent a tweet in support of a new book; “Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks & How They Shape Our Lives”.

The book, available at this Amazon page, broadcast to 1.2 million people who likely follow Alyssa closely, would probably have experienced a spike in sales, right?

So, Did the Tweet Convert to Buyers?

No. None! One point two million people – and not even ONE measly sale as a result?

Wassup? As the story goes (told by John Kremer, Book Marketing Guru), the authors of the book, Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler then turned to Tim O’Reilly to send it out to his 1.5 million followers. The result: ONE sale.

Influence and Impact

John Kremer, intrigued by this book marketing phenomenon, goes into elegant detail about how social networks actually influence – or not; and how we’re in the very early stages of learning how social networks and social media tools impact behavior.

Nicholas Christakis, a professor at Harvard, contends that “If we’re really going to advance this field, we need to figure out how to identify not just influential people, but also influenceable people;” and “we need to distinguish between influential, or real ties online, and uninfluential, or weak, ties online.”

Monitoring, Segmenting and Tracking is Just a Start

Like never before, the internet enables marketers to monitor, segment and track data – and its subsequent actionable behavior. But there’s more to it than just statistics. According to Christakis, “if we’re going to exploit online ties … measures of meaningful interactions will be needed.” We need to determine “…which online interactions represent real relationships, where an influence might possibly be exerted.”

Which means to me that there’s an important subjective human behavior element involved, too.

Kremer suggests that this is where the niche concept means much more than the sheer number of followers. Marketers must tap into communities of like-minded individuals – influential people – (not numbers) who share because they care.

(Many thanks to John Kremer – one of my book marketing heroes. Nice guy, too!)

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

.. _____ ..

ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book, How to Make Money Online With Social Media: A Step-by-Step Guide for Entrepreneurs will be available very soon. With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com