Author: Lisa Chapman

Tips for Getting More Engagement and Shares

Justin Hall, a student at Swathmore college, created the first blog in 1994. In the 21 years since then, blogging has grown in popularity and is now a staple of modern life – and content marketing.

A great blog goes a long way toward creating the modern success story. But how do you know what makes a great blog post? TrackMaven wondered the same thing and recently researched 4,618 blogs to find the answers. So what did they find in the 1,167,426 posts and 1,915,428,305 social shares which those blogs represent?

Here are the five essentials content marketers need to know:

1. Time is of the essence.

One of the first things the study looked at is when blogs were posted and when posts were receiving the most shares. Surprisingly, the timing didn’t line-up. While the most shares took place during the evening hours or early morning peaking between 10:00-1:00PM, the most posts were being put-up during the workday, peaking between noon and 1 o’clock.

So what does this mean for content marketers? The report suggests remember that people tend to do their reading, even their business reading, in their leisure hours. If you want to engage with your customers, doing it outside the 9-5 window is essential to getting them to click.

2. Don’t forget the day.

Much like bloggers tend to be posting during the middle of the day, the study found that they are also overwhelmingly posting during the middle of the week, with Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays getting the bulk of posts. Despite this, the study found that the bulk of shares were still taking place on the weekends. The content marketers’ data spoke for itself.

According to the study, “while only 6.3% of posts were published on Saturdays, they received 18% of the total social shares”, meaning; if you want to engage with your customers, Saturday is clearly your best day for posting to your blog.

3. Shorter is better.

If you find yourself being excessively verbose when creating titles you might suppose you shall also lose customer interest. When it comes to creating titles, the study found what most of us instinctively know: on the internet, shorter is better. The average blog title, the study found, is about 40 characters long. These content marketers’ posts did well for reader engagement but the best titles for social shares came in at around 60 characters.

Anything longer than that length significantly decreased the likelihood of a post getting social shares. The key to titling, it seems, is the same as most writing: write long enough that people understand you, but not any longer. People come to blogs to be entertained and a long title risks losing their attention before you ever get them to click.

4. DON’T SHOUT AT YOUR AUDIENCE!

As it turns out, the study found that people aren’t really interested in deviation from standard English punctuation or capitalization with one exception—blog posts with 4 exclamation points saw a significantly greater number of shares. Be wary of adopting this as a gimmick, though, unless you have the blog posts to back-up your exciting headline. Otherwise, the study found exclamation points are generally to be avoided.

In the words of an old English professor, “you only get four exclamation points in your lifetime, use them well.” As for all caps or lower caps? The study found that we are better off sticking with the rules we were taught in grade-school for capitalization did the best for engaging readers.

5. Are you talking to me?

While shouting at your readers might not be the best approach, asking a question can net content marketers double the shares of a blog post without a question in the title. The study suggests this is because a question in the title engages with a reader immediately, peaking their curiosity, encouraging them to not only click but share the post.

Further, titles with the words “Your” and “You” the study found did exceptionally well on social shares. In other words, titles that directed their content straight to the individual was most likely to be received and shared.

Your Goal

As a content marketer, your goal in creating a blog is to get people to engage in the content your posting. If you apply the findings of TrackMaven’s study to your own blog, you should see your own social media shares increase, provided, you have content worth sharing.

The Conclusion

The ultimate conclusion of the study, though the numbers were useful, is that you have to create the kind of content which individuals crave and look for in a blog. Content that is impactful, relatable, and shareable. Content which teaches you something and shares your values.

If you are able to meet your audience where they are by abiding by the five rules of this study as well as provide meaningful content, then you should have no problem finding new customers or readers in the future.

Thanks to TrackMaven’s ©Content Marketing Report for much of this information.

If you finished reading this post and you think it’s valuable, others will too.

So please take 5 seconds (!) to share on Facebook, Twitter or your favorite social scoop. Thanks!

For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

.. _____ ..

About the Author:

Lisa Chapman helps company leaders define, plan and achieve their goals, both online and offline. After 25+ years as an entrepreneur, she is now a business and marketing consultant, business planning consultant and social media consultant. Online, she works with 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 (at) LisaChapman (dot) com. Her book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide is available at:

• Amazon.com
• Barnes & Noble

How to save money and get great results using Fiverr.com

My wonderful friend and PR Professional Aileen Katcher wrote a controversial blog post about Fiverr.com on June 17, 2014. It caught my eye because we see the issue differently – way differently!

Although it’s admittedly out of context, I quote what I see as the controversial parts of her post:

“A friend with a successful marketing firm recently ventilated to me about an experience she had with a client that was driving her to drink. It seems he bought a logo on the website Fiverr.com for $5 and then didn’t like it … I think I’ll stick to my original model. After all, you get what you pay for.”

Note: To read the post in its entirety, see the above link: “blog post about Fiverr.com”.

My Excellent Experiences with Fiverr.com

I certainly understand her point of view regarding this man who spent $5 for his logo on Fiverr.com, and then wasn’t satisfied with the result. Like many consumers of services, he had a bad experience. So in response, I’d love to share a different perspective – my excellent experiences with Fiverr and how our readers can have them, too!

Manage Fiverr Like any Outsourced Vendor

Fiverr.com offers a number of ways for the “Buyer” to screen “Sellers” and have a high degree of confidence that their experience and outcome will be great. That’s their business mission – great experiences!

Point #1: It appears that the man in your example did not choose a Seller” who offered unlimited revisions until the Buyer is satisfied.

Point #2: Each Seller has a section at the bottom of their page where you can read customer reviews. Read ALL of them. How were they rated? Any problems and how were they resolved?

Point #3: How many customers has this Seller serviced? Their page also shows total # of customers. Choose a seller with a LOT of satisfied customers.

Point #4: The Seller page offers actual examples of the Seller’s work. Don’t expect a logo designer who shows samples of cartoon-ish, caricature-ish logos to produce something sleek and minimalistic. Not in their DNA.

Point #5: Do they speak and understand English well? You may laugh, but I have had this experience. The Seller may be talented, but if he/she doesn’t understand nuances enough to satisfy your needs, you may not be satisfied.Read what they’ve written on their page with this in mind. Send them a message before you engage them and test their communication skills.

Point #6: YOU need to send the Seller as much detailed info as possible in order to get as close to your desired outcome as possible. Just like ANY offline seller.

My Actual Savings by Using Fiverr

So that’s the process I’ve used – and I’ve saved at least $1,500 in the last year by using Fiverr Sellers for a number of marketing and graphic design services. My logo was a Fiverr design: www.lisachapman.com (it’s what I wanted) and the banners on my social media profiles were also Fiverr products (I got FOUR banners for $5!).

How can Fiverr Sellers Charge so Little?

BTW, the Sellers on Fiverr can charge this little primarily for two reasons: 1.) Many work in countries where $5 goes a lot farther than in the U.S. and 2.) they are very specific about what you get for $5, with more extensive add-ons costing “extra gigs”. Example: Many logo designers will deliver jpg and png files for $5, but if you want a full suite of editable file formats, they cost additional gigs – anywhere from $5 – $40. Just read their gig description.

As you can tell, I’m a big fan of Fiverr.com and with savings of $1500 (or more), it’s worth it to me to spend a little extra time to screen the Sellers as described above! Hope this helps someone else! Lisa

If you finished reading this post, others will too, so please take 5 seconds (!) to share on Facebook, Twitter or your favorite social scoop. Thanks!

For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

.. _____ ..

ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Lisa Chapman helps company leaders define, plan and achieve their goals – both online and offline. After 25+ years as an entrepreneur, she is now a business and marketing consultant, business planning consultant and social media consultant. Online, she works with clients to establish and enhance their brand, attract their Target Audience, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert them into Buyers. You can reach her via email: Lisa (at) LisaChapman (dot) com. Her book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide is available at:

• com: http://bit.ly/AmazonTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur
• Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/BNTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur

Are You Unwittingly Jeopardizing your Licensure with Patient Privacy Issues Online?

The objective of this article is to explore the issues involved in using online marketing of the licensed mental health professionals’ social media – especially Facebook – and remain compliant with the practitioners’ professional codes of ethics.

‘Content Strategy’ versus ‘Engagement Strategy’?

Question: Should licensed practitioners use a (presumably safer) ‘Content Strategy’ – versus implementing an ‘Engagement Strategy’, which is possibly more powerful? Note: an Engagement Strategy is generally accepted in the online marketing industry as highly effective step in helping to build relationship, and build that relationship to eventually turn online visitors into customers/clients.

Engagement on Social Media platforms certainly strengthens relationships and increases conversion into paying customers/clients. For general businesses of any size, Engagement is considered a vitally important social media marketing strategy. However, for professional psychologists and all licensed mental health practitioners, the

Engagement Strategy for Mental Health Practitioners

Engagement Strategy is questionable because all online activity must be compliant with the licensed professional’s code of ethics, especially patient confidentiality. Could it be a high risk move?

Engagement could/would successfully convert visitors into clients, but in the psychotherapy/mental health practitioner niche, the risk of harming client relationships is widely thought to outweigh the potential benefits. Additionally, clients’ posts/comments online are usually permanent, so if posts/comments are viewed as potentially harmful, this is a risk that could jeopardize the mental health professional’s reputation, and perhaps even their licensure.

Content Strategy & the Practitioners’ Codes of Ethics

Providing valuable, engaging, sharable consumer education is a critical component of a mental health practitioner’s marketing strategy – online and offline. This is the basis of a solid Content Strategy.

As a consultant, I recommend that Social Media activities be clearly designed to keep the mental health practitioner in compliance with their professional Code of Ethics, AND to avoid some of the risks to relationships described in professional articles now available online as guides.

In Support of the Content Strategy for Licensed Practitioners

So here is a summary of some of the key resources for supporting a Content Strategy versus an Engagement Strategy, as well as additional guidelines for successful implementation of Social Media marketing for mental health practitioners:

1. I recommend using the guiding principles of Dr Keely Kolmes, (www.drkkolmes.com) a private practitioner who is widely recognized as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) & Influencer in ‘psychotherapy and social media’.
2. Among other direct experience, Dr. Kolmes has held the job of ‘Digital Director’ for the American Psychological Association (APA) www.APA.org , as you can see in her CV.
3. Here is a quote about Dr. Kolmes that I take at face value as to her credibility on social media marketing issues:

“I have had the pleasure of interviewing and creating an online course with Dr. Keely Kolmes on the topic of social media and digital ethics. Keely is internationally known for her social media policy, which is used in many countries, including Australia. … There’s no doubt she is a leader in the field of mental health and on the cutting edge of developments in the realm of digital and social media ethics.”

-Clinton Power, Sydney Australia, Relationship Counsellor

4. Her article, “Managing Facebook as a Mental Health Professional” (information about privacy, shared friend networks, and some distinctions between profiles and pages) is a bit old – 2009 – and Dr. Kolmes updated it for Facebook’s Privacy update in 2010.

5. Dr. Kolmes’ “More privacy issues on Facebook” – April, 2010 – provides “a walk-through of adding a bit more security to your profile, although it is becoming harder to really completely secure any information on Facebook.” These articles remain on her website, and she continues to promote their ethical guidelines (as well as practical recommendations) in speeches, interviews and PR – globally.

Dr. Keely Kolmes’ Quotes

I’ve selected a few key ‘take-aways’ that apply to FACEBOOK – quotes from Dr. Kolmes’ articles:

1. 1. Visibility, Exposure, and Self-Disclosure: “Inviting clients to your personal (social media/networking) profile can also be perceived as inviting them into your personal life (a code violation) … This can send mixed messages to clients, especially if they are unclear about therapeutic boundaries to begin with.
   2. “Imagine how you may feel discovering that you and your clients have mutual friends. While it may not impair your objectivity as a clinician, it may subtly influence how you regard your patient in a multitude of ways, and it may also have an impact on how your patient views you and your relationship.
   3. “The APA Ethics Code (APA, 2002), Standard 3.05, Multiple Relationships, states that psychologists should avoid multiple relationships that could impair their effectiveness or cause harm. Let’s say you decide you would like to be friends with some of your clients on Facebook. Do you want to get updates on your clients’ lives out of session, knowing before their scheduled session with you what kind of day they’ve had or that their relationship status has changed or that they were out heavily drinking at a party last night? What if a client expresses self-harm desires on her Facebook Wall? If you fail to act on cries for help on a Facebook page and your client harms herself or someone else, could you be professionally liable for failing to prevent harm? These are questions that therapists will have to consider when they establish online connections with patients.
   4. “Deleting a client as a friend can be experienced as especially rejecting and complex—more so than declining the initial friend request in the first place. These are certainly thorny ethical and clinical dilemmas which require consultation and care.”

Dr. Kolmes’ Facebook Recommendations:

“In Patricia R. Recupero’s article, “Legal Concerns for Psychiatrists Who Maintain Websites,” she outlines how courts recognize three types of websites. (“Intermediate” sites may offer advice and may invite contact from site visitors.) … Be mindful that if you are creating a Facebook page or profile to promote your practice and you enable activity and interaction from clients on your Wall, you are turning your Facebook presence into an intermediate site. This can create potential legal dilemmas for mental health practitioners, as the interaction will need to be consistent with professional standards of care. It also means that you could be having public interactions on the site with people who later become clients which raises additional issues related to confidentiality and HIPAA related communication protocols.

1. 1. “… clients have no duty to be private or confidential about their relationship with us, and some of them may feel comfortable with a public link to our pages, or even saying in public that they are our clients. That is their prerogative. But it does not relieve us of our own duty to provide confidentiality to them
   2. “To read more and stay current with news about Facebook changes, an excellent resource is the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s blog. EFF is a non-profit organization which is devoted to protecting your digital rights. You can find links to many of their updates in the reference section.”

Keely Kolmes’ guiding articles can be found on her website. The entire list with links can be found at this page on her website “Articles for Clinicians Using Social Media” at this link: http://drkkolmes.com/clinician-articles/ .

I have searched around for other Psychotherapists’/mental health practitioners’ Social Media guidelines. Institutions such as hospitals and healthcare systems are different, and although they are very professional, with great content and excellent marketing techniques, their guidelines for Engagement on Social Media are different.

Try Pinterest

For another positive social media strategy, consider Pinterest. It’s easy and fun, and FULL of prospects in the practitioner’s target market. Members are very active on Pinterest, and a high % of them click through to websites. Take a look at this amazing Board – 75k+ pins on positivity and inspiration!!!! Great for tweeting and reposting – carefully selected to create good feelings and share-ability.

Summary Thoughts

So, in summary, licensed mental health practitioners’ social media strategies are safely content-driven, with the objective of building a strong hub-and-spoke system (website = hub) to increase SEO and getting found by prospective clients. When the posted content is more valuable, engaging and sharable than their competitors’, then it will be widely shared and thus it will increase awareness and client conversions.

BONUS TIPS:

1. Promote your psychotherapy private practice online:

If you want more guidance on integrating the digital world into your practice marketing, see this book:

The Psychotherapist’s Guide To Online Marketing for Private Practice

A simple do-it-yourself model

By Azzia Walker, B.A. & Ofer Zur, Ph.D (of The Zur Institute)

2. Free Online Resources, Brochures, Videos, Articles, Guidelines & PodCasts by Ofer Zur, Ph.D.:

For Psychotherapists, Counselors, Mental Health Professionals and Related Fields

The Zur Institute

If you finished reading this post and you think it’s valuable, others will too, so take 5 seconds (!) to share on Facebook, Twitter or your favorite social scoop. Thanks!

For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

.. _____ ..

ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Lisa Chapman helps company leaders define, plan and achieve their goals – both online and offline. After 25+ years as an entrepreneur, she is now a business and marketing consultant, business planning consultant and social media consultant. Online, she works with clients to establish and enhance their brand, attract their Target Audience, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert them into Buyers. You can reach her via email: Lisa (at) LisaChapman (dot) com. Her book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide is available at:

• com: http://bit.ly/AmazonTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur
• Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/BNTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur

Can You Actually Save Money and Get What You Want, Too?

Recently, my good friend and Public Relations pro Aileen Katcher posted a blog item on her website “Katcher In Their Eye” (get it?!) about a friend who had a bad experience with a Seller on Fiverr.com. Aileen’s conclusion was, essentially, “you get what you pay for”.

I certainly understand her point of view – regarding the gentleman who spent $5 for his logo on Fiverr.com, then wasn’t satisfied. He had a bad experience. In her PR business and throughout her distinguished PR career, Aileen Katcher has known an army of qualified designers who charge hundreds, even thousands of dollars for their time and considerable expertise. So, in her mind, how could anyone possibly deliver anything even near acceptable – for $5?

I’d love to share my excellent results with Fiverr.com designers and show how our readers can have good Fiverr experiences, too!

My Fiverr.com Experiences

I’ve saved at least $1,500 in the last year by using Fiverr Sellers for a number of marketing and graphic design services. The logo on my Business and Social Media Consulting website (and pictured above) was a Fiverr design. It’s exactly what I wanted. And the banners on my social media profiles were also Fiverr products – reconfigured from my logo. I got FOUR banners for $5!

Take a peak at my Fiverr custom social media banners:

Facebook

Google+

Twitter

LinkedIn

This look may not be what YOU want, but for me, I think they did a great job of delivering consistent branding, formatted for all my online platforms.

How to Screen Sellers on Fiverr.com

Here is the secret to getting what you want for $5. Fiverr.com offers a number of ways for the “Buyer” to screen “Sellers” and have a high degree of confidence that their experience and outcome will be great. That’s their business mission – great experiences!

Fiverr.com Tip #1: It appears that the man in Aileen’s blog post example did not choose a Fiverr Seller who offered unlimited revisions until the Buyer is satisfied. Don’t repeat this mistake, no matter how good they look. You might as well burn you $5 bill. Continue on …

Fiverr.com Tip #2: Each Fiverr Seller has a section at the bottom of their page where you can read customer reviews. Read ALL of them. How were they rated? Any problems and how were they resolved?

Fiverr.com Tip #3: How many customers has this Fiverr Seller serviced? Their page also shows total # of customers. Choose a seller with a LOT of satisfied customers.

Fiverr.com Tip #4: Each Seller’s page offers actual examples of the Seller’s work. Don’t expect a logo designer who shows samples of cartoon-ish, caricature-ish logos to produce something sleek and minimalistic. Not in their DNA.

Fiverr.com Tip #5: Does the Seller speak and understand English well? You may laugh, but I have had this experience. The Seller may be talented, but if he/she doesn’t understand nuances enough to satisfy your needs, you may not be satisfied. Read what they’ve written on their page with this in mind. Send them a message before you engage them and test their communication skills.

Fiverr.com Tip #6: YOU need to send the Seller as much detailed info as possible in order to get as close to your desired outcome as possible. Just like any OFFLINE seller.

How Can Fiverr Sellers Charge So Little?

The Sellers on Fiverr can charge this little primarily for two reasons: 1.) Many work in countries where $5 goes a lot farther than in the U.S. and 2.) the Sellers are very specific about what you get for $5, with more extensive add-ons costing “extra gigs”. Example: Many logo designers will deliver jpg and png files for $5, but if you want a full suite of editable file formats, they cost additional gigs – anywhere from $5 – $40. Just read their gig description carefully.

As you can tell, I’m a large fan of Fiverr.com and with savings of $1500 (or more) it’s worth it to me to spend a little extra time to screen the Sellers as I’ve described above. I hope this helps another entrepreneur to save their precious money!

If you finished reading this post, others will too, so take 5 seconds (!) to share on Facebook, Twitter or your favorite social scoop. Thanks!

Another Article about Fiverr That May Interest You:

How to Create a New Logo For Your Small Business or Professional Service

For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

.. _____ ..

ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Lisa Chapman helps company leaders define, plan and achieve their goals – both online and offline. After 25+ years as an entrepreneur, she is now a business and marketing consultant, business planning consultant and social media consultant. Online, she works with clients to establish and enhance their brand, attract their Target Audience, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert them into Buyers. You can reach her via email: Lisa (at) LisaChapman (dot) com. Her book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide is available at:

• Amazon.com: http://bit.ly/AmazonTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur
• Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/BNTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur

Content Curation Tools, Content Discovery Tools and Social Media Management Tools

Guest Author: Jessica Davis

When you sit down to find relevant content to put before your social media audience, do you wish there were more hours in a day?

Do you still follow an archaic system of posting content that involves logging in to Facebook first, followed by Twitter and then Pinterest or any other social networking site?

Is social media analytics still an elephant in the room?

Here are some awesome social marketing tools that if you explore very soon, your answer to these three questions will be an emphatic ‘no, no and hell no’.

Content Curation Tools

‘Curate’ means finding, organizing, annotating and sharing quality digital content. Curation allows you to feed your social media audience with relevant content in a timely manner, supplement referenced content with your personal insights, and separate great content from merely good content.

• With Feedly, not only can you browse feeds, blogs and news sites by your interests, but also categorize feeds into separate folders to organize and control content easily.
• DrumpUp is one of the easiest, free content curation and social media content management tools for businesses. It uses smart algorithms to suggest personalized content for you to share with your Facebook and Twitter audiences. It also schedules content for posting, and effectively, acts as your social media assistant.
• Spundge enables you to discover and organize content into neat notebooks; collaborate with influencers in your topics; and filter highly-targeted content for social sharing.
• Pinterest isn’t just a content sharing network, it is a platform for gathering ideas around different topics or projects and cataloging them into interactive boards.
• With Storify, you can create stories or timelines by gathering and publishing content across social media channels.

Content Discovery Tools

Social media facilitates inbound marketing. For successful inbound marketing, you need engaging, valuable content, relevant to your customers. Visiting different blogs or scouring the news each day to locate shareable content eats into valuable time. Content discovery tools offer content on various topics of interest, trending news, most-shared content, and more – all on one platform. Most require you to sign up with your email, Facebook account or Twitter account.

• Prismatic‘s excellent algorithms use your social media feeds to evaluate your interests; they monitor usage and feedback for further evaluation to bring you highly relevant content you would have otherwise missed.
• Newsle finds news about trending brands or people; articles published by journalists you follow; and news about people or brands similar to the ones you follow.

• BuzzSumo brings you the most widely-shared content on social media sites and allows you to filter content by articles, guest posts, infographics, videos and interviews; finds influential content aggregators within any niche; and collects statistics on industry influencers and the sites they’re associated with. Its brand alerts (much better than Google Alerts) allow you to specify the brand or keyword mentions in the title and topic, or the title, topic and article text.

Social Media Management Tools

If your online social presence extends to multiple sites, you need a reliable social media management tool. Most of the tools out there share similar features, such as scheduling posts, adding photos or videos and providing analytics about the reach and engagement of your posts.

• Hootsuite is a popular tool that connects more social networks than any other of its kind (35 in all), from FB, Twitter and Instagram to WordPress, Foursquare and Japanese social networking site Mixi. Its AutoSchedule feature allows you to automatically queue messages on the projected best times and post directly from the dashboard.
• With Buffer, you can stagger posting times throughout the day and maintain a consistent weekly social media schedule with the least effort.
• SocialOomph is the only tool that allows you to set up auto-follows, auto-responders and auto-direct messages. You’re also notified when someone retweets one of your tweets or you receive a @mention.
• SproutSocial offers a simple and intuitive dashboard (“Smart Inbox”) unifying your social media profiles into a single stream. You can carry out content discovery, check out activity, publish content and view analytics from the Smart Inbox.

Automation has eliminated the need to micro-manage social media marketing tasks without compromising audience engagement or digital marketing campaigns. Explore different tools to determine which one is a right fit for your business.

Author Bio:

Jessica follows the social media and content marketing space closely, and writes about it extensively. She represents Godot Media, a leading SEO writing and content marketing firm.

For more social media and marketing resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

Citizen Reporter Sites – Overlooked Marketing & SEO

If your SEO Plan embraces a content marketing strategy, this is one tip that you just don’t want to miss. Find out how to repurpose your press releases and expand beyond the standard online press release sites. Gain valuable ‘link juice’ (SEO value) and increase traffic to your site.

Citizen Journalism Boosts Your SEO and Page Rank

Citizen reporter sites are often overlooked. But they are important to online marketing for a few very good reasons;

• Content marketing:

  If content marketing is one of your primary online social media marketing strategies, you want to post content in as many places as is appropriate – especially if those places also have accounts with Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, etc. The social media attached to them increases their traffic, thereby indirectly increasing eyeballs on your content.

• Create another ‘spoke’ for your ‘hub’:

  Think of your primary website as the hub, with all of your other online ‘properties’ as spokes (where properties = all sites that carry a backlink to your primary website). These spokes actually serve as doorways for traffic into your hub website. One primary objective of your social media marketing is to create as many credible spoke properties as possible that act as doorways into your website. The more spokes you have, the more people will find you. And they will be those who are more likely to be highly interested in you, not just browsing.

• Increase your backlink juice:

  These spokes not only help us get found in the literal sense, but the ‘right’ ones also help increase our page rank so that Google sees us as important. If we have backlinks from high ‘page rank’ sites, then some of that high page rank ‘link juice’ gets passed to us. Enough of those is very important to increase our own page rank, thus getting higher position on Google’s search results page. So when we have a higher page rank, we’re more likely to show up on page one Google. Thus more people find us in the indirect sense.

• Google “Your URL”:

  All these sites that carry your content and backlinks should show up in the search results. Just the sheer volume of sites will be impressive, and will give searchers the impression that you’re credible. Especially if you’re on a PR site like this one: www.ireport.cnn.com – it’s a CNN property (with a page rank 8 of 10 – VERY high).

Why Citizen Journalism?

Citizen Journalism sites are coming into their own, and rightly so. It’s the citizens of any location who are at the scene even before an event breaks. And they have the technology in their pocket or purse to record the event with audio and photo documentation. Citizen Journalism sites often give an event deeper coverage than traditional media.

List of Citizen Reporter Sites

So where should you look for more opportunities to post on citizen reporter sites? Here is short list that is generally applicable to most any story (PR = Page Rank):

iReport: PR 8 – http://www.ireport.cnn.com CNN iReport is probably about as mainstream a platform as citizen journalists can access.

Examiner: PR 8 – http://www.examiner.com/ Launched in 2008, Examiner.com is a dynamic entertainment, news and lifestyle network that serves more than 20 million monthly readers across the U.S. and around the world.

WikiNews: PR 8 – http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page Wikinews is an off-shoot of Wikipedia, and as with the online encyclopedia, Wikinews is a free-content, collaborative platform.

DigitalJournal: PR 6 – http://www.DigitalJournal.com is a media outlet that sets out to find originality, fresh perspectives and an understanding of the context of events around the world.

NewsVine: PR 7 – www.newsvine.com Newsvine is a collaborative news website, owned by msnbc.com.

NewsParticipation: PR 3 – www.newsparticipation.com News Participation is a fairly new online community aimed at citizen journalists.

Now awaken the sleeping reporter within you and go after that news angle to your story!

If you finished reading this post, others will too, so take 5 seconds (!) to share on Facebook, Twitter or your favorite social scoop. Thanks!

For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

.. _____ ..

ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Lisa Chapman helps company leaders define, plan and achieve their goals – both online and offline. After 25+ years as an entrepreneur, she is now a business and marketing consultant, business planning consultant and social media consultant. Online, she works with clients to establish and enhance their brand, attract their Target Audience, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert them into Buyers. You can reach her via email: Lisa (at) LisaChapman (dot) com. Her book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide is available at:

• Amazon.com: http://bit.ly/AmazonTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur
• Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/BNTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur

Can a Search Engine Optimization Package Deliver Results – Page One Google?

Did you know that 70% of your Target Audience uses online search to find your service or product, and 75% of them never click past the first page of results?

What is SEO?

According to Wikipedia, “Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s “natural” or un-paid (‘organic’) search results.”

It’s not always about getting visitors to your site, but getting the right kind of visitors. That’s what MOZ proclaims at the beginning of their very useful “Beginners Guide to SEO” which has been downloaded over a million times. If you’re looking for a digestible resource for doing SEO yourself, I highly recommend this guide to jump start your SEO work.

Do SEO Packages Work?

As an Internet business consultant, I don’t believe that an SEO ‘package’ serves the unique needs of any business. SEO is just way more complex than that. However, that doesn’t mean it must be long, drawn out or out of reach for small business. Because I know how to assess a site, content and SEO, I can look very closely while considering the owner’s goals, to pinpoint what needs to be done to most cost-effectively get results.

SEO Client Example:

One of my clients, a Nasville Billiard Retailer, hadn’t been able to achieve page one Google for keywords related to ‘shuffleboard’. They were frustrated for years before they engaged me in August 2014 to 1.) optimize their site and 2.) advise them to take additional actions. We worked on all aspects of Onsite SEO as well as additional keyword optimized content. After 60 days, they:

• Placed page one Google for not one, but two returns for ‘shuffleboard’ (and not just ‘Shuffleboard Nashville’, a much easier term).
• Placed above their higher-ranking national shuffleboard supplier.

It is definitely possible to achieve specific results like this, but in my opinion, not with a package.

SEO Consulting

In the spirit of sharing with you how this works, I will describe my own SEO Consulting Services. My search engine optimization services can take you from start to finish. Or, you can do some of it yourself, coordinated with my services. I can do everything – the research, SEO strategy, SEO plan and execution. Or you can do as much as possible under my direction. It’s up to you and your available resources, both human and financial.

Either way, I’ll work with you to create a strategy that makes sense, help you understand where your competitors are, survey your link structure and show you which keywords are most important to target and achieve success.

Steps to Create a Strategic SEO Plan

• Consultation – In the initial meeting we discuss your business, your products and services, competitors and your target market. After we agree on terms, I go back to my office and begin the SEO Analysis on your site – asking questions along the way to ensure that I’m on track and stay there.

• Website Analysis – Evaluate your site structure, page meta-data, keyword density, linking specifics and other factors critical to SEO success.

• Keyword Research – Assess the competitiveness of the keywords related to your business offerings and develop a cost-effective strategy to target search phrases that will bring business to your door.

• Link Analysis – Links are still important, and Google will continue to place emphasis on links in its search algorithm. In this video, Google engineer Matt Cutts discusses the relative importance of a site’s ‘backlinks’.

• Content Inventory – In addition to website Analysis, Keyword Research and Link Analysis, a detailed SEO Analysis also includes a thorough inventory of your available content, as well as a strategic review of competitors’ content. All with the goal of out-ranking and out-shining your competitors, using content as search candy.

• Roadmap Creation – Create a detailed roadmap that outlines the activities to be completed over the coming months.

• Execution – We complete the tasks in the roadmap, working with you to get necessary changes to your site implemented.

Do you want to be competitive? If you’re not using strategic SEO to get your website ranked, well, you’re already behind.

If you finished reading this post, others will too, so take 5 seconds (!) to share on Facebook, Twitter or your favorite social scoop. Thanks!

More Articles That May Interest You:

How to get more clicks from Google SERPs

Best Practices for Uber-SEO Marketing

For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

.. _____ ..

ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Lisa Chapman helps company leaders define, plan and achieve their goals – both online and offline. After 25+ years as an entrepreneur, she is now a business and marketing consultant, business planning consultant and social media consultant. Online, she works with clients to establish and enhance their brand, attract their Target Audience, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert them into Buyers. You can reach her via email: Lisa (at) LisaChapman (dot) com. Her book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide is available at:

• Amazon.com: http://bit.ly/AmazonTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur
• Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/BNTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur

Find Logo Designers – Fast, Affordable and Amazing Quality

One of my favorite clients recently approached me with the need to have a logo created. He has a professional consulting practice, a website and a blog. The Problem: his brand hasn’t been developed and he wants a new logo to give it punch and memorability.

I’m going to show you exactly how to get your quality custom logo designed for $5!

Logo Ideas

My client wants to use the image of an anchor. So I jumped online and performed a quick search on Google Images for the keyword term ‘anchor logo’. See what it returned for anchor logo. While that search didn’t produce the perfect logo answer, it did give us a lot of variations for brainstorming ideas.

When you do this, be careful not to use any of these images exactly, as they are likely copyrighted, thus protecting their use. Copyright violation is a serious offense.

To get a great logo on a shoestring budget, there is a company that offers creative services – including logo design – for $5. Amazing!! A lot of professional logo designers live around the globe, where $5 means a whole lot more than it does here.

Logo Design Services

Fiverr offers these logo design services – with the capability to search vendors by the type of logo you want.

I often recommend a simple black & white or two color logo, which is easiest to reproduce and clearest when photocopying, faxing, etc. Not to mention that they are less expensive to print, versus four-color.

To find these vendors, specify (near the top of the screen – drop down choices) and search by:

• Type: Text & Symbol
• Style: Simple/Minimal
• File Format: JPG
• Also Offers: Multiple Versions

Of course, you can search for any type of logo (vintage, dimensional, four-color, etc.) by specifying other choices. Look for vendors whose base service includes: 1.) quick turnaround, 2.) custom design – no templates, 3.) willingness to do revisions, and 4.) a guarantee.

Look through the samples of their logo work by scrolling through the images on their showcase screen. Important Note: small text in a logo will generally not be visible on a mobile device – phone or tablet, which comprise over 60% of all Internet views now. If your logo is going on your website, readability is critical.

Take look at the reviews by their previous customers – located at the bottom of the screen. This will tell you a lot.

Consider a Few Different Logo Vendors

For a simple 1-2 color logo, here are a few vendors that look like they may be worth a try. At $5 a pop, it’s worth it to me to try several. Caveat: I have not used these specific vendors, and do not vouch for results. :

• Djokerini93
• Namnguyen969
• Nikerssg

Before buying, I recommend contacting them, which is private and secure on Fiverr. Find the ‘contact me’ button. Ask any questions you have. Their response will give you an idea of their command of the English language (really!) and response time. Customer communication and responsiveness are keys to getting good service and a great outcome.

Order Your Logo Design

You just set up an account, and for $5 they deliver the logo in the files they promise in their ‘gig’ description. For the base $5 gig, you want at least a JPG or PNG file – print-ready for business cards and such. Editable files are usually extra. Read the description and “Extra gigs” carefully to know what you’re buying. Each vendor is different.

Be sure to give them enough information to get as close to your desires as possible. Try to sketch something to give them an idea. If you’re working with a color scheme, for your website or social media platform, give them a link. Do you want a tagline? You can attach documents when you give them the details. Give them as much instruction as makes sense.

What to Expect

After you buy, you will receive a prompt and an email asking for more info so they can execute to your specifications. They will deliver your first draft and you will be notified by email.

Once you have the final logo, other vendors on fiverr.com can make “banners” for your website and/or social media profiles, so that your branding is consistent among all your web properties.

They also offer much, much more – take a look at Fiverr.com!

If you finished reading this post, others will too, so take 5 seconds (!) to share on Facebook, Twitter or your favorite social scoop. Thanks!

More Articles That May Interest You:

How to Brand Yourself

For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

.. _____ ..

ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Lisa Chapman helps company leaders define, plan and achieve their goals – both online and offline. After 25+ years as an entrepreneur, she is now a business and marketing consultant, business planning consultant and social media consultant. Online, she works with clients to establish and enhance their brand, attract their Target Audience, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert them into Buyers. You can reach her via email: Lisa (at) LisaChapman (dot) com. Her book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide is available at:

• Amazon.com: http://bit.ly/AmazonTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur
• Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/BNTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur

“I Want to Start a New Business” –A Real Case Story

As told by Brian Cox

I’m about to share some of my business ideas with you, and I would like to hear your comments and feedback.

I want to help people with their budgets and 1040EZ forms. This is the reason why: I know that some individuals (my target customers) need a quick loan during the Holiday Season.

My future customers may think along these lines:

“Because I live paycheck to paycheck, how will I get quick money for Holiday gifts? I know I’m going to get fleeced, but I’ll probably just get a tax refund anticipation loan because that’s the quickest and easiest way to get cash.”

What they may not know is that they actually have other options! I want to offer my customers information to help them consider those other options. With help, they can work toward savings goals and spending goals –both can be planned ahead of time. I want to help my customers with their financial planning, in order to avoid becoming unsuspecting victims of predatory lending businesses, and get them out of the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck.

Solutions Offered by This New Business

Working with our customers can give them more money in their pockets, which can mean:

1.) achieving home ownership – if they desire, and

2.) more money spent on valuable, durable goods.

In the big picture, these add up to a more robust economy in their community. This is the message that I want to people to become aware of, and the brand that I want to create.

Business Startup

Being a military veteran with only some experience in finance means that I have very little experience in the small business arena. However, I am greatly benefitting from the coursework I am now completing in the boots2business.org program. I was personally taught how to generate a business concept, a marketing plan, and a five year financial projections forecast by this program. I encourage all qualified veterans to apply and take that course!

Summary of the New Business Concept

I want to do marketing research for the business described above – a two page newsletter generated from a mail merge file. The newsletter will be generated from a mail merge and have specific financial results for low income individuals through subscription service. The concept is to compete with H&R block and refund anticipation loan oriented businesses by putting people on a financial goal track monthly and submit their 1040EZ.

More Detail – New Business Concept and Challenges

I know that two valuable services within that product basket are:

1. Customized email campaigns, using content through mediums such as blogs for marketing.
2. Create a physical newsletter and include a table that brings in meaningful, accurate data for individuals’ spending and savings patterns. The newsletter could be printed front and back on a regular printer

‘Boots on the Ground’ Marketing

If anyone who makes a low income and has few assets is interested in receiving the service, please email me at bc4902@911vetstart.com. You are the people that I want to serve!

As a business, I may try to earn revenue from advertising. I would prefer to not charge anything by setting this up as a non profit organization or as a project sponsored by a non profit. This makes funding easier, as donors receive a tax benefit based on an IRS recognized charitable gift.

More About the Concept

Currently, I need a form that I can embed in a mobile WordPress website. I am thinking of using a blog website and a donate button to gain support for the concept. I am thinking of making that part of a crowdfunding campaign. If I could charge enough for advertising via mobile and newsletter, I would offer the 1040EZ filing and customized financial report for free to individual consumers.

The risk is that customers will not be interested in signing up for a paid or free subscription. The life blood of this concept is the acceptance of low income families who need this help being offered. Those concerned about data will be guaranteed confidentiality on my part throughout this process.

I hope I have adequately communicated the strategy that I am trying to implement.

Topics to Consider in Order to Move Forward

I am interested in getting feedback about personal consumer and financial topics (529 plan, IRA, Savings plans, financial products) with a form to establish contact information and comments capability, personalized email campaign from contacts generated at the blog, use of YouTube infomercials, crowdfunding to validate the product and make capital investments in printing equipment and software, deliver automated free or low cost financial plan and tax product with two touch points of mobile and physical to many low income consumers, gain major advertising revenue from business customers after establishing brand and presence in the market ($10.30 per issue per 1000 subscribers is competitive; different price point for mobile ads based on impressions or cost per click).

The number of tax returns electronically filed in my community and the high number of tax preparation services that offer these ‘refund anticipation loans’ suggests a need for my services; the questions are:

How do I get the word out to people that I have a reasonable and accessible alternative?

What is the minimum viable product delivered to the largest target audience?

Are you interested in helping out low income people to avoid predatory lenders and unfair tax refund anticipation loans? Please contact me:Brian Cox – email: bc4902@911vetstart.com

Thank you, I appreciate your feedback!

About Brian Cox:

I served in the U.S. Military’s Operation Iraqi Freedom and now I am in the boots2business program with Syracuse University. Read more about me on LinkedIn:www.linkedin.com/pub/brian-cox/60/997/a86. I need to talk to potential customers to find out what the product should look like and if they can view it online. Some low income people don’t have internet service so I wanted to include the two touch points. You can email your feedback to me at: bc4902@gmail.com

About Boots to Business:

From Service to Startup is a U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA)-sponsored, worldwide program offered as a component of the Department of Defense’s (DoD) redesigned Transition Assistance Program (TAP) renamed Transition GPS.

Boots to Business is offered by the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University (SU) and operated by SU’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF), in partnership with SBA resource partners.

Boots to Business is a three-step training program developed to introduce and train transitioning service members to business ownership. Boots to Business helps ensure that every transitioning service member has access to a standardized entrepreneurship training track and small business resources in their local communities.

After completing Boots to Business participants will have the tools and knowledge they need to identify a business opportunity, draft a business plan, connect with local small business resources, and launch their small business.

There are no registration fees or tuition for any portion of the Boots to Business entrepreneurship training track. All service members will receive textbooks and resources necessary to complete the program.