Jun
11
Why Doesn’t My Website Generate Sales?
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines, Web Marketing | 8 Comments
Could it be that your website looks nice but fails to help you meet your web marketing objectives? Too often that is the case.
Lots of effort and expense went into building your site, but your return on investment is marginal or non-existent.
Here are possible reasons why your website isn’t generating leads or sales and some ideas that might help you correct the problems.
Too Little Traffic
Perhaps you lack an effective strategy for driving visitors to your site.
You set up your storefront but didn’t tell potential customers that you were in business, a mistake I often see both online and off.
Lack of traffic leads to lack of exposure for you and your offer or message.
Don’t assume that traffic will somehow find its way to you through word-of-mouth, search engines or otherwise. It rarely happens that way.
Generate exposure for your website offline via print advertising, direct mail, radio, etc. and online using social media, search engine marketing, search engine optimization and so forth.
Think big. You can dominate your niche, so don’t settle for less.
The Wrong Traffic
You have traffic, but either your traffic is not targeted or it’s poorly targeted, the result of using bad copy, selecting the wrong media, or choosing the wrong keywords.
For greater and more targeted traffic, employ a good mix of research, analysis and experimentation.
Direct marketers have been using this approach offline since before you and I were born, and it works like a charm online as well.
Insufficient Stickiness
You have plenty of visitors, but they leave your website too soon.
Consider these questions:
- Are you targeting the right traffic?
- Are your branding and message clear?
- Are your pages too cluttered, or do you give your visitor too many choices?
- Is your font hard to read? Try to avoid white on black in all your media, since it slows down your reader.
- Is important content “above the fold?” Can visitors see your most important content without scrolling down?
- Is your content up-to-date, relevant and interesting?
- Do you use social techniques on your website to engage your visitors?
Poor Conversion
You have plenty of visitors who stick around but nothing happens.
Here are more questions to ponder:
- Do you have a conversion strategy?
- Does each of your pages have a call to action?
- If not ready to buy, can your visitor join, opt-in to or subscribe to your site?
If you don’t have a lead capture mechanism and follow-up strategy, you’re leaving lots of money on the table.
Don’t miss any future articles! Subscribe to my RSS feed or by e-mail. Let’s get acquainted too at my About and Connect pages.
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May
31
Where Does Your Twitter Lead People?
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Twitter, Web Marketing | 10 Comments
You may have tried without success to use Twitter as a marketing channel. Many marketers struggle with Twitter for one reason or another. It’s often because of where their Twitter leads.
Let me explain.
Spamming
Spammers often follow myriads of random people on Twitter hoping that enough of them will follow back like sheep, or that they’ll click through the spammer’s profile link to view his or her offer.
However, too many marketers with good intentions adopt a similar strategy. They follow large numbers of targeted people but expect them to follow back without providing ample reason for them to reciprocate.
Getting and Staying Followed
People often ask me how I was able to get tens of thousands of followers. They’re hoping that I can point them to some magical system that will generate as many followers for them as I have.
I don’t use those types of systems nor do I recommend that you use them either. At best they match you up with large numbers of unresponsive followers.
Part of any outreach strategy includes following the people whom you would like following you. Life would be simple if each person you chose to follow reciprocated and followed you back.
While some Twitter users will follow back everybody, most of the ones who are desirable to connect with will be selective. They will follow you back only if they like what you’ve been tweeting or if they like you.
Unless your name is Oprah Winfrey, people will probably size you up based on some combination of your …
- Username - Avoid the use of underscores (_) and numerals (0-9) if at all possible.
- Name - Your real name is usually best.
- Picture - Use a professional looking head shot or company logo.
- Background - Use a layout that’s interesting and tasteful.
- Location - Nothing dorky please!
- One Line Bio - Mix professional and personal details. People search on profiles, so use carefully selected keywords.
- More Info URL - Point to content that’s helpful and makes a good impression.
- Privacy Settings - Don’t make your profile private if you want people to follow you. Marketers aren’t supposed to be secret agents.
- Follower Count - It pretty much is what it is.
- Follower Ratio - If you follow many more than follow you, you might look like a spammer. If you follow too few, you look unapproachable or like you don’t value two-way communication.
- Tweet Count - All other things being equal, the more the better but again, it is what it is. Just make sure you post a half dozen representative tweets before you start following people. Fewer than that can be a big turnoff.
- Tweets - You are what you tweet. What you tweet will be the single biggest success factor in your Twitter career. Refer to Tons of Great Twitter Resources or The Twitter Power System Review.
- Retweets - Some Twitter users like to connect with people who are somewhat likely retweet their tweets.
- Tweet Frequency - Some don’t like to follow people who tweet too often, as it tends to fill up their “timeline”.
- Date of Last Tweet - If you stay away too long, your followers will start giving you the axe.
- Personal Recommendations - It certainly helps to have fans to promote you, especially on what’s come to be known as #followfriday or #ff, which is actually every Friday.
With such a long list of criteria, it’s a wonder anybody gets followed or followed back. Fortunately people are looking for reasons to follow as much as to reject, and a reasonable effort on your part can be effective enough.
Web Marketing Strategy
As a marketer, the quality of your content off Twitter is as important as the quality of your tweets on Twitter.
You will use your “more info URL” and a portion of your tweets to reference your content, and your content will determine your marketing success with Twitter — and other social media initiatives as well.
It is this to which I refer when I ask, “Where does your Twitter lead people?”
Your Twitter, social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, blog and website all link together to create a web marketing strategy that builds your image, your community and ultimately your business.
Well written, produced, and placed content and skillful search engine optimization and social media marketing both on and off Twitter will enable you to achieve your key objectives.
Don’t miss any future articles! Subscribe to my RSS feed or by e-mail. Let’s get acquainted too at my About and Connect pages.
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May
13
The Long Tail and Social Media
Filed Under Blogging, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines, Web Analytics | 10 Comments
The long tail has recently become a major buzzword both in business and online.
The long tail concept is rather abstract, so it can help to look at concrete examples. Let’s look at examples from my blogging experience.
The Long Tail of the Search
I started publishing Online Social Networking in November 2007, and I installed Google Analytics to monitor, analyze and track traffic to my website.
My blog, as you can probably guess, has been search optimized for the keyword online social networking.
Out of 25,515 visits that were due to search engines, only 1,469 were searches for online social networking. The remaining 24,056 visits were based on 10,769 other search terms. 3,658 of those 10,769 were variants of online networking.
Fewer than 500 of the 3,658 search terms were used to find my site more than one time. These search terms each occurred very infrequently, yet in aggregate they accounted for a great proportion of my visits.
The long tail of the search refers precisely to this phenomenon.
Most searches are based on all sorts of low frequency keywords. See the diagram to the left in which the yellow region under the curve corresponds to the long tail.
The Long Tail of ROI
I spend several hours writing each post on my blog and another hour or so bookmarking and promoting it. My hope is that people will come read the article and subscribe. Just to keep things simple, consider subscribing to be my return-on-investment.
A couple of hundred people, more or less, will visit within a couple of days to read my piece. Some will comment, and some will subscribe.
As I mentioned above, my blog is search engine optimized. I receive more than 100 visitors daily just from search engines. Over time each individual article on the blog will be read by a handful of search visitors per day. That’s not a large number, but it eventually adds up.
That’s the long tail of ROI: The small number of residual daily visits and subscriptions eventually match or surpass the initial surge of visits and subscriptions when the article is first written and posted.
The Allure of Social Media for Marketing
There are many aspects of social media that are appealing. It’s free. It’s social. It’s far reaching. However, the long tail aspect of social media I’ve described makes it especially attractive to savvy marketers.
Well written and keyword researched content remains online indefinitely and attracts an enormous number of search engine visits over time, a benefit not enjoyed using other media.
Don’t miss any future articles! Subscribe to my RSS feed or by e-mail. Let’s get acquainted too at my About and Connect pages.
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May
3
Social Marketing for Non-Gurus
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 12 Comments
Let’s face it. Few people are writers. Even fewer are thought leaders or guru types.
What can a “regular” marketer do to stand out and make a strong impression in the social media space?
What if You’re Not a Thought Leader?
Thought leadership is probably not as important in social marketing as is keen interest and enthusiasm.
Certainly some degree of expertise in your niche is desirable and, as I indicated in The 80/20 Rule is readily attainable. However, what you feel about your product, service or brand may be as or more important than what you know.
Several months ago, a close friend suggested that I offer to help one of the U.S. political parties with their social media campaigns.
After serious consideration I decided against it. While I possessed the knowledge I would need to succeed, I was not aligned with that party’s views. Therefore my heart wouldn’t be in the right place to do the top notch work that would be required.
If you enjoy a subject and communicate confidently about it, people will respond favorably.
What if You’re Not a Writer?
Let’s suppose that you don’t write and don’t want to start. What can you do?
Here are a few options:
- If you have a sizable business, you’ll have a person or a department to do the writing for you. Problem solved.
- If you’re a small business or working on your own, outsourcing is an important option. You can hire a writer such as Ivo Jackson to develop your content or a virtual assistant such as Denise Griffitts to do all sorts of creative and technical things that you can’t or don’t want to do yourself.
- On Twitter you can make small talk, post links to interesting content and “retweet” other people’s messages. I have written numerous articles on Twitter. Connect with me @larrybrauner and @MyNewMediaIdeas.
- You can use videos instead of text to spread your message. On YouTube you can create your own video blogs, and if you can sing like Susan Boyle, the sky’s the limit.
- If none of these ideas work for you, you can use your voice and the voices of others. On Blog Talk Radio you can create your own Internet-based talk radio show blog.
Above all be authentic. As I’ve said before, social media marketing is about people, not companies or products.
Don’t miss any future articles! Subscribe to my RSS feed or by e-mail. Let’s get acquainted too at my About and Connect pages.
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Apr
26
Social Marketing Insight
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy, Outside the Box, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 7 Comments
Social media marketing requires a markedly different mindset than traditional print, broadcast and direct mail marketing — or even PPC or e-zine marketing that use online media.
Marketing Paradigm Shift
Social marketing is not so much about lead development and customer acquisition as it is about brand development, relationship and community building.
Of course social marketers want to generate sales. That’s a given. However, the social marketing medium requires a new and more social approach to the whole marketing process.
Social Media Marketing Flow
Social marketing has its own characteristic flow. Strangers gradually become followers, friends and fans looking to engage with you.
They become increasingly receptive to your ideas and messages. Many eventually sell themselves on your products and services without your intervention. Others may require a little gentle persuasion.
Social media marketing is the art and science of using social media sites to create and nurture social marketing flow.
At the Core of Social Marketing
Social media sites offer the enabling technologies and infrastructure that define the social media marketing platform, but social marketing is centered around people, not around websites.
Furthermore, in social marketing it’s not companies but real people who communicate with people.
Personality, thought leadership, sensitivity, protocol and well-written content are social factors that foster relationship with your market and community participation. Think of social media marketing as charisma marketing.
A community in social media can be built around a blog, a group you start on a social site, or an independent online social network that you create.
The key is to use your personality and your content to give people in your target market compelling reasons to follow you online and to subscribe to your blogs or join your social networking sites.
Then you can speak to your new friends as a group as if they were sitting in your living room and leaning forward to make sure they catch your every word. You won’t need to use old media to yell.
Are you leaning forward?
Don’t miss any future articles! Subscribe to my RSS feed or by e-mail. Let’s get acquainted too at my About and Connect pages.
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Mar
29
Top 10 Social Marketing Challenges
Filed Under List Building, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 10 Comments
I explained in Top 10 Reasons for Social Marketing why marketers need to add social media to their repertoire and promised to “write about the unique challenges that social media marketing poses” to early adopters.
Here then are my top ten challenges that social marketers will likely grapple with:
- Social media often meets with skepticism and resistance inside an organization. This reaction is normal to anything radically new. I suggest that you present social marketing to your colleagues as an experiment that will complement conventional multichannel marketing if successful, not replace it.
- Results aren’t achieved nearly as quickly with social media as they are with direct marketing techniques. When planning an experiment or production, be careful about forming unrealistic timing expectations.
- The social media learning curve is very steep. Few books or courses teach social marketing, and much of the information available online is unreliable or even biased. I recommend that you seek experienced outside professional help to chart your social marketing path, set policy and facilitate implementation.
- It’s easy to spin wheels and waste lots of time going nowhere. There are way too many interesting social networking sites and lots of hype surrounding them. Be sure to read Social Media Targeting for People and Businesses.
- Marketers tend to think in terms of generating leads and building databases rather than building a following and a community — new media style. Furthermore, social media is about relating person to person, not about relating impersonally to people as a company. Be prepared to think in new ways.
- Since social media is community oriented, contributing to one’s community is essential. It’s not enough to communicate just to customers or to prospects.
- Traditional push marketing and list building techniques are usually regarded as spam and are ineffective in the social media world. Old and new media approaches tend to be incompatible. In the social marketing paradigm information is made available online for discovery and hopefully action, and this process isn’t something that can be forced.
- Most newcomers to social marketing think one dimensionally and latch onto fads such as the social media site du jour. Social marketing isn’t one site or one strategy fits all. Once again I recommend Social Media Targeting for People and Businesses.
- Social media is still evolving rapidly and tends to be a moving target. While social media is global, participation in non-English speaking countries is stilted towards English speaking demographics such as students and upper classes. Remain alert to changes in technology and new opportunities that are bound to occur.
- Social media can work against a brand, not just for it — and can be very unforgiving. However, this is true even if companies elect not to use it for marketing or for their public relations. It’s therefore better to be proactive than reactive.
I’m sure you’ll agree that these are all important issues. I hope deal with them individually and in more detail in subsequent posts.
Don’t miss any future articles! Subscribe to my RSS feed or by e-mail. Let’s get acquainted too at my About and Connect pages.
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Mar
26
Top 10 Reasons for Social Marketing
Filed Under List Building, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 12 Comments
Even today social media remains a mystery to most marketers. In the minds of most retailers and marketing executives, social media consists of teens messaging on Facebook, sharing pics on Flickr, writing in their blogs or tweeting all their doings on Twitter.
Perhaps they read a few news blogs themselves or have a profile on LinkedIn, but they’re still scratching their heads and wondering how any of this could possibly be useful to them in business.
Coming from the conventional marketing world myself and looking back to my first impression of social media, I can appreciate the retailing and B2B marketing establishment’s legitimate skepticism. That’s why I put together my top reasons for using social marketing for you to share with your colleagues and top management.
Let me caution you however, that social marketing requires its own mindset. Marketing strategies that work well with traditional media won’t necessarily be as effective if applied to new media.
These then are my top ten reasons to take social marketing seriously:
- Social marketing is a logical extension of the multichannel marketing strategy of diversification. Social media sites can extend a company’s web presence far beyond the limits of its e-commerce, lead generation or information sites.
- Social media builds awareness of products and brands by attraction rather than interruption, and by pulling rather than pushing. Consumers enjoy the discovery process and don’t feel annoyed by it.
- Social media employs a community and list building paradigm that’s much more comprehensive, natural and intimate than conventional databases and autoresponders.
- Social media marketers engage customers in dialog. They talk with the customer rather than at the customer as is generally the case with conventional media. Social media can also facilitate post-sale support and dissemination of valuable product tips to customers.
- Social media used properly can build frequency less expensively than conventional media educating and informing the consumer over time.
- Social media can help reach target markets that are too difficult or expensive to reach using conventional means.
- Reach doesn’t determine cost, so social media can target a narrow vertical market while at the same time casting a wide net. Efficiency doesn’t really matter much in the context of social media reach.
- Search engines like social media, and social marketing leverages free high-quality search exposure which is preferable to paying for low-quality pay-per-click or banner advertising.
- Social media sites and your e commerce websites are available 24/7 more or less indefinitely. It’s much like having an ad run in every issue of a publication or like having a catalog or sales letter retained until the customer is ready to make a buying decision.
- Using social networking sites it is often possible to connect directly with B2B decision makers without interference from protective gatekeepers.
Social marketing is different from other forms of Internet marketing. I write about the unique challenges that social media marketing poses in Top 10 Social Media Challenges.
Don’t miss any future articles! Subscribe to my RSS feed or by e-mail. Let’s get acquainted too at my About and Connect pages.
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Feb
23
Social Media Targeting for People and Businesses
Filed Under Networking and Marketing Strategy | 13 Comments
Marketing is often as important to people as it is to businesses.
People seeking jobs, marriage partners or buyers for their personal property all need to target and reach out to their respective markets.
Social Media is Very Accessible
Old media such as TV, radio, print, mail — and even online advertising — tend to be very costly and are used most effectively by big corporations and by savvy direct marketers.
However, the new media such as blogging, video, online social networking and social bookmarking cost little or nothing to use and are as accessible to people and small businesses as they are to big corporations and direct marketers.
Ineffective Use of Social Media
The low out-of-pocket cost of the new media entices people and businesses to waste time and energy by using social media marketing more haphazardly and less rigorously than they would use more expensive old media marketing channels.
Many marketers further compound the problem by bringing to social media old media advertising and prospecting paradigms rather than a new media attracting, socializing and educating paradigms.
Marketers need to learn how to focus their social media efforts by applying rigorous standards and analytics to new media marketing campaigns.
Reaching the Right Audience
One way to focus your social media effort is through targeting. Simply put, targeting means reaching the right people, the people who can benefit from you, your product or your service.
Market segmentation is a form of targeting research that studies the characteristics and desires of different population segments. I refer you to Linda P. Morton, an authority on market segmentation, and her Strategic Market Segmentation blog. Linda discusses many aspects of targeting, marketing and marketing research.
I assume for now that you know — at least approximately — whom you wish to target, and that you want to be able to tackle the how part of the problem.
Competitive Intelligence
Professional marketers, especially direct marketers, study what their competition is — and is not — doing in great detail. They may also try to understand why the competition is doing what it does, and if a campaign is used over and over, they’ll will assume that the campaign is profitable.
Watch your competitors and you’ll learn how they position themselves, what they write about, what keywords they optimize, where they bookmark their content, what tags they use, and much more.
Competitive intelligence applies equally to old and new media marketing.
Top Targeting Strategies
Here are my favorite targeting strategies:
- Develop good content that is context sensitive, communicates who you are, what you do and how you might be different — all without reading like a sales letter.
- Do keyword research, so that while you write for people, you can also help the search engines, as much of your traffic will come from search engines, especially form Google.
- Fish where the fish are. Choose social networking sites that you believe attract the people you are looking to attract. If you find your competitors there, that can be a good thing. It indicates that your target audience is also there. Hopefully your content positions you in a way that you’ll stand out from the competition or address a need that they do not.
- Cast a wide net. Don’t prejudge too much. Err on the side of targeting too inclusively rather than too exclusively. Participate on a variety of sites and expose as many people as possible to both you and your message. If you know me, you know that I pursue this strategy on Twitter, LinkedIn and Ning social networks.
- Let people decide for themselves how relevant your content is and whether or not you might be able to help them. That’s an key element of both attraction and social marketing.
- Don’t spread yourself too thin. Read The 80/20 Rule and Social Media. Cast a wide net but not too wide.
- Get personal. Even if you’re a business, people will want to relate to you as a person. In social media you are an integral part of your brand.
- Experiment and be ready to adapt and make changes as you go. Marketers know that they’re not likely to get it right the first time, so consider everything you do to be a work in progress.
- Establish an ongoing social media presence. Be persistent. Timing is extremely important. Even if somebody is the right person, the time might be wrong for him or her. You will make a sale if you’re there when the time is right.
- Use old media to supplement and complement your new media. Just because you use social media, you need not abandon any old media marketing that’s working for you.
- Seek help if you don’t have all the expertise or writing skills you need to succeed. That help might include advice, project management or outsourcing.
This list is not intended to be complete. However, it should give you plenty of food for thought.
Like this article? Please subscribe to my RSS feed or by e-mail. Let’s get acquainted too at my About and Connect pages.
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Dec
28
2009 Outside the Box
Filed Under Affiliate Marketing, Announcements, Best of 2008, Books, Home Based Business, Outside the Box, Personal Development and Success | 14 Comments
This is my final blog post for 2008. I have enjoyed our interaction this past year.
Thank you. I learned a lot.
I look forward to more give and take in 2009.
Thinking Outside the Box
In 10 Not Simple Success Strategies for 2009 I stated, “What worked in the past may no longer work in the present economy. You may have to make some tough personal or business choices going forward.”
To succeed in 2009 we need to be flexible and to think outside the box. According to Wikipedia, thinking outside the box is “to think differently, unconventionally, from a new perspective. This phrase often refers to novel, creative and smart thinking“.
I hope to help you think outside the box and navigate through some of the challenges and choices that lie ahead.
If you don’t yet subscribe to this blog, I ask you to subscribe now. Let’s stay “on the same page” as I continue to publish thought-provoking and hopefully outside-the-box articles on a broad range of topics.
Networking Outside the Box
If you are not yet a member of Critical Thinking Outside the Box, my no-spam online social network, please join now. This social networking site is a place where you and I can share ideas and network with each other.
Set up your profile there and add me as a friend. That way you can contact me whenever you wish.
By starting discussions and participating in existing discussions on the forum, you’ll brand yourself as a leader. If you’d like to become a featured leader on the site and have me promote you there, send me a message and we’ll discuss the details.
Marketing Outside the Box
Online social networking and social media marketing are still very much in their infancy. We’ll see plenty of growth and change in 2009 and beyond. To market outside the box you’ll need to keep abreast of online and social marketing changes, and you’ll need to keep learning new skills.
One excellent training and support program that I highly recommend to learn and implement new marketing ideas is Affiliate University.
Founder Bill Hibbler is a successful Internet marketer and an excellent instructor. Bill along with Dr. Joe Vitale is co-author of Meet and Gr
The Affiliate University training program has ten modules, and more will be added in the future.
Additionally, I’m starting a marketing clinic to complement the Affiliate University curriculum and help you through the rough spots as you put what you learn to use.
Achieving Outside the Box
Setting and following through on goals require ongoing support from peers. Mastermind groups provide that support and have long been known to increase focus and speed movement towards achieving objectives.
Affiliate University will start you on the path to forming a mastermind group. After teaching you the basic concepts and mechanics of mastermind groups, their forum will help you connect with prospective members for your group. I will help too.
If you believe that you can benefit from one-on-one mentoring, I offer special consulting rates for my “inner circle”. See the bio and endorsements on my about page for information about my qualifications.
As usual, feel free to comment on this blog post or ask questions… And let’s have a great year!
Like this article? Please subscribe to my RSS feed or by e-mail. Let’s get acquainted too at my About and Connect pages.
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Aug
3
Social Media Learning Curve
Filed Under Blogging, Communication, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 13 Comments
The Case for Social Media Marketing
It is becoming increasingly more difficult and more expensive to reach potential customers using mass media. That’s one reason why so many marketers are turning to Web 2.0 social media marketing.
Not only do marketers want to reduce their advertising expense, they also want to connect more directly with people and learn how to better serve their target market.
Social media marketing is especially attractive to small business owners operating on modest budgets, since most social networking sites and other social media sites are generally free to use.
Steep Learning Curve
They read a story such as Beyond Blogs in the June 2nd issue of Business Week, and they rush off to embrace Web 2.0 social media unprepared for the steep learning curve that lies ahead.
The social media landscape is uncharted and sprawling. Social media sites are vying for your attention, and searching the Internet for advice turns up sharply conflicting recommendations.
Need for Mentor
Clearly you need a mentor, somebody smart and knowledgeable with especially strong communication skills. You should find somebody with whom you feel comfortable, because you’ll definitely be getting to know each other. Picking a mentor is difficult.
Effective Communication #1 Challenge
Once you find your mentor mastering essential social media marketing skills will be difficult. To get fully up to speed might take a year or even longer.
That is the bad news.
In my opinion, the hardest part of social media marketing training is learning effective communication, i.e., to write, speak, listen and persuade well and in a professional manner.
There are certainly plenty of technical challenges to overcome, but by far communication is the chief obstacle new social media marketers face. If you happen to have the right mix of communication skills, you’re way ahead of most newcomers.
Your mentor can teach you personal and business branding, online social networking, blogging, video marketing, social bookmarking, SEO and other important skills. He or she can also critique your communication style, but it will be you who will connect directly with your target market and build vital business relationships.
Get Started Now and Learn as You Go
Now the good news.
You don’t have to master every skill, dot every “i” and cross every “t” before getting started.
Find a good mentor to guide you, jump in and get your feet wet. Learn by doing.
As Mike Litman always says: “You don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it going.”
Your results will serve as feedback to help you to make the necessary corrections along the way… and that is good news.
Don’t miss any posts. Register, it’s easy, or subscribe to my RSS feed! You can also subscribe by e-mail using the form at the top of the home page sidebar.
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Jun
6
Even Mentors Need Mentors
Filed Under Acknowledgment, Books, News, Personal Development and Success | 1 Comment
Yesterday I was asked how it is that I’ve learned so much so quickly about social media marketing and search engine optimization.
My response was simple.
I learn from reading many books, e-books and blogs, and from speaking frequently with friends and mentors. Having mentors has greatly shortened my learning curve.
I do admit that I am a much more focused learner than the average person. I was able to finish high school math at 15 and by 19 I was one of the top chess players in New York.
As an adult I’ve gone on to acquire skills and expertise in many areas including business analysis, social media marketing, search engine marketing, and online social networking at social networking sites, the original motivation for this site.
One of my greatest teachers and mentors was Eric Marder, founder of Eric Marder Associates and my employer for 23 years. One fundamental thing he taught me about business was that I should always seek the truth.
At 56, I still place a very high priority on continuing education, personal development and masterminding with my mentors and peers. You can ask any of the friends with whom I consult most often, David Alexander, Ivo Jackson, and Tom Long.
Other friends and mentors whom I wish to acknowledge:
- Bill Weber of Direct Matches, who taught me to build it right
- Diane Hochman of My Private Classroom who develops leaders through her training
- Mike Litman who taught me that You Don’t Have to Get It Right, you just have to get it going
- Also Ann Sieg of The Renegade System, Mark Wieser of Surefire Sponsoring, Mike Dillard of Magnetic Sponsoring, and Tim Draayer, a master blogger
Diane Hochman of My Private Classroom, like myself, offers free tele-seminars and webinars. To receive announcements and invitations to these classes, join my e-mail list at my free social media training site.
I used to recommend the training Bill Arnold offers through Network Success Builders, but came to realize, as I wrote in Orovo and Network Success Builders, that Network Success Builder’s training was mediocre and that Bill Arnold lacked personal and business integrity.
Make a commitment to read at least one business or marketing book each month. Choose mentors to guide you and then set aside time each week to learn something from them.
Don’t miss any posts. Register, it’s easy, or subscribe to my RSS feed! You can also subscribe by e-mail using the form at the top of the home page sidebar.
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Apr
28
Mashable Catalog of Social Networking Sites
I launched this blog to share my passion for online social networking and my experiences at social networking sites. I never intended to assemble a catalog. There are already too many good ones out there.
Consider the Mashable list of 350+ social networking sites arranged by category with a brief description of each site. It’s very well done.
Or consider the Go2Web20 complete Web 2.0 social media directory. What an undertaking!
I will from time to time point you to such lists and meta-sites to stimulate your interest and facilitate your research.
You can also find helpful information and resources on the sidebar of this blog.
I will continue to focus on writing thought-provoking articles and sharing my ideas about social media marketing, social networking sites and personal development.
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