Outbox Takeout » Social Media

A blog or email marketing, which is better?

Kate McMillan — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 21:05:28 +0000

Like with many things besides the pie vs cake debate (pie is clearly better!), there is no clear answer to the blog vs email marketing debate. There is also room for both – have your cake and eat your pie too! Lorrie (of Web Marketing Therapy) and Kate virtually sat down to create some guidelines for to help get you started.

Before we get into it, though, let’s break down what form they take most often:

A Blog: A blog is part of a website or a stand-alone destination in which content is published over time. It becomes a valuable repository (hopefully) of information and links. Also, people can visit to read/view/listen to your posted content and interact with the author(s) by leaving comments at any time. People can use an RSS feed to subscribe to your blog, which delivers the latest content from your blog to their Feed Reader or their email inbox. You need a platform on which to create your blog, like Blogger or Wordpress (my favorite).

Email Marketing: Email Marketing is a subscription-based service in which you send content (eg: a newsletter) via email to a subscription list. What you send can include text, links and images, but needs to adhere to some of the limitations of the email programs that will display them. Often, an incentive is offered to entice people to sign up for your mailing list. You need a service that allows you to create a way for people to sign up, manage the subscription list, and send emails to them.

So how do you know which to use when?

Here are few things to consider when deciding how to cash in your web marketing chips when it comes to blogs and email marketing:

Social media services like Facebook & Twitter have made the playing field even more complicated. Both offer some of the best aspects of Blogs and Email Marketing, but where they differ is that your blog and email marketing campaigns are exclusive to and focused on you. While it’s great to be part of a larger community, you don’t always want your online presence adjacent to the latest news from your child’s soccer coach. So far, Twitter and Facebook haven’t replaced Email Marketing and Blogging as we know it – but they’re wonderful ways to get the word out!
If you’re updating your blog frequently, you can expect people will subscribe to it and keep up-to-date with your content, but it is still a model where people have to take action to visit it. With the exception to subscribing to a blog via email, which tends to be a low percentage of blog visitors, email marketing puts your message right in their inbox. It’s a way to keep your content in front of a potential customer, and to let them know when you have something new to offer without them having to do anything at all.
Read the rest of our considerations on The Web Marketing Therapy blog – including how to create a unique, searchable resource through your efforts…

There are benefits to blogging and email marketing campaigns, and luckily you don’t have to choose. And, to top it off, there are free & easy ways to do both (MailChimp & Wordpress for example). Often it comes down to your budget for time and money. If you can’t really commit to both, and follow through so that they both have a chance of success, then put your time and money into one. Which one? That decision is based on the specific goals you’ve set up for your business, but most often a blog is the best place to start.

That’s because a blog often establishes the reason why someone would want to be interested in you in the first place. It’s a chance to show your expertise while your content repository and readership grow publicly. It’s a place that can be linked to to widen your net and a place that can show up in search results. It’s a place people can interact with each other and you can communicate directly with your site visitors.

A great case study is Margaret Roach’s A Way to Garden. Her site, which is primarily comprised of her blog, also offers an email newsletter. She uses the email newsletter to point to things on her blog that her readership may have missed, but also to add a few extra touches that aren’t available on her blog, like additional stories and photos, or information about her new book. I look forward to receiving the newsletter in my inbox even though I read her blog.

So, as you go off to consider your options, make sure you look at models other people have tried that you like. Is there an email newsletter that you really love or hate to get? Why? Is there a blog that you wish had a way to subscribe for more information? How come? If you’ve ever unsubscribed from an email marketing campaign, what led you to that decision? The answers you come up with, along with the information here, will help you make the decision that will best work for you!

Outsourcing your social media marketing

Kate McMillan — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:00:56 +0000

Recently I wrote about the importance of delegating when it comes to running your business & maintaining your sanity. Among the tasks that may be delegated is the generation of blog posts, Tweets and Facebook content. While there is nothing quite like your authentic voice, and you probably should add your own personal touch from time-to-time, it is possible for someone else to easily add some targeted content to your social media outlets with great success.

By establishing the keywords that bring the most relevant information and people to your attention, someone else can take the reigns when it comes to posting news that position you as an expert, making fruitful connections, and bring your product or service to the attention of those who may need it. With just a couple of hours a week, someone can handle your social media, and also track its effectiveness through analytics to be sure that future efforts have a greater chance of success.

Not only will your social media impact increase because someone will be dedicated to it, but you’ll maintain a single voice with the added benefit of collaboration. Collaborating with a social media expert will bring new content not only to the attention of your audience, but to you as well. They can track mentions of your business, and promote your triumphs!

Finding someone to work with is as simple as finding someone who is willing to understand your business and how you see it evolving… it might be someone you employ already. If you find someone who is comfortable and familiar with social media, you’ll achieve traction more quickly — but anyone who is passionate about what you do will be a great help.

Using photo headshots on your website, and social media profiles…

Kate McMillan — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 02:56:49 +0000

Caveat: I’m guilty of this myself!

You likely have an “About Me” or “About Our Company” or “About Us” page on your website. And you certainly have a thumbnail image that you use for your social media profiles (if you’re not using a logo or brand). Occasionally you might be asked to be interviewed on a blog, or an article may be written referencing you. In each of these circumstances, you may want a photo of yourself displayed. In a physically disconnected world, where many of your networks and connections are made online, it’s more important than ever for people to sense your authenticity and your personality.

And you don’t want a terribly lit & untouched-up photo of yourself taken at a friend’s wedding, or a snapshot of your vacation to Costa Rica to be the way you represent yourself to the world via your business. I once had a client who wanted to use a photo of himself at an event where he was clearly snozzled – yikes!

If it’s your personal Facebook profile and you regularly update it to show something recent & cute, that’s one thing, if it’s a headshot of you on the website of your business, that’s another thing entirely. This isn’t to say it needs to be stuffy, or nostalgic for Sears photo shoots circa 1981… you want it to reference your personality and that of your business.

For example, if you’re an investment banker, you’d likely meet your potential clients face-to-face in some level of business attire. Maybe not a suit, but something appropriate. If you’re a bee keeper, you’re likely wearing something appropriate for that work, etc… In each of these cases it’s not much of an investment of time or money to hire a photographer to take a professional-looking headshot of you in your environment.

Usually, a headshot session either takes place in the studio or in the field. Personally, I like shots that aren’t against a blue-screen in the studio, not ones that are too contrived. I prefer shots taken in an appropriate environment – maybe in your office, or maybe outside…

Here are some great examples:

Lorrie Thomas, founder of Web Marketing Therapy uses a great, genuine, professional-yet-casual headshot of herself throughout her collateral: http://www.lorriethomas.com
Dr. James Hansen, author of Storms of My Grandchildren, and famed climatologist, uses a sincere, casual-yet-sophisticated headshot for his site(s) and his book jacket: http://stormsofmygrandchildren.com
Chelsea Cain, NYT Bestselling author, has some great tongue-in-cheek shots throughout her site: http://www.chelseacain.com

These people did nothing more than find a photographer to take some shots of them, then think to use them effectively on their site(s). There’s no magic formula. You don’t need to be an actor. You don’t need $1 million dollars or an entourage.

So, how do you find someone local to do this for you whose work you like? Well first, if you see a headshot you really like, and you know that it was likely taken in your area, find out who took them! Sometimes there’s an attribution, and other times you can just send an email and ask. Secondly, search for someone & review what you find! I did a search in my metro area and here’s what I uncovered: http://www.google.com/search?q=headshots+portland+oregon

You can expect to pay anywhere from $50 to $500 depending on how many poses and/or outfits you want, where you live, and the experience of the photographer. The most important thing is that you find someone whose work shows the kind of headshot you’d like to end up with.

So, throw that modesty out the window, find the right photographer for you, and be happy when you’re being represented in your best light online!

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Creating a Facebook Fan Page or Custom Facebook Pages

Kate McMillan — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 02:20:35 +0000

Recently I wrote about creating custom Twitter backgrounds to extend your brand, but what about Facebook?

In the magical triad of social media marketing (your blog, Twitter and Facebook profiles), you want to make sure your brand appears in each place – not just in your tone and message, but also in the way it looks. With so much competition for people’s attention, brand synchronicity certainly helps you stick in people’s minds.

You can customize your Facebook page to include any number of tabs, with whatever content you like, but when you stick to one or two beyond the standard “Wall” and “Info” tabs – you’re keeping your message clear and concise.

Here are some guidelines for creating a custom Facebook page that works:

Craft a message and a design that is appropriate for the Facebook context. This means that you’re not duplicating your website on Facebook, or putting up screenshots of portions of your website, but instead you’re creating content that’s valuable to the Facebook audience & looks great within their website. Let visitors know, briefly, why they should be interested in you and engage with you. Offer up your expertise, and encourage participation & discussion. Facebook, after all, is a social media venue – it’s built on the premise of participation. We all know that a one-sided conversation isn’t much fun. Coca-cola’s Facebook presence was actually first created by some devoted fans, who still actively participate in the official Coca-cola page, and are featured heavily throughout as founders of their Facebook community… what a great way to encourage community.
Unless you have lots of traction on your Wall page, and you’re monitoring it regularly for content, make the default tab your custom page. And give your tab an interesting name!
Create an interesting and engaging Profile image that extends your brand.
Use events and competitions to encourage people to join your community, and tell their friends about it. If you offer something valuable to your constituency, like a free consulting session, or some merchandise, in exchange for numbers of fans reached, or user-generated content being featured on your page, they’re much more likely to participate. Offer special content to those who become fans, and invite discussion so they’ll stick around!
Link to your other places where people can learn more about you and what you offer to them – your Twitter acct to learn news, and your blog for longer-form content and resources, and, of course, your website – especially if something can be purchased there. Link directly to the pages you want people to go – don’t just dump them on your Home page and expect them to find their own way.
Use multimedia content to keep it interesting – fresh video content is interesting, and engages your audience on another level – and, if you have the resources, a custom Facebook app is another great value-add that not only makes *your* page more interesting, but gives people the opportunity to install and use your app, keeping their attention on what you’re doing more often. A webinar is one of the things you could offer to your friends, and after it’s over, you can show it as an example of content available to fans first.

For some GREAT inspiration, check out this site that displays killer Facebook pages: http://www.customfacebookpage.com

And if you’re looking for someone to create one for you, get in touch!

Twitter Branding: Creating a Custom Background for Your Twitter Profile

Kate McMillan — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 02:09:36 +0000

You’ve probably seen Twitter profiles from users who have a custom Twitter background. A custom Twitter background is a background image that has some information about them, maybe a photo, information about their website, etc…

Realizing that their brand can be extended not only through the content they author, but also through the way their profile looks on services like Twitter, they had custom background images created:

This is a relatively small investment for brand synergy, and helps people already familiar with your brand know they’ve found the right person on Twitter to follow. Remember that people aren’t usually reading your Twitter feed on your Profile page, they’re reading it on their Twitter Home page, or another Twitter application (like Tweetie). So, we’re really just talking about first impressions – like when someone clicks through a reference to you in another tweet, or clicks through to your Twitter profile page from a website – people will make the decision about whether to follow your feed very quickly. Their decisions will be based on whether the content looks interesting/valuable – don’t forget that part of that perception is based on the way your profile looks!

Some things to keep in mind when creating a custom Twitter background:

Your background image will be aligned with the top-left of people’s browser windows – which we all know range from low to high resolutions. To prevent overlap with your Twitter feed, you want to optimize your design to work for the most popular resolution for most Twitter users, which is 1280px wide or more.
You can choose for your background image to tile across the page, or just be a single image. In most cases, unless you’re using a repeating pattern with no information on it, you’ll want a single image. This means you want to pay special attention to the right and bottom boundaries of the image – making sure they gracefully integrate with the overall background color.
Like with any web page, you want your background image to load as quickly as possible, so keep the filesize as small as possible.
Remember – it’s just an image – your links & contact info won’t be active, just informative!

Contact me if you’re interested in having a custom Twitter background created for your profile!

Using photos and videos to enhance your website

Kate McMillan — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:08:02 +0000

We all know how it’s important to make meaningful connections with your clients and/or customers. One of the ways you can do this is by sharing with them not only through Twitter and Facebook, but also through YouTube and Flickr. Your brand is an extension of your personality, so use the great tools out there that help you bring it to life!

Putting a face and a voice to a name brings an instant connection that may not have been there previously. It also gives you the chance to share goings-on in a way that enhances your customer’s experience…

For example, if you’re opening a restaurant, add photos and videos of the process of creating the venue to your blog posts – or even create just a photo-blog as a way to start building publicity. People are often invested in and excited about what you’re doing well before they set foot in the door. Or, if you’re building a small business around dog training, offer up some free video tidbits of you and your pup in action. Be creative! If you’re reluctant to be the star of the show, collaborate with someone else – or keep yourself behind the camera. There’s no right or wrong way to go about it.

Bringing your business to life like this can make it, and you, much more approachable & lowers the bar for initial customer contact. It also allows you to spread awareness to audiences who might not otherwise have discovered your offering. With user bases in the millions, using targeted tags and linking back to your website on YouTube & Flickr is fantastic way to bring a new audience to your offering.

Client Spotlight: Ann Levine, Law School Expert

Kate McMillan — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:00:56 +0000

This week in the Client Spotlight is Ann Levine, Esq., Law School Admissions Consulting Expert and author of The Law School Admission Game: Play Like an Expert. Ann is the former director of admissions for two ABA law schools, and more than 100,000 law school applicants have relied upon her Law School Expert blog to guide them through the application process.

What do you wish you’d known about creating an online presence before you started?

I wish I’d understood the importance of branding. I started in 2004 with a free template website that looked TERRIBLE. I spent a lot of time teaching myself everything and thought that because I had a lot of credible information on my site that the site itself should appear credible. A year later I upgraded to a basic web design and paid about $700 for it – which felt like a lot at the time. It looked better, but was really still a template. It did the trick but didn’t brand me because it was fairly generic. Only when I (literally) sat down with someone who understood my brand and what my online presence needed to project did I feel like I was projecting credibility and deserving of charging higher prices to my clients as a result.

What’s the most important thing you learned about online marketing along the way?

To employ experts. People hire me to have an expert at their side through the law school application process, and I hire others because I don’t have time to become an expert on web marketing, SEO, PPC, etc. So, I hired people to help me who already know this stuff better than I ever could learning it on my own. It’s not as expensive as you might imagine, but it only works if you work with people who “get” what you’re all about. I flailed using big companies that I found online and only thrived once I found that one person who understood what I meant in a sentence long email or 2 second phone call and didn’t need me to coach her to get what I wanted.

What’s the best advice you have for someone just getting started now?

Use a blog to provide quality information and form relationships with others in your field and related fields. If you are good with people, Twitter and Facebook. Network constantly, and help others in their quests because good acts come back around.

Tweet Your Blog

Kate McMillan — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 01:57:20 +0000

I’m sure you’ve seen all those people on Twitter who tweet their blog posts, and you’ve probably also seen blogs where they either link to their Twitter account, or show their tweets right there on the page. How do they do it? How *do* you connect your blog and Twitter?

Here’s how:

Push blog content to Twitter: Twitter Feed
Put Twitter content on your blog: Twitter Widget for Blogs

Did you know you can do something similar with Facebook? If you have a Facebook account, and especially if you have a page or group there for your business, you can have your Tweets automatically update your Facebook status, and have your blog content show up there too:

Blog content on Facebook: Networked Blogs on Facebook
Twitter updates your Facebook status: Twitter application for Facebook
And this selectively updates your Facebook status: Selective Twitter

And while I’m offering suggestions on how to single-source updates to multiple platforms, Ping.fm will update multiple platforms at one, from just about any device or service! And Minggl does something similar, but using a Firefox toolbar (love that!).

Keep in mind, however, that you don’t ALWAYS want everything to go everywhere or people might start to think of you as a broken record… it is true that people tend to stick with their favorite service so they may not see that you posted the same thing across multiple accounts, but if someone is researching you, they certainly will. And sometimes it’s just a nice thing for those who follow you to get a personalized message about a blog post you wrote. So, go ahead, automate your social networking life… just don’t forget to add a little bit of your own voice sometimes.

8 Communities for Book Lovers

Kate McMillan — Fri, 29 May 2009 13:00:54 +0000

It’s a tough lesson learned for many authors that if you write it, they won’t necessarily come.. so here are some great ways to kick start your online self promotion, and get involved with a community of like-minded individuals at the same time:

Shelfari. This site (owned by Amazon) allows you to connect with other authors and readers over what each of you is reading. By creating a virtual bookshelf online, participants can easily see what you’re reading and they make it easy to start up a discussion.
GoodReads. “Imagine it as a large library that you can wander through and see everyone’s bookshelves, their reviews, and their ratings. You can also post your own reviews and catalog what you have read, are currently reading, and plan to read in the future. Don’t stop there – join a discussion group, start a book club, contact an author, and even post your own writing.”
LibraryThing. “LibraryThing helps you create a library-quality catalog of your books. You can do all of them or just what you’re reading now. And because everyone catalogs online, they also catalog together. LibraryThing connects people based on the books they share.”
AuthorsDen.com. “The largest most vibrant free online literary community of authors and readers! Visited by 1,400,000+ readers/mo.”
Nothing Binding. “The Leading Global Social Networking Site for writers, authors, readers and book buyers, Nothing Binding unites these groups everywhere around the world. When you join, You can promote your books; connect with fellow writers and authors, hungry readers and book buyers; and discover great new writing.”
FiledBy. “Any author with a book published in the U.S. or Canada can join for free, manage and enhance their pages, promote their books, check for accuracy, provide corrections and much more.”
Readers Place & Authors Place. Created by Random House as an online book club community and place to find out more about authors and their books.
Red Room. “For years, writers have joined the Red Room Writers Society to get their writing done in a supportive environment. Most people don’t need more instruction; they need to write. The Red Room Writers Society is the only writers society or school focused on writing rather than focused on reading and talking.”

Each of these sites has a slightly different angle on a similar model, so create a profile wherever you can and try them out! See which one you like the best and get out there and participate!

Leveraging Online Social Media for Marketing Purposes

Kate McMillan — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 04:36:10 +0000

I noticed recently that many of my clients had a hard time wrapping their brains around the idea of social media services and how they could leverage them for their benefit. So, to help them (and myself by not having to create redundant content) I wrote this document, Leveraging Online Social Media for Marketing Purposes.

There are lots of boutique options that I didn’t cover, but perhaps will in future posts!

In the course of creating the document, I did a quick search for other similar resources, and other than the ever-wonderful Wikipedia, I didn’t find much easily digestible information that wasn’t associated with someone trying to sell a seminar, a book, or their services. Many times, this meant they either explained what something meant, but not how to use it successfully, or, they explained how to use something, but not what it meant. I felt the interwebs needed a resource that tried to do both.

Feedback is encouraged – feel free to leave comments.