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How to do Profile Raising Online, a Success story – Beautilicious40Bride

May 4, 2012 By 1 Comment

It’s so good to work with a client who has a vision, explains it clearly to you and then takes the bull by the horns and makes it happen.

I’d like to introduce you to Janet at Beautilicious40. We met on twitter when I responded to a tweet from Janet asking for a website designer. She explained her vision of an online “magazine” for the 40 plus bride. Due to be one herself she had done her research and come up short on finding a website that catered to this market, so she had decided to create one herself. With my style background this was obviously a project that really appealed to me and whilst I am not planning to get re-married (unless my husband isn’t telling me something) I do fall into the 40 plus group, so could understand Janet’s frustration.

The site build was quick and extremely painless – all communication carried out via email and twitter, as Janet is “Up North” and I am “Down South”. Since the site went live at the beginning of April, Janet has continued to keep it updated and fresh – key to ensuring search engine optimisation. We are working on building traffic to ensure the site gets found by those people that need the valuable information she provides, including beautiful real weddings to inspire those starting out in their wedding planning journey. Whilst I will be working on SEO for Janet what I love about working with her is that she doesn’t sit back and expect it to just happen. She is actively making it happen by being extremely savvy with her use of social media – Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter, where she has gathered over 900 followers, and has today heard she is in the top 100 wedding tweeters. If you want a lesson in how to get attention for your business I suggest you check out these profiles and follow Janet!

It’s so rewarding to be involved with a wonderful success story – especially in such a short timescale, and Janet deserves all the success that her hard work is bringing. It proves the point that building a business around something you have a passion for works.

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How to Manage Social Media

March 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I’m often asked how I get so much done and the main reason is I’ve got my social media management organised.

I currently manage 11 social media profiles and growing, so my must have tool is Hootsuite. Without an efficient tool to manage social media I would probably spend all day on twitter alone! As it is I spend about half an hour first thing, at lunch time and later in the afternoon on managing these profiles which include several twitter accounts, Facebook pages and Linkedin profiles. This may seem like a lot of time but that covers all of the profiles I manage.

In the early days of being on twitter, almost three years ago, I did try Tweetdeck but I don’t like the fact that you have to download it. I’m a great fan of cloud based software, and besides at the time Tweetdeck didn’t give me the same analytics as Hootsuite.

So if you haven’t used Hootsuite here are some great reasons why you should take a look at it:

  1. It’s cloudbased – so accessible on any computer with an internet connection. And no need to download new versions, they are there next time you sign in.
  2. The ability to manage multiple social media profiles, including Twitter, Facebook personal and pages, Linkedin, Foursquare, Ping and WordPress.
  3. Posting to more than one profile at once.
  4. One click link shortening.
  5. Scheduling tweets – I know there is a debate about whether this is the right or wrong thing to do and I don’t do it often but if I know I am going to be in a meeting all day and unable to send a tweet it is very useful. You can even bulk upload a spreadsheet of tweets.
  6. The ability to add Apps. I’ve added my constant contact account so that from within Hootsuite I can see the results of my latest email campaign. Other Apps include Tumblr, Flickr, YouTube and Digg.
  7. The Hootlet button – add it to your bookmarks toolbar, then click on it to send a tweet about the page you are browsing. Great for sending links to stories as you read them.
  8. The ability to have team members (paid version) who you can pass assignments to.
  9. Creating multiple streams of Twitter Lists – If you follow a lot of people create a list of those whose tweets you don’t want to miss in a busy stream and add the list to a stream in Hootsuite.
  10. Analytics – Standard reports include, click throughs, Facebook Insights and Google analytics with tweet conversion. You can also design your own reports.

So there you have – how to manage social media without it taking over your life – now I’m just off to play on Pinterest!

Disclosure: should you sign up for a pro Hootsuite account I would receive a small commission. Howevrer, I will only recommend a product that I use and trust.
HootSuite - Social Media Dashboard

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Does Your Business Need A Profile Raising Spring Clean?

March 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment

If you have a small business that has been around for a few years the answer is almost certainly yes.

This week I ran an online profile raising workshop for a group of style consultants and it really gave me food for thought. This was a very savvy and motivated group of female business owners. However, since starting their business the online world has changed drastically.

If you are in this position, chances are you may have a website and you may have spent quite a sum of money on your website. But has it been touched since? Is it optimised for search engines and does it still reflect the personality of your business? If not I suggest you take a look at your  marketing and create a new online marketing strategy.

  1. Start by thinking about who your ideal/best customers are. What would they type in to google to search for the product or service you provide? this will help you determine keywords and phrases that should be included in all your online marketing – website and social media.
  2. Use the google keyword tool (just google that phrase to find it) to get ideas of how competitive your keywords are and find suggestions for others you could use.
  3. Now take a look at your website. When a potential customer visits your site will they find relevant content for those keywords they used? If not you will lose them immediately and they may never return.
  4. Does your website have a clear call to action on the home page – as well as giving your visitor what they want? What is it you want them to do? Ideally you should be getting their email address, so that you can keep in contact with them. Visitors who come to your site and leave without taking action are wasted opportunities.
  5. Does your website represent the personality and brand of your business? Could the copy do with updating? Are you telling them why your service or product? Why you are unique?
  6. How often is your website updated with fresh information to keep visitors coming back? Can you update your site yourself or does it incur costs every time you need a small change? Consider starting a blog to keep them informed and interested.
  7. Are you communicating regularly with your email list? You should be sending them a regular newsletter with valuable information that keeps them engaged. Then when they are looking for the product or service you offer, you are front of mind and have built up that all important trust factor.
  8. Have you thought about social media? If the thought of it terrifies you or you think it’s just for telling people what you had for breakfast you should have a fresh look. At least 80% of our business comes via “word of mouse” how much business are you missing out on?

If you would like help to plan a profile raising strategy for your business why not book a session with us, and give your business the Spring clean it deserves.

Email us today, we’d love to hear from you.

 

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Which Social Media Tool Should I Use?

February 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Recently I ran a webinar with one of my clients – Dr Suzanne Doyle-Morris of Female Breadwinners, on Online profile raising for busy professional women. The key point here was women who know they need to have an online presence but want to know how they can maximise the little time they have to get the most visibility. People often ask me “which social media platform should I use? Do I need Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter and now Google+ and Pinterest? Where does it end?” It can be a little overwhelming and what can happen is that you try to do too much and spread yourself too thin doing nothing well.

My suggestion is that you take a step back and think about who needs to know who you are and what you do? Then find out where those people hang out. Are they in the corporate world? If so they are likely to be on Linkedin. Are they in IT or marketing? then I suggest you look at Twitter or Google+. Are they a brand? See if they have a Facebook page.

Determine which of these tools you then want to focus on. If you feel that you need to use more than one I highly recommend you use a tool like Hootsuite, which allows you to view all your social profiles in one place – and post to more than one at once.

Finally you need to commit to regular activity on your chosen profile. You can get away with 10 minutes or so a day:

  • Update your status, adding useful links or information you want to share
  • Respond to any messages and connection requests
  • Thank and reciprocate those who have shared your information (Retweet on Twitter, Share on Facebook and Linkedin)
  • Look for someone new to follow or connect with (on Twitter try Twellow, on Linkedin use the people search with your keywords)

Once a week you could spend a bit longer:

As you start to engage, participate and share you will see your connections and followers grow.

If you would like any help with any of the Social Media platforms, or in creating a social media strategy get in touch.
HootSuite - Social Media Dashboard

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Tips To Polish Your LinkedIn Profile

November 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

LinkedIn has always been the slightly shy cousin of the social media world – not shouting about it’s strengths but quietly moving forwards to become a more and more powerful way of connecting, networking and raising your online profile and visibility.

Depending on their business, and the amount of time they have to spend I will usually recommend the top three social sites of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn for profile raising online. However, if the client is in the corporate world or want’s to attract corporate clients they really MUST be on LinkedIn.

And LinkedIn have been upping the ante recently and adding some great features. Here are a few that you can use to improve your LinkedIn profile:

Firstly they have made it possible to move sections around. So if you have several current roles – as I do – they used to be displayed in the date order. Now however, you can go to the experience section of your profile in edit mode and as you hover over a role you will see a blue background, you can then click on and move that section so that your roles are displayed in the order you want them to be at the top of your profile.

So by moving this area around…

Linkedin profile tips to raise your visibility

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can reorder this…

 

Linkedin tips for profile raising

 

 

 

 

 

Secondly you can add events – to let contacts know where you are going to be, especially if you are speaking or presenting. And you can see who else has signed up to attend the same event.

Linkedin tips for profile raising

 

 

Thirdly they have created a skills section. There are thousands of skills that you can add to your profile which create an area of clickable buttons that allow you search for other people with those skills. See below:

 

Linkedin tips for profile raising

 

 

Finally you can add video to your personal profile by using the slideshare application. This can really make your profile stand out and look professional – especially if the video is as good as the one shown below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you want to see the video you can watch it here. (My lovely client Dr Suzanne Doyle-Morris discusses the changing world of business)

I hope you have found this useful – just a few updates, next time I will be showing you some of the things you can do on your company LinkedIn profile.

If you would like help in polishing your LinkedIn profile get in touch.

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