60 Ways to Improve your Influence Online or with your Market/Prospects/Consumers

This list was called 60 Ways to Improve your Online Marketing Influence but I think some of these are great for us all to utilize as a basis ANYwhere we market ourselves. For instance, #1 is true on or offline. #13 is definitely good on or off line. #29, 31, 32 are all stellar recommendations for the REAL world! #44, 45, 46 are great if you want to write a book! And #60? Well, that is some grand ol’ advice from before the time of internet or social marketing.

I was on a call with Michael Port a few weeks ago and we discussed social media marketing and how people tend to forget that marketing online is STILL marketing to REAL people. They want a relationship, they need to trust you, they need to believe you have a great product/service that they can’t live without.

Don’t demean everyone’s intelligence by spamming or constantly SELLing to people in these open forums and social site, it only turns us all off!

Side note: Some seem to be a blatant sales pitch for Facebook, but please just keep reading, if that doesn’t work for you. People who wrote this must have a connection to FB somehow.

So, choose one that resonates with you and put into practice. Write it on your bathroom mirror, paste it behind you computer monitor, paste it on your computer desktop, SOMEWHERE you will see it repeatedly and implement it!

It will pay off handsomely in time AND feel more rewarding until then.

1. Stop talking about your products and services and create valuable content.

2. Increase conversion rates on your landing pages by improving your buttons.

3. Build your thought leadership and digital influence through transparency.

4. Demonstrate commitment and increase your digital influence through consistency.

5. Know where you’re going, then make what you say about the people around you.

6. Follow better people.

7. Align yourself with outstanding strategic partners.

8. Make connections online, then meet the person in the real world, offline.

9. Create content that stands for something: ‘Higher purpose content marketing.’

10. Look under the hood of the shiny new technologies coming out.

11. Believe in ‘social objects’ as the way we socialize and share with others.

12. Avoid ‘incestuous blogging’ and look outside your circle.

13. Start talking to people.

14. Think about your narrative strategy because people connect with stories worth telling.

15. Find people who have your audience but not your products and co-create with them.

16. Establish influence either through complete honesty or absolute fakery – not in between.

17. Give your content roots and give it wings.

18. Try Facebook advertising.

19. Develop your online influence by getting offline and meeting people in real life.

20. Get very, very good at filtering and aggregating content.

21. Be early in the news cycles of any conversation of interest, then make context explicit.

22. Increase visibility through web video; the fastest way to get your message out there.

23. Feel passionate about your content and overcome your fears of reaching out.

24. Defy convention where it’s appropriate.

25. Share good content consistently.

26. Let your passion shine to create meaningful relationships and build deep connections.

27. Learn how to talk more about other people.

28. Get on Facebook, get on Facebook now, and use it for your business.

29. Make people around you more successful than you are, and share stories from the heart.

30. Talk about what you know because content is always king.

31. Make something worth talking about.

32. Get your self properly interviewed.

33. Repeat your tweets.

34. Get more influence online by moving offline.

35. Really understand your audience, then build things that really help them.

36. Master one niche, own that niche, then use webinar marketing to promote your brand.

37. Think about what gifts and expertise you have that you can leverage to help others.

38. Map a strategy for integrating social media with other tactics.

39. Change from thinking about my influence to our influence.

40. Get active in other people’s communities.

41. Build ‘digital dimensionality’ by showing your many different sides.

42. Listen to the conversations taking place around you, then start to engage.

43. Network with other influencers and make them aware of your consistent value.

44. Think about the authenticity, consistency, and depth of your voice and story

45. Be willing to shake up your world.

46. Learn to be a storyteller, understand the psychology of people, create quality content.

47. Share ideas liberally and get increased accountability from the digital community.

48. Establish your business model before you attempt to become influential online.

49. Be consistent, connect the practical with the profound, and listen for the silence.

50. Find a unique niche you can own, focus on it and become known for that.

51. Find out what social network your customers are using and be there for them.

52. Build a community of readers by figuring out ways to get people talking.

53. Make friends along the way by helping others achieve their goals.

54. Think about social media as strategy to enhance your existing marketing goals.

55. Be systematic in establishing relationships with those on the same business path.

56. Become an advocate for gifted up and comers as they enter social media.

57. Start the media arm of your company that educates, inspires and entertains.

58. Give more than you get and build trust and relationships over time.

59. Take a look at what you have that others can’t do and use it to get where you need to go.

60. Figure out your value, identify influential individuals and connect to them directly.

The first WRONG question to ask about your social media marketing plans: (And the better one to start asking)

“What’s the hot new trend in social media that we can bring to our clients?

Better question: How can we optimize and improve our existing social media programs?”

Thank you Jay Baer.

So, instead of being so tactical, instead of looking at what OTHERS are doing, think more about YOUR desired results. You want to make the overall impact stronger right? You want more sales… right?

Tell me how you will improve your overall plan with THIS in mind!

C

Seth Godin explains why YOU might not be successful with your online marketing!

Ok, so here Seth Godin explains why YOU might not be successful with your online marketing!

Read it, learn from it and APPLY it! Then, PROFIT from it!

A good preacher ought to be able to get 70% of the people who showed up on Sunday to make a donation.

A teeny bop rock group might convert 20% of concert goers to buy a shirt or souvenir.

A great street magician can get 10% of the people who watch his show to throw a dollar in the hat.

Direct marketers used to shoot for 2% conversion from a good list, but now, that’s a long shot.

A blogger might convert 2% of readers to buy a book. (I’m aghast at this).

And a twitter user with a lot of fans will be lucky to get one out of a thousand to click a link and buy something. (.1%)

Likes, friendlies and hits are all fast-growing numbers that require little commitment. And commitment is the essence of conversion. The problem with commitment is that it’s frightening (for both sides). And so it’s easy to avoid. We just click and move on.

I think there’s a transparent wall, an ever bigger one, between digital spectators and direct interaction or transaction. The faster the train is moving, the harder it is to pay attention, open the window and do business. If all you’re doing is increasing the number of digital spectators to your work, you’re unlikely to earn the conversion you deserve.

Waiting for your fairy godmother (venture capitalist/ investor) to save you?

There are no EASY ways to do business. When talking with a client today, I realized something I had never really admitted before, BUSINESS IS TOUGH!

There is no magic bullet, no get-rich-quick. It’s about something much more.

Now, that’s not to say SOME people may find success by being in the right place with the right thing at the right time, but those times are far and few rather than the norm.

Expecting that fairy godmother to come and make all of your dreams come true is a great way to feel like a failure!

THE SMARTER AND MORE SURE WAY TO SUCCESS? FOCUS! Focus on the right things at the right time. Focus on serving your current clients/customers/patients better! Focus on making loyal followers, die-hard fans. (See my post earlier today about Facebook fans and their worth, if you are using social networking as part of your plan.)

Here’s another way to think about it, to quote our man, Seth Godin, “Delight the audience you already have, amaze the customers you can already reach, dazzle the small investors who already trust you enough to listen to you. Take the permission you have and work your way up. Leaps look good in the movies, but in fact, success is mostly about finding a path and walking it one step at a time.”

SOOOOOOOOOOO? How will this change your day, your month, your year?

C

Why having NO Money or Budget when you start your business can be an ADVANTAGE! A Seth Godin case study.

So, Seth Godin tells about this company that did not have the money to spend on a sign that truly describes the product type, and amazingly this probably contributed to MORE success!!

“When Blythe and her partners started Lula’s Apothecary, the best vegan ice cream stand in this hemisphere, they didn’t have enough money to afford the letters to put “Dairy free” on the sign in their window. They couldn’t even afford “vegan.” So the signage says nothing about what they don’t put in their ice cream.

What they discovered was that word among the tribe of vegans in the East Village of New York City (an even bigger group than you might imagine) spread fast. The product was remarkable enough that just a few happy customers were enough to spread the word.

The other thing they discovered is that non-vegans were willing to walk on in if the place looked cool enough. In fact, the lack of ingredient-declaration on their window actually helped them reach out to people who might have been scared away at the lack of milk.”

So, allow the LIMITATIONS of your budget or time or employees, to work FOR your benefit! Allow this limitation to equate to a WIN! See how this can work for you rather than limit you!

If you don’t have money for a sign, then how can that actually be a benefit?

If you don’t have the money to redecorate your retail store, how can you make this an opportunity?

When you don’t have an advertising budget, how can you use that to inspire improvement?

Change, improve, make this work for you!

I want to hear about it!

C

Retailers – You are losing buyers to the internet retailers! What are YOU doing about it?

Retailers – You are losing buyers to the internet retailers!

What are YOU doing about it?

ONE TOOL IN YOUR ARSENAL THAT WORKS LIKE NEVER BEFORE:

COUPONS!

A study by Inmar reveals that 2009 consumers used coupons at a faster clip than they did the year before – the first increase in coupon redemption in 17 years.

Online coupon access increased 92 percent and traditional newspaper inserts are still a stomping ground for bargain hunters – 89 percent of coupons are distributed that way, and the paper vouchers account for more than half of those redeemed at the checkout counter.

Many who never used coupons are now forced to use them – what about you and your household?

Are you maximizing your opportunities with these?

If you are not improving your business each and every day, internet retailers WILL and they offer coupons, everywhere!

SOOOOO, create an offer, a coupon, something to put online, on twitter, on facebook, in the newspaper OR all of these, GRAB THOSE customers today!

As always, my absolute best to you,

C

Case study: Doubling sales through social media – iMediaConnection.com

Want to get social media fame? You can!

Want to double your sales?They have done it, so can you!

Think you need a huge marketing budget? Think again!

Sometimes what we need to do is get off our keesters and get to it! See how a company doubles its sales in one month flat!

Case study: Doubling sales through social media – iMediaConnection.com

SOOOOOOO, how will this change what you do today? Tomorrow? Next week? And next month?

If it doesn’t help you improve your future, STOP READING, YOU INFO-ADDICT… and get to implementing, thank you.

C

True success in business lies with a blatant, in your face, absolutely RAW use of this:

(Read this is a flaming, singsong voice) PERSONALITY!!!!!!

How are today’s successful companies achieving and maintaining a competitive advantage?

Why are companies who have better products/services not thriving, when other companies are?

What makes one more successful than the other?

There have been hundreds of books written about success and business and some are still very relevant today. BUT, the consumers today are not like the consumers of previous generations, there is an all new dynamic that we as the drivers of the business MUST study and edit how we guide our marketing and delivery.

If we do not, we will be left in the dust of other companies who have responded and innovated and henceforth, been rewarded for hitting the mark!

One of the major pieces that is important to today’s plan for a business is personality. Consumers do not want a boring, faceless company to provide their products or services anymore. We want to be entertained, emotionally involved, and personally connected with companies, like never before.

Hence, authors like Seth Godin talk about the Purple Cow and Tribes in describing a companies products and followers.

A book called Personality NOT Included talks at length about this. I am reading that along with 30 other rescently published works, ah the plethora of info consumes us!!!! So, I leave you with the words of Seth Godin “There is no tribe of normal”

People don’t coalesce into active and committed tribes around the status quo.

The only vibrant tribes in our communities are the ones closer the edges, or those trying to make change. The center is large, but it’s not connected.

If you’re trying to build a tribe, a community or a movement, and you want it to be safe and beyond reproach at the same time, you will fail.

Heretical thoughts, delivered in a way that capture the attention of the minority–that’s the path that works.

So, the point my dear friends?

Make your business YOU, it shoudl have personality, just like you do. It should be REAL, what we are all looking for. And it is easier than ever with social networking and youtube video sites galore! And it is FREE, hello, can you say cheap?

So, how will this change you? Your bsuienss? Your plans today?

If it doesn’t change something, stop wasting your life reading my blog!

Puleaze!

C

Are you prospects/customers/clients acting randomly? Predictably? Both?

The Levy Flight

Chaos is not defined in any one or multiple direction. Hence, the growing numbers who visit your website, twitter or facebook page are not organized or predictable.

The path your customers take towards you is not a straight line.

This is much the same as the fact that you cannot predict which direction an animal will take next when foraging. So, how do we predict our future success with these social media platforms or our marketing campaigns or anything for that matter to do with our businesses?

Enter the Levy Flight. Seth Godin puts it well:

Someone discovers your site. They poke and prod and join and return and return again. Then they feel as though there’s no more benefit and they move on, surfing until they find another place to forage.

Someone finds your restaurant. They love it. They return with friends. They hang out and become regulars for a while. Then they get bored and start browsing again.

Adding the Levy flight to your understanding is a much more nuanced representation of consumer behavior than solely thinking about the ideas of brand loyalty or random web surfing.

See an example here:

So, the only accurate prediction is that there is not predicting some outcomes, most outcomes, really.

So, how does this change your plans for today, tomorrow, next week, month or year?

Stop trying to predict, learn when to trust your instincts and when they will lead you astray, test and improve.

My best,

C

Social Media/ Social Networking – Facebook wins against Google!

Very few have decided to forgo the “social media” networks but with these latest stats, the proof of their value is clear. Facebook is the winner, twitter is sure to be right behind, with hundreds of others lagging way back in the distance.

Click here!

The question remains – How can we profit from this massive interaction movement?

I would love to hear about your failures, your successe, your ideas…

C