How To Use One Idea On Multiple Sites Without Duplicate Content: Social Media Mash-Ups

by Nicole Munoz

Effective marketing requires more and more content as different platforms become available. It can exhaust your creativity and monopolize your time. As a small business owner, you can’t afford the overhead required to hire a full time team of marketers to cover all the bases. What can you do?

“Stop trying to reinvent the wheel.”

You’ve heard the old saying, but what does that look like for you and your content creation? You know that duplicate content hurts your website in the eyes of the search engines, so you’ve been struggling to create unique content for all of your social media platforms. As a result, you find yourself stretched thin and having to choose between taking care of your current customers and finding new leads via social media.

Sound familiar?

You need to develop some social media marketing mash-ups!

What’s a Mash-up?

Mash-ups are when a musician blends two or more different songs together to create something new. Perhaps you’ve heard a DJ do a mash-up at a wedding or seen it on a movie like Pitch Perfect. The musicians are using what’s already been created to make something else.

Let me explain. We’ll begin with something fairly simple: a blog post.

Starting With a Blog Post

You’ve written a great blog post and put it on the company website. Is that all you can do with it? The answer is no. You can share that post on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Google+ to reach a wider audience. Did you include an image with the post? (Pro tip: that’s definitely a best practice for blogging.) Pin it to a relevant board on your Pinterest account.

Let’s take it a step further. Can you think of a way to use that same content in a video? If you had to give a presentation with that content, what would it look like? Could you do the same presentation in front of a camera and post it to your YouTube channel? The MOZ Blog has perfected this idea with their Whiteboard Friday posts.

Recapping. You wrote one high quality blog post, shared it on five social media sites and used it as the basis for a new video. You’re starting to get the hang of mash-ups.

Starting With a Podcast

Let’s try another one. This time we’ll start with a podcast. Maybe you prefer talking to writing, so podcasts are less time-consuming for you. Great. Let’s work with that. After you record the podcast and upload it, what else can you do with it to get it to a broader audience?

You can link to it on Facebook and Twitter with a catchy introduction that fits with your audience there. You could have the content of the podcast transcribed and edited so you can post it on your LinkedIn profile. If the content lends itself to illustration, it could be transformed into an Infographic and posted on Instagram or Pinterest. What if, while you recorded the podcast, somebody on your team shot a video of you talking? Now you’ve got a YouTube video, too.

Recapping. You started with the content for a podcast, linked to it on two social media sites, created an Infographic for a third site, posted the transcript on LinkedIn and uploaded a video to YouTube.

Are you beginning to see how this kind of thinking can help you to maximize one great idea by using it on multiple platforms?

One more example before we move on to some pro tips.

Starting With a Webinar

This time we’re going to start with the content you’ve created for a webinar. You’ve created the content for the webinar as a free resource for those who filled out an opt-in form on your website. (Good thinking!)

In preparation for the webinar, you put the content into a PowerPoint presentation. You’ve also decided to use your Google+ account and hold the webinar as a Google hangout to keep the cost down and make it as easy as possible for your attendees. By recording the hangout, you are automatically producing a video you can post on YouTube later.

As a bonus, you can use any good questions your attendees ask as the basis for future content creation. After the webinar, you decide to upload the PowerPoint presentation to SlideShare in hopes of directing more traffic to your site.

Recapping. You prepared for one webinar, added to your email list with opt-ins, added connections on Google+, made a video for YouTube, uploaded to SlideShare and came away with ideas for more content. All in all a successful endeavor, wouldn’t you say?

I think you’ve got the hang of mash-ups now. Here are some things to keep in mind as you go.

Pro Tips for Social Media Mash-ups

Don’t just post links on Facebook and Twitter. If you really want to peak interest, use a great quote from the content before you link to it.
Duplicate content hurts your website in the search engine rankings. Refrain from posting the same content on your blog that you post on LinkedIn.
Keep your audience in mind. You may need to tweak some of your content in order to meet your audience of different platforms. The goal is to reach different audiences, but people who read posts on LinkedIn may be different than people who follow you on Pinterest. Mash-up accordingly.
If you don’t have a target audience presence on a certain social media site, focus on other sites instead. Let your buyer persona work for you.
Don’t try to do it all yourself. Graphic designers, photographers, video editors and writers on your team can adapt your content for various platforms.

I saved the best pro tip for last…

You can always hire a virtual team of professionals to create and manage the content for you. We’d be glad to help. Schedule a free consultation today.

How to Make the Most of a Webinar: Set Up an Email Marketing Follow Up Campaign

by Nicole Munoz

The webinar marketing strategy is not over when the webinar is over. You must follow up with both attendees and those who missed it to get the full benefit out of conducting a webinar in the first place. Let’s go a little more into following up. Most of the money making occurs after the event is over, during the follow few weeks and even years later if they remain on your mailing list. Many sales will occur within the first week of the event when the attendees go over the material, look at the special offers, and utilize their coupons. There are ways to increase sales both directly after an event, and in the later weeks and months past the event.

Offer the Recording of the Webinar

Once the event is completed you can offer the recording of the event either for free to attendees or as an up-sell after the event. Whether you offer it free or for a fee will depend on whether the event was a paid event or a free event. If it was a paid event up-selling access to the recording is a good option. If the event was free, it’s better to just send the entire recording to all subscribers as well as post it on your website.

Optionally, you can offer another event as a viewing of the recorded webinar with a Q & A session after the recording is shown. This gives you an opportunity to have another quasi live event without having to do the entire thing over again. Any of the speakers could do this on their own with a copy of the recording hosting their own Q & A after.

Send a Survey to Attendees

It was mentioned earlier, but it’s important enough to mention it here. Create a survey prior to the event to be sent out automatically a few hours after the event is complete. Ask them questions about the seminar and ask for feedback regarding possible topics they’d like to see in the future.

Offer an additional incentive such as a percents off coupon or an unannounced special offer or freebie to people who complete the survey. A good idea might be to have each speaker create a check list or one page of information such as step-by-step instructions for their topic then package that together as an incentive.

Send a Thank You to Attendees

Within 48 hours of your webinar send an email Thank You message. If you promised any additional information during the webinar this is a good place to include it. For instance, during a live event it’s possible that someone asked for information during the Q & A that you needed to send out, do it now. Everyone will be happy that you are sending the information and that you heard them during the live event.

This is also a good place and time to send out a link to or an invite to the recorded event. Some people like watching events over again, especially if they got distracted during the event by something at home or in the office. Being able to see it again will reinforce anything that was taught or brought up.

If you made contact with any one individual that wants a personal follow up, based on the Q & A, or the survey, follow up within 7 days to be most effective. People have short attention spans, the first week after the event is very important so be prepared in advance with the content loaded into your email marketing system in advance as much as possible.

Wrap It All Up

Conducting a profitable webinar takes planning to accomplish. But, once you do one, you’ll see for yourself how easy it is to build your mailing list, attract new audiences, and reap the benefits of increased profit. Whether you use webinars for training, product help, list building, or to promote new products is up to you, either way you’ll discover that webinars are simple, fun and profitable.

12 Vital Tips for Conducting a Successful Webinar

by Nicole Munoz

It’s important to understand how to conduct a successful webinar. Your actual tasks will depend on your technology and the help that you have but in general these tips will be important to learn if you want to conduct a profitable webinar. Consider these webinar best practices.

Remember Time Zones

It happens that sometimes people get mixed up with the time zones and miss a webinar even if they’re speakers or the organizer. Ensure that you understand the time zones and that your computer is set correctly. You can use Google Local Time Feature to find out what time it is elsewhere. In the search box type “time location”.

Remind Everyone

Using the email list software set up reminders that count down to the event for both attendees and speakers. You can even insert reminders to the speakers to “send tease to your list” or “hey today your content is due send it to xyz now please” and so forth. Reminders never hurt anyone and will ensure a better turn out all the way around.

Practice, Practice, Practice

You and the other presenters need to practice with the technology before the event. Do a complete dress rehearsal. You can even invite a special audience for the dress rehearsal to make it even more complete with audience participation.

Test the Technology

Ensure that you have good Internet service and that your speakers understand the Internet requirements. Often, using wireless can mess up VOIP, sometimes it’s okay. It depends on what technology you chose. Read their requirements and conduct a test to ensure it works. Test your local tech too, such as your speakers, ear phones, desk top and anything else you plan to use during the presentation.

Choose a Moderator

This can be your webinar specialist, you, or someone else who is good at time management. The moderator is going to be responsible for ensuring that everyone sticks to their time limits and Q & A doesn’t get too carried away. Sometimes moderators are also in charge of technology, so be sure that everyone knows what they’re doing.

Provide an Agenda

In one of your reminders before the event provide an agenda to the attendees. They’ll appreciate seeing what is going to happen during the event and it will get them excited to attend.

Start on Time

All speakers and presenters should arrive early to the event even though it’s a webinar so that you can start exactly on time. Guests will not like having to wait on anyone to get started. If someone is late, have a plan in place to switch the order of events. Attendees will get frustrated and leave if you wait around for people who are tardy.

Be Human

One thing that webinars sometimes miss that in person events don’t is the humanity. Sometimes people giving a presentation online are more stilted and guarded than they would be in person because they are taking in the audience’s reaction. With an online webinar you cannot see anyone’s face. A good suggestion is to suggest that each speaker / presenter post a mirror where they can see themselves talking so that they can maintain a human connection. Sounds weird, but it works.

Use Video

Mix up presentations from just PowerPoint to other types of information by adding in some video to your presentation. A lot of webinar software today allows the group to watch and hear YouTube.com videos or to upload video to the system for hearing and viewing. This will create more interest and make the presentations more exciting.

Open Group Chat

Many webinar software offers the ability for the attendees to chat among themselves during the event. The reason this is a great feature is because it offers the social proof that other people are there attending, right now. People will feel part of a group instead of alone. This is one huge way in which webinars different from in person events where talking during the event is discouraged.

Ask for Audience Participation

It can get boring sitting there looking at a screen. If each speaker offers a short Q & A session after their presentation the audience will feel more awake and in tune to the event. Most webinar software also allows for instant surveys and polls to be performed during the event, make use of these at least once per speaker for best results. Plan in advance how many questions, or pick a time limit and stick to it. The moderator should be in charge of ensuring that the time is managed appropriately.

Get Assistance

It can’t be said enough but putting on an event, even a webinar can be challenging and time consuming. Depending on your own comfort zone you may want help with the technology, or you may need help getting all the materials prepared to the highest possible quality, or both. There are many virtual assistants who specialize in webinars who are ready and willing to help.

By incorporating these webinar best practices into your planning, you’ll create a situation where you cannot have anything but a successful, profitable webinar. After all, you want to succeed with your webinar.

Profitable Webinars Made Easy

by Nicole Munoz

Webinars are a profitable and popular way to disseminate information to a lot of people at one time. It’s just like an in person seminar except that it’s performed over the Internet. You give presentations just like you would in person with slides, handouts, and other companion information. It is essentially a web based seminar. You can teach a class, deliver a lecture, conduct a workshop, and host an interactive Q & A event via webinar.

The technology allows event hosts to deliver their information to multiple locations at the same time because the attendee simply needs to be able to sign on to a computer terminal with Internet access to participate in the event. Usually attendees can participate in a variety of ways from chatting in a chat room, to raising their hand electronically to speech, by using a microphone.

If you have a lot of information you want to disseminate to a number of individuals or groups but don’t want to spend a lot of money doing it, a webinar is your answer. Participants can join from anywhere, home, work, any country — as long as they have a computer and an Internet connection they can join.

They are economically feasible for small or large groups. What’s more, they are secure, in that unauthorized people cannot enter the webinar. In most cases the participants only have to download a small program to help them access the event, have ear phones with a microphone, the special link or password to join, and they are in.

Why Have a Webinar?

Many reasons for having webinars were mentioned above, but let’s get specific. Hosting a webinar can advance your business to the next level. It can jump start and excite affiliates, and customers alike. Face it, events are fun but they can be expensive and hard to plan. Webinars can be planned from the comfort of your home office, or from any location with computer access and an Internet connection.

Lead Generation

Webinars are an effective way to generate more leads. But you’ll need to book speakers that excite your target audience. A targeted topic will also help draw both speakers and attendees. By providing targeted content through a webinar platform with planned speakers you will position yourself to become a thought leader who provides credible, valuable and usable information about your niche.

To generate leads with a webinar you’ll need to ask for information at registration. That information should be sent to an email marketing mailing list segmented for potential webinar attendees. In this way you will be collecting leads via your webinar sign up process. By marketing the webinar, you’re marketing your email list.

Earn More Money

Another great reason to host a webinar is to make more money. Even if your initial goal is to get more subscribers, with more targeted subscribers you’re going to generate more income in the long run. But, if you charge for your webinar you could make more money in an hour than you thought possible. Imagine if you sold the hour for just 10 dollars each. If just 100 people attend the webinar you will have earned 1000 dollars for the hour. Granted you have to spend time developing the event, but imagine if you perfect the event and create a series conducting weekly webinars. How will that add to your bottom line?

Advance Content Marketing

The other thing that webinars do is simply disseminate content in a new way. From one hour long webinar you can create a year’s worth of content all from one event if you set it up right. Just get four to six speakers, record the event, then repackage the event in multiple ways to generate almost unlimited content all year long.

Once a webinar is over you can break it down to shorts that you use in your email marketing blurbs or as an eCourse. You can also transcribe it and create an eReport out of the event. Some people are creating Kindle books out of webinar materials. The sky is the limit with the amount of and different forms the content can take from just one webinar event.

Customer Satisfaction

Sometimes your goal is simply to improve customer satisfaction over a product. You might invite only people who have bought your product or service to a webinar that is exclusive to them. Your goal in this case is perhaps to conduct a Q & A to help customers utilize a product or service more fully.

Your objectives for having the webinar can be more than one of the above, but it’s better if you focus on just one or two objectives in order to create marketing materials that work. Determining objectives and setting goals indicates what metrics to study when deciding whether your event was a success or a failure. Having metrics to look at will assist you in perfecting future webinar events by identifying what works and what doesn’t work. By doing so, you’ll be able to develop a best practices manual for webinars of your own that is fully targeted to your unique market.

Top 10 Tips for Creating a Deeper Bond with Your Subscribers

by Nicole Munoz

A mailing list is one of the most important tools an internet marketer has. It offers the opportunity for ongoing contact with customers and prospective customers. But it’s about much more than just getting sales. A mailing list allows marketers to connect with their audience and earn their trust.

In order to get the best results from your mailing list, it’s important to form a bond with your subscribers. This will make them look forward to seeing your mailings in your inbox, increasing open and response rates. It will also make them more comfortable giving you their business. Here are ten ways that you can create a deeper bond with your subscribers.

#1: Ask What You Can Do for Them

If you want to know what your subscribers want, the best thing you can do is ask. Asking readers for suggestions for future mailings
lets them know that their needs are important to you. And when they respond, it gives you the information you need to create more relevant and targeted campaigns. It’s truly a win-win situation.

#2: Take Questions

Another way to get your subscribers more involved is to ask them to send in their questions. You can answer them in future mailings to benefit not only the sender, but all of your subscribers.

As a bonus, the questions that readers send in could give you ideas for blog posts or information products.

#3: Invite them to Connect through Social Media

Social media makes it possible for marketers to connect with their audiences in ways that once were not possible. So why not promote your social media pages through your newsletter? It will give subscribers a new way to receive information about your products and services and to interact with you.

#4: Continue the Discussion on Your Blog

One of the shortcomings of an email list is that it doesn’t offer much opportunity for discussion with your audience. How can you overcome this? By directing readers to your blog. Send them an excerpt or a brief synopsis of your latest post along with a link where they can read and comment. By replying to their comments, you can strengthen your bond even more.

#5: Link to Your YouTube Videos

YouTube videos are excellent marketing tools. You can use them to put a face to your marketing campaigns and make yourself more accessible. Sharing them with your subscribers gives them something to connect with beyond their inboxes.

#6: Incorporate Their Comments into Your Newsletter

When you pay attention to your audience, you are rewarded with increased loyalty. Using their comments in your newsletter lets them know that you are listening. If a subscriber emails you directly, it’s a good idea to get his permission before including his comments in one of your mailings.

Comments found on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are generally fair game, but letting the commenter know your intentions gives you an additional opportunity for interaction and conveys respect.

#7: Invite Them to a Subscribers-only Webinar

Exclusive events are great for creating a deeper bond with subscribers. One of the easiest and least expensive ways to hold such an event is to have a webinar. A webinar allows you to present information via audio and video and allows the opportunity for participants to ask questions and make comments. Having a subscribers-only webinar can also help you get new subscribers if you send the word out via social media or your blog.

#8: Offer Exclusive Discounts

Want to increase your sales and make your subscribers feel special at the same time? Offer them an exclusive discount on your
products or services.

You could even encourage interaction by taking a vote on which product they would like to receive an exclusive discount on.

Whenever you give your subscriber preferential treatment, you win in creating a stronger bond with them.

#9: Make Personalized Offers

Another way to increase sales while keeping your subscribers happy is to send them personalized offers. For instance, you could ask for their birthday or birth month and send them a special offer in honor of their special day.

Or you could send offers for discounts on new products to customers who have purchased complementary products in the past. Such offers let subscribers know how much you value them.

#10: Run a Survey

Some subscribers simply aren’t interested in interacting with marketers on a personal level, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t want
to know that they value their opinions.

A good way to engage these subscribers is to take a survey. This allows them to share their opinions, ideas and concerns anonymously if they so desire. You get valuable feedback that you might not have otherwise received, and they get the assurance that you want to keep them happy.

Bonding with your subscribers requires some time and effort, but it is well worth it. It will go a long way toward ensuring that they stay subscribed, and when it comes time to make a purchase they will have no qualms about doing so.