Open Letter to Oprah

Dear Oprah,

After hours (and hours) of planning, scripting, taping in various locations and then another 2 hours trying to upload, filling out a really long application..twice -- I found out after the deadline, from your web tech support team that my video didnt post.

But I am not discouraged.... and with that....I put this video out into the universe anyway...




Sincerely,
Patrice

K. Patrice Williams JD
Small Business & Marketing Strategist
www.kpatricewilliams.com

Increase Targeted Traffic to your Website: Forum Posting

Case Study:  I have a good friend, that owns a Concierge Service.  He has a website and has set up his social networking sites (Twitter, Facebook) to reflect his company name and brand.  What's extra special about my friend is that he really KNOWS and understands his target market.  Because he was in the unique position to have been a professional driver for his nitch.


He has identified their

• Gender
• Professions and Titles
• Income
• Passions, Worries and Frustrations
• Spending Habits: what they buy, eat, drink, what magazines and newspapers they read

He seeks out his target market on Twitter and Facebook and sends them great information and articles that interest them and solves their problems, and drives business to Concierge Service.  In other words - he finds these articles, and then 'shares' or 'posts' to his facebook and twitter pages and uses the information to help his target market -- almost similar to looking at all the daily newspapers and clipping out articles that is of interest to his target market, and disgarding the articles they would not like.  A great service to his clients, personally, I appreciate his articles on upcoming technology and how it relates to my business, and when I need concierge services, he is who I call.

Awesome, but there is a missed opportunity here.  Why not post intelligent answers/responses/comments on the Articles themselves.  The technique is called forum posting, and it is a method to increase targeted traffic to your own website.


This example also works for Authors, for example, I have a book, 6 Simple Steps to Avoid Foreclosure (available on Amazon.com).  When my target market is fearful of foreclosure, they usually go to a search engine like Google for a search related to foreclosure.  They end up a forum posting where someone else has asked the question, or they post the question, "how can I save my home from foreclosure", or a similar question.  And they will find my intelligent response, which will also include my Name and website information.

K. Patrice Williams JD
Author- 6 Simple Steps to Avoid Foreclosure
http://www.avoidforeclosuremanual.com/
Or Available in Paperback on Amazon.com

Targeted traffic that has a concern about foreclosure is now driven to my website.

To take it a step further, you can create seperate, unique bit.ly's (http://www.bit.ly.com/) which is a shortend, identifyable url to your website, for each post.  Keep every post url in a spreadsheet with its associated bit.ly so that you can track what articles drove what traffic, which gives you more detailed information about your customer.

Using Facebook for Business - Part 1

This week my 65 year old mother joined Facebook.  Within 12 hours she connected with 35 friends and family members.  No figure, according to istrategylabs.com, Facebook users have grown to over 100 Million in the Unites States alone.  What does this mean for us business owners...... if our target market is on facebook...we need to be on facebook as well.

Okay....lets start with the basics. 

1.  If you haven't already, create a regular facebook account (www.facebook.com)
2.  Fill out your profile page, include your what schools and colleges you attended, what years you graduated, where your worked...it will help your friends, family and business associates find you
3.  Find your friends, family, current and past business associates (http://www.facebook.com/find-friends/?ref=sb).  As you can see from the picture below...google has built in features that will make this easy.  This can be done a number of ways...if you can import your contacts from a number of email accounts including Outlook, Google, Hotmail and Yahoo. You can also upload a contact file or sync facebook with your phonebook.

You are welcome to connect with me on Facebook....lets see if you can find my fan page.... in the search button, in the search box type:  K. Patrice Williams JD.  See you there.

Business Email- Etiquette

After receiving a few too many odd, unprofessional business emails this week -- I've decided to post a reminder about email etiquette:




1) Spell check your emails before you send them. I haven't seen an email program without a spell check program. Misspelled words in a business email is not only distracting to the reader, but also makes but the receiver of the email wonder about your intelligence. (Harsh—I know—but TRUE!!)



2) Be short and to the point—we’re all busy!



3) Use the subject line - readers of your email want to know at a glance, what the email about.



4) Use an email footer. Its free advertisement for your company. Example:


K. Patrice Williams, JD
Author, Speaker, Business Consultant
http://www.kpatricewilliams.com/

5) Try to respond to business emails within 24 hours.



6) NEVER use all caps in the subject line or body of your email. It's annoying, distracting and in the email world, its code for Shouting. If you're not shouting at your email reader, then don't use all caps. (Yes—I was shouting TRUE on point one)



7) Don't forget the attachment. There is nothing worse that pointing the reader to review an attachment and then not attaching the document.



8) Last reminder, instead of trying to convey a complex idea over email, sometimes it's better to make a personal call to the reader.

Guilt....

is an Emotional Waste of Time.