This twitter tool is a neat little one. It allows you to pull all your Twitter followers and create designs with the mosaic of pictures.
It’s called Twitter Mosaic.
Even though I haven’t been on Twitter long, Here’s a mosaic of my current followers…(I just got an idea, I’m going to do this ocassionally on this blog to document my Twitter growth).
Isn’t this neat?
Ever heard of the micro-lecture?
Neither had I until I ran into a post by the eminent Dr. William Graziadei (many of whose thoughts I admire).
Anyway, here’s the written lecture on how to deliver a Micro-lecture.
Believe me, within a few minutes of reading and digesting that article you’ll see the connection between the insights expressed and increased profitability in your business. (Hint: Another training tool to teach your clients to communicate with you and to buy more from you more often)
Leave your comments and let me know your thoughts.
P.s. Would you like to learn how to build a robust internet business with a coach, and participation of a few others, all from the comfort of your home? Check out SBI’s e-learning steal!
If you’ve been tooling around the digital landscape for a while you’re probably very familiar with url shortener website services like www.Tinyurl.com
If used tiny url and another one which I can’t remember right now for a while, but I recently signed up to Twitter (a 140-character or less micro-blogging service) and found that I’m having serious issues staying with the 140 character limit. Apparently I inherited my late father’s gift for..um…verbosity.
Anyway, after having swallowed up my nervousness (See: Why I was nervous about joining Twitter) and signing up for Twitter, I ran smack dab into this brevity issue and even tinyurl didn’t seem to be enough…
I needed every last character of space I could find to get most of my ideas out within one tweet (and regardless of what Twitter etiquette allows or doesn’t, certain character quirks won’t let me even attempt to divide my thoughts into 2 tweets – Is that even allowed in Twitterdom?)
Anyway, what I’m trying to get at is that I found this nifty url shortening website at http://is.gd (My question: How is that domain even possible? were the DNS guards asleep? Is that even legal?).
So now my twittering has an 8 character breathing space (tinyurl’s were mostly 25 characters) because the is.gd urls have been coming out at 17 characters…(ahhh the freedom)
Till next time.
P.s. Hey, Get my Twitter-based small business marketing coaching updates on Twitter
In my previous Viral marketing power post, I mentioned how a sandwich can be a potent viral marketing tool.
Well, my first attempt to actually sample the gastronomic and culinary wonder that is the Salmon melt sandwich actually went awry. I picked up my wife from work and she deftly guided me to the Heidi’s Brooklyn Deli location where…
we ended up deeply disappointed. It was almost 6pm.
The place was closed!!
How sad! I razzed my wife about teasing me with a phantom salmon melt sandwich and bringing me too late to the place.
Well, today just by chance we were going by the same neighborhood and decided to try again.
What happened when we got there illustrates the power of word-of-mouth in a small business.
When we got to the counter and tried to order the salmon melt sandwich, we were told they were “sold out of salmon”! We asked about whether there was another Heidi’s located within striking distance, and were told the nearest was in Downtown Denver.
While we stood there wondering what to do next, another couple came by and asked for the same sandwich. When they were told they wouldn’t be able to order the sandwich, they protested that they had “driven one hour … all the way from Colorado Springs” to buy this sandwich.
It turns out the other gentleman and I were in the same boat. His girlfriend had tasted this sandwich and they planned to pick up this sandwich the next time they went to Denver!
Well, the good news was, they found some more salmon and we got our sandwiches!
It really was the best sandwich I’d tasted in a while. (Special note: I’m in no way connected to or affiliated with Heidi’s Brooklyn deli). In my last post, I mentioned how marketing and product experimentation can yield you the difference that makes your business and breaks the back of your competition.
Till next time.
Gogo
When I asked my wife how her day went today, her answer was:
“We went out to this restaurant called Heidi’s today, and I had the best sandwich I’ve had in a long time. It was a ’salmon melt’ sandwich!”
She went on to regale me with the blow by blow account of how she thoroughly enjoyed the sandwich, what ingredients were in it and how I “just have to try it out”.
What can you do in your business to generate that kind of word of mouth?
One of the most powerful ways is to
Don’t be afraid to experiment! Constant testing and experimentation has been the hallmark of the some of the world’s most profitable businesses. Some of the most popular and profitable sandwiches for McDonald’s Corporation (such as the Big Mac) were the results of experimentation by enterprising McDonald’s franchisees who were given the freedom to try and to test.
Whether you own/run a restaurant or some other type of service business, the same principle applies. One of the easiest ways to generate viral word-of-mouth is by bundling an additional service to your main product or service.
For instance, I came across a spa for built around giving teenage girls the group birthday party experience of a lifetime (complete with a uniquely decorated chauffeur-driven limo to the spa).
Think about what complementary product or service you could bundle with your current offerings to inspire and incite the spread of your marketing message.
Till next time.
Gogo
Update: The Saga Continues In “Viral Marketing Power of Sandwich Part 2″
“The avenue of my blessings may change, but God remains my source”
-Gogo
This is a statement that God first laid on my heart years ago when I was in the telecom industry and had gotten a letter of employment that got rescinded within days due to a “hiring freeze”. I didn’t know it, but I was stepping into the first of many experiences that would crystallize my ideas on Christian entrepreneurship as a crucial component in the expression of a healthy, well-rounded Christian life.
Note I said nothing about whether your entrepreneurial endeavors succeed or fail (or make you rich)…
I’m just pointing out that they are worth engaging in; both for the gifts that they help you express from within, and for the blessings that they can potentially bring to others when you stir up your courage, boldness and creativity to start an enterprise.
A little while later, when I watched thousands of my colleagues at MCIWorldcom lose their jobs due to indiscretions at the top ($100 million dollar loan-to-self), I realized that every body who has ever been employed by someone else has to depend on their creativity, faith and sense of ethics.
The day any of those fail, hundreds maybe thousands of others lose their jobs…
What if you who claim to have faith, who claim to respect God and love people could be the business builders? Then you would know for certain that you would not steal $100 million dollars from the customers and investors who trust you and endanger the livelihoods of others.
I like Donald Trump.
I like his shwag (that’s “swagger” to you uninitiated), I like the boldness of his ideas and expression.
I’m also careful when I read his books because I want to incorporate some of his principles into my mindset…but not everything.
I recently read Donald Trump’s collaboration with Bill Zanker, “Think Big and Kick Ass!” and I’m happy to report there are some really good nuggets in here for bootstrapping entrepreneurs:
Those 2 accounts alone are worth the time it will take you to go to your local library and get this book. The basic lesson of this book is as follows:
Think Big…Get Even!
The idea is that “the whole world is out to get you” and if you don’t make the first guy really sorry, others will come after you, and then you’ll be sorry. I can’t say anything bad about the Donald because it may very well be the situation in the world he lives in.
Apart from The Donald’s rhetoric about not being a schmuck, and getting even on every score, one of the most important bits of wisdom in this book comes in his retelling of the story of William Levitt’s (Levittown) success and subsequent financial fall.
What I found powerful about this poignant story was his spotlight on “the power of momentum”. I believe that momentum-mindedness is one of the most overlooked weapons in the arsenal of the serially-successful.
Here’s a quote on Donald Trump’s recipe for momentum:
To get momentum, you must first focus on a specific goal with passion and intensity…Start your momentum rolling by becoming very knowledgeable about your chosen field…Getting a good mentor helps create momentum, too.
I’ll add to that by saying that momentum is about focus, urgency and pace. One of the best books I’ve ever read that conveys the power of momentum is “Life is a Contact Sport” by Ken Kragen who variously managed entertainers like Kenny Rogers and Lionel Ritchie among others.
Just Kick their A$$…BUT WHAT WOULD JESUS DO?
The only caveat I’d note on the advice dispensed in this book is to take the “revenge principle” with a grain of salt. Particularly for Christian entrepreneurs, I’d recommend using your wits and following your instincts before you get into partnerships and to protect yourself with good plans, agreements and contingencies.
Think through your partners motivation to want to be involved in the deal; make sure that the “What’s In It For Them?” is fully accounted for (why tempt them to cheat you?) and then establish both your business and legal protections. (Legal protections – Enforceable Contracts, agreements with well thought out clauses and terms; Business protections – as much as is possible, make sure you’re on the “customer-getting” side of the partnership, and that you’re 100% in on the “money-counting” part of the partnership).
No matter how much you protect yourself, you will invariably be disappointed or betrayed by somebody. Following Donald Trump’s “revenge” prescription for curing disappointment will leave you with ulcers and an unfulfilled life – in my humble opinion.
Till next time.
Gogo
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If you feel like you’ve been getting to many invitations into your email inbox to try out “one too many” social networking sites, now’s not the time to give up on social media in your marketing.
In a recent post, I talked about how Google has given a leg up to big brand (read: Fortune 1000) big business sites and how the cascading waves of that move could have a chilling effect on the effectiveness of your content-based search marketing. That Google dance warning post should give you pause if you were planning to isolate yourself from the incessant chatter of the blogosphere or the other web 2.0 properties.
Now more than ever, your website will need to generate traffic and make sales on the back of the networks found on the social media websites.
Why not start today? Join me (CoachGogo)on Twitter!
Till next time.
Content only websites may be in grave danger
I recently came across some information that’s been hidden behind some highly specialized SEO-master sites for a few weeks now. Apparently Google has made adjustments to their search engine rankings in such a way that big brands have seen a sudden upsurge in their SERP (search engine results page) rankings.
What’s so bad about this is that it would signal the end of the digital democracy that small marketers have enjoyed with superior targeted content and greater investment in off-page search engine optimization.
For instance, according to an excellent analysis by Aaron Wall over at SEObook, some brands like Radio shack just recently started and suddenly ranking for electronics. When you consider that some big brand names were already on the 1st page of the ranking, you begin to get the sense of a fearful future for content only niche sites.
What you should do about this if your dominant traffic strategy has been through content building
First. Go “Long tail” and build a huge base.Content as a superior strategy for the small player is not going to go away overnight (especially if you build your websites using the Long tail-CTPM-Strategy espoused by people such internet marketing pioneers as Dr. Ken Evoy of Sitesell and other.
Second. If there is a local element to your business, emphasize “local qualifier + keyword” phrase content. For example instead of optimizing your web page for “web marketing strategies”, you might want to build content for “Denver web marketing strategies”.
Third. Create and implement social media marketing plan fast. This you want to begin to do as soon as possible. Start with creating profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Create a content curriculum of interest to your market niche (or local niche), and disseminate using blogs (like this one), podcasts and videos (youtube, viddler and tobemogul.com -for free distribution). I hope this helps.
Till next time.
Gogo Erekosima
If you read my previous post where I talked about the Jerk carpet cleaner’s marketing, then you’ll appreciate the case study I’m about to share with you. This is another company in the same area, that’s doing it right.
The case I made earlier is that you can’t expect your clients to willingly and unquestioningly (is that a real word?) pay you a premium above what they would pay your competitors if your marketing material doesn’t tell them what they’re paying for.
Your marketing materials must educate!!!
Your websites, your videos, your sales scripting, your brochures and marketing kits, and even your ads and sales letters must educate your prospective and current clients on why they should pay more to do business with you and be happy to do it.
On the video below, these guys actually make carpet cleaning seem very interesting…and manage to plant some ideas in your mind as to whether you should even consider using someone else because they show you all the little details (like the little thingies under the table) that could save you a lot of aggravation. I know who I’m going to use when I need carpet cleaning.
The only thing I’d do different might be to make the YouTube Video more search engine friendly with a title and useful keywords like – “Free Denver Carpet Cleaner demo”…with 714 views so far on Youtube that video might have been a lead generator at the search engines rather than just a credibility builder on their website with a simple change in title…Check out this excellent video marketing case.
Till next time.
Gogo
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