Social Media Marketing Maverick

Today, I’m pleased to host my friend and colleague Jill Lublin. She’s doing a Blog Tour for her new book : “Get Noticed… Get Referrals: Build Your Client Base and Your Business by Making a Name for Yourself“.

Here’s how the “social dots are connected, because you all know I’m about the network right? (And I don’t think I’ve seen anyone with Jill’s network. Seriously. Even me.)

Jill was referred to me by a mutual connection, John Assaraf. Jill has since connected me to her network, and I’ve connected her to mine, with great mutual benefit to us both.

I’m excited about her new book because I feel it has great applicability for the new Network Economy and social networking in general. With all of the noise out there in the Network, the main thing you really NEED to know these days is how to “get noticed” and “get referrals”…and in the process, you could just become a celebrity!

This is an excerpt directly from the book, and excerpts are my favorite way to market books…why? Because it gives you a feel for the author’s style, how they think, how they write and if you like their style, it’s a no-brainer that the next step is to buy the book…excerpts help sell more books.

And if you buy it, she’s offering a lot of free bonuses - so click the book and get yours today before she changes her mind.

So go Get Noticed, Get Referrals, AND Get Freebies…the best of all worlds!

Without further adieu, here’s my favorite excerpt from Jill’s new book…

How To Become a Celebrity, Part One

Know who you are.

You are the product regardless of what product or service you provide. People trust the familiar and if they are familiar with you, they will be more likely to purchase your product or service. For this to happen, you must know and believe in yourself, your products, or your services.

Position yourself as an expert by persistently selling yourself. This is most easily accomplished with a ten to fifteen second sound bite that proclaims precisely who you are, what you do, and why you make a difference. Succinct statements make a powerful impression and gets people’s attention. Be ready to explain exactly how your product or service will benefit your listener.

Know what you want.

Opportunities won’t just come knocking on your door; you have to make them happen! Luck is made by having a clear purpose, achievable goals, and by taking consistent and persistent action. Publicity starts from within. Clearly identify your purpose and objectives and lay out a precise plan on how you will achieve those objectives. Capitalize on your strengths to meet precisely the right people at the right time.

Sing your praises often.

The most obvious signs of your expertise are that your customers keep coming back, pay what you charge, and recommend you to others. Ask for a written or verbal testimonial then broadcast that testimonial everywhere you can. If you’re doing a seminar or workshop, ask people who’ve heard you before to share their experiences publicly. If you’re good, you’ll get good publicity.

However, that’s where self-promotion can be tricky. One bad experience can ruin your reputation, so you’d better consistently deliver on your promises. Self-promotion based on assumptions, exaggerations, or lies will bury you at the speed of the Internet.

How To Become a Celebrity, Part Two

Build relationships from your heart day and night with a targeted market

Your relationships are your most valuable asset. Because you’re in business for the long haul, your best business will come from your best relationships. When building relationships, think in terms of:

• Campaigns, not ads
• Careers, instead of jobs
• Decades, rather than days, months, or years

You do business with the people who have taken the time to get to know you, understand your needs, and provide you what you need even before you think you need it! Remembering that the media is your customer, take the “concierge approach” to building relationships with them. Offer information, sources, access to your contacts, and fresh stories and ideas. Thank them more than they thank you and always give them more than they expect. Your appreciation will always be welcome and will pay you big dividends.

Take every opportunity to say who you are, what you do, and how what you do can help others. Don’t be shy about making yourself highly visible. In fact, you’d be well served by building your entire marketing plan around publicity. Begin your campaign months in advance of the introduction of your product or service and blitz the media with persistence.

All your relationships are built on trust. Say what you mean and mean what you say. You must truly believe in whatever you publicize. Believe with all your heart that:

• What you’re promoting will change the world
• Your promoting it will make a difference
• You know more about it than virtually anyone else

How To Become a Celebrity, Part Three

Play the numbers game, and play it well.

The relationships you build with the media are mutually beneficial. The media constantly needs fresh information and they look for people like you to provide it. Expect, but don’t be discouraged by disappointment and rejection. The media sees thousands of press releases and notes every day. Here’s a few ways you can make the numbers game work for you:

• Press releases: the best part about free publicity. The media wants and expects press releases. Send them hot relevant stories and they’ll love you. They can publish your press release in part or whole. Radio and TV producers are reached through your headline, while print publishers may actually read your press release. Compose lively, one-line headlines that will make them continue reading. Use subheadings or bulleted items to provide snapshot information at a glance.
• Media lists: your gateway to the stars. Media lists are databases containing information about the people and organizations that can help promote you. Start your own media list manually including the names of every person who is even remotely associated with the media. Gather media information from online services (more reliable than print) and keep them up-to-date.
• Follow up, follow up, follow up. Contact your media list – often and consistently. Take initiative by striking early and often. Be a persistent- but in a warm, friendly way. The key is to always follow up and capitalize on any news developments, keeping your name on top.
• Media kits: when less is more. Media kits are ideal as a way to follow a press release. Once you’ve generated some interest have a kit ready to go. Include everything they want to know: your company history, personal biography, a list of suggested questions, articles, brochures, a quality photo, endorsements and testimonials, and even a few giveaways.

How To Become a Celebrity, Part Four

Be prepared for anything.

Identify your and your business’ uniqueness and find some special slant that will get the media’s attention. Whatever it is, it must be relevant to the media’s audience; otherwise they’ll ignore it and you.

Once you have your unique slant and several variations, promote yourself and your message early, forcefully, and fast. Convey enthusiasm in every facet of your message. Assume you’ve got no more than ten seconds to convince the media. Then, be prepared for anything. The slant you took may not be the slant they use. If you know your stuff, you can wing it, and the media will appreciate your flexibility. Practice your interviews from every angle and when the time comes, take command of the interview and stay relaxed.

Get yourself out there

The best publicity often happens in the most unexpected places. Guerrilla publicity is a multi-faceted approach. It’s not just about press releases or media contacts. Get out there by:

• Conduct live or teleconference seminars
• Get published (articles or your own book)
• Create a web site
• Have an e-mail newsletter
• Join Internet communities
• Use online publicity forums
• Create joint ventures

virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/2008/06/jill-lublin-author-of-get-noticed-get.html” target=”_blank”>Visit Jill’s various blog tour stops throughout the month of July 2008 to learn much more about how to Get Noticed… Get Referrals.

(And don’t forget - she’s giving away free gifts if you buy the book over at www.GetNoticedBook.com!)

Technorati Tags get noticed, get referrals, Jill Lublin, michelle price, network economy, pr, publicity, publicity book, referral marketing

I saw this blog post titled “How do you turn your web ideas into experience?” and it’s very timely – it generated the title for this post. I’ve been meaning to get a post up for about a week now, and the reason I haven’t is because I’ve been deep into being a “social media practitioner”, helping 3 women entrepreneurs turn their expertise into web ideas then into social media experiences. (And into profits sooner rather than later). Yeah!

Key word here is “experience”.

In the new Network Economy and increasingly networked, always-on world we live in, it’s not enough to think that you can join a social network and take, take, take before you give. You really have to step up your game. In other words - Commodities are out, Dynamic Value is in. (ask Marshall Thurber – he rocks the DyVal concept in his Success Secrets for the 21st Century seminar)

I’m seeing the same old marketing tactics slapped on a “new” Face(book) page and it was getting really tiring. It’s what triggered my post here on Facebook Fatigue.

Examples are better than precepts, so here’s a few from my email inbox (it’s kinda like The Twilight Zone – same emails, different day, week…)

• A friend sent me a “Buy my social media marketing “system” link being sold by a person I’ve never heard of before, and as much as I read about this topic daily, researching what’s working and what’s not, that’s saying something. Gotta hand it to him though, he’s got one helluva sales letter, complete with “social proof” his “system” is the one to get (don’t get me started about the “S” word – first, I’m a systems-thinker, and second, systems, the real ones – the ones that good ol’ W. Edward Deming taught – are hard to come by. There are about 4 bonafide systems marketers I know online who actually know what a system is, maybe 5 if I count myself and I don’t market myself as a systems marketing person…yet)
• The ubiquitous free teleseminar offered by the latest person trying to catch up and jump on the social media bandwagon cuz they are on the “late freight” (oops, 70’s lingo slip - I’m dating myself again ;-). And on the line are the same people over and over and over…(like The Neverending Story or Twilight Zone). Now, I love free teleseminars as much as the next life-long learner, and even paid ones. Just not ones that look like they might be the sames ones I just saw or maybe even listened in on the other day (week).
• You are cordially invited to my event in Australia or New Zealand…or Kansas or the U.K. Facebook makes you join a network geographically – I guess people don’t know that I’m in Sunny Southern California and not likely to fly 20 hours to get to your event. (even if it is the first, last, only time it’s happening). Or even better - attend your YTB Travel Business Opportunity Meeting– isn’t everyone on the planet a YTB Travel Agent by now?

But keeping hope alive…(note: as a general rule hope is NOT a strategy for business) I revived my own interest when I inspired myself - I turned my dis-interest into a question…

“What IS a better way? How can you turn what you know, your expertise, that special thing that people pay you for - into an experience that creates curiosity, attracts interest, and generates desire to engage and connect?” which then has the opportunity to turn into profit for your business, provided you aren’t a one trick pony.

As luck would have it…when opportunity meets preparedness - I am fortunate to have a live “social media” lab – my expert colleagues and clients. (“Hahaha!” she rubs hands together and cackles diabolically as the palm trees wave outside her window in Sunny Southern California)

So without furthur suspense, I’ll introduce you.

Here is the first of the three expert women entrepreneurs I’m working with to turn her expertise into ideas for social media experiences that lead to business…I’ll blog the others later this week. This turned into a really long post…sorry, you’ll probably thank me for it soon.

Michelle Price’s Social Media Lab Experiment #1: Face Reading for Facebook

Lynn Scheurell is arguably one of the most *interesting* women entrepreneurs I know (inside joke, Lynn and I both share the same meaning for *interesting*).

She has “the gift” of intuition that she has chosen to use to help entrepreneurs who are more creative and soul-driven vs. the other kind we won’t talk about here (you know, greedy, mercenary and soooo last millenium). And we don’t call her the “Woo-Woo Guru” for nothing. Seriously, she has some really cool tools to help get you unstuck and moving your energy for business. Even if you don’t believe there is a Secret Behind The Secret. Behind THAT Secret is Lynn.

Take the ancient art of face reading. The first time I ever met her, we sat in a Starbucks for hours and she read my face, eyes, ears, nose, read my Tarot, read my energy and it was just so much fun. And had real value because the information she gave me was all right on target. I used it to launch a new direction for my business and it’s paid off, literally.

She even told me that this little notch/bump I have had on the top of my right ear ever since I can remember, came from a traumatic event that happened when I was TWO. Funnily enough, I immediately thought about the fact that my baby brother was born at that time and I stopped getting to be the youngest…(I have a brother who is 6 years older). It put me in the middle instead and you know what that means – the peacemaker and fairly invisible – except, I was still the only girl so that helped a bit ;-).

So remembering that experience, when we were chatting on the phone about how she could be leveraging social networking (she was resisting to say the least) to find more soul-driven entrepreneurs to join her tribe, when conversation turned to Facebook, this huge light went off in my head… “Lynn, FACEbook, FACE reading – get it???”

Nowhere on earth will you find more faces to read than on social networks, and Facebook being the popular kid on the block right now…hmmm.

Plus, I’ve seen some faces only a mother could love on there, and it’s amazing how many sane business people will put up ridiculously cheesy pics and think they pass muster. For a minute we laughed at what she could do with that.

Still, how to execute and make the experience real for people? That’s where I come in with MY web 2.0 social media toolbox – there are so many delicious ways you can combine and layer web 2.0 in combination with your social networking to transform your expertise into an experience. YouTube, Facebook Pages, Facebook Groups, YouTube Box for Facebook (is your head spinning yet? ;-)).

In this case, video is the obvious choice! Plus, video is really hot online now too…

Yes. Facebook and YouTube + online video distribution to increase Googleability – our 1-2-3 knockout combo for this idea.

Anyway, we quickly came up with a 10 step plan for how someone could vicariously experience Lynn’s face reading and what it can tell you, that can help you accelerate your business, the first 3 are below:

1. Lynn finds 3 friendly faces to read – clients who already say “yes”.
2. Also pick out some high-profile faces to read
3. Fire up her web-cam and get to reading those faces. Short 3-5 minute clips.
(4-10 not included - made the post way too long - maybe I’ll share in another post later after results are in)

11. THEN, perhaps you might want to get a longer more in-depth face reading of your own – 60 minutes of pure focus on your beautiful unique mug, instead of only 3-5.

Will it work? I don’t know, you’ll have to be the judge and tell us. It’s working already to get curiosity and attract interest from some pretty good influencers.

Here’s the Intro to Face Reading she recorded, to explain what it is and why it’s invaluable:

Here’s my Face Reading on Facebook, watch it, then go befriend Lynn on Facebook, tell her I sent you, and see if she picks your face next!

Update: At the time of this posting, it’s only been 3 days and she’s already been profiled over on Entrepreneur.com by someone in the network – our mutual colleague Michelle Anton (who just got active on Facebook and saw what Lynn was up to without either of us saying anything to her at all!) was intrigued enough to want to interview her about it – you can read that here:

Face Reading Is Busting Loose on Facebook

Technorati Tags face reading, face reading for facebook, facebook, lynn scheurell, michelle price, social media experiment, social media marketing, social media profit model

I admit it, I’m a die-hard trend watcher. It’s a bit frustrating at times being a woman who naturally does this (for any of you StrengthsFinder 2.0 fans, one of my themes is Futurist ;-)) because I haven’t yet tapped into a network of women who get as excited as I do about what’s next.

Out of love, most of the women in my network get pulled along until they start to jog with me (just ask my best friend Michelle Anton about this - 4 years ago she could barely turn her new Mac on - last week she figured out how to map her new domain to her own social network that she set up after I told her about it!)

I’m a systems-thinker. Which means I look at things holistically first. Like “what is it?” - “it” being the role of whatever it is in whatever I’m trying to figure out. Once I figure THAT out, then it’s all smooth sailing. I have this burning curiosity about “things” and their role in the world.

So when I started to move from blogs to social networks to social media in my mind, I began that “systems-thinking” thing that I do to make it make sense, so I could help my women entrepreneur friends make sense so they could benefit from learning EARLY about it.

Blogs play a HUGE role in social media - and the real “killer app” of blogging (uh-oh, am I dating myself from before the “dot-bomb” of 2000 with that word ? ;-)) is the RSS feed that is already BUILT IN.

In fact, in my book blogs are the “new little black dress” for women entrepreneurs, if they can get past their “technophobia” to realize it. I often wonder if they think they can “break” something and that’s why they are afraid to experiment. Some old psychology at work I guess.

But I digress.

I was tickled pink to see Business Week’s new issue “Beyond Blogs - What Business Needs to Know” because it validated the trend I saw coming over year ago with the rise of all of the social networking sites, and a new industry that is emerging called Social Media.

See, in a systems-thinking world, blogs are a piece of the overall social media picture.

Along with

• social networks (Facebook, Linkedin, Biznik)
• social news-sharing (digg, de.li.ci.ous, etc.)
• social surfing (my words, but think StumbleUpon, Sphere-it)
• social video (YouTube, Google Video, Veoh, Blip.tv, etc) and I recently discovered
• …social radio! (Pandora.com, and also internet talk radio re-framed as “social radio)
• And whatever else comes along to try to ride the trend

The reason I say blogs are the foundation for social media marketing, is due to another emerging trend called Social Media Optimization (SMO) (SEO, move over, SMO is in the house!)

With the strategic use of your blog’s RSS feeds, you can be everywhere your customers and prospective customers are and never leave home base. (your blog)

Without further adieu, I present you the video where BusinessWeek’s Stephen Baker discusses the Cover Story he co-wrote in May, 2008, on online social networks, an update of the May, 2005, Cover Story, “Blogs Will Change Your Business.”

In it, he talks about how IBM is using social media (Twitter) for market intelligence, and to connecting with consumers. And retracts his statement that blogging didn’t have a bubble that would burst, because there wasn’t any money in it (hey, tell that to Darren Rowse over at www.ProBlogger.com)

(I embedded below, so you don’t have to link over if you don’t feel like it.)
Take it away Stephen!

What do you think? Is he on target?

Technorati Tags beyond blogs, business week, ibm, social media, social media trends, stephen baker, systems thinking

Tags: beyond blogs, business week, ibm, social media, social media trends, stephen baker, systems thinking

That’s a question I’ve asked for a while now and none of the pretty enlightened leaders I know seem to have a clue either. So, I thought it would be fun to plan to find them and when I do, they’ll appear in this category.

In 2006, I was a partner in a thought leadership publishing venture called 9th Element Press and we published our first award-winning business book, The Art of Original Thinking: The Making of a Thought Leader. It was written in record time by one of the most talented women thought leaders I know, Jan Phillips.

To become a thought leader, you have to be an original thinker because thought leaders don’t become that way by thinking someone else’s thoughts. (makes sense).

The Art of Original Thinking engages you in a 3 part process:

• Release the Past,
• Embrace the Present
• Create the Future

It’s truly a ground breaking business book that introduces you to some of today’s most original thinking companies (and I guarantee they aren’t ones you’re used to reading about) and how they are increasing global consciousness and doing well while doing good.If you know a woman who you consider a thought leader, send me a note and tell me why and I’ll consider adding her to this section…

Okay, I’m borrowing a phrase from my good friend and colleague Mitch Axelrod. Caveat Vendidor is one of the tenets that underpin his philosophy “The New Game of Business”. He says that instead of the old game, where it was “caveat emptor” or “Let the buyer beware”, it’s now “caveat vendidor” or “let the SELLER beware”.

Case in point. Walmart.

The interesting thing about this David vs. Goliath WalMart story is that this is a case that Walmart won, and then an appeal actually went to the Supreme Court, who refused to hear it.

The Short Version: Walmart continued to proceed in it’s attempt to recoup $470k in medical costs for a now-brain damaged former employee because it’s policy allows for that if the person gets a settlement of any worth. However, in this case, the settlement ended up funding a trust to take care of this former employee who will never be able to work again.

So…somehow this came to light and one blog post, begat another post (you know the old shampoo commercial “she told one, and then she told one”?) begat a call for a boycott against and before you know it, Walmart bows down to the power of the citizen journalist.

To repeat: Walmart won this case. They let the family appeal it all the way to the Supreme Court and then bowed down to the bloggers! (See http://walmartwatch.com/)

And to think, I found this story on CNN, through following a Reuters Oddly Enough text ad link in my Gmail inbox “Children Find Woman’s Head on Beach” story (You know, I just can’t resist the power of a good headline sometimes- no pun intended!).

And now, for the rest of the story…

Wal-Mart: Brain-damaged former employee can keep money - CNN.com

Powered by ScribeFire. (this nifty tool lets you blog from any page on the Net - very handy dandy)

Technorati Tags blog-o-sphere, citizen journalists, social marketing, social media, walmart

I think this is fascinating. In this report from eMarketer, a survey of 1200 online users who shop online more than 4 times a year and spend over $500 indicates:

• 43% of read customer reviews most of the time before a product purchase and
• 46% required a minimum of 4-7 before they would make a purchase decision

These online buyers are also Web 2.0 savvy…44% of them also indicate that they wish that websites had more product videos, 39% wanted the ability to subscribe to email or RSS alerts, 39% want discussion boards or forums and 37% want the ability to personalize the site or create a personal profile.

Oh, and in case you wonder if having customer testimonials really makes a difference, 49% of these buyers want them.

Read it all here:
Online Buyers Seek Out User Reviews - eMarketer

Powered by ScribeFire.

Online Video’s Record-Breaking Month: 10 Billion Viewed in December - MarketingVOX

In my opinion, niche topic professional speakers listen up - better yet, take action to find out how to capitalize on this ever-increasing trend of social video-sharing. You could be owning this medium in a big way to get your message out to a global audience with not much more than what you probably already have - video of you speaking. But you’ll have to shift your thinking to “content” and “contribution” …the level of thinking that got you where you are, isn’t deep enough get you where you want to go…

Technorati Tags nsa, Online Video, professional speaker, social media, social video, YouTube

(They make you plug n’ play that statement - but since Mark Joyner sent me a signed copy of his Simpleology book and said “To the hippest marketing chick on the planet” it’s cool…;-))

I facilitated a presentation on PR 2.0 (using social networking, blogs, RSS, podcasts, for PR) for Susan Levin’s MediaSpeak Symposium this weekend - and met some of the most amazing people with big visions for leaving a big impact in the world.

Among them was a very unassuming woman named Desiree, who invited me to her Empowered Woman event on Sunday. Since one of the steps I’ve learned from my mentors, Matthew Ferry & Thach Nguyen about the 8 step process to manifesting your biggest vision is to be a “yes” to everyone, of course, I said “yes

So I found my way to the event (I am not familiar with Los Angeles, but have been blessed with a great sense of direction), at the very posh Mountainside Country Club in Los Angeles and to my surprise found a room full of 100+ very passionate “business designing” women…on a Sunday…at 12:30 p.m.!

There were women there who were focused on designing their business to profitable, and fun. Desiree led an exercise on creating Vision Boards to help you focus on what you want to create in your life and business, and had magazines ready for us to find pictures of the things we wanted to create in our lives. Several women shared their experience with creating vision boards and having the things they placed on them show up in their lives effortlessly.

By the time the afternoon was over, I’d met 3 or 4 women that I know will be lasting connections, and will lead to us all growing our business the Quantum Profit way…more on this later.

Just want to say thanks to Susan Levin for creating the event, and to Desiree for inviting me to experience the energy of women with a purpose…designing businesses that bring them joy, fulfillment…and profits!

I personally believe there is no richer place to activate the Law of Attraction than the Internet, hands down. I mean, where else can you go and have real live people searching for what you have 24/7/365? I’ve been online since ‘96, and my friends and family call me their human Google.� I admit it, I am an information junkie.

If it can be found online, I will find it.� I’ve got lots of strategies and tools I use to locate niche markets and information no one else knows or uses.

The trick to using this in your favor is to get into the mind of your ideal client.� Figure out what painful situation she’s in, or what ambition she has and the words she would use to describe it if she were looking for a solution and you are on your way to learning how to activate the Internet Law of Attraction.

Here are 4 tips to help you get into the right frame of mind.� *Disclaimer: they aren’t rocket science, but I’ve used these exact steps to find what I wanted for the past 11 years online -� so in a way it’s really reverse engineering and giving you a peek into the mind of a true Internet Empowered Consumer:

1. Brainstorm the main words or phrases that your ideal customer or client might use to find your service or product.
2. Plug the words into Google and see what results show up on the first page. Notice the page titles and also notice if there are ads using your words displaying next to the results.
3. Keep narrowing and refining your search terms using what you find that catches your eye until you start finding services similar to yours (of course, no one else has�YOUR unique DNA - Distinct Niche Advantage ;-)) and that are showing up on the first page of Google. ( I rarely look past the first two pages anymore and I suspect not many others do either - they just start over with more or different words)
4. Make note of the keywords you find and then figure out how to use�them somewhere in your blog post title and in the body of your posts without sounding too weird. If you can , also use them� as your blog sidebar categories & topics. I added my name to the main title of this blog and landed on the first page of results in Google almost overnight (and I share a name with someone who is a writer and/or musician so that is quite a feat!)

If you’d like to know more about what I’m calling the Internet Law of Attraction, let me know.� I’ll be writing a lot more about it in future posts.