Dr. Glazier’s experience with social media has led him to see the value in it far beyond the “relationship building” that social media is known for. Dr. Glazier claims that “when (social media) works, the relationship building is often labor and time intensive with a return on investment that is often hard to measure. Not many people understand that social media campaigns can be orchestrated to build relationships and drive in new business at a much greater rate than using the relationship aspect of social media alone provides. When I discovered this, relationship building became the least compelling part of the picture.”

“Searchial” is a term that describes the method of interacting within social media while elevating your profile in internet searches for the products and services that you offer. In short, the book (and the term “searchial marketing”) describe how businesses can utilize social media to not only build relationships, but more importantly, better optimize their rankings on search engines.

While I’ll credit Dr. Glazier with this term (which I happen to like a lot), this is a concept that we have been preaching at Turbo Social Media over the past 3 years. The blog is the core piece of any social media strategy that we implement with our clients, and this is because it serves as a tool to update your social networks with valuable information, and, if optimized correctly, can show up very highly in search engines. Check out the example to your right and you’ll see one case in which we’ve implemented this strategy flawlessly. As you continuously grow your blog you’re increasing the number of opportunities for you to rank for various services that you offer.

I encourage you to read Dr. Glazier’s new book “Searchial Marketing,” and if you have any questions about implementing a social media strategy and how you can benefit from both the relationship building and the search engine visibility then contact Turbo Social Media today, or call 877-673-7096 x2.

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1) Do keyword research: Check on the analytics of your website (if possible) to see which keywords are bringing people to your website. Also do some research on the number of hits certain keywords are getting per month, then analyze where you website ranks for these terms. From there you’ll have an idea of which keywords you’ll want to incorporate into your articles.

2) Plan out your topics: Every month or week you need to come up with ideas for blog posts. These topics will help you organize your thoughts and produce an article. Consider coming up with a title for each article, a question related to that title, a solution, examples and a call to action, all before you ever sit down to write the article.

3) Break up the text: Breaking up the article is crucial to keeping your readers’ attention throughout. Consider including images, video, and breaking up the text into bullet points or numbers. Also, remember to keep your paragraphs short.

4) Let the facts speak for themselves: In order to be effective with your time you’ll want to write clear, concise sentences. That being said, don’t get too bogged down in writing overly compelling paragraphs with unnecessary esoteric overtones. You’re not writing a novel, you’re providing solutions with facts.

5) Write a series: Often times you can’t quite say everything about a topic in one article. No worries. Simply create a series with the same title; just add “(part 1)” or “(part 2)” after the title for clarification. This is a great strategy if you’re really trying to publish a lot of content about a specific keyword (an excellent SEO strategy, by the way).

Consistently updating your website with blog articles is crucial for maintaining and growing your search engine rankings. However, it shouldn’t take you more than 15 minutes. Follow these key steps and start to time yourself.

Also, remember to have a strong call to action at the end of your articles. Drive people to your Facebook page, your Twitter page, your contact page, list your phone number (877-673-7096), or simply encourage comments.

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1) Automate some of your interactions: While you definitely want to interact directly with your Fans and Followers, automating some processes is essential. For Twitter, consider utilizing an auto responder that thanks people for following you and encourages new Followers to go to your website (or landing page) or become a Facebook Fan. You can set this up using Social Oomph. Also, consider scheduling out your Tweets. This will allow you to plan ahead and always have some content or message to put out for your Fans and Followers on Facebook and Twitter. Consider using a tool like Hoot Suite to accomplish this.

2) Focus on your blog: Social media marketing not only includes your social networking efforts, but also all of your other integrated marketing efforts. The key component of your online social media marketing efforts is your blog. Your blog allows you to go into more detail about a specific issue, concern or question that someone might have about your industry. The blog gives you the platform to show that you’re credible and that you’re the expert. It is important to put out a consistent and unique message that is valuable to your readers. Optimizing and syndicating your blog posts will help people find you, and an RSS feed will keep your readers informed when there’s a new post. You should write at least 2 blog articles a week. Map out your topics ahead of time so that you have a plan when you actually get to writing the articles. Don’t forget to spend a portion of your time responding to comments on your blog posts.

3) Grow your network: Take time to add people that you meet to your social networks. If you attend a chamber meeting, a networking mixer or any other public gathering where you meet and interact with other business people then make sure to ask for their card and follow up with them on Facebook, Twitter and/or LinkedIn. It goes without saying that any “lead” that you meet or that calls you needs to be connected with you. The more touches that you make with your prospects the more visibility, credibility and expertise you show. In turn, you’re growing your relationships and more likely to turn cold leads into warm leads and warm leads into paying clients. Remember to be professional and not to over promote.

It is very important that you have a system in place for managing your social media marketing efforts. If you’re just getting started make sure you have a “set up” phase where you create and optimize all the pieces of your social media marketing efforts. Then map out your ongoing strategy. If your business needs help getting started or developing a strategy for maximizing your social media marketing efforts then consider Turbo Social Media.

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This last week, we heard another milestone has been surpassed, as WordPress.com has seen its 200 millionth Blog Post! Again these are staggering numbers. With the installable version of WordPress (which we use for ALL of our clients) releasing version 3.0 this last week as well, it is quite obvious that WordPress means business, and is a powerful platform.

Sure blogging takes a little more time than a 140 character tweet or a quick Facebook update, but the blog post itself is a great way to dish out information, intrigue interest of others and help you build a larger network. You can then link your blog up to Twitter and Facebook and build your network even larger! Blogging is essential to your business and social media marketing, so again, it comes as no surprise to see a blogging platform as wonderful as WordPress reach such an awesome milestone!

To learn more about Social Media Marketing and the Importance of blogging, click the red button at the top of the page to watch our free video series or give us a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Zack Zucker, Manager Client Services, Turbo Social Media

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Strategy #5: Use Involvement Devices To Boost Conversion

Ok, today I’ll cover the topic of Call To Actions (aka CTA) and involvement devices.  Let’s first talk about involvement devices.  Robert Chaldini wrote a ground breaking book called Influence.  If you have not read it, you’ve gotta.  He talks about how to use commitment and consistency to increase response rate.

Here’s how to apply this to your blog.  Get your readers to take subtle, easy actions that have very low barriers to completion.  This is easily done with putting an entry pop on your blog.  If you are a plastic surgeon, you might put a simple pop up on your blog that says “Do you have wrinkles?”  Since most people do have wrinkles, most will answer yes.

When they answer yes, redirect them to a webform that says “Sign up for my blog and get my 7 Tips To Taking 20 Years Off The Look Of Your Face.”  The response rate can be 10%-30% higher on that webform if you ask a prequalifying easy question first like “do you have wrinkles.”

Strategy #6: Use Effective Calls To Action To Maximize Conversion

Finally, I’ll close with the topic of how to craft a good call to action.  In order for a blog reader to take a call to action (thus dramatically improve your blogs conversion rate), you’ve got to leverage the three psychological triggers of scarcity, urgency, and curiosity.

The best way to illustrate this is to show you the difference between (3) examples calls to action (CTA).  Say you own a Yoga instruction business, and you’re blogging about the health benefits of Yoga.  And you’ve got a little 15 page free report entitled “5 Ways To Improve Your Marriage By Using Yoga.

Remember you want to use your blog to build your house list.  So here are the three ways to end your blog posts:

Click here to get my free report entitled 5 Ways To Improve Your Marriage with Yoga

Click here right now to get my 5 Ways To Improve Your Marriage with Yoga

Only for the next 13 who click here immediately – get my free research report worth $27 entitled 5 Ways To Improve your Marriage With Yoga.

The first CTA is blah.  No scarcity, no urgency, barely any curiosity.  The last CTA incorporates all three.

Strategy #7: Use Google Optimizer To Test Different Calls To Action and Headlines

Bonus tip. Use the free multivariate testing tool called Google Optimizer on your blog.  It’s easy to split test placement of different calls to action to see which gets the higher conversion rate.  This topic needs about 4 blog posts dedicated to it.  If you want Matt to have me guest blog about this tool and using it in your business, leave some comments on this post to that effect.

Mike Lorence is the founder of Small Business Blackbelts – he teaches entrepreneurs how to double their cashflow in 9 months or less.  And he guarantees that. Click here immediately now to see if there are any free Business Owner Bailout Packages worth $597.39 left for you.

P. S. If you are one of the few who has not yet completed our easy survey (we’ll give you a free $47 gift for doing so), whatya waitin’ for? Go here right now and take the short survey.

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Remember that I’ll reward you handsomely for doing so with a $47 free gift that teaches you more about social media for small business.

Getting back to the topic at hand…this next strategy is killer for conversion.

Strategy #4: Use A Valuable Free Gift As A Bait Piece For Conversion

One of my mentors, Bob Bly, taught me the concept of using a Bait Piece as a conversion tool.  Here’s how:  come up with a valuable free report or other information product that your prospects will find very valuable.  Then use that as a ‘bait piece’ to get people to respond to a call to action in a blog post.  I’ve implemented this in my business and it’s worked quite well.

Here’s how it might sound for a Laser Eye Surgeon doctor blogging about LASIK surgery:

…. That’s all for today.  If you’d like a free report worth $97 entitled The 6 Question You Absolutely Must Ask A Laser Eye Doctor Before Your Have Lasik, then go here immediately to get access.

The “go here immediately” would be a hyperlink to a landing page with a webform.  You’d collect name and email in exchange for the report.  That’s Bait Piece 101.  I’ve found that the higher the ascribed value to the bait piece, the greater the conversion.

Another example of a nail salon owner blogging about nail styles:

….. If you’ve never visited my salon before, I’ll give you a $25 gift certificate for your first visit.  Simply email me at sarah@sexynails.com and include your full name, address, and phone number.

In the first example, the call to action was clicking a link to a landing page, and filling out a webform.  The second example was a little more simple.  She used email as the direct response mechanism.

Before you complain about not having any time to creating a free research report or bait piece.  Don’t worry.  Outsource that work to a ghost writer on www.elance.com or www.guru.com for you for a nominal fee.

Next post I’ll cover several strategies that will make your readers take whatever action you want them to take.

P. S. If you’d like to apply to get me to be a guest writer on your blog or Facebook page, then send an email right now to jv@smallbusinessblackbelts.com and put “Guest Writer” in the subject line.  You must tell me how big your house list is.  I’ll entertain the first three requests that I get.

Mike Lorence is the founder of Small Business Blackbelts – he teaches entrepreneurs how to double their cashflow in 9 months or less.  And he guarantees that. Click here immediately now to see if there are any free Business Owner Bailout Packages worth $597.39 left for you.

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Strategy #2: Get High Quality Readers From Search Engines Who Want To Convert

Recall that your blog’s conversion rate will be better if you have a higher quality reader. So the more of an affinity the reader has to you and your content, the greater their propensity to act on a call to action in a blog post.

You want to find a steady stream of new, interested readers who actually crave the content you are writing about.  To do this, we use the basic concept in the internet marketing called keyword research.

So take those Reader Personas you documented, and brain storm some broad and specific search terms that they would be typing into Google learn about your industry/niche, or about your products and services.  Then be sure to sprinkle those keywords throughout your blog posts.

(advanced tip: there’s a WordPress plug in found at www.yoast.com that allows you to see which keywords are driving the most traffic for you if you use Adwords on your blog).

This will maximize the chances of your blog posts getting found on page 1 of Google/Bing/Yahoo/MSN search engine results for those long tail keywords.  Once you get high quality traffic to your blog, you want to get their name and email in your marketing CRM software or database. But you’ve gotta compel them to read your posts. So…

Strategy #3: Use the AIDA Formula to Compel Readership and Conversion

Just about everything in business comes down to copywriting.  That’s hard for some small biz owners to swallow.  But the better you can compel, persuade, and excite with your words, the better your conversion will be on your blog and any media.

As a copywriter, I started out using the AIDA formula as a framework to write good copy.  Apply this formula to your blog posts with some tweaking

A: Attention – use a very attention grabbing headline. Examples:

How To _______________

Who Else Wants To ________________?

I Wish I Knew <fill in blank> 5 Years Ago__________

The Shocking Truth About _______________

Warning: If You Read This Blog Post You Will ___________

I: Interest – write interesting stories with your blog content. Stories about yourself, your marriage, your kids, and your trials and tribulations seem to work well.

D: Desire – offer something valuable to generate their interested to take whatever action you give them (I’m writing about this next post).
A: Action – stipulate the call to action at least one, but preferably twice in your post.

In the next post, I’ll write about a killer strategy to absolutely compel conversion that will help you rapidly grow your list from your blog.

P. S. Go here immediately to answer a few very short, painless questions about a free teleseminar.  I’ll reward you handsomely for doing so with a $47 free gift that teaches you more about social media for small business.

Mike Lorence is the founder of Small Business Blackbelts – he teaches entrepreneurs how to double their cashflow in 9 months or less.  And he guarantees that. Go here right now to learn more about Mike.

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1. To become a trusted expert
2. For SEO purposes to improve search rankings
3. To build your list

Most understand reasons #1 and #2.  But they don’t think about #3.  The goal of all of your marketing funnels should be ultimately build you list – blog included.  The most important asset in your business is your list of names and email addresses or customers and prospects.  Then you can continually (re)market to that list with autoresponders or other media.  It’s the gold mine that never runs dry.

Since every small business owner is really in the list building business, then you’ll want to use your WordPress blog as a conversion tool to build your list.  But, few understand how to do this effectively.  So in the next few posts, I’ll be talking about the strategies you can do to actually double the conversion rate of your Word Press blog.

For starters, change your thinking about your blog.  Take the view that your blog is really a mini landing page that’s designed to build your list by using different conversion actions.

So what is a conversion action on a blog? Again, think landing page. It’s an action that the reader takes based on a clear call to action given by you in a blog post.

Here are a few examples of blog conversion actions in order of least important to most important

• Sign up for your RSS feed (least important but still valuable)
• Send you a fax to request information
• Call your office to inquire of or buy something
• Click a link that redirects to a webform to register for an ebook/webinar/teleseminar (most important and really valuable)

So here’s strategy #1: Create Blog Reader Personas Of People That Will Convert

We want more readers of our blog to take some conversion action so that we can build our list.  Here are two ways to do that:  Get new high quality readers that really care about what you write about.  Second, write better content.

I teach the concept of creating Blog Reader Personas to help accomplish both of those.  Create 4 to 6 descriptions of fake, hypothetical readers to your blog.  Just one paragraph for each will do.  For each persona, document a fake name, age, gender…What keeps them awake at night?  What make them angry?  What do they struggle with?

When you do this, you’ll get a much clearer understanding of what your blog content should be.  And your content will be ‘stickier.’  Which means that your reader will be much more willing to take whatever conversion action you put in front of them.

Next post I’ll give you two strategies to increase your WordPress blog conversions that will also produce a flood of new, high quality readers who love what you write about.

Mike Lorence is the founder of Small Business Blackbelts – he teaches entrepreneurs how to double their cashflow in 9 months or less.  And he guarantees that. Go here right now to learn more about Mike.

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Twitterfeed is a simple platform that allows you to hook the feed from your blog up to your twitter account, so every time you write a new blog entry, the feed is sent straight through to your twitter, inviting all of your followers to come to your site and read the new post. This makes the SEO of your blog post so much more important, as people all over twitter will be able to find your post if searching for the keywords in your title

Setting up Twitterfeed is very simple. Once you login, you verify your twitter account and then set up your feed (if you have a Feedburner account, you can get your original feed url from there), and then you can set up how often you want your Twitterfeed to check your feed for a new blog entry. You can even set up your twitter post by choosing if you want it to be the title of your blog post or the title and a small description and even choose a url shortening tool to automatically shorten your blog url (we use bit.ly). Twitter feed has become a wonderful platform for us as it has allowed us to combine our blog with our Social Networking, and thus increasing the traffic to our site.

To learn more about Social Media Marketing and Twitterfeed, fill out the form on the right to watch our free video series or give us a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Zack Zucker, Director of Operations, Turbo Social Media

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The internet has come a long way in the last few years and steps like this are ground breaking, even for Social Media Marketers such as ourselves. These new ways of reaching your audience means more traffic for your site, as the mobile internet is now changing the way we and everyone else is doing business. Since implementing this on our site many of our faithful followers have been able to catch up on the latest Social Media news via their phone.

This easy to install plug-in allows you to customize many different facets of its appearance and allows you to deliver a quick,  and user-friendly version of your site, directly to your phone. With these new ways of reaching people, you are increasing the need for a well thought out a designed SEO. Everyone is always on the go, the mobilizing your site becomes a key way to reach a larger audience

To learn more about Social Media Marketing and SEO, fill out the form on the right to watch our free video series or give us a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Zack Zucker, Director of Operations, Turbo Social Media

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