By Karen Post, on September 14, 2011

Social media continues to get lots of media coverage and buzz. Some, very well deserved and some is just a whole bunch of empty shoeboxes. Not good, because I love shoes!

Many of my blog readers and friends know that in 2009, after reading one tweet on a Saturday night at 11PM – and following up on it – this social connection turned into a million dollar consulting contract for me. I will forever love little blue birds!

I’ve also connected with and discovered some amazing professional resources through LinkedIn too. I love to find competent people that I can count on to help me do my work!

That’s all good, but as entrepreneurs and small or big businesses, can one count on meaningful results from social media? Like a concentrated 25-point social media blitz without investing any money, just time.

I’m curious too. So I’m going to conduct a test. We’ll call it the “25- point social media project”. This week my staff and I will leverage a two-part blog post article in 25 different ways through social media. In 2 week days we will report back the results. We will also track our time so you we can weigh out the investment to the return.

Here’s the test.
Join me, if you want to try this too and then we can compare results and lessons learned.

My blitz was geared around my new book, Brand Turnaround. I started by writing an article, which included excerpts from the book. The article was about brands gone bad and how they return to glory. The two-part series was called Branding and the Beast. So beyond the text, I had the book art and an image I bought from istock.com.

My 25-point social media blitz/how to promote your blog:

1. I tweeted about it, included a link to the blog post and a unique headline.
2. Posted a discussion about it on LinkedIn in my Brandturnaround group.
3. Found a popular LinkedIn discussion, made a comment and included the article link.
4. Posted a discussion in blogengage.
5. Posted on .docstoc with links to blog.
6. Turned it into a PowerPoint and posted it on Slideshare.
7. I utilized pinging services.  By pinging the blog post I let search engines know I just updated my blog.
8. I posted it on Facebook with a different headline (because the blog autofeeds to my Facebook author page).
9. I bookmarked the post on Reddit.
10. I bookmarked the post on StumbleUpon and grew my stumble followers.
11. Bookmarked the post on Delicious.
12. Created a saved search for Twitter based on the blog’s keywords, replied to those tweeting the keywords with a comment and a link to my blog.
13. I bookmarked the post to Digg.
14. I found a high traffic site, TalentZoo, where they invite guest bloggers to submit stories.
15. I submitted it to technorati.
16. I wrote another discussion about it and posted a question on another LinkedIn group.
17. I bookmarked the post to Blinklist.
18. I posted it on Bizsugar, so readers could vote on it.
19. I added my blog to Ping-o-Matic – it updates different search engines that your blog has updated.
20. I produced a 3 minute video on the book Brand Turnaround, posted it on YouTube, Vimeo and then promoted it in Twitter, Linkedin and on my Author Facebook page.
21. I posted my blog on blokube – a social voting site dedicated to professionals in blogging.
22. I added 5 linkbacks within my blog to other blogs in my niche.
23. I commented on 5 other blogs in my niche, with links back to my blog.
24. Started a discussion on Google Groups.
25. I posted an article on EzineArticles.com with a byline link to my blog.

and be sure to use a URL tracking system for every single URL you create, which tracks the effectiveness of your links.

We are off to the research laboratory and we’ll let you know our results.

For more on social media tips, view:
If you are going to tweet, why not make it really sweet.

By Karen Post, on August 23, 2011

Of all of the place I travel to, Manhattan, New York juices my brain like no other city. Got here on Sunday. Traveling with my Superstar Marketing Coordinator, Lauren, who’s been with me for over a year. So needless to say we are celebrating many things, learning a ton, meeting lots of interesting folks, doing business and contributing to the local economy.

The next few days while in NYC, we will cover everything from customer service ideas, new trends and hot spots to branding hits and misses and we will introduce you to some new friends and business experts. This trip includes a lot of hospitality content because I’m finishing up our new restaurant branding course set to launch in the next 60 days.

Specifics insight will include:

• How to brand to the Elite, even if you are not a 5 star luxury property like the Pierre Hotel
• How to brand-extend and not brand-dilute from Top Restaurateur Daniel Boulud
• Sampling trends and merchandising from hip, new Indian fare restaurant Junoon
• Video branding ideas from a super cool, online entrepreneurial TV by an insurance company
• What you can learn from a one scene Off-Broadway-production and apply to marketing
• Networking in NYC, it’s really such a small world
• Book Review on Army of Entrepreneurs by Jennifer Prosek
• Marketing and launching my new book Brand Turnaround with the McGraw-Hill team

Our journey started at the Tampa Airport. Which is one of the easiest and stress-free  places in the US. We flew Delta, which offers an early and direct flight that lands at 9:30. We were greeted by  “Felix” who owns K&G limo. He has been my driver for over 15 years. While there are many national limo services, I’m loyal to Felix and his company because for many reasons, he’s consistent; there are no surprises. I trust him and admire his hard work and family values. Felix has 7 children. 6 by his wife and one who they adopted after witnessing a less than healthy living situation over 30 years ago. Felix and I often talk marketing and branding when I’m in his car.

Since we came in on Sunday, I didn’t have a tight schedule of meetings, I invited Felix to have coffee with Lauren and me so we could take a look at what he was doing with his website and share some wisdom. Even though I only see Felix when I come to NYC, I consider him more than a transportation vendor, but a trusted friend. Felix makes everyone feel special,  like a celebrity. And he has no shortage of celebrity customers from Academy Award Winning actors and Grammy winning musicians.

Felix wanted to know what else he could do to attract even more business. His son who recently graduated from law school had set up his site. He did a nice job and K&G Limo was getting calls from their site and other online avenues.  We suggested a few added methods to increase his results, which can work with many business models.

7 Tips to drive more traffic to any website
1) Felix had a blog, but it was not connected to the site. We suggested connecting it for search engine optimization reasons and as a helpful content tool for his customers. We also suggested:

2) Adding more and often keyword research and optimization in his website and blog content. And tagging all images with these same high ranking key words.

3) Adding social bugs like tweet this, like this and pass this on, to his blog, so it’s easy for visitors to share and earn links back to his site.

4) Add a site map, search spiders love site maps.

5) Offer a helpful safety travel tip sheet that visitors can download when coming to NYC. This will not only earn points from the site visitors, customers and prospects,  it can help Felix grow his opt-in list. Plus, he can tweet and share on Facebook too.

6) Set up a Youtube account that hosts a welcome video or again, helpful travel tips videos. This will not only earn points from the site visitors, customers and prospects,  it will help his search ranking, because Youtube is owned by Google.

7) With their permission, add testimonials from customers to the site, and if they are interesting,  then blog about them and use them for content on social media platforms too.

Till next time, Brand on!

By Karen Post, on October 8, 2010

http://www.facebooktabsite.com/

Facebook TabSite is a free online mini webpage for your business. Creating this mini webpage in Facebook is simple by using an application tab. You can create this tab within your Facebook page without having to know anything about Facebook Markup Language, also known as FBML. It is an easier option for those who don’t want to spend money on a developer. Facebook TabSite looks more professional then an original fan page and is a wonderful marketing tool for any business serious about expanding their presence. You can easily add content, images and links to your documents like .pdf and .docx so fans can have easy access to forms that are capable of viewing and downloading. With the free personal profile you get two TabSite subpages, 5MB of storage, you will be able to track how many fans view your TabSite and you’ll be able to publish updates to your wall instantly all while combining your blog or other social media pages. The choices are endless.