Your brand is what your customers think it is, not what you think it is. So listen, engage, and if the message you want is not the message they’re repeating, alter your strategy.

If a company stays away from social media so as to avoid negative online feedback they will accomplish two things:

1. They will be unaware of problems that might have been easily resolved but when left alone may become much bigger problems.
2. They will be miss a valuable opportunity to fix minor problems and turn cranky customers into happy evangelizers.

Mashable wrote an excellent post recently sharing three terrific examples of how major brands monitored, managed and resolved (or not) some important brand missteps and criticism.

Bottom line: The conversation about you is going on with or without you. You can only influence it if you are aware of it.  Every company should be active on Facebook and Twitter, at the very least, to monitor and influence their brand reputation.  Every company should have a google alert set for their key words and get that digest daily.  Every company should search their brand name or the name of their current campaign on Twitter daily.

Don't let time mismanagement leave you hard-boiled

A while ago in a fit of frustration over the fact that I may need to join Bejeweled Anonymous and that I check my Facebook stream more often than my e-mail, I posted an old school luddite time management tip straight out of the “naughty chair” play book many of us used when raising our children. I suggested setting a cheap kitchen egg timer three times a day for 15 minutes at a time and strictly scheduling your social media activities during those three periods, morning, midday and end of business day. Then I boldly recommended that the rest of your time be devoted to, duh, income producing work.

The upshot is that I had more comments, e-mails and @replies over my various social media sites about that short post than anything I’ve written in a year. Now I’ve been beating the drum about the power of listening on social media as though I were an old-fashioned circuit preacher in the wildwest. So I was able to really hear what people were saying. They are overwhelmed, over worked, under impressed and very, very concerned about how to monetize the enormous effort they’re putting into social media marketing. They need to find ways to utilize the power of the massive network that can be created and still have time to create whatever it is they are selling.

Sometimes old school low-tech Luddite strategies fit well into a shiny new media marketing world.

If you’re spending more time implementing social media and less time creating or delivering your income-producing product, it’s time to take out a big sheet of flip chart paper and a sharpie and write down the following:

1. Income producing idea, product, platform – 40%

2. Manufacturing, developing, creating -20%

3. Marketing, promoting, selling -20%

4. Evaluating, reinventing, reinvesting -20%

5. Repeat

Resolve now to learn to utilize timesaving applications and strategies, so your frustration doesn’t come to a bubble over and leave you with hardboiled eggs and no bacon.

Twitter Supercharged

Twitter has rolled out a new featured called “Who to Follow,” that has the potential to supercharge your efforts to build an influential and interested following.

Take a look at the right side of your Twitter homepage and you’ll now see, just below your following/followers stats, the headline “Who to Follow.”  Just to the right will be a highlighted live link called “view all.”

When you click on that link, you’ll be taken to a page that has suggestions for new people you may like to follow based on your current patterns.  Twitter even gives you a couple of names of people you already follow who are following the suggested Tweeter.  You can go right down the list and accept the invitation to follow all these suggested new connections and then Twitter will look through their database and suggest more to you.

I used this feature to find authors, bookstores, book reviewers and publishing people and found it to be easy to use, fast and effective.

I was impressed with the great choices Twitter offered me and they were mostly spot on in terms of my interests.

You can also use the “Browse Interests” tab to drill down and find people who use a key word or phrase in their bio and follow them as well.  This has enormous implications for using Twitter to find and follow your target market.

I’d love to hear how you are using Twitter to reach a new audience.

Alyssa Milano, Maria Shriver, Ivanka Trump, Ann Curry and Cindy Ratzlaff

We’re all so different that it’s hard to image another list where we’d all be named together.  But it just goes to show you the power of Twitter to extend your brand message and personality to an enormous audience.  If you’re not already representing your brand on Twitter, what are you waiting for?

7 Blog Strategies for Brand Visibility

Most people do not think of themselves as brands.  They think of themselves as having a great, marketable idea or a top-notch marketing tool or a book or motivational speech, but not as a brand.  Viewing yourself, and therefore your product, as a brand will clarify the steps needed to take your idea, product or self out into the world and connect with consumers.  Here are 7 quick blogging strategies you can adopt, right now, to boost your visibility and build you brand into a sales driving machine.

7 quick blogging strategies you can adopt right now

1. Blog:

   If you’re not blogging, you’re missing an important opportunity to spell out exactly who you are and what you offer to consumers in a way that positions you as a thought leader in your area of expertise.  You can start a blog on WordPress or Blogger in minutes, and for free.  No excuses on this one.  As Nike says, “Just do it.” When I started my blog, I used my very first post to clearly share exactly what my brand stands for and to announce my presence to the waiting world.  I also used that first post to establish my brand voice; personal, intimate, transparent.

2. Guest blog:

   Take your expertise out to the world by offering to guest blog for larger websites.  In the last few months, I’ve written several blog articles for major sites such as Oprah.com.  Doing so increased my visibility and helped bring my work to a new audience. The key when blogging for other sites is to make sure that you speak to that sites audience interests while still maintaining your own brand voice.  I loved writing for Oprah.com because I was able to talk about overcoming challenges, which is just one element in developing a strongly branded platform.

3. Encourage Discussion:

   Blog posts that give step-by-step how-to information about a topic in which you are a pro will be highly viewed, encourage questions and responses and will increase your social currency as a teacher.  A recent post on the blog Social Media Examiner by Nick Shin garners more than 214 questions and comments and another 752 retweets.  That’s valuable word of mouth brand building.

4. Lists:

   Creating blog posts with lists is a spectacularly easy way to encourage other people to link to your post and provided info nuggets for a fast read. Darren Rowse of Problogger.com says lists can be short, they are pleasing to the eye and they are very likely to be passed on to others.

5. Listen:

   Check your Google analytics for some real insight into what your followers want from you.  I wrote a post on How to Add a Twitter Button to your Facebook Fan Page more than a year ago that still ranks as the #1 draw to my website, so recently I updated it to reflect Facebook’s new look and added visuals to help people understand the instructions.

6. Be Provocative:

   I wrote a piece called “Bacon and Book Marketing Strategies” to illustrate the value in keeping up on trends. This piece spoke to my audience with humor but also grabbed the attention of a wider consumer base and brought new readers to my blog.

7. Re-purpose your content:

   As new people find and follow your blog, don’t be shy about bring up older posts and introducing them as a resource to this new groups of followers. Blogging powerful, useful content is a key component in my Maximum Visibility Plan.

I invite you to post a link here to the blog post you think best illustrates one of these ideas.

Adding a Twitter Button on the wall of your Facebook Business Page–not your personal profile–allows people to easily find and follow you on Twitter.  You want people to be able to interact with you on any social platform they frequent, so adding a convenient way to connect with you on Twitter is a key visibility strategy.  I’ve blogged about this in the past, but since Facebook has changed it’s face so many times in the last year, I thought people might need these updated step-by-step instructions.  Please feel free to post a comment here if anything is fuzzy and I’ll clarify or illuminate any issues you are having.

The blue Facebook Bar contains the white search window

Step One: Install the Static FBML (Facebook Mark-up  Language) Application to your page. To find this application, enter the words “Static FBML” in the search window on the blue bar at the top of your page.

Step Two:  When you get to the Application page, click “Add to My Page” which you’ll find directly underneath the Avatar image on the upper left hand side of the page.

Step Three:  An overlay screen will pop up and list the names of any pages associated with your profile that do not already have Static FBML installed.  You’ll click the “Add to Page” button next to the page on which you wish to install this application.

Static FMBL App

Step Four:  Go back to your profile and click  “Ads and Pages” on the left hand side of the page.

Locate the newly installed FBML app

Step Five:  Click Edit under the FBML application in your list of applications on your page.

Step Six: A box will appear that can be customized.  You’ll title it “Follow Me On Twitter” or “Tweet with Me” or something that invites people to follow you there.

Name Your New Tab

Step Seven:  Enter your HTML coding into the FBML box for your custom designed Twitter button or you can use google to find a variety of sites that offer free Twitter images.  I like  Twitter Buttons where you can enter your Twitter name into the automatic code generator and they provide you with the HTML code you need to create a button.

Either way, once you’ve entered your desired code, press “Save Changes.”

Step Eight: Go back to your page and click the + sign on your tabs bar. Locate your new “Follow Me On Twitter” box and click on it.

You’ll see that the phrase “Follow Me on Twitter” has now become a custom tab on your screen.

You can either keep your image, which is now a live link, under this custom tab or you can move it to the wall going to your “Boxes” tab and clicking on the blue pencil to the right of the Twitter box until you see an option to “Move to Wall Tab.” If you want your new Twitter button to appear on your Wall, choose this option.

Here’s how your completed new Twitter Button will look.

Click on the Twitter image to double check your coding and make sure it leads you to your Twitter Page and you’re all set.  Tweet away.



Catcher in the Sky's Lisa Gordon

Lisa Gordon spent two decades at the top of her field in advertising sales for newspapers and magazines like Time, Real Simple, Prevention and Entertainment Weekly. When her industry took a particularly hard hit as the economic climate worsened, she realized that she needed to reinvent herself, add to her skill set and move forward without looking back.  Lisa’s transformation took her from old school, traditional communications to the new high tech and cutting edge world of app development.  We caught up with Lisa recently to ask her five questions about her reinvention process.

RATZLAFF:

Your background is in print advertising sales and sales management, how did you make the leap to developing mobile apps?

GORDON:

I spent more than twenty years in businesses related to ad sales. When I started
working in the 1980’s I was in a thriving field with no end in sight. I could
never have guessed what kind of atrophy would occur this many years later.
When my oldest son went to kindergarten I was experiencing a lot of personal
upheaval and was in the fortunate financial position to take some time off to be
with my kids. After three or four years I started thinking about getting back to
work. By this time, newspapers and magazines were closing all over the country.

It was clear that I could not go back to a vanishing industry.

I had had my own business for ten years so the idea of going back into business
for myself was a very attractive one. Having some time off gave me the insight I
needed to break from my rut. I contacted a former colleague and we
brainstormed ideas for more than a year. With an idea in hand, we consulted with
a dear and successful friend who gave us direction. In the end, our app has
nothing to do with any of our original business ideas.

RATZLAFF:

What do you find to be the biggest challenges in starting over in an industry that is not just new to you, but new in general?

GORDON:

Actually the easy part is starting in a new industry. I embrace the challenge of
learning something new. The difficult part is the fact that the industry is new.
There are no real experts yet. The app industry is growing at an exponential
pace. It seems like everyone is learning by trial and error and what worked last month, won’t necessarily work this month. Being part of this Wild West is fascinating to experience from the inside.

RATZLAFF:

Your apps, NameCatcher and NameCatcher Biz help people to remember names of acquaintances. What inspired you to create these apps?

GORDON:

For the most part it was born out of necessity. My partner and I both have young children and I have an aging father. Just through our kid’s activities and my dad’s caregivers, new people, acquaintances, really, come in and out of our lives regularly. These people are important to us, but sometimes it is just hard to remember all of the names and how we know them. It can be embarrassing to keep asking people to repeat their names. As a regular user of my own app, I have seen how good it makes someone feel when they are remembered.

RATZLAFF:

You and your partner both have marketing backgrounds. Can you share your thinking on how you’ll go about marketing your apps?

GORDON:

One very interesting thing about this app is when people see it or hear about it they
instantly know how they would fit it into their own life. And, everyone thinks they
are our demographic. The truth is, nearly everyone with an iPhone is our
demographic. As exciting as it is to have the millions of iPhone users as possible
users, such a broad audience is hard to reach. So, we have broken down the possible
users by category and are targeting them individually. So for example, we speak to
“mom” targets differently than we do to our Boomer targets. We will often break
those targets down even further so we can speak directly not generically.

RATZLAFF:

What advice would you give to someone who wants to get into the mobile app business or any new business for that matter?

GORDON:

• Start with a great idea, but be flexible as to how it can work as an app.
• Get a basic understanding of the app business and the available platforms before investing any money.
• If you are not technical, hire the right people who are. If you are not good at marketing, hire someone who is.
• Never get comfortable with the way things are because they will change.

Both NameCatcher and NameCatcher Biz are available for download at itunes and readers can find more information about the company, Catcher in the Sky, on their website.

Mrs. P's photo by Jacqueline Veissid

While businesses, public figures, celebrities and authors know the importance of adding social media to their outreach strategy in order to bring their message and brand to the more than 500 million users of various social platforms, the age limitation for participating on some social media platforms has made it challenging to use them to reach children directly.  One team understands that reaching the influencers and the parents is more important than speaking directly to children in a marketing campaign.  The creators of MrsP.com mastered the art of the conversation and are demonstrating the importance of relationships and partnerships when it comes to growing their brand and spreading their message.

The face of MrsP.com is Kathy Kinney, best known for her nearly decade long portrayal of the role of Mimi Bobeck on The Drew Carey Show.  She is well on her way to creating another iconic character in Mrs. P, the fantastically quirky ambassador of reading who shares her love of books through an engaging and interactive website for children.

A cross between Mr. Rogers and Pee Wee Herman, Kathy Kinney’s Mrs. P brings books to life as she reads classic children’s stories in a series of webisodes.

Her talking fireplace, magical bookshelves and games are designed to appeal to emergent readers up through tweens (the scary book room will particularly appeal to this age group).  Mrs. P, herself, graciously agreed to be our guest this week for “Five Questions with the Expert” and share a few of her thoughts about using social media to spread her love of reading. In fact, she was so delightful, she answered a bonus question!

RATZLAFF:

You have a fabulously interactive destination website for children. How are you using social media to reach young readers?

MRS. P:

I’m not trying to reach my young readers directly since most are under the age of 12, but rather their parents and the other adult influencers in their lives — teachers, librarians, literacy advocates and organizations. I have found blogs to be a very effective way to spread the word about Mrs. P, whether as a guest blogger or by enlisting their sites to announce events like my annual writing contest. I’ve been using Twitter to meet these bloggers and fans. But I’m not really interested in showing up Shaquille O’Neal and getting the most Twitter followers in the world, but prefer to connect with people who share my same passion for literacy. I try to have personal and meaningful conversations with my followers and love to share articles about the tremendous importance of reading to children. As much as I’m tempted, because I love to talk about myself, I try not to make it only about me. I’m also proud of the give-and-take on my website. If someone posts news about Mrs. P on their site, we will re-post their story on my site, introducing them to our audience.

RATZLAFF:

How do you separate your Mrs. P persona from the business side of running a website?

MRS. P:

I like to keep focused on my mission as Mrs. P, which is to spread the joy of books and reading. When I receive invitations for interviews, appearances, and business relationships, I ask them to contact my business partner, Dana, who handles that side of the house. She considers the validity of the inquiries and deals with the technical details so that my online presence can just be about Mrs. P’s mission – and having fun!

RATZLAFF:

Can you describe a day in the social media world for Mrs. P?

MRS. P:

I try and ensure that there is something new and fun on my Facebook site several times a week. I have a much smaller audience there than on Twitter, where I make an effort to engage with my followers every morning and evening. I also coordinate with my “elves” to make sure my website has fresh news and engaging messages on my “Did you hear…” page. I’m lucky because there seems to be so much good news lately about my site that I can share with my audience.

RATZLAFF:

Is there any one social platform that performs better than others to help you connect with the influencers who help you spread your literacy message?

MRS. P:

While Mrs. P has very active Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and You-Tube accounts, I do think that Twitter has been the most effective. For example, Everybody Wins! USA, a literacy organization for which I am an honorary board member, will occasionally build Tweet campaigns with us, and together, we grow our audiences and spread news about the importance of literacy.

RATZLAFF:

Have you incorporated video or audio into your social media strategy?

MRS. P:

Video has been a key element in our social media strategy. The team at Mrs. P created a fun music video called “Listen Up, Kids” to get young people excited about reading. We made it available as a free download on iTunes. I asked our fans to post it on their blogs and Tweet about it, and in the first day, we had 25,000 downloads! We also posted it on YouTube to let people know it was free. We had a similar experience with the winning entries from my writing contest. Again, we had over 22,000 downloads the first day by using social networking to spread the word. I think if you have a strong mission and are also willing to give something meaningful away for free, it’s a powerful combination. It’s certainly worked well for Santa Clause over the years, and it’s also built a great deal of awareness for the Mrs. P brand.

RATZLAFF:

I heard a rumor that Mrs. P has plans to create mobile apps.  Any truth to that rumor?

MRS. P:

Oh, yes. The mobile world is a wave I really need to be riding! So in September I will launch a free (there’s that wonderful word again!) Reading Challenge app for the iPhone. It will be a fun and engaging way to test reading comprehension. And it’s yet one more way to bring awareness to literacy and to my website.

Parents, librarians, grandparents and teachers can find Mrs. P on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube and of course children can visit her magical library, choose a book from her shelves and have Mrs. P read them a classic.

Facebook is effectively, in addition to being a micro-blogging and communication platform, a search engine. One of the reasons an author needs to be on Facebook is to increase his or her visibility and therefore, help readers find his/her work. Facebook provides three different types of pages to choose from and each has rules, advantages and disadvantages.

Personal Profile
A personal profile is, by Facebook’s own terms of use, a page for people to list themselves by their real name and interact with friends of their choosing. People who connect to a personal profile are referred to as “Friends.” It is against Facebook’s rules to set up a personal profile for your business, your book, your dog or a dead saint. Facebook can, if it chooses, close fraudulent profiles and all the work you’ve done to create that page will be lost along with all of your friends. I recommend that you set up a personal profile, adhering to all of the rules before setting up a Facebook Fan Page (see below). Having a personal profile and setting up a Facebook page from that profile will allow authors to utilize more custom application on the Fan Page. A Fan Page can be created without first creating a personal profile, but doing so limits the customization options available. If the Facebook rules don’t convince you to do this properly, there’s another good reason. A personal profile can only accept 5,000 people as friends. At 5,001, new friends will start receiving a message from Facebook stating that you are over your friend limit and cannot accept any new friends. Trust me and set up your personal profile first.

Facebook Fan Page

Fan Pages are best option that Facebook provides for creating a branded social media presence for you the writer.

This is best option that Facebook provides for creating a branded social media presence for you the writer, for your book, and for your career. People who connect to a Facebook Fan Page must click the “Like” button in order to receive updates from the Page. Once they “Like” a page, they are still referred to by most people as Fans. Because you followed my advice and set up a personal profile first, you can now create custom tabs for your Facebook Fan Page such as “About the Book,” “More about the Author,” “Tour Schedule,” or whatever custom information you’d like to make available to fans. Facebook allows a Fan Page to have an unlimited number of Fans. This is good news for an author or speaker who is working to amass the largest possible list of followers and spread the word about a new book, appearance or project far and wide. Authors can even create an opt-in box and invite fans to subscribe to an e-newsletter, all from a Facebook Fan Page. Facebook Fan Pages are indexed by Google and therefore, they increase an author’s search engine ranking by putting out new, original content regularly.

Facebook Groups
People who join a Facebook Group are called Members. One advantage of Facebook Groups is that they can be made public or kept private. At this writing Facebook Groups are not indexed by Google and that is the single biggest reason for author’s to create a Fan Page over a Group. Unlike pages, groups allow to send out “bulk invites” so you can invite all your friends to join the group. With Pages, you’ll have to invite people individually. Groups are good for spreading a message or brand name through viral marketing, because any group member can also send bulk invites to his or her complete list of friends. But, and this is a big but, Groups are not indexed by search engines yet and that is my number one reason for recommending Pages over Groups to promote an author and his or her work.

I hope this look at Facebook options helps authors, speakers and entrepreneurs start right and maximize their promotional efforts on Facebook. I strongly recommend that all authors create profiles and pages for their work and look forward to answering any questions about the use of Facebook to promote books.

5 simple things everyone can do to create brand visibility and increase social currency.

Pretend that you are the customer and you’re looking for a vendor, speaker, author or someone who can create or implement something that serves your immediate needs.  Most likely you’ll head to Google or Bing or YouTube.  What words do you put into that search box to find what you’re look for–you and your company?  Those are the keywords that you’re going to want to include in the messages you are creating online.

Creating an active presence on line reinforces your status as a trusted thought leader in your area of expertise and increases the chances that customers will find you.  Because we all learn in different ways, it’s a good idea to put out your message in a variety of formats so as to engage the widest possible audience.

Let’s look at five great visibility strategies to improve your social currency, engage different consumers, help people find you and keep you on the cutting edge of marketing.

Video Marketing: Adding video to your website, Facebook page, YouTube Channel and even Twitter page is a great way to increase engagement with your fans, followers and potential customers.  These video messages do not have to be long, nor do they need to be professionally produced.  A Flip HD Mino video camera for under $200 can take short, high quality video and loading it to your social media sites is a snap.  Take the Brand New Brand You pledge and add one video to one of your social media sites this week.  Send us a link and we’ll take a look and share your message with our followers.

Audio Marketing: Change it up and make your sites interesting for your customers and clients.  Post a short audio message about some upcoming event or a quick tip.  You can do this right from your phone to your Facebook page with apps audioboo.fm.  Do you have a sale or a special? Share your enthusiasm in your own voice.  Doing this accomplishes two things.  First, it let’s your followers know you are a real person.  Second, it embues the information with urgency and importance.

Photos: Facebook is one of the largest photo sharing sites in the world.  People love to look at photos on line.  Do you have a particularly great looking store window, special display, or attractive entry to your office?  Share a photo and invite people in.

Guest Blog: Write an article in your area of expertise for other blogs to run.  Target blogs that speak to your desired customer base and offer to write and informative article that will be of interest to their fans and position you as an expert.  A recent guest blog I did about my new book on Oprah.com turned into a a 400% increase in website traffic and 1,800 new unique visitors.

Comment: This is an overlooked and underused strategy.  Follow and read blogs from industry leaders.  When you read something you enjoy, leave a comment along with your website link.  But don’t just leave a “great blog,” comment.  Add something to the conversation.  Reference a blog you’ve written that adds new insights.  Suggest additional resources to learn more on the topic.  In other words, be a thought leader by providing value to the conversation.  Do this regularly.  Become a regular reader and comment often.

These are just a few quick tips for building your platform as a thought leader in your industry and increasing your social currency.  What are you doing to create conversations about you?