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6 Entrepreneurial Lessons from Secret Millionaires | Brand Marketing Tips

By Cindy Ratzlaff March 29, 2011

A new ABC television production hit airwaves nationwide this month and is creating more than high ratings. Secret Millionaire features a number of high profile people whose business model is helping others create financial stability, and even wealth, both online and off. What lessons might entrepreneurs emulate to create their own secret, or not so secret,millionaire success story? Let’s look at four of the secret millionaires to identify replicable patterns.

Secret Millionaire stars share some common practices entrepreneurs can adopt to create their own success.

Dani Johnson was homeless at 21 and a millionaire at 23. She now speaks, writes and conducts virtual home study courses and live events designed to help people get out of debt. Her story is compelling and inspirational. The tone of her communications is all about having experienced the fear and frustration of financial debt herself. By sharing her personal story, helping people identify with her, then modeling a success route, Dani acts as a mentor, cheerleader and coach to those who follow her program.

James Malinchak is a speaker, consultant and internet marketer who models hard work and reward. He is everywhere, all the time, with boundless energy and a message that you can create the life you want if you just have the will. He’s a mindset coach and people aspire to the life he has created for himself through relentless hard work and strategically brilliant marketing. Among other things, he coaches people on becoming paid speakers, something he is very good at doing himself. He understands creating ambient awareness and brand connections. His newest offering is called the Millionaire Apprentice Program, which piggy backs his programs SEO nicely with the buzz Secret Millionaire is garnering, and authentically ties in by teaching the techniques that helped him become a millionaire.

Gary and Diane Heavin are the founders of Curves, the fitness franchise for women. They have a different model. They’re not internet marketers. The majority of their work is hands on, with people who buy a Curves franchise. They model the in the trenches, “do it with you,” style of business. Even though they’ve created the largest women’s fitness franchise in history and have become very wealthy in the processes, they still operate like entrepreneurs. Gary’s philosophy is “Entrepreneurs don’t get paid on effort. They get paid on results.” He and Diane believe “success is not about who runs the fastest but rather who gets up the fastest after they fall.” This year they’ve teamed up with Zumba to create a new Curves Circuit with Zumba Fitness class to add to club offerings and are in the process of adding a diet counselor certification program through the Cleveland Clinic so clubs can provide better diet counseling to their members.

Ali Brown is a high profile coach for women entrepreneurs. She’s offers a tiered system of coaching programs that go from free webinars all the way through a very elite high priced personal coaching program and she has clients lined up to work with her. Her personal story of leaving corporate America and struggling as she launched her own business helps entrepreneurs identify with her and her “my gamble paid off and yours can too” mantra is appealing. She models success, glamour and adventure. And, she works hard. From that first business in her living room, Ali has expanded her brand into a magazine, an online style boutique, women’s retreats, info-products and more.

So what lessons can other entrepreneurs learn from these successful self-made millionaires?

Poverty is a strong motivator in each of their success stories. A driving passion to improve your life can be a powerful influencer.
Creating a business from the ground up takes more hard work than anything you’ve ever done before. Persistence is the key.
Continued success lies in continued reinvention. Successful people never stop innovating.
Financial freedom is a strong motivator and there are millions of people who want and need the information you may have on how to create financial security. A down economic climate may be the ideal time to launch a business that solves a problem.
Sharing your personal journey helps others envision themselves as potentially successful. People want to do business with successful people and modeling success can produce powerful results.
A great career or business is less about making the next sale and more about building lasting relationships.

If you enjoyed this article, I’d appreciate hearing from you. Please leave a comment below or on my Facebook page and share your thoughts.

5 Twitter Tips for Authors and Publishers | Maximum Visibility Playbook Tips

By Cindy Ratzlaff March 12, 2011

The book is written and ready to publish. So how do you and your publisher spread the word, create excitement and ultimately drive people to take the action of purchasing and reading the book? These days a well-rounded social media strategy must include Twitter. Twitter is a nimble, real-time megaphone ready to create both ambient awareness (“Oh, yeah, I heard about that book…) and advertorial awareness (I read a great review of that book).

Twitter is to a social media campaign what PR is to a book marketing campaign.

Twitter, however, is not a marketing campaign. Twitter is part of a full strategic campaign and acts as a megaphone to blast your message to millions of people and invites them to your website, Facebook page or other venue for a deeper conversation. A book marketing campaign needs distribution, point of purchase display, publicity, an advertising concept and a highly motivated author. With those things in place, Twitter can:

Share the author’s excitement with followers in real time.
Direct people to a link to buy the book.
Blast out late breaking news such as media appearances & live events.
Share excerpts from the book either in short snippets or via a link to a longer passage.
Encourage others to spread the word.

Here are 5 quick tips and techniques that any author or publisher can use right now to enhance a book marketing campaign.

1. Move content. Use Twitter to move content from your Blog and your Facebook posts to your Twitter fan base by installing the Twitter app on your Facebook fan page. This will auto-tweet everything you post on Facebook, with a link back to your Facebook fan page to read any post longer than 140 characters. If you are auto-importing your blog to your Facebook fan page, it will also be tweeted out to your followers automatically, again with a link to continue reading. This serves a couple of purposes. First, it shares content on three different sites, increasing the number of potential readers for every post. Second, it invites Twitter users back to Facebook to become fans whenever they click on the shorten Twitter link. Third, Facebook will have a live link to the post on your blog through Networked blogs. So one post introduces your Twitter fans to two additional points of interaction with you.

2. Increase SEO. Each Tweet is a unique URL and is viewed by Google as fresh, unique content. This Google juice makes it more likely that potential readers and fans will find you and information about your book. Google now serves up Twitter mentions and references on page one for most searches. Strategically include the name of the book, the name of the author, the genre or topic of the book in your tweets. These are your keywords for search engine optimization. Think about it this way. What would someone enter into a Google search to find you or your book? Those are your keywords. Use them strategically in your tweets to help readers find you.

3. The Big Ask. Bestselling authors such as Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, Jeffrey Hayzlett and Guy Kawasaki all give their fans an emotional shareholders stake in their book projects. They talk about them for months before publication. They ask followers opinions on titles, book jacket design and topics. They share nuggets of what’s to come. They thank followers for helping them through the process of creating a book. Then, when the book comes out they simply and honestly ask their fans to help them spread the word about the new book, and people do, by the thousands. Creating a community that is emotionally invested in you and your work is a powerful marketing strategy but can’t be faked. Authors must be engaged and genuinely enjoy conversing with their followers about their area of expertise. They must have, and display passion. And, this kind of loyalty and relationship building cannot be done overnight. Authors, especially authors with multiple book projects, should consider Twitter engagement to be a regular, daily practice.

4. Google’s Real Time search: Google now allows you to search something called Real Time. So Google your name or the name of your book and in the left hand navigation bar, choose Real Time. There you’ll see if any Twitter conversations include your name or the name of your book. Next authors and publishers can click on each Twitter account mentioning the book or author, follow them and thank them for their comments. A savvy author will then engage that Twitter account in a deeper conversation, turning the casual chat into a fan building opportunity. All of this is, of course, done on a very public platform. The advantages of this are that other Twitter users see you, the author or publisher, engaged in fun and interesting discussions about your book, your passions, your travels and your life. This becomes an opportunity to attract new fans and new readers. Followers are surprised and delighted when authors notice and thank them for their support. This strategy can create a life long fan who will help you spread the message about your work.

5. Tweet Ups: Whenever an author is speaking, doing media or making a bookstore appearance, there is an opportunity to create a Twitter event or a Tweet Up. Plan ahead, just as you would for any event and use an event organizer like Eventbrite or MeetUp to manage your guest list, RSVP’s and invitations. Create a real call to action for the event such as making a special announcement or having a desirable guest speaker or even a high end sponsor offered door prize. Giving followers an early heads-up about a special event with the author is like a VIP pass. Followers want, and need to feel they have a special relationship with the author. Now, here’s the most important thing. When you create opportunities for followers to meet authors in person, the author must be willing and able to engage in conversation, thank the followers for their support, and spend some time with them. These are mixers and they are social. Authors who cannot or who are not willing to be social should avoid this strategy.

You’ve no doubt noticed a theme in this post. Twitter is a cocktail party and the author can be the guest of honor. But, it’s better if the author is the host and treats his or her followers as the honored guests.

If you found this post useful, please leave a comment. It’s important to me to know what you think so that I can create articles that are useful to you. For more Twitter tips, techniques and strategies, click here. And, thank you for finding me and reading this. I appreciate the time it takes to follow a link and read a blog.

11 Ways to Use Twitter Lists to Increase Brand Visibility | Maximum Visibility Playbook

By Cindy Ratzlaff January 29, 2011

One of the most often repeated objections to the social media platform Twitter is that it’s a loud, noisy and crowded platform and it’s difficult to find, follow and gather followers who are actually interested in your brand or product offering. You can increase your chances of finding these pre-qualified followers, those most likely to want what you offer, through a strategic use of Twitter lists.

Twitter lists are an underused secret weapon in social media marketing.

Use Twitter lists to find people to follow and to group influential people together on Twitter so you can quickly and easily see what they’re tweeting every day. Twitter lists can also be used to demonstrate leadership in your area of expertise and provide something of value to your followers by offering them a convenient way to follow others. And, for those with locally based businesses, Twitter lists can be a powerful tool for alerting people to your area of influence, location and specific interest.

Here are 11 ways you can immediately implement the power of Twitter lists in your business.

1. Connect with Industry Leaders. Create your first Twitter list and call it (Your Industry Here) Superstars. Go to your Twitter account and enter the name of one of the most admired leaders in your industry in the search bar at the top of your screen. Click on the “Follow” button under the picture or avatar of @industryleader. Next click on the downward arrow just to the right of the “Follow” button and a drop down menu will say “Create a List.” Click on “Create a List” and a pop-up box will appear. Here you can name your list “@MyIndustry Superstars.” Underneath you’ll have the option to describe your list. Enter: “People and organizations in My Industry that are helpful, show leadership and really know their business.” Then click “Save List” in the lower right hand corner. Now @industryleader is on your list. Your new list will appear on their Twitter profile page, at the top right hand side of the page under “recently listed in.” People added to your list will know that you consider them to be a superstar or whatever attribute you’ve ascribed to your new list, giving you visibility with top industry leaders. Contintue to add to your new list as you find and follow other inspirational or educational leaders in your field. As you add new followers, put them into lists such as “My Industry Resources.” Keep your most important keywords in mind when creating lists and incorporate them whenever possible. Your lists will each have a unique URL and are, therefore, indexed by search engines.

2. Attract a Local Based Following. Use Twitter Lists to find and follow quality leads in your local area. Go to the search bar on your Twitter Account and type in #yourcityname. Click on one of the Twitter accounts that comes up mentioning your city. First add this person to a new list called “MyCity Resources.” Next, look to see what types of other lists mention this person. Look for lists that fit your “resources” concept. When you find one, click on the list link. You’ll be taken to that list’s page. Across the top of this list, you’ll see the words tweets, following, followers. Click on Following. A screen will pop up with the Twitter names of everyone on this list. Go down the right hand side of this list and click “Follow” for those accounts you want to add to your “resources” list. Once you click follow, you’ll also need to click the downward arrow to the right and check the box that tells Twitter to add this person to your “resources” list.

3. Use Newly Created Lists for Visibility: Go to your homepage on Twitter. You’ll see these words across the top of your screen: Timeline, @Mentions, Retweets, Searches, Lists. Click on “Lists.” Choose one of your newly created lists and click on it. Now, the only tweets showing in your stream will be tweets from people on this particular list. You can quickly scan their activity and choose someone to retweet, comment on, praise or ask a question. Simply mouse over the bottom of the tweet you’ve chosen and you’ll have the option to retweet or reply. Do this for at least one or two different people on your list every day to increase your visibility, to demonstrate a desired relationship or connection with this Twitter account, and to be seen engaging with resources and leaders in your area. Make sure your tweets to these accounts add value, and not noise, to the stream.

4. Share Your Lists: Share your growing “Resources” or “City” list several times a week on Twitter to attract people in your local area and people interested in your business. Click on your list. Copy the URL of that list from your browser window. Paste the link into the “What’s happening?” window on your Twitter page and send this message: Check out this great list of fun places to visit in MyCity! If you need to shorten the URL to fit it into the tweet, go to bit.ly, shorten the link, then copy and paste the new shortened link into the tweet.

5. Add Yourself to Your Own Twitter Lists: Increase your visibility by adding yourself to your own Twitter lists. Just as we recommend going to the pages of other Twitter users to find lists to follow, they’ll be coming to you. When they click down the list and follow people, one at a time, we want them to find and follow you. To do this, enter your own @yourtwittername into the search bar at the top of your screen. When your twitter name shows in the stream, click on it. The right hand side of the screen will now show your profile. The words “Edit your profile” will be on the left and our familiar downward arrow on the right. Click on the downward arrow and check off the boxes for any and all lists to which you’d like to add your own Twitter name. It’s that easy.

7. Connect with Others and Make Yourself Known: Request to be added to appropriate lists of other leaders in your industry or city. When you find a list that you’d love to be on, send a @DM or @reply to the person and say “I’d love to be added to your New York City Businesses” list! You can reciprocate by adding them to your lists to complete the connection.

8. Broadcast Your Lists to the Listed: Let others know when you add them to your lists. Whenever you add a particularly high profile or valuable networking contact to a list, Tweet to them and tell them. “@IndustryLeader, I just added you to my Industry Superstars list.” Then include the URL. You’ve engaged with them, added them to a list, promoted your list and increased your visibility all while building a relationship with them.

9. Follow Whole Lists at Once: At the top of every list, there will be a button that says “Follow This List.” This will copy the entire list and make it available to you on your page so that you can check it regularly. It does not, however, follow each individual user. Use this for very large lists from professional organizations you might want to check in on but don’t necessarily want to see individually in your stream every day. This will create a link from your page directly to the Twitter account that created the original list. A small icon of their avatar will appear next to the list on your page. Strategically, this is another great way to honor the original list builder and is a valuable way for you to connect with very large lists and high profile creators.

10. Increase Your Lists: Invite Twitter followers to be included on your lists. “Hey Philadelphia. Let me know if you want to be on my new “Philadelphia Resources” list.

11. Broadcast Accolades: If you’ve received awards or been praised in the press, let others know via lists. Create a list that includes everyone who received accolades and name the list appropriately for that award.

I invite you to take a look at examples of these Twitter strategies on my Twitter account, and please let me know if you’d like to be added to one of my lists. If you use Twitter lists in a unique and powerful way, please share your strategies here so we can all employ them. If you found this article helpful, please leave a comment.

6 Easy Ways to Start Using Social Media Marketing | Social Media Checklist #1

By Cindy Ratzlaff December 21, 2010

The sheer volume of social media technology platforms could make a grown man or woman weep as they try to navigate the landscape and place themselves or their brand in the marketing mix. Here’s a quick down and dirty checklist of social sites you need to include in your first round as you stake your space in the social media world and build your brand’s social currency and visibility.

Isn’t it time your brand reached out beyond your current base and joined the social mix?

Facebook: More than 500 million users. Enough said. You need to be here with a Profile, at the very least, and preferably with a Fan Page.
Twitter: Come on. It’s 120 character micro=blogging. You can find the time. Note: Each tweet can be 140 characters but keep it to 120 so others can Retweet you and help your info go viral. Set it up and commit to posting regularly to grow your social influence.
LinkedIn: You simply must be on LinkedIn. It’s the yellow pages of business professionals and it’s becoming more interactive and important every day. Resolve to sign up, build out your work history and information slowly and join the digital workforce.
Blog: Content is king and some sort of blog—be it WordPress (my favorite) or another solution—is a necessity. You need a platform to post interesting and useful information in more than 120/140 characters and in an open forum. You can link to your blog on Twitter and Facebook to drive additional interest in your content. Blogs can be short, long, written, audio or video. Whatever content delivery system fits your personality and brand is the right system.
Calendar: Keep a notepad of ideas that occur to you throughout your day. These can be your posting or blogging inspirations. Whatever you do, or whatever product or service you provide will be of interest to your readers, fans, and followers. Make an editorial calendar once a month and let this serve as your social media marketing checklist.
YouTube: YouTube is the second largest search engine around. Habits are changing on line and people are flocking to YouTube with their “how-to” and “who is” questions. You don’t have to be a celebrity or even a polished professional to reap the benefits of being on YouTube. Create slide shows, photo and message montages and video messages and house them on your own YouTube Channel to increase your social visibility.

Social media is like a megaphone to help you rapidly expand the reach of your branding and marketing message. But you have to be there to use the power of this medium.

How to Increase Your Twitter Following

By Cindy Ratzlaff December 14, 2010

The question I’m asked most often is, “How did you grow your Twitter account to more than 47,000 followers?” So here’s my list of what I do every day to create a follow-worthy Twitter account.

Consistency, frequency, specificity, likability and careful monitoring will help you build a powerful Twitter presence.

Consistency and Frequency: Because the Twitter news stream is fast moving, getting your brand message noticed requires that you be present with new messages every single day and several times per day for best results. I try to post at least five times per day during peak user times. When I do this, my account increases by 50-75 users per day without any additional efforts on my part. I use a site called Hootsuite to schedule my posts so that even if I’m otherwise engaged during the day, my posts will still be present.

Specificity: I want to attract clients and customers who are interested in learning how to use social media to promote their brands. Some of those clients will hire me as a speaker and others will hire me as a consultant. Therefore, I focus the majority of my Twitter activity on education based marketing. In other words, I share what I know freely to demonstrate my knowledge and attract people who want to know what I know. I tweet about classes I’m teaching, speaking engagements I’ve done, social media tools I find useful, social media marketing strategies and digital gifts. I use the Twitter yellow pages, Twellow, to find new Twitter accounts to follow. I follow about 100-200 new accounts daily, carefully selecting accounts that use the same keywords that are of interest to me. In this way, I’m building a following of people interested in my area of expertise.

Monitor and respond: You’ll learn what your followers want to hear from you by monitoring your account for feedback. When you get no feedback at all, that’s a message. Change your output regularly until you hit upon that portion of your brand message that resonates with your followers. Check out the link called “Lists” on your Twitter profile. This will tell you a lot about who your followers think you are. After all, your brand is not what you think it is. Your brand is what your followers think it is. Every day I check the @replies on my Twitter account and respond to anyone who reaches out to me. I check DM’s as well. I follow anyone who follows me and I unfollow anyone who does not follow me back within a one month timeframe. I want my Twitter account to be actively engaged people, interested in conversing and sharing ideas, so I’m not afraid to trim the account and delete those who are not interested in a two-way conversation.

Likability: People do business with brands that they know, like and trust. So personality is very important in your social media outreach. I try to intersperse tweets that show who I am as a person, my sense of humor, my inquisitive nature, my pleasure in chatting with and helping others along with those education based tweets. The kind of client I am trying to attract will want to work with someone who is smart, fun and nice. I regularly mention people by name in my stream. If someone reaches out to me, I’ll reply with both their Twitter handle and their real name to let them know I’ve noticed them and appreciate their conversation.

Thought leader status is afforded to a brand who shares new information, links to sites that will be useful to followers, gives advice, discusses breakthroughs in their industry and provides information about live events that might be interesting or educational. If you do these things daily, your Twitter following will grow rapidly. How do you grow your Twitter account? Let’s share our ideas and tips with one another here.

The Brand of You | The Four V’s of Branding

By Cindy Ratzlaff October 27, 2010

Here’s the Cindy Ratzlaff quick branding MBA in a nutshell. You are a brand whether you’re a student looking for that first job out of school or an entrepreneur creating a product in your home office or an author about to publish your first book. You, the person, are a brand. When you understand that one simple truth, you can purposefully plan how to communicate your brand promise to the world.

The four V’s of branding are essential elements to consider when creating and communicating your brand.

Voice
Your voice is your message and your tone. Think about how you want your brand to be perceived and experienced. Create a short list of three words that clearly lay out your tone. Are you sharp, fast, and pointed? Are you or your product smooth, easy and effective? Will you make your customers life stress-free, unburdened and organized? Choose your words, try them on for size and make sure they convey your brand promise.

Visuals
Now that you know your tone of voice, turn your attention to the look. Consumers have different learning styles. Some will immediately respond to your voice. Others will be swayed by your visual appeal. Match your imagery to your message to reinforce your brand promise. Remember that your brand promise begins with you, so invest in quality professional photography to put your best face forward in social media and on the web in general. When you meet clients, employers, or colleagues who have only known you on line, you want to hear, “I recognized you from your social media avatar,” not “Wow, you look so different from your picture.” A professional looking picture engenders confidence in your potential to solve a customer’s problem and that’s really what all brands do; solve a problem.

Value
Make sure that you know the competitive landscape for your product or service in your arena. Design your offerings, your desired salary or your product price to reflect true market value. Understanding your potential customer’s most urgent needs will help you here. In social media implementation, for example, clients can be expected pay more for campaigns that are a rush and a more reasonable rate if they’ve planned ahead. Price your services based on time and experience needed, resources required and fair market value.

Variation
Your service or product variation is your point of differentiation. How do you or your product differ from every other product or service that is offered? Some points of differentiation might be affordability, location, education, experience, testimonials, first to market, or fame. Spend time creating your list of ways in which you and your product can answer this question from your potential customer. “Why should I buy this product or service from you instead of someone else?”

Using the Four V’s to plan your brand strategy will keep you focused, honest with yourself and help you identify your personal brand strengths.

Building an Author Platform | Publishing House Secrets

By Cindy Ratzlaff September 29, 2010

You’ve got a great idea for a book, have created an outline, done your research and you’re ready to find an agent and sell your book to Random House. Having been one of the people who sits at the table, reads your manuscript, proposal or outline and decides whether or not to buy your book, let me tell you the first questions we ask ourselves.

Publishers want to know. What is your platform?

We need to know how you are going to sell your book. As a publisher, we’re going to provide professional editing, design services, expert sales people and great distribution. We’ll put marketing dollars toward selling you book and work hard to give your book the visibility it needs in stores and online so that YOUR fan base can find it and buy it. It all starts with you. The publisher wants to know, before they buy your manuscript, what you bring to the table in terms of a ready made audience.

Do you have a radio or television show with a lot of viewers and great ratings?
Are you a celebrity?
Are you a lecturer with many firm bookings for the coming year?
Do you head a vast organization whose members will want your book?
Are you social media savvy with more thousands of followers?
Do you have a large database that can be utilized to rally your fan base to purchase your book?
Have you previously published a bestselling book?

Gone are the days when a publisher could easily take a risk on an unknown writer. Although that still happens, thankfully, it happens less frequently than one would wish. So how do you make yourself a more desirable publishing partner to attract the attention and investment of a big publishing house? You create and execute your own pre-publication marketing plan. This is a good strategy even if you are self-publishing…in fact, especially if you are self-publishing.

Here are just a few things every author and would be author can do to being now to build a platform that will help promote your book at publication time.

Create a Facebook Profile so you can easily connect with everyone you every met. Those people are the most likely to want to purchase your book and support your newest endeavor.
Create a Facebook Fan Page for your book so you have a professional page with your book title that will be indexed by Google, increase your SEO and give you a proper place to talk about the making of your book.
Start a Twitter account in your own name. Every tweet is a unique URL and again, online is all about search. Every tweet is new content, all new content increases your Google juice, the more Google juice the more people will see your name and find your book.
Write a blog. Do it on WordPress or Blogspot because both of those platforms are already optimized for search. You need a blog to communicate longer thoughts than can be done through either Facebook or Twitter. Additionally, your blog can be reproduced as a “guest blog” on sites with more traffic. This, of course, increases your visibility and the likelihood that readers will find your book.
Make videos. Talk about your book or your area of expertise. Tell or show viewers something they don’t already know that fits in with your book theme or ideas.
Write a book club guide with questions and discussion prompts. Put it on your blog as a free download for book clubs.
Make your own book trailer for free with a program called Animoto. Upload it to YouTube, Facebook, and your author page on Amazon.com, as well as your blog.
Offer yourself as a guest on Blog Talk Radio shows, webinars, teleseminars or any other outlet where your most likely audience already gathers.

These strategies take time to implement. Most of them are free. Once you write your book, your new job is marketing. Having a well plotted strategy will help. What platform building ideas are you employing? I’d love to know.

Affiliate Programs | Income Stream for Authors

By Cindy Ratzlaff September 28, 2010

Most authors do not want to become affiliate marketers, spending time promoting other people’s products for a percentage of any sales generated. It seems time consuming and slightly unseemly. But those same authors, writers, speakers and entrepreneurs wouldn’t hesitate to recommend books they love to their friends and followers.

Recommending books to your fans and followers is a good marketing strategy.

If you love to read. have ever recommended a good book to a friend or reviewed a book online, then setting up an affiliate relationship with Barnes & Noble or Amazon.com can help pay your web hosting bills, increase your position as a trusted source of information and support authors and writers through recommending their work. You simply sign up for an account and when you find something you’d like to recommend, you grab the link and share it on Twitter, Facebook, your blog or even through your e-newsletter. You can build a “recommended reading” widget through these affiliate programs and add new books easily. These sites pay you a small commission on each sale resulting from your recommendation. You will not get rich with this strategy, but you can bring in enough to pay for a book or two per month that you’d probably buy anyway.

It’s not the money that makes this worthwhile. It’s a win-win marketing strategy that helps your visibility, increases your social currency and frankly, gives you something to blog about now and then when you’re stumped.

I only recommend books I love and in the case of Amazon.com, I occasionally recommend other products that I personally use like Samsung HMX-F90 camcorder as well as the really inexpensive but awesome tripod I use which costs less than $15.00 and that has a travel case!

I know that I enjoy reading lists from trusted sources. Trust is the key issue here with dabbling in affiliate marketing. If you recommend things you don’t like, people will come to view your lists as a waste of time. So don’t squander your social currency. Recommend the best and earn a little change in the process.

I’d love to see your recommended reading lists. I’ve been so busy reading non-fiction books by clients so I can help them with their promotional plans that I could use a good novel to sweep me away.

Top 8 Thought Leaders I follow on Facebook and Why

By Cindy Ratzlaff September 18, 2010

As any professional will tell you, keeping up with professional journals, lectures, whitepapers and the like is a significant part of staying current on your business. Social media makes this a little easier and instead of pontificating on this point, I thought I’d demonstrate by taking you through what I read everyday and why and share how this fits into my MVP Strategy or Maximum Visibility Plan for creating powerful awareness for your brand.

Here’s a list of the top 8 thought leaders I’ve book marked in my A-list.

Every morning I log onto Facebook, first thing. There I’ve set up a Facebook list called A-listers. This list captures those thought leaders that share great links, create important content and whose interpretations of my business arena are important to me. I click on this list which filters my news stream on Facebook to bring in just the posts by the people on my list. Then I can quickly scan this list and see if there is anything I’d like to share with my fans. I make it a point to give a nod to the originator of the content and to the person who brought it to my attention. Why? First, because it’s the right thing to do. Secondly, because by doing so, I demonstrate to these thought leaders that I value their contribution, appreciate their content and continue to look to them for leadership. I claim a place in their community as an evangelizer of their brand. Thirdly, my name appears in news streams loosely associated with their name. This is something called ambient awareness. I didn’t originate the content, but I passed it on and named them. My name and their name are read together by more people as the content is reshared. In other words, I endorse their work and introduce them to others, thereby sharing valuable content with my fans.

Who do I read and why? Here’s a list of the top 8 thought leaders I’ve booked marked in my A-list.

1. Mashable: Mashable is my number one read because he and his highly credible team of uber tech and social media obsessed reporters are 100% on top of all things related to technology, people in technology, applications, social media, and virus attacks. They give me the how, the why, the who and the what and keep me in the loop. If you follow only one blog on social media, make it Mashable.

2. Mari Smith: Mari Smith is the Facebook guru. She continues to invest her time and talents in knowing every nook and cranny about Facebook and she is a serial sharer. She’ll tell you everything she knows and more. She’s funny, generous, gifted and worth your time. By calling Mari a Facebook guru, I actually do her a disservice because she’s more than that. She’s an expert in relationship marketing, whatever the platform. Trust me. Add her to your everyday reading list.

3. Dan Schawbel: Dan is the Personal Branding Guru and author of Me 2.0, and his insights into the brand that is you are simply brilliant.

4. Darren Rowse, ProBlogger: Darren’s tag line is “Build a better blog.” He’s not kidding. Daily posts with actionable ideas for creating a more vibrant blog that people will read and want to follow. I bow to his brilliance and read him every single day without fail. He’s an evangelizer for the blog as your core content base and other social media sites as your syndicators and I think he’s a rock star in both information and delivery.

5. Adam Urbanski: Adam is the king of marketing strategies and is someone who truly understands how to connect the social aspects of social media to the deliverables of selling. He’s a consultant, teacher and businessman who delivers real content that can be implemented by businesses, solopreneurs and brands alike.

6. Read Write Web: This is a blog that does reviews of new technology products, comparisons and analysis. It’s ranked by Technorati as one of the Top 20 blogs in the world for a reason—simply stellar information delivered in easy to understand and digest bits. Go there now.

7. Miles Austin: Miles writes a blog called Fill the Funnel and his pithy, eclectic mix of commentary, review and hot news are all about web tools for sales.

8. Natalie MacNeil: Natalie’s blog She Takes On the World by Natalie MacNeil which gives great career advice to women. I like her style, content and message very much.

There are many, many more that I read during the course of my week but these are my never miss blogs. They keep up current, energized, engaged and motivated. What are your favorites?

7 Brand Visibility Superstars | Maximum Visibility Blogging

By Cindy Ratzlaff July 16, 2010

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

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

Blog:

Guest blog:

Encourage Discussion:

Lists:

Listen:

Be Provocative:

Re-purpose your content: