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14 Success Secret of Powerhouse Leaders | Branding

By Cindy Ratzlaff July 15, 2011

Consistency is a commonly referred to metric for social media success. It’s also the secret ingredient behind the personal brands of leaders in industries as diverse as technology, television, journalism and publishing.

Nearly every guru or expert mentions consistent engagement as a routine or habit that contributes to online success.

Ever since the publication of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, people been fascinated with the notion that there are some common traits, habits, rituals or routines that all successful people embrace. They extrapolate that by adopting these same routines or habits they, too, might be able to tap into their own path to personal and professional success.

In speaking with leaders in a wide variety of fields, I’ve come to realize that this is not entirely true. The habits or routines followed by leaders are as diverse as are their talents.

Still, a recent Twitter conversation about daily habits and successful business leaders, prompted me to ask 14 top performers in a wide variety of fields to share one thing they do, every day, they feel has contributed significantly to their success.

Here’s are the lessons I gleaned from what they shared. The headlines are my interpretation of their routine or habit.

1. Associate with interesting people

Robert Scoble, Robert Scoble, Blogger, Tech Evangelist and Rackspace Executive

“For years now my main habit is to have a different conversation, every day, with someone who is DOING something interesting! I’ve kept doing that for years, and recording almost all of them, and that has enriched my life immeasurably (and my career, too). I make sure I always keep my calendar full with at least one conversation with someone different.”

2. Pay yourself first

Jeremiah Owyang, Industry Analyst, Altimeter Group

“Opening and responding to emails is often the act of paying someone else –instead I ‘pay myself first’ by researching, reading, and writing my thoughts on a blog each morning for about 2 hours before responding to email.”

3. Make technology serve your needs

Ben Parr, Editor-At Large at Mashable

“I have a private wiki that I use to organize my entire life. It has a list of what I want to accomplish, my personal philosophies, important links and even my bucket list.”

4. Clear your head and keep your energy high

Loic Le Meur, founder of Seesmic.com and LeWeb.net Conference.

“I run nearly every day. That makes me relax and take some distance about daily projects. While many think it’s tiring, when you get into it you actually feel an incredible energy kick for the entire day if you run in the morning. It makes me feel happy and nice to my coworkers and makes me forget about annoying things I would otherwise have a tendency to focus on. Otherwise, I could not understand technology the way I do if TechMeme wasn’t there.”

5. Eat your own dog food.

Laura Fitton, CEO/Founder Oneforty.com and co-author of Twitter for @Dummies

“I actually ‘eat my own dog food!’ Every day I use SocialBase (our social media productivity management software) to stay on top of my social media presence. It lets me easily track tasks and bookmark the tools and platforms that I need to keep updated every day. It reminds me of my daily, weekly & monthly recurring tasks, and gives me a jumping off point to execute them in one single spot.”

6. Flex your spiritual muscle

Michael Stelzner, founder of SocialMediaExaminer.com and author of Launch

“I pray! I thank God for working through me, pray for inspiration and ask for encouragement during the difficult moments. The Lord has always taken care of me. This is something I do in my car just before I walk on into the office.”

7. Practice what you teach

Mari Smith, Facebook, Social Media & Relationship Marketing Specialist, Author of Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day

“Every day, I personally respond to as many messages as I can, whether by email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. I do my best to make time to thank and acknowledge people. As Sir Richard Branson says, “lavish praise on people.” I agree wholeheartedly. People love to be heard and I pride myself on being inclusive and treating others as equals. At the end of each day, I can sleep peacefully knowing I’ve reached out and connected with as many people as possible and it ultimately all helps to build social equity.”

8. Keep an inquisitive mind

Rieva Lesonsky, CEO GrowBiz Media

“One of the keys to my success, is I “explore” every day. I check Twitter, read the newsletters I subscribe to, go to my favorite websites. There’s so much information out there which can inspire or inform something I’m working on. As busy as I may be, I make sure to do this every day.”

9. Replenish your resources

Gretchen Rubin, author of New York Times bestseller, The Happiness Project

“My habit: Getting enough sleep. Research makes it clear that sleep has an enormous influence on our mood, health, energy, athletic performance — lack of sleep may even contribute to weight gain! The top two reasons for people to be in bad moods at work? Tight work deadlines and lack of sleep. As a writer, my mental acuity and energy are critically important. I see a huge difference in my analytical capacity, my creativity, and my productivity based on how wide-awake I feel. It’s hard to turn out the light before I finish that chapter or answer one last email, but now I’m zealous about getting enough sleep.”

10. Plan for success

David Zinczenko, Editor in Chief, Men’s Health

“I get in before the rest of my staff almost every day. It’s the only time that I can concentrate on writing, editing, and other close work. Once the team is here, it’s all about meeting and managing. I’m a nutrition guy, so I stock my office with healthy snacks and drinks like almonds, trail mix, dried fruit and coconut water. It keeps my energy up, and I don’t need to waste time running out to look for something to eat. And, I go to the gym almost every day at lunchtime, and read through emails on a stationary bike. It makes the second half of my day much more energetic, and I take less time—and get more done—during a workout than during most business lunches.”

11. Trust your intuition

Maria Andros, The Video Marketing Queen, creator of The Social Media Traffic Blueprint and The Video Conversion Formula.

“I think that the biggest key to my success has always been strengthening my intuition on a daily basis. I download ideas and get inspiration for the content of all my programs much like an artist does. Often it’s very easy to let our analytical minds take over and keep us stuck. I feel that the more we are in tune with our inner guidance, the more we can make the right decisions to move our businesses forward. For example before I partner with anyone, or create a new product, I listen, for if it’s a hell YES or not. If not, I do not proceed, as that will only have a impact down the road. I have learned the hard way in the past. I practice listening to my inner voice and my gut and it’s almost always accurate. I highly recommend building this muscle as it can make a great difference in your results. I think that some of the most successful people in business are very in tune with their intuition and this helps them to stay on track and moving forward.”

12. Banish the naysayers

Kathy Kinney, Actress and Author and literacy advocate

“I get out of my own way. ”

13. Find your creative zone

Wally Lamb, #1 New York Times bestselling author of She’s Come Undone, and I know this Much is True

“Since I began writing fiction 30 years ago, I have always found the shower to be a place where my creativity is unleashed. I hit the ‘rain room’ each morning before I hit the button on the computer. The earlier the better–5:00 a.m., if possible.”

14. Create space to think

Peggy Rajski, Academy Award Winning Director Of Trevor and co-founder of The Trevor Project

The daily habit that contributes to my success is morning meditation. I’ve done it for over 20 years. I usually sit for 20 minutes or more, but honestly, even 5 minutes does the trick. I feel more resilient, ready to take on the challenges of the day, and less likely to experience ‘I think I’m going to kill you if you don’t do what I want’ versus ‘I think this is kind of funny that I can’t get what I want.’ But more often than not, I do get what I want–or understand that what I’m getting is what I need regardless of what I think I want.

15. Cindy Ratzlaff, Author, Speaker, Consultant

It’s only fair that I share mine as well. I set a success goal every morning, for that day. I write it on a white board in my office and when I find myself being pulled off track, I ask myself “will this action serve today’s goal?” If not, I set it aside until I’ve accomplished the daily goal.

Are there habits or routines you can incorporate in your own life to achieve a higher level of business success? Please share and let’s see if we can enrich one another’s daily practices toward higher levels of achievement.

Social Bookmarking and Blog Comment Strategy | Brand Marketing

By Cindy Ratzlaff June 22, 2011

Social media etiquette aside, there are benefits for all of us in social media bookmarking and blog commenting strategies.

First, when you share valuable information through social bookmarking, you position yourself as a resource to your online community. You train your potential customers to follow you to stay up to date and in the know on advances, news and strategies in their fields of interest.

Social sharing creates social influence for you and the original content creator.

When you comment on a blog post, and, this is important–add to the conversation by contributing additional resources, original thoughts or insights–you also position yourself as an individual or brand highly engaged in your field of expertise. The more interesting your comments are, the more likely people will follow your digital footprint back to your home base and subscribe, follow, friend or bookmark you.

Share to Position Yourself as a Leader

When you read a blog post you like from a writer whose work you value or respect, leave a comment. By doing so, you provide a service. Google and other search engines pay attention to the amount of interaction that takes place on a website and the more interaction, the higher the social authority of that particular blog.

Think about it in this way.

You’re at a business conference where you hear a presentation about a new technology coming out of a brand new start-up.
You go back to your company and tell your colleagues to check out this new start-up because they have some valuable marketing tools that might help you on an upcoming project.
Your firm hires these new innovators for a project which is hugely success because of their new technology.
They grow and continue to innovate and help your whole industry.
You are a hero at your company and you, in turn, consider that original business conference to be your new “must attend” event.
HOWEVER, if you attend the conference but tell no one about what you’ve learned, their start-up fails to thrive and grow for lack of customers and eventually they don’t produce any new ideas or products and perhaps even go under.
Everyone loses; the start-up, your company, and you.

The same thinking applies to blogs. If you find a blogger is consistently providing you with valuable tips and strategies, then commenting is your way of encouraging Google rank them well and ultimately to help others find this blogger. So being a conscientious blog content consumer by subscribing and leaving comments is a way for you to contribute to the ecosystems you inhabit. And, in return, you garner social equity for yourself as an aggregator of useful information, a leader in connecting your fans and followers needs to resources they can use and as an informed player in the marketplace.

Bookmarking Benefits

Social Bookmarking is another responsible way to help spread valuable or entertaining information. In addition to leaving a comment, go to one of the many social bookmarking sites and recommend the blog post to others. Social bookmarks are a way for you to save links to posts you’ve found helpful, and others can subscribe to your bookmarks. By bookmarking a blog, story or news article, you create a home for it where you can easily access it and refer to it again later.

This serves as a visibility strategy for you because you found the post or blog, and now, by bookmarking it, you’re telling other that it’s worth reading. You increase your own social currency as someone who passes on great information and ideas, and you increase the visibility of the original blogger.

It’s Called “Social” Media for a Reason

Social Media is, at it’s heart, people engaging and sharing ideas with one another. So remember to consume information and pass on the tips and strategies that you find most useful. In this way you become a valuable resource to your followers, you become more visible to those you follow and you foster a sharing mentality throughout your network.

Some social bookmarking site you might consider using include:

* Digg
* Delicious
* StumbleUpon
* Reddit

Please let me know if you have a bookmark list so I can consider subscribing. It’s time to create conversations about YOU by creating conversations about others.

FOCUS | How to Create Powerful Marketing Messages

By Cindy Ratzlaff April 19, 2011

When I consult with entrepreneurs, publishers or major corporations, I start by asking them to share their F.O.C.U.S with me. At first, most say “creating wealth,” “making money,” or “selling more products.”

Can you put your core offering into one compelling sentence?

I always ask them, for the purpose of achieving those goals, to shift their focus from the end result to the first challenge; clearly stating their unique value to a potential customer. This “why to buy” focus helps businesses center their marketing, branding and public relations messages around the most important point of all—their offering.

F.O.C.U.S stands for “Find Our Core Unique Service.” Figuring this out helps companies address one of the four key elements of branding; variation. Asking the tough questions, doing the research and creating clear, concise communications will save entrepreneurs and even bigger companies time, money and frustration.

Some questions to ask to help define the unique service or selling proposition are:

How is this service or product different from all others in the competitive set?

Less expensive, more detailed, easier to use, more conveniently located?

Does the personality of this business or service give it something special?

Is the business or service provider more highly qualified, more experienced, personally enriched by the product usage?

Why would someone choose this product or service from all other choices available?

Better customer service and support, first to market, more stylish packaging, more rave reviews, higher perceived value?

Try to put your core offering into one compelling sentence. This exercise will tell you if you’ve nailed your F.O.C.U.S. I invite you to post your F.O.C.U.S. statement here and I’ll give you my opinion on whether or not your statement conveys your F.O.C.U.S. to me. Go.

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.

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.