Lessons

Lesson Info

Email and Social Media

Okay, so we are going to jump into the next stage we have covered content platform is it is relates to online we've covered organic ceo and now we're going to move into really one of my favorites email marketing, email marketing of how I got started building my list really has I can tell you is one of the greatest assets that I own it is primarily because I do so much business online it is primarily how we convert clients I mean it is primarily how we do business and so even though you will have people out there that have suggested that it's you know it's waning and that's not as effective and there's no question there's a lot more competition for it to mean just getting people you know used to be somebody showed up injury at your website they would give you their email address so there's a lot more competition which which really frankly just means you have to raise the bar you have to what you're offering for free you know has to really be so enticing that people are willing to take t...

hat step in this section we're also going to cover social media marketing so we're really going tio put the two of those elements together in this session again way more information than we have time to cover it but by now you guys have probably just figured that's kind of the drill today so email marketing term I want you to learn you probably all have heard it before espn stands for email service provider if if anyone out there is sending out there from twenty five to twenty, five hundred e mails through their their local I s p or through gmail or something please don't first off most of your male won't get through but some of the tools that a proper email service provider can offer you really allows you to do much more powerful email marking so let me take a little poll of the group here how many of you are using some form of an email service provider um okay and so let's just let's just see who you let's go around the horn what service? Male chimp male chimp however a weber however in a couple of others with clients right a weather and a couple others with clients right mailed him male chip all of those and now er visit amazon's email service delivery yeah ok male chimp mail however you ever day male chimp heavy I love male gym but it's not always the one that comes out the most you know, constant contact great company out here vertical response actually located in san francisco you know, we I personally use infusion soft but you know male since you guys mentioned it male chimp is you know one of the great things about male chimp and is still using the free account right it's what's it up to like twelve thousand e mails a month or something crazy of you know some of the some of the larger email service providers if you're sending out lots and lots of email can get expensive but male chimp you know the other thing I like about male chimp uh and I'm sure you guys have have found this is really pretty easy to use right? I mean it kind of makes sense you know what some of the other I've used a weber over the years I've used vertical response of use constant contact because I play with a lot of these different services and I think a weber will present myself in trouble here if I started saying stuff like this but I think a weber is one of the easiest to use all of them have their own kind of quirks andi it's really and and all of them now have added I think increasing power on functionality and really one of the core things is that like a lot of great tools you know they're only as great as your implementation in your use of them and so you know, part of it's really the challenge is to learn howto more effectively use him I'm going to spend more time on lead capture again just because I think it's so important and obviously relates to this topic talk about some best practices and email there's a few things that and the good news is some of the better email service providers, some of which you guys all mentioned you really do a lot have a lot of teaching about best practices, but there certainly are some things that I've learned over the years and I'd love to hear if you guys have feedback, obviously for out there from duct tape universe is we're calling them today if they if they've have some best practices, there are two types of email I think best uses of email one already mentioned, I think that having some sort of consistent vehicle which you put out there, that that is going to not not necessarily promote your products, in fact, that but will be the main intention, but a consistent vehicle that you put out there that you share information you share content people want to get because they find it useful is, you know, I just generically calling that newsletter on dh then the second is campaigns, so they are they might be promotional things they might be in response to somebody buying a product or service and using and actually as as customer service. I think that's a highly underutilized aspect of email marketing is just using it as a as a communication tool even though you're working with somebody in a specific area, all of the email service providers that you guys mentioned have formed building tools so in other words, they give you all kinds of ways to build basic lead capture forms right to put on your website um most all of them and again everybody has a little different twist how they do use them have something called auto responders which are anybody using auto responders syria's currently ok couple of you kelly you how we're using I probably know how you're using e got a responder siri's is being used from marking automation tool go use another tool for that. So the idea with an auto responder is that just like the name implies it automatically responds or it automatically kicks off some function because somebody did something so a really classic example when somebody subscribes to my newsletter they get put in an auto responder siri he's so they not only get my news letter when we send them out but they might get a couple here's what to expect from us uh here's a free download we might start introducing them to the idea that we have some products and so those emails air just scheduled and they go out and every time somebody fills out that form, the email tool does all of that force. Now we set it up ahead of time but there's some tremendous uses for for auto responders when somebody buys a product from us, we actually set up a series of e mails because a lot of times especially when they're buying just on online product you know they buy it they downloaded way wish him well right uh but we create a siri's of touches after the fact to say here's what you should be doing now have you done this? Have you considered this so they almost acted as prompts if you will to kind of keep them engaged let them know invite invite them quite frequently do you have questions you know send them our way so it's really it's kind of these ways it doesn't and shouldn't replace reaching out to them in other ways but it's a great way tio use the technology tio add one more level on one more way to create touches most of the email service providers allow you to segment list so you can have newsletter sign up list you can have sign up for our email book you could have sign up you know for some program we're offering and instead of just dumping those all into one giant bucket eso thatyou're then sending the same messages out to everybody you act it actually creates separate list now you can send out one giant mass email to that whole list, but the more personalized you could make so somebody for example, who expresses interest in our total online program a total online president's program you know might be somebody who's different than somebody obviously that expresses interest say in our consulting program right and so we want to make sure that we're treating them differently whenever we can click based actions aa lot of the email service providers now give you the ability to to actually let's say you send out an email that has two offers in, for example, or two opportunities or points to two different types of content. I just I'll use my example again introducing our program maybe or any book on total online presence and then maybe saying, hey, if you're a coach, you're consultant, you might be interested in our book on on x well based on which one they click down, we might actually drop them into a whole another auto auto responder siri's totally based on the action that they took inside of that one email that we sent, and so then all of a sudden they get a whole different siri's of e mails because of that, most of the email service providers offer a lot of templates, so you have the ability to to really create rich ht male good looking e mails that you can personalize put your logo in, but you don't have to really do all of the heavy lifting male chimp I think is great in that regards that male chimp users is that generally true right events a lot of the email service providers have now gotten into the event business, I think I ah male chimp recently added that constant contact has where you can actually set up event registration, so if you're doing, say, ah, on online seminar, you doing an in person event you can actually create so people can register for your events using your email service provider. Almost all of them now offer social integration so that all of your e mails have clicked the like us, they can have, you know, follow us on twitter, all those various things, and you should. The reason I'm kind of going through this list is you should be taking advantage of all of these tools because they'll make your email richer. And, of course, finally last one is reporting, so paying attention to not only how many subscribers you have, but how many people are opening your email, how many people are clicking on dh? Maybe these air just percentage is how many people unsubscribe? You know, we pay really close attention to our unsub, scribes and and complaints, because in many cases, they're an indication that are our value ratio, you know, maybe it is falling down a little. So really paying attention to you all of the reporting that, again, all of these services provide you now I'm a firm believer in putting a registration, so this is just an example of a form that was created fits in our theme but the actual form and that does the function in the captures first name last name and sends it off to our email service provider is really just given to us by in this in this particular case we use infusion soft but it's just given to us so we put it on every single page now we use those on landing pages too but we we get about you know and I use that pop up I mentioned on and we get about fifteen percent of our monthly email subscribers that just come through random pages because they then they found this via a blawg post or that somebody else turned it up and a lot of people I see a lot of people make the mistake of they haven't maybe on the home page but you know, look at your statistics you know of your your web site you'll find it you know, not everybody comes in through those through the home page and a lot of cases in our case instance when because a lot of our traffic comes from individual blawg post in some cases that may be the only page they they decide to view, eh? So we want to make sure we give them the opportunity to capture that lead remember I said we want our goal is one hundred percent lead capture everyone that comes to our site okay, so tell me what you guys were doing with any of these tools so already asked you about orders. So do you have forms on every page? Ok, so we'll start with you, sir, because you wouldn't tell me what you're doing. So using a weber no male champ male? Yes. That's, right? Yeah. All right. And so what of all that list of tools that I just or functions that I mentioned there you let me go back to that sign I haven't written down right here. Okay, um, we are not using very much of this list. Basically, the goal is that a newsletter gets sent out every other week on and that sort of summarizing all the blawg posts that we have created over the last two weeks. Do you have different market segments or do you sir, is everybody want the same information? No, they don't come, but we have not separated them. So that's another great, you know, it's, particularly if you have a different market segments and the chris you were saying you have very distinct and they they're gonna want very distinct information. And I think that the more you sell that and then obviously do that deliver that I think the more you, you'll not only get subscribers, but you'll you'll deliver more value, right? Because if you're talking to I mean, maybe even sports specific, you know, are certainly age specific or place in life specific and you talked about commercial versus homeowners, so in these tools, you know, you have the sign of form but, you know, a builder versus a homeowner, you know, you want to tell them hey, I got different stuff each of you. How do you wait a couple ways you could actually have two forms? I mean, so, like when you branch people off, you could actually say, are you a contractor go here another way really easy way a lot of people do is most of it and male chimp does this most of the forms actually allowed you to say, what list would you like to join? And so essentially what you're doing is putting, like little tick boxes, right? And so somebody could actually say, oh, I want information on this and this and this and this on dso essentially then they go on they in terms of technology, they go on those lists, and then whatever you decide to send in those lists is what they get that makes sense. So anybody else want to jump in on segmentation on auto responders? Question from d wellems who says, is it always necessary to ask for both first and last name? I see some that only ask for email um I don't think it's always necessary to ask for first and last time I personally like to ask for first name on dh there could be a couple of reasons for that sometimes in there might be shorting and segmenting reasons to have at least that other data point but also I just happen to like to write I like to put the person's first name in the e mails and so all the software allows you to personalize at that level on dso have you know being able to say hey john you know here's this week's news lighter to me has some value even though everybody knows you could do that I think it has some value rather than hello subscriber right so you get that much and most people are ok with it name and email address so that's that's my belief on it the rainy day start how often you clear out your email list and you have a system of process of seeing which emails you should drop well that is a really great question it it goes deeper than where I was going in here but but the the list people have a lovely name for that it's called list hygiene isn't that lovely on and it's really something that you should do particularly have a large list I mean if you have you know a very small list it's probably not that essential we do it at least once a year pretty aggressively on dh, they're different formulas for how you would do it. I mean, some email service providers actually give you the ability to actually say, like, infusion soft, I could tell infusion soft, anybody who hasn't opened, you know, my last ten e mails, I mean, I could be that very specific say and just say, you know, I want to take them off the list because a couple of things happen, you know, obviously, people that, you know, it will happen to you if it hasn't happened to you yet. You know, somebody who subscribed yesterday? Well, actually complain when you send them an email, right? You know, if that hasn't happened to you, it will. But but the the email service providers and your email service provider, you know, well, look really, really poorly on the fact that you're getting lots of complaints and unsubscribed and then some guy I don't know if it's you've experienced this or no anybody it's experience, if it's bad enough, they just tell you you can't send to us anymore because they have to protect their reputation. They're actually the ones sending the email, so you may not even be getting any complaints, but one of the things that a lot of the get all of our terminology mix up, theis piece. So the yahoos, the wells, the googles of the world that are processing mail, the other thing they do is obviously they give you the ability to say something spam, so that registers complaints. But if you just don't open email from a certain sender and you're just always deleting that, well, google will at some point suggest I mean, in some cases, some of the ice, please just stop delivering the mail and have you ever had that some email newsletter you subscribe to and you just stop getting it? It's, you know, in some cases, it's because you just weren't opening it in your eyes, he made the decision for you that it wasn't that valuable. So you want to be cleaning up your list for that reason to? Because if there are people, you really don't want people, and I'm not saying they didn't open one, so you deleted, but you really don't want people that just stay on your list because they're lazy, you know? And they just don't want to unsubscribe because they can actually hurt your your open, right, you're deliver ability rate a cz much is really somebody that probably not as much as somebody that complains but certainly you don't want it on your list so you want to think in terms of and most like I said most ice speeds have some tech technology or technique or functionality and allows you to do maintenance on the list okay let's talk about lists buildings more who wants to build a bigger list everybody right? Right exactly all right again useful valuable easy those are the three things you have to do offer something useful and valuable and make it really easy to subscribe some of the technology companies were really famous for you know they'd promote these great white papers and e books and they need to go to their site and you had you had to fill in fifty seven questions right in order to download the thing on dh then ten minutes later you get a phone call right from a salesperson you know, people are sort of really, really leery to that now and so you know, there are there are those out there that suggests you shouldn't ask for anything I think that goes too far. I mean, I think that's you know, it's giving away information and hoping that people will remember where they got it on I really think that capturing at least a name and an email especially early on now there may be a point at which let's say somebody comes to your site you're offering a free e book and they give you their name and their email address and in that you are you haven't offered to say come back to an event or you have another event coming up and ah, be it in person or a webinar and they're already on your list you know, that's the point where you might say, ok, one give us, give us your phone number or give us a mailing address so lou, we can send you something that will be useful information as well, so you can start to get more data points, which actually maybe may or may not be important to you, but it may be important to you, but make sure that you've built some trust. Andi, I think that that's, you know, depending on how great your material is and how much somebody already trust you will dictate really how much data they will give you, but I have found particularly for e books and things people, you know, they want to grab it and run, and they don't really want to make a commitment and do beyond the name and email it's still worth people you know, people, I don't I've never anybody approached me and asked if they could buy my list or anything like that, but I think a lot of people are very still very suspect that that a lot of people out there collect email addresses for the intent purpose of selling them to some you know, spam company and in the the ukraine somewhere or something on dh so I think it's it's still even silly as it might sound it's still probably useful to actually say we don't do that you know here's our privacy policy again I said earlier if you're giving away any book if you have a newsletter showing show samples show exact let him click up had the ability to click on something and see what they're actually going to get mohr here have a link sign up on every page, sign up in every email put it on your printed collateral that they can come get your newsletter obviously all the social media sites for you on your profiles make sure that you're talking about the fact that you had that tweeted facebook post no penned your e books work with strategic partners on swapping and again not swapping list some people we'll do that again I think that gets in really great territory but certainly promoting each other's newsletter and ability to sign up I think you know there's a lot of debate about what's an opt in and you know have you ever gotten those things where people want to sell you? You know, two million opt in email addresses opt into what you know I mean they still haven't actually asked to receive email from you and there may even be some ways to skirt the law and legally actually send email to those people, but you're going to piss him off, right? So you really stay away from that terms of lead capture tools? We talked about that plug in for wordpress. I use pippi, which is a pop up. It actually integrates with my email service provider you can actually use ah, move, who as a form tool on did it actually integrates it? Integrates with male champ? I know that s o if you want to create. So for we are thirty minutes evaluation that we've been offering to folks out there, they will actually go to a page and fill out a form. Well, now, in that particular case, we have to ask him for a lot of information, right? We just I don't think we have to have what we have to have their phone number, and we have to have their mailing address in some cases, because it helps us analyze their website and what they're doing and things of that nature. So but people that's a case where people are interested in receiving that information, well, you can actually set up an integration with wufu where that would actually go into so the name and email address, really whatever field you dictated, but in that case, the name and the email just would actually go right into male gym so somebody would fill out that form. You might actually just use that form in our case, you know, internally toe work with that person, but we've captured that person onto an email list because it integrate that wufu tool, which makes it really easy to build this very elaborate, you know, gorgeous form that's going to have all these various fields and radio buttons and all that kind of junk on it, actually then puts people into male chimps so we don't have to build a whole night, we don't have to ask him to fill out two forms if that makes sense. So in terms of some best practices, we kind of break this up in before the open and after the open, ok, a couple of my favorite things, the subject line there's, a lot of research out there that would suggest that the subject will obviously, who the emails from do I recognize who is from do is it somebody that I remember that I want to open? And and even in that case, does the subject line, you know, is the subject line compelling enough to make me want to click on that? You know, we see it all the time. I mean, I can almost I should be more scientific about it than I am, but I can almost guess when we're going to have higher traffic from my email newsletter based on the subject on if I if we really written subject line that were like, yeah, that's, that's, that's killer people are going to open that up. They do, and sometimes, if we are less inspired that week and way don't necessarily come up with something that great it shows. So it really is extremely important in terms of getting your email open a zay said. The from line is very important on by I a couple things, and in my mind, you're in my practice. I see a lot of people doing this. You know, maybe the email accounts in your name, your personal name, but they're expecting to get it from a business, and they may not. Actually, they may not even actually remember your personal name or maybe the person creating it is actually the marketing person right in. And all of sudden email says it's from you know bill smith it's like I have absolutely no idea so you can actually change that in most service providers so that it says it's coming from duct tape marketing or certainly coming from a business name that they recognize I also like tio you know and I've had I've tested this both ways and I've actually had people write to me and complain when I don't do it this way but I put in parentheses the word duct tape in my subject line every single time and then whatever my subject line is going to be people tell me all the time that you know when I don't do that they tell me they write to me and tell me almost missed your newsletter this week because I didn't realize it was from you so give people lots of I mean you want to be welcomed in their email inbox so give him assuming you've earned that trust make sure you give him all the clues the pretext header and this gets in it's not really that technical but it sounds a little technical in most e mails so this is the from this is the subject line and then it starts this is ah this is actually in group g mail but then that out to the right it actually basically just picks up the first amount of text that's in the email right and so a lot of times if you're looking on especially like on a laptop or something you'll see all of that out there and people will also make determinations about whether or not to open that you can actually in most email service providers you can actually tell it what you want to go in there ok so use that what what they call pretext header as another way to start selling the email I see mom you know what you'll see let's see if there's any in here this is this is comes up all the time having trouble viewing this email click here because that was the first thing that when you if you open that email as an html email if you open that email that's what's going to be on the very top of that which is useful if you've got the email open not useful at all as you're trying to scan and decide whether or not that even makes it to the open box right? So use that pretext header as part of so these three components you know give them some thought s o that you're you're given your your email the best chance assuming people wanted it you're giving it the best chance of them actually opening yeah angie I think I have a question about a subject line have you found that more creative subject lines or something that tells them what they're going to get works you know, subject lines like headlines, you know, in ads and things were one of those completely there's nobody that can give you I will tell you what that works for me but there's, nobody can tell you exactly what's going to work for you and the good news is you can actually test this you can run split test so you can actually take your list that's a half of them get this email subject line half of get this email and you might test you obviously don't want to do that with every single email necessarily, but you might test that what that what type seems to get open in my particular case, we typically run when I called our main article and that's the thing that's in our subject line and I a lot of times we'll use the headline of that article on and it's typically very I won't say provocative but it's something that we think is going to get them to open it because it's going to be useful information it's not always I mean usually it probably gives him a hint at what the content is a cz well but like for example, my email that went out this week why you must why you must stop selling your time and that had I like to walk the line between what I wrote about and something intriguing enough to make we think people are going to click on I think sometimes if it's two here's what you're going to get, you know it's not it doesn't feel beneficial enough potentially three eighteen media how do you feel about the use of symbols or emoji in subject line? I asked him if they really want to know how I feel now actually I think we definitely want to know how you know here's the thing about all of this stuff I have a definite I mean for me if I got that email and I don't really like it, I think it's cheesy some email service providers actually start, you know, kicking out for but every single time I say you shouldn't do something there's somebody that's making it work on dh that's the real challenge so I always have to say test there's a really pretty good book out there called the rebels guide to email marketing by d j waldo and jason falls and you know the basically xt do that same thing well, the the book says your subject line should only be so many characters long right and that's the conventional wisdom the book says you know you should send your email out on tuesday and that's the conventional wisdom and then they perceived then of course, to debunk every single one of those with an example of somebody that's breaking the rules on dh sometimes I think particularly email marking is a great example but I think marketing in general sometimes breaking the rules you know is what's going to get you notice because if the conventional wisdom is everybody does this maybe there's an opportunity to do that s o the really true answer is you got to test it you know on dh because you may have ah readership that just thinks those emojis are the greatest thing they've ever seen you know they want to know like where they can get the japanese versions of them threatened as faras uh predating mail comes from your tested like from duct tape or from john at duct tape um is there any virtue and kind of personalizing it in that way you mean in the front line or you mean in the like it up here in the from exactly ok you know we tip tip I have been going with jonah duct tape marketing for a long time yeah and I haven't tested that recently to tell you the truth but I've used it forever and it does have my company name in it and that's what's interesting is now I will tell you this that I when I was a solo you know I was the only one sending out email from duct tape marketing that you know that was the only person they got it from they now get email from different people and there is there is this there is a little growing sense that there's higher open right when it's for me, even though it's come from duct tape marking I guess that makes sense if you're the face of the brand and can I do? But it's certainly all every element of this is worth testing. So after the open, there are a couple ways that you can get into trouble, you know, with your email, even with all these great ah, the nice thing is, every single one of these email service providers is making this easier and easier back in the day starts sounding old. Uh, you know, I used to design my own h tell me e mails and I would write a minute in an html editor and I had upload the images to a server. It was a lot harder back then. You guys have it easy, but, um, the all of your images, most of the email service providers just have you upload them to the thing, so it actually goes in one mistakes. Have you ever get those e mails that the pictures aren't there, right? People are making the mistake that the picture is actually on their computer and they picked that picture but it's actually not up on a server somewhere because what's happened when somebody opens an email it's actually going out and grabbing those from the internet those pictures so they're typically on your email service provider but if if you're not using what they call absolute passed so if you look at one of those it'll say it'll start with http you know wherever it's hosted, you know image and so you could actually look at that online if you wanted to that's a place where people get into mistakes, you can actually add and I would recommend that you actually add you're all descriptions to those images because the default for a lot of ice peace now his image is off right? Because it's actually a way that people send viruses and spam and stuff like that on dso the ice peas leave those off so like for example, when I get an email from gmail, I have to click show me the images if I want to see the images on dso if I if you go ahead write descriptions, people are more likely to do that and one of the reasons obviously you went to the trouble to create this incredibly visual, you know, email that really has all kinds of impact, right? But also you can't track the email without having the images on s o what? Because the way the way opens or actually tracked is that the image is actually downloaded on bit's not an image that you can see they put a little one pixel clear image actually in the email and that's how it's tracked that it's actually been open so if you have images off so sometimes if you feel like cash my open rates really, really low some cases it's falsely low because people have images off and a lot of the bigger ice piece you know make that the default now so you're not actually registering those open and even though they are getting open, um called action buttons I mean, if you in your email you know, a lot of people just put a link click here to learn more is proven over and over again that big honkin button that says click here that's orange it gets farm or response. Um, I think I mentioned that already make sure that you're having all of your social media, you know, and again, most of the mail service providers have made that really, really easy. You just tell him what your all of your, uh uh, your girls to your pass or your networks are excuse me. Html in text I personally think that still there's still a reason to send most email service providers give you the ability to send both um, so if you're sending out an email newsletter, you actually can create the html version and then send a version in text as well there are less and less, but there are some people that actually don't want html email at all and so you're if they're one of those people your email won't get through the other thing that actually has the impact of doing especially if you have a very image rich html email it actually is a signal to the to the spam filtering sites that are out there into the ice peace because they can actually read your entire text email they can't they can't know what's in the pictures a lot of people out of the rial spammers use giant graphics that can't be read to actually send their, you know, viagra message or whatever it is that they've chosen that week s o the text email so the fact that you've got your email in both versions actually is a signal from a spam fighting standpoint um I still like personalization I think you can overdo personalization. Have you ever seen those emails repeat your name forty seven times throughout the email? I think you can definitely overdue that, but I think you know to me getting that email that says dear subscriber, you know, just doesn't it doesn't really feel that great. I actually like to mix up my e mails, we send out a lot of html html email I think our newsletter looks better in html, but I will frequently send out a short what hopefully feels personal message that I just write a text email it looks very much to me I think we sometimes get sort of numb to that same template email that you know, even though we're like send in some kind of people that send me a personal matter really is personally email but they've used a template because they can and it just, you know, it looks like an ad it doesn't look like they wrote that just to me, so I really like to sprinkle in messages that just look like somebody sent you know, I sent that to one person so you might take experiment with that obviously make your opt out obvious all over the place you don't want people complaining you also don't want people, it drives me nuts I have I have opt out at the top and opt out of the bottom of of all the e mails we send and can't tell you how many e mails with some people who write back and say take me off the list it's like you have to do is push a button somewhere, but but make sure I my belief is if I don't want to send any email to anybody that doesn't want to get it means so I really I don't invite people to opt out, but I certainly make it pretty darn obvious how they can many questions on that kind of email in general from one cordero who is wondering whether email is still relevant to the millennial generation I think this kind of a more general like obviously we think email is relevant but are there areas that arm or or less uh you know, do the using no more left I think they definitely use it far less in their personal lives but you know, once they go into that corporate environment one said going to that business environment that come face to, you know face to face with the fact that they I have to use it because the world does does that mean that you know that they're sending their friends you know things probably not as much but but I think it's still very relevant because it will always be very relevant in business that's my take now ten years from now you know that may not be true but I do think it's still the universal platform you know that everybody has and so it kind of becomes the default language if you well you know, s o that everybody you know in every country in every language and every age group you know kenneth can communicate. So for to this day and age, I think still very much so all right, so let's well, let's talk about newsletter newsletters air really your your opportunity I think, to build a relationship I mean, you can put I personally think, you know, it doesn't have to just be dry information about some new product that you came up with I mean, the relationship building can come about by entertaining no by giving tips for years I would put just because I'm kind of a music person I would put back on we really gonna start sounding old here I keep this up back when we had albums remember what those guys were, but I used to put my album of the week you know, recommendation because I just you know, I I was buying a lot of music still, andi, I would get so much you know, in a marketing newsletter I was it was the thing that people would write back most about you know, was that that that shared interest and I think you can think you've got a lot of leeway in a newsletter to do stuff like that obviously informing, you know, on what it is what's going on in the industry, anything that they need to know keep it snack size, I do think that people don't want to read two thousand words, you know, things or if they do they you know, those sock it away until they have, you know, time to do so so I think that keeping keeping stuff short, asking for feedback, one of the things that then I think a lot of people neglect to do is what would you like to hear in this news letter, you know, frequently asking that you could get some tremendous suggestions or people could tell you catch I really like it when you write about this or when you, you know, share of these kinds of things, I wish you'd do it more you might be fine that you really get some real feedback there, um, encourage engagement, encourage people to share, encourage people to pass it on have that consistency. I put mine out weekly and we put it at the same time it comes out wednesday morning, so it doesn't mean you can't experiment and play around with, but I don't think I hate those e mails that I get from people it's been a long time since I've sent out a newsletter, but, you know, I mean it's like it's almost like delete because, you know, I don't remember who you are, right? Eso, you know, don't fall if you're going to do the newsletter, you know, come up with, I'm going to do it monthly or I'm going to do it twice a month or I'm going to do it weekly on dh stick with it now, like I said, test test test, but you stick with it. Question gets asked all the all the time single opt in versus double upped and so the idea behind single upton is you come you give me your email address you click I want this stuff you're on my list right? You don't have to do anything else you're on my list double opt in what that is you give me your name email you click sand I send you an email that says are you sure that you want to be on my list you have to click that or you don't get on my list right? So the theory behind those two approaches is that double opt in make sure that there's nobody out there signing somebody up who doesn't really want something or that that you know that they really had to be sure so there's no way that they're going to complain right because they double opted in now what a lot of research has demonstrated is double opt ins actually a nuisance for a lot of people right I said I wanted the newsletter now I'm going to do this to okay so I lean I believe single opt in is the way to go but I think because though I believe double upton is actually a nuisance to the actual subscriber you will get maybe ah fume or complaints you will find some email service providers that actually require double opt in but fortunately a weber I don't think does do they they do I know they do to move a list but even even tow have a list ok, but I mean you will I mean, you won't get up you won't get you know, complaints typically but I think it's abusive to this describe personally so as long as you're doing list hygiene like we talked about earlier I would personally I would go single um I like to use thank you pages. So when somebody did hit the thing, make sure that you actually have some way to say yes, you were successful, you know, there's, have you ever done that? You collected and you like it send you back to the home page account like, well, did it go through or not right? So how something says not only yes, you were successful here's what to expect next, right, you're going to get any, you know, an email from john and duct tape marketing it's going to say this subject line, I mean, just really spell out I don't think you can spell out enough, you know, what's going to happen or what you can expect from us and so you can use some of those pages. Um, I like to have I mean, a really good practices to actually, if somebody if you're doing a newsletter, actually have one that's part of your automatic response on dso create something that you know, we people call in the in the publishing industry that's evergreen that can always be the first one that they get on dh that you know, that delivers value you know is always going to be valuable, but somebody gets something that represents what they're going to get from you right away because maybe you're in a publishing cycle where you're only going to do it once a month and they subscribe and then they don't hear from you for thirty days it's like you will get more opt outs and complaints from that because, you know, people subscribe to a lot of things, and if you give him thirty days, they won't even remember that they asked for your newsletter. So what do you including your newsletters? Um, my newsletter is actually almost all block post the bulk of the content is five block post, but it's abstracts and links, some of them were mine somewhere the some of them are ones that that I read it gives people the ability to really scan my newsletter I do like to put, I've always like to put kind of three new tools that I found so links to those people enjoy obviously, you know, if you've got events coming up it's a great place to promote those you know it really everything that photos company news testimonials you've got you know, people like announcements and and again if you you could have different newsletters you could have that customer newsletter so people that have people that are customers that you maybe have met face to face that come in you know, they they want to see a picture of the new grandkids right then that they want to see what you did at the christmas party the you know, maybe the generic newsletter for prospects who have visited your site that want to know more information you know, maybe they don't want to see is much announcement kind of stuff so you can you can play with this really in different levels this just happens to be what my current stretched out a little bit on this screen but what my current how my current newsletter breaks up so you can see how I do you know there's three of my recommendations and then the how food scroll down there a little bit you'd see the abstracts of the articles when people this is my thank you page when somebody signs up for that's seven steps a small business marketing success we've been talking about throughout this this is the thank you page in this particular case it tells him what they're getting but I also experiment with actually making him a deal on that so they subscribe and I actually make him an offer that if they buy my book I'd give him all this bonus content this is the only place that they see this offer on dh this this offer actually goes quite well so you can in some cases if you have some bonus content if you have something you know this is a really low you know that's a fourteen dollars purchase that they'll end up purchasing on amazon but once they do so we'll give him much of bonus content so you can actually sell right off the bat this is something you want to experiment with obviously all right, so anything and questions on newsletters yes so we're all small business owners very busy is there way to you know, automate some of the content versus like you individually have to go and create you know, I'm thinking like rebel mouse you know they have this social now they're integrating what mel champions I mean, is that appropriate or do you still need to kind of go in there and well um I don't think you're gonna ever automated completely because you know otherwise you're gonna end up sending out something embarrassing you know that you never intended to go out there but it fit the keyword somehow you know, right on dh so I like to think that we have ours pretty automated I mean we use the same template you know, every week on dh I you know, through my arse s feeder reader I just say this one this one this one this one and it takes I do have a person my office that actually compiles it but I think it takes for fifteen minutes so I mean that's that's that's why setting up a lot of these tools on dh why we use that format to some degree is because that format allows us to promote some of our own content so it drives people to our web back to our website but it also allows us to to share other people's content it's pretty easy to put together yes when you're talking snack sized uh just rule of thumb approx exactly how many words well in my case what I'm doing is I'm actually I've they're more like abstract so it's the title and maybe one hundred words and then a link if you think this if that much sounded good to you, click here and go read it on your own so I think that you know from it needs to be scannable you know? So I would say in that one hundred fifty to two hundred words would be the most okay, thank you. Did you have something coming in from duct tape university era who asks should we only send our email newsletter to those who opt in currently she also pulls email addresses from her database vendors clients for their send this even though they've never specifically opted in well, I think it's great area I mean, if you have a relationship with some of their a vendor, you know they're probably not going to complain but I would tend to say take that whole database and send them something saying we would love for you to opt in I mean you really again if you have a relationship with somebody I mean it's like anything if I send anyone of you an email, I really don't have permission to send you email but you know, one email like that are you know, because you know who I mean you might write back and say I don't want this anymore but you're probably gonna complain but it's still gray area um and blue says what if someone subscribes to both your blogged and your newsletter you then just sending them duplicate material? Well, in my particular case, I'm not because the newsletters different than my block right on dh I do offer email subscription to my block because there are some people that that you know, I want that and so but what those people are getting is that if I update my blawg every time I update my blogged, they're basically getting an email that has the content from that day's update so it's one full blawg post in their email um and so obviously when they subscribe to my newsletter there getting a whole nother format so so I don't have an issue with that if if all you're doing is sending out let's, say you're writing a block post once a week, and all your email is is that block post, then I think you probably shouldn't have both. So I think the question came in when you said that your newsletter is basically abstracts of blood post that then linked to your blog's, though, is it a separate set of blood? No, no, no, or it will be some that from the from the week so some of those people that subscribe to both would actually see that twice, right? But then I have a lot of other stuff in it that wasn't on the block. Yeah, thank you. All right, so let's talk about campaign so the idea here is, like, for any book that you're going to promote, your going to advertise, that you're going to do some things that so it's not your, you know, weekly relationship building I'd still lean towards, you know, one data point, you know, just get the least amount of pot, you know, information's possible, obviously you have to have, you know, how are you going to fulfill it? So if somebody comes to my, they want our e book? What we choose to actually do is send him to a thank you page and then send them an email that gives him the link on the reason we choose that path it's a little less convenient for them but we capture really email addresses that way because that you know with if all you do is redirect him to the page where they can download and they could put in an xx xx you know submit and that you know I don't really care about that if somebody really wants the information I'm obviously giving it away but by us sending him information sending them an email we know the email gets to them and you know it really has a way to verify that but then you want to start thinking in terms of ok what what information you want to send him in three days in five days in seven days and so a lot of times when we do an e book even well actually plan out we know some somebody has expressed interest in a very specific topic the topic of that e book so we might actually send an email that talks about in a lot of ways we're talking about we're basically selling them on reading the book right we'll say you know we'll give a couple tips that were in the e book because maybe you have subscribed to download any book and it's still sitting in a fold or something right so we want to prompt them because again we do want the email address but what we really want to do is educate them and move them along so I think it's very appropriate to send out some scheduled email now you may actually have at the end of your campaign you may actually have it called action so it might be you know in seven days and the seven day email you actually move them to hey we want to invite you to this workshop this is a place where you can start using this branching ability so let's say you send somebody somebody signs up for most email service providers give you the ability let's say in your five day email you say you know here's where you can find more information on this subject and they click on that they're clearly highly interested in the subject right? So those people that clicked on that now to get the email that invites them you know, to a personal invitation to your workshop where is the other people that didn't click on it? Maybe just get the rest of the campaign um this is obviously where you khun do testing your a b testing although you know all the way from your form through every single one of your e mails which ones get open which ones get clicked on so like your email like your newsletter campaign you actually create a promotion for for a campus unlike your newsletter workshop I said said um you create a promotion for the campaign you create a landing page called action thank you page figure out how you're going to actually deliver and then you follow up and inside of your software tag or sometimes somehow designate you know people that have actually run or gone into this campaign so it's a it's it's not really that different I mean I'm really just kind of giving you a couple paths I think every everybody needs to build that ongoing relationship and then I believe everybody needs to also build that ability to run campaigns to promote specific events, holidays, promotions you can run campaigns that drip out product details that you can actually run campaigns that are an entire course you can obviously run campaigns that are you know, for e books or for online seminars after purchase training is a great campaign to run a cross promoting other products a lot of times when somebody buys something they're not really aware of everything else that you might do so throw him into a little campaign that actually says did you know you bought this product? You might also want to consider enhancing it this way or have you considered these options in this section? We're going to talk about strategy for tactics because I do that all the time as much as I can't we're going to talk about the four biggest platforms again, integration is the key here and I'm sure ah, ton of tools with you as well. So here is really the big question. Why would any of you participate in social media? Anybody have any answers for me? Why connect connection? You connection with who? With your audience. Prospect prospects. Okay, new product releases. Yes. Ok. It's a fast way to share and people use it. Yeah. Okay. Well, how is that gonna benefit how's that gonna benefit your business if playing? Because because people ultimately it's here, right? Because here's here's what? I'm getting it that I think there are a lot of people that weighed in it and try to do everything that social media has available because the allure is everybody's using it, right? And they're using it every day. But this is the place where I think you really, really need to focus on how does this integrate with your overall of justice? It's not simply maura's mawr. I mean, maybe getting mohr exposure, you know, is going to benefit your business. But do you have a plan for that exposure? I can't tell you how many people and some of the early people that got into social media that you know, that aaron myspace, you know, that built these huge followings, and they're not making a dime you know, with that because they have there was there was nothing that that would actually translate into somebody becoming a customer they have tons of followers to have lots of people that like them they know they have incredible engagement you know and could spend their entire day talking all their new friends on dno ability to turn that into sales right? I mean, you can go on facebook and just have, you know, spend your entire day, you know, talking to people there's lots of people that are willing to invest time and talking to you right? But the question is, you know, how do you wait in there in a way that makes sense? And I would tell you most of us need to back away from what we're doing currently and we need to think in terms of how could we use social media to follow up with prospects? How could we use it to stay top of mind with our existing customers? How could we use it to keep up on an entire industry so that we can innovate? How could we use it to provide customer service? How could we use it to develop a partner strategic partner network fact, if if if most of you actually did that one last item on lee in social media, you would make it pay and you would spend far less time stressing out about how many twitter followers are half and I'm their soapbox anywhere around here, and I really I really one of the things that's driving me crazy the last couple years is how stressed out people are about all this stuff that they can do in social media, but but none of it, but then the question comes around. I can't tell you how many block posts have scenes, how to make social media pay or what's the rich, our ally of social media, right? That's, the question everybody had, you know, but in my opinion, it's, because of the way that we look at it on the way that we view it. So let's, let's say, we just talked about that one developing a strategic partner network. What if you spent your entire time in linked in and new facebook and in twitter, trying to identify people that could help your customers and become part of your strategic network? My guess is you would make social media payoff far more than it is today, and you would spend one third of the time. I think one of the things, what you're saying about social media, a lot of people come to us and say, you know, yeah, how do I make it pay off? But I think the thing that they forget about is people don't join social media networks to buy stuff, but everybody seems to be there to sell something right and I think that's the thing that we have to keep in mind is we're not out there looking to buy something right? Absolutely so that I mean there is value in having a larger network, a larger network and share things a larger network can tell other people a larger network can you know can can buy things right? But I think that where people have really missed the boat is a lot of what you're talking about is the goal seems to be just get people to sign up so you can sell them something. Andi I think we need to focus on much smaller priorities and objectives unless you've got the staff to you know, corey and, you know, the mark overall marketing plan toe where you can have somebody whose entire job is to create engagement in social networks so the networks that I'm going to talk a little bit about linked in facebook, google plus twitter, obviously to me, those are the four that everybody should be in there are reasons for people to be deeper into some than others, you know, beat for example facebook, you know, people go to facebook to be entertained for the most part there certainly are people that are selling and b to b and b two c and building brands and facebook but the vibe really is there to be entertained right? People goto linked in to network andi it is very much a hiring it is very much a building strategic partners it is very much a you know introduced me to this person introduced me that person almost traditional networking so it has a completely different vibe in in in terms of what you might actually share their or whether or not you'd even participate there now some that obviously are worth watching particularly for visual businesses it's not the first place I would send people a lot of photographers obviously pinterest and instagram it's kind of a no brainer right because you're you have the ability to share your actual product and people have become very attuned to visual content I think it's important that we're actually on the content realm are are adding lots of visual content because people are getting very used to that so let's talk about google plus a ce faras best practices in google plus go um to me the first one of course is building out the full profile adding all the information they actually allow you to have with inside your google plus profile links back to various content I link back to my workshop page I link back to my product pages I link back to my blawg inside of there so take advantage of building out that full profile if you're a local business anybody have a google places page? Well, they've moved that inside of google plus now on dh so make sure that you actually have your google plus local page claimed as well. It's the same page you can can you still love? Can you? Still at it from both places or not, it is very convoluted. Now I know it's terrible. I assume that they have something in mind for that. So make sure that you you hang on to that and enhance it inside of google. Plus the plus one button is a big signal for ceo now s o make sure that you have, you know, all of those sharing icons word on my word press block, I actually have a, uh plugging called sociable that makes it very easy for me to put all the icons from all the sharing services. So if people want to tweet or stumble or pin, you know any of my content they can right there inside of my block posts. Um, the people that tell that that really go there and engage and use google plus as a you know, as they're kind of preferred network, it tends to be more entrepreneur tends to be more techie it's, very male oriented currently in terms of people that are there but, you know, focusing on small circles, definitely like most of the networks, the content that has images and video gets the most engagement if you're going to comment you know, using the plus sign is how you actually tag you know, another person inside of google plus already talked about so I don't think I need to probably stress on our talk about it too much but my favorite feature of google plus is the hangouts on air uh stream live to youtube I think there's a great opportunity for most of you to do something on a consistent basis there for example bringing a couple of your customers in two and you know these don't have to be public but bring a couple customers in and a couple prospects in the same time and doing what I call a peer to peer facilitating a peer to peer workshop so allowing people to just talk about challenges and allowing them to then hear how you're you've solved your customers challenges there's there's really no there's no selling that goes on inside it's really a discussion that you're facilitating but a great platform to do that happens to me screenshot of my current profile how long these sessions well, you know, length is it's so relative to I mean as long as you can make them interesting but I you know it's very hard to make make stuff interesting for very long so this particular one was actually forty five minutes and people seemed very very engaged because it was somewhat of a debate that got nasty actually people love that um but uh uh don't always want to try to recreate that but you know, I I quite frankly I think twenty thirty minutes a cz long is it's engaging I mean you know there are a lot of people to do our long programs that people are find riveting so uh if its content that people can't get other places and they're really interested in they'll stick around so my list of twitter best practices I think it's best to go into twitter with a plan so my plan and twitter I mean that's not rocket science I think everybody tells you that but it's amazing how little you see people doing it um my primary use of twitter actually is to share content my the people that I believe follow me and I believe the reason they follow me is because I don't I don't get in there and say all kinds of witty things I share other people's content so ninety percent of my tweets original tweets are actually me amplifying my own content on dh me sharing other people's content other bloggers content um and again I you know it's my belief that that's why people follow me that that's what what they're interested in so I stick to that um I do think that it's very interested very important that you create lists of you know, I talked about that early on in the day, but lists of customer list of journalists using the google list tool if you want to find people in your community there's an or in your industry there's a site called twelve dot com that actually if you want to find other people that you want to follow or you want to put in lists that you could put in industry and little list twitter folks by essentially pulling information from their profile will list them by industry, but it'll also listen by geography and assuming that they put not everybody puts their city state in there. But if they do so know, that could be another way to use social media. To find potential strategic partners in your community, for example, is by just finding a list of people that are in your town. Um, search on twitter is pretty interesting. There are some folks that have used very, very specific twitter searches when the early days when twitter came out, you know, the real question people were just like, wow, you know, you'd go there and it was like what? You know, why would I why would I participate in this and watch all this go by on dh? Then you start drilling down into this? There was an auto body shop that did this, I think really effectively they would actually set up searches for people that various things that people might tweet if they had been in an automobile accident in their town. So apparently, people, oh, darn it! I got in a wreck today, right? Um and they people were tweeting things like that out, and they were in indianapolis on dh they were getting one or two of these that would show up pretty much every day, and they would immediately kind of reach out to him said, oh, you know, bummer about your accident, but make sure you don't get ripped off by a body shop and they had a a page, you know, ten ways not to get ripped off, you know, by a body shop, and you no longer hold about half of them would would call him up and say, I want to know more on, and it was very, very low maintenance said they were getting, you know, a leader to a week, you know, just by setting up a very specific twitter search, use a third party tool, you know, I personally on twitter, the twitter dot com's actually gotten more useful because they've added more features, but you could do so much more with a tweet decker a hoot suite there's, just my current or at least a while ago, that's probably a month old, but screenshot saul wrap of facebook and then we'll come back there's a lot more information in this one, we'll take the break and continue social media, you know, build out that business page and I I believe that most businesses should have a personal page and a business page. Um and again, you know, I'm sort of trapped in that because I've always had a personal page that I've used for business, and so now I have thousands and thousands of subscribers there who follow that page for business purposes a building business pages well, unfortunately been able to track people there, so I'm kind of in that, you know, no man's land of really needing tio sort of maintain both, but I think every business, obviously, you know, needs to have one again promote that like, button on your in your actual post. Um, I don't I mean, on your block post, but also within your status updates on getting not in a cheesy way, but there's, no question that if, you know you've seen people probably do that, ask a question and say, if you agree like this that's kind of the cheesy away teo teo get more likes but the lesson, and that is it really works on dh so if you can find ways that air muchmore organic to get people tio like your page in your status updates, I would say do that focus on the wall there's you know, there's all kinds of tools out there ways, you know, that the people are offering for contests and for doing all these things where you khun gate content so that somebody has to like your page before they can get the free download. You can have all kinds of tabs and fancy pages, but the fact the matter is most people that see your content on facebook never come to your page, they see it through their news feed, right? So really focus your attention on instead of unless you just have more time and money, you know, then you know what to do with? I think you get your biggest bang for buck on facebook by making sure that you're in there, posting status updates rather frequently because that's, what people are going to see, I'm going to talk about in the advertising, I think in the last session today, but facebook ads have actually performed extremely well for me in in promoting content, so my e books, my online seminars s o the and I think you know, from ah targeting standpoint eyes part of the reason I mean they they're they're targeting mechanism is is far greater, I think, than most they're actually once you build a following some of the new, uh, new things that they've built new options for a boosting your content promoting your content actually makes it ah, pretty affordable by that's current of my business, like a page on facebook. Ok, yes, when they ask about long and facebook, facebook has the commenting gedeon yeah, and it seems to me like you could get some social shares began it pops out, what do you feel it? You know, I really like is it's a great tool? So so facebook actually has a commenting plug in that you can actually bring over to your blawg, and so that all the comments that people are making are actually pushed to facebook a cz well, so it shows up penn upon their privacy settings that shows up on their profiles or on their friend's profile. So it's sort of appealing, right? Because you get some extra social sharing. It makes me a little nervous because you no longer own that that content and I mean, I have somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty five thousand comments on my block and, you know, I theoretically owned those, I mean, because they're in my database and I mean facebook. Aziz good a tool as they are I mean we're part of the product, right? You know, I mean in any time they decide that they want to keep those comments you know when you actually get that plug and they actually tell you that they own that content so it makes me a little nervous I tell you where I've used it before uh s o on my main log I do not use it I've actually used it on my, uh, build separate sites for my of books and I've seen people build separate sites safer products and I'm ok with using them there because for like, a promotion um I don't have is much interest in maybe owning those and I'd really been I'd really rather the sharing in the spreading so that's how I would use recommend using. All right, so shall we? We've got about three minutes on the clock do you guys wanna chime in and wrap this up or you want me to just talk till they turn the cameras off? I think this is a great stop insurance this is good. This is good as any way have any questions here in the studio? Cool. We do have some great questions um one will always get meals rash how regularly should we be adding to facebook and twitter and shouldn't be on a regular schedule well, again, it's all about objective, so I'll keep coming back to that my consultant, you know, fall back, answer it it's all about objectives, but, you know, there, there there certainly a correlation between how many times you post or tweet and you know, how active you're following is how much engagement, how many comments you get, how much you know page rank inside of facebook starts impacting you on dso you know, you you can't look, I don't think you can expect much if you're gonna post once today, or you're going to tweet one today or something, but I think you also there are also places what you could wear people out, you know? I mean, guy kawasaki is a great example. I mean, his whole strategy is to post is much information as this pasta is basically become a news feed for information that's out there, I can't follow him because it just, you know, it's just it's hundreds of times a day, so I don't have any use in following him, I should say is what? What it amounts to. So I think that you have to think in terms of what would be useful to your followers, but there is a correlation between, you know. Two little also I mean so you have to if you're going to stay engaged you know three, four five times a day on twitter probably is a minimum and I would say a couple times a day on facebook if you were going to create any kind of engagement but we have a question from greg de given the newish subscriber function in facebook, would you still suggest creating a facebook business page for an individual consultant slash freelancer yeah that's a great question I think if I were just so I'm assuming this is just starting I'm not sure I would do both just I would do both but I would make them separate I would you know I would have the business page for the consultant because again you know anybody khun subscribed publicly to a page on dh I think that I think that that's it's hard to know what facebook's there's there's really some benefits to both I mean there's different functionality and I think there's some benefits actually to the personal page that I get out of business on dso you know, I guess I guess the bottom line up to that answer might push towards does does he want the brand to be ever be more than him right s a reid mcpherson says if content can be shared, someone that we don't want to work with could share our content and then everyone's perception could be tainted by that association when anyone can share your content is that is there anything to do about that is everything worry about that boy you could really drive your so crazy worrying about stuff like that as far as I could be concerned I mean I think the benefits of anyone being able to share your contact certainly far outweigh any scenario I could imagine in somebody changing it somehow ok sounds good to me okay so linked in again same thing buildup that profile take advantage of that real estate put all the keywords description all the links in there you can actually one of the things that that I have found the most engagement linked in is when I joined groups and participating groups and again you have to be selective you conjoined up to fifty groups currently you have to be selective there a lot of groups that are nothing but basically you know sell a thon xcx but there are some groups that are really active with people that could be potential strategic partners that could be refers that could actually share great information that would help you build your business you know seek those groups out you know you might actually start your own group I put vintage watch collectors because that was one of my favorite groups that I found that was just some individual that that you know I was sharing information on a subject happens to sell watches, right? But the whole group is about people talking about authenticating, you know, certain kinds of watches and sharing pictures of certain kinds of watches. So it's a group that this individual that I'm guessing probably benefits because he'll ship watches anywhere but it's really just it's really more of a group that's discussing ahh hobby that he actually facilitates, and I think if you're going to start a group there, millions and millions of groups, but I think there's some really effective ways to start a group on linked in and you can maintain and on that group don't do it unless you figured out how you're going tio spend the time to do it right because you you do want to moderate and manage and participate if you're going to start a group, but it can be a great way to really get some additional exposure and get people sharing inside that the baby photographer, you know? Or somehow you know where there's got to be something in there for babies that you could start a group on. Um, for one thing I mentioned about lincoln that I believe is really true is that people go there expecting the network. So you can actually you can actually mind if there's certain companies you're tryingto break into or find, you know who reports to whom and who, what who manages who can be a great way from a corporate standpoint so crazy I'm thinking about about you actually from a corporate standpoint it confined maybe you know those ladders of people if you're trying to break into certain companies are you are you doing anything and lengthen currently in that regard? No, not not aggressively I have sales people that are mining and things like that but what one idea you did give me in terms of groups is one one kind of segment it would be executive assistance and maybe there's a group that we can create that provides insight on howto managed travel for executive assistance that's awesome yeah and again it has to it can't be about you selling something it has to be about really facilitating great discussion on dh people sharing wanting to share information with each other but I think that could have some real potential for you. Yeah so there's the current uh screenshot arlington reminder you know be shareable everything everything all your printed information you know all of your videos all of your you know use that sociable plug in, make sure that you're getting all these links and social in your email email marketing efforts here's my toolbox that I actually use on really, for most of my social media, in addition to the networks, obviously, who suite, which we already talked about, um, I actually use an iphone app called google reader are saying that's, not a typo it's r e d e r and here's, why use that? I do most of my reading, you know, while on the go, no mow billy, not my car, but following dr, but but mobley and what? So I actually I'm now using feed bin instead of google reader to subscribe, and then I will use the reader app because on I'll show you a screen shot here in a second, but it allows me to actually save so I can pull up, um, and interact with, so if I'm screening, scanning through, and I see something I want to share on twitter, I can if I want to send it to buffer, I can if I want to send it to delicious and bookmark it if I want to email it to myself or to somebody else. So it gives me all this functionality, so I'll show you that in a minute, anybody using buffer, um, really, really great tool for sharing, because my main strategy on on twitter is to share content, right? And so um I will go through my google reader that's really where I find a lot of my content, but the last thing I want to do is share all twelve things at six thirty in the morning when I'm reading my google reader right? And so what buffer does as the name implies, is it actually buffers the content out so it says I click buffer this buffer that but for that I've got twelve things that puts him in a q and a about every two hours it will actually post it to twitter for me so it's just a way to keep a stream going but only really participate you know when I've read when I wantto actually mark that content zey piers another tool that I would tell you to look into this is like the swiss army knife of integration anybody using in he's a peer familiar with it essentially, you know, a lot of the downfall in some of these tools is that they don't talk to each other, you know, like infusion soft that I use you know, one of the really complaints I have with it is doesn't integrate with a lot of things, right? So if I want somebody to sign up for say, I'm using go to meeting goto webinar and I I want him to sign up for my goto webinar event I don't want to send him to goto webinar and then have him come back and give me their information. So I get it in infusion because those two things don't talk to each other. Well, this company has just I'm not really sure how they do it mirrors and things, but they've created this very simple way to integrate just about any two tools that you want, so if you want, so in my case, if somebody comes to, they fill out my infusion soft form and automatically registers them for the goto webinar event and puts him and go toe webinar, puts him in infusion on the customer in that case, really sees nothing that happens other than they registered. Esso put that one on your radar, because if you're if there's some things that you're thinking of cash just wished these two things would work together. There's probably a recipe that can make it happen. I told you about the sociable plug in another, and this is one of those kind of playground sites to that you might want to go, teo uh, I f ttt it stands for if this than that, ok. And what it does is it allows you to write all these crazy recipes, so if you so, and it comes from programming code, so if if this one action happens, then make this other action happen is essentially what that stands for so let's say you uploaded a picture to flicker I don't know if you do that or not but you can actually have if this then that automatically upload it to your instagram account or vice versa so I mean you can do all these things that you might want to do if somebody mentions you in aa alert you can actually have it you know posted somewhere I mean there's just all these things that you do see if g mail if you get a gmail you can actually have if this then that take any attachment that comes in gmail and save it and drop box you know automatically so it just does not kind of again I could go on with hundreds of these because anybody can really write them and create them and so you know they just save them there and so it's all these automation loops and tools and so great way for you teo maybe find some ways to automate some of the things that you'd like to do in social media so that's the screenshots so that's reader so I'm on my phone on and I click a button and then just plants up this punches up this screen that just says ok what do you want to do with that content so it just really gives me tons of flexibility here is the social media action plan choose one primary objective, you know, in your network, so I kept harping on that idea of creating a strategic partner network you know, something like that it doesn't mean that you won't post your pictures or or post status updates or do some of the things you're already doing but think in terms of one primary objective for social media build, make sure that you really enhanced your profiles in what I'm calling the big four social networks if you don't have sharing buttons on everything, make sure that you're doing that choose one of the networks to go deeper in, choose one two, maybe experiment maurine and create what I'm calling your social dash board. One of the things I talked about with your key indicators on the first day is to actually get a baseline look at all of the social networks that you're participating in currently and from this day on kind of track. How many followers do you have? You know how much engagement is there on dh start looking at, you know, maybe month to month tracking are those numbers going up? You know, as you're participating, I think it's actually very helpful to really put it on a you know, in an even an excel spreadsheet and maybe even set some goals for growing your community now that you kind of have your primary objective for the community in mind I just want to read you a quick quote, a little bit light hearted. I like this photographic element says. I have to go do some work now far too used up all my c l six days. Can you tell john that to cover anything important while I'm gone every five minutes of john is worth its weight in gold are, well, that's. Awesome.