So, you’re a small agency or freelancer. How do you market your WordPress freelance or small agency? My recommendation is content marketing through creation and distribution.
What is Marketing?
Marketing is using resources to bring your product or service to the attention of your customer (the market). So you have to dedicate resources (time, personnel, and budget) to tell people about your business. What are the best ways to do that? Here are some of my ideas.
Anyone who follows me knows how much I believe in Twitter as a B2B relationship marketing platform. An article by Neil Patel “12 Powerful Twitter Marketing Tips [That Actually Work]” came across my way via Robert Nissenbaum. Instead of commenting on his blog, it was suggested that I write my own post. So, here it is.
Set Up Twitter Right – The First Time
“Your Twitter handle has to be recognizable, easy-to-remember, and short enough for people to easily tag you.” Neil Patel
I totally agree. And make your bio something that makes sense. If your grandma doesn’t know what your Twitter bio means, then rewrite it. Think of a city sign or slogan that makes sense.
Well, if you didn’t do it right the first time, there’s no reason why you can’t fix it now. Think generic keywords. A bio is how you are found.
“Incorporate some personality or humor. Don’t be afraid to tell a few jokes or say something original.” Neil Patel
Neil recommends using humor but if it’s too inside baseball, people won’t engage. Show personality, but be careful that you’re speaking to your audience.
So, Neil recommends tweeting during peak hours. Yet, that is a lot of volume to compete with. That said, people usually check Twitter during the times they take breaks. Think about before work (7:30 a.m.), during lunch (noon), and when they’re sick of sitting at their desk (4:30 p.m.). Read more Yep. Twitter Works if You Work It.
How do you grow your network? That’s easy: specialize and refer. We all live off of word of mouth, if it’s not your specialty, refer. Right?
I was thinking of writing about this and then saw Rebecca Gill’s tweet. So this post came alive.
Dear website developers, implementors, + SEO consultants: Did you know you don't have to be a superhero at all things? Do what you love + what you're good at, then refer out the rest. You'll be happier, clients will respect you, + you'll have greater success.
I think it's time again, to talk about the "good-fast-cheap triangle." You only get two. And really, I don't even think cheap + good is a thing. You can't have that. Maybe "passable" + cheap… pic.twitter.com/uq1fVQr90L
Thinking we can do everything is not only delusional, but distracts us from the things that really make us money. We’re in business for a reason, right?
If you’re a roofer, be a roofer. Go horizontal if you want, and do HVAC, but don’t start installing windows.
If you build websites, build sites. Go horizontal and make apps, but don’t start making videos.
Do what you know. Do what you can do well, efficiently, and make a profit.
How do you refer?
Knowing that we should refer and knowing how to refer are two different things. If you refer the right way, you’re still providing a valuable service to the client. It’s not losing business, it’s about being that go-to person, the expert, and the well-connected person.
If someone asks me if I do Facebook Advertising, I say,
“Sorry, John, I don’t do Facebook Ads, but my friend Jason at Thought House does.”
You can either give your client their contact information or write an email to them both. “John meet Jason. Jason meet John. John wants Facebook ads, I told him, you’re the best.”
This way, you’re making an introduction, and keeping your brand top of mind to all parties involved.
How do referrals grow my network?
Referrals work on the human emotions of trust and reciprocity. Firstly, by referring, I am extending my brand to another. I am saying, I trust this person, you can, too. So be careful about referring to people you don’t trust.
Secondly, if you send enough business someone’s way, they will also begin to refer you. That’s reciprocity. Heck, if you are just a nice person, your network will send people your way. I cannot even tell you how many dozens of people have sent others my way in the last four months.
Sometimes, they come in the form of public tweets. I have amazing and generous friends.
I have been a marketer for nearly forty years and a social-media dilettante for ten.
Bridget regularly drops insight bombs that amaze me with their insight and direct relevance to the marketing challenges we all face. https://t.co/AwumLJvnDB
I absolutely refer. Firstly, I don’t build websites, I refer people to agencies. And I’ve even agreed to a partnership with Roy Sivan of ARC(CTRL).
I also don’t do Pinterest. I refer them to my very good friend Carol Stephen of Your Social Media Works. I don’t blog. I mean, I can, but I’d be way too expensive. So I refer clients to my friend Jen Miller of Need Someone To Blog. She has a system. She’s efficient. Guess what? She doesn’t do social. She sends me leads.
Do you see how it works?
Be serious about your brand and your focus. Kill the things that consume too much time. Specialize and refer the rest. You’ll never regret it.
Twitter is the best platform for B2B marketing. It serves several marketing purposes including brand awareness, public relations, listening, content curation, and relationship building.
Watch the Video Here
Brand Awareness
Brand awareness is high-level, less-tangible, and difficult to measure. It’s almost a word-association game. I say “tissue;” you say “Kleenex.” I say “photocopy;” you say “Xerox.” You want your brand to be able to be associated with your purpose. Recognition of the logo on Twitter because of your presence is a great way for a small business to compete with the bigger operations. The big guys rarely invest in social media.
Public Relations
You have news. People want to know it. Share Promotions, sales, new ventures, employees that join in, partnerships, case studies, etc. Write on your WordPress blog everything relevant to your audience and publish it on Twitter. Every brand has the ability to publish and gain influence and audience.
Listening
Listening is the most powerful thing you can do with Twitter. It’s so important to understand who you audience is and what they want, need, and how they think. This allows you to become a better communicator — meaning, you’re communicating in a way that resonates with them.
Once you’ve built your lists you now have the tool in place to curate content. People often ask me what tools I use to curate content. I tell them that I’m a People Curator — a People Broker, I say. I curate content by curating people. It really is that simple.
Relationship Building
All business happens because of referrals and word of mouth. Think of the last time you had a new client. How did you acquire them? Think of the last time you found a new service. Did you search for them online? Google? Yelp? Almost no one does business with a total stranger. Use Twitter to build relationships. You won’t regret it.
You blog. But do you know your audience? Do you use Twitter analytics? Do you know how long should your content be? What should the grade level be? Is your well-crafted persona even correct? Let’s look at Twitter’s Analytics to see what kind of information is there.
Influencers need an audience. Businesses need an audience. The truth is that we all have audiences. We all influence someone. With the age of social media, we’re all publishers now. But who is that audience — exactly?
Do you find your audience and write for them or write and then find your audience? Which came first: the chicken or the egg?
It doesn’t matter. You have the audience now. It is important to keep their attention.
Let’s Spitball Here
Let’s presume you know your audience. You’ve been using Twitter or a year or more. You have a blog. You’re publishing content.
Can you use Twitter’s analytics to help shape your content? Yes. And you should.
If you see that your audience is only 33% college educated, that should shape the types of words you use. Perhaps your content should be short form and not long. Check the readability score on Yoast’s SEO plugin or on HemingwayApp.com.
Test. Experiment. Try. Test again. Try.
I test the way I cook — it’s an experiment. It’s not formal. If someone likes it, I continue. If I hate it, I fix it. You can A/B test without heavily relying upon data.
I know what you’re thinking — that a post about analytics should be data centric. But what is data? Without context it means nothing. You can waste hours in Google Analytics or Twitter Analytics studying the wrong thing.
For example, 57% of my audience is interested in “fresh & healthy” lifestyle. That means I could experiment with writing about how I started using the Asana Rebel Yoga App and posting some of my Yoga photos from Instagram.
Traffic. Comments. (For example, after I started using Postmatic for email delivery and commenting, I’ve gotten a lot more comments. The comments encourage me to write more.) Comments also help give me ideas on what to write about.
You also might see those posts performing well in the Top Tweets of your Twitter Analytics.
How often should I look at Twitter’s Analytics?
I need gimmicks. So first, you need self-awareness. Then you need routine. I have Maintenance Mondays at my house. So I look at Twitter’s Analytics every Monday. For clients, I record data monthly in a Google Sheet. For myself, I go on intuition.
Start. What are you waiting for. You might be surprised.
Branding has an allusive attraction — like a magic word a SEO professional will use that you know is important but don’t fully understand.
Not having a MBA in Marketing myself, I had often pondered this question as well.
What is branding?
Branding is listening to a thirty-year old Michael Jackson song on the radio and recognizing the Eddie Van Halen guitar solo.
Branding is making a decision between using a restroom at a gas station or the restroom at a Starbucks.
Branding is being reminded of your beloved uncle when you smell pipe tobacco with a hint of cherry.
Is Branding A Logo?
Yes and no.
In many ways, branding is the connection of your sensual experiences. When I see a Diet Coke can, I become thirsty. Why? I remember the feel of a cold can in my hands, the sound the can makes when it pops open, the tickle down my throat, and the taste afterward. All of those memories are tied into the Diet Coke logo.
Human history is full of seals, rings, flags, coats of arms, and crests used to distinguish families, tribes, and nations. The human condition is curious; as much as we long for group acceptance, we still desire to be distinct and recognized.
Although the etymology of branding is varied, we can all imagine a rancher using a hot iron to brand his livestock. Each ranch had a distinct logo that made a permanent impression. Though originally intended to distinguish ownership, the logo reflected on the rancher, whether good or bad.
Branding is the practice of creating the look and feel of your brand. Brand marketing is the practice of establishing your image, voice, and persona which identifies and differentiates you from your competitors. #tsomediapic.twitter.com/x52n76rkK1
Your behavior as a company will be associated with your logo. In this regard, the branding is the logo and the logo is the brand.
In my presentation, “You Are What You Tweet,” I gave the example that the Caltrop logo had no meaning to me until I met one of their employees, Mark DeSio.
In our day, branding makes a permanent impression, too. These impressions are based upon a person’s experience interacting with your company (brand) and there’s only so much of it you can control. With the introduction of social media, individual impressions gain a much greater audience.
“Every employee is your brand ambassador, your marketer, and the face of your company.” Scott Stratten: The Book of Business Awesome
Case in point. Twenty years ago I went to a pancake restaurant and there were cockroaches crawling on the table. Regardless of how many coupons they offer, how many all-you-can-eat pancake events they hold, I will never go to any of their restaurants again. That one experience made a lasting impression. Their advertising (branding) is no longer effective with me. My experience at their store made a permanent impression (branding).
Big brands, like Diet Coke, are often used as an example because we all recognize them, making the lesson relatable to a diverse audience.
How is online behavior branding?
The question always is: how will that translate for me and my business on social media?
It’s simple. Behave online the way you would want to be perceived. If you want people to think that you’re professional, behave professionally. If you want people to believe you do quality work, produce quality content.
You Have Valuable Advice, Bridget!
$85 of $500 raised
Have you been helped by the content on this site? Lattes are my favorite luxury. 😉
Thank you for being part of my community.
*Adapted from an article I wrote while working at Riggins Construction and published here.
Getting leads from social media activity is always the barrier — mentally — for people to accept social media marketing as a legitimate part of their marketing tool belt.
Twitter, my favorite of the social media networks, allows you to do so much of your marketing ask: brand awareness, customer engagement, customer service, promotion, discovery and validation, and, of course, sales.
And with sales, I say this. Stop expecting first-click leads.
I say never, but it’s probably an exaggeration. Asking social media to solve your lead-generation problem is short sighted at best.
First of all, it will fail — miserably. Secondly, your focus on leads will cause you to consciously or even subconsciously make decisions out of fear and desperation. Those are almost never good decisions.
Pardon a crude example but to put it bluntly, getting leads without effort is like hiring a prostitute for sex. You may solve your immediate needs but you’ve built no relationship, have poor client expectations, and will only have favors for money. That’s not a realistic view of social media marketing or a good way to build a reputation.
If someone asks me about ROI one more time, why I’ll …
No seriously. When people ask about return from investment (ROI), I think they don’t get it. Because they don’t.
I was recently interviewed by Scott Buscemi of Lumen Foundry about relationship marketing on social media, so you can listen to that twenty minute interview on his blog. I go into depth on social behaviors in the Keys to Being Social series, as well.
But I’ll break down relationship marketing into three main areas: affinity, discovery, and validation. These principles can be applied to nearly any social network, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll talk about Twitter.
Who doesn’t want to be liked? Where do you ever shop, voluntarily, where you’re not treated well?
Affinity is so important, Yelp’s entire business model relies upon it. Good experiences create good reviews. Conversely, bad experiences, horrible reviews.
In the movie, Pretty Woman, the main character isn’t treated well in Beverly Hills. Confessing to the manager, who isn’t delighted with her either, she says that people were mean to her.
Discovery is the process by which someone finds you. Easy enough concept. With Twitter, especially, people search for what they’re, well, looking for. They search trends, hashtags, and keywords.
By using relevant, keyword-like hashtags, you can be found by current and potential customers.
Use hashtags like you would search in the yellow pages to be more successful on Twitter. I suggest geolocation (like #OrangeCounty) and categories like #automotive or #plumber. This allows people to find you — we call that discovery.
Customer Validation
Validation is the process by which people check you out after discovering you. This may be an introduction at a Meetup or after they hear you present at a Chamber of Commerce.
People will search for your name and see what comes up. Have you done a search? What are the results?
When a customer discovers you, you are on the path to getting leads from social media. This is part of their journey. The journey to a lead begins with a thousand Google searches. Well, maybe five. You get the point.
How do you optimize the validation process?
You can optimize the validation process by publishing good content that matters to you and your audience.
I shouldn’t post about real estate. Why? Because I’m not a real estate professional or a mortgage broker and I don’t do social media for that industry. Real Estate isn’t bad; it’s not relevant to me.
What is relevant is social media strategy, tips, and WordPress community posts.
Where are these things published? I publish on my blog, I post on Facebook, I tweet, I write posts on Medium.com, I am a guest author for friends, I appear on podcasts and shows, I participate in my industry.
The validation process is the final process of getting leads from social. They like you. They’ve found you. They’ve searched for you and believe you are credible and trustworthy.
Where did the lead really come from?
Now they pickup the phone and call you.
How did you record that lead? Was it from your phone number, the website, or a tweet where you congratulated a peer? Did you ask?
Affinity, discovery, and validation are all important steps in getting leads from social; and first-click is never really the first click.
Communication is a science. I’m frankly tired of seeing it categorized as a soft skill as though it’s less important. Of course communication includes data. The trick with communication professionals is that we read and respond to data live.
Business people (marketing, sales, finance) are not inferior to software developers, engineers, and/or front-end designers. Every specialty has its training and technical side. Let’s respect expertise for what it is — expertise.
Thanks for commenting, Bridget. I did not create the Venn diagram, nor do I endorse it or its labels. It is used as a counterexample for classifying data science in an over-exclusive way.
Firstly, the fact that one didn’t create an image doesn’t remove one’s responsibility for it. What if it were hate speech? Why is it acceptable in the tech community to demean soft skills?
To be fair, this diagram and discussion brought something to the surface that I’ve been encountering since I began marketing as a career.
Data Requires Context
Sure. Pour over the data you have in Google Analytics. Make charts. Create ratios. Create forecasting models. That’s needed. I’m not against data.
But data alone isn’t the whole picture. Recently, a client noticed a drop in leads from Yelp. Is it because Yelp isn’t effective? That was the conclusion all too easy to jump to. Yet, what has changed? Quite a lot, actually. We began advertising on Facebook, we launched a new website with regular blog posts, and we started an Instagram account. Yelp isn’t less effective, it’s simply no longer the only star in the sky of data.
Context, a story, matters when interpreting data. That comes with soft skills. Anyone can collect data. But can you ask the right questions to interpret the data?
Brené Brown is now famous for saying, “Maybe stories are just data with a soul” in her TED talk. Stories give context to data. This is what makes data powerful. Otherwise any data can be manipulated for any purpose.
“Figures often beguile me particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: ‘There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'” Mark Twain
Are soft skills scientific?
They are. This is why behaviorism is a part of psychology. There are plenty of studies that look at inflection, tone, word choice, gestures, facial ticks, and body language. All of this is data. It’s being streamed through our senses and interpreted in real time by our brains.
Soft skills are scientific. We call them soft because it’s hard for us to define.
Those with business, marketing, sales, and communication skills read a different kind of data: it’s human data. It’s behavior and behavior patterns. We analyze body language, inflection, and tone. We decipher patterns and predict behavior in real time in order to adjust the conversation for affinity.
Whether online or in person affinity is key. Affinity leads to loyalty. Loyalty leads to sales. Of course, data is important, but it’s good to be reminded that data is a look at the past, not in the moment. Collected data is the autopsy. Soft skills are the preventive medicine.
“I’ve concluded that that data has the most impact when it’s wrapped in a story. …Data won’t get you standing ovation; stories will. Stories inform, illuminate, and inspire. Tell more of them.” Carmine Gallo, Harvard Business Review
Social Media Managers are awesome. They’s so awesome, in fact, that they get amazing and quite unreasonable requests. Well, some of the requests are more demeaning than goal setting, but let’s talk about it.
Recently, my friend Carol Stephen wrote a post called “What Can a Social Media Manager Do For You?” In that post she includes items such as research, deciding when to post, and choosing hashtags.
I thought it would be fun to do the opposite.
I love it! Please write it (and tag me so I can retweet it!). Also, they won't wash your car, write fake Yelp reviews, or do 200% more than they were asked to do.
Here are some things your social media manager should not or can not do:
Care about your business more than you do.
Be a videographer or video editor.
Be a professional photographer or editor.
Be an expert in InDesign, PhotoShop, et al.
Design logos or creative.
Replace a web development agency.
Be a technical SEO expert.
Be an expert in paid advertising.
Write content for your blog.
An API Ninja.
Many social media managers also have some of those skills. Be aware, however, that they are legitimate skillsets in and of themselves.
Outsource and Free Up Your Time
Have you thought about outsourcing social media? It’s a great way to grow your business and free some of your own time. Having realistic expectations helps you value what a social media manager actually does.
A good social media manager will represent your brand online and off. She will post content that has been created by your editorial staff (content creation is another job). She will post photos taken by your team (or professionals you hire) and write captions and add hashtags. Your social media manager will interact with your audience (known as engagement) with your best interest in mind.
A Marketing Manager ($85k+/year) will most likely be responsible for items 2 – 10 and outsource many of the tasks to vendors. A social media manager ($60K+) bills for the work, not the time, is easy to get a hold of, and has a good account of her own. A Marketing Manager will likely hire a social media manager to work under her.
What kinds of questions can I help you answer or problems I can solve. Let’s roll up our sleeves and do the work.
I caught this article on outbound links and SEO in my Facebook feed. It instantly hit a nerve.
Can we just stop writing for SEO?
We have been so brainwashed about content – when we need to post, how often we should post, how we need to create it to show in searches that we have forgotten WHY we need to publish content.
Honest answer, please?
Why do you publish content on your blog? On Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, whatever your flavor of social media is today?
Too often the first answer is something to the effect of the “I need to be on the first page of Google” reason. The second is usually about showing up in feeds. Both are essentially the same reason – to be seen. The problem with this approach? The point of your content is to provide answers, information, something of value to the reader, not to get you noticed.
If you want to be seen, go expose yourself!
Back in the day that meant cold calling, networking meetings, and after-hours business events. Today it means the same, only doing it via social platforms.
Get involved in groups, interact with the content of others. Make yourself visible. Give others a reason to WANT to read your content. Write it to provide value, show authority, to connect. This way when they do seek out your content, they’ll read it, engage with it, and potentially share it. This game of creating and publishing content and focusing on getting it to show up is ineffective (Facebook’s whole reach thing).
As a salesperson with more than 30 years experience, I can tell you the best sales are when the customer buys, not when they are sold. From a content perspective, if you continue to try to shove content down your audience’s throats, they likely won’t read it, let alone convert. Drive them to WANT to read it and they will! They are also more likely to share it and to consume more of your content.
To be clear, I am not saying a piece of content showing at the top of page 1 in a Google search or a social feed will not convert. I’m pointing out that it’s not why we should be creating content or optimizing for as a priority.
All of my content is designed to provide value. Probably 90% of the content I publish has ‘SEO’ as an afterthought, if at all.
I write to provide value.
I write with the goal of keeping content moving and easy to read.
WHEN I get you to my content, you will read it.
Everything else is secondary. I know you chose to read my content and I know I provided value, you are more likely to comment on it, share it, link back to it or otherwise send signals, direct and indirect, to Google, that it should be ranked.
Search ranking is the indirect result of good content and social networking.
Write to answer questions, inform, educate, provide value. Network to drive views. The rest takes care of itself if you do these effectively. (FYI – this is the method I use for myself and clients to drive 20%+ reach and engagement levels on Facebook.)
Yes, you can optimize for SEO to your heart’s content and will likely show in SERPs. At that point, I need to ask, for all of your work, what is your CTR? Do people actually ‘click’ when you show in a search? Do you even know?
The same applies to social feeds. If you optimize for ‘reach’, is your content seeing engagement? Is it generating web traffic? Converting? Likely no…because the reader didn’t choose to see it, it was shown to them (simple human behavior – and yes, I know, there are ways to show it to them and get them to convert.
So about what started this little rant – outbound links and if they are good for SEO.
Here’s the thing. Many of the bits which are recommended for SEO optimization – all come down to good writing and presentation.
Heading tags and small paragraphs – all about making it readable.
Internal links – all about providing the reader with more related content.
External links – all about citing sources, supporting claims, providing related content.
Remember those term papers we needed to write in high school and college? The elements above? They were required. Why? The reasons I listed. The teacher/professor needed to be able to read (and want to keep reading) what you wrote. They needed to know you understood the concept (authority). Outbound links provide you credibility. That credibility makes someone more inclined to share and link back.
Stop thinking in terms of SEO and start thinking in terms of your audience.
What does my audience want to read?
How will I keep them reading until the end?
What will provide them the information they need?
How will I show my authority and understanding of the concept?]
Then go network. MAKE people want to learn more about you or your brand. Make them WANT to learn more and seek out your content.
SERPs and social feed ‘reach’ for your content is an indirect result of writing for your audience, which is a direct result of you creating its initial visibility through social interaction.
