Using HARO for Blogging

I've written before about how Help A Reporter Out can get you press and exposure. It's a free service where people nationwide can submit a query when they are writing a story, article for a magazine, or a book. There are writers in every industry looking for products, services, experts, and so on, and you can respond to these queries instantly, often being quoted or linked to from their story! There's a short blog post on that, if you want a little more information click here.

But the other reason you may want to use HARO is to create your own awesome and original blog posts. Sometimes it is hard to find the time to write really great content when you're so busy operating a business. When other experts send you their advice, opinions, and outlooks on topics, the blog post will practically write itself. Once I wrote a story on Julia Child and how she inspired people and taught them to cook. I had so many amazing people write in their experiences, and it made for a great original piece, and the content just came right to my inbox.

Think about your target audience, what they'd want to read, and maybe try reaching out through HARO to create a series of posts that are content rich and completely unique to your blog.

Personal Friday Night Post

This post is quite personal, and I suppose may not fit in on my work blog. However the only reason I was prompted to write about it, was when I had an 'aha' moment about social media and celebrities.

I had a dream last night about someone semi famous, who I don't normally ever think about. In the dream there was a connection. . . call it friendship, call it love, it was a dream and that was all it was. He is a stranger, but he wasn't in my dream.

I woke up, told my husband about it, and it quickly seemed to fade as my day went on. However when I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep again tonight, the dream started to replay.

Text to LIKE a Facebook Page

I was scrolling through my blog and found this little gem... The topic of this post had already slipped my mind and I thought I'd recycle it here in case anyone else needed the refresher as I did!
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News flash to me. You can text to "Like" a Facebook page. I've been giving my clients the code for customers to sign up for email marketing via text, but I've found out you can do this for Facebook too, and this is old news.

It just goes to show how much there is always to learn about social media marketing. . . it never ends people.

To do this, just text the word like and then the business page username to the number 32665 and you will become a subscriber to their page.

  
For example:
Like tracypetrucci to "32665"

This only works if the page has at least 25 fans and a user name. Plus, it will only work if your mobile phone is connected to Facebook from THIS page.  

Remember, you can have the Facebook App on your phone and get notifications, but it's still different than having the account connected to your mobile via the settings page from a computer, so check that out if anyone has problems. 

This is a great tool for marketing on the go. If you meet someone at an event, during a networking mixer, or anywhere out and about, if they are interested in your business it's an easy to get them connected.

Free Half Hour Consultation

I'm offering a free half hour consultation to the winner of a random giveaway.

If you win, you will be able to meet with me in person if local, or just talk on the phone and go over the topic of your choice related to social media & online marketing. What tools would be best for you, which tools might be a waste of resources for your particular business, and how is your over all online presence looking right now?

To be entered, all you have to do is follow my Facebook page by clicking LIKE here.

Additional entries will be added if you:

Follow me on Twitter here- @tracypetrucci
RT about the giveaway
Share the giveaway on Facebook

Good Luck!

Facebook Insights: Demographics

Looking at your demographics can provide valuable insight to your marketing strategy. Facebook will share basic information with you, such as location, sex, and age. Looking at the demographics of those who LIKE your page VS those you REACH is the key to seeing if you are reaching your goals, especially if you're using Facebook Advertising and you want to see if you are reaching whom you set out to. I have a video where I explain this more in depth, so stay tuned and I will post it soon.

As you can see in the photo below, a page may have certain groups of people who like it, but may be reaching a different set of people. Outside of advertising, this is important in general. If you start a marketing campaign targeting your local customers instead of your national ones, or men instead of women at Valentine’s Day, looking at who you are reaching will tell you if you’re succeeding in reaching the targets of the campaign. Outside of that, it also tells you general information about who tends to be most engaged in your business. This will be good information to know if you have trouble nailing down your perfect customer, since those who interact most with your posts are most likely to be in this category.

What differences do you see in Page Likes VS Page Reach?

The Perfect Social Media Advice

I swear, I am so ahead of my time.

One of the leading social media and online marketing agencies HubSpot just came out with an article, "30 Terrible Pieces of Social Media Advice You Should Ignore" and I love it. Seriously. It sounds exactly like what I tell my students and clients, and I urge you all to read it here.

As I have time over the next few months, I will break this article down and expand upon some of my favorite things it summarizes.

I just can't believe these concepts are just now making it into the limelight! Read it, enjoy it, and let's talk about it.

Small Biz Tip: Move the "likes" on your Facebook Page

The top row of apps on your Facebook page is prime real estate.  You are only allowed four to show there, so I always advise customizing those to get the most of our them.

While I'll save some of my favorite apps for another post, I'll leave the easiest one for this round.

Move your LIKES off of there. They are already on the page right next to your profile picture.

Who cares how many likes you have? If you have only a few, maybe it will make you feel better to have them a little more discrete. If you have a lot, get over your ego!

There are plenty more important things to feature on that row that a number.

Note the likes are still listed under the business name. But now we can feature photos, Pinterest, a sign up for email, and events. 

To move apps around on the top row of your timeline, click the arrow to the right of your apps to show more, then hover over the corner of the app you want to move up to the top row. An edit box will open and you can simply select  "swap positions with" and you are good to go!

New Classes

I will be teaching four courses this winter for small business owners and entrepreneurs.

Tuesday Nights 1-15 through 2-26 6:00-8:30p at San Dieguito Adult School
Saturday Mornings 1-26 through 3-2 at San Dieguito Adult School
Details can be found here.
Wednesday Nights 1-23 through 3-6 at Poway Adult School
More info can be found here.
ONLINE at Mira Costa Community College starting 1-17
More info found at http://www.miracosta.edu/

To read more about these classes you can visit my UPCOMING CLASSES page here.

Vacation from Blogging

December is a busy month for everyone. I'm taking a break from blogging this month!

Plus, I started a little crochet page on Etsy and have been having fun making and selling stuff to my friends on Facebook for the holidays. http://www.facebook.com/OllieGcrochet

See you in the new year! (I may have a post or two regarding upcoming classes before then.)

Toddler Circle Scarf

Small Biz Tip: Space Happy Facebook Posts

A very sweet student of mine allowed me to share this post with you. She has a brand new business and is starting to use Facebook for marketing. Just a quick tip: Don't press RETURN/ENTER too many times on your posts or valuable information will be lost "below the fold" of the post.

Facebook will cut you off and say "See More" so you'll want to make sure the most important information is viewable above that clip off. For example, Basic NV likes to show a large photo of a product and then put the link to by it in the body of status. However the link is hidden in this post, so less people are likely to click on it, and places them that much farther away from buying it.

Just be aware of how much text is in each post, and how you space it out.

Small Business Saturday at Urban Solace

Well my Shop Small adventure is coming to a close. We decided to go to Urban Solace today. I've always liked chef Matt Gordon's philosophies and menu, but with a small child and a business to run, it's near impossible to go anywhere these days.

If you've ever been there, you might have had the same problem we did. . . we couldn't decide what to order! Two beers and an amazing appetizer later, we filled up on our entrees and barely made it out of there alive (with a grumpy tired toddler that is).

The kids were nicely corralled in this corner booth however, so us adults had a little bit of time to relax. For a second. 

The sweetest part was the little gift you received for recognizing Small Business Saturday. We got this amazing roasted tomato jam and a bag of cheddar biscuit mix. Thanks a lot Urban Solace, I am so glad I finally got to eat you!

Flavored Coffee

Oh, how could I have resisted the bright, cheerful holiday marketing of Dunkin' Donuts? There was Gingerbread coffee and Mocha Mint. And it looked so yummy, regardless my dislike for flavored coffee. In fact, last month they almost got me with the pumpkin spice. I mean, doesn't that look good? "Pumpkin Spice" . . . it's like I will brew it and magically have a creamy delicious 4 dollar latte in my own kitchen.

This time when the Christmas flavors came out, I caved in. And. . . well, it's just awful. It tastes like every other flavored coffee I've ever had, there's nothing special or magical about this one! It's going to have to be donated to a friend who likes this sort of thing. Any takers? The marketer was duped by the the marketing once again!

Secret Boards on Pinterest

Yahoo! Secret boards on Pinterest. I think that says it all.

Now if they'd let you do more than three I think many people would be even happier.

Small Biz Tip: HARO Help a Reporter Out

HARO (Help a Reporter Out) is a great resource for that little extra bit of PR support. It's a free service where people nationwide can submit a query when they are writing a story, blog post, or book. There are writers in every industry looking for products, services, experts, and so on, and you can respond to these queries instantly!

Check it out here and sign up if you want to give it a try. HARO sends three emails a day Monday through Friday, so it can definitely clog up your inbox if you don't have time to scan them regularly. Use your email's filtering and labeling system to file them into their own folder so they don't overwhelm you, and when you have time, scan through a few of them and look for some PR for your business!

If you want help, shoot me an email and let me know what you need. Good luck!

Small Biz Tip: Use Bitly To Track Clicks

Bitly has made it even easier to see and track your link clicks. So why would you want to go through the extra steps to shorten a link, especially if you already have analytics set up on your sites?

Many times, the link you are posting might be to someone else's website. It could be a link to a payment page on Paypal. It could be linking to your friend's new blog.

You'll want to be able to see if any of your followers clicked on this link so you know if the content was interesting to them or not. This helps you determine what you should be posting more or less of. In the case where it might be sending them to a payment page, you'll want to see if people clicked through and stopped short of buying. These are just a few examples of why it's nice to have more control over the analytics of your content links.

Also it's nice to have a small shortened link instead of a really long cumbersome one. That reason alone sometimes warrants the few extra seconds it takes to shorten a link.

Go check out bitly.com and start playing around!