Social networking

6 reasons to use Quora to promote your expertise

1/18/2011 By Joan 14 Comments

Update on April 1, 2011: Malanie Jordan has just written a helpful post that explains more about quora. See “Quora: 7 Reasons Why It’s My New Best Marketing Friend.”

The more places online where you can convince people you’re an expert, the more attention you’ll receive and the more traffic you can pull to your website and blog.

Add Quora to the list of online Q&A sites where you can really flaunt your expertise. It’s a cross between LinkedIn’s Q&A feature and Wikipedia. As soon as I created my Quora account last week, my email inbox was inundated with messages saying people are following me on Quora. That says something about the popularity of the site.

Quora is a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited and organized by everyone who uses it. Quora wants each question page to become the best possible resource for someone who wants to know about the question.

Here are six reasons you should consider joining:

1. The site is gaining considerable traction, traffic and attention.

This morning, the question “What are some new blogs a start-up should send press releases to?” had 31 answers, many from experienced journalists and bloggers. I answered the questions, too, even though I haven’t created my profile yet. I’ll do that this afternoon. Profiles, by the way, can link to your website.

2. Unlike Wikipedia, everything on Quora is tied back to a person.

Each question and answer has a revision history associated with it, and each change in the log is associated with the person who made it. People use their real names and pictures on Quora and have a short bio describing who they are.

3. People can follow individual questions too.

That creates a waiting audience for anyone who wants to write an answer to the question.

4. It’s easy to find questions on similar topics.

When you answer a question, Quora lets you know how many other questions have been asked on similar topics.

For example, when I answered the question this morning on press releases, I learned Quora has 63 open questions for public relations, 375 open questions on social media, and several other Quora accounts I should be foll0wing. I can follow them just by clicking on the “Follow” button.

5. It will make you smarter.

What topic are you curious about? Search for it, and you’ll probably find questions that others already have asked, and plenty of helpful answers.

6. Many journalists are using this site.

They’re using it not only to look for sources, but to also answer questions.

Before you dive in, read 5 Questions to Ask Before Jumping into Quora. Quora might not be right for you, but if you want to be an expert in your field, it’s worth experimenting with it.

If you use Quora, what have you discovered about the site? Has it helped you connect with others in your target market, or with journalists? Has it made you smarter? What else should we know about this site before asking or answering questions?

Filed Under: Blogs, Business Promotion, LinkedIn, Press Releases/News Releases, Social media marketing, Social networking Tagged With: expert, press releases, promote expertise, quora, social media, wikipedia

11 ways for small business to use Yelp, respond to bad reviews

11/23/2010 By Joan 5 Comments

If you do business in your own community, start participating on Yelp, the popular social media site that helps people share the best (and worst) of businesses like dentists, hair stylists and car mechanics. If you’re a PR person whose clients are small business owners, incorporate this site into a publicity or marketing campaign.

But don’t try to persuade customers to write positive reviews about you or your client, or you could be sabotaging yourself.

Yelp allows users to contribute different kinds of content, including reviews, photos, events, private messages and more. It’s a powerful way to pull local customers into your store, build a loyal following and promote your events. Yelp is one of the Top 10 sites I designated during the webinar I hosted last month on 50+ Places Online to Promote Your Live & Virtual Events to Reach Your Target Market & Pull Sell-out Crowds.

Three times in the last week, Publicity Hounds have asked me about the best ways to solicit good reviews for their businesses.

My answer: Don’t, or you’ll be violating the Terms of Service. I’ve explained more about that in this quick guide on how to make the most of Yelp.

1. Create your profile.

This shows Yelp users who you are, where you’re located, etc. Don’t include your birthday and make it easy for thieves to steal your identity.

2. Unlock your Business Page.

This video shows how business owners can use the business tools. For example, you should add photos to your listing. If you’re a coffee shop and you use an antique coffee grinder, say so, and include a photo. Is your cafe a popular meeting spot for Meetup groups? That’s worth mentioning.

3. Add an Event

If you’re a local restaurant and you’re sponsoring a “meet the chef” event, let people know. Don’t forget to take photos of as many in-store events as possible for sharing on Yelp and other sites.

4. Add your bio.

Keep it fun. What’s your dream for your business? What’s the one thing that persuaded you to do what you’re doing? What’s the most rewarding part of the job?

5. Choose a personal URL for your Yelp profile.

People can easily get to your Yelp profile without remembering a long, complicated URL.

6. Offer special discounts.

Encourage people to check out your listing by offering special discounts, special events, or limited time offers on your page. Consider a special discount if a customer says “I saw you on Yelp.” This week, Yelp is rolling out check-in offers, similar to Foursquare.

7. Recommend other businesses.

Don’t just wait for the reviews to start rolling in for your own business. Review other businesses. (No wheeling and dealing: ”You write a good review for me and I’ll write a good one for you.” See next item.)

8. Don’t solicit good reviews.

Yelp has a filter that weeds out suspicious reviews. Besides, consumers are very wary of reviews that don’t sound authentic. There’s nothing wrong with a sign in your shop that says “See us on Yelp for special discounts and other events” or something like that. But don’t even suggest that they write a positive review. If customers have something good or bad to say, they will.

9. If you get a good or bad review, respond to it publicly.

A public response, particularly one that acknowledges problems and promises to make things better, shows that you appreciate the feedback and are committed to improving things for customers. It also gives you a chance to set the record straight if the negative review included errors.

Here’s a helpful list of 10 tips on how to respond to bad reviews.

By the way, Yelp won’t yank a bad review if you’re an advertiser. So don’t waste time asking.

10. Also respond to good and bad reviews privately.

Responding privately to the person who posted a negative review can reap big dividends. Yelp says that its users often change a negative review to a positive one after they receive a private response, especially an apology, from a business owner.

Don’t view negative reviews as always bad. These reviews flag problems that you might not otherwise know about, and they give you a chance to correct them before you lose business.

11. Publish your reviews to Facebook and Twitter.

This explains how.

What other ways do you recommend business owners use Yelp? How has it helped you gain a loyal following?

Do you respond to reviews? If not, why not? If so, have you been able to turn a negative review into a positive one?

Filed Under: Advertising, Business Promotion, Photos & Graphics, PR Consultants/Publicists, Social media marketing, Social networking, Special Events, Twitter Tagged With: bad reviews, small business marketing, yelp

Online catalog lets you search for PR, social media tools

9/13/2010 By Joan Leave a Comment

Looking for a tool to help you navigate PR, communications or social media, or do you have one you’re selling? There’s a new service that can help.

JungleBuzz lets you search its online catalog of more than 250 tools organized in 25 categories. Search results provide a description of available tools, features, functionality and access to more detailed information. JungleBuzz is free, but you must register at the site.

The paid service costs $95 a year ($65 until September 30, 2010). Search results for this service includes access to vendor pricing and reporting, comments from other members who have used the tools, and the ability to make comments and recommend tools to be added.

If you have a tool you’d like added to the directory, email Gina Milani, creator of JungleBuzz.

Filed Under: Blogs, Media Kits, Pitching the Media, Press Releases/News Releases, Social media marketing, Social networking Tagged With: pr tools, public relations tools, social media solutions, social networking products

Online visibility: 13 ways to build a following

6/7/2010 By Joan 5 Comments

This month’s guest blog post was written byJames Nissen. Last week, I shared James’ pitch and wrote about How a guest blogger pitched me and made me say ‘yes’

* * *

By James Nissen

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” — Confucius

One of the greatest things about promoting a brand online today is how low the cost really is. I have helped to market SecretintheDirt.com over the past two years, and it has grown from a single ebook to a thriving golf community. Over 8,000 golfers have now joined our community at Secret in the Dirt, despite having launched only two months ago.

Granted, we did have a strong buzz before the launch of the site, but the great part about this adventure was the fact that it cost us almost nothing to build the brand up to what it is today. Allow me to use a cliché metaphor, but one that I think applies to building your brand.

I want you imagine that before you have a “brand,” your idea is just a bunch of car parts. Everything you do to promote your idea is like adding a new part to the car. At some point, you will have built the body of the car, the engine, put on the tires, added the interior, and checked all the wiring. There is nothing left to do; the car is ready to run. You will have maintenance from time to time, but the hardest part is over.

At this point, your brand can go places it never could go before when it was just a bunch of parts waiting to be used. Your brand will never get that way if you expect it to run when you’re only halfway complete with the job. So start building the car today. Here are 13 cost-effective resources we used in building our brand online.

1. YouTube.

Our greatest asset in the beginning was a set of golf videos that Mike Maves aka “Sevam1″ put together on YouTube. A friend of his asked for some advice on golf, and he put the videos together simply to help his friend’s game improve. The videos ending up attracting over 500,000 views in a short time and people began to talk about them.

Find a way to talk about your product or service in the form of a video, and put up as many videos as you can. Other great videos sites include DailyMotion, Vimeo, Viddler and Twitvid.

2. Bloggers.

Many people have blogs, but how focused are they? How big of a following do they have? How often do they update the blog?

I’ll never forget a quote I read by Jeremy Schoemaker from the very successful site ShoeMoney.com that said he would continue to update his blog even if nobody read it. You obviously want your followers to read it, but there is a tremendous power in that kind of mentality. Other blogging services include WordPress and Tumblr.

3. Twitter.

Twitter has not brought the highest amount of traffic to our site of any source, but I still believe it should be part of the online arsenal.

Sites like Twitpic and Twitvid allow you to share pictures and videos with your Twitter followers, and it makes it easy to start conversations online with people who want to learn more about your brand. You can even hold contests for your Twitter followers and keep them up to date on important changes to your website or business.

4. Niche Forums

One of the biggest sources of buzz for the Secret in the Dirt ebook came from Golfwrx.com, a forum devoted to talking about golf-related products and topics. Mike posted in the forum constantly, answering questions about the YouTube videos and the golf swing. I have seen forums in every conceivable niche, and if you can find one or two big ones relating to your company, posting to the forum regularly will go a long way in building up your credibility.

5. Squidoo

Seth Godin hit the nail on the head when he helped to create this site. It allows anyone to create a mini-site (called a “lens”) about any conceivable topic in a very short amount of time. We used this site as an opportunity to create sites about golf and golf history, which in turn brings traffic back to our site. Another site similar to Squidoo is HubPages.

6. Facebook Fan Pages

These pages are great because they are indexed by Google, and people may find them just by doing searches about your topic. They don’t allow for as much customization as a normal web page or blog, but with over 300 million users on Facebook, you can be sure there are many people who will be interested in the products and services you offer. They offer a great way to keep in touch with your loyal followers.

7. Simple Scripts

At some point, you will have to invest in hosting for your website. If you don’t hage hosting yet, I recommend a hosting service that uses Simple Scripts.

It’s a user interface that comes installed when you by hosting from Bluehost, Hostgator, and a few others. The great thing about Simple Scripts is that with just a few clicks (literally), you can have your blog or website up and running, without having to worry about installing it yourself the hard way. It makes it a lot less scary if you are new to the web. You can also point as many domain names as you want to the same hosting plan (it’s around $100 a year).

8. EzineArticles.com

This service allows authors to submit articles on every topic imaginable, and is great for establishing credibility in your niche and getting your thoughts clear about your topic. We have seen thousands of people view our articles, and all of that traffic is free. Other great services include ArticlesBase and ArticleDashboard.

9. Flickr

If your niche involves art or pictures of some type, consider using Flickr. It’s a great service that allows you to create photo albums that you can share with others for free.

Even if your niche does not involve photography, posting photos from industry events and appearances is often great material to share with your loyal fans. Another great photo site to use is Twitpic, which links up with your twitter account.

10. Google Analytics

I can’t speak highly enough of Google Analytics. This is a free service that takes minutes to install onto your website or blog. You can see where your traffic is coming from, how much traffic you had, how effective your affiliates are, what countries your visitors are coming from, how long they stay on each page, and a lot more. Testing is critical to refining your website.

11. Cold-Emailing

I was surprised to see how many bloggers, radio talk show hosts and newspapers are hungry for good content. Don’t be afraid to contact successful people in your niche and ask if you can write a guest post for their blog.

BlogTalkRadio lets you create your own radio shows for free, and these talk show hosts always need new guests and experts to have on their show.

Last but not least, don’t forget the almighty newspaper. Contact the smaller ones in your town or neighborhood first, because they like to highlight “local stories” and things going on in that part of town. If you’re giving a free seminar or making an appearance somewhere, odds are one of the writers would love to spotlight it.

12. Karma

Aside from the fact that people enjoy getting things for free, it never hurts to have karma on your side. When we launched the Secret in the Dirt E-Book, we gave away several chapters for free as a bonus for signing up to our email newsletter.

Posting videos and blogging regularly has the same effect. Give people a chance to get to know you on a personal level, and make it a habit to answer questions emailed to you about your topic. Give them some real value. If what you say gets them hooked, they will be back for more.

13. Elance.com

When we ever ran into a problem that we could not solve ourselves, we used Elance. They have professionals who can help you out with logo design, banner ad design, web programming, blog layouts, troubleshooting, writing, video editing, and a lot more. The turnaround time is pretty quick, and since professionals bid for jobs, you are sure to get the best price.

Even though you now have the right tools, when you make a habit of using them day in and day out, you will start to see success. It will feel like a slow climb at first, but that’s part of the journey, right?

Take what applies to your business and throw the rest out. Focus on one tool at a time, and build upon that. Get creative, think outside of the box, take action, and add parts to your car. It will be up and running before you know it.

James Nissen, head of marketing for SecretintheDirt.com, loves golf, espresso, and the outdoors. He also may be found reading the occasional book or playing guitar. He is a graduate of the University of Redlands with a degree in accounting.