It doesn't have to be 1st January ...

It's that time of year when people plan ahead and take the first steps that will change their lives for the better.  However, whilst a few will achieve their goals, many will get to the end of January and find that they have 'fallen off the wagon'.  Never mind - there's next year.

There are two things wrong with this:

1.  They haven't found the key to long term change - even though it was right there in front of them.

2.  Failure has provided them with an excuse to procrastinate for another 11 months!

A zillion diets fail because people give in to human desires - and then are abandoned because of one little slip.  Any goal that you are working towards is likely to have one or two setbacks, but why is that a good reason to give up?  All it offers is an opportunity to rectify the situation and come back stronger and more successful.

Why do so many of us use a small error as a reason to stop trying to achieve?

The key to long change is something really mundane - habit.  To succeed in anything you need to develop the habits that help you to succeed.

A habit is simply something you do automatically without thinking about it and it takes a while to develop a habit.  You have to concentrate on it daily for three or four weeks, taking conscious action until you start doing it automatically.

You clean your teeth automatically, you drive the car automatically, you even put the kettle on automatically (if you're a keen tea or coffee drinker).  These habits are formed by constant repetition - and your new actions need the same kind of repetition to form helpful habits.  This means that you won't need to look into the future of trying to remember to do new things forever, just take it a week at a time.

If you use a diary regularly put it into your diary with a reminder daily to give your memory a nudge.  If you have a mobile phone with an alarm, set a reminder alarm daily.  Build the new habits into your daily routine and before long you'll find they are just 'how you do things'.

Remember, it doesn't have to be the first of January to set a goal - you can do this any time of the year, on any day of the week (doesn't have to be a Monday), or at any time of day.

The key to success is to see it as a journey to a destination.  There will be the occasional wrong turns, slipping back when you feel like you should be going forward, but as long as you keep going you will get there.  Set the new habits in place and the journey will get easier and easier.

Promoting your products and services on social media

Nobody likes being sold at, it's that fastest way to turn people off on social media.  It doesn't mean that you can't promote your products or services, but you do need to be smart about how you do this.

If the only messages you post are sales pitches, it's hardly surprising if people stop following you and lose interest in you.  Social media is SOCIAL and people expect you to chat and be human.  That doesn't mean that you can't promote what you do, it's all in the way you do it.

Let's say you've got a fantastic new book out that helps people with their online marketing; what would you post on Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, Google+, Pinterest?

It's not going to be 'Get your guide to online marketing now (with the link to your sales page)', but any of these might work:

• Twitter and Facebook:  'I'm really excited that my ebook is now ready to go. I've put a smart purple cover on it; tell me what you think' (link to your sales page where there is a picture of the smart purple cover, of course).
• Linked In:  If you've taken the time to get involved in groups where your target audience 'hang out', then you could ask them if they would review a couple of chapters.
• Google+:  Pick an appropriate circle and ask them to choose a chapter to review.
• Pinterest:  Upload the picture of the cover from your sales page and write a few words about why you chose purple for the cover - this gives you an automatic link to that page.

You can also use 'teaser' posts like these:

'Did you know that you can upload 100 tweets in seconds? Find out how on page 35' (link to sales page)
'Discover how to write killer headlines for your blogs and much more on page 72' (link to sales page)
'Does your email marketing get a good response? For the secrets of compelling email read page 43' (link to sales page).

You get the idea!  This works for products too - just use the benefits to tempt people.

Online marketing one step at a time

I've been involved with an innovative approach to online marketing - a 30 minute session once a week.  There is so much to get your head around online from nearly 200 social media platforms to blogging on your own site and guesting on other people's blogs, then there's article marketing, press releases, not to mention the abundance of tools 'to make it easier'.

It's no surprise that many people go on social media training and then never put it into practice, there's so much information they are simply overwhelmed.  In fact, it's not just social media training, ANY training programme won't work unless you make the effort to put it into action.  How many great training sessions have you attended and still have the course notes somewhere, for when you 'have time'?

The nice thing about this bite-sized approach is that each week there's only 30 minutes information to digest and then there's a week to put it into practice.  It's not for super-duper online marketers, but for people who are just getting started and want to make it work.

Let's be honest, there's never enough hours in the day.  Either you're working in your day job and promoting your own stuff in your off-duty time or you're trying to run a business and there's so much to do that sitting for hours doing online marketing just isn't possible.

If you know anyone who sounds like this might help them, then send them to take a look at the step-by-step programme.  The weblink is here.

Keep your communication lines open

Social media can be deceptive.  Do you find yourself chatting for hours or do you stick to using it for business purposes only?

I work with business people helping them to get their online marketing right and there is a strong tendency to put their social media into boxes.  Business people think that they should be business only on Linked In and social animals on Facebook - they don't always realise that both platforms (and many others) have the potential for business and social interaction.

In today's world social connections are the way people get to know their future business suppliers and partners.  The days of finding new suppliers only from a directory or because they happened to cold call are gone.

Even 30 years ago most business people were more likely to do business with someone they either knew or who had been recommended to them.  There's a comfort factor in doing business with a known entity.  There's also the likelihood that someone recommended by a mutual connection is not going to let you down - if they want to keep the business from the person who made the connection.

Today that pool of known and trusted contacts has not just expanded - it's exploded!

Without access to your social media you simply couldn't keep track of all the people you now 'know'.  In fact, the chances of you finding out that they existed, let alone what they can do, what they're like and who they know would be minimal.

In today's world your connections online can run into many thousands - without too much effort.  In among all those people you either know the perfect supplier for you or you know someone who does.

What does this mean to you?

Firstly, always ask your connections for help and recommendations first.
Secondly, make sure your connections know what you do and share your expertise freely.  If they know your talents, they'll be able to refer you to their other connections.

Sharing your knowledge will win you business in the long run.

Social media tools that make life easier

In today's fast moving, information-rich world it's difficult to keep up with everything, particularly social media, where it's so easy to get drawn in and lose an hour or two or more.
Whilst I don't advocate being a 'broadcast only' user of social media, I do think that some of the tools that allow you to stay visible are really useful.  These are some of the tools that I've found helpful.

Hootsuite. com - this is a social media management tools and even their free account allows you to post to any combination of your social media accounts, including Twitter, Facebook, your Facebook Page, Linked In, Mixi, FourSquare, WordPress and MySpace.  You can choose five of these to post to - more if you pay for the Pro account (which is only about $6 a month).

Hootsuite also allows you to schedule posts so you can put in a whole batch at one time to save you having to remember to keep going back and posting.  This is great for tips, advice, hints and PR, but doesn't replace a regular session actually interacting with your friends and followers.

You can set up searches for your keywords so you can stay up-to-date with the buzz on your specialist subject.

Tweetdeck.com - this is a very similar tool and fulfils the same purpose, but will only post to Twitter and Facebook.

Onlywire.com - this is an online 'one-stop' posting platform.  If you have many social media accounts it allows you to post to all of them at once.

There were 40+ different platforms available at the last count and it not only allows you to schedule in advance, but also has an automated system for flagging up when a Captcha entry is needed for a small additional fee.  There are various levels of account for both single and multiple users starting at $10 per month for up to 1000 submissions.

Seesmic.com - this is a collaboration between Seesmic and Ping providing three levels of account.  The free one allows you to post 10 posts per day to 3 different social media platforms.  The next level offers 50 posts a day to up to 10 platforms for $4.99 per month and the top level is unlimited posts to unlimited platforms, but costs $49.99 a month.

These are really useful tools - providing you are willing to spend the time setting up your systems and using them properly. 

Consistency is the key

If you're using social media as a marketing tool one post a week won't cut it!  You need to post regularly in the right places.

What are the right places?  They're where your target audience 'hangs out'.  This means that you need to do some research into where you find the people who are most likely to be interested in what you're offering.  If your product or service is suitable for large organisations, LinkedIn is likely to be a better bet than Facebook.  If you're selling a consumer item then Facebook might be the perfect platform for you.

The secret of success is to get involved in forums and groups where your core audience can be found and be willing to share your knowledge and expertise and help people out.  The more you do this, the more 'brownie points' you will get as someone who knows their stuff.  When they need your services they'll remember you.

Joining a group is not enough, you have to be active.  This doesn't mean spending all day crouching over a hot computer; it just means that you need to schedule some time each week to read and post in your chosen groups.  This might be a 5-10 minute a day activity or a couple of times a week for a bit longer - but it does need to be regular and consistent.

When you're using Twitter that really is a daily activity, however, you can use tools like Hootsuite and Google Alerts teamed with something like TwitterFeed to keep posting, even if you're really busy.  Just ensure that what you share is good quality content that is of real value to your readers, not irrelevant trivia.

It's easy to get sidetracked in the early stages, but if you attach your new posting habits together with your existing email checking habit and you'll soon develop a routine that works.  Whilst there may appear to be lots of work it's really a matter of getting organised and developing a consistent routine.
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Our sister company Lesleywriter is running an online marketing course presented as a webinar for 30 minutes a week over 18 weeks.  You can find out when the next series starts here.

How sticky is your website?

Having a 'sticky' website means that people come to see it - and stay long enough to get your message and take action.  If your stats tell you that people bounce off quickly then they're just not getting it.  That's not their fault - it's up to you to make it sticky!

Web users aren't know for being patient - we're all in a big hurry with zillions of websites available to look at - so don't make them wait for what they want.  A good headline will usually hook people in, providing you've researched your audience well enough to write a headline that will appeal to them.

Web users aren't ready to have to work hard to get the information they want either - and why should they?  Don't blind them with whizzy graphics or lots of options or demand that the only way they get the information is to watch your video.  Get them focused on one point on the landing page and then lead them to where you want them to go.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with video content, as long as it's short and the user can easily turn it on and off.  However, you should always have the gist of the message in written form too for those people who aren't interested in watching moving pictures, are surfing quietly in their office and don't want to disturb others, or simply don't have sound right now.

Of course, your site needs to be lively, attractive and have a strong message too, but less is definitely more!

Watch what you say

If you're using social media and other online marketing to promote your business then every word you type matters.  It only takes a few thoughtless words to ruin your profile - and the danger is, it's there for good!

When you post your comments, blogs, articles and web content it's there to stay.  Even content that you have deleted is in a cache somewhere and anything that's published on a public site you can't erase.

It's easy to forget that every tweet you post is on Twitter not just today - but forever.

I know of someone who used to like a glass of wine or two (or three) in the evening and posted something on a social network that he didn't even remember doing the next day.  When asked he said "I remember thinking that, but I didn't actually post it - did I?"  The administrator took his post down, but by that time lots of people had read it and it was the subject of a heated discussion in the forum.  The post has gone, but the discussion remains for posterity.

Today information comes at us all at the speed of light - the information that's available to us in a single day is more than most of our grandparents got in their lifetime.  Everything you say online reaches the furthest locations on the planet - in seconds.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking 'private' forums are a safe place to let off steam; treat everything you say online as in the public domain.  It takes time to build up your image, brand and reputation - and can be demolished in a single tweet, Facebook post or LinkedIn comment.

Social media systems that work

If you've got a Twitter account, a Facebook account (and even better a Facebook page), a LinkedIn account - and are getting to grips with Google+ and Pinterest, then you're already established on the social media scene.

But what about all the others?  FriendFeed, Bebo, Ecademy, Digg, Reddit, Plurk - there are dozens and dozens of others.  How many social media platforms should you be on and how do you manage them without it all taking over your life?

Let's answer the challenge of choosing the social media platforms first.  It all depends on your business and your social media strategy.  If you have a target market then the first step is to establish where they 'hang out' online.  Are you more likely to find them in Facebook or LinkedIn (very social or quite businessy)?  Initially, stick to the bigger social media platforms; you can always add more later.

Once you've established the best place to find potential clients then you need to active and visible, offering help and getting involved.

My advice is to use Twitter regardless of your market as it's a much broader collection of people and reasonably easy (and quick) to manage.

Next step is to decide what you want to achieve from your social media activity.  Without a strategy you'll be putting in lots of effort without a clear idea why.  Decide what your outcomes will be, how you'll measure them, how much time you're willing to invest and who will do what.  Review this regularly (at least monthly) to see how you're doing.

Now there's the management part - this will take an investment of time to set up, but once it's set up, you'll be able to do a lot in a very short space of time.  You'll need to use some of the online tools to do this, but most are free or low cost.

Explore Hootsuite to manage your Twitter, Facebook and Linked In posts and status updates.  Generate your tips, knowledge sharing and value that you are prepared to give away and package them into a daily series of posts.  If you have enough 'sets you can recycle these each month.  This means that one post can be delivered to several different places.

Use Google Alerts to find suitable news items around your subject and share these with your readers.  You can use a feed service to automate this so, once you've set it up, you don't need to do much.

Check out Ping.fm.  It's a broadcast system that sends one post to each social media platform you've attached to it.  It is a one way street - broadcast only, but a great way to improve your reach.  You will need to invest time in setting up proper profiles on each of the social media that you attach (there's nothing more off-putting than a profile with no photo or content other than lots of posts), but again, once it's set up, it's done.

There are many more tools that will make staying visible simple without having to work too hard, but these are a great start.

Get started - identify your target market, get your strategy in place, find out where your potential clients are most active and use the tools available to make staying visible and building your reputation easy.

The strange behaviour of web users!

The web has a lot to answer for!  It's taught us to be lazy and impatient - yes, that's you I'm talking about (and me too).

If the website we've loaded doesn't appear instantly we start sighing and tapping our fingers, if the load process takes more than a few seconds we hit that back button and disappear for something that gratifies us faster.

Worse still, if something isn't where we expect it to be we not only can't see it, but we can't be bothered searching for it either.  If the menu isn't where we think it should be, most people simply get frustrated and mutter about the web designer 'hiding things'.  I've seen people searching for the 'home' tab on a web page that was there, just not where they thought it should be - and they couldn't find it!

What does this mean to the owner of any website?  Well, you need to know what people want, where they expect it to be and then make it really easy for them to get at it!

If you're really interested in the way people view websites then following web-usability expert, Jakob Nielsen's blog at is a good start.  Read Steve Krug's book 'Don't make me think' and read Lesleywriter's blog for more information about what turns people off and why some things make it hard for people to read even well-written content.

Understanding your reader is critical to your website working to market your products and services online.

Online Marketing - Relationships Rule OK!

Online marketing doesn't work if all you do is 'shout' about how great your products or services are, people don't like it.  After all, what do you think when you read a post on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Google+ that says 'Get our great products now ...' or 'You can do X with these products - get yours now'?

Nobody likes being 'sold at'.  The first step is to create relationships by getting into 2-way communication with the people you've connected with.  This means:

• Sharing information that is of value to them
• Being friendly
• Offering help or answering their questions
• Connecting them to other people who can help them if you can't

Once you have established this profile then you can:

• Ask for help
• Ask them to look at your business - if you use the right approach
• Provide links to your information so they can choose to check you out.

People 'buy' people so it's important to be human, but don't dump loads of trivia into your online feeds, everyone doesn't want to know what you're eating all the time or every move you make.  Occasionally a comment about what you're doing is a good way to show you're real, but the key word here is 'occasionally'!

If you're clever you can integrate what you're doing with a subtle sales message.  e.g. 'I'm really excited about our new product launch, it's taken two months to get to this stage, watch this space!'

More about managing your online marketing soon - but share your experiences here.  What do you love and hate about online marketing?

5 Critical Things You Should Know About Online Marketing

When you're setting up an online marketing system you'll need to know how to make it most effective.  These are five things you should always keep in mind in all your online marketing activities:

1. Know where your target market hangs out and make sure you engage with them there.  For instance social stuff and small businesses are more likely to be found on Facebook whilst bigger organisations are found on Linked In.  
2. Find out what your market wants and be generous with sharing your knowledge; the more you give the more you get.
3. If you're not posting nobody knows you're there, so get a regular daily system going and use a combination of knowledge sharing and interaction.
4. Know what you want to achieve and ensure that your activities are all focused on that goal.
5. Have a means of measuring your progress so you know what's working and what's not.

Setting up an online marketing system takes time, but once it's going you'll find it's very rewarding in bringing you potential customers and people who will recommend you to others.