Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category

Free Your Mind… And the Rest Will Follow!

By Amanda Bala

So you have been in a slump lately with your writing, your business, maybe your life? Often we find that they day to day drudgery of our schedules can get us down. A simple pick me up that takes little time and can really help to inspire and recharge your batteries is free writing! Maybe you need some inspiration, maybe you have a great idea, but you need to fine tune it. Free writing is a great way to quickly get your thoughts and ideas down on paper and give yourself a jump start.

Experts agree that a free writing session might be the best way to get your thoughts on the page and get moving in a new, creative direction. According to Mark Levy at the Compelling blog, “Free writing helps people to create a strategic direction for their company, brainstorm ideas for a personal branding campaign, plan a product launch, think through employee engagement problems, rehearse ways of handling a negotiation, write books and blog posts.”

The key is to find a quite place, set up tools and let you mind go. Free writing can be done in whatever manner you find easiest. Some people enjoy pounding away on the keyboard whatever topics cross their mind. Others enjoy the age old tradition of the written word. A paper and a pencil can take you places you never dreamed! The objective, however you do it, it to write down whatever comes to mind. There is no right or wrong. By doing this, you are able to filter out the usual constraints that keep us from coming up with come really great, risky, fun ideas. Usually we are so worried about how our writing sounds, looks and feels that we take too much time actually writing the sentences and all those quirky, daring, original and usually effective ideas are lost.

The best free writing sessions are those that are not forced, but are limited. You can go for a few minutes or for longer periods of time, but the key is, when the ideas stop flowing, stop writing. You can always come back and do more at a later time. If you get stuck and have nothing to say, write about that. Even if the thoughts you are writing seem off the wall, keep going. Some of the best and most interesting topics might come to you in the midst of all that chaos.

By taking time out of your busy, every day schedule to do a bit of free writing, you can give yourself a new outlook on so many different aspects of your life and business. Thoughts and ideas you may not have ordinarily had will come to you. This could be the key to taking you in a new and exciting direction both in your career and your life! Even if that is not the case, it is a fun way to relieve a bit of stress from your every day existence!

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Tweeting Your Way to the Top

By Amanda Bala

Twitter. We all have heard of it and many people are out there tweeting on a daily basis. Are you? Have you been thinking about getting on Twitter, but do not know where to begin. Are you already signed up, but do not know what to do? Here are a few helpful hints to get tweeting!

Many people think that Twitter is just a silly, gossip site that will not help them at all in their business. This could not be further from the truth. Twitter can help you to get your name out there in the simplest way; by talking to people. Twitter has the ability to engage in instant conversation with people all over the country. It helps build relationships with people and gets them interested in who you are and what you do.

The first step to making your tweeting work is to be personable. On Twitter, people are not interested in hearing a sales pitch. They want conversation. They want friendship. Don’t talk business. Be true and tweet interesting information. Be engaging and show them that you are invested in what they have to say. This helps you to build relationships with your target audience.

The next thing you want to do when Tweeting is to give people something to talk about. Make your tweets fun or funny. Pose thought provoking questions or even be controversial. These are the types of things that make people interested in what it is you have to say. These are the kinds of tweets that will get people talking to you and also about you.

When using Twitter, you need to update a lot. This may seem tedious, but it does not need to be. You can use quotes as your tweets. You can link to blogs or interesting articles. Or when lost for an original tweet, you can always retweet something that someone else has put on Twitter. The idea is, the more tweets you add, the more people will see you and start to listen to what you are saying.

Finally, use the tools Twitter offers to you. Link your website to your Twitter page. You have the option of adding buttons, badges and widgets to sections of your other sites. This gives your visitors the opportunity to tweet your content. You can link your articles, blogs, etc. to a button that allows anyone to send out an update linking back to your page. You can also use the @reply feature that Twitter offers. This is a great way to see who is discussing you and your brand. The Twitter search function is another good tool to find out who is talking about you. Be sure to take advantage of what is being offered on the site.

By using the wonderful world of Twitter, you are creating a personal, one on one relationship with people who can be potential clients. You can use this to gain interest in who you are, thus generating traffic to your website and converting that traffic to leads and sales. This is your chance to share your expertise and show people how good you are at what you do!

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Social Networking: Does It Really Work?

By Amanda Bala

“No, I will not join Facebook, Twitter or any of those other social sites”. Is this you? Have you said these exact words? Do you think that the new wave of social media websites are only for kids and people with too much time on their hands? If so, then you are missing a great opportunity to use these tools to help grow your business.

People have so many excuses as to why they are not using social networking. “I don’t have the time”, “I don’t understand the sites”, “This is just a fad” or “I am too set in my ways to change now”. No offense, but this is flawed thinking. None of these excuses matter. It is time to realize the massive potential that exists for any business that is willing to put the time and effort into using new technology.

The Internet has and will continue to change the way business and business relationships work. If you do not understand the new technologies or are just resistant to this change, your business is likely to suffer. You may not be taking advantage of these new avenues to reach potential clients, but your competition is, which puts you behind them. With the click of a button and a few minutes of time, they are not only reaching out and building relationships with new and existing clients, but also getting involved with them, which is a very effective way to expand business.

C. C. Chapman in the blog “Managing the Gray” sums this up perfectly in saying “Brands need to wake up to the fact that “new media” isn’t going away. In fact, I’d argue that it isn’t new anymore, but is here and at the forefront so you either wake up and pay attention or you lose business to the company that is paying attention.”

The depth of the client relationship you can create via social networking is something that could never be achieved with traditional media. It does not mean that traditional media such as television, radio and print are obsolete; it means that you need to use all of these facets together in an integrated campaign. In doing this, you can connect with your target audience and build relationships that will engage your clients and make them come back to you as well as to refer you to others.

You have a choice; sink or swim. With the revolution that is the Internet, marketing is evolving on a daily basis. You can try to fight it, but you will lose. In fact this is just the beginning. Social networking is not a fad, it is here to stay and it is just going to keep evolving and getting more and more necessary. Don’t miss the boat… amazing opportunities are waiting for you.

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