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They Left Us Too Soon
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They Left Us Too Soon

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They Left Us Too Soon

Engadget Tribute To Steve Jobs

The past week has been a tough one. I’ve lost two close friends in separate incidents, and it was the one-year anniversary of the death of Steve Jobs. They say these things come in threes, so let’s hope that does it for this week.

Another loss from about a year ago was that of Trey Pennington, a popular marketer with over 100,000 Twitter followers. Trey and I interacted in many Twitter chat sessions and I was always impressed with his marketing knowledge and insights. The loss of his social media interactions is felt in Twitter chats each week.

Steve Jobs was an amazing innovator and his loss is something Apple is only just beginning to feel. One of my favorite Jobs’ quotes was about viewing things in a pragmatic manner:

I’m sorry, it’s true. Having children really changes your view on these things. We’re born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It’s been happening for a long time.
— Steve Jobs, 1993

Speaking of kids and Steve Jobs, here’s a little humor to let you leave this post with a smile. During a conversation with my son (who is normally a very empathetic kid) he said, “Mom, are you upset about Steve Jobs dying?” Thinking he was looking for an explanation for why I was sad for the loss of someone I had never met, I explained, “Yes I am. Steve Jobs was a pioneer. Without him we wouldn’t have many of the innovations you take for granted each day: Mac computers like my MacBook Pro, iPods, iPads, iPhones…” To which favorite son interrupts and says, “There’s an app for that.” Ba dum dum.

Book Marketing Recap – Part 2 Marketing Methods

A few weeks ago, I was the moderator for a great #smchat conversation on book marketing and publishing. There were so many insights that not only was I able to compile one post-chat blog post, I created TWO! The first half of the chat was on book publishing and the post below contains some of the book marketing insights I learned from the lively #smchat discussion:

Q4 You’ve written a book-now what? Do you need special book marketing skills? What role does social media play?

@JimKukral: Book marketing starts at book conception. BEFORE it’s written.

@WhereitBlooms: But SM does help in determining your audience. Is there a need for the book? Who will have interest?

@ambercleveland: A4. Tons of book marketing resources available, do your homework. Social media plays a huge role, gives audience access to authors

Q4b: How soon should you begin promoting your book before it is finished & is it possible to promote “too early”? @akstout18 asks, “Is there a risk in letting ppl know about your book idea before it’s finished?”

@thehealthmaven: Use SoMe to find out where your target market is & what they are taking about, build & leverage tribes before book comes out

@AndreaPatten: Non-fiction gets submitted as a proposal. fiction needs 2b complete

@novelpublicity: For fiction, you definitely want a completed and polish manuscript before submitting. Nonfic has different rules

@CreativeSage: For non-fiction, submit an outline + 3 chapters and your marketing position (after your research) to agent/publisher (cont.) For novels/memoirs, the writing is more key, often need to finish book & get editor before submitting manu.

@JimKukral: Nobody is going to steal your idea. Block and tackle. Ideas are worthless, implementation is everything

@novelpublicity: New authors often worry about ideas being stolen. Once you see how hard it is to sell an idea, you’ll get over that 😛

Q5 Videos, TV spots, print and online display ads – what’s the most inventive way you’ve seen a book marketed?

@ambercleveland: A5. Use a QR code on your business card that takes them to your site where they can purchase your book

@CreativeSage: Inventive video “trailers” & author interviews; integrated approach w/ social media, PR, targeted mktg, crowdsourcing

@novelpublicity:Do you see the little button on my Twitter avatar? That’s called a PicBadge, and it’s another creative marketing tactic (cont.) PicBadges are all about solidifying your brand – keep a primary author page, integrate book in picbadge (cont.) I actually blogged about that today with a step-by-step guide on how to create a PicBadge for your book > http://t.co/DIP2u4CN

@tcgagency: Q5 Sending advanced copies to a small group of people and asking them to leave an Amazon review, good or bad.

@PegFitzpatrick: #FollowMyLead: http://t.co/HoPJpaTs – Awesome book video: by @FollowMyLeadCQ

@sharonmostyn: A5 I love book trailers! Author @ToniMcGeeCausey talks about them here http://t.co/WuNE0TIn

(cont.) Also interesting when authors interviewed-ex. @barbaravey interview of Tori Carrington http://t.co/N5cWerOl (cont.) Also love videos by fans/friends about #books, like this by @shelleyryan http://t.co/n91EgOL0 for @thecontentrules

@novelpublicity: Create a truly engaging book trailer, then purchase PPC advertising on YouTube. I’m doing that with > http://t.co/VyS53lLU

@ProminencePR: The hangout feature on google + is really great. You can invite key people that you want to network with.

@LarsDHHedbor: What’s the best way to reach out to book clubs? GoodReads presence? Amazon Author pages? Other?

GoodReads.com got a mention by several of our participants, one going so far as to say it is “is the single most important site for writers, even more so than Twitter and Facebook.”

If you are really interested in the book marketing topic, @ambercleveland recommends #BookMarketChat with @ClaudiaC Thursdays at 4PM ET. And we’ll end with this reminder from @JimKukral: Nothing can happen until you write something. Get to work.

Content Marketing Strategy

: Content Rules!

Content, content, content! Content is King! With the recent Google “Panda” and “Farmer” search engine optimization (SEO) updates, Google has taken a stand against websites that provide little original content. So I thought content might be a good topic for the Twitter chat #SMchat on May 18, 2011 at 1P ET.

I’ve talked to a few people about content recently and I’ve asked two special guests to join me to discuss Content Marketing on #SMchat: Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs, and Danielle Leitch, Executive Vice President of Client Strategy at MoreVisibility.

Ann spoke with me about her new book, Content Rules, written with C. C. Chapman and personalized especially for me (see photo) after I spoke at the MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Forum and what she said makes sense to me:

“My feeling is that you can’t have a Social Media Strategy without first having a Content Strategy. How can you speak before you know what to say?”

Danielle also recently discussed content strategy during the new #MVchat Twitter chat on May 12, 2011. If you haven’t joined #MVchat it’s a good place for a quick (half hour) discussion on different internet marketing topics. #MVchat is held on Thursdays from 3:30-4P ET. After the chat, I asked Danielle about content driving online revenue and she said:

“Content is essential when it comes to providing value to the user, positioning well in SERPs, creating sticky site or social account and establishing self (business) as industry leader. All of the above will contribute to revenue generation in one form or another – so YES, content directly correlates to making money online. Measuring time versus value for that content production is critical for ROI analysis. Don’t produce content for the sake of text – offer value in all content delivered.”

It appears that Danielle isn’t the only one who thinks good content equals more revenue. According to a MarketingSherpa case study on Content Marketing: Inbound strategy pulls in 25% more revenue, 70% more leads http://bit.ly/ldyBs2

I’m very excited that these smart ladies will be joining us and I’ve got several questions for them and for everyone who will be participating in #SMchat:

Do you think sites with good SEO practices have been impacted by Google’s Farmer and Panda updates?
Do you have a Social Media Strategy? A Content Strategy? If both, which came first and why?
Nearly 1/4 (23%) of all social media messages contain links to content http://bit.ly/kUJBO0 – how do you make it easy to share?
Have you found content=revenue like the MarketingSherpa Content Marketing case study? http://bit.ly/ldyBs2
Now that we’re not just writing brochures, how can you repurpose content to minimize overload on creators? http://bit.ly/m7gtVE

Look for answers from Ann (@MarketingProfs) and Danielle (@DanielleLeitch), along with me (@SharonMostyn) and the rest of the #SMchat crew on May 18, 2011 from 1-2P ET! We look forward to seeing you there! Can’t make it or just shy? Leave your question or comment below and I’ll make sure you get an answer.

Talking SEO for our 1st Blog Birthday-Anniversary-Blogiversaryday

: No Matter What The Holiday Is, Flowers Always Work

One year ago today, I wrote my first post on Motherhood, Marketing, and Medical Mayhem. I was inspired by the marketing insights gained at MarketingProfs Digital Mixer. I was especially excited because I won the conference pass and I couldn’t wait to share what I learned with the world. Now, a year later, I don’t know whether to consider this my blog’s birthday, anniversary, or what? Blogiversaryday?

No matter what you call it, I’ve learned a lot — and shared a lot — over the past year, not only on my blog, but via Twitter, guest posts, and comments on the blogs of others. All of the above are great ways to increase your search engine ranking. Generally, the more links you have coming in to your website from other reputable sites, the higher your natural search ranking. This is also known as off-page SEO (search engine optimization) or link building techniques. According to SEOMOZ, the quantity and quality of external links is the #2 top search engine ranking factor barely beaten out by keyword focused anchor text from external links.

As you might be able to guess, the flip side of off-page SEO is on-page SEO. On-page SEO includes things like keyword-rich URLs, installing 301 permanent redirects, ensuring unique URLs for specific webpages, and keyword optimization. With the exception of keyword content optimization, the other on-page SEO topics are fairly technical in nature but are explained nicely by Rand Fishkin in his post on Perfecting Keyword Targeting & On-Page Optimization.

As noted above, the final, and perhaps most important part of search engine optimization is keywords. Keywords are what a website wants the search engines to associate with their site. The idea is to find the most popular keywords for your audience with the least competition. To help you find keywords and traffic estimates you can use the Google keyword tool. Keywords are used both on-page in content, URLs, alt text, and meta descriptions, and off-page in anchor text.

In reading the details behind the SEOMOZ rankings, I found it interesting that Conferences, Events, and In-Person Networking was the 7th most effective link building tactic for SEO since that’s why I started my blog a year ago. So what do you think – is it a blog birthday, anniversary, blogiversary, or something else? Please leave a comment below or send some “Congratulations” flowers from my affiliate link to let me know!