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6 Reasons To Start A Podcast

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start your own podcast

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to create a podcast by the end of 2015, and for a good reason. After seeing the growth of podcasts on the web and successful podcasters such as Pat Flynn of The Smart Passive Income Podcast and Steve Scott of the Self-Publishing Questions Podcast, I decided I needed to have a piece of the action (you’ll see a podcast from me by the end of 2015; I haven’t given up on that New Year’s resolution). Here are six reasons why you would want to start your own podcast:

 

#1: You’ll Tap Into New Traffic

Podcasts are popular on the web, and some podcasts get millions of downloads. If you put your podcast on the iTunes Store, you would instantly tap into a new audience. As your podcast becomes more popular, more people will first hear about you through your podcast. Some of the people who first hear about you on your podcast may decide to subscribe to your blog and buy your products later on.

Not only do you get to tap into a new audience, but you can lead this new audience to your landing page. At the beginning of all of your podcast episodes, you have the opportunity to introduce yourself to new readers and promote your landing page at the same time. Just give your listeners a brief summary of what you offer on your landing page and then include a link in the podcast’s description to your landing page. If you get hundreds of people to download your podcast on iTunes every month, that’s hundreds of people who could potentially subscribe to your email list.

 

#2: Audio Content Is Becoming Popular

Audio is becoming more important than ever in a busy world filled with multi-taskers. In most multi-tasking scenarios, we do two things not as efficiently compared to our level of efficiency when we choose to focus on one thing at a time. Audio is different. If you go out for a walk, a run, or drive to the grocery store, then you can’t read a book at the same time. Reading and driving is the perfect formula for disaster. What is the substitute for reading? The answer is listening to podcasts.

Each time I run on the treadmill, I either listen to a podcast or a playlist of my favorite songs. Most of the time, I either listen to Pat Flynn or Steve Scott while running. I run for over an hour every day so I can listen to multiple episodes on their podcasts within a given week. In car rides, I either listen to Joel Osteen DVDs.

It is easier for us to listen to things than it is for us to read things. That’s why social media posts with videos get more engagement than social media posts without videos. That’s why YouTube is very popular. Audio content is easier for us to consume. You can listen with your eyes closed while lying on your couch.

 

#3: More Credibility

Having your own podcast gives you a new level of credibility. Why would you want more credibility? The simple answer is that credibility makes us look good. Would you rather buy the Twitter book from the person with 1,000 Twitter followers or the person with 10,000 Twitter followers (assuming the books were the same number of pages and both at the same price)?

The longer explanation is that credibility is easy to gain nowadays that we need more of it to truly stand out. Having a big social media audience isn’t enough. Having a popular blog isn’t enough. Having your own book isn’t enough. Having your own podcast isn’t enough. Many of the highly credible people in our niches have all four of these things, and more. You need to do more things of great value within your niche to really stand out.

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MarcGuberti” url=”http://bit.ly/1BybH3l”]You need to do more things of great value within your niche to really stand out.[/tweetthis]

#4: More Interaction With Your Audience

One thing I really like about the layout Steve Scott uses for his Self-Publishing Questions podcast is that he starts every podcast with a listener’s question. Starting with a listener’s question is a great way to come up with episode topics while encouraging more interaction. Steve encourages his listeners to ask their own questions to possibly get featured on his podcast and get their questions answered.

At the end of every podcast, you have the ability to encourage interaction. If you have a comment section at the bottom of every episode, then encourage your listeners to respond in the comments section. If your episodes don’t have comment sections, then encourage your listeners to contact you via email. As you continue to grow your audience, more people will take the time to interact with you.

 

#5: Podcasting Is A Big Deal

Podcasting is a proven, reliable method to reach more people and interact with your audience. As a whole, we have downloaded over 1 billion podcast episodes, and that doesn’t even include all of the podcast episodes we listen to without downloading. I don’t download Pat Flynn’s or Steve Scott’s podcast episodes. Instead, I listen to their episodes on their respective websites.

I think some people aren’t taking the plunge into podcasting because they are unaware of how big podcasting has become. Podcasting is a big deal, and based on its growth in recent years, podcasting has a great future.

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MarcGuberti” url=”http://bit.ly/1BybH3l”]Podcasting is a big deal, and based on its growth in recent years, podcasting has a great future[/tweetthis]

#6: You Can Interview Experts

When you start your own podcast, you give yourself the ability to interview experts in real-time for free. Instead of asking an expert questions via email or paying for a consultation session, you get to ask them questions 1-on-1 for the whole world to hear. Interviewing the top experts in your niche will boost your credibility, and you can potentially start joint ventures with some of these experts. Even if you don’t get the joint venture, many of these experts will promote your podcast episode that they got featured in. Your podcast episode now reaches new audiences, the audiences of the experts who you interview.

Interviewing the experts in your niche also allows you to learn more about your niche. You can think of these 1-on-1 conversations as 1-on-1 consultation sessions in which you ask the questions and get detailed answers from the experts. Don’t be afraid to ask questions about topics that you don’t fully understand. The job of an expert is to empower others with their knowledge. You can be more than sure that the podcast hosts learn new things from the experts they interview. If you want to become successful in what you do, you must constantly learn more about what you do, no matter how much you think you already know.

 

In Conclusion

Having your own podcast is a big deal. Having a podcast will boost your credibility and allow you to tap into new audiences. With a podcast, you have the power to provide your audience with audio content that they can listen to while exercising, driving, or doing a wide range of other activities. Although blog posts get their points across, readers can’t effectively exercise or drive while reading blog posts. When blogging, podcasting, social media, an email list, and a few other things mix together, you’ll have the recipe for success.

Do you have a podcast? Do you want to start a podcast? Do you have any tips for newbie podcasters? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

10 Easy Ways To Get More Product Sales

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how to get more sales

Is getting product sales on your mind? With a massive inventory of products and millions of products getting created every year, it is harder to stand out in a world that gives us countless choices. In fact, it will be impossible for someone to buy and use every product that will get created this year. Getting more product sales requires you to stand out and grow an audience, but there are various components that go into standing out and growing your audience. In this article, I will discuss 10 easy ways for you to get more sales for your products.

 

#1: Create Landing Pages With Autoresponders

Landing pages are effective pages that are optimized for getting email subscribers. Landing pages are simply pages that promote free products and have a form where people can enter their email address. The only way to access the free product is by entering an email address which is why landing pages are very attractive.

If you are using a service like iContact or Aweber, you can have your new subscribers go through an autoresponder. An autoresponder is a series of emails that are spaced out by a day or two. These emails allow you to strengthen your relationship with your readers. At the end of your autoresponder must be a product related to the free product you just offered.

If you have more than one product, then you can create multiple landing pages and autoresponders. I have landing pages and autoresponders set up for multiple training courses, and I will continue to create landing pages and autoresponders for my future products.

 

#2: Test Out One Variable Every Week

Sometimes, one small change can make a big difference. If you want to get more sales, you need to test small changes to see which ones will lead to more sales. You need to test out one variable for your product every week and see how many sales it gets. If your product makes more sales that week, then the one small change you made is a keeper, and you should apply that change to some of your other products. If your product makes fewer sales, then you should go back to the old way. It is important for you to only test out one variable every week because if you make multiple changes to your product in a short amount of time, then you won’t know which change resulted in an increase or decrease in sales. Maybe you averaged the same number of sales by testing out multiple variables, but one of those variables could have halved your sales while the other one could have doubled your sales—still giving you the same average amount of sales. You want to keep the variable that doubled your sales, but you won’t know what that variable was if you change too many things at once.

 

#3: Promote Your Product On Your Blog

The best way to promote a product on your blog is through the menu. That way, your product doesn’t take up too much space on your blog, but it takes up just enough space on your blog to be noticed. I am careful about promoting my products on my blog because I don’t want to be over-promotional. Moreover, I want people to visit my landing page and subscribe that way so I can lead them through the autoresponder sequence. It’s still good to promote your product on your blog and occasionally reference it in your blog posts. Some people buy my products because they heard about them on my blog before hearing about them anywhere else.

 

#4: Get On Joint Ventures

Joint ventures are growing in significance. In a joint venture, you and a marketer agree to promote each other’s products to your email lists. You tell your subscribers about someone else’s product and that same person tells the people on her list about your product. Joint ventures allow your product to reach new audiences and generate more sales in the process.

 

#5: Connect Your Products Together

Many people like to list their products. At the end of the public speaking event, the public speaker may mention some of the products he created and list them one by one. That’s not connecting your products together. That’s simply listing what you have.

Connecting your products together is far greater than listing them. When you connect your products together, you are letting your customers know that your products properly segue from one into the other. Think Part One’s and Part Two’s, but every product you create properly fits somewhere in the sequence. You may have two unrelated products, but if you can create a bridge in between those two products filled with the proper segues, you can get the two most unrelated products to be connected. What’s the segue from a Twitter book to a Pinterest book? What’s the segue from a photography training course to a Javascript training course? What products would you need to (and want to) create to form the proper bridge? If you don’t want to create products that create the necessary bridge, you can simply expand on those two areas. For the photography training course, you can create more products relating to photography while for the Javascript training course, you can create more products about coding languages. Just make sure no product stands alone.

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MarcGuberti” url=”http://bit.ly/1NM9pnK”]Connect your products together so none of them stand alone. [/tweetthis]

#6: Build An Email List And Communicate To It

A landing page is a great way to grow your email list. Here’s one of my landing pages (the free product will show you how to get more email subscribers, so it’s relevant here). However, a landing page and an autoresponder can only go so far. Many of the people who go through your autoresponder will choose to not buy your product. Then again, that’s with practically every product. Most people who see a product won’t buy it. That’s simply the nature of the game.

When you have a large email list, and you communicate to the people on your email list, you are opening the door to returning customers. Once every six weeks, you should promote your products to your email list. The money is in the list, but only if you interact with the people in your list in an effective manner.

 

#7: Use Social Media To Promote Your Products The Right Way

Social media is not the place to say, “Buy my product! Buy my product!” Social media is a place where posts with pictures and stories rule. If you can turn your product marketing into an effective story or advice in the form of pictures, your efforts will really pay off. Take for example Kim Garst who recently published Will The Real You Please Stand Up, got the book on multiple bestsellers lists. For part of her book’s promotion, she went on Twitter and tweeted to her large audience of over 300,000 followers. The tweets were valuable, contained pictures, and promoted her book all at the same time. Her tweets spread, got attention, and led to more book sales. Here is an example of one of her tweets about the book.

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MarcGuberti” url=”http://bit.ly/1NM9pnK”]You can use #SocialMedia to promote your products, but only if you use it the right way.[/tweetthis]

#8: Offer Discounts

Why doesn’t love discounts? Discounts are attractive because they make us feel like smart buyers who know how to effectively spend our money. Offer discounts to your subscribers and social media followers so they are more likely to buy your products. Discounts may not generate as much money, but you’ll get a sale, a customer who can spread the word, and your product will get more exposure.

 

#9: Over Deliver

When you offer a product, be sure to include bonuses and give your customer more than what he was expecting. Over delivering doesn’t necessarily change the amount of sales you make for an individual product, but your customers like when you over deliver. Some of your customers will expect an over delivery in your future products and become returning customers. Over delivering in your products doesn’t lead to much short-term sales, but for the long-term, you could get thousands of returning customers who expect you to over deliver and are grateful for all of the value you provide in your products. All you have to do at that point is consistently over deliver.

 

#10: Create More Products

One way to get more product sales is by creating more products. A second product opens the doors to returning customers. 20 products opens the doors to a higher percentage of your customers becoming returning customers. If you have one book about Twitter and one book about Pinterest, it is possible for you to get returning customers. However, some people will like Twitter and not care for Pinterest and vice-versa. If you have additional books about Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and a few other social networks, then there is a greater likelihood of a customer becoming a returning customer. One of the options is bound to attract a customer’s attention.

 

In Conclusion

Getting more product sales is on the top of many marketers’ strategies. Part of getting product sales is the marketing itself, but another part of getting product sales is the experience you provide for customers who buy your products and the experience you provide just before someone buys your product. It takes a lot of marketing to get numerous sales for your products, and in some cases, the marketing is more challenging than creating the actual product.

Which tip did you like the most? Do you have any additional tips for us? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

7 Productivity Tips For Busy Social Media Users

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how to be productive on social media

How often are you on social media on a given day? How often are you productive on social media? Although these sound like two similar questions, they are completely different. The amount of time we spend on social media and the amount of time we are productive on social media are two different things. It is possible to be on social media for three hours every day but only be productive in five of those minutes. That’s a lot of time wasted, even if you were on one of the most powerful places on the entire web.

Too many people are getting caught in the web of procrastination, and for many of these people, social media is the root cause. Social media is a benefactor that positively change lives. Social media has brought rebellions against oppression into the center stage of the world’s attention, and some people are successful primarily because of social media. Social media is also a malefactor where very disturbing things occur and our precious time gets devoured.

Success on social media involves using the platforms we are presented with in the most efficient way possible. Part of using social media efficiently is boosting our productivity on those social networks. Instead of being on social media for three hours and only being productive on it for five minutes, you can be on social media for 30 minutes and be productive on it for 25 of those minutes. These seven tips will help you increase your social media productivity.

 

#1: Mindful Browsing

Mindful Browsing is a great tool to control what your web browser can and cannot access. When I find myself on a social media site for too long, I click on the Mindful Browsing icon, and then that social media site is automatically blocked from my browser. If I want to regain access to that social media site (or any site I block with Mindful Browsing), I have to wait for 10 seconds and then I can unblock the social media site.

Once I block a website, I am really good at keeping that website blocked for a long period of time. In a busy world where our attention spans are less than the attention span of a goldfish, 10 seconds of waiting seems like an eternity. Instead of waiting, I prefer to take action, and that action typically means writing blog posts or creating products. In some cases, I would not be doing any of those two actions if it weren’t for Mindful Browsing. Mindful Browsing allows you to go from, “I’ll x out the social media site, open a new window, and hope I don’t end up on the social media site,” to, “I will make it as hard as possible for me to access that social media site so other actions such as writing blog posts and creating products are now the easier options.”

 

#2: Limit Yourself To A Few Social Networks

One of the most common mistakes I see people do is create as many social media accounts as they can and grow them all at the same time. Maybe you are trying to get more Twitter followers, Pinterest followers, likes for your Facebook Page, Google+ followers, YouTube subscribers, and Tumblr followers at the same time. That’s the equivalent of trying to learn Chinese, Russian, Spanish, French, German, and Italian all at the same time. You may learn some words from every language, but becoming fluent in any one of those languages would be very different due to the slight differences in words and their pronunciations.

Success on each social network is slightly different from other social networks. Valuable content and effective promotion typically make up a successful social media strategy. However, there are tools for certain social networks and small differences on each social network’s structure that slightly changes what it means to be successful on each social network.

No matter where you are, you need to specifically focus your time on 1-2 social networks. When you know how to grow your audience on a social network (you have over 10,000 followers/subscribers/likes and gain over 100 of them every day), then integrate another social network into your social media strategy. This will save you oodles of time because you’ll read how-to articles for 1-2 social networks instead of trying to learn about six different social networks at the same time. Moreover, you will have less outlets to lose time on. If you only go on Twitter and YouTube, then Facebook gets eliminated from your places to go. Currently, I spend most of my time on Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube which means I spend practically no time on most of the other social networks.

 

#3: Bulk Schedule Content

HootSuite makes it possible to schedule bulk content for your Twitter account, Facebook account, Google+ Page, and a few other social networks as well. The bulk schedule option can literally save you hours of time every day. Take for instance, the 100 or so tweets I send every day. If I had to manually schedule and send those tweets to my followers, it would take me hours of my time to do so. That wouldn’t leave enough room for product creation and writing blog posts. The solution was HootSuite Pro and the bulk scheduler. The bulk scheduler allows me to schedule over 100 of my prewritten tweets in just six clicks. These tweets are prewritten in a CSV file, and they are either motivational quotes or my own blog posts.

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MarcGuberti” url=”http://bit.ly/1NHbUrl”]The best way to schedule tweets is with #HootSuite’s Bulk Scheduler.[/tweetthis]

Some people may wonder why I would be tweeting repeat content. The answer is that most of your followers see your content the first time. The typical tweet is seen by a small fraction of your followers, and that goes for most of the other social networks too. The same blog posts that I was tweeting about in 2014 still get retweets, favorites, and starts conversations to this day.

 

#4: Watch Your Time

I want you to have a habit of looking at the clock and counting the amount of minutes to spend on social media. More time spells trouble even if this time is being used to grow your social media audience. If you spend too much time on social media regardless of the reason, you will have less time to write blog posts and create products. Social media is the best tool on the web to promote your content and products, but if you have no products and a few blog posts, then you don’t have much to promote on social media.

You need to spend more of your time creating products and writing blog posts than you actually spend on social media. If you spend two hours of your time on social media growing your audience every day, then when it comes to writing blog posts and creating products, you need to match or exceed that amount of time. When I am on social media for two hours in a given day, I make it a point to write blog posts and create products for at least three hours on those days.

 

#5: Have Big Projects

In order to exit out of a social media site, you need to have a reason to do so. The reason I log out of a social network is because I am always in the middle of creating, finalizing, and/or publishing a product (yes, I commonly do all three of those things at the same time). You must have something more important to do than be on your social networks because this important thing will be on your mind. As you look through tweets or YouTube videos, you may suddenly think about your big project which may range from finishing a YouTube video, finalizing the videos for a training course, or writing a book.

 

#6: Strategic Interaction

You don’t have to interact with your followers right when they mention or respond to you. The more time we spend interacting, the less time we spend creating products and writing blog posts. At the same time, interacting with your audience is necessary for building relationships, making good friends, and getting testimonials.

I only interact with my followers when I don’t have my computer with me (but I do have my iPhone) or I am too tired to write a blog post or create a product. I almost never interact with my followers in the morning because that is my peak level of productivity. I’ll still say hi and provide valuable advice within a day, in the evening, when my willpower to work on a product or write a blog post wanes.

 

#7: Don’t Click On Trending Topics

Trending topics are so tempting to click, and I’ve clicked on them a few times. Trending topics allow us to see the news in real time. We want to know what is happening, who is saying what, and which meme has dominated the internet now. Clicking on the trending topics is one of the easiest ways to procrastinate on social media. I encourage you to not click on the trending topics, but I know my encouragement won’t be enough. Just ask yourself this question each time you look at the trending topics: Would you rather read the news or be in the news for being an excellent leader in your niche? Ask yourself this question, and you’ll look at your trending topics less often.

 

In Conclusion

Social media is a valuable tool for making connections, promoting your content, and growing your audience. However, many people, with the mix of growing their social media audiences and procrastinating, lose too much time that could have been used to create products or write blog posts. The key to social media productivity is to find ways to do the same things more effectively but in a shorter amount of time.

What are your thoughts on these methods? Do you have any other tips for boosting productivity on social media? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

6 Free Ways To Improve Your Facebook Page Marketing Results

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Facebook Page Marketing

Facebook Pages nowadays seem like staples for all businesses. Practically all of the top brands are on Facebook, and they routinely getting thousands of likes per post. Part of their success is the millions of dollars they spend on advertisements, but there is more to Facebook marketing than the amount of money in your pocket.

Facebook has made it hard over the last couple of years for your fans to see your posts. Less than 10% of your fans actually see your posts in their home feeds. Many people see this as something that spells “trouble,” “danger,” and “avoid at all costs.” However, you can have a successful Facebook Page that generates massive attention without spending a penny. These six Facebook marketing tips are all easy to implement, have the potential to bring forth big results, and, they are all free.

 

#1: Host A Giveaway Or Contest

One easy way to get more engagement for your posts and more likes for your Facebook Page is by hosting a contest or giveaway. If you choose to host a contest, encourage your fans to share posts about your page to their audiences to get entry. If you choose to host a giveaway, encourage people to share posts on your Facebook Page to get entry. In both scenarios, you should make it clear that someone must like your Facebook Page in order to be eligible for the giveaway or contest. The more valuable the prize is, the more likes and shares your Facebook Page will get.

The tricky part about hosting a giveaway or contest is that some people may choose to unlike your Facebook Page when the contest or giveaway is over. Esurance’s $1.5 million Super Bowl giveaway says it all. The Esurance Twitter account gained over 200,000 in a 24 hour period and about 50,000 Twitter followers on the next day. After the winner was announced, Esurance was quickly unfollowed by over 100,000 people within a few days. For the 2015 Super Bowl, Esurance did not offer the $1.5 million giveaway. I think they would have done the same giveaway again if it brought in good results.

The solution for your Facebook Page is to let your fans know that you will be hosting a giveaway once every quarter. That way, the people who only liked your page for the giveaway or contest will stick around for the next giveaway or contest. As they stick around and see you more often, these people will start to read your content and take it more seriously. It is at this point when your fans are more engaged with your content and share it at will, whether you are hosting a giveaway, contest, or nothing at all.

 

#2: Post More Often

Would you like to reach twice the amount of Facebook fans your posts are currently reaching? Send a second post every day. Although Facebook is secretive about its whole algorithm and doesn’t let us know if a cycle is in place to determine which group of your fans sees which of your posts, when you post a second time, it theoretically reaches more people. Even if the second post gets sent to the same fans, your Facebook Page is still getting more visibility because some of those fans may have missed your first post.

My recommendation is to send at least four posts every day. That way, you give your Facebook audience four chances to see your posts. If you constantly appear on your fans’ home feeds, they will remember you. If these people like what you provide, then they will go straight to your Facebook Page when they want to see your content. You want this to happen often because the people who go directly to your Facebook Page get to see all of your Page’s content.

 

#3: Include Pictures In Your Posts

Chances are you recently saw a social media post that went viral. Whether it was a tweet that got hundreds of retweets or a Facebook post that was seen by 1 million people, you and I see viral content many times every week. How many of those viral posts included a picture? Probably all of them.

Including a picture in your Facebook post is one of the easiest ways to get your posts to reach more people. As people like, share, and comment on your post, their friends will see your Facebook posts. Some of those friends will like, share, and/or comment on your post as well, and if the cycle continues long enough amongst many people, your post may go viral.

 

#4: Pin The Most Important Facebook Post On The Top Of Your Page

Did you know that with a Facebook Page, you can select one post from your entire page, no matter when it was written, and pin that post to the top of your Facebook Page? This capability is important because it allows you to always call attention to one thing each time someone visits your Facebook Page. For some people, that may mean promoting a landing page. For others, it may mean promoting a product. Regardless of what you choose to promote (hopefully you go with the landing page), you can put that post on the top of your Facebook Page’s feed, and even if you send another post a few minutes from now, the pinned post will remain on top. Here’s a quick guide on how you can pin a post to the top of your Facebook Page.

 

#5: Look At Your Insights

You don’t want to randomly send Facebook posts to your fans at will. Instead, you should send Facebook posts to your fans when a majority of them are on Facebook. If you have 1,000 fans, you need to know when they are on Facebook so you know when to send posts. If 600 of your fans are on Facebook at 6 am, but only 100 of your fans are on Facebook at 11 pm, then it would be better to publish a post on your Page at 6 am than 11 pm.

Facebook Insights is a valuable tool directly provided by Facebook that allows you to know how many of your fans are on Facebook at certain times throughout the day. These insights allow you to go hour by hour for any day of the week for free. By looking at your insights, you will do less guessing and more strategic posting so more people in your Facebook audience see what you post.

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MarcGuberti” url=”http://bit.ly/1E44hpw”]Your #Facebook Insights hold the answer to the optimal times to schedule posts for your fans.[/tweetthis]

#6: Spice Up The Content

Provide the value and variety that your fans are looking for. If your Facebook Page is about social media, then your fans will want to know social media advice for various social networks. For this Facebook Page, posting content about Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+, Facebook itself, and other social networks is the variety. When I say variety, I want you to stay in your niche but provide more than one perspective on more than one thing related to your niche. No matter how much money you have in your pocket or how effectively you implement the other five tips, the strongest relationships and the most successful Facebook Pages are built by a series of valuable posts one right after the other.

 

In Conclusion

If you have a lot of extra money in your pocket, then Facebook ads will be very valuable. However, most people are skeptical to using Facebook ads, and I don’t like the idea of paying to interact with the audience I have built on my own. These six tips allow you to reach more of the people in your audience without taking any money out of your pocket. As relationships build between you and your fans, some of your fans will instinctively go to your Facebook Page to see your posts. Even if Facebook never sends these fans one of your posts to their home feeds again, these fans will know to check your Facebook Page. By getting enough of these fans, your Facebook Page will continue to grow, and you won’t have to pay a single penny.

What are your thoughts on Facebook advertising and using free marketing tactics to grow your Facebook audience? Which tip was your favorite? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

5 Reasons To Host Your Own Webinars

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Hosting Your Own Webinar

Have you ever listened to a webinar? For a long time, I was so busy watching YouTube videos (about my niche) and listening to podcasts that I never paid attention to webinars. With more people hosting their own webinars and getting listeners, it is hard to ignore hosting your own webinars as a powerful way to grow your business.

You may want to know what a webinar is before you dive in. A webinar is a conversation between you and another person about something relevant in your niche, and callers can come in and ask questions. Webinars are kind of like radio interviews with callers asking questions in the middle of an interview that anyone on the panel can answer. If you host your own webinar, you would let your guest answer the questions so that guest can share her expertise to your audience. If you are on a webinar, you would answer the questions so you could share your expertise to a new audience.

Webinars are highly beneficial for your business’ growth and making more connections. If you aren’t convinced to run your own webinar yet, here are five reasons to start.

 

#1: More Subscribers

The best marketers make it a requirement for listeners to enter their email addresses. Most people won’t mind entering an email address to see a webinar because at this point, entering your email address comes naturally. If you are like most people, then you have entered your email address in hundreds of different forms.

Getting your listeners to subscribe to your email list gives you a way to nurture relationships after the webinar ends and get long-term sales. When I was on my first webinar, it got over 100 listeners who entered their email addresses to get access to the webinar. I don’t know how many subscribers the host gets every day, but getting 100 subscribers in one day from one webinar is a job well done.

Imagine if you were the person getting hundreds of subscribers by hosting one webinar. Imagine if you hosted one webinar every month, so you would get the same results every month. For some people, getting 1,200 subscribers every year from webinars alone is more than the number of subscribers they get with all of their other methods put together. You want subscribers; the money is in the list.

 

#2: You Get To Personally Know Other Experts In Your Niche

Did you know that highly successful people are very open to getting interviewed? I almost never say no to an interview, and most experts share the same opinion about getting interviewed. Experts are inclined to say yes because getting interviewed means more exposure, and who nowadays doesn’t want more exposure which leads into traffic and sales? Whether an interview gets under 10 extra visitors or hundreds of extra visitor to the expert’s blog, that expert is getting more traffic and being seen in different places on the big web.

When an expert says yes and goes on your webinar, you will build a stronger relationship with that expert in your niche. If this expert repeatedly comes back on webinars, blog post interviews, and podcasts, the relationship between you and that expert will be strong, and if your listeners enjoyed the first webinar with you and that expert, they’ll enjoy the other one as well.

Knowing the successful experts and building strong relationships may lead to joint ventures later down the road. At the very least, the experts you interview on your webinar will take the time to promote that webinar to their audience. Some of your listeners will be people who knew about the expert but didn’t know who you were until they listened to the webinar. These people may have not known you before, but they’ll know you now.

 

#3: You Get To Learn From Other Experts In Your Niche

When you host a webinar with an expert in your niche, you get to ask the questions at the beginning of the interview and choose the topic of discussion. In some of the interviews I have with other people, I ask them to talk about things I already know very well. However, in several of the interviews I have had, I ask people to talk about topics that I didn’t know as much about at the time. That way, I learn more about a topic while providing an expert with more exposure.

If you are ever interviewed on a webinar, podcast, or Google+ Hangout (or if you have been in the past), don’t think that the interviewer is listening to what you say without a pen and paper in hand. The interviewer may have control over the conversation and which callers get through, but the interviewer wants to learn new things too. In my opinion, these are the best types of interviews. Interviewers ask questions that they want the answers to, and in many cases, this creates a higher value webinar in which listeners who have the same questions get to hear the answers.

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MarcGuberti” url=”http://bit.ly/1wgUHPQ”]Hosting your own webinar allows you to empower your audience and learn from others at the same time.[/tweetthis]

#4: More Product Sales

At the end of many webinars, a product gets special attention. On my first webinar, my Twitter products received attention. At the end of a webinar you host, you can promote a guest’s product with your affiliate link. If you can squeeze it in, promote one of your products, but don’t take the spotlight away from your guest. Some guests may return and do another webinar with you, but only if they were happy with the experience the first time. The same guests doing webinars with you multiple times leads to more exposure, and as both of your audiences grow, both of you can promote the webinar so it reaches more people. For you and the guest, this leads to more email subscribers.

 

#5: Credibility

There is something special about being able to say that you interview experts in your niche. Although he doesn’t host webinars as often, Pat Flynn hosts one of the most successful podcasts to date, and he has had the honor of interviewing several high names in various niches. The people who get on Pat Flynn’s podcast also feel the honor of being selected to be guests on the podcast. You get credibility and the guest gets credibility. It’s a win-win.

 

In Conclusion

Webinars have emerged from an unknown way to promote yourself to highly beneficial and effective ways to reach a new audience while engaging with the audience you have already built. Many experts are more than willing to be on webinars regardless of whether you get a few dozen visitors every month or a few thousand visitors every month. It never hurts to ask an expert if he would like to be on your webinar. The worst thing an expert can do is say no.

What are your thoughts on webinars? Have you been a guest on a webinar or hosted one recently? Please share your thoughts and advice about webinars below.

The 6 Elements Of A Power Tweet

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The 6-4

Over 1 billion tweets get sent every three days. Out of all of those tweets, a small fraction of a small percentage of those tweets attract large attention and possibly go viral in the process. Most tweets half-lives span for a relatively short period of time. Power tweets are the tweets that attract large attention and possibly go viral in the process. They spread far and wide on Twitter.

Power tweets are crafted in such an effective manner that they are optimized for retweets, favorites, and interaction with your followers. Some of the people in your audience will almost feel obligated to share one of your power tweets or interact with you after reading it. In order for a power tweet to spread and get more attention, there must be a foundation behind the tweet. Certain factors beyond the 140 characters you have to play with go into how far a tweet spreads.

Creating power tweets is not as hard as it sounds. You don’t need millions of followers to send a tweet that reaches numerous people. You just need to have these six elements:

 

#1: A Message Worthy Of Our Attention

For a tweet to be a power tweet, there must be a story or message behind the 140 characters. The most successful tweets are the tweets that contain messages worthy of our attention. The second most retweeted tweet of all time was Barack Obama’s “Four more years” tweet. Regardless of whether you are a Republican, Democrat, or don’t care for American politics, that is a message worthy of the attention of many people.

The most retweeted tweet of Ellen with celebrities at the Oscars was worthy of many people’s attention because there are few pictures with that many celebrities in one picture. Although some people may not find that attention worthy, many people watching the Oscars on that day found it attention worthy, and plenty of people find that tweet attention worthy to this day.

You don’t have to host the Oscars or win a presidency to have a message worthy of our attention. Maybe you wrote a valuable article or have a cool story. Those may be worthy of our attention. If you don’t believe you have anything worthy of our attention (and that’s not true at all. You do have expertise and talents that are worthy of our attention), then tweet some articles about the latest news (I don’t tweet about the news though, especially with all of the bad things happening lately).

 

#2: The Right Character Count

Do you know how many characters your tweet should have if you want to get more retweets. According to the HubSpot’s social media scientist, the sweet spot is 70-100 characters. This is slightly more than in between the character limit, and that would make sense.

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MarcGuberti” url=”http://bit.ly/1x7hk4m”]The sweet spot for getting more #retweets is 70-100 characters.[/tweetthis]

You may wonder why the average 90 character tweet would do better than the average 120 character tweet. It’s just 30 characters. The length of that last sentence is close to the difference between a 90 character tweet and a 120 character tweet. Most short tweets don’t have strong enough messages while most of the long tweets are so long that people wouldn’t want to read them. 70-100 characters is long enough to provide a message but not too long for readers to read.

 

#3: Eye-Popping Picture

The most retweeted tweet and the second most retweeted tweet both have pictures. That’s not an accident. Social media posts with pictures have been proven to get more engagement than social media posts without pictures. Maybe Obama’s tweet about four more years still would have gotten over 100,000 retweets, but without the picture, Ellen’s tweet doesn’t make sense.

The next time you send a tweet, include a picture in that tweet. You may decide to start off with a picture from Google Images (that you are allowed to use). Eventually, start using your own pictures. You can use pictures from your camera or create pictures with Canva. Regardless of how you get pictures in your social media posts, those pictures need to be added. We are visual learners.

 

#4: Use The Right Hashtags At The Right Frequency

Tweets with 1-2 hashtags typically perform better than tweets without hashtags or tweets that consist of too many hashtags. When someone clicks on a hashtag, that person is automatically led to a Twitter search of tweets containing that hashtag. If you see someone’s tweet with #Twitter, and you click on that hashtag, you may see one of my tweets in the search results for “#Twitter” as your look through the search results. Including 1-2 hashtags per tweet allows you to show up in more of those search results.

With this knowledge, many people get carried away and decide to bombard their tweets with hashtags. The more hashtags you include in your tweets, the more difficult it will be for people to read your tweets. No matter how many search results you show up for, if it is difficult for people to read your tweets, they won’t retweet you, and they probably won’t follow you either. Some of your followers may even decide to unfollow you after trying to read a tweet filled with hashtags.

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MarcGuberti” url=”http://bit.ly/1x7hk4m”]Use hashtags in your tweets, but don’t overuse them.[/tweetthis]

#5: Relationships Built In Advance

If you want your audience to share your content, then you have to take the time to know your audience. Interact with them and engage with their content. One of the easiest ways to interact with your audience and know more about the individuals in that audience is to thank them for sharing your content. I have developed numerous relationships in advance, but it is important to note that you are not building these relationships to simply send one power tweet that spreads far and wide.

You are building these interactions to learn, serve, meet other people, and possibly get opportunities. I consider many of my Twitter followers as good friends who I interact with plenty of times each week. I get to learn more about my niche when my followers ask me questions or recommend certain articles. I serve my followers by providing them with the content they want to read and by answering their questions. Some of the friendships I built on Twitter led to opportunities such as guest blogging on various guest blogs and getting featured on well-known websites. The relationships you build now will lead to friendships and more interaction in the long-term.

 

#6: You

Are you the type of person who others would want to retweet? Are you an inspiration, a humorous tweeter, someone who shares valuable content, or provides any type of value to your followers? Are you a good person or business that people would use as a role model or an example of excellence in a certain area?

You need to be someone who others would want to retweet. When people retweet someone, part of the thinking process is whether it would be socially acceptable for them to retweet your tweet on their timeline. Would you rather have the retweet of a cruel dictator’s tweet or an inspirational quotes account on your timeline? Which one would your friends prefer to see?

 

In Conclusion

Power tweets spread far and wide. Although millions of tweets get sent every day, few of those tweets earn the title of power tweet. There are ways to optimize the tweet itself and set up the foundation you need prior to sending the tweet. Popularity is a factor to getting hundreds of retweets, but you don’t need millions of followers to get that many retweets. Although having millions of followers like Ellen and Obama helps out, it is possible for any tweet with these six elements in play to emerge as a power tweet.

What were your thoughts on the elements that make up a power tweet? Do you have any additional tips on crafting a power tweet? Please share your thoughts and advice below.