I spent a fun and insightful day last week at Nick Tadd’s Social Media Workshop. Altogether a very useful and thought-and-action-provoking day!

One of the questions I raised with Nick was the desirability of using corporate versus personal branding and accounts when using the social media.

Nick has since posted a very interesting blog post examining the issue of Social Media Schizophrenia on the Ecademy Social Media Club (SMUDGE) Forum.

Nick concludes that “…The answer is to simply be YOU…you should focus on one core business, the one that you feel most passionate about. Build your on-line brand, personality, and profile around that one business. Once people LIKE and TRUST you, you can then expose them to your other business activities, even if they are totally un-related.”

As I noted in my response to Nick’s post, I believe the choices are not necessarily straightforward, and will depend on the individual, the business, target market and the industry.

And, as the social media and the way they are driving business strategy are here to stay, it’s well worth thinking through the issues as they affect YOU and YOUR BUSINESS…

As Nick (and Penny and Thomas Power, the founders of Ecademy) point out, the mediums available for promotion of one’s business are rapidly changing as we go into the 21st Century - largely due to the changes social media have brought, as well as the ‘information overload’ that we now have thanks to the internet as a whole.

As a result, we’re well into the ‘age of recommendation’ and the tendency to follow people, rather than brands (viz Penny’s KnowMe-LikeMe-FollowMe analysis).

There are many big corporates who use the social media - especially Facebook and Twitter - very successfully to promote the brand (Dell, etc) , rather than individuals - and this is an appropriate approach where the brand already has global or growing recognition.

Many senior executives do, of course, also have a personal Facebook and/or Twitter account, as this allows the corporate to put a more human face on the brand and plays to the above factors.

Many senior executives do, of course, also have a personal SM account, as this allows the corporate to put a more human face on the brand and plays to the above factors.

There’s an interesting TechCrunch blog post on how Charities are using Twitter very successfully to raise funds - this of course is using a corporate branding…

Celebrities are the prime example of using the social media to great effect on a personal branding basis, as people follow them (or their stage name personas) as ‘fans’.

There are also those who use the social media both with a ’sober business persona’ and also with a zanier ‘ the real me’ persona - eg Simon Leung (of Adwords List Building) - @SimonLeung has 39,900 followers, while @CoolSi has 43,600.

Using a personal brand on the social media may also be less easy for smaller businesses, eg the local hairdresser/cake shop or online graphic designer, unless the proprietors have ‘big personalities’ and/or are already well known in their business/area.

For the smaller start-up business/entrepreneur, social media are inevitably going to be a necessary part of core strategy for the future – it’s more and more a question of making the product fit the media, rather than vice-versa.

However, as they may not already be known by their persona, whether to use a corporate or personal branding will depend on a range of factors, including the business, the industry, the target market, personality, etc…

So thanks Nick for a timely post - all good ‘grist to the mill’…

…and I’ll include some questions on these aspects in my Free Tele-Interview with Thomas Power on Wednesday 8th July on “How To Use Social Media For Business Promotion”.

Details at: www.ThePowerNetworker.com

I look forward to you joining us on Wednesday!

Cheers!

John Thornely

I came across this useful video on “How to tell a story” by Scott Simon.

While the video is aimed at journalists, it is a very useful reminder of how to tell a story in your copywriting…

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Hack or Copywriter, we humans love stories and your story needs to grab your readers’ attention!

And if you want your story (or copy) to go viral, as Scott says… “Give your audience something they can pass on” - a catch-phrase or idea.

Happy copywriting

John

Here’s your invitation to a Tele-Interview I’m doing on July 8th with Thomas Power, Chairman of Ecademy, on how to find buyers and network using Facebook and Twitter…

“Can you afford to not to be in a market with 300 million Prospective Buyers?”

That’s the question that THOMAS POWER, Chairman of ECADEMY, asked us at the first #Twalk Twitter workshop recently hosted by Ecademy.

And that’s the question he’s going to answer in a Tele-Interview on Wednesday 8^th July…

Twitter and Facebook are the two KEY markets that are HOT right now and dwarf all the other Social Media sites as the place to win new prospects and build sales.

As Thomas says: “Twitter is growing beyond exponentially, with 1000% growth in the past year and 100% in the past couple of months alone! Projected use should reach 100 million by Christmas and it’s set to explode in the next year, once the school-age generation really catches on.”

And, with 200 million users, Thomas says “Facebook is a huge and active marketplace. So any serious entrepreneur is missing out badly if you’re not using it!

“You need to get into Twitter and Facebook NOW.”

As on-the-pulse entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki says: “Twitter and Facebook are the best way to market your product today - and both are free”.

Only 200 lines are available and are likely to be snapped up fast, so REGISTER NOW at www.ThePowerNetworker.com if you don’t want to be left behind…! It’s FREE!

Talk with you then!

On the same day that Microsoft unveiled its new Bing search engine (see upcoming post), Google has announced Google Wave, a new in-browser communication and collaboration tool that is set to change the way we work together online.

Delegates at the Google I/O Conference last week were treated to an introduction to Google’s new market-leading product/platform, due to be released later this year – just click on the screen below to watch it.

In brief, Google Wave is a real-time communication platform that combines aspects of email, instant messaging, online meetings, social networking, web chat, wikis, polls and project management in one in-browser communication system. Business colleagues or friends can come together to discuss topics or share information and files.

You can see more about Wave at About Google Wave or Mashable. Some of the key capabilities and extensions include:

• Real-time: you can see what someone else is typing, character-by-character.
• Text, Photos, Maps, Polls and more: you can share all these and more.
• Playback: You can playback any part of the wave to see what was said.
• Embeddability: Waves can be embedded on any blog or website.
• Applications and Extensions: Just like a Facebook or Twitter application, or an iGoogle gadget, developers can build their own apps within waves – anything from bots to complex real-time games.
• Wiki functionality: Anything written within a Wave can be edited by any other participant.
• Simultaneous Translation: As well as an automated spell-checker (‘Spelly’), there is even a robot called ‘Rosie’ who can translate simultaneously between 40 languages!
• Gadgets & Robots: Google’s Wave Gadgets Tutorial and Wave Robots Overview outline what is available and what could be developed.
• Open source: The Google Wave code is open source, to encourage developers to produce new applications and extend functionality. Thus, for instance, you can combine Twitter ‘tweets’ into a ‘twave’, and so on.

I/O Delegates were given access to the beta version of Wave, to help Google develop both the platform and applications for it. Google has deliberately developed Wave as an Open Source application, so there are likely to be a myriad of new applications available by the time Wave formally launches – and over the following months!

So, all-in-all, within the year, Google Wave is likely to become a hugely powerful – and free – open-source collaboration platform with many, many applications and extensions.

Just watch the presentation above and let your mind imagine how on-line interaction and meetings are likely to evolve – and the host of extensions and applications that will be available very shortly – with Google Wave!

And just imagine the whole new ways you will be able to develop leads for your business and then interact with your prospects and customers…!

Join the Wave!

WARNING: YOU HAVE 3 SECONDS!

That’s right! Research indicates that you have between 3 to 8 seconds to get a searcher to click on your listing or to make your visitor decide to stay on your website, rather than ‘click on’ and go elsewhere.

In a recent Conference Call, we discussed how you need to ensure the key elements of your website ‘grab’ your visitor and make them decide to stay, as well as eye-tracking studies that reveal the way that searchers view Search Engine Results Pages (’SERP’s). So here’s a bit more about how to grab your visitor and make him/her stay…

Eyeball It!

We are becoming ever more internet-savvy and impatient for results… Recent ‘heat map’ eye-tracking studies of search behaviour described by thinkeyetracking.com indicate that - in the last 3 years - we have gone from reading every line of the search results (the old ‘F Pattern’) to reading mostly just the results in the top left corner of the screen.

A study by eyetools.net similarly shows up the ‘Golden Triangle’, in the top left corner of the SERPs, dominantly viewed by searchers, with a brief glance at the top sponsored results at the top right.

And you should watch the video below, and view Google Blog page Eye-tracking studies: more than meets the eye, to understand just how fast the average person searches a web page to check whether it has relevant information!

And this applies to Landing and Sales pages too! As the eyetools study comments… “People don’t always realize that they can optimize their landing pages using eyetracking results to better convert their traffic into sales. If you’re paying for traffic, you can make a huge improvement in ROI by optimizing landing pages (30% boost in sales!)”.

Google Page 1

In the thinkeyetracking study, “87% respondents replied that they would modify the search terms or refine the search by category” if they couldn’t find their desired search result on the first page of Google, rather than go on to further pages.

So being in the top 5 to 10 listings on the fist page of Google results really does matter - whether for Organic or Search results!

Grab Your Visitor by the (Eye)balls!

Within 3 seconds of your visitor arriving on your website, the page needs to have convinced him/her clearly that they’ve (at last!) come to the right place!

Some of the key elements that will help convince your visitors stay on your website - and hence reduce your ‘Bounce Rate’ (people leaving from the page they arrived on) - include:

• Easy viewing of key information ‘above the fold’ in the ‘golden triangle’  - ie visible in top left corner of the first screen.
• A strong headline that includes the Keyword they used to reach your site
• A graphic that mirrors the Keyword
• Few distractions
• A clear reason to go on reading…

You can read more about background and strategies for this at the following websites

• Five Tips for Writing Effective Web Headlines
• 3 Match Types With The Same Quality Score

Don’t worry about the ‘Adwords’ angle etc – focus on what these tell us about how we need to grab visitors’ attention and lead them through our web pages by KEEPING THEIR INTEREST!

So the moral of the story is ‘think like your prospects’ - as they say, “walk a mile in your customer’s shoes!”

Grab your visitor by the eyeballs, take him/her by the hand and lead them briskly through your page sequence, feeding their excitement as you go, till you make them a ‘no-brainer’ offer they can’t refuse - what Mark Joyner calls the ‘Irresistible Offer’.

Happy copywriting!
John Thornely

How does Google rank bidders on its Adwords program?

That’s a perennial question that Google never answers directly - and as a result, leads the web advertising industry a merry game ‘catch-if-catch-can’!

It also leads to much misunderstanding by those who can’t afford to spend their days (and money) researching the actual performance of Google Ads… and find their ads being ranked in strange ways - or not shown at all!

So when a senior figure in Google comes out and clarifies the Google Ad Auction process, and how the ‘Quality Score’ of your ad (and other factors) affect both the ranking and cost of your ad (and whether it’s shown at all)… it’s got to be helpful!

And the video below, presented by Hal Varian, Google CHief Economist, is one of the clearest explanations I’ve seen of the importance of managing Adwords Quality Score and the effect on the Ad auction and your Ad placement.

Consulting Google’s Help pages is a bit like consulting the classical Oracle at Delphi - you never get a direct answer! But this is certainly the most easily understood explanation I’ve seen from Google on the auction process and ranking of your Ad.

If you’re not familiar with the basics of  Google Adwords, you can get a description of Quality Score here. But the video is clearer… So maybe Google does actually realise it needs to clarifyhow it’s rnking system works!

Happy Adword-ing
John Thornely

A topic that came up in two recent consultancy calls with Mastermind Program Members was using the correct spelling and language for your target market – and then directing them to the appropriate affiliate website to make their purchase.

Let’s look at a physical product that can be marketed through a Hub and Mini-site strategy – for instance ‘Media Centres’ (but don’t ask me what they do!).

First question… Who is my target market?

Second question… Where are they?

Third Question… What style of language do they use – ie how do I need to ‘speak’ to get their interest?

The Center of The Matter

Let’s look at media centres – or is it centers…? ‘Media Centre’ is the British English spelling… The Americans would refer to a ‘Media Center’.

To see what I’m talking about, do a Google search on the term ‘samsung media center’… When I did this, the first result was for ‘Samsung United States’, using the spelling ‘Center’, and so on down the list. When I spelled it ‘centre’, some UK suppliers appeared in the top few listings who did not appear for the other spelling (along with Samsung USA again!).

Now Google’s search algorithms are clever enough to get round the spelling question, so ‘center’ comes up even when I type in ‘centre’ – particularly as that is the spelling used by the manufacturer. And Google directs me to search using Google.co.uk anyway, whereas in the USA, they’ll be using Google.com with it’s algorithms set to focus on US-based searches.

What The Domain…?

But all this becomes more important when you’re selecting your Domain name for a Mini-site, doesn’t it?

If you choose ‘SamsungYH-999GSMediaCentre.com’ as your domain name, and use this spelling on your web pages, you’ll get British-oriented (UK) traffic – if indeed you get any, as Samsung don’t call it this (they use Center). If you want to target American traffic, you’d need to use the ‘Center’ spelling.

You can check on sites like Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk that focus separately on the US and UK markets and see what comes up for ‘Samsung YH-999GS Media Centre’. For my search, Amazon.com returned ads while Amazon.co.uk didn’t.

Now, if I live in the USA and I’m looking for a ‘media center’, I’ll expect it to be sold, and delivered within, the USA. I don’t know what these British pound thingies are (and the price converted into dollars is higher) and I don’t want to wait three weeks (or pay for) my purchase to be shipped across ‘the Pond’.

And vice-versa. If I buy on-line in the UK, I want it to be delivered tomorrow from a UK supplier (but see ‘Side Note’ below).

So make sure your supplier/portal matches your market… and your target product.

Side Note – Arbitrage: It’s sometimes cheaper to buy in US$ and get it shipped from the USA – subject to taxes, duties, warranties, servicing requirements, etc… So there can be opportunities for ‘arbitrage’ for uncomplicated products, by sourcing/shipping them cheaper from the US than consumers can buy them in the UK… but let’s save that for another blog post!

Divided By A Common Language

And don’t forget to use the appropriate words that your target market uses. Terminology can change between countries, states and even counties. An example I came across recently was the terminology used by different State administrations for corrective driving courses for speeding offenders in the USA. Nearly every state calls it something different (I don’t have space here to list them all!) – so you’d need state-specific web pages if you were marketing this product…!

The Moral Of The Story: So, when you’re selecting your domain name, make sure that you’re targeting your market correctly, using the right spellings for the market – and as used by the product supplier – and that you’re directing your prospects to the most appropriate seller.

This isn’t really complicated – but I hope the above will help you focus on getting things right rather faster than if you have to find out for yourself… the hard way!

PS: See my blog post “The Anatomy of Great Copy ” on how to find some of the answers posed above…

Happy marketing!

John Thornely
Internet Tycoons

How can you tell whether your terrific new brain-child idea is a killer or a dog?

Well, as any seasoned marketer will tell you, there are no sure-fire ways. There are NO right and wrong answers in marketing – there is not a single expert who can tell you whether your new product will fly or sink!

As an example, a very seasoned marketer and copywriter I know admitted to me recently that he launched a new product last year that he was convinced would sell like hot cakes…

Did it? No – it bombed!

So not even the experienced marketers get it right all the time!

But yes, there is a way of making absolutely certain-sure that you have developed a winning product…

As web entrepreneur Nick James explains, it’s quite simple:

You allow the punters to tell you whether or not they want your product….

And he’s deadly serious when he says that the only certain way to be sure is to test your product in a suitable, email broadcast, newspaper ad or direct mail campaign…

The punters will pretty soon tell you whether or not they want to buy or not…. Either you will get lots of orders, or you will just about break-even, or you will hardly get any orders at all. You just wont know until you test!

Now, do you want to know the single most powerful piece of information in the product development and/or direct marketing business?

This information is worth more than everything I have previously told you, put together. It’s this:

Believe the punters - not yourself.

There. I really don’t like to tell anyone not to believe in themselves…

But in this particular instance, you must put all your faith in the punters.

It doesn’t matter how much of a ‘pet’ your product is. It doesn’t matter how much your old mum and your friends tell you it’s a GREAT product. It is wholly irrelevant that you have seen scores of adverts for similar products at a higher price. - If the punters don’t respond to your advert, then you must drop that product and move straight on to the next one.

The only exception to this is if you have a modest response, and you think you made a slight mistake… (say by advertising in completely the wrong place, or too expensive, etc.).

In this case, it might be worth testing again. If this second attempt also fails, then drop the product immediately.

Don’t try and second-guess the punters.

Don’t worry too much about how or why the punters didn’t buy your product. You will probably never work this out… I never can!

The greatest mail-order gurus in the world often find themselves scratching their heads in disbelief at what works, and what fails. They are continually amazed that their ‘dead-cert’ product flops completely, and their rank outsider, no-hoper product which they whacked-in for a quick test, results in bulging mail-sacks.

There is often no rhyme or reason to this. Who knows why the punters will go for a product, or leave it alone? It could be one word in the copy, a ‘feel’, the picture, the price, their perception of your ability to deliver…. ANYTHING. You’ll never find out.

Now the big difference between a winner, and a loser is that the winner will listen to the punters no matter what he thinks. If the punters tell him that his red-hot favorite product is a lame dog, then he’ll drop it immediately. Losers will back their hunches right down the line until they go broke.

They just know that this product is a winner…. If the marketing fails, then they attribute it to the media, or the day of the week, or the price, or the delivery time. They don’t believe that the punters could ever reject such a super product.

So they promote it again, and again and again until they have lost a very great deal of money. Then they believe. But even after all this, they still harbor a sneaking suspicion that if they’d just altered the coupon shape, or increased the money-back guarantee to 30 days, or…

You get the idea….

To become a direct-response winner, you MUST believe the punters…

The punters KNOW – you only BELIEVE.

This principle can be summarised in this vital concept:

MILK YOUR WINNING PRODUCTS, DROP YOUR LOSERS.

Source: http://www.ebizhelpers.com/article~cat~ecommerce-general~articleid~4047.htm © Nick James.

John Thornely

To learn more about how YOU can
Profit From The Internet – Fast, visit
www.Internet-Tycoons.com

Try using these ‘Bucket-Brigade’ phrases in your copywriting to ‘refresh’ the reader’s attention and link your paragraphs together…

1. A word of caution:

2. Add this to…

3. After all,

4. Again,

5. Also,

6. Although,

7. Am I right about you so far?

8. And best of all…

9. And don’t forget

10. And get this…

11. And guess what?

12. And here’s some great news for you:

13. And in addition to that . . .

14. And just think,

15. And like I said:

16. And look at this:

17. And now you can…

18. And now,

19. And remember…

20. And that doesn’t take into account…

21. And that’s just the beginning…

22. And that’s not all…

23. And that’s why

24. And the result?

25. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

26. And to prove it, here is…

27. And we don’t stop there

28. And what if I could take…

29. And what’s worse…

30. And what’s more

Look out for more suggestions in future blog posts…

John Thornely
© John Thornely www.johnthornely.com 2008

To learn more about how YOU can
Profit From The Internet – Fast, visit
www.Internet-Tycoons.com

Here’s a quick fact: It’s easier to distinguish your business from a benefit and service point of view than from a product or feature angle.

For example, if you sell telephone headsets, perhaps you can distinguish your product by saying it has a mute button, comes in 5 colors, and is lightweight.

So what? What benefit is that to me as a customer?

But from a service/benefit aspect, you can offer these benefits, which are MUCH more interesting to me:

· In stock or it’s FREE

· We never close

· 4-hour guaranteed repair

· Trade up when you outgrow your system

· Order 24 hours a day

· Choose from 100 different systems

· Same-day shipping — only $15

· Order by midnight and get same-day shipping

· Prepayment discounts

· FREE technical support

· Toll-free ordering hotline

· Priority-member ordering hotline

· Order over the Web from your own computer

· Money-back guarantee

· Saves you at least $10,000.00 a year in productivity or your money back

· FREE report with any purchase

· No minimums

· Guaranteed everyday low prices

· Business leasing — $0 down payment

· Expert sales consultants

· And much, much more

So tell your customers about the Benefits, not the Features of your service or product – and don’t be shy!

John Thornely
© John Thornely www.johnthornely.com 2008

To learn more about how YOU can
Profit From The Internet – Fast, visit
www.Internet-Tycoons.com