In any business, it is important to build a list of targeted subscribers to market your services or products to. You want a responsive list and your job is to provide value to them, consistently.
Whether you have a website or a blog, you should definitely have a way to capture a visitor’s name and email address.
Two of the biggest components of effective marketing are reach and frequency. Reach refers to the number of people you “touch” with your message; while frequency refers to the number of times each person is reached on average. Frequency is a way to build trust and drives your particular message home.
More people than ever are using social media, so it stands to reason that more of your target market is reachable there today than even just three or four months ago. Take advantage of these ways to add subscribers when using social media sites so you can begin communicating regularly with more potential customers and clients.
1. Create an effective profile. What is effective? Use a real photo of yourself and your real name. Include your location and a good bio–complete, up-to-date and with all of your contact information.
2. Offer events. A great way to add targeted subscribers is to hold an event such as a teleseminar. Invite your friends and followers and direct them to a sign-up page specifically for the event. Let them know that in addition to signing up for the event, they will also receive a free subscription to your e-zine or other valuable information.
3. Join a Ning network or create your own. Ning is a platform which allows people to create their own social networks. Anyone can create a network at no cost around a specific interest. This is a great tool for getting in front of your target market or niche.
4) Sync your newsletter broadcasts with Twitter. If you use an email list service such as AWeber, you have the option to tweet a link to your newsletter automatically when the broadcast is sent out. To do this, choose “Syndicate” and “Twitter Update.”
5. Place an opt-in box on your Facebook Fan Page. This is something I explain how to do in detail in my recent video blog post. The Static FBML application allows you to add your opt-in box very easily. This way you can capture new subscribers when your fans visit your profile.
6. Use social bookmarking sites. Social bookmarking allows internet users to search, organize and store bookmarks of web pages. Be sure to have a way for readers to submit posts that they enjoy to bookmarking sites (Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, etc.) right from your blog. This is a great way to drive traffic to your blog when others come across your bookmarked site.
7. Feed your blog posts to sites automatically. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all have applications/tools that will post your latest blog posts on their sites as soon as they are published. This keeps you on others’ radars consistently.
8. Be helpful and participate often. The best advice I can give for spending time on social sites is to give, give, give. You don’t have to spend hours there, but when you do use these sites, offer suggestions, advice and tips. Create conversation as well as join it. People will get to know you and then seek out more information about you.
Let me know if these tips are helpful and whether there are any that you are using currently with success–or any that I may have left out!
Photo Credit: Tim Morgan
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Very good post…I learned couple of things…Thanks
I’m a fan of enumerating options and this is a great enumerated list!
J.D. Meier’s last blog post..The Five Small Business Success Formulas
I’m planning an event around work happiness this fall. I hope to generate some PR and link love. The planning is the hardest part. I’d rather just go make calls, but as I’ve failed before without good plans, I’m being more prudent this go around.
Karl Staib – Work Happy Now’s last blog post..How Gary Vaynerchuk Found His Sweet Spot
That’s what I need to do – some events, like a conference on Skype.
Anthony Verna’s last blog post..We’ve been busy
“Be helpful and participate often. The best advice I can give for spending time on social sites is to give, give, give. ”
That certainly is a great idea. And in life, in general.
I can see how all these could be effective, maybe soemday I will delve into them, but at the moment I’m just trying to keep up with basic blogging.
Jannie Funster’s last blog post..Jannie’s Fine!!
Good insights into effective marketing online. We would recommend all except for feeding your newsletter information into Twitter automatically. We feel this depersonalizes our communication to our followers, afterall Twitter is built on the premise to keep communications personal and insightful.
Six Degrees’s last blog post..Free Advertising
@Ananth–always what I hope for!
@J.D.–You do such a great job of that over at your blog as well.
@Karl–Is it a teleseminar you are planning with guest speakers? Do tell us more if you are able.
Planning is the hardest part, it’s a grind. But it pays off so nicely so it’s the light you can look forward to at the end of the tunnel.
@Anthony–Did you end up doing your Skype call yesterday? Let me know if you need some help brainstorming event ideas, I like that stuff.
@Jannie–You are doing a great job with your blog which I know you keep very active. No pressure on the social media, it’s baby steps.
@Jesse–Would agree with you for the most part. I certainly believe Twitter should be used at least 85% for personal interaction and building relationships. If you are using it correctly that majority of the time, you can balance in a bit of promotion which directs your followers to other helpful content you are providing. I like letting people know that my newsletter is out there and that it gives a lot of value (at no cost). The auto-tweet feature just makes it one less thing I need to remember to do myself every time it goes out.
Christine,
Thanks for the simple breakdown of steps. I will reference this for people in my networks and share your article forward. For along time I didn’t pay attention to the social bookmarking sites, and just recently “got” the power of them. And the optin page on facebook is an amazing tool. I am on to a welcome page for the fanpage now with a sign up form too, it should be up today.
I appreciate your each to follow and implement content, it takes the unknown and breaks it down to simple (as you put) baby steps.
Make it a great day!
Tammy Redmon´s last blog ..Hello world!
Hey Christine, would you direct me to the video about how to add your opt-in in to your Facebook profile, not fan page? Thanks!
Hi Christine. You recommend establishing a Ning Network. I have a membership site. Do you feel a Ning network will diminish the the membership site by offering watered down the content. How will the Ning network boast my web presence or will it. Thanks and keep up the great work.
@Tammy–Glad it helped. I do find that social bookmarking is kind of a “forgotten” piece that isn’t really mentioned. But it’s always good to have a way for others to spread your content easily.
@Angela–Sure, that video is here: http://communicatevalue.com/video-tutorials/place-optin-box-facebook-profile/
Facebook may have made some minor changes since then, so let me know how that works for you. The key is using that Profile HTML app.
@Mike–A Ning site is just one way to get people to find out about your products and services…I mention it here as a way to get people into your “funnel” as it were. For example, you could use it as a way to get people to be exposed to you and your biz for free, and then as they learn more about you, they may want more in-depth help/info and would possibly join your membership site. You could use the Ning site as an introduction to your content, not necessarily as an in-depth resource.
Fantastic advice Christine.
I am definitely going to check out your blog post to see how to get an opt-in box on my FB fan page. I am also going to check out apps to automatically have my blog posts blasted out on twitter and FB..
Thanks for ALL of YOUR giving!
Dianne
Dianne DelReyes´s last blog ..What the Heck is CoQ10, and Do We Need to Take it?