by | September 10, 2015 · 9:02 am

Social Media Touch Strategy

by Gail Z. Martin excerpted from 30 Days to Social Media Success

Where does social media come in? Social media offers a conversational, low-pressure way to remain in the forefront of a prospect’s awareness with “touches” on a subject where there’s interest but no trigger for an immediate purchase. It can also keep your company in touch with current customers so that when add-ons or upgrades become necessary, you’re first in line for the business.

The key here is not to view social media as a way to provide a barrage of “buy now” messages. Instead, think of how you can engage the prospect in a conversation about whatever product or service you sell, with the immediate focus on offering helpful information related to the Problem/Pain/Fear.

Some great examples of this are tips, how-to videos, short audios, links to interesting resources like articles, white papers, blog posts or longer videos, interviews and Question/Answer sessions. Social media sites like Facebook make it easy for you to share multi-media content and have a two-way conversation about the topic in a format that reveals your company’s personality and lets you share your Real Story in a no-pressure environment. Twitter is a great way to provide tips, ask questions, share links to related resources, comment on headlines related to your product or service and even do surveys.

While you usually can’t close a sale before the customer has experienced a trigger point, once you’ve established a relationship, you have the chance to educate the prospect about that trigger point. Perhaps the best time to buy a new piece of equipment isn’t when the old equipment falls apart. Perhaps there are trade-in advantages or depreciation advantages to buying on a shorter purchase cycle. Maybe you can point out benefits that deal so much better with the Problem/Pain/Fear than the old product that the prospect decides to buy sooner rather than later. You’ve altered the trigger point through education, and because your company provided the information in an ongoing relationship, you’re likely to be first in line to get the sale.

When someone subscribes to your blog, Facebook page update, Twitter feed, they’re agreeing to get updates (information) from you on a regular basis. If you share information that speaks to his or her needs, every update does double duty; it reminds the prospect about you (a touch) while it provides useful information (deepening your relationship). Social media makes it easier and less expensive (and less intrusive) than ever before to stay in contact as touches prepare for a trigger.

Using a “touch” strategy keeps you visible by providing useful information your targeted audience wants and needs without sales pressure. What content can you offer to provide 30 valuable touches?

 

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by | September 8, 2015 · 9:01 am

Touches to Transactions

by Gail Z. Martin excerpted from 30 Days to Social Media Success

Modern marketing wisdom holds that in today’s advertising-saturated world, it takes at least seven to 30 “touches” or reminders before a consumer takes action. Although that may seem like a lot when you first hear it, if you think about how you act when you’re the consumer, it begins to make sense.

Your social media sites can account for several of those 30 touches. But to be effective, you need to think about how touches become transactions.

Touches and trigger points

We manage to ignore tens of thousands of advertising messages every day, mostly because they promote products we aren’t currently interested in buying. The key phrase there is “currently.” When you realize you need a product or service, all of a sudden, you tune into the messages related to the product/service that you had been screening out.

The situation that changes everything is a trigger point. It’s an event that moves you from someone who hasn’t thought about making a purchase or who has been casually window shopping to someone who needs to buy right now. The seller usually can’t change the trigger point (although they try to influence it with sales and specials), but you can make sure you’re making enough touches so that when a triggering event moves a prospect from looker to buyer, he or she thinks about your company.

Let’s use a car purchase as an example. If your car is reasonably new and in good working order, you may not be thinking at all about buying a new car. You probably tune out car ads, emails from dealerships, or radio commercials about great specials. Or maybe you’ve been thinking about buying a new car—sometime. You might be casually reading car ads, going out to dealer web sites, paying some attention to commercials, even slowing down when you pass the dealer’s lot for a good look. But for now, it’s all still window shopping.

Then a triggering event occurs. Your existing car is in an accident, and it will cost more to fix it than it’s worth. All of a sudden, you’re in the market for a new car, and you need it right now.

Until that triggering event happened, there wasn’t much the car dealers could do to hurry up your purchase. You bought the car based on your schedule of when you needed one, not on the dealer’s schedule of when he wanted to sell one. Business owners often forget that it’s the customers’ need that drives the purchase cycle more than it is driven by sales and specials. But there’s a very important thing to remember: When a customer moves from shopper to buyer, the company that has made the most marketing touches is first in line to get his business.

Go back to the car example. When that prospect was window shopping, the dealership with the best web site, or the showroom that was polite about a test drive without a commitment is likely to be the first place that prospect goes when he or she moves from shopper to buyer. Those “touches” pay off in top of mind awareness.

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by | September 1, 2015 · 9:27 am

News or Social Media?

by Gail Z. Martin excerpted from 30 Days to Social Media Success

            Should you send out your press release to news sites or post it on social media? The answer is: both. Social media is just a new vehicle for the oldest form of news—word of mouth. The difference lies in the style of the communication and the relationship with the audience.

Although their influence has waned, traditional news outlets remain important for publicity-seekers. But where it used to require mailing, emailing or calling a reporter, now it’s possible to find a reporter’s social media sites and strike up a conversation in a less formal and more accessible setting. Reporters and TV/radio hosts now blog, Tweet and post Facebook pages, all of which make it possible to comment or connect outside of traditional channels. The key difference is that connections made via social media should be conversational, while the real pitch should be made via traditional channels such as email or phone.

Today’s corporate press pages often include blogs, Twitter feeds, YouTube videos and web audio, and offer reporters the chance to subscribe via an RSS feed. You can create a similar one-stop media (and consumer) page on your web site and incorporate your social media sites to provide a content-rich introduction to you and your products or services.

Online press distribution sites (whether they are pay-for-placement or free posting) are a great way to increase traffic to both your web site and your social media sites. The last paragraph of a press release is called the “boilerplate;” it’s copy that stays the same from release to release and it includes a brief company description and your contact information. When you write releases that are designed to catch the interest of both reporters and consumers, you can steer them to visit your other sites for more information or for immediate sales. Press releases that you post online do two very valuable things: they increase your brand’s search engine visibility and they improve your site’s rankings through increased traffic and in-bound links.

The biggest difference between news and social media is in the context and style of the communication. Most newspapers and magazines (whether online or traditional paper) write in a third-person narrative form. This is ideal for the traditional press release. Social media sites, however, are conversation and informal. As a general rule, bloggers and social media site owners don’t appreciate getting press releases. They would rather be approached with a personal email or a direct message and a conversational inquiry to see whether the topic would be of interest. News sites tend to cover events, products and announcements in a detached, impersonal style, which is ideally as unbiased as possible. Social media sites revel in their quirky personality and imbue everything with the voice and perspective of the site owner. Traditional news sites also tend to show more restraint in terms of emotion and avoid the use of profanity. Social media sites are wide-open forums that can range from restrained to no-holds-barred.

When a story, image or video goes “viral” it means that it so captures the imagination that people begin to send it to their friends without prompting. Sometimes, a viral story or image will also make it only the traditional news if it gains enough popularity. It’s important to remember that all PR, viral or not, occurs with a complete lack of control on the part of the originator after the “send” button has been pressed. You may not like what a reporter or blogger says about your company or your product, and you may not approve of the contexts in which your viral image or story is relayed. Too bad. That’s how the game is played.

Leveraging PR and social media

When you use traditional PR and social media to reinforce each other, utilizing the unique strengths of both vehicles, your publicity can take a huge step forward.

Before you pitch a reporter, check out his or her social media sites. Make thoughtful comments that include a good signature block and reference your company/product/book in a non-sales way. If there are a few key reporters you want to target, you can begin this process long before your release is ready to go live.

Create a blog just for your press releases, and use RSS to feed it to your web site and social media pages so that your news is both easily updated and archived. A news blog also provides the option for interested reporters or citizen journalists to subscribe for future updates. Remember to include your videos and audios as well as your standard press releases.

When you post a press release to an online distribution site, make sure the headlines and copy are keyword-rich for optimum searchability, and have good links to your web site and social media pages. Take readers directly to the appropriate page for the topic, not just to the home page of your site. Don’t forget to fill in the “tags” section where you can increase searchability even further. When your press release posts online, be sure to add it to the Social Bookmarking sites for increased visibility.

When you have an article, radio interview or guest blog posted online, Tweet the link and let your Facebook and LinkedIn friends know by updating your “status” line. Blog about the experience of being interviewed, or augment the article or interview with additional information you didn’t have a chance to share and be sure to include the link. Add the link to your online press kit with a tag that shows the name of the publication/blog/station and the date. Be sure to submit article/interview links to the Social Bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon, too.

Create news by blogging live from industry events and creating on-site videos and uploading them. Run polls or surveys on your social media sites, and report the results with a press release to traditional and online news sites. Friend and follow the reporters and bloggers you hope to pitch, and pay attention to the kinds of topics they discuss and cover on their social media sites as well as in their articles, shows or blogs. Become part of the news by launching your own newsworthy podcast or blog and post solid, non-sales content that attracts the attention of traditional and online media.

While the lines between news and social media have blurred, consumers benefit from a windfall of information, while companies seeking publicity have more opportunities than ever before. Social media can not only increase the effectiveness of your publicity; it can create a powerful, interconnected and global PR platform for you and your business. Remember to entertain and inform and keep the focus of releases on “what’s in it for the reader” to get maximum impact.

 

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by | August 30, 2015 · 9:25 am

Social Media and PR

by Gail Z. Martin excerpted from 30 Days to Social Media Success

Social media has blurred the lines between public relations (PR) and online marketing. It also created a powerful tool for business owners, professionals and authors to reach global audiences and create “viral” buzz in ways that could only be dreamed about by the large advertising agencies of past decades.

While there are some ways in which PR and social media can reinforce each other, there are also distinct differences, and a wise self-promoter will respect the distinctions.

A quick PR primer

Public relations is the art of getting free publicity, usually through coverage in traditional media such as newspapers/magazines, TV and radio. With the growth of the Internet, that field of possibilities has expanded to include the online versions of newspapers and magazines, video sites like YouTube, and both podcasts and online radio shows like those offered by Blog Talk Radio.

The workhorse of traditional PR is the press release, which even in the Internet age remains much the same. The standard format looks like this:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:             (Your name and email or phone here)

Catchy Headline With Good Keywords

City, State: Compelling first sentence with top keywords and action verbs and one or two more short sentences that cover who, what, when, where, and why we should care.

Second short paragraph (one to three sentences) that provide background and context.

Third short paragraph (one to three sentences) that includes a one-line recap of your company and what it does and for whom, plus email, web site and phone.

That’s it—nothing mysterious or esoteric about it, but that deceptively little document will showcase your skill in making editors and readers care about what you’re offering.

One of the biggest changes the Internet has made to public relations is the ability for regular folks who aren’t reporters to find their own news online without the media middlemen. Most people today will run a Google search on a topic rather than wait for tomorrow’s newspaper, next month’s magazine or the 6 o’clock evening news. Online news sites operate 24/7, creating an insatiable demand for news that relies on a steady stream of good story leads from publicists and press releases.

On one hand, that means your news has never been needed as much by news sites as it is today. On the other hand, it means there is an incredible amount of clutter your release must rise above in order to be noticed.

The many new faces of news

Pre-Internet, it was easy to find reporters because they worked for newspapers, magazines, TV or radio. Today, blogs and social media sites have created the rise of the citizen journalist, people who report or comment on topics without formal training or a job with a media outlet. Some sites are private rants, while others show good reportorial skill and a true newshound’s nose for a story. In recent years, bloggers have broken major stories ahead of big newspapers.

News reporting has begun to embrace and cultivate the citizen journalist by providing ways for people to upload their own on-the-scene videos, cell phone photos and reports (for example, CNN). The ability to text, Tweet and photograph via cell phone from a scene with breaking news means that the average person who is in the right place at the right time stands a good chance of being the lead story on the news.

The rise of the citizen journalist coupled with decreasing ad revenue and declining subscriptions has led to the surviving newspapers and magazines cutting back on some sections of coverage. Book reviews are a good example of this trend, and a place where social media sites have more than filled the gap, providing more outlets for coverage than ever before.

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by | August 28, 2015 · 9:26 am

6 MORE Ways to Brand Your Big Change

by Gail Z. Martin

We live in a time when most ‘full-time’ jobs last less than two years and when an increasing number of professionals work on a freelance/contract/on-demand basis. It’s called the ‘Gig Economy’ and while I know the term draws from musicians, the reality can feel more like frogs. Key to keeping your head above water is career agility, the ability to gain new skills, constantly learn new things, and reinvent yourself to remain relevant. Here are five more tips to help you make sure the world sees the ‘real’ and ever-changing you.

  1. Once you have a name and logo, print up business cards that do you proud. Here’s a tip: have a professional create the layout for your card, then save on printing with online sites like Vistaprint.com. Your business card is your first impression and you want to make a good one, so don’t skimp on quality.
  2. Print up at least 500 cards and give them to everyone you meet. And I do mean everyone. It’s going to take you a while to get comfortable with introducing yourself and your new business using your 30-second introduction, so practice, practice, practice. Strike up conversations in the grocery store, at social events, or when you’re waiting in line. The more you use your introduction, the more comfortable and natural it will become. Always have your cards with you, and ask people to pass on your cards to interested friends and family.
  3. Expand your personal network, but don’t jettison your old colleagues. Use social media to let your former colleagues know what you’re doing and how they can help you make the transition. You might be surprised about how the friends from your ‘old life’ can make connections, referrals and recommendations that will help you create a successful reinvention. Use your business name and tagline frequently, and repeat your 30-second introduction often enough that the people in your network can use it to tell others about you.
  4. Post photos of every step along your journey. Taking a class for certification? Post photos of the classroom, you with classmates, and you with your certificate/diploma. Snap selfies when you travel for work and get clients to pose with you. If you create a tangible product, take plenty of photos. The internet loves before/after photos, so if your work helps people, places or things look better, snap and post! Every photo is part of your branding. Facebook and Pinterest are great for this.
  5. Ask for testimonials and recommendations. Ask your former colleagues to endorse and recommend you on LinkedIn. Ask every client, no matter how small the project, for a testimonial you can share. Testimonials and recommendations are an important part of your branding.
  6. Tell stories about what you’re doing. Facebook, Pinterest and LinkedIn are great places to post short (paragraph) stories about the funny things you encounter, the challenges you overcome and the outcomes you produce. YouTube is great for this too. Remember, stories sell!

Changing careers, starting a new business or reinventing yourself takes courage and effort, but you can have fun with your fresh start and enjoy the journey. By making personal branding a conscious investment of your time and focus, you’ll be ahead of the game in rallying friends to your cause and reaching new customers in record time.

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by | August 27, 2015 · 9:24 am

4 Personal Branding Tips For Making A Big Change

by Gail Z. Martin

We’ve all laughed about how someone’s driver’s license, passport photo or employee ID snapshot doesn’t look at all like that person. Maybe it’s the bad lighting, or our state of mind when we go to get an ‘official’ photo taken, but there is usually little resemblance between the lively person we know and the somber person in the photo. Likewise, we’ve also chuckled at certain professionals whose photos on their business cards is at least twenty years younger than they are!

We laugh because the picture is out of sync with the reality. And while that can be funny with individual photos, it’s no laughing matter when it comes to having your brand match your business.

What happens when you go from being an established, well-known professional in one field to creating a new company in a very different type of business? How do you take the best of one world and carry over those benefits to a new identity? And how do you get people who know you in one role to see and trust your proficiency when you decide to change what you do?

I recently caught up with a former marketing colleague of mine who is now a personal chef. She and I both had worked for large corporations, been downsized, and started our own consulting firms. My mental picture of her (branding) was of a polished corporate professional, someone with whom I had collaborated with on PR projects for an organization to which we used to belong. As it turned out, cooking had always been her passion, but she had relegated it to a hobby. When the recession reduced the budgets of her client base, my friend found herself spending more and more time in the kitchen and realized that she had a new opportunity to pursue. The trick was, how to get people to make the switch from ‘PR pro’ to ‘pro chef’.

I’ve been interviewing dozens of people for a new book I’m working on about reinvention. In each case, highly experienced people with plenty of degrees and corporate experience ended up making a big career switch in mid-life. On one hand, they were well known in the community—as what they used to be. And for every one of the people I interviewed, part of making a successful transition required strategizing how to get the people who knew them in their ‘past life’ to see them differently now.

It’s a topic that’s dear to my heart, since I reinvented myself from corporate marketer to entrepreneur/marketing maven, to social media expert, to bestselling author. I knew what had worked for me, and I was eager to find out what others making a similar switch had done.

So what have I learned about reinvention branding from over fifty interviews with people who have successfully made the switch? Here are some of the personal branding secrets of successful career-changers:

  1. Clearly communicate the change you’re making through social media and your web page. Even before you have a logo or a tagline, use photos, Facebook and LinkedIn posts, and Twitter tweets to help your current network of friends, family, neighbors and colleagues understand what you’re doing and cheer you on. The more they understand what you’re trying to do, the better they can help you succeed.
  2. Create a company name and a tagline that explains what you do, so you can position yourself in the minds of the people you meet. This also helps to re-define you to the people who knew you ‘before’ and makes it clear that you’re pursuing a new career, not indulging a hobby. (Hint: This step involves filing official paperwork and getting a business license, so pick a company name that give you room to grow.)
  3. Don’t put off having a professional logo and website created. The keyword here is ‘professional’. Unless you’re a graphic design whiz, this means investing some cash and hiring web designers to have it done right. Remember, people will judge your professionalism by how you look online, so create a logo and website worthy of pride that represents you well.
  4. Come up with a one or two sentence introduction for yourself that focuses on who you serve, what you do, and what benefit/result you create for your customers. Practice it and refine it until you can give people a clear impression of you and your business in less than thirty seconds.

Stay tuned for more ideas on how to get the world to see who you are and what you do in a whole new way!

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by | January 26, 2015 · 5:07 pm

Blogging and LinkedIn for Professionals

By Gail Z. Martin, author of 30 Days to Social Media Success

Looking for more professional visibility and a more prominent professional platform, with a way to connect with a steady stream of potential new clients?

Time to take a second look at blogging and LinkedIn.

I want to show you how blogging and LinkedIn can enhance your professional visibility and build a strong professional platform, which can produce a steady stream of qualified prospective customers. But before I get to that part, let me knock a few misconceptions out of the park so they don’t get in the way.

Out with the Old

Misconception #1: My type of clients aren’t on the Internet.

Answer: Unless they’re dead, incarcerated or incapacitated, they are on the Internet. According to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Internet Project, 87% of Americans use the Internet. And no, they’re not all teens. The report says that 93% of adults ages 30 – 49 are Internet users, 88% of those 50-64, and 57% of those ages 65+. Usage increases with education level and income, so 97% of those with a college education are online, as are 99% of those earning over $75,000. (Details here: https://www.pewinternet.org/data-trend/internet-use/latest-stats/)

Misconception #2: I can’t be on the Internet because I can’t give free advice.

Answer: What’s free advice got to do with it? You have a phone, and you don’t give free advice over it. You have a mailbox and you don’t give free advice. The Internet is a communication tool. You choose what you communicate.

Misconception #3: I prefer to get warm referrals from clients.

Answer: Who doesn’t? But are you getting enough of those warm referrals to pay your bills? If you could use some more business, increasing your professional visibility and creating a solid professional expert platform goes a long way toward bringing in new paying customers.

Misconception #4: Internet referrals wouldn’t be as high quality.

Answer: Professionals advertise in magazines, on billboards and bus boards, in newspapers, on TV and on the radio. The general public sees those ads. In contrast, online readers must possess expensive technology in the form of a smart phone, tablet/laptop/desktop computer and Internet connection—a form of filtering you don’t get in other types of advertising.

In with the New

Now that we’ve gotten those misconceptions out of the way, let me tell you what social media—in particular, blogging and LinkedIn–can do for you.

Let’s start with blogging. Blogging is like a cross between a newsletter and a website. It’s like a newsletter because you can easily update it with text and photos without needing a programmer to make the changes. It’s like a website because it’s on the Internet and searchable by Google and other search engines.

Most blogging platforms are free, although you’ll want to check the terms and conditions to make sure the site accepts commercial content. WordPress is popular because it’s easy to use, free to use, and doesn’t have restrictions on commercial usage.

What do you do on a blog? You educate. And by educating, you show yourself to be an expert. Readers come to like your voice and trust your wisdom. They may even share links to your blog posts with their friends (referrals) and when the time comes to hire someone, you’ll be first in line because you’ve created a relationship.

Isn’t educating the same as free advice? No! Educating means talking in generalities about topics related to your profession, sharing links to research studies and news of interest to your audience, reflecting on the general impact of new technology, trends and other issues. Have you ever given a talk to a local Chamber of Commerce or community group about your specialty? If so, then you’ve created the kind of content that is perfect for a blog—useful information that is not revealing confidential information or commenting on an individual’s situation. In fact, if you’ve given a lot of those kinds of talks, you can re-use your old speeches for blog posts and save yourself some time.

What about the comment section? Won’t people ask questions you can’t/don’t want to answer? Well, does that ever happen to you when you’re out in public or at a social occasion? How do you handle it then? See, you already know what to do. I would suggest having a permanent header and/or footer disclaimer on your blog making it clear that you cannot comment on individual situations, are not dispensing individual advice, etc. Then if someone oversteps, politely but firmly point them to the rules and go on with what you were discussing.

What do you talk about? Start with the types of general questions you get most often. These will seem basic to you, but if people already knew the answers, they wouldn’t keep asking. Depending on your type of xpertise, these Frequently Asked Questions are pretty general. Think education, not advice. Readers will self-filter as they read through the information to determine whether or not they need your area of expertise.

What about referrals? How long do you have to blog before you start getting new business? I recommend clients view blogging the same way they view membership/attendance at community organizations and the Chamber of Commerce. You might get lucky and get a new client or a hot prospect the first time you attend a meeting, but more than likely, it will take several months for people to get to know you or to have a life event that requires your services. Blogging isn’t a magic bullet, but neither are the other types of real-world relationship-building/meet-new-people events you are already doing. It’s one more power tool in your toolbox.

Worried that you’re going to get prospects from outside your practice area? Don’t be. After all, you have a phone but you aren’t getting swamped with long-distance calls from China. Make your practice specialties and coverage area clear on your “About Me” page, and that should avoid the issue.

There are a lot more visibility strategies I share with professional clients about blogging, but in the interest of covering ground quickly, it’s time to move on to LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is the most powerful professional networking tool on the Internet. It’s not a site where you go to meet new people; instead, it’s the perfect way to keep your network of connections warm and updated, so you can be more valuable to each other.

Have you ever needed an introduction to someone or a piece of information and you know the perfect person to ask, but it’s awkward because you haven’t spoken to that person in a couple of years? LinkedIn solves that problem, because the site makes it easy to get a constant stream of updates about all the people you list as Connections, so you can congratulate them on promotions or awards, comment on their professional news, and keep your name top of mind in a warm, friendly way.

LinkedIn is also a great way to generate warm introductions to people you need to meet. Suppose there is someone in the business community you’ve wanted to meet but whom you don’t know. LinkedIn will tell you whether that person is known by any of the people you’ve accepted as Connections. Now it’s simple to ask the person you already know and whom you’re connected to on LinkedIn for a warm introduction to the person they know and you want to meet. You do this all the time in real life, but offline, you don’t always know who knows whom. LinkedIn may surprise you by showing that the people you want to meet are closer than “six degrees of separation”!

LinkedIn groups are a great way to join or start a forum to discuss professional topics. (Again, in an educational sense, not advising.) It’s no different from showing up to a lecture or professional association meeting on a topic except that you don’t have to drive, park and waste an afternoon or evening in a drafty hotel ballroom. Not only can LinkedIn groups be a great way to meet professionals related to your field, they can also be a source of referrals as people get to know/like/trust the expertise you show through your posts and responses.

I recommend to clients that they not accept anyone as a LinkedIn Connection whom they do not know well enough to meet for coffee and refer to colleagues. The quality of your LinkedIn networking lies in deepening existing relationships and keeping those relationships warm. Not only that, but your Connections can see who else you are connected to. They can also ask you for a warm introduction. You wouldn’t be comfortable introducing a total stranger to a trusted colleague, or asking a stranger for an introduction. That’s why you want to make sure you know the people with whom you connect well enough to share that kind of information.

Don’t feel pressured to have a huge number of Connections on LinkedIn. Remember: quality counts more than quantity. Your network of trusted colleagues with whom you have built warm reciprocal relationships is much more powerful than a hodgepodge of total strangers.

Once again, this brief overview can’t cover all of the relationship-building/referral strategies I suggest to clients who use LinkedIn. However, I do hope that what I’ve shared in this short introduction has changed the way you think about using the Internet as a tool to increase your professional visibility, extend your personal branding and expert platform, deepen your networking relationships and create a new referral stream.

Just remember—your ideal prospects are already using social media to find information and connect with professionals like yourself. If you’re not engaging them in a relationship-building conversation, odds are that your competition is.

Gail Z. Martin owns DreamSpinner Communications and consults with professionals and businesses in the U.S. and Canada on strategic social media. Gail has an MBA in marketing and over 25 years of corporate and non-profit experience at senior executive levels. She is the author of three bestselling books on new media marketing: 30 Days to Social Media Success, 30 Days to Online PR and Marketing Success and 30 Days to Virtual Productivity Success (Career Press). 30 Days to Social Media Success made TheWashingtonPost.com’s Top 5 Business books, was chosen by Fed-Ex Office and Office Max to be among a handful of books featured in-store, and has been mentioned in media including Inc., The Wall Street Journal, Worth, and Fox Business News. Find her online at www.DreamSpinnerCommunications.com, on Twitter @GailMartinPR and blogs at BigDreamsAndHardWork.com or on email: Gail@DreamSpinnerCommunications.com

 

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by | October 23, 2014 · 10:59 am

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by | October 8, 2014 · 9:58 am

Second Act Success

by Gail Z. Martin

What is your “Second Act”? Do you know what you want to be doing in the future, and are you making plans to make it happen?

 

Are you preparing for your next success? Think ahead five years, ten years—where do you want to be, and what do you want to be doing?

If you know where you want to go but not how to get there, it’s time to think about Second Act Success.

I spent 17 years in Corporate America running PR and Marketing departments. It was fun, and it was exactly what I went to school to learn how to do, and I made a good salary. But I always knew that someday, I wanted to write books, especially epic fantasy books filled with magic and swords and adventure. There just never seemed to be enough time.

When I left Duke Energy in the meltdown over Enron, I wasn’t sure what to do next. I looked for the same job at different companies, only to find that the positions available really did not offer much in the way of growth. Colleagues began asking me to take on projects for them, and my consulting business was born.

Working for myself (DreamSpinner Communications is 11 years old now!) gave me the freedom to write the books I had always wanted to write. Glance through the newsletter, and you’ll see how that turned out!

Bottom line—I replaced my corporate income, and then exceeded it while constantly learning new skills and facing new challenges, and I was able to achieve my long-time dream and actually turn that dream into a new core for my business. That’s what I’m talking about when I say “Second Act Success.”

Now, your dreams are probably different. But it all begins by visualizing where you would like to be in five to ten years—and then charting a course to get there. Do you want to be leading adventure travel tours in the rainforest? Running a bed and breakfast? Teaching yoga on a beach somewhere warm? Would you like to be running a business, but a different one from what you have now?

Time to start making a plan to get you from where you are to where you want to go. And if you’ve already made the leap, have you considered how you will get friends and colleagues to see and understand the “new you” so they can contribute to your success? (That’s where personal branding and social media really play a part!)

Learning to publicly reinvent yourself when you make a big change requires some soul-searching, and it also takes strategic thinking and some savvy marketing. It’s a journey, filled with a lot of challenges and big discoveries. But the results can be amazing, and oh so fulfilling.

I suspect that a lot of folks have reached the mid-point in life and are re-assessing where they go from here. For some, mergers, layoffs and ageism may have forced a change of career plans sooner than expected. For others, dreams long denied are insisting on having their turn. And yet others may want to make big career shifts and lifestyle changes for health reasons, or to savor more time with family.

That’s why I’m working on a new book tentatively titled “You After Corporate” and it’s all about creating “Fresh Start Success” for the second act of your life. I’m interviewing people who have left big corporations, government, and institutions and have created a successful Second Act. I want to find out how they succeeded, what they learned the hard way, what tips they would like to share with others, what secrets they’ve uncovered—and then I want to share those secrets with you.

You’ll be hearing more about this project, but I’ve already got some amazing people on board, and as I interview them over the next months, I plan to introduce them to you!

But I need your help—I am looking for introductions to people who have made the Second Act leap successfully. So if you or someone you know sounds like the kind of person I’m looking for, please send me an email at Gail@DreamSpinnerCommunications and put “Second Act Success” in the subject line. Thanks!

You may also be interested in learning about Professional IPAF training. Continue reading to learn more.

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by | October 1, 2014 · 9:57 am

Seven Great Reasons to Store Your Programs in the “Cloud” and Boost Your Productivity

by Gail Z. Martin

The term “Cloud computing” sounds intangible, and that’s just the point.

“Cloud computing” refers to access to software that is accessible via subscription over the Internet. Programs that reside in the Cloud are actually housed on the servers of the company that owns the software and which provides subscription access. Unlike traditional software, such as word processing or spreadsheet programs that are stored on your computer’s hard drive, programs that reside in the Cloud never have to be installed, updated or uninstalled from your computer. That’s the beauty of the “Cloud.”

Why would you want your software to be housed on the Cloud? Several good reasons come to mind:

  1. You don’t have to install the program, so you can use software that requires greater speed or memory than your desktop or laptop might possess.
  2. Because the software is stored on the Cloud, it doesn’t hog memory or bog down your computer.
  3. You don’t have to worry about updating the software; the tech staff at the company providing the software takes care of doing that.
  4. Since you access the software via the Internet (and a secure password), you can access your software (and possibly your related files) from any computer, anywhere you have an Internet connection.
  5. Since your access is via subscription (usually monthly or annually), your costs are much less than if you were to purchase a private license for the program.
  6. When you no longer want or need the software, cancel the subscription. There is no software to uninstall on your computer.
  7. If there’s a problem with the software, your subscription includes access to technical support. It’s the provider’s responsibility to fix the bugs, and you don’t have to download patches or new versions.

Starting to see the appeal? Cloud computing programs offer extremely flexible access to powerful programs without the hassles of maintaining the software on your own computer. If you’ve ever suffered through a lengthy software download (especially one that needed to be done over several times), you’ll understand the appeal of being able to “visit” your software instead of needing to have it all on your hard drive.

Three Things You Should Know About Access-Anywhere Software

            Being able to access your software from anywhere on any device can be a real lifesaver when you’re on the road. Programs that live on web servers that you can access via the Internet are what Cloud Computing is all about, and it’s the key to using your smart phone and tablet PC to get more done when you’re on the go.

But if your programs don’t live on your computer hard drive, how safe are you from hackers and viruses?

If the idea of having your valuable and proprietary data residing in the Cloud worries you, there are steps you can take to set your mind at ease.

First, make sure that you understand the individual service provider’s privacy policies, terms of use, and recommended methods for safeguarding the security and integrity of your data.

Secondly, always back up essential information. This can mean creating a print-out, saving a Web-based document as a file or a screen shot, or copying essential information to your hard drive or an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) storage site. An FTP site allows you to store and share documents or files that are too large for regular email. Yes, FTP sites are also Cloud computing sites—a good example is www.4shared.com, but there are many similar sites.

Third, be certain to safeguard your password. Realize that when you share access to your Cloud computing sites with an administrative assistant or colleague, they may gain access to your billing and credit card information unless the site allows for different levels of access. Some Cloud computing sites offer a group membership, so that you can provide access to several employees or partners while keeping your own account information private. Other programs make it possible to designate an “administrator” who can access everything except the billing/payment information. If you must share your password with an assistant, keep track of which passwords have been shared and be sure to change your password if your relationship with the assistant ends.

Cloud computing programs can boost your productivity by giving you access to powerful software without the hassle of downloads and updates. You save time, reduce the in-house needs for online storage, and reduce your dependence on hired computer professionals. Just think–no more losing part of a day as your IT consultant tinkers with the settings to make sure a newly downloaded program doesn’t wreck your network!

Small businesses and solo professionals also benefit by gaining access to valuable online services and software which would be prohibitively expensive to license on an individual basis, and which would require significant investment in servers and personnel to install and manage in-house.

Five Important Reasons to Move to The Big Storage Unit In The Sky

No, this isn’t about the afterlife. It’s about how you can store files someplace that never runs out of room, and back up your important data in a safe place outside your home or office.

Corporations store their data backup in salt mines and high security off-site locations. That’s a little extreme (and expensive) for most small businesses, but the need for secure storage and backup isn’t limited to large corporations. A flood, fire or natural disaster could wipe out your computer and your locally-stored flash drives and portable hard drives. Frequent back-ups to a storage location reduce your risk of a catastrophic data loss.

Storage capacity is another challenge for many users. While storage costs have decreased tremendously, making terabytes of capacity reasonably priced, some users rapidly exceed their on-site storage capability.

Fortunately, Cloud computing offers alternatives for both data security and data storage.

Carbonite, Dropbox, GoogleDocs, and other sites offer Cloud-based data backup and storage capabilities. Most sites provide automated back-up, making it less likely that you’ll forget to update files. In addition, files stored on the Cloud can be accessed from any location, giving you portability.

When looking into Cloud-based data storage, remember that you’re entrusting your sensitive files to a third party. Here are some questions to consider as you weigh your alternatives.

  • What happens to my data if the provider is sold, merged or goes out of business?
  • How does the provider assure site security?
  • What precautions are taken against hackers?
  • How does the provider do its own back-up to assure my data is safe if the provider has a catastrophic event at their location?
  • What do other users say about the ease of use, security and customer support?

Cloud-based storage and back-up can be valuable and affordable services. Having your files saved from just one on-site disaster could well be worth the investment in monthly fees. As always, be sure to check out provider options to find the service that is the best fit for your business.

For big productivity gains and lower costs, get into the Cloud!

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Filed under Business Planning, Gail Z. Martin