There has been a lot of argument about whether press release marketing is a valid approach to improving your site’s search engine optimization. Some of us have gotten great results over the years with press releases for search engine visibility. The idea is simply that a press release is not only an opportunity for a company announcement, but it is also an opportunity to increase online visibility for a brand with targeted keyword placement.

But if you hang on every word from Google’s Matt Cutts, you may be aware that he made this cryptic post-Penguin remark in a Google Webmaster forum in December, 2012: “I wouldn’t expect links from press release websites to benefit your rankings.” And there ensued a hot debate on whether a company can get link juice and SEO benefit from press releases.

Notice Matt didn’t say “links from press release websites won’t help your rankings.” I will make the claim that this is because they can. You just don’t want to base your SEO strategy on press release marketing, any more than you want to focus on article marketing, especially if you are writing spammy press releases and articles. Penguin was about getting back to publishing quality content that people are searching for, and actually want to read.

So, instead of giving up on the idea of getting link juice from press releases. let’s talk about how you can adjust your strategy to match the post-Penguin SEO world and still get link benefit for your company or your press release clients.

Rule #1: Don’t Spam with Press Releases

The most important thing to keep in mind is that if you are writing press releases that are only about keyword optimization you will get slapped. For the record, I can still do a Google search on press releases I wrote over two years ago and find them on page 1 of Google. Why? Because they contain interesting, high quality content and were published through a good quality PR site that doesn’t promote spam. And the press releases also happen to contain good keywords.

Rule #2: Make Your Press Release Newsworthy

The original reason for a press release still stands. It’s about making an announcement. The moment you forget the real reason for the content you are publishing, the moment you wander off course, and you invite Google to punish you for bad behavior.

A press release should offer a new service, a new product, a new feature, a change in management, a strategic partnership, record sales, or anything else that a company might want to announce. The word “press” in “press release” suggests news.

Rule #3: Write for the Reader

With every aspect of your content strategy, from web content to blog posts, articles, press releases, SlideShare presentations, videos, webinars and even content curation, you should be asking yourself “who cares?” Write stuff that people actually care about. If no one cares,  no one shares. And shared content is one of the most critical signals to Google that your content is of interest to real human beings.

A lot of people tend to think backwards when it comes to this content strategy. They think about what they want to promote about their company and write a press release about it.

Here are a few bad press release examples I just came up with in a quick search:

“PVC and Polypropylene Ball Valves Offered on XYZ-site.com for Quick Delivery”

This is completely about what XYZ Company is promoting.

“BoringSnore.com Offers Over 350 Futon Slipcover Options for Seasonal Redecoration”

Yawn! Tell us that you offer a new set of designs or you are having a huge sale, or just stop talking.

Rule #4: Write a Quality Press Release, then Optimize It

If you are going to get SEO results from your press releases, you need to focus the content on what the reader may want to know, and then make sure your keywords are included. Let’s say, for example, that I am writing a press release for a new restaurant that is going into the location where another restaurant used to reside. Well, I’m going to draft that press release about that topic and why it’s of interest. And then I’m going to make sure that in addition to the name of the new restaurant, I’ll include the name of the old restaurant because people may still be searching for that. I’ll also include some information about the new menu. People do search on pizza, burgers, sushi and other menu items when they have a particular hankering. Finally, I’ll make sure that I optimize the press release for the city and state, paired with the word “restaurant” and some long tail keywords that I research.

For the latest update on the fascinating drama of press releases and SEO, you must check out the recent Search Engine Land press release test they did as a follow-up to Matt Cutt’s statement about press release links back in December.

How Press Releases Can Still Help Your SEO

The first reason is syndication. The logic somewhat follows that of using article directory sites. Although having your links on article directory sites is not likely to help your ranking, if your article is good and has some innovative information, and it gets syndicated to an authority site with good ranking, that’s where you can see results.

Publishing your announcement on low ranking spam-filled press release sites won’t do you anygood. But using a quality press release service, and writing reader-focused content will mean that it is more likely to get picked by news sites; that’s when you can potentially enjoy some traffic and link juice. (Note that not all quality press release distribution services are costly.)

The second reason is social sharing. If you publish an interesting piece that has actual value, and it is shared socially through social media and blogs, and curated by people who want to associate themselves with quality content, you can get some traction. The whole point of Google Panda and Penguin was to elevate good quality content and eliminate noise. This means that if you focus your content strategy on pleasing the people, you can potentially get the results you’re looking for.

The final reason is brand visibility. Press releases are still very powerful tools for increasing your business’s online presence, providing you follow the guidelines above. Shameless self-promotion will backfire. Focusing instead on creating great content and enhancing the experience of your current and future customers will increase your brand visibility and help you to show up as an authority in your niche.

What If You Have Nothing to Announce?

My advice is to do something newsworthy. Donate some portion of your company’s proceeds to a great cause. Add a new product or service to your roster. Enhance your website with some cool feature that potential customers really need or want. Do community service. Win an award. Get your 10,000th Facebook Like. If you have nothing newsworthy to talk about in a press release, it’s probably a sign that your company is not thinking in innovative ways. Just saying’.

The other alternative, of course, is to stop using press release marketing until you do have something to announce. Use the appropriate content marketing methodology for the purpose it was intended. Blogs are for interesting information and commentary on your niche. Articles are for providing excellent, reader-focused information that provides benefit for the reader and helps to elevate your brand. Press releases are for newsworthy announcements.

What do you think? Share your thoughts, please. Have you achieved results with your press releases? Have you changed your strategy since Panda and Penguin? I’d love to hear from you.

To your success,

Jayna

Content, blessed content. Many of us are writing and publishing blogs and other content for many reasons – for marketing, SEO, brand evangelism, education, authority and so on. And we need some go-to sites for royalty free images. If you’re like me, you are always looking for a few good resources where you can get high quality photos that enhance your content visually. You want fast, free images that don’t require you to offer up your first born child just to get them.

I’m going to share just a few sites that offer royalty free images, based on my recent test. Here were my criteria:

• There is no complex licensing. I don’t know about you, but if I have to read lengthy documentation, and alter the image, and sign a waiver, and provide attribution, I’m just completely overwhelmed. I can do one or two of those things, but if it involves clicking over to more than one piece of information to figure out how to use an image, I lose patience. I know Flickr is very popular, for example, but it’s off my list because it’s too complex to figure out the licensing, attribution, and permissions stuff and I’m always certain I’ll do the wrong thing and get arrested or something.
• A nice selection of high quality images pops up in a search, on any topic I may be writing about.  This seems so simple, from a user perspective. But most of the people who build royalty free image sites, I’m convinced, do not think like a user. They think like a sales person or an attorney, or both. How frightening is that? I have nothing against sales people or attorneys, mind you, but they probably shouldn’t be in cahoots in the building of royalty free image sites.
• The images are large, so you can set them to various sizes without losing resolution. Wait until you see the results below. These are severely reduced from their original size. I’ll bet there’s special terminology for that in the image world.

Okay, here we go. The royalty free sites that passed my test were (drumroll)….

1. Morguefile. Morbid name aside, this is an awesome site. The requirements for using the gorgeous free image below were to alter it in some way. Simple enough! I just used some image editing software to crop it to a smaller size. Morguefile did not even require attribution. Look at the resolution! The delicious detail. You can almost hear the crackle of a fire nearby, the jingling of bells and hoofs on the rooftop.

Image credit: Morguefile.com

2. Pixel Perfect Digital. Again, an easy to use site that has great images, an awesome selection, and easy terms that give you confidence that you’re not victimizing people via copyright infringement. Just to give you an idea of how easy it is to get a nice image that doesn’t require an act of congress, check out the agreement for the picture below:

“Attribution means: We allow you to use this image for both personal and commercial projects (and create derivative works based upon it), but only if you credit pixelperfectdigital.com for the original creation.” Happy to! Thank you, Pixel Perfect Digital!

Image credit: Pixel Perfect Digital

3. Microsoft Office Online. Okay, I know you weren’t expecting that one. You were probably thinking the last free image resource would be Dreamstime.com or Openphoto.net. Yes, they have their merits, but MS office has not only high quality, royalty-free images and an excellent search tool, but there really are no restrictions whatsoever.

Image credit: Microsoft Online

As a closing note, I just want to thank graphic artists and photographers everywhere for your great works. Images bring our digital world to life, make our dull and boring blog posts more visually appealing, and lend an air of wonder and professionalism to written content, which is – at the end of the day – just words on the page. Thank you.

Wouldn’t you know it.

I began lecturing people about how to stay consistent with their blog regimen, and then I fell off the planet.

I’m off my soap box now, thank you very much. In this post I’m just going to share my very minimalist plan for getting  this blog back on track. If you’ve faltered with your blog regimen, I hope this will help you get going again too.

Trick #1: Write a Brief Mission Statement

What is the point of your blog? Mine is to inspire, educate and assist content marketers with effective content strategy and digital marketing techniques that result in increased online visibility, brand awareness, customer engagement and conversion. What’s yours?

Knowing what you stand for, and what you want to accomplish with your blog can help you when you are tired from doing everything else you do, when you’re feeling stuck, and you are wondering whether your blog really matters. If your blog has a mission, you will always know it matters.

Trick #2: Schedule Your Blog Posts

How often can you write a blog post, in reality? If your plate runneth over with full time work, three kids and a dog, maybe twice a month is a reasonable regimen. Pick the days and mark them on the calendar. (This is called an editorial calendar, but if you find that intimidating, don’t do it.)

The point is that you cannot wait for inspiration to strike. You’ve got to schedule your blog posts to stay on track. I like Mondays, myself. Since I blog for one of my clients every other Monday, it makes sense to me to get my own blog posts scheduled for the alternate Mondays.

Note that this little blog trick is critical, whether you blog about business or baking ideas, and whether you are a solopreneur or you are running a midsized B2B business. If you are working to build a business of any size, increase your blog schedule. Hire a blogger, if you need to. Blogging is one of the most powerful things you can do for brand visibility.

Trick #3: Write Your Blog Titles in Your Editorial Calendar

The point of this strategy is to know exactly what you’re going to blog about in advance, so you’re never starting from ground zero.

My method is to write a big list of topics I like to blog about. These, of course, match my blog’s mission statement. Out of that process will come a list of potential keywords. Then I’ll research these keywords in the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. The keywords will drive the blog themes and titles.

Will the blog titles change? Yes, they very well might. You may get writing on a topic and find out that the title needs to be revised. But even so, you’ve got your blog’s keywords and a plan on your calendar. You’re off and running.

Trick #4: Make Writing Your Blog Posts Fun

In the past, I’ve tended to put a lot of effort into writing somewhat lengthy, informative, posts that are highly optimized. I want my posts to be rich content that is fodder for social media conversation and sharing.

In other words, if you’re like me, you can over-think blogging. And that, my friend, is the death of inspiration and productivity. Yes, it’s important to write interesting, sharable content that is optimized for your niche. But find a balance. Enjoy the process. Write from the heart. And above all, be yourself.

That’s it for today.  To your success!

Jayna

It's all about the calendar

My Six Blogging Lessons

I’m switching it up on my blog again, going forward, but my brief explosive experiment with blogging three times per week was truly educational. Here’s what I learned.

1. A Blogging Schedule Kept Me Consistent

My blogging regimen involved three posts per week, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. This was a jump up from about once a week on a random day when I had the time and inspiration.

Knowing I had to meet a deadline put the fire in my breeches! I knew I had to get material together and find the time to shape it into something worthwhile. It was incredibly motivating. There is nothing like a deadline to keep you on track.

2. Choosing Themes Kept Me Focused

Themes are a great way to focus your blogging regimen. My schedule involved three themes: “How To Tuesdays,” “Weird Wednesdays” and “Success Story Saturdays.”

The Tuesday posts were all instructional posts about social media, content marketing and press release tips. Wednesdays were all about strange but effective marketing methodologies. Saturdays were stories about businesses that had achieved success and what others could learn from them.

To make sure I had content, I put together a survey on Survey Monkey that would give people a tool for sharing tips or writing a guest blog. I love this tool, and will continue using it.

3. An Active Blog Takes a Consistent Social Media Effort

This was not a surprise. It was simply a reality check.  Committing to a blogging regimen involves more than finding an hour or two to write. It involves all the information gathering up front and then a considerable follow-up effort to make sure your post doesn’t just sit there unnoticed.

The real lesson was that I don’t always have the time available to do the kind of promotion I would like to do.

And by promotion, I mean interacting on blogs and social media platforms. By far, the most effective promotion method I’ve found is to leave comments on other people’s blogs, retweet other people’s content, and share their posts on Google Plus. This inspires them to reciprocate and helps build a strong community. I’ve gotten to know some amazing people this way.

4. Posts About Innovative Marketing Were the Most Fun

I had a blast writing about weird marketing methods. Some of it was “tongue in cheek.” In fact my most successful post in this series, hands down, was the one called “Why Are These Bloggers So Weird?” I wrote about some of my blogger friends and their “weird” but effective technique of promoting other people.

Innovation is exciting. I could write content like that all day.

5. Posts About Business Success Took the Most Time

I got immense enjoyment out of these posts as well. Writing about successful businesses is incredibly upbeat work, especially in this down economy. It takes time to really understand a business strategy enough to write knowledgeably about it, though. To do these posts justice took the most time of my three blog themes.

Another funny thing happened with these posts. Most people are not as forthcoming about their business successes as you might expect. I thought people would jump at the chance to talk about what makes their business tick, and they would quickly fill out the survey. Instead, I had to work hard to pull people’s stories out of them. While I love interviewing, again it comes down to available time.

6. “How To” Posts Were the Easiest

The “How To Tuesday” posts practically wrote themselves. Some required a bit of research, but since I learn something worth sharing about social media and content marketing on a regular basis, it’s a simple thing to channel that information into a post.

What Now?

Wouldn’t you know it, right after I got this fabulous blogging regimen set up I got really busy and couldn’t keep the pace. So I have to reconfigure my blog schedule yet again.

Combining all six lessons, I’ll be writing “how to” posts one day per week on a scheduled day, TBD. Some will be content marketing tips, some will be business success and some will be about innovative (“weird”) marketing, all with a goal to provide my blog readers with valuable learning.

This new schedule will give me a full week to interact on social media and share my most recent post, and will actually free up more time to connect with my blogging community.

So that’s the sitch! If you have tips or ideas to contribute, please take my survey. I will either share your tips or post your content as a guest blog post.

What is working for your blog? Please share in the comments below. And be sure to follow my blog so you can get notified of new posts.

To your success,

Jayna

Let’s have a look at the life of a press release.

One of my recent press releases was about a gentleman by the name of Rick Gosser. Rick wanted to tell his story because over the last two years he has lost more than 100 pounds, has regained his energy and his health, and has even made an appearance on MSNBC’s Today Show. Not only that, but Rick has taken up running, and now runs 5k’s and marathons.

It gets better. People are so inspired by Rick’s story that, in addition to running a promotional products business, he has added public speaking to his resume.

I know. Pretty cool! Rick enjoys public speaking engagements, and he feels that he can make a real impact in the world by helping other business owners to make the connection between their health, their lifestyle, and their success in business.

So we wrote up a press release about Rick’s awesome story. We published it through Online PR Media, which is one of my favorite press release distribution companies.

But what happens to a press release? Where does it go?

How to Follow the Trail of Your Press Release

An interesting phenomenon happens if you incorporate good keywords into a press release and publish it through a high quality distribution service. Other news services pick it up and redistribute it, with the complete title intact. Here’s how you find out which services picked it up.

Method 1: Search for the complete article title.

We published Rick’s press release on February 9th, about 12 days ago. The title of the press release was:

Gosser Corporate Sales Executive Achieves Personal Success, Becomes a Motivational Business Speaker

When I type the title into a search window, these are the results:

I hope you really look at the screen shot above and notice that Rick’s company name, Gosser Corporate Sales, appears with each of the redistributed links. That is excellent brand messaging and link building for one little press release. All in all, I counted at least 60 different results for the exact name of the press release.

Method 2: Search for the press release keywords.

This method is of coure much less reliable and depends upon a number of factors, including how well you chose your keywords, and the amount of competition for those keyword phrases. In our case, we wanted to rank for “motivational business speaker Indiana.”

For this search, I receive the following results:

And voila! There’s his press release on page one of Google! Of course results may vary. These days Google is so good at individualizing your search that these results may vary. Still, if we hadn’t done the press release, you can guarantee his name would not be showing up in results for those search terms.

Have you gotten some great results with press releases? If so, please share your results in the comments below.

Thank you for reading! This has been another “How-To Tuesday” post. If you have great tips and ideas you think I should cover on my blog, be sure to take my survey.

To your success,

Jayna

Why is Social Media Marketing So Challenging?

Let’s face it. If you have a Facebook fan page, you are either constantly dreaming up creative ways to make it fun and interactive or you’re D.O.A. People are busy. They’re overwhelmed by too much media saturation. And yet… they’re always looking for something inspiring or entertaining.

In this A.D.D. “ooh shiny!” world, it’s tough to get a little share of the attention. Even if you do capture someone’s focus for a moment, they can be gone in a snap when the next shiny object pops up. And you and your cool stuff are just as quickly forgotten.

One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is to self-promote. Of course, you have to promote your business to some extent. People need to know what you do and how you can help them. Just a little of that goes a long way, however, and you cannot keep people’s interest and generate activity if it’s all just your floor show.

How Idea Girl Media Generates Facebook Activity

Keri does things differently with her Idea Girl Media fan page. First of all, she keeps the action going all the time. Just to give you a notion of how much activity there is on her page, I had to click “Older Posts” 52 times just to get back to the beginning of the January Jig, which was a little over a month and a half ago.

I’ll tell you about the January Jig in a moment. The million dollar question at the moment is: what does Keri post on her fan page each day?

If you read my post earlier this month titled “Why Are These Bloggers So Weird?” you know that Keri loves to shine the light on other people and their expertise and keep things lively.

What you’ll see on her page is color and graphics. She spends quite a bit of her social media marketing energy sharing and reposting pictures, videos and other people’s interesting content. (And it’s not all business!) Here are two examples:

The result, of course, is that it starts conversations. There’s always something new and interesting and we “Like” that! Also, people are honored when she re-shares their content and they comment. Or, when she shares something by a celebrity such as social media expert Mari Smith, fans are inspired to comment or re-share.

How Keri Ran a Live Event on Facebook

At the end of December, 2011, Keri had an idea to take this promoting-of-others technique to the next level.

Here’s what she did:

1. First she created a Facebook event page called JANUARY JIG.

2. Next she shared her idea with 384 of her friends and fans and invited them to sign up to “hi-jack” her fan page for one day between January 6th and January 31st.

Each participant could share tips and ideas from their business expertise on their scheduled day. All they were required to do was show up at three scheduled times during the day, share a post, and interact with those who had questions. By helping to promote the event with their own friends and fans, they could help to make the event successful.

She had no restrictions on the types of businesses that could sign up, so she had a wide variety of business owners, including a website developer, a mobile marketing expert, and a children’s literacy expert. You might find it interesting to note that even though Keri is a social media marketing expert, she was happy to have several others take over her page for a day.

3. Finally, she promoted each participant before and throughout their stint on her Facebook page and let them take it away.

I checked in with Keri shortly after she launched the Jig. She was blown away by the excitement her event generated. “When I put the call out for presenters in December, the spots filled in less than a day,” she said. “I haven’t been able to keep up with everybody….they’re all knocking it out of the park!!”

The JANUARY JIG Outcome

I connected with Keri recently on a Skype call to talk about the Jig. I was so interested in her motivation to launch such a big undertaking and her perspective on how it went.

What were the results of all this activity?

The first and most obvious results that anyone could see by stopping by the Idea Girl Media fan page any day in January was a ton of activity, conversation and interaction going on live at each scheduled time.

Keri’s results by the numbers:

• Fan page Likes increased by 230
• “Talking About This” percent ranged from 10 to 18 and hit a total of 200

The less tangible yet just as important results:

• Invitations to collaborate on future projects and promotions
• Invitations to present at events
• New social media clients
• New partners and trusted sources

“I wasn’t looking necessarily for numbers,” Keri said. “Sure I wanted my page to grow. It wasn’t a goal number. It was really the quality of experience. I was mainly testing the idea of this collaborative effort. I wanted to find out if I can make this a part of my business. I learned a lot in that regard.”

She also shared that the event met her goal to help non-technical people to get a comfort level with online learning. “It was really for the not so savvy. I have a lot of people in my local area who won’t sit in a webinar. They don’t thave a lot of technology and tools available to them. So I wanted to know how I could help them access the information. It was a way to bring technology and information to people who are low tech.”

Keri quietly and humbly mentioned that there was one other important intangible outcome. “People started to look to me as a source of authority,” she said. “There were definitely some wonderful things that happened.”

Thanks for sharing your great success story, Keri!

About Keri Jaehnig and Idea Girl Media

Keri offers social media management, social media marketing and mentoring. People can go to Keri for social media setup, management, or to simply offload a portion of their social media tasks.

To your success,

Jayna

p.s. If you know a business that has a success story to tell, or you have some great marketing tips, please share your thoughts in my survey so I can share them in a future post.

The weird yet cool trick they employ from time to time is to create a blog post titled something along the lines of: “The 15 Best Facebook Pages You’ve Ever Seen,” “20 Examples of Great Facebook Fan Pages,” and “Top 10 Facebook Facebook Pages and Why They’re Successful.”

Why Cover the Best Facebook Pages?

Why do they do this? Do they sell Facebook page design? No, that is precisely what’s so weird.

To learn why a company might employ this weird strategy, let’s have a look at a few stats for some of the top posts currently showing up for the phrase “best facebook pages”:

HubSpot’s “The 15 Best Facebook Pages You’ve Ever Seen”:

• LinkedIn Shares: 461
• Google+’s: 77
• Tweets: 2076
• Facebook Likes: 722

HubSpot’s “20 Examples of Great Facebook Fan Pages”:

• LinkedIn Shares: 112
• Google+’s: 55
• Tweets: 290
• Facebook Likes: 216

Social Media Examiner’s “Top 10 Facebook Pages and Why They’re Successful”:

• LinkedIn Shares: 480
• Google+’s: 33
• Tweets: 7293
• Facebook Likes: (no counter widget)

So that is one answer for you. Very simply, people are looking for ideas for fan pages, so why not create a great collection and deliver that content to your readers?

Additional reasons include:

1. Link Bait. If you write a quality post with eminently share-worthy content, people will link to it from their sites and content curation tools, providing back links that can improve your  search engine ranking.
2. Authority by association. If you write about a variety of topics related to content marketing, including a collection of Facebook fan pages and some editorial on why they are successful, it can potentially give you some credibility and authority on that topic.
3. Search engine optimization. At the moment, the keyword phrase “best Facebook pages” is low competition and is searched about 27,000 times monthly, according to the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. Placing a post with this keyword phrase on your site is an excellent strategy.
4. Brand awareness. If that many people are tweeting, sharing, G+’ing and liking your content, you are going to get some serious brand visibility.
5. Page rank. Great content that provides exceptional value, is well written, highly sought after and widely shared helps the search engines to view your site as credible and high quality, resulting in improved page rank. HubSpot’s is currently at 6 out of 10, and Social Media Examiner’s is at 7.

Oh, by the way, all of those posts are between four months and more than a year old. So it’s time someone stepped up and wrote a fresh post covering the best Facebook fan pages!

To your success,

Jayna

p.s. Do you have an idea for a weird but effective marketing method or some great tips to share? If so, please fill out my survey.

(Ah, sorry! I got dreamy there for a moment! I haven’t been to Italy since 1997, which was way too long ago.)

Fabrizio Faraco, Marketing and Social Media Strategist

Appropriately enough, Fabrizio and I met via social media. Have you ever met a social media community manager that can’t be found on social media? Fabrizio is not that kind. He’s everywhere!

I asked Fabrizio which digital marketing methods and social media platforms he uses to reach out to clients and build his business, and he answered:

• Business blog
• Facebook personal page
• Facebook business page
• Facebook groups
• Google+
• LinkedIn networking
• Twitter
• Twitter lists
• YouTube
• Vimeo
• Slideshare
• Connect.me
• Triberr
• Twylah
• Xeeme
• Klout
• Kred
• FourSquare
• Digg
• StumbleUpon
• Pinterest
• Scoop.it

I actually think we’re connected on most of those. It looks like a lot, when you see it in a bullet list. But most people, Fabrizio included, focus on interacting effectively on two or three platforms. The rest, especially bookmarking and content curation tools are effective for sharing your articles and blog posts and those of your community. It’s important to interact, not just dabble.

Social Media Meets Content Marketing

Fabrizio shared some great tips for creative and effective social media management through content marketing.

Tip #1: Use the Tools Effectively with a Goal in Mind

As we’ve discussed, dabbling on many platforms is not as effective as really engaging with people on a few. Fabrizio has spent a considerable amount of time getting comfortable and familiar with as many social media tools as possible so he can share his social media expertise with his clients. But the social media tools are not the goal; they are merely a vehicle to take you to your goals.

“I’m using content marketing, i.e. creating valuable content optimized for search engines, and that content is used for engaging people in social networks,” he said. “The ultimate goal is building reputation while creating strong leads. It’s a cost-effective solution for small business.”

These techniques are just catching on in Italy. Fabrizio shared that there are very few companies who use content marketing back home, and even fewer who are targeting small business, so at the moment he is able to keep a corner on the market.

Tip #2: Creatively Involve Multiple Contributors

A community manager can only develop so much content. The thing that Fabrizio has found to be most effective with his clients is to get multiple contributors involved throughout the organization.

“Go around the company and ask every employee which are the most frequently asked questions clients and prospects ask. Start from your phone calls. From your FAQ. When you collect these questions let all people in your company speak and produce content. People like real people to talk about your brand – not only the marketing guys.”

Tip #3: Creatively Involve and Build Community

“How to engage people can be quite frustrating,” Fabrizio said. He suggests involving the community in the decisions about modifications to your products or services. “Build a community as a club with gamification. Reward the community members with mentions and tangibles.”

He told the story of how he helped an event products company to migrate into event management by implementing a Customer Club and awarding special “VIP” perks to clients who participated in other clients’ events. The result was that the organization increased its client base by 100%!

Thank you for your great tips, Fabrizio! I have enjoyed sharing your ideas on How To Tuesday.

To your success,

Jayna

p.s. Do you have some great tips to share? Please take a few minutes to take my survey so I can cover your ideas in a future post.

From Budding Photographer to Pro

I first met Gianna about seven years ago, when I hired her as my kids’ nanny. She was young and talented, and I always knew she was going to make it. For Mother’s Day and special events, she would give me gorgeous portraits of my kids – their cherubic sweetness captured for eternity on film.

But her true love was weddings and engagement photos. To see Gianna not only making it but really thriving as an in-demand wedding photographer, especially in this difficult economy, is a thrill.

A Unique Approach

What makes Gianna’s approach different is that she takes part in all the action at the weddings she photographs. “I’m not a photographer who just shows up, shoots, and leaves at the end of the day,” she told me recently. “I am involved in the entire planning and scheduling process, in creating a wedding day that will be organized and fun. I am in action the whole day, like paparazzi, catching every angle of the chaos.”

She also experiments. She is inventive and likes to add special touches. She showed me one of her fun new specialties, which is a video she makes from a series of stills. She’ll take a few of the wedding guests aside and get them clowning around, and all the while she is going snap snap snap snap snap. Run together, those pictures look like an an old time film. It’s a remarkable effect.

Keys to Success

Staying alive in this economy with a service that is picked over by choosy brides is a fantastic feat. Gianna gets referrals from her happy clients, of course. But the richest source of new business has been her profiles on free business listing sites such as Yelp, as well as on The Knot – the most popular and well known database of wedding services.

“I love The Knot, because it is not only a listing, but an advanced search engine to find any kind of wedding vendor,” she said. “They also publish well-written articles about anything from etiquette to honeymoon travel and trends in the wedding business. Brides spend a significant amount of time planning their wedding directly through the website.”

By keeping her pricing in a target range for the cost-conscious couple, she ensures that she is searchable and she gets those bookings. She also won a 2012 “Best of The Knot” award.

Additional creative techniques she uses include:

• Offering special services at no cost to her clients as she experiments with a new technique.
• Adding specialties such as a guest photo booth at no charge during the slowest months for weddings.
• Running contests in which the winner is awarded a 50% discount on a wedding package.
• Sending a post wedding follow-up survey; couples that complete the survey are entered to win a 16′x20′ portrait. From the surveys she gathers feedback she can use to continually enhance her skills while also collecting testimonials.
• Offering Destination Wedding Photography. Not all wedding photographers will travel. Gianna does.

You can see Gianna’s announcements and specials on her Facebook page.

The final thought Gianna shared was simply that you’ve got to be creative and flexible to survive in business today.

“I am succeeding in a poor economy by being adaptable,” she said. “The photography business is rapidly changing with digital and computer technology. Photographers that stick to an outdated business model are going out of business, but because I am always searching for new and exciting trends in the business, I am happy to see my business growing.”

Thank you for sharing your great story, Gianna!

To your success,

Jayna

p.s. If you know a business that has a success story to tell, or you have some great marketing tips, please share your thoughts in my survey so I can cover it in a future post.

The fellow’s name is Joe Cross. In the picture below, at over 300 pounds, he was on a huge medication regimen in the attempt to keep disease at bay. It wasn’t working.

Joe Cross - Before Weight Loss

You can watch a movie trailer of Joe’s documentary that tells a little about his story – how he discovered the wonders of juicing fresh vegetables and fruits, lost over 100 pounds and regained his health. The movie also talks about why there is so much obesity in our society.

The problem is that the available literature, systems and programs are failing to get these people off the couch and improving their diet. Until they heard Joe’s story, many of them had simply given up.

Joe Cross - slimming down with juice fasting

His story made waves. People struggling with obesity, illness and diabetes started listening. Some of them tried Joe’s juicing method and began creating their own success stories.

Which brings me to the reason I’m covering this story for Weird Wednesday. Joe didn’t take the standard path of showing up in spandex and trying to motivate people who simply could not relate to his story.

Instead he traveled the U.S. He talked to people on curbsides and wherever he could get someone to talk to him. He stopped people in grocery stores and asked if they could fathom how something that came from the earth turned into processed mac and cheese.

Joe talking about processed food in the grocery store

He talked to people about fresh foods and micronutrients, and he got people to taste his green juice that combines freshly juiced kale, cucumber, apples, celery and ginger.

Fresh green juice - the remedy for Joe's weight and health problems

And best of all, he chose a truly catchy and imaginative slogan for his whole endeavor. He didn’t choose a name that was reminiscent of all the other weight loss campaigns in existence today – all about being a lean, mean machine. The trouble is that people don’t believe they can get there when they are 100 pounds overweight and don’ t know how to begin.

Instead, he called the initiative:

Can we agree that that’s weird?

But it’s eye catching. It arouses curiosity. And before you know it, you’re captivated. You’re watching this guy’s videos, listening to his interviews and hearing how people have dropped weight, gotten off medications, jettisoned their migraines and gotten their lives back.

So that’s the story today. It’s weird but it worked. In a society where weight loss advertisements are everywhere and obesity is worse than ever before, someone needed to come up with something original that made people wake up and think.

To get an idea of the impact Joe Cross has had, check out the Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead Facebook page. This community page is a place where people can share their stories, compare notes on juicers and techniques and get support from one another while getting through the first few tough weeks of juicing.

Over 100,000 fans can’t be wrong. His weird approach worked. What innovative strategy might you come up with for your own business? Maybe it’s time to shake things up and do something a little outrageous!

To your health and your success,

Jayna

p.s. Have you used a highly innovative marketing approach to great effect? Or do you know a company that has? Share the story in this survey so we can cover it in a future Weird Wednesdays blog post!