Aug 19 2010

A few years ago when I started my business, I knew absolutely nothing about marketing. I was a freshly-minted entrepreneur, having quit my paralegal job to go out on my own. I knew a lot about being a worker bee but nothing about finding business.

I started attending a lot of networking events in person and soon knew a lot of people. I would go to a networking event, get their business card, and send them a LinkedIn connection the following day. This expanded my online network rapidly.

I also started noticing a lot of people with the letters “LION” or the word “TopLinked” in their headlines. I started looking into the meanings of these words and what I discovered was really cool – a very fast way of expanding my business reach online using a tool designed for that specific purpose.

I joined the TopLinked group on LinkedIn and paid the fee to on the “Invite Me List.” The Invite Me List (“IML”) comes out every Tuesday and included a password to login and download the list. The IML is basically an Excel spreadsheet with a list of e-mail addresses of people who want more connections on LinkedIn.

Once I joined the list, the following Tuesday, the e-mails flooded my inbox from LinkedIn announcing the name of the newest person who had connected with me. I literally gained 1500 new connections overnight.

For awhile, it was really cool to get all those new connections, but after awhile it seemed like it was pointless to connect with all those people if they knew nothing about my business.

Also, some criticisms I heard from friends at networking events was that there was no way they would ever get to know all those people and it was therefore a waste of time. In person networking events were certainly better from that perspective, but in retrospect, I met a lot of people at those events that I never did any business with.

I started thinking about how I could really leverage all these new connections I was making on LinkedIn.

When I looked at how the TopLinked model worked, it was really brilliant. Because I had paid to be on the list, other people invited me. If you join the group for free, they send the list to you and you have to upload the list, which requires you to make the effort and use your invitations.

It’s basically inbound vs. outbound. When you’re in a position where others are asking you to do something for them, in this case, connect with them, you’re adding value (I’ll explain more about that value later), this creates an unspoken arrangement whereby you can ask for something in return.

I see this principle at work in social media. We have to add value by creating content that makes people return to engage with us on various social media platforms.

I decided that if others were going to ask me for a connection, I wanted them to know about my business so that they could tell right away if they needed my service or if they knew someone who needed my services.

So, I created what I called a “personalized response” which wasn’t really personalized, but it was as close as I could get to personalized without being obnoxious or making the other person spend a lot of time reading it.

So, every time I received a connection request, I would accept the request, and using LinkedIn’s “Send a Message” feature, I’d paste the personalized message in the window and sent it to the new connection.

This proved to be an excellent strategy. I got such a positive response from this that I continued to use it, only changing the response if I wanted to direct traffic to another website or tell others about something new I was doing.

I’ll talk more about using this strategy in later posts, because there is a lot more to my strategy that you need to know about to avoid getting into trouble with LinkedIn and your future connections.

For now, consider that there’s a way to use LinkedIn to expand your reach easily, especially if you aren’t comfortable using other social media platforms yet.

Got questions? Send me an e-mail: Christine@linkforsuccess.com

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Aug 9 2010

Recently, I sold a client a digital audit product that she used to learn how to audit loans. I told her that I’d mention her on my other blog to help her get started with her business.

However, any goodwill that I might have had for this client went out the window when she publicly tweeted that she was upset with me for not mentioning her on my blog.

Twitter is a great marketing tool and it’s great for listening to the conversation about brands. However, if you’re going to use Twitter or any other social media avenue to provoke other people into a defensive response, you are making a mistake.

Social media is great for conversations, but don’t use it to provoke people into responding to you. They are either going to ignore you or embarrass you. Either of these outcomes is probably not what you’re after, especially if that person or company has something that you need.

I understand that there is a general lack of customer service in the business world these days, and you might impulsively want to blast a company publicly because you are annoyed. I can’t speak for everyone, but I care about customer service and as a small business owner, I would appreciate being given the opportunity to resolve a client issue before I read about it in my Twitter feed.

Pick up the phone first and try to resolve the issue privately before you tell the whole world via social media that you’re mad about something.

I think this goes for personal disputes as well – using social media to embarrass someone is not cool, so think twice about it. If you’re mad about something, don’t Twitter about it in the heat of the moment.

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Jul 30 2010

This is an interesting article in the NYT about Google Adwords. LaGrande Dame’s experience with using Adwords is fairly typical, in my experience. I personally don’t use Adwords, and I cringe every time I hear someone is spending thousands of dollars on pay per click every month because I think there are much better and possibly cheaper ways to get traffic to your site.

When Josh Landsberg and I began working together a year ago, I had already developed my LinkedIn strategy, which is how Josh and I connected. However, Josh had all the rest of the SEO stuff figured out, and he taught me a lot about how to use social media. Together, we grew the Foreclosure Industry site’s traffic thousands of times in under six months.

The way we grew the site’s traffic is an even better story, which I will tell in later blog posts. It has basically turned out to be a bankable strategy for SEO that will make anyone money who is committed to work at it on a consistent basis. We are launching several new businesses based on this strategy, which is a blueprint for success.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I don’t mean to criticize Google Adwords, because I think Adwords has its place in some SEO strategies. It seems to me that it’s the most useful to people who don’t know where else to start with SEO optimization, and if that’s the difference between making some money versus none, well…some is better than none.

We generated a LOT of traffic from writing a blog. I started out blogging about legal stuff that I thought people would be interested in and sure enough, those people showed up. I don’t think you can beat a basic, clean WordPress blog for lead generation, and it takes time and consistent effort. If you are posting relevant content on a consistent basis, the leads will show up. What you do with them once they show up is another blog post. (Stay tuned.) I know it works because I did it.

As Josh says, I started my social media experience selling one of the most obscure and difficult things that you could possibly ever sell: forensic loan audits. Nobody knew what they were, let alone spend hundreds to purchase one.

However, most of the people who purchased an audit from me were 90% sold by the time they called me because I had educated them on the blog.

Simply put, good content + consistency = traffic.

Got questions? Send me an e-mail: christine@linkforsuccess.com

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Jul 15 2010

I am an open networker and will connect with nearly everyone on most social media sites. I don’t mind the business use of Facebook, but I draw the line with blatant self promotion.

For instance, today I received a friend request on Facebook (I am using my personal Facebook page for business and personal use), which I accepted. However, this person, a real estate agent, posted a link on my wall and asked me to become a fan.

This is a major social media mistake, as is spamming me with messages on Facebook about your latest product, webinar or sales call. Unless I ask you for information, I don’t even want to bother deleting it from my inbox or get an e-mail notification from Facebook that you sent the message when I didn’t ask you for information.

People….blatant selling on social media DOES NOT WORK. It just pisses people off and makes you look like you don’t know what you’re doing.

If you have to ASK people to become a fan….well, you’re doing something wrong. You should be generating meaningful content that makes people want to return to your site. You should focus on good content and the fans will show up. I know, because I’ve done it with the foreclosureindustry.com blog.

I don’t think there’s anything inherently meaningful in having a lot of Facebook fans. Just because you have a lot of fans doesn’t mean they will convert to paying customers. Just ask the Sales Cooke….social media is useless unless you figure out a way to meaningfully engage your audience. And most people don’t have a clue about how to engage their audience.

It’s one thing to have a Facebook page for your business, but unless there’s some reason for people to find you there, such as compelling content, you’re missing the entire point. You have to engage people, give them a reason to return, and then you can ask them to spend money with you.

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Jul 15 2010

Christine Springer is an entrepreneur, paralegal and social media marketer. In 2008, Christine developed a strategy for using LinkedIn to make money. She wrote an e-book and taught classes in Phoenix, Arizona on how to use her strategy in 2010.

Shortly after beginning to teach her classes, she met Josh Landsberg of http://www.trafficisgold.com/.com on LinkedIn by using her strategy. She and Josh have collaborated on Foreclosure Industry, a blog about foreclosures, real estate and the economy. Christine and Josh also used social media, almost exclusively to generate leads, taking the company from $4k per month to $8k or more per month in just twelve months.

Now that Christine has stabilized her income, she is ready to coach others on how to use social media to grow their businesses, expand their reach and sell more products/services.

She and Josh have launched several companies together, including DIYStopForeclosure.com, GirlDogBlog.com, LinkforSuccess.com and HaveGoodCredit.com, with other businesses in the works.

Christine can be reached at Christine@linkforsuccess.com or 602-350-2151.

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Jul 3 2009

An open networker is someone who will connect with anyone on LinkedIn, regardless of whether they have a previous relationship with that person. I can’t speak for all the other open networkers out there, but I personally have found that connecting with more people has increase my exposure and opportunities exponentially.

I find it funny that there are still people who are still wondering about the value of social media. Especially when we’ve doubled our revenue for Desert Edge Legal in the last twelve months by exclusively using social media.

For those of you still on the fence about open networking, here are several reasons you should become an open networker and really leverage LinkedIn:

1. If you don’t use it for anything else, connect with more people for the Search Engine Optimization! If you Google my name, my LinkedIn profile shows up first.

2. Connecting with more people brings you more exposure. Isn’t this what we all want? Simply put, more exposure for our business means more money in our pockets.

3. Connecting with people outside of your geographic area brings opportunities beyond where you live. This means we can do business with people anywhere in the world without getting on an airplane.

4. Connecting with more people makes you a valuable connection. You add value to your network, both on and off LinkedIn, by being better connected. If you receive an opportunity that you cannot use, there’s probably someone you know who might be interested. You add value to your networking contacts by passing along opportunities to others. People like to do business with people who help them reach their goals. You also activate the law of reciprocity when you give without expecting anything immediately in return. We all know “givers gain” over the long run.

5. Your profile will show up in LinkedIn’s search results more often. LinkedIn’s search feature is arranged according to the people in your network. That means if someone is searching for a person in a particular industry, the results first show you who is in your network and then people who are not. That means that the more people you are connected with, the more times you show up in search results, which leads to more exposure for you and your business.

6. LinkedIn’s users are affluent. That means they have money to buy your products and services!

7. You Control Your Brand. Your profile is searchable on LinkedIn, and you control what others see on your profile, which can be leveraged to show your company’s products so that the right opportunities find you.

So, just do it already! Don’t get distracted by the open networking versus closed networking discussion. I know it works!

Got questions? Send me an e-mail: christine@desertedgelegal.com

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