Mike from Flantoons exceeeded our expectations again with this fab cartoon – we hope you like it as much as we did!

What is a guest blogger / author?

This bit’s easy   A guest author is simply someone who writes a (guest) post on someone else’s blog. (You have to be invited or allowed to do this, you can’t just randomly start putting posts on other peoples blogs!)

Usually the blog will have some relation to your industry or speciality, but this isn’t necessarily always the case.

What is involved in being a guest author?

Usually you will have been invited to be a guest author, but it’s possible that you may have approached the blog owner and been accepted.

All that is expected of you is that you write a guest post that is suitable, informative and of interest to the usual readers of the blog.

It is a kind of unwritten rule that in return for the exposure and links back to your own site, you will point your own readers, contacts, twitter followers etc to the blog.

If I’m writing for someone else, what’s in it for them?

If you own a blog, having Guest authors can do wonders.  Having a guest author can:

• Relieve you from having to post all the time
• Bring in new readers
• Increase traffic
• Show a balanced/varied viewpoint
• Increase links in to your site as your guest authors promote their participation.

In short, it’s a great way to keep a blog interesting and bring in extra, targeted trafic.

(Plus, if your guest author has any degree of « fame » in their industry or speciality, your « kudos » increases by osmosis!)

OK, So what’s in it for me?

So, why would you want to write great content, only to give it away ?

Writing for someone elses blog can:

• Give you backlinks to your own site/blog – these will send you trafic as well as possibly enhancing any SEO you have in place.
• Generate new readers/subscribers for your own blog/site.
• Help to flesh cut your « circle of credibility » – it’s another place that people can see you talking knowledgeably about your speciality.
• Reach people you may not ordinarily reach.

In summary, guest authoring on a blog is A Good Thing To Do.

We’ll shortly be launching a new site aimed at helping guest bloggers find blogs that want them,  and people with blogs find guest authors to contribute  – if you’d like to know more about this when it is launched, drop me a line at nikki@nikkipilkington.com

THE PDF DOWNLOAD IS HERE

Please feel free to share this list, as long as you give it away for free and keep both mine and Chris’s details intact.

You can download the social-media-marketing-checklist if you’re impatient – the rather long blog post below simply explains my reasonings behind each item. (Please note, these are MY thoughts, not Chris’s, so we might not 100% agree on the whys, even if we agree on some of the whats…)

Daily Social Media Marketing Checklist

Twitter

1. Retweet 7 things – to my mind, retweeting is the life blood of Twitter, and sharing of information is key. But let’s not forget, retweeting someone’s tweets instils a sense of loyalty too, and they’re more likely to retweet your items in return. DON’T retweet willy nilly – before doing so think “Are my followers going to be interested in this?”
2. Reply to at least 5 people, with FULL replies – Twitter should be a 2 way thing – use it to build relationships, not as a broadcast medium. Don’t just reply with a ‘I agree’ or ‘Thanks’ – take the time to reply with a full message, a thought, a question.
3. Recommend 1 person you admire – bring their tweets to the attention of your followers – you’ve found your followers someone new to follow, and you never know, it might catch on and you’ll be the focus of the next recommendation. People like to be appreciated – if someone’s done something good for you, let the Twitterverse know!
4. Follow back at least 10 people - not following for the sake of following, but check out your new followers and see who’s worth following back. Chris and I both use an autofollow system (I cull the spammers, broadcasters and people of no interest to me regularly), but you could do this by hand if you have the time.
5. 10 minutes of polite chit chat goes far – it’s easy to ignore people who send you messages if you don’t know them, but spending a few minutes chatting might be the difference between them remembering and recommending you or just dumping you for being rude
6. Tweet 3 business related Tweets – these could be related to your industry, or links to your own blogs or products / services – people seeing your tweets will begin to align you with that industry in their mind. After all, a lot of us are using Twitter to promote our business.
7. Tweet 2 personally related Tweets – let people see the person behind the Twitter account. I’m not talking about ‘I had a cheese sandwich for lunch’, but the more people feel they know about you, the more they feel they’ve built up a relationship with you.
8. Ask at least one question that requires answers - asking questions and discussing the answers moves Twitter back into that 2 way medium, and who knows what nuggets of info you’ll find out? My favourite is to ask people what 3 words they think of when they see my name – the answers are illuminating (and sometimes a little bit odd!)

Facebook

1. Check in on Birthdays on the homepage - it takes 2 seconds to post a Happy Birthday message on someone’s wall, or drop them a Facebook message. Posting on someone’s wall means that all their friends get to see your message too. Chris recommends sending the Birthday Wishes by email for the surprise factor, which is also cool and maybe a little more personal!
2. Respond to any comments on your wall - it’s polite to respond to any comments on your wall, if they warrant a reply, so get into the habit of doing so before you forget!
3. Post at least one status message daily – keep people updated and keep you in their minds – don’t get over eager though and post all of your Twitter updates (including retweets and @ messages) into your Facebook status feed – it’s one of the quickest ways to find yourself ‘hidden’! Use the different parts of the status update – make a comment, share a video, share a link – promote conversation where possible!
4. Share at least 3 interesting updates you find - if someone posts an update you like, use the ’share’ button to post it to your profile – much like retweeting on Twitter it promotes the originator and allows you to share new things with your contacts.
5. Comment on at least 7 updates or status messages – it doesn’t take long to put a quick comment or ‘like’ on the status updates on your feed page – and people like to have comments; who knows, they may reciprocate Also remember that comments you post on people’s links or updates are available for all of their contacts to view.
6. Leave a message on 2 fan pages – spend a few seconds posting on a fan page – not only will you help the page out, you’ll reach people you’re not connected to
7. Leave a message on the walls of 2 people – not been in touch with someone for a while? A simple ‘hey, how are you doing’ message on their wall shows them you’re thinking of them and keeps you in touch without taking up loads of yours or their time.
8. Respond to event invitations – I respond to all event invitations by posting on their wall, whether I can attend or not. If I can’t I wish them well and apologise for not being able to make it. A link to my website mens they can find my details if they want to, and I’ve made many new contacts this way.
9. Recommend at least one person to your contacts – OK, you might not want to do this every day, but in the same way as you’d recommend someone on twitter, why not do the same on Facebook  you can do this in your status update and it doesn’t take long. I sometimes post details of pages I’ve become a fan of here.
10. Add at least one update to your group / fan page - I’m as guilty as anyone of not always doing this, but the worst thing you can do with a group / fan page / business page is leave it stagnant – update it daily even if you think no-one is reading!

LinkedIn

1. Accept any invitations it makes sense to accept – a minute or so each day accepting invitations means they don’t pile up and become unmanageable. If you don’t think it’s sensible to be connected, then by all means don’t accept.
2. Enter any business cards to invite them to LinkedIn – if you network offline it makes sense to connect to the people you’ve met on LinkedIn (and any other online networks they’re a part of)
3. Drop into Q&A and see if you can volunteer answers - showcase your expertise with a quick answer or two – I’ve gained business from this, and you neverknow what opportunities may arise.
4. Provide 1 recommendation every few days – if you’ve worked with someone or are happy to recommend them, then write an honest recommendation -  people like to be appreciated, and you’ll find that you get honest recommendations in return.
5. Update your status at least once a day – people seem to forget that there’s a status update facility on LinkedIn too, and it feeds into an ‘activity feed’ that is shown on your contacts’ LinkedIn home page.
6. Make at least one introduction - again this doesn’t need to be every day, but if you see someone needs or wants something and you know someone who can help – introduce them – it makes sense and makes all three of you happy!

Blogs

1. Reply to at least 5 comments on your blogs – if people have taken the time to comment on your blog, it’s polite to reply to at least a few of them where possible. It makes them more likely to reply again in future, and stimulates conversation on your blog.
2. Comment on a couple of your commentators’ blogs – follow the links your commentators leave, and have a quick read of their blogs. Repay their comments by leaving a few of your own. You get to make them happy and leave a link to your site. Win/win I say!
3. Stumble or Socially Bookmark your commenters’ blogs – if you like what they write, give them a bit of a traffic boost by Stumbling them – they might do the same for you.
4. Write the occasional blog post promoting another blog – not only is it an easy blog post to write, new content foryour blog / site, but it helps your readers find new blogs (so they love you) and the owner of the blog you’ve recommended will love you for ever more. (This may be a slight exaggeration).
5. Email a synopsis of recent posts at least once a month – I have to admit I’m a bit lax on this, but when I have done it regularly (to members of an opt in list of course) it has resulted inmore traffic, more comments, and ultimately more enquiries.
6. Find 2 new blogs to comment on every day – it’s easy to stick with the blogs you know, but new blogs are cropping up all the time – take a few minutes to find them and leave a couple of comments. You get to read new things, leave your ‘brand’ in new places, and help out a blog that might need comments.

Forums

I’ve generalised here as you could be a member of many forums, and they’re not all the same.

1. Reply to at least 2 threads every day – it’s easy to let your forums go when you’rebusy, but it really takes no time at all to scan through recent threads and drop in a couple of replies. You’re helping to keep the forum going, making sure people don’t forget about you, and people love people who reply to their threads.
2. Post one new thread – I admit this one sounds easier than it is, and it’s not great t post for posting’s sake – but if you have news, have read something in the news, or simply want to raise an issue, don’t wait for someone else to do it – start a thread yourself!
3. Make a point of thanking people who reply to you – a takes seconds to drop someone a line to say thanks – they’ll appreciate it more than you imagine.
4. Accept any connections that make sense – lots of forums allow you to ‘connect’ with other members – it’s worth accepting any connections that make sense to you, and maybe initiating a few too.
5. Recommend a member’s blog or website and say why – in the same way as you’d recommend someone on Twitter etc, a quick post saying why you like someone’s blog or website, especially if they’ve done work for you, goes a long way. Some forums have specific groups for this, so make sure you’re witin the rules. And granted, you wouldn’t do this every day, but there’s nothing to stop you from replying to someone’s posts on a thread with a quick ‘love your blog’ message.

I’ve left the Misc space for you to fill in yourselves – you’ll probably have your own ideas, and places that you go to that I haven’t mentioned, so feel free to mention anything you add in the comments below!

DID YOU MISS THE PDF CHECKLIST DOWNLOAD?

If you’ve read this far, award yourself a fun sized Mars Bar, and take with you my thanks

Also, a massive thank you to Chris Brogan for kicking me into finally putting this checklist together – it’s been on my to do list for months and without his blog post I wouldn’t have gotten around to it at all!

And don’t panic that all of the stuff on the checklist will take ages – you’ll soon have it down to the time it takes you to have a coffee and file your email on a morning!

Every so often I have a mooch around some of our clients’ blog, so I thought I’d share some of them with you:

• 450 year old pub, the Glan yr Afon Inn (the perfect place to go if you want a short break in North Wales!) has a new blog site, and has used it recently to show off their reviews and promote their Free Beer offer.
• Riverbanks Clinic have 2 blogs and use them both to great effect. Recently Dr Ravi Jain has blogged about Sweatox (Botox for under the arms to stop sweating!), and a woman who paid for bigger breasts with her redundancy cheque, as well as a shocking story of what can happen when laser skin resurfacing goes wrong, and reassurance that boob jobs are safe at Riverbanks.
• Telemarketing specialist Shaun Gisbourne, of phoneforbusiness, has some great recent blog subjects from how continuity is important in telemarketing, through to when NOT to pick up the phone, and new telemarketing training options.
• Marieme Jamme tells us about investing in an African girl through education, and her Reinvention Business Surgery, as well as the power of saying thank you.
• Telemarketing company Virtual Sales Limited use their blog to post regular articles and hints and tips; most recently they’ve told us about Telemarketing Mistakes, the difference between Direct Sales and Channel Sales, and why spring cleaning your data is more important than ever.

I love seeing the different directions that the blogs take, and look forward to new posts every day.

Keep an eye on this blog too, as I’ll be featuring more blog clients soon

Part of what I love about my job is that no single day is the same as any other – because we have a good range of related services, I can be working on quite a few things throughout the day, and chatting with many different customers and associates, as well as trying to keep order in the offices both here in France and in the UK!

Today, among other things, I’ve been working on:

• Article Marketing for a company providing a solution to cellulite – we’re all going to get it girls, so it’s nice to know how to get rid of it. And I know where I’ll be going for cellulite reduction!
• Article and Blog Marketing for an eco friendly toy company – can’t say much more about this one at the moment but it’s certainly been eye opening!
• Constructing a Wordpress blog site for a client who specialises in software used in Accounting – I really love how Wordpress gives control to the client, in that they can update as and when they want, and there’sa plug in for every eventuality! (I really should get around to putting the blog design packages on the website!)

We’re also restructuring social media marketng services at the mo, and that’s coming along nicely, so I’m quite excited about it.

It’s nice to see the Twitter interview requests coming in – 3 so far this week, which I’m looking forward to doing and will definitely talk about more in the near future!

It’s easy to forget, with everyone jumping on the bandwagon, that Social Media has been around a while, and it’s not as complicated as it may seem. Not only that, but you don’t necessarily need someone else to do it for you – the tools and help are there for you to do it yourself; and the great thing about Social Media Marketing is that it’s trackable and measurable pretty much immediately, allowing you to see what is and isn’t working, and adjust accordingly.

So, without further ado, here is a quick guide to three of the aspects of Social Media you might be hearing about, with links to places that will help you to ‘do it yourself’ , and details of how we can help you if you need it.

Twitter

Let’s get this one out of the way first – it’s everywhere

What is it?
A ‘Microblogging’ site that alows you to tell the world (or your followers) ‘what you are doing’ in 140 characters or less. Allows you to interact with clients and potential clients, and push your message out to people who choose to folow you, thus reaching a new audience.

Can I do it on my own?
Without a doubt, yes – it costs nothing to sign up to Twitter, and you can be up and running in less than 5 minutes.

Pros?
It’s quick and easy, followers tend to be loyal and pass on (or ‘retweet’) things they like, great for getting traffic to a site or bog

Cons?
Easy to get wrong, time consuming if you let it be, building up ‘followers’ isn’t always easy

Links to look at:

• 10 Irritating Mistakes That People Make With Twitter
• Twitter Checklist for Businesses
• Twitter is easier with Tweetdeck
• What is Twitter? In Plain English

Can you help me?
Yes, if you want to run your Twitter account yourself, then consider our Tweetmentor program, a daily email to help you make the most of Twitter – our current promotion means you can pay as much or as little as you want to sign up.

If you want someone to run your whole Twitter promotion and account for you, then we offer this service too, from £150 per month – contact nikki@nikkipilkington.com for more info.

–oOo–

Article Marketing / Blogging

You can’t fail to have noticed the amount of people talking about blogging and article marketing recently, and that’s because it’s a great way to promote yourself.

What is it?
By writing and distributing articles and bog posts on your area of expertise, you become synonymous with your area of expertise, and gain credibility and referrals.

Can I do it myself?
Absolutely! If you are able to write convincingly on your area of expertise, then setting up a blog and writing regularly costs nothing but your time. Similarly, most article websites charge nothing to list your article, which links back to your website.

Pros:
Costs nothing but time, develops brand and credibility, sets you out as ‘the expert’

Cons:
Can take time, you may not like / be good at writing, ideas hard to come by at times and needs regular upkeep

Links to check out:

• Wordpress.org – set up a blog for no cost
• Become an Expert
• Top 10 Tips To Make Article Marketing Work For You
• Ezine Articles – a great place to submit articles
• What is Article Marketing?

Can you help me?
Yes, we can help in many ways, whether you need a bespoke blog site setting up and / or managing, or just article writing and submissions. See our Article Marketing Packages for more info, and ask about our Blogger Specials.

–oOo–

Facebook

Once seen as a place only for teenagers, this site has come into it’s own in the last 2 years as a great place to promote your products and services.

What is it?
Facebook is a social networking site that allows businesses to connect with customers and potential clients through the use of fan pages, business pages, groups and more.

Can I do it myself?
Yes! It’s free to open up an account, either as a person or as a business, and you can set up fan pages, groups and blog pages without paying too.

Pros:
Huge potential client base, easy to manage / update, for some people easier than updating their own website!

Cons:
Can be time consuming, easy to miss out on opportunities, needs to be ‘kept alive’

Links to check out:

• Facebook
• Creating a Facebook fan page for your business
• Promoting your business on Facebook
• How to promote your business on Facebook
• Nikki Pilkington on Facebook (let’s connect!)

Can you help me?
Yes, we have set up many Facebook pages, groups, fan pages and ad campaigns for clients, and can help you to get the most out of Facebook for your business. Whwther you just need setup and then left to run it yourself, or you need complete management, we can help – drop us an email if you want to know more.

–oOo–

So there you have it, just 3 aspects of Social Media Marketing that you can try yourself, and have up and running in less time than it took you to read this newsletter!

Hopefully this has taken a little of the mystery out of SMM, and given you a few ideas. As always, if we can help, please let us know.

Next time we’ll cover Online Business Networking, talk about Blogging in more detail, and touch on the use of multimedia in promoting your business.

Until then, thanks for reading

All the best

Nikki Pilkington
NikkiPilkington.com

http://www.nikkipilkington.com
nikki@nikkipilkington.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/NikkiPilkington
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/nikkipilkington
Skype: nikkipilkington
MSN: nikkipilkington@hotmail.com
ICQ: 9330127

• It *IS* good for business – blogging about the things you are an expert in develops credibility and helps with branding.
• It *CAN* bring more traffic to a website – it allows you to share information on places such as Facebook and Twtter, that bring in new visitors, and gives good reasons for old visitors to return.
• It *DOES* enhance SEO, providing relevant and up to date content and links to the rest of your site.

(Sorry, I haven’t yet found a blog that makes coffee…)

But it can also be soul destroying – you write what you consider to be a great blog post, but no-one comments on it. You think your copy is great, your topic is fab and you KNOW that people are reading – but they’re just not commenting.

At NikkiPilkington.com, we know that one of the great ways to develop good traffic is by commenting on other people’s blogs. And by this we mean GOOD, RELEVANT comments, comments with content, not comments that are there just for a link back.

With this in mind, we’re always on the lookout for blogs that we can recommend to our clients, blogs in all sorts of industries that they can comment on and learn from.

It’s NOT about drive by comments and never returning visitors, it’s about helping blog owners by adding comments and spreading the word about their blog, and about helping our clients by giving them places to read posts, make comments and find out more about the world of blogging.

To help with this we’ve set up a separate Twitter account called BlogCrazy – aimed at encouraging people to post on each others’ blogs, and helping us all to help each other – please consider following, as we’ll be regularly promoting blog posts from followers.

If they’ve spoken to someone like me, they’ll have probably looked at my Twitter page, realised how confusing it looks and gone away pretty quickly.

“I don’t get it” they say … “It’s all messy” they say…. “It makes no sense” they say – and do you know what? They’re right!

I don’t understand how anyone manages to cope with Twitter – especially if they ‘follow’ more than a handful of people.

But luckily for them (and for me!) there are various bits of kit out there that will help you make some sense of Twitter. Twitterfox, Twhirl and many others.

My tool of choice is Tweetdeck. I especially like the fact that they’re on Twitter themselves, and they listen to criticism as well as praise, and take feedback from their userbase.

Recently Thomas Power of Ecademy.com asked me how I use Tweetdeck, and I’d like to share with you the answer I gave him. Hopefully it will help you to understand how much easier Twitter can be, how little time it needs to take, and how it can help business, social and research alike.

I use it in the same way I guess many people do – it allows me to put people into different groups / columns – so for example some people I follow for social reasons, some are industry experts and some are in a kind of ‘holding’ column which is people that look interesting but I haven’t decided whether to carry on following them yet. Then there’s the column that refreshes every so often and has a search for my name in it to see if people are talking about me

I have a column for a Tweetake.com search too – the Twitter backup service I own along with @alfaguru

A DM column makes sure that I don’t miss a DM – I like the fact that Twitter emails me my DMs, but it’s a pain that I can’t reply to them by replying to the email.

From Tweetdeck I can shorten a URL via various services, post a 12 second video (although I never do) and post pictures via Twitpics.

The Twitscoop button allows me to see trends.

Tweetdeck basically allows me to organise my Twitter ‘life’ – I think the reason that a lot of people don’t ‘get’ Twitter is because they’re trying to make it work for them by only using the website – if you follow people who Tweet a lot then that’s quite difficult. (Not everyone grew up with IRC and non threaded chat rooms!)

So that’s how I use Tweetdeck – if you want to know more about Tweetdeck, there is a great video here — How to use Tweetdeck

And here are some other bits I’ve written about Twitter:

• Who says Twitter is no good for business?
• Getting business on Twitter takes time, dedication and discipline?
• Making sense of Twitter chatter

Follow me on Twitter – Nikki Pilkington on Twitter

Nikki Pilkington

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Don’t just put up a 5 page brochure ware site and expect that you’ll be at number one in no time and stay there.

The sites that are spidered most by Google are the ones that regularly add content and get updated.

Clients say to me all the time ‘But we have nothing to add to our site – that’s all there is’.

And you might be thinking that right now.
But I doubt it’s true – there is ALWAYS something you can add to your website:

• a news article about a new client you have won
• an announcement about a special offer
• details of a new service
• a monthly newsletter with archives
• articles of industry interest
• how to manuals
• support documents
• blog posts

The list is practically endless – have a good think and I’m sure you can think of something to add to your site.

Styletime have launched a blog contest fund raiser against poverty for BlogActionDay in which you can win some fantastic prizes, including:

All you have to do is write a blog about the competition and donate a minimum of $1 to charity through the donation page, and you’ll be entered into the draw.

I promised I’d help to promote it, so that’s my bit done Now it’s over to you lot – get blogging!

Nikki Pilkington

| Perfect Networker