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Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Why the hell do you have a newsletter?

Good question! How many of you have a company or organization newsletter? How many send it out regularly? Does it contain useful information or is it a sales letter?

Lets start with the basics. Why do you have a newsletter? To inform your clients right! Inform them about what? The newsletter should keep them up to date on latest trends in your industry or new services or products you may have. Inform them as to how your product can save them time/money or simply make their lives easier. Don't have it sound like a TV commercial.

How often do you send it out? Do you send it our regularly? I work with a lot of clients on "trying" to get their newsletters published periodically each month. Sometimes it like pulling teeth! The most common answer is "Don't have time to work on it!" Think about it for a second. Whom is the newsletter for? You or your readers (clients and prospects). Stop making the process about you and make it about your clients! After all aren't you suppose to make their lives easier? So put the focus back on the client/prospect and get going.

The last point I would like to make is... Is your newsletter mailing list growing? If not why? If it works and you spend the time and effort putting it together why not work towards a wider distribution? The mailing list should be constantly growing or it becomes stagnant. We will cover how to keep it growing at a later date....

Richard M.J. Jarosz
Publisher of the
Jersey Shore Community Information Bulletin

Friday, September 24, 2010

Keyword Tools provides keyword ideas

Keyword Tools generate keyword and landing page ideas highly relevant and specific to your website. The tools help you identify additional opportunities that aren't currently being used in your SEO campaigns. The tools go one step further by tailoring the keywords and other data (such as the amount of competition for the keyword, the suggested bid, and more). Once such tool is Google's Keyword Tool.

Keeping an eye on the competition is always a good thing and in these uncertain economic times it's even more so. This tool is not only for keeping track of what the competition is doing, it can also be used to expand your own list of keywords. The results give you suggestions on variations of the Keywords (key phrases) as well as insight to the number of global and local searches for each Keyword.

Here at Lone Keep Internet we run these as well as a battery of other reports to support our clients in their search for the ultimate keywords for their business. Email or call our company, ask for Richard M.J. Jarosz, and he will answer any of your questions personally.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Promoting Content with Social Media - Twitter

People are still asking what the "h e double hockey sticks" is twitter!! Well Twitter is a social network in which users short, 140 characters, messages with each other. Users follow or subscribe to each other and receive message from each other. This may be via desktop computers, laptops, smart phones or text messaging.

If you don't believe Twitter can help you get the word out just take this one example. Justin Halpern’s 73-year-old father didn’t know that he was a Twitter sensation. His dad’s quips have resulted in more than 231,000 followers under the account name @shitmydadsays. Now it's a comedy series on network TV with William Shatner (yes... Captain Kirk) playing the dad!!!!

Do you have anything interesting to share????

Maybe some stories about me, Richard M.J. Jarosz.
Ones that can be published that is......

Friday, September 17, 2010

Promoting Content with Social Media - LinkedIn

The social network many businesses are familiar with is LinkedIn. This network has over 75 million business users and more than 1 million business profile pages that can become an important resource. It is very important to take the time to make the descriptions of you and your business interesting to read and accurate.

Linkedin has two major features that are of use to businesses. The My Connections section of LinkedIn is where you place your contacts and start to find out who they are connected to. LinkedIn keeps track up to three degrees away from you. You can find out how large your network is under Network Statistics along with additional information about your network.

The second major features is the Groups feature. This allows LinkedIn users to create and participate in discussions about a topic in LinkedIn. Groups are a great way to make business connections and can be a great place to share relevant blog content.

How many people in your network?

Monday, September 13, 2010

Promoting Content with Social Media - Facebook

Social Media is generating a lot of buzz right now among marketers and business owners. Business that can leverage social media to help distribute content and generally get the word out. Social media allows your customers and prospects to communicate directly with you online allowing interesting content to be spread quickly.

With more than 500 million users, Facebook has become the major player n the social media industry. It is the number 2 most visited site in the world, right behind Google which is number 1! While many people still think of it as a place for high school and college kids, it is actually a diverse network consisting of all demographics.

The first step in leveraging Facebook for business is to set up a business fan page like the one for Lone Keep Internet, Inc.

The second step is to suggest your business page to all your friends.

How many already have business fan pages?

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Free Content for your Website

Content is King!
How many websites suffer from not enough or up to date content? Most! But we hold the key to Free Content for our websites and even our blogs... Our news releases! New releases about ourselves and our companies. You already have something interesting to say so why not update your website with the information.

Just one example
I belong to Toastmasters International's Shore Speakers Chapter in Neptune, NJ. Recently I earned the status of Advanced Communicator Bronze. To achieve Advanced Communicator Bronze recognition, I had to complete a series of challenging projects designed to enhance my speaking skills. This required several years of study and active participation in my Toastmasters Club. Kind of a big deal for me.

After sending out that news release thru my usual media channels I decided to place it on my website. Since I do a lot of seminars and workshops some recognition about my speaking ability seemed appropriate. The news release can be found on my News page of Lone Keep Internet's site. http://lonekeep.com/news.html

Anyone else care to share a news release they have?

Richard M.J Jarosz
Toastmaster, ACB, CL

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Do you have a Newsletter?

And is it productive? Are you using your newsletter as content for your website? Do you know your numbers?

What numbers?
There are many things you can monitor to keep track of your newsletter. How many subscribers do you have and how many are being added each week or each month? How many are actually opening and reading your newsletter? Is there an action item in the newsletter?

Just like the numbers for your website you should have access to these. If you use Constant Contact you have access to all these numbers. Now you just need to analyze and use them. If you do not have these numbers you may be doing your business and yourself a disservice. Remember it's always about the numbers.

Action Items
What action items can be in your newsletter? That depends on the type of newsletter you have. If it is a Cafe you might have a coupon that the reader can use next time they walk into you Cafe. If you are an informational newsletter, like the Jersey Shore Community Information Bulletin you can track each link when a reader clicks on one then to find out additional information about a particular event. Again this is feedback from your readers.

If you do not have these numbers I suggest you looking getting them...

Presented by
Richard M.J. Jarosz
Lone Keep Internet, Inc.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

5 things every business can learn by studying Perez Hilton

Mario Lavandeira has made millions as the blogger behind PerezHilton.com. Perez Hilton celebrity gossip blog is read by millions every day and he is one of the most visible and popular bloggers online.

The blog reports to average over 260 million page views a month, hit a record day with 13.9 million page views this week and has a very loyal readership.

Here are the 5 things every business can learn from PerezHilton.com:

1. Find a topic you have passion for. A topic that you can and would love to write about daily or at least weekly. Perez focused on celebrities “because it was something I was inherently curious about, fascinated with.”
2. Be consistent. Post on a regular blogging schedule. Perez Hilton posts new articles to his blog an average of 40 times a day. Most business can't keep that pace but find one you can keep up with.
3. Be unique. Celebrity-focused websites are nothing new, but Perez Hilton created his own oversize persona to stand out from the crowd. You the business owner can do the same. Just takes a little imagination.
4. Be provocative. Perez often makes harsh and derogatory comments about celebrities. This results in a ton of publicity as celebrities respond back, media reports it and readers share it with their friends. You may not want to go this route but voicing your own opinion never hurt.
5. Expand your blog. Perez has used his blog success to expand into other media and has built an entire empire around his persona. TV shows, radio shows, clothing line, book deal…

Incorporating these 5 steps into your daily/weekly blogging will make sure that your blog gets more attention, gets an increased readership, gets forwarded and shared virally and will ensure that you build your profile, your brand and increase blog traffic.

Presented by
Richard M.J. Jarosz
Lone Keep Internet, Inc.