BUILD YOUR STRONG ONLINE FOUNDATIONS FIRST
Before You Start Your Twitter Marketing!!
(1) Your Website
(This is “Home Base”)
(2) Your Blog
(A Place To Tell Your Story)
(3) Your Free “Teaser”
(Builds Trust & Momentum)
There’s really is no point being on Twitter if you don’t have a good foundation, let me explain why…
Your website is what I call your home base – You own it.
It may take years to build and refine but like a house, once it’s built, you can live there forever.
If you’ve got all of your content on a particular or on various social media platforms, consider this:
What happens if the site shuts down for some reason?
More realistically, what happens if the admins or owners of that particular site decide your content isn’t fit for public consumption?
Remember, they don’t really need a reason to make this move.
Make the time and spend the money to get yourself a website that Google recognizes and you own.
There’s another key element here too - what I call Google juice.
There’s no point in having a website if Google can’t see it.
After all, most people just Google their way through life.
it’s the top search engine and not having a presence on it is likely to hurt your business dearly.
So, once you’ve got your website, what next?
Get yourself a blog (running with the house analogy, this is your ‘spare room’).
A blog is where you can communicate with your audience and share stories via short stories, articles, podcasts, videos… whatever you like.
It keeps you top of mind with your audience and it’s fantastic for SEO.
We’re back to Google now… the more quality content you post that’s relevant to your area of expertise, the higher your site will rank on Google.
While your blog sees you posting fresh content on a regular basis, the rest of your website will feature ‘hero’ text.
It’s likely to remain the same for a good while and when it needs to be changed, you’ll need to call in your web guru, unless you’re far more tech-savvy than I am.
WHAT ABOUT THE “FREEBIE” IDEA?
This is an item that acts as a preview or snippet and encourages people to trust you enough to commit to a product.
For example, a podcast may entice people to attend an event, an eBook may secure someone’s position in a course.
You get the drift!!
The online world is all about building trust.
In return for this freebie, people input their contact details which rewards you with an automatic email database to use moving forward.
Now, before I go, I wanted to share a teaser example that’ll blow your mind and perfectly illustrate that when used correctly, freebies work.
You’re probably one of the people hooked on Candy Crush.
It’s downloaded via Facebook and quite a fun little game.
It’s completely free.
What’s not free is assistance to make it to the next level.
It’s only $1 to get help… who can’t spare a dollar?
Imagine people playing this game at Starbucks, while waiting at airports, while they’re supposed to be working (shhh, we won’t tell!)
That $1 purchase earns the Candy Crush crew over $300 million a year.
Staggering!!!
SOME ADDITIONAL RESOURCES TO SHARE
www.KeithKeller.com.au
(Free Twitter Marketing eBook)
www.CrackTheTwitterCode.com
(Twitter Strategy Sessions - via SKYPE)
The complete 10 part podcast series
Strategy sessions can be created around any of these topics
BUILD YOUR STRONG ONLINE FOUNDATIONS FIRST
(Download The Transcript Here)
Annemarie Cross (AMC): Now we’re back on our very special series Crack the Twitter Code and we are running this over the week 10 episodes.
This is a very special series for coaches and consultants to help them focus on promotion of themselves and also their products using Twitter and of course we have Keith Keller, who is one of our global business partners.
What are we talking about in today’s special series?
Keith Keller (KK): I wanna talk about laying the foundations.
The reason I break this down in just 10 understandable lessons is that you’ve got to start at the beginning.
It’s very very important that you have your mojo.
It’s very important that you have a website, a robust home base that is yours, it’s very important that you have a blog, I’m going to talk about the 3 major Tops Blogs.
It’s also very important that you have the idea of a free teaser or why and how getting people used to you who haven’t yet heard of you.
So let’s start with the first one, the idea of a home base, a website, the keithkeller.com.au, the annemariecross.com.
It’s so important that you just don’t rely on free social media sites to build your brand.
Imagine as we’re now finding that people are building their brand on Facebook and the other socials medias sites.
Guess what?
Now you have to pay and, guess what, that changes the rules!
So after years and years of diligent effect, suddenly your product which is on the platform that you build is weakened.
Whereas if you start a website, on a robust system, get it professionally built, then you’ve got that to come back to and it’s your home base.
Use the example of a home base like a house.
A house takes ages to build, but once you live there, it’s yours.
You can own it, you can build it up, you can renovate it, you can live it here for 20 years.
It’s a very good analogy for a website.
A website is a home base, social media is the build of a spare room, or a granny flat if you like.
AMC: Yeah, you know, I’m just building on from what you’ve just saying coz I think it’s so important and something we need to stress, it’s that if you are building everything on any of the social media sites, what happens if all of the sites or one of the sites is closing down?
Maybe you might be thinking “well, that’s never gonna happen” but imagine if they for some reason decide that what you are sharing is not within their policy and they shot your business page or your account down overnight.
We have heard that happened before to people (KK : Oh many time!) so everything that you’ve been created as you‘ve said Keith over the last numbers years, whose is doing your diligence, can suddenly disappear overnight.
That’s why you’re talking about so important to create a home base where you really build all of that content.
KK: Once you’ve got that robust home base, you can add a spare room.
That is what I call the blog.
The power of a blog is that usually there they are simple enough for you to update yourself coz I’m not very techo.
The website is your house, the blog is your spare room, space where you put your goodies.
The reason why that’s so important it’s because you are on a flight, you might be doing a guide in LA, or you might be doing a Canadian tour, or you might be on holidays in Europe and you might just want quickly share a story about that and rather than just an Instagram photo.
A blog allows you to tell a story. And it’s great for SEO!
The 3 majors tops of blogs are of course WordPress, which is the one I have and I will recommend.
It’s a bit techo but that looks great! You can do eventually anything with WordPress, but it’s a little bit hard.
Tumblr, which is very powerful in the entertainment space.
Lady Gaga, Katy Perry have Tumblr accounts.
They are quick to use, they are easy to update but they are not as good for SEO.
You’re should always ask the following questions:
What’s the best functionality for my business?
What’s something I can do myself?
We’ve always got a struggle between “well actually this is so technical it’s out of my sphere.
So even though it’s great for my business I’ve never gonna get around on it and which is what a lot of my friends tell me.
“It’s quite good that you have a WordPress blog Keith but I’m never gonna do that.”
A way in the middle that may suit that is Blogger which is own by Google.
It is very easy to update the blogging site but it’s extremely difficult to make it look good.
It’s ugly in my opinion, and I’m very in visuals.
You can do anything with WordPress, even the default settings on Tumblr are awesome, but with Blogger it’s an extraordinary amount of work to get it to look good.
AMC: Just the difference between a home base website and these 3 blogs in case you’re thinking:
“Why do I have to have both?
Just to explain that with a blog of course, what you’re saying Keith, is that you can update with posts, a post is kind of a little story, anything that you want to share, an article you know, something like that.
That can be updated immediately and of course, Google loves new posts whereas with the website there are home pages, you have your sales pages, your product pages you know such things and so it’s not so easy to update.
KK: Actually they have to be updated by a web designer because they are extremely difficult to do.
There are a lot of sites now that allow you to update yourself and this is very very important.
I’m not an expert, but I want you to start by always considering the Google Juice.
If you got a free site that is easy to update yourself, ask yourself “Can Google find it?”, and the answer often is no.
So if you’ve got a template, cheepy, you download a lot from Internet who allows you in one weekend to build your own website, great, you’ve built a website that costs you nothing.
What is the point of that if Google can’t find it?
AMC: That’s true yeah.
You know some of those are the resources like Tumblr and Blogger are really rely on someone else’s platform so if they suddenly decided that they don’t want to run their businesses anymore or if for some reason your Tumblr or website or all the blogs will shut down.
All of the contents that you put on there is just going to disappear overnight.
KK: This is actually one of the things I want to mention.
I’ve done a lot of these now: videos, e-books, podcasts and often within 6 or 12 months.
The things that I get very passionate about completely changed or closed down.
It’s exactly why it’s so important to have a robust home base that you own.
AMC: Yes, absolutely.
KK: The third thing that a lot of people are doing is that they’re coming up with their idea of a teaser coz inspired by the fact that you know you’re awesome and all of your friends though know how awesome you are.
The facts are that lots and lots of people haven’t heard of you yet.
That’s okay; we are 7 billion people on the planet.
So the idea of having a free teaser means that you can leek out a few goodies just like you know “you haven’t heard of me yet, it’s the free teaser that gives you a tester.
If you like my stuff, I’ve got more things to come.
I’ve got e-books, I’ve got videos, I’ve got podcasts, I’m speaking next week, I’m on the radio here, I’m on the TV next week, I might come to your town and do an event.
For now, just download my free e-book, or my free podcast, or my free recipe and that will give you a test.
I want to give you a really clear example of how it works.
This is the most extraordinary example I’ve ever heard in my all life.
This is the game called Candy Crush which you can download on Facebook.
Free to download, 500 million people have downloaded that free game.
You know when people are asking me “Keith, how can those persons that download that free game make money?
How can that company make money?”.
But here’s the deal.
The game is so good that what they do is the thing that you can play this game 5 times a day for free every day forever.
No strings attached, play the game, live your life, have fun and after 5 games come back tomorrow.
But what’s happening now is people are saying you know I get to the end of the 5 games, and I really get in, I’m really into it.
Then you have that little button “that’s okay, you can play again, for $1”.
So, it’s interesting, and I’m gonna show you the numbers.
So people sit in Starbucks, in the queue at the airport, on a train, on a bus, on a tram, and if you don’t really want to wait until tomorrow, it’s only $1 but this is the stats.
875,000 games are purchased every day and I have to calculate that coz I’ve just found the numbers, but it means 319 million dollars a year.
For a free game downloaded on Facebook!!
I don’t think they even know what it’s gonna happen, they don’t even know where this is going but this is the truth!
This game called Candy Crush, and you probably have played already, is making $875,000 a day so the big question is:
How can you use that free game model, no strings attached and move it along the line?
A free e-book gives you the confidence to buy the product, a free podcast gives you the confidence to come to an event.
A free video gives you the confidence that coaching with this person will be a good value.
So this idea of a free teaser is the new paradigm we’re all playing with because we’ve got plenty of examples, and plenty in upcoming episodes because I’ve, have been researching this idea thoroughly.
People that I know that are making millions of dollars are using this basic promise.
It’s a risk-free strategy where everyone wins.
AMC: Hum yeah, and a great way to build list too, isn’t it?
Because people want you to get your checklists, or free reports or videos series or whatever it is that you’re using it for your free teaser then, of course, they can access that for exchanges, for the contact details and of course then they become part of the list.
Such a great strategy, so very very important, I think one strategy that all coaches and consultants should consider developing.
Keith, what will you be talking about in the next series episode?
KK: Next week I’m gonna get to write down the first two parts of this series, a really just a bit of a teaser about “you’re excited about Twitter and where you could go.
In part 3 we gonna actually create a 5 parts marketing plan, the 5 steps that really will be the essence of your Twitter marketing plan and then in the six next episodes.
I’m gonna go deep and get you to summarize groovy tours that will save your time and explain you reach.
AMC: So exciting stuff!
Thanks once again, Keith!!
I can’t wait to learn more about the 5 part marketing plan next week!
KK: See you next week!!
TRANSCRIPTS & TRANSLATIONS BY SYLVIA LANDEZ?
Sylvia is Keith’s French translator. She’s from Toulouse, in the south of France, but currently living “somewhere in New Zealand” for 10 months.
After a Master in Communication & Marketing, she realized that you don’t need to be brave or lucky to travel on your own; but just making the decision and doing it.
So she decided to live her dream: discover a new country, a new language and meet people from around the world.
Fascinated by the power of Social Media throughout her studies, she recognizes that she’s drawn her inspiration for her travels from experiences of other travelers shared online by blogs or Facebook / Twitter accounts, and this is the reason why she’s sharing her experience online as well.
Meeting Keith thanks to others’ connections and working with him was an amazing opportunity for her to learn more about the REAL Twitter, improve her skills in Social Media and also share her vision of using Twitter during her travel.
LinkedIn: https://fr.linkedin.com/pub/sylvia-landez/8a/16/870
Twitter: @slandez @KiaOraKaikoura
Blog: www.KaikouraNewZealand.Blogspot.com
BUILD YOUR STRONG ONLINE FOUNDATIONS FIRST
(Download The French Translation Here)
This article is right on target, Keith! Many new entrepreneurs jump into social media thinking it’s “the place to be.” But without a home base, their website and blog, they will just spin their wheels.
Thanks Karen – I think this really is “SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING 101” now!!