Have you ever found yourself reading an ebook and noticed a “Tweet This” link and thought that’s cool? Have you wondered how’d they do that?

Well, you’re gonna learn today!

In this edition of Content Savvy and Successful, I walk you through why adding this tool is important and show you how to add it to your ebooks.

Check it out now:

Step 1: Prepare the content for your Tweet:
RT: @MyVirtualGenieSays…Add a re-tweet link or button to your PDF   ebooks for viral appeal

My Virtual Genie Says... Be sure to leave enough characters so that others can easily add comments when they retweet. Oh, and don’t forget to add your Twitter ID do that people can follow you too.

Step 2: Add the link to your document/landing page
RT: @MyVirtualGenie Says…Add a re-tweet link or button to your PDF   ebooks for viral appeal http://bit.ly/c7MgxO

My Virtual Genie Says… Use a landing page link instead of a link to the actual document. This way you can ensure you add new subscribers to your list and avoid missed opportunities for traffic in case something weird ever happens to the document link.  Also, you will want to use a URL shortener so you can track performance and clicks. Try bit.ly , http://goo.gl/ or Tinyurl.com.

Step 3: Add Your Hashtag:

RT: @MyVirtualGenie Says…Add a re-tweet link or button to your PDF   ebooks for viral appeal  http://bit.ly/c7MgxO #MyContentGenieMy Virtual Genie Says... You can create your own branded hashtag or to increase visibility and re-tweet juice you can search for a more popular and trending one by using http://search.twitter.com.

Step 4: Replace special characters and spaces with URL Escape Codes

For this example, use “+” to replace all spaces and the “%23″ code to replace the “#” symbol. RT:+@MyVirtualGenie+Says…+Add+a+re-tweet+link+or+button+to+your+PDF+ebooks+for+viral+appeal.+http://bit.ly/c7MgxO+%23MyContentGenie

Step 5: Add “http://twitter.com/home/?status=” to the beginning of the url string your created in the last step.

http://twitter.com/home/?status=RT:+@MyVirtualGenie+Says…+Add+a+re-rweet+link+or+button+to+your+PDF+ebooks+for+viral+appeal.+http://bit.ly/c7MgxO+%23MyContentGenie

URL Escape Codes

You can get more codes http://www.escapecodes.info/

Step 6: Now simply type “Tweet this eBook” to your word document or add this button and add a hyperlink to make it clickable.

Step 7: Save and Publish Your Report and test link to ensure it works. If it does, not repeat the steps to ensure you’ve done hem correctly.

VIOLA!

You are done.

If you have questions or issues, leave a comment, I’d be happy to help!

Feedback is the breakfast of Champions ~Ken Blanchard

I cherish your feedback and want to make sure the information I provide is nourishing! Please let me know if you enjoyed this article and share any insights or question you have by leaving a Facebook comment below.

Until now, this has been known to you, simply as sharing. But, you are doing much more than that and if you are in business, you are loosing traffic and influence juice by doing sharing the old way…

Yes, in the fast and furious world of online marketing everything gets old fast.

If you haven’t heard the word curation or you’ve been seeing it and don’t know what it means, your’re gonna learn today!

Content Curation is a movement catching fire online that simply is a grown up way to do what you’ve been doing all along…share other peoples content. The newness of it, is that it allows you to share information in a way that gets you credit as well as the creator of the content.

What is Curation?

Content Curation or Curation Marketing is about collecting the latest and greatest information and trends,  in your industry and making it convenient for your target audience to find the useful content they need. But, curation is not just about collecting other people’s content; it’s also about taking the time to interpret the content to help your visitor digest the information quickly or with a new perspective. The latter is how you become influential and not just a sharer of great information.

As you would imagine, there are many technologies emerging to help you manage the curation process. Here are a few of my favorites so far:

Zemanta: Zemanta is a FREE plugin that you can install on your browser that provides recommendations for content to curate based on what you type. The way it works is when you open up your blog provider ( for example WordPress), A widget will open up on your lefthand side. As you type your post, it populates with recommendations for pictures and related articles you can use in your post or to inspire you as you write.

Paper.li: From their site “Paper.li is a content curation service. It enables people to publish newspapers based on topics they like and treat their readers to fresh news, daily”.  The cool thing about this service is that it puts your curation on auto-pilot. You simply set up your sources and it will pull from these sources daily to produce your  paper. It’s pretty neat and makes you look polished and professional to your target audience. Plus, it’s an easy and stress-free way to provide value, gain influence and drive traffic.

Curation Traffic: Curation Traffic is a WordPress Curation Theme. It is designed to provide you with a way to drive traffic to you own branded site, using other people’s content. It’s a brilliant way to not only curate other people’s content, but you get great juice for your own as well. Best of all, you can add your own opt-in to build your own list. I like it for creating a platform for affiliate sales. I’m an affiliate of this product, but I also love it so much I use it in my own business. This one isn’t free but, I highly recommend it.

Scoop.It: This is another premium service similar to the Curation Traffic WordPress Theme except it has some enhanced feature. For example, it has a smart content suggestion engine like Zemanta, built in. And some other cool features to make curating easier.

I’ll be discussing each of these tools in depth in upcoming posts so stay tuned.

Feedback is the breakfast of Champions ~Ken Blanchard

I cherish your feedback and want to make sure the information I provide is nourishing! Please let me know if you enjoyed this article and share any insights or question you have by leaving a Facebook comment below.

If your business was a plant, then content would be the fertilizer that accelerates your growth. And,if you want to maximize the growth of your business you need to give it the best content possible.

The problem with this metaphor is that you have to create rich content and enough of it to attract new leads and convert them. It can be exhausting if you don’t know the secrets to recycling content you’ve already created.

Let’s look at some ways you can maximize your content to grow your business…

#1 Cut it up. Use snippets from your content and publish them as tips on social networking sites. For example, a single article might have five to ten tips. You can schedule them to be posted on Facebook and Twitter with links to your website.

#2 Collect it. Collect like articles and/or blog posts to create a larger downloadable product. For example, you might collect ten articles on the topic of organizing your closet and create a report for your visitors. It’s a nice way to offer something for free and provide your readers more value.

#3 Piecemeal. Separate reports and ebooks into smaller articles or blog posts and share them on your ezine.

#4 Weekly wrap up. Create teaser paragraphs for each article or blog post you’ve published the past week and create a weekly wrap up. You can post it as an article and/or send it to your subscribers so they don’t miss a word.

#5 Reuse social networking efforts. If you’re using social networking to grow your business consider pulling comments you’ve made or content you’ve published and use it on your blog or as an article marketing piece. Often, we provide valuable information to others on social networking sites. It’s a shame to not provide that same value to your blog readers or website visitors.

#6 Answers. You can also use any questions you’ve answered via comments on your blog or social networking sites and publish them on answer sites like Yahoo answers.

#7 Link Love. Always strive to include a link. You can link to your website to drive traffic to a specific page. Or you can link to an affiliate product that relates to your article.

#8 Ezine. Repurpose or expand on articles or blog posts you’ve written to provide your subscribers with more information and value.

#9 Syndicate it. Consider syndicating your ezine content (not your website content or blog content because it’ll cause duplicate content issues). Syndicating your ezine content can help drive traffic to your website or blog and build awareness.

#10 Rewrite it. Rewrite any and every article or blog post you publish and use it for article marketing purposes. Republish it on article marketing websites or as guest blog posts. Make the most of your writing efforts. In fact, you can hire a Virtual Assistant to rewrite your existing content and double the results.

There are many things you can do to maximize your content and grow your business. These are just ten of the hundreds of ideas. When you sit down to plan your content this week or this month, look at way s to make the most of it and generate traffic and profits.

Feedback is the breakfast of Champions ~Ken Blanchard

I cherish your feedback and want to make sure the information I provide is nourishing! Please let me know if you enjoyed this article and share any insights or question you have by leaving a Facebook comment below.

As a solo webpreneur there may be times you need to DIY your content. Maybe you are just starting out and bootstrapping it, or in a time crunch and have to roll up your sleeves and get it done. Whatever the reason, your job will be made easier armed with some basic copywriting tips to make sure your copy hits the mark.

What’s copywriting anyway?

Copywriting is the art of writing to sell or achieve a specific goal. Anything from a landing page to an advertisement employs some type of copy writing skill and technique. You can use these same techniques to improve your content.

Let’s look at a few key elements of your copy and how to maximize their effectiveness…

Headlines!

The headline of your article or blog post is vitally important. It motivates people to read your article. Presumably, your article or blog post has a goal. Thus the more people who read your content, the more likely it is you’ll achieve your goal.

For example, you may want to promote an affiliate product in your article and your goal is to earn commissions. If your headline attracts attention, you’ll increase your readership and thus your click through rate will increase. More readers means more profits.

So how do you write great headlines? Try these techniques:
* Ask a question
* Make a promise
* Offer a benefit
* Arouse curiosity
* Appeal to emotions
* Use numbers
* Make an announcement

Call to Action

Once you’ve motivated someone to read your content, make sure they take action. Again this ties back to the purpose or goal for your article or blog post. If you want people to read more content on your website then include a few relevant links at the end of your article. Tell them to click on the links to learn more about your niche. Always include some sort of call to action, even if you just want them to leave comments on your blog.

Use Examples

One great way to really get your reader involved in your content is to use examples. In a blog post you can use personal examples. In your article content you may want your examples to be more general.

Examples help paint a picture for your readers. Instead of just telling them something, you’re showing them too.

Visual Aids
More and more content online is also using visual cues to make it interesting to the reader. Any sales letter is going to have many subheadings, bold lettering on words that need to grab attention and bullet points to draw the eye down. In addition to formatting your content for easy online reading, consider using photos, graphics and other images to help inform your reader.

It’s not uncommon for a blog to include a photo in every single blog post. Additionally, if you’re writing a how to article you might include a few demonstration photos. If you’re writing a review you might include an image of the product you’re reviewing. And if you’re writing an informative article you might include graphs, charts or screenshots.

Using a few handy copywriting tactics for your content can help improve readability, reader response and it can help you achieve better content marketing results. Try implementing a few of these ideas and watch your results soar.

 Want More Help Writing Magnetic Copy?

Grab my Content Marketing Blueprints for copy and paste easy templates to write better content fast and get more attention and more clicks! Find out More Here

 Feedback is the breakfast of Champions ~Ken Blanchard

I cherish your feedback and want to make sure the information I provide is nourishing! Please let me know if you enjoyed this article and share any insights or question you have by leaving a Facebook comment below.

Image via Wikipedia

Okay so there’s a lot of hype about the new social pin board Pinterest. Pinterest is the new magic marketing trend of the moment. As sure as I am writing this post, there are experts putting together training programs and classes to teach you how to use it for your business.

Before you go diving in head first and spending your precious time and money, I caution you to take a step back for a moment …

now breathe and ask yourself…

“How would this tool fit into my overall content strategy and overall marketing goals?”

Before jumping into any social media marketing tactic it is important to identify and get clear on how it fits into the bigger picture of your marketing mix.

Otherwise, Pinterest will just be another half done, poorly executed site that does more harm than good to your online presence. You don’t want to jump on every hyped up new shiny object that appears on your radar or even because everyone else is doing it. You’ll find yourself getting burned out and exhausted trying to keep up with it all weeks down the line and end up abandoning it altogether.

It may seem cool, but if it is not accomplishing some bigger goal, then you are wasting resources that could otherwise produce results elsewhere.

Social Networking and sharing sites are points of distribution and engagement, not magic traffic and sales generating machines. It’s a way to deliver your message and story to the world.

It’s important to get that it’s what you put into these tools or the content that you create for publishing to them that will ultimately determine the results you get. Having a Facebook page will not magically make you look cool and thus have customers beating a path to your door. It’s the content you provide that educates, engages and inspires people to fan your brand and take buying action. The same is true for Pinterest and any other trending platform.

Some other questions you want to ask yourself before taking the leap is:

How will I create, maintain and track performance of this content? Important to know because if you can’t create great content consistently to fill this or any platform, you should think twice about doing it.

How can this platform be used to drive new leads and convert them into customers? You need to be clear on how you can use this tool to get people to buy you or subscribe to you. It’s not enough to use it the way everyone else is and model them. You want to stand out, not blend in.

Am I fully maximizing and leveraging other social web real estate already created? In other words, have you created a soild Facebook presence? Do you have your Twitter strategy nailed down. Are you currently working a well defined social media plan for your existing networks? If the answer is no to any of these, you need to spend sometime cleaning up your presence in other networks first, before jumping into something new.

I am not against Pinterest, I think it can be a powerful way to leverage your content. However, when you hop from one social media tactic to another without a strategy in place, you can find yourself out of money, overwhelmed and right back where you started from.

Take some time to create a marketing plan and a content strategy that helps you define your goals and get the most results out of your online marketing efforts.

Feedback is the breakfast of Champions ~Ken Blanchard

I cherish your feedback and want to make sure the information I provide is nourishing! Please let me know if you enjoyed this article and share any insights or question you have by leaving a Facebook comment below.

Image via Wikipedia

How do you make social media work for your business? That is the million dollar question for many solo webpreneurs.

They tell you to get active on social media so you can earn more leads and customers for your business. You Tweet it, Facebook it and Linked-In it and the only thing you seem to get more of is confused.

What’s the key? And how do you really know if your efforts are making any impact at all?

I found a cool tool that may help. At least, I see this as a good way to track or even jump start your social media marketing efforts so they work to get your more influence and leads.

Klout is the standard for how influential you are on the web.

If you are the competitive type, this could provide a great motivator for
stepping up your social media marketing game.

You can find out how influential you are for keywords related to your niche. How cool is that?

Here’s a quick look inside Klout:

When I log in, it let’s me know the status of my Klout score. The more active I am and the more others interact with my social media postings, the higher my score.

If you have a really impressive score,  you can use it to gloat a bit by sharing the news with your network.

With each of the elements of your social media presence Klout measures, you can improve your visibility and influence online by tweaking your efforts to improve your performance. And, if your scores are doing well, then you can feel confident that your current strategy is getting results.

Let’s take a quick look at what Klout measures:

Topics of Influence:

I love this feature, because it really allows you to see how well you are performing around certain keywords, which is essential for ranking in search engines.

Score Analysis:

Your Klout Score Analysis shows you how well you are influencing “your network across a variety of topics”.

Yep, the higher the score the more influential you are.

90 Day Activity Overview:

The 90 day activity gives you a quick snapshot of how influential your postings are across several networks.

True Reach:

The True Reach is an indicator of how many people your messages actually reach.

Amplification:

Your Amplification shows you just how much you influence people. This includes your network (those directly connected to you) and your extended network (those connected to you in through a direct connection or not at all).

Network Impact:

Similarly, your Network Impact Score is a measure of how much you influence your network, or those in direct connection to you.

I know many of the social networks and automation tools out their provide their own measures and in the future I will review them to see how they stack up to Klout’s analytics. But, so far I love Klout because it gives you a big picture view of your webpresence across several of the most popular networks and it’s really simple to use and figure out.

They also provide a cool little widget you can display on your site for bragging rights and a sprinkle of credibility.

Check out Klout.com today and find out how influential you are online.

If you have a low score, don’t worry, use that to motivate you to be more social and create a more effective social media strategy.

Related articles

• Does Klout Score Really Matter? (community.constantcontact.com)
• 5 Simple Ways To Increase Your Klout [Infographic] (socialtimes.com)

I know what you are asking… ” Okay Kenya, how does that even make sense”?

Well, it doesn’t. But, at least it got your attention.

We’re talking about how to create magnetic content for your online business. But, let’s be honest, sometimes we just don’t have the time or resources to make it happen.

The deal with this article is, I wanted to show you how to create a quick stream of content without feeling overwhelmed.

Content Marketing has been around in various non web form for years, even centuries. But, the information age has created a new world where consumers are more in control of the messages they engage with and the brands they buy.

What Makes Content Marketing So Scary for Solo Webpreneurs?

1. Most webpreneurs have never heard of it.
   The term “Content Marketing” has just begun to gain steam and momentum over the last three years. And, with the flood of all the “fill-in-the-blank” marketing models, many webpreneurs have been too flooded with them to notice.
2. “Content” sounds too big!
   Online business owners are trained to take shortcuts.  We want results fast and content feels heavy and slow. So, we often focus on the technology and tactics and leave “content” for the last minute.
3. Not Knowing Where to Start
   So, if you’re one of the blessed few that get it, you may be stuck not knowing where to start.  What do you write? Do you write? Where and when do you publish? How much do you give away? Do you sell it of make it free? Calgon take us away already!

Introducing Micro Content Marketing.

I know, I know. Kenya, I just learned what Content Marketing is, now you are throwing another term at me?

Sorry, but I think you will thank me in a moment.

What’s Micro Content Marketing and how can it help me?
I discovered this cool concept from an article written by MARK SCHAEFER article written by titled How to Use Micro-Content in Your Marketing Strategy.

Mark defines Micro Content Marketing this way…

“Micro-content is different from creating content such white papers, case studies and blogs on your website. Instead, it’s content you post to blogs and other social networks. Like any content marketing strategy, this takes persistence , but it’s a flexible strategy that can be accomplished in as little as 15 minutes a day. Best of all, it can still drive inbound leads and business benefits to your company.”

Watch this video presentation to create your Micro Content Marketing Strategy and start attracting quality leads in as little as 15 minutes a day:

Related articles

• Why is an online content marketing strategy important? (marketing.yell.com)

Are you at a loss for words as to how to create really good digestible content for your online business?

Meet the king of marketing?

Content is KING, but sometimes it feels like we are slaves to its information majesty. Where do you start? What do you say? How can  you find the time to create and share it?

The questions can go on and on. Well, I want to free you from your confusion and get your questions answered so you can start making profitable progress with your online business.

First, things’s first. Let’s define Content Planning…

“Content planning is simply the process of taking a look at your editorial calendar and deciding what to write and where to publish it.” ~ Sarah Arrow excerpted from her article, “5 tips for better content planning.

I could not have said it better myself!

In her article, Sarah provided a list of practical questions to outline a content plan for your online business. I have added a few of my own to build on her brilliance.

Now that we understand what content planning is all about, let’s dig deeper, shall we?

There is no doubt that there is much to do about content. Many online business owners know what to do, they even have the technology in place to drive their content marketing, yet many drop the ball the area of content. If content, or lack there of, is what’s stopping you from getting new business and making a profit, allow me to introduce you to the 7 step process of planning your content.

Why Plan?

I know, I know, not another plan, right? Yep, your marketing can’t survive without one. If you are dreading the thought of sitting down to create a content production plan, here are some benefits to warm you up to the idea.

Benefits of Planning your Content…

• Become more prolific at content creation
• Increase confidence and credibility of your brand
• Eliminate the stress of creating content in the 11th hour
• Have more time to focus on capitalizing on opportunities a better brand presence brings to you
• Attract more “ready to buy” customers and turn existing customers into champions
• Create a rich foundation for creating paid infoproducts
• And more…

The 7 Steps to Planning Your Content

The diagram below highlights seven questions to ask yourself to create an effective content plan for your business.

Is it really that simple?

Yes.

Often the problem is we make things more complicated than they have to be, then we get stuck.

Simply answer these seven questions. The answer to these questions will take you step by step through creating a content plan that is realistic for helping you push out great information consistently. .

Feedback is the breakfast of Champions ~Ken Blanchard

I cherish your feedback and want to make sure the information I provide is nourishing! Please let me know if you enjoyed this article and share any insights or question you have by leaving a Facebook comment below.

You know that question that asks, “If you could have dinner with X number of influential people who would you invite”? Well, for me one of my top choices would be Dr. Mya Angelou.

Ever since I read “I Know Why the Caged bird Sings”, I have been an admirer of her work and character. He practical and classic wisdom is such that we shut up and listen intensely when she speaks. As we celebrate black history month and all the phenomenal men and women who paved the way for us all, let’s not forget to celebrate ourselves as well.

I have been blown away by some of the talented brothers and sisters I have met in my journey as an entrepreneur and as you listen to this, inspiring clip by Dr. Angelou, take note of the manifestation of her message.

Dr. Maya Angelou: “I would say to young people and to old people or upper middle age, that we have seriously crippled ourselves and our children by telling people, ‘don’t try all these different things. You’ll become a jack of all trades and a master of none’. That’s ridiculous. You can become the master of everything. The best you can be.

As, we move through our week and this month and even the rest of the year, let’s remember that we are only limited by our imaginations.

I’ll be chatting with you soon!

Whether it is in your tag line, mission statement or just the general way you conduct business. This positioning message can go a long way to creating memorability and ultimately loyalty to your brand.

Why do I need a B.O.P message?

Because you did not go into business to blend in. If you are a plumber, you would not want someone to open a phone book or search plumbers on the web and play iny-mini-miny-moe, leaving you praying you’re the one their finger lands on..do you? I’ll answer that for you with a resounding, NO!

Think of your B.O.P message as the theme music to your business and every time  someone had a problem that your brand solved, it played in their minds causing them to automatically purchase your product or service. Isn’t this what happens anyway? Think about how you buy. Are there some things you just purchase because the brand’s marketing stands out in your mind?

A great B.O.P. statement will fuel inspiration for marketing and advertising of your brand. It will become the personality of your company and potentially lay the foundation for future branding and product/service development.

Here are some real world examples of effective B.O.P. positioning messages:

• B.O.P. in a Name: BIG ASS FANS. I Love this one! This company captures their B.O.P. message in their name…cool right? In an industry where their competitors are dully selling fans, the found a way to do more by connecting with the reaction of their customers when they learn the huge dimensions and exclaim “Damn, that’s a Big Ass Fan!”

• B.O.P. in a Tagline: That’s All State’s stand. Are you in good hands?
• B.O.P. in the Culture: Geek Squad. Every time I call into their service line, I feel like I am a part of a James Bond Movie. It is an entertaining experience and their pricing and service is terrific.
• B.O.P. as a Business Model: KOGI Korean BBQ- To -Go: Catch em’ if you can. This to go joint plays chase with it’s customers updating their locations on Twitter and drawing long lines and brand loyalty at every turn!

What does it mean to Be B.O.P.?

To be bold, outrageous and provocative means to to take a stand; to tap into the truth of what you feel about an issue. In order to do that, you need to find out what problems exist in your niche that evoke a strong emotion from you and your audience. Does the problem make you angry? Does your solution provoke humor? The goal is to tap into your emotions so that you can connect with the reaction of your audience. Packaging your solution so that it becomes a part of the mainstream conversation is what you want to aim for.

How do I create my Bold, Outrageous and Provocative positioning message?

Follow these three steps to begin crafting your B.O.P. message.

1. To be bold: Be brave and explore effective ways to say what no one else will about the problems in your niche.
2. To be outrageous: Challenge conventional wisdom and societal norms. Think of ways to showcase your products/service with a fresh perspective.
3. To be Provocative: Ask yourself, how can I provoke emotion out of my target audience?

Take some time in your day to day business dealings to pay attention to the companies you do business with and how their B.O.P. messages effect your decision to buy. Be inspired, be creative and most importatly have fun! Let me know what you come up with. I’d love to hear your great ideas and look forward to seeing your brand in lights!

Until next post, don’t forget to dream big, work smart and go virtual!©