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PR: Adding Auto Tweets and a Facebook Page

Shari Smothers — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 15:30:51 +0000

If you have a website, you’re in need of attention. Getting that attention requires more than just being out there. This is where PR strategies come into play. Today more than ever, it is important to invite attention in an arena where it can be reciprocated, like in a social media setting.

Promoting your wares is the how you get the business you want. It’s an arduous process for me, as I’m not a huge fan of “blowing my own horn.” I am however a fan of work, generating work (leads)—you know, the business stuff.

I’ve got a strategy in place for increasing my posting frequency. A new tweet plan is in the works. And, to help me with growing a community, this past weekend, I added two tools to my arsenal, an auto tweet plugin, WP Tweeter, and a Facebook Page for The Word ‘Mage.

Why I added Auto Tweets?

I don’t mind tweeting other people’s posts that I enjoy or find useful. In fact, I enjoy sharing others’ posts a lot. It’s painful to tweet out my own work, and that’s costing me. To help me out with this, I installed my first auto-tweet plugin for the blog. I was hesitant about this tool for my PR strategy at first. But, I caved and added WP Tweeter plugin for two reasons.

First, it kind of takes the sting out of self-promotion, if I close one eye so to speak. It distances me just enough to smooth out the gut-wrench that comes with saying “Look what I did!” (I’m getting a little better at that too since I do it for my poetry.)
Second, I find auto tweets from people much more palatable when they tweet manually too—not sure why that is. So I allowed myself the use of this plugin, so long as I off-set that with live tweets of non-TWM stuff, which I already do.

Why add a Facebook Page?

While working on administrative stuff to improve my presence online, the idea of an FB page came up again. I looked around at my friends and family on FB that have work relations in their profiles. Many of their links connect with barren pages, with the generic briefcase icon and no updates on the pages. Mine couldn’t be one of those.

I read a great post from Karen Swim [Words for Hire] about PR and it was just the catalyst I needed, right reading at the right time. (You could think of it too as the straw that broke the camel’s back.) The idea to create an FB page has presented (more like insinuated) itself continually over the last few months. This past weekend, it came to a head and I put the page out there.

It’s Live—Now What?

Linking to it: My promotion for the work Facebook page will be another hurdle to cross over. I’ve added a badge to the website and the FB page has links to both the website and this blog. For now I’m leaving only the Social Media button here on the blog to connect with the FB page. On my personal FB page, I added a link to the FB page for employment.

Talking about it: First is this post about it. Further, I will invite people through conversation. That’s important to me because I find sites that I enjoy reading the most are very conversational, interactive, where readers write in and writers respond. Even if I have nothing to say, it’s good to know that someone is there exchanging with their readers.

Inviting you to it: The way to grow a community is to offer useful information and connections. Check out The Word ‘Mage’s FB page. It’s out there ready to interact with you. If you have a Facebook page and have suggestions for mine, such as a landing page idea, please let me hear from you.

In Closing

These are two tools I’ve implemented this month as part of my PR strategy. Because of the way I view auto tweets and Facebook pages, using these means tasking myself to do more writing and social media posting. If I’m correct in my assessment, this should prove to be an interesting phase. I hope you’ll join me.

Do you have PR ideas that have served you well? My strategies are based on how I work and what I see others doing. What are your thoughts?

Resources:

There are many people discussing the pro’s and cons of PR on the web, including how your interact, where you choose to interact, and what information you choose to share. Below are only the two most recent articles I’ve read and a site that can give you a lot of Facebook tips and tricks.

Is Your PR Strategy Crazy?, Words for Hire
Facebook for Public Relations, Journalistics
Social Medai and Blogging Tips

Take your Time, Make your Point

Shari Smothers — Thu, 06 May 2010 13:45:00 +0000

Remember Spelling tests when you had to know how to spell the word and what it meant? Way back when I was just learning to read and understand words, my mother would quiz me on my weekly list. She told me back then, that you never define a word with the word or a form of it. That meant I couldn’t take the lazy way out.

Really it’s only logical. Consider this fictitious conversation:

Person A: Obfuscate?! What is that? What does that mean?

Person C: Obfuscate? You don’t know what that means? Man! It’s a verb–you know, to obfuscate…the act of obfuscating? Dang! Don’t you know anything?

Writing copy is an important endeavor. The smart writer knows this and knows enough not to underestimate their readers or disrespect their clients by trying this. It takes time to make your point and it makes all the difference to your clients and your reputation. And if you do a shabby job, be grateful if someone takes the time to let you know you suck!

Be Clear

Getting your point across can be a lot like the above fictitious exchange, if you’re not careful. You’ve seen them. You know the articles that leave you saying What!? In your copy, you’re generally teaching or persuading. To do it effectively, you need to be clear and detailed. And don’t define your topic with the topic. So, how do you make yourself clear? Just—be clear.

Kidding.

It’s good to be ordered in your delivery. Go step by step when you’re explaining how a product or service works. What you’re going to explain to your readers is what they really need to know. You need to explain what what your client offers, how it works for some, what the benefit is to your readers, and why your client is the best choice.

Get into Character

One way to get clear is to get into the heads of your groups, your clients and your audience. Become the client. As the client you offer the great selling points of your product or service. You list the attributes in the best words to clearly explain your fine item. You may discuss the development of the product, the years of development and revision to come to your latest services procedures. How you know it works. You discuss the trail and error, because people learn a lot from the holes that were plugged as well as the successes your client has had.

Then, become the potential client. In your best audience stance, you ask the questions: Why do I need this? What will it benefit me? Who’s using this? Who is the best provider I should do business with? This is the back and forth that’s good and productive. Clearly, it’s not the stuff that makes ambivalence, but has the potential to clear it up. Answer these questions to your satisfaction as a buyer and you will likely have a good article.

Close with what hits home. Deliver the client’s key selling point that fills the customer’s key needs. One not-so-hard-fast rule: be thorough in articles and a little less rigid in blog posts. The rationale behind the blog rule is that you want to engage your readers. You want to leave room for your readers add or ask something, to encourage sharing.

Thank you for visiting my blog. So, what did I miss? How do you make your points to your readers? I’d love to read your ideas.

5 Great Ways to Capture Ideas

Shari Smothers — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 03:41:19 +0000

Happy New Year! 2010 is as good a year as any to put your ideas into play as you get them, right? Of course it is. However…

If you’re anything like me and my friends, you get a ton of ideas at once in a massive new year deluge. The time of year when you’re awash with inspiration, creativity, desire, hope. Really you want to go for everything, I know. And you can go for more than one, in fact as many as you’re physically and financially able to pursue. But, usually you can’t pursue all your ideas at once.

It’s Important to Capture Ideas When you get Them

Even if you can’t pursue them all at once, you need to capture your ideas for future access and development. You should record as much detail as you can, too. There are two main reasons you should record your thoughts when you get them.

If for any reason you can’t immediately start in on your project, you need to keep the idea for later use, when time, funds, materials and skills permit.
Your ideas are freshest when the inspiration hits you. It’s the ideal time to capture the idea and hopefully the nuances that make the idea so appealing to you.

Later on, when the stars are aligned, funding and everything, you’ll want to evaluate it again to be sure it’s still a viable idea. Having good notes will make it easier for you to do review the plan before you get started.

Five Great Ways to Creatively Capture Ideas

Your ideas are great, innovative, and life-changing. Capturing them is important, and your means of capturing them can be equally as inspired. Taking action to remember ideas is better than trying to rely on memory alone. The following activities can help to hard-wire your ideas, making it easier to recall. I’ve used a few of these, and they do help to make them sticky.

Tell it to yourself. Use your recorder to tell yourself the story of what inspired your idea. Make it as detailed as time will allow. Use colors and scents that come to you when you ruminate on developing your idea. If you only have a short time, get all you can. You can return to it later to add details and other information.
Build a model. When you feel strongly about an idea build what you want it to look like. Use wire, paper, plastic, plaster, whatever you are comfortable with. You may come up with more insights when you’re working it out, that will show you obstacles as you think it through. You could use index cards
Draw a picture. If you can see it in your head, making a graphical representation is another way to make your notes. It could be a flowchart design to show parts and relationships in your process. It might be that you draw stick characters to populate your image. Use colors and words to annotate your image. It just needs to be something that will depict your idea in a way that keeps it alive for you.
Write it up on your whiteboard and take a picture. Ideas that are easy to list or draw on your whiteboard, to keep it for later, instead of vowing never to touch your whiteboard, photograph it. Then print it and put it where it needs to be–filed away or posted on your office wall.
Put it in your idea journal. If you don’t have one, get a book for your ideas. I suggest a 3-ring binder because that makes it easy to add to a particular subject.

BONUS: Don’t dismiss the Paper Scraps Method

I didn’t list the more traditional methods for taking notes. Not because they aren’t important, they really are. They’re the things that we do most of the time, often almost reflexively. These methods include writing your important notes on napkins, paper scraps, corners of junk mail, and collected for later. These are the tools we use when we have no time for anything more.

Think about this: J. K. Rowling, famed author of the Harry Potter series, wrote her first Harry Potter book, The Sorcerer’s Stone, on scraps of paper and napkins to sort through later. Look how far she got with that method!

A Caveat: If you do write on scraps of paper, napkins and such, let me suggest that you keep them in envelopes, files with pockets, boxes or other containers they can’t easily slip out of. After all, since it’s important enough to record it, you definitely don’t want to lose the papers.

How do you record your ideas so they stick with you? Or, do you believe that if you don’t remember it, it’s not a very good idea?

Getting Testimonials

Shari Smothers — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:09:58 +0000

Have you ever had a day that makes you wonder why you do the work you do? People hire you to work for them. They give you assignments which you complete effectively. They receive it with no fanfare, only thanks. I work well alone, with no fanfare is nice. I just want to do the work to the best of my ability. When my work is accepted and goes live or into circulation, that is reward enough. And of course being paid well is definitely fulfilling. With that, I’m ready for the next thing. What more do you need, right?

You don’t Need Kudos—Do You?

Yes, you do, but the useful kind. Sometimes you have to ask for what you need. You’re in business to earn money, and one of the best ways to make money is to take advantage of word of mouth. It can get you more clients when people are willing to share their satisfaction. Ask for a statement and permission to use it on your testimonial page. You can accept job leads from satisfied customers. You can accept it when your employers let you know that they forwarded your contact information to a potential customer. But testimonials are something that you can put up on your sites to more visitors know. It’s not fanfare or a pep rally. It’s useful capitalization on something that good work fosters. Often people in business will tell you they appreciate your work. They may send you an email that says it in a short blurb. Ask them if you can use it. If they don’t, invite them to participate by dropping you a note.

Placing your Request for Testimonials

There are many ways that you can get testimonials these days, thanks to the World Wide Web.

Emailing clients is how much business is conducted. When you send your work in, invite your clients to send testimonials regarding their satisfaction. If you feel your clients are amenable, and your business is conducted over the phone mostly, you can still invite them to email you a testimonial.
Your website offers the perfect place to request testimonials. But don’t fade to dark the minute someone lands on your page. You ever visit sites and before you can look around, it goes dark and a box appears for you to sign up for their newsletter? I don’t like them because they don’t give you a chance to look around. You don’t have to be so bullying. Just place the offer prominently in your sidebar. Or, put it on your contact page, or on your services page. Offer it more than one place but not all over the place.
Your blog is optimized for 2-way communication. Take advantage of that. When you receive a useful comment, ask for use as a testimonial.
Twitter is a great place to get short text that gets right to the point. When you invite people to give you testimonials, be sure to let them know they’re welcome to send it to you via Twitter. Even if you don’t follow each other, you can receive direct @messages.

If you’re new to your business, like me, you don’t want to overpower people with pleas for this important aid. Over time and with good work, your clients will add to your testimonial list. Don’t rush it. Do make it a part of your routine to ask.

This is How We Do It

Shari Smothers — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 04:06:41 +0000

What do Potential Clients Ask Me as their Copywriter?

Do you understand SEO
Is good SEO more important than good content
You get the by-line, but can you keep the company voice
What do you know about my company
How do you develop content for my site
Will you hear ideas from me
Will you get me original content
Can you get me noticed without black hat tricks

The right answers to these questions put you a third of the way there. A thorough writer will have questions for the client too. The documents that are presented or that you’re directed to shortens the research time if there’s information that can be used. Maybe there is none. Let your client know, “I’ll generate copy from scratch if you need that, doing my own research, and my fees will reflect it.” Yes it’s hard word, and yes I’m smiling.

What Information will the Client Provide?

When copy is needed for a new website, there are a lot of avenues open to generating content. Once the client questionnaire is complete, then I have a lot of material to work with. Some things that I’ll ask new and established clients include:

How long in business before you got the website
Do you have any brochures or fliers
To know more about what you do, can you give me any companies in your field
What question(s) do your clients ask most often
Do you have repeat or unique clients most often
What are the qualifications of the person who takes your customers’ questions
What are the conditions under which you will take a phone call or query email requesting help
Describe the personality of your company, what is your company’s image
Who are your competitors
Who are you complimenting in business

This is Where We Collaborate

After reading everything I can get on your business from you and independent research, I’m going to draft a couple of documents and about fifty (50) topics that may interest you. These topics will have brief summaries to make you see where I’m going with each.
I’ll ask you for feedback on each one before I write them up. It can be the whole set or only some at a time.
I’ll ask you for any thoughts you might have on something that might be missing from the list.
Together we’ll work up a time-line for when each should go live

Doing the Work

“If everything meets your approval, then I’ll get started on your work. All deadlines will be met in a timely manner, either by the due date or in advance. This will allow room for major changes if for any reason you should change your focus. It’s a time-suck when people do this and if I don’t have to do other work, I don’t mind, mainly because the added work will be reflected in the bill I send you.” Yes. I am smiling again. You want to let your clients know what to expect in extreme cases. “This all sounds great to me. If it seems a little off-putting, remember that I’ll be present to walk you through the entire process. And there may be more or fewer questions that I’ll ask, depending on who you are and what all you need. And as I gain related experiences, I do tweak this document to reflect what I learn. Consider this a jumping-off point and let’s get started.” This is a successful meeting. Have fun with your work because your foundation is laid! As copywriters, what do you ask from potential clients? Clients/employers, what do you ask writers about how they work? For a later post, contractors and clients, what makes it to your “UNACCEPTABLE” list?