Social Media Coaching for Blog Owners

by Doug on June 15, 2009

If it works for Lodge Owners, then it’s gotta work with other Niches too.

Research And Development

In order to answer the question “Do These Social Media Strategies Work?”, Quetico Internet Marketing has invested heavily in research and development over the past few months, setting up several variations of nearly identical social media strategies in several unrelated niches.

Learning From The Best

One of the greatest personal benefits I experienced from working with Social Media sites was the ability to learn from the Gurus. Twitter and Facebook let you get upclose and real-time with the people you follow – it almost seems personal.

I didn’t use Twitter as a means to chat with people, instead, I used it as a way to monitor the people and topics I was interested in learning about.

Right off the start I met and followed @marismith, and I’ve been creeping her profiles ever since – often gaining a boost by her sheer energy and enthusiasm – then a great social media tip to ride the wave with – and to create something productive out of!

Work At Your Own Pace

For Tourism Operators who must learn about Blogging:

Mari Smith

Learn about Social Media from Mari Smith. Mari offers a number of outstanding course options that I’d like to pass along:

FREE Facebook Tips

“3-in-1 Facebook Tips Report” which covers:

  1. Ten Steps To Getting Started on Facebook
  2. The 5 Mistakes Newbies Make on Facebook
  3. Mari’s Five Success Secrets for Using Facebook Effectively to Grow Your Business

Social Marketing Method – INTRO PROGRAM.

This is the most affordable way to access Mari’s introductory materials: The Intro Program

  1. A 100-page Starter Guide for Facebook and more. PDF format with how-to’s, strategies and screenshots to get you started on Facebook the right way.
  2. Five recommended daily activities on Facebook – special report.
  3. 4 x Streaming audios/MP3 downloads of open Q&A calls covering Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed and a host of other related platforms and apps.
  4. 90-minute streaming webinar recording, covering several hands-on tutorials of Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed and many other supporting apps/platforms.
  5. 2 x LIVE open Q&A calls covering Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed and a host of other related platforms and apps. (Held in April & May, 2009)
  6. Extra Bonus materials – live interviews, transcripts, and more.

NEW: Social Marketing Method – QUICK START PROGRAM

The Social Marketing Method Quick Start Program includes three LIVE 90-minute webinar sessions. By popular demand, Mari put this program together specifically to help with more hands-on training. (Don’t tell her I said this, but you get three sessions for much less than the price of one individual session with Mari!) Here’s just a peek at what it includes!

  • A power-packed 20-page digital guidebook in PDF format with Mari’s proven 15-step process to jump start your social media results.
  • THREE x 90-minute LIVE Webinars – hands-on training, mentoring and learning as you peek over Mari’s shoulder and see her desktop with realtime training. This program is only lead once a quarter. If you can’t make the next dates, you get the recordings of the most recent 3-part webinar PLUS you’re given complimentary access to the next live trainings!

    • Here’s Mari Smith In Person!

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    Wordpress 2.8 Release Review

    by Doug on June 13, 2009

    On Wednesday, June 10, WordPress released another top-notch update with version 2.8.

    Now that I’ve had time to upgrade a few blogs and do some preliminary testing, I can assure you that you’ll want to upgrade as soon as possible for AT LEAST two reasons:

    1. The WordPress team has radically improved the code that runs the administration panel, and this means faster admin page loads, smoother interface behavior, and even faster page loads on your live site (due to some database query improvements).

    2. The new Widgets panel is flat out awesome. From the design to the controlling JavaScript, the WordPress team has really outdone itself here, and many experts agree, this is the highlight of the 2.8 release.

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    Google Wave will be a Tsunami

    by Doug on June 3, 2009

    What is Google Wave?

    Was that an eMail? Was that an instant message? Is that a Blog? Or is it a team document production tool?

    It is all of those things – and much more. Created by the developers of Google Maps, Waves WILL provide a fundamental change in the way communications are organized – in your very near future.

    Will The Web Ever Stop Changing?

    eMail was invented some 40 years ago, and remains the most common means of communicating online. That’s a fantastic product life-span, but we have all experienced the limitations and difficulties of a long conversation via email, especially when new people are added to the conversation. Instant Message services and Twitter have become a Killer App because of the new way you can communicate – but soon, we will forget about Gmail, Google Docs and we will ALL be speaking about Waves.

    Ideal For Working With Organizations

    Finally, we will all have a central place where a Board of Directors can all be kept abreast of the development stages of a project – without ballooning the project costs in endless meetings and time-consuming email trails.

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    More Traffic, More Subscribers and More Followers

    by Doug on June 2, 2009

    stats ledgend More Traffic, More Subscribers and More FollowersRecent Updates

    Recent changes to the CanadianFishingBook.com project have really made an impact!

    Overall, the network of five themed fishing blogs and the Fishing Lodge Directory have seen a 47% increase in traffic!  Individual Lodge Owners may login and view detailed stats on the performance of your listing:

    cfb listing stats More Traffic, More Subscribers and More Followers

    New Strategies

    Social Media is evolving every day, and CanadianFishingBook.com is keeping pace!

    Our New Twitter Strategies are gaining over 60 new followers each day!  Working in concert, our five themed Twitter accounts are providing a new and fast-growing source of traffic – directly to the member listings!

    Better Conversions

     The following three changes have boosted our eBook Download Rate by over 200%!

    • Traffic from Web 2.0 Tourism Marketing strategies converts better
    • Recent updates to the blog layouts improve response rates
    • Recent updates to the eBook Squeeze page and sign up sequence provide more perceived value and clearer directions.

     

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    Stats I check after a weekend away.

    by Doug on May 20, 2009

    May Long

    I went and enjoyed the May long weekend at a remote cabin on the lake shore. You can picture the rustic Canadian wilderness – no running water, a woodstove to keep the chill off, a path to the biffy out the front door – and no internet access. It was great!

    Back to my computer – Twitter First

    twitter followers for @marketingtravel

    After nearly 96 hours offline, the first thing I check is my number of Twitter followers. I reply to direct messages, then I return any @replies. While I’m working with twitter, I take another ten minutes to follow the daily routines to continue building my Twitter Follower List.

    Downloads and Subscribers

    Next I checked my email subscriber lists to make sure the numbers are still growing. Presently, I’m not running an email-subscriber-boost campaign, but when I’m managing such a promotion, I include a close review of sign-up conversion rates and also review the geographic location of the new subscribers. Watch for a video of email subscriber analysis, or take a test drive of Aweber.

    Visitor Stats Detailed Review

    Third, I complete my daily review of my website visitor stats. Each project has it’s set of keywords that it targets for search engine traffic, and an ideal target footprint of referral traffic that it is trying to attain. I use Google Analytics and recommend it to you – even if you have additional visitor tracking on your site.

    analytics snap1 200x124 Stats I check after a weekend away.analytics snap2 source 200x183 Stats I check after a weekend away.

    Reply To EMail

    Now that I have a handle on the marketing results for the weekend, I turn my attention to email replies and important newsletters.

    Create a Blog Post

    After chatting to my Twitter friends, reviewing stats and replying to email, it’s easy to come up with ideas for a new blog post. A new blog post that will be helpful to my intended audience, while at the same time, bringing better focus toward my ideal keywords.

    Follow My Own Advice

    In an earlier post, I set up a social marketing campaign I was to follow as a means of building the Fishing-Trip-Related search engine rankings and traffic I was aiming for.

    My Aim?

    To demonstrate that YOU can gain immediate and lasting exposure for your fishing or hunting travel-related business – by blogging.

    These results are very significant:

    1. As you’ll see by the keyword phrases in the screenshots below – this is very targeted exposure.
    2. These results were achieved in less than two months – and you CAN do the same!

    walleye keyword search results

    Your Website Is A Business Asset

    An original blog is an asset that increases the value of your business – it is not just another marketing cost.

    Find out more about how I can help you leverage your daily activities to increase the traffic to your website, to increase your bookings – and to increase the re-sale value of your business – with live, real-time Blog Coaching.

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