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Posts Tagged ‘social media expert’

Social media etiquette from a Baltimore housewife!

 Over the years I have shared my thoughts and frustrations in regards to social media…and I appreciate you listening. 

       I have shared ideas, tips and secrets to help you get more how out of your social media experience. You’ve thanked me. 

       But today, I’m going to do something different… 

       I’m going to introduce you to a friend of mine… who as it happens is not a marketer, or an entrepreneur or even a social media guru. Nope! 

       She’s just a mom! A mom who cares about her family to write her response to what she sees concerning Facebook and social media in general. 

        Her name is Jaimie Jacobs and her article is entitled, “Facebook Status Updates: What Not To Write!        

        http://www.helium.com/items/2180749-facebook-status-updates-what-not-to-write    

        Read it!

        Comment on it!

        Tell her Rob sent you!  

        Until Next Time,                       

  “Live with Passion!” 

   Rob Anspach    

   P.S. The internet is full of mom’s just like Jaimie who are very expressive with their thoughts and we marketers could take a lesson from their handbook every now and then. 

The truth about fanpages!

It’s about 6:30pm EST and I’m still sitting at my computer.

I made the mistake of taking yesterday off to spend at the beach. And, today I’m paying for it.

I had several emails and a few phone calls while I was away.

It seems what’s on everybody’s mind right now is how to make their fanpage more effective. To some just having a fanpage would do wonders.

But, a word of caution…

A fanpage won’t do diddly if you don’t work it!

“You got to work it, work it!” – as my kids would sing, from the movie Madagascar.

Yep, you have to actively engage readers (followers, friends, stalkers) or whatever you wish to call them, to respond to what it is you are conveying.

It’s not easy.

If they have hundred of friends (or in my case thousands), your message may not get much “play-time” and may just fall on deaf ears.

So, truth be told…why waste time creating a fanpage if you aren’t going to continously make it interesting and fun.

The best fanpages incorporate a “thank you” for liking us feature. Or, some type of incentive to get people to share the page with their friends.

Yeah, I know it’s crazy!

Just a few years ago, there was no Facebook. Now, if your business doesn’t have a fanpage you are labled a leaper or maybe something worse.

The times they are a changing…are you keeping up?

I know!

Almost 3 years ago, I screwed up!

In the early days of fanpage development I made a few mistakes…even had my very first fanpage shut down for two weeks due to violating Facebook’s terms of service agreement. Which, ironically wasn’t my fault, but it did cost me time and money.

It was a hard lesson to learn.

Now, with Facebook surpassing 600 million active members, having a fanpage for your business is definately the way to build sales. And, you need to do it right!

Gimmicks work for a bit! They are like that tangling carrot in front of the mule to get him to move forward. Eventually, the donkey will get tired and want to eat the carrot. So substance is just as important.

The key is to keep your followers engaged…is to actively educate and entertain them.

 

Until Next Time, 

      “Live with Passion!” 

      Rob Anspach    

P.S.  If you need help with your fanpage (setting up, increasing traffic, conversion), give me shout out! I offer consulting, content creation and yes, even management of your fanpage.  

Contact Information

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Email: rob@robanspach.com                                   Phone: (717)330-7947

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Rob Anspach is a “brilliantly savvy” entrepreneur who helps frustrated business owners regain the passion they once had by showing them how to be more effective in the marketplace, how to dramatically improve their business so they enjoy coming to work again and how to win over customers regardless of price. Discover how easy it is to make money in your online or offline marketing, to attract and retain clientele and profit from your passions… visit http://www.robanspach.com  today!
Rob is also the creator & dynamic force behind Success Secrets TV, the new online show dedicated to helping entrepreneurs stay successful… check it out by going to… http://www.SuccessSecrets.TV

Seriously, do you do this?

March 16, 2011 Leave a comment

The other day, a client called and asked me how he could get more followers on his social media sites! You know what I told him?

It’s not the size, it’s the content!

Sure, a big list of happy followers is nice to have, but they wont be happy if you don’t do these three things first!

Educate, Entertain & Engage!

Sounds simple, right?

Well, I’ve been using various social media platforms now for several years and I’ve noticed a good majority of people screw it up…royally!

Educate, Entertain & Engage!

Let’s take educate first! These are posts meant to teach your followers about you, your product, your services, what you stand for, how you operate, what makes you different and why they should use you.

Now the entertain part! Here’s where you bring your personality into the mix. These posts will showcase your interests. What makes you laugh? What makes you cry? What’s your favorite music, or TV show? You can share videos and articles! Even pictures of your family, pets or places you visit. These posts bring out your human side and allow your followers to get to know you as a person.

And, finally engage! If you can’t get people to respond to your posts then you might as well not even be on social media sites. The main reason to educate and entertain is to get your followers to engage. They need to respond back to you. Think of your posts as conversation starters…you say something and someone responds back. Without engagement, your messages fall on deaf ears.

Educate, Entertain & Engage!

Remember those three words!

By educating, entertaining and engaging you will find people will want to read what it is you are posting, they will tell their friends about you and your followers lists will grow.

Until Next Time,

“Live with Passion!”

Rob Anspach

P.S. If you’re still having trouble figuring out the whole “social media” stuff, maybe I can help. Click here for more info… http://robanspach.com/socialmediamarketing.html

Why every business needs to take a lesson from Charlie Sheen!

Over the last few weeks I’m sure you’ve heard about what’s going on in Charlie Sheen land.

Controversy at it’s finest…or not so finest! You pick!

But, I have to give it to Charlie…he is creating publicity and getting people involved in what he’s doing.

It was announced that he broke the Guinness Book of World Records for achieving 1 million Twitter followers in just a few days. Then he shattered that record again with 2 million followers a few days later.

Two Million!

But unlike most celebrities who tweet about what they are doing, Charlie is using Twitter as a means to make money and keep his controversy in the limelight.

He launched an internet show called Charlie’s Korner (which I haven’t seen yet) and is in talks with advertisers to mention their products on his Twitter account.

The phrases “Tiger Blood”, ”Adonis DNA” and “Winning” have been added to the lexicon of our pop culture…yep, thanks to Charlie Sheen.

Okay, yes I realize that you are not Charlie Sheen and that creating controversy can be somewhat daunting. And, you are not a celebrity with deep pockets and hopefully you don’t have a “bad boy” reputation either…

…but you can be a magnet for the media.

Keep those press releases flowing! Let the media in on what you are doing.

Hire a rainmaker! A publicist! A Public Relations person!

Utilize social media! Create an online presence!

Make some noise! Get noticed!

You might not get 2 Million followers, but you will create a following.

Everytime the media picks up on what you’re doing, people will read, hear or talk about you.

Good or bad…controversy sells!

Learn to use a little controversy in your publicity campaigns and watch people take notice!

Until Next Time,

“Live with Passion!”

Rob Anspach

P.S. Everything your business does can be put into a press release! A new website, a new employee, a new company vehicle, a special event, heck, you name it…it could help drive traffic to you with some publicity. Need help? Click on my name and go to my website.

Web Success

January 25, 2011 Leave a comment

A few months ago, I would never be able to post this on YouTube!

No, it has nothing to do with being pirated or containing racy material!

It’s that it exceeds, or it did, YouTube’s time restrictions.

Time’s they are a changin’!

YouTube relinquished their time restraints (well to a select group for now) and has given the green light for longer videos.

Well, remember earlier today when I told you I would be sharing with you my interview with internet marketer John Spangler… well, I was going to wait until later this week…but, I felt the information was just to valuable to keep from you…so here it is!

Here’s what you’ll discover…

In this Success Secrets TV Special Edition Episode called “Web Success”

  • Why Craigslist & Squidoo are very important in your online marketing
  • The dominating effects using a linkwheel can have on your website
  • Why understanding SEO is critical
  • How to turn your competitors keywords to your advantage
  • much much more!

One caveat… this isn’t your typical 8-10 minute video. This my friend is 28 minutes of jam packed undeniable web goodness.

Here’s the link…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO7uYWMBi6M

Until next time,

“Live With Passion!”

Rob Anspach

P.S. I decided to keep it real, no special effects, no editing…just real information that you can use right away.

 

P.P.S. If you are currently using a monthly client newsletter that isn’t getting the phone to ring, generating referrals or providing more money to your bottom line… it’s time to check out The Ultimate Monthly Newsletter.

 

 

Two Rights Make An Airplane!

October 28, 2010 Leave a comment

High school and college give you classes that mold you into a well rounded student…blah, bla-blah! How boring I thought as I sat though another high school parent-teacher assembly. Pure rubbish!

“The truth is that most people are intellectually lazy, surprisingly un-curious in their acquisition of information”.

That quote appears on page 70 of the “Ultimate Entrepreneurs Success Secrets” book!

A book that was given to me by one of the co-authors, Steve Sipress. He along with a group of Chicago’s finest penned some of the most inspiring words that entrepreneurs should follow in their quest to better themselves.

And, yet only those that wish to increase their success will ever read it.

Yep, we as a society tend to be intellectually lazy. We would rather wait for the movie then read the book.

The entrepreneurs I associate with seldom wait for those that are lazy to catch up. I suppose the main reason is that we hate constantly explaining to those who really have no desire to learn secrets they will never utilize.

Yesterday my 13 year old son was having an argument with my 21 year old daughter. My daughter didn’t approve of her brothers choices about a project he was working on. My daughter in trying to prove her point says, “two wrongs don’t make a right!”

My son without hesitation replies, “yes, but two rights make an airplane!”

My daughter didn’t get it! And all she could muster was… “you’re stupid!”

I started laughing…I knew exactly what my son meant. My wife looked at me like I was off my rocker, she didn’t get it either.

You see it’s not “right” but rather “Wright”…as in Wilbur and Orville!

Had these two individuals not learned from the wrongs or weren’t curious enough we would never have the airplane.

Learn to devour information! Be curious! Ask questions!

Especially information related to your field.

I read everything! I’m curious!

I take information and see how I can use it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t!

Those who possess information, will ultimately be the winners.

Imagine, being prepped throughout your school days to act, think and learn just like everyone else. Well rounded…doesn’t cut it!

If you want to succeed, you have to stop doing what everyone else is doing and do what nobody is doing. Be different! Don’t be average…be an expert.

Yep, the experts don’t become masters of their fields by simply learning a few tricks, nope they become masters by learning everything they can, being curious, asking questions, re-discovering and implementing.

Stop trying to be all things to all people. Like I said, well rounded doesn’t cut it! Be the expert in one field and learn to dominate it.

I’ll leave you with this…Google makes billions by controlling how information is presented. Yet, the majority of people looking for information on Google never quite find what they are looking for. Because they are lazy they settle for what is there! Learn to assemble the knowledge you gain in such a way that people will beat a path to your door to get it.

Never let anyone accuse you of being lazy, especially towards acquisition of information!

Until Next Time,

“Live With Passion!”

Rob Anspach

P.S. Before Tony Robbins became famous, he was basically a janitor. Yet, he had a curiousity about learning, plus a burning desire to succeed. He knew he could conquer the world, he just needed the right information to arm himself with. He devoured everything he could about NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), affirmations, and goals. Within a very short time he became the go-to expert on personal coaching.

Be like an onion!

October 22, 2010 Leave a comment

This morning a friend calls and leaves a message on my machine.

When I started listening to the message, my first thought was he’s drunk!

I wasn’t sure if he was trying to be funny or if he was serious.

Too be honest I felt a bit offended!

I won’t tell you what he said, but let’s just say he was poking fun at something that was posted on one of my sites.

I shared the message with my wife…her response was, “wow, that’s not like him!”

So I called him to figure out what the heck he was talking about. Bad Mistake!

He went on and on about this and that and my videos and testimonials and…oh boy, I felt like I was being put under a microscope and every little detail was being picked apart.

Then he ends with, “hey buddy I hope I didn’t offend you, I just wanted to give you some advice!”

Yeah, some advice!

I’m sure you have a friend like that. They mean well, but maybe deep down they are jealous of your success, or feel trapped in their situations so they find a way to bring yours down to build their’s up. Instead of trying to be uplifting and encouraging, they are demeaning and toxic.

So, let me swipe a quote from the movie Shrek and spin it.

In the movie Shrek the ogre is trying to relate how the towns people just dont really “get” him, make fun of him and are a bit scared of him to his new friend donkey. He says, “ogres are like onions!” Which confuses donkey and they banter back and forth until Shrek says, “because they have layers!”

Most entrepreneurs need to be like the ogre, er, I mean the onion! Have layers!

Or another way to say it…have thick skin.

Don’t let what others think of you keep you from your goals or from achieving success!

The moment you allow others to influence you in a negative manner is the day you stop focusing on the big picture. You start to question the opportunities, your vision, your goals and your future.

Keep your eyes on the prize!

Until next time,

“Live With Passion”

Rob Anspach

P.S. A book I would highly recommend you read, written by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen (The Chicken Soup book guys) is called, “The Power of Focus”. It will help you get clarity, and allow you to focus on what you really want out of life.

Poof! They Were Gone!

October 21, 2010 Leave a comment

I just lost 700!

I was really bummed too!

I have no clue what happened, or where it all went!

Oh, right! You have no clue what I’m rambling about do you?

I didn’t lose 700 dollars! I lost 700 backlinks!

Virtually overnight!

Never saw it coming…they just vanished! Poof!

It sort of feels like someone came into my house, nosed around and stole only half the soup spoons out of the cutlery draw. Yeah it’s an inconvenience, but I’ll live!

Oh, it’s nothing new! They seem to pull this quite a lot.

I suppose when you own the game, you can make the rules.

Well, some of the new analytics programs are designed to weed out old or broken backlinks or even discount mass generated or irrelevant links.

To some degree, the new analytics are good, they give you a more up to date, solid point of reference. Yet, for some, losing 700 backlinks overnight means losing money.

I recently got to talking with my lawyer buddy and he believes the whole “pay for backlinks” thing is borderline unethical. To be honest, it can be! There are unscrupulous ways to trick the system and build massive amounts of backlinks to increase your pagerank. Unfortunately, most major search engines are designed to look for anomalies and filter them out.

So I did some checking and the backlinks I’m down to…are relatively safe. They are ones that are crosslinked to my social media sites, article submission sites, my blog, YouTube, and some other places I frequently visit.

Here’s what I did find out…all the ones that were dismissed…were because I didn’t play the game their way. About nine months ago, I used a service to ping sites so I could build up my backlinks and increase my pagerank. It sounded good. Frankly, I didn’t pay much for the service. Less than the cost of a Starbucks coffee.

This was before I knew all the right moves when it comes to building pagerank and using relevant backlinks.

Lesson learned, huh!

Yeah I lost 700 backlinks…but, it had no impact on my pageranking or any loss of keyword searchable inquiries…at least what I can tell.

If you are to use a service to build pagerank, make sure the backlinks are to relevant sites that complement your services. Otherwise, the “powers that be” may deem your new backlinks null and void.

So, yes, be ethical in what you do…build your pageranks the right way and you won’t need to worry if you just lost backlinks.

Until next time,

“Live With Passion”

Rob Anspach

P.S. When the search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo) create a new analytics program…it sometimes plays havoc on pagerank and backlink statuses. If you play the game by their terms, you will always come out a winner.

Five bucks and 12 edu’s later!

October 14, 2010 Leave a comment

A few months ago (June 2010) I wrote an article about a great place to get things done for almost dirt cheap. Well, for less than a cup of your favorite Starbucks coffee.

If you didn’t read it, this link will get you caught up… http://robanspach.wordpress.com/2010/06/07/five-bucks/

Yesterday, I received an email from Brian Horn (a brilliant SEO strategist) who was telling people about the same site I reported on all those months ago. Not to say I beat the great Mr. Horn to the punch, I’m sure he knew about this site long before I did.

In my article I touched on how I used the site to build backlinks, submit press releases, and gain more exposure for my articles.

This site made it easy! And did I mention cheap.

I could scan through all the postings or search for my specific keywords and…”Blamo!”… a few minutes later I’m done.

Yeah, it’s simple.

Well, in Brian’s article he mentioned how he used the site to obtain a special type of backlink.

What is a backlink?

In a nutshell, a backlink is any website that your domain name (or web URL) is showing up on. If you post to a blog, or an article submission site or even the hundreds of social media sites (not to mention the partnership & backlink swapping service)…you are leaving a trail of backlinks in your wake. The search engine crawlers, spiders and bots then follow these links back to your website. Creepy and cool at the same time.

But not backlinks are created equal!

And, the backlinks that Brian describes are the one’s that give you the higher rankings.

Brian goes on to say that just having a few of these special backlinks are equal to tens of thousands of regular links. Now that’s powerful stuff.

Here’s the skinny!

Go to a website called http://Fiverr.com – then look for the search bar.

Type “12 edu backlinks” into the search bar and press enter.

You will see a host of listings all offering similar jobs…scan the listings and read the posts.

Some may be enticing to use…just do your due diligence…read the comments and decide which ones will match your needs best.

Brian used a listing by “smith_seo” for his edu backlink submission job. I tested 2 others along with his and found they were equally similar and had great feedback.

Hey, for five bucks…I mean really, it’s the fastest, cheapest way to create a searchable presence on the net.

Building backlinks is a crucial part of web marketing, but it doesn’t have to be complicated, if you don’t know how to do it just go to websites like Fiverr and have someone else do it.

Until next time,

“Live With Passion”

Rob Anspach

P.S. Your time is a valuable commodity that can’t replaced, but it can be monetized.

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