Success Factor 1 for 2012: Short Communications for a Short Attention Span
I don’t know if you are like me, but Twitter, e-mail, phone calls, TV, and the radio in my car are bombarding me throughout my day and night.
There are advertisers and writers everywhere, vying for my attention. Therefore, we will need to write concise and riveting content to grab our potential customers’ and readers’ attention!
Jay shared three E’s to keep in mind.
Engage your audience.
Entertain Your Audience.
And Educate Your Audience.
For another example of a person who educates her audience, check out Maria Reyes McDavis, the @websuccessdiva. I have learned more from her via Twitter and her blog in a year than I ever could have from a lot of spamming twitterers!
Practical applications:
Utilize Twitter.
Engage, Educate, and Entertain your followers.
Treat them with care and with respect. Interact with them. Talk with them offline once you get to know them. Jay mentioned three other sites that I have not used, but that I will have to look into: Woot, Qik, and 12seconds.
Use an application like Feedly to subscribe to quality blogs in your area/s of interest. Start reading and understanding what the thought leaders and their readers are discussing in your niche/business area/s.
Success Factor 2 for 2012: Virtualization.
Is this a word? I don’t know, but that’s what I read 🙂 What this means is that companies and people are moving more and more to communicating virtually. More and more of my business contacts are working and conducting business from home and over the internet, conducting virtual meetings, utilizing virtual employees.
Consider the pros and cons of possibly utilizing virtual assistants to help with some extra work that you have. Tim Ferris is a guru proponent of virtual assistants. But remember, you will need to manage your virtual assistants just as you would manage a regular employee. Check out references, tap into your followers on Twitter or LinkedIn, and make sure that you get a few reputable names to further check on.
Consider using Skype for phone meetings. This is a free application that will promote enhanced communication without the travel.
I confess, this is an area that I have to explore a lot further. How many of you are utilizing virutal meetings, employees, and other services in your current business? How many of you plan to do so in 2012?
Strategy #3 for 2012: Free!
Per Mr. Berkowitz, there are so many amazing, free products with a revenue model attached.
You can optimize your website with Google Adsense.
Also, you can use fantastic layouts from WordPress to create your blog .
You can use free Google Analytics to measure any number of statistics about your site to build upon what’s working, and stop what’s not working. (or tweak it).
You can start your own podcast on iTunes, or you can host your own talk show on Blog Talk Radio. You can also videocast yourself through YouTube or Ustream.
You can use the SEO Quake Mozilla extension to track the progress of your site in an at-a-glance sort of way, and you can also easily check out your competition in the same way, learning from them at the same time. You can also, after reviewing the product extensively, find affiliate programs that are in sync with the message and content of your site.
What free trends/tools/apps are you noticing or utilizing for your blog or business?
Success Factor #4 for 2012: Social Search
@chrisbrogan extensively emphasizes listening to your target market/customer/reader, as well as carrying on a conversation with them about important trends in your business. Utilize Twitter’s search function to find out what people are saying about important topics. Or you may want to search according to the keywords that you are building your site around.
An aspect of social search you will want to consider is to get yourself known locally. Utilize Twitter search to find other professionals in your area (You can also use Twellow to conduct your search for great Tweeps to follow locally.
I just signed up for Yelp. Not only did it waylay me from finishing this blog post, but the good thing is that I have my profile which links back to my main sites. Every time I eat somewhere, or go shopping, or whatever, I can write a review that gets published on the site. It’s free, it gives me a voice as a customer, and it provides future traffic back to my place of business for reviews. And believe me, if I know I am being reviewed, I will be working to give the best of service in 2012! Although I have not checked these other sites out, you can do the same thing on Angie’s List, Bazaar Voice. You can actually ask for friends, readers, and customers to rate your services, so that you build more buzz and community around your brand and your services.
Finally, in terms of building social community around your business, brand, and message, I’ve got to share this great article from @mashable about Building Community.
In the meantime, here is a great resource from one of my favorite authors, @briantracy: Create Your Own Future: How to Master the 12 Critical Factors of Unlimited Success
I’d love to hear some of your online business strategies for 2012 and beyond. Please share them below!