small business marketing ideas – Page 7

November 18, 2011November 18, 2011

Auto-Post with Posterous: Leverage Your Hard Work

Posterous enables you to broadcast your Posterous blog post (whether or not it was created by email, screen capture or onsite blogging). You can also specify a target for a specific email post, e.g. twitter@posterous.com.

You can set up the specific accounts in the “autopost” area of your Posterous site to advise where to broadcast your blog post. The above image lists the social media sites that you can auto-post to with Posterous.

Posterous, through email and screen capture blogging, gives you the power to leverage your online content (blog posts, articles, Squidoo lenses, Hub pages, videos. podcasts). The autopost facility allows you to levrage your hard work in creating online content by simultaneous broadcast to other social networking sites.

At the time of writing, I have set up my site to post my Posterous blog posts (however created) to my Affiliate Marketing Coach blog (Blogger.com) and to my Facebook site. So you can set up a sequence of auto-posting that suits your style of operating and fits with your small business marketing strategy.

Here is an example of where Posterous has created an autopost to my Affiliate Marketing Coach blog from a Posterous screen capture post I created from this Small Business Odyssey blog:

The original blog post on Small Business Odyssey was posted to my Posterous blog via the screen capture bookmarklet. I have added a comment and a link to my target URL (automatically hyperlinked) and Posterous has auto-posted the Posterous blog entry to my Blogger.com blog.

You have the option of letting Posterous post directly to each site you nominate or have it feed into one of your sites that is set up to auto-generate other posts.

You are limited only by your imagination with respect to the range of content that you can capture, and the means of achieving leverage. In this example, my AudioBoo podcast is automatically posted to my Posterous account which in turn posts to my blog, Twitter and Facebook:

So there are a number of options for using the autopost feature of Posterous. Here are three of them:

Allow Posterous to autopost directly to your selected social media sites
Allow Posterous to autopost to another site (e.g. Twitter) which in turn is set up to autopost to other sites (such as Facebook)
Allow another site (e.g. AudioBoo) to autopost to your Posterous blog and setup the latter to autopost to selected sites.

The autopost option is located under “Manage Spaces” – you need to click on the down arrow as highlighted in the image below so that the menu displays with the autopost option:

Posterous through its email blogging and screen capture blogging supports an array of options for auto-posting and creating leverage for your online content as part of your small business marketing.

November 16, 2011

Leverage Your Content with Cross-Posting on Posterous

One of the key features of Posterous is the ability to use their screen capture facility to cross post your content to your Posterous blog, even if you have published it elsewhere such as on your own website or blog.. This gives you the ability to leverage your writing and other online content.

The concept here is to capture content from one of your sites and add it to Posterous for backlinking and promotion. The image above shows how I have captured an entry from one of my RedGage blog posts and posted it to Posterous. Ideally, you should add 100 words of comment and add a link back to your target site (which will appear as a hyperlink).

Here is another example where I have captured a Podcast from my AudioBoo Site. What is great about the podcast capture is that the audio is playable on Posterous as the flash player is captured from the target site (so that it appears not just as an image on Posterous, but as an active MP3 player):

You could even screen capture and post a video created by a Joint Venture (JV) partner as I have done here in the spirit of collaborative marketing:

The beauty of this video screen capture on Posterous is that it displays as a streaming video and can be played on the site.

Posterous enables you to leverage your small business marketing online – blog posts, videos, podcasts, images and articles – by cross-posting from your other social media sites through the screen capture facility.

November 15, 2011

Screen Capture Blogging with Posterous

Posterous provides screen capture blogging in addition to the email blog discussed in my last blog post.

You can add the Posterous bookmarklet to your browser and you will have unlimited screen capture options to use as Posterous blog posts. You can capture photos, video, podcasts and text to add to your blog. The bookmarklet supports numerous sites such as YouTube, Dailymotion, Vimeo and Metacafe. Posterous, through its screen capture technology, automatically tries to find flash embeds and large images so that your videos and podcasts can be played on your Posterous blog.

What you do is highlight the area of screen that you want to capture and click the Posterous button in your browser (you need to be logged into Posterous – you can stay logged in as an option). There is an example of text capture from the 12SecondCommute website in the image at the top of this post.

When you use the Posterous bookmarklet for screen capture you can add comments to the captured image together with a hyperlinked URL Here’s an example of a text screen capture and the provision for a comment on the Posterous extract:

Ideally, you would make a 100 word comment that is keyword rich and adds to the information in the screen capture window. The comment would also include a link to your target website/blog. Here’s an example comment created in relation to the text screen capture at the top of this post:

Posterous automatically records the URL of the screen capture and adds it as a hyperlink. However, you can edit the screen capture and URL displayed before posting to Posterous. You do this by clicking on the text/image displayed in the screen capture and this will result in a window displaying the HTML code for editing. You can just highlight the relevant text or link and replace it with the desired information:

Screen capture blogging with Posterous is another great option for small business marketing online as it is easy to use and is very versatile.

November 14, 2011November 14, 2011

Posterous Offers You the Email Blog

Posterous is a unique site that offers you the option of an email blog – blogging via email. The whole purpose of Posterous is to make sharing easier and they achieve this through the simple process of email. The developers make it quite clear that simplicity of sharing is the essence of Posterous:

Since we first opened our doors in July of 2008, Posterous has continued to find new and better ways to make sharing simpler, more fun, and just plain awesome. It’s a commitment to never-ending improvement that runs through every bone in our body, every thought in our mind.

Since that time, Posterous has achieved a Google Page Rank of 7/10 and is ranked in the top 500 sites in the world in terms of traffic (refer the excerpt from an email post to my Posterous account shown above).

Your email blog with Posterous

The ease of this site is highlighted by the fact that you can create your account just by sending an email to post@posterous.com – and including a subject line. The subject line of the message becomes the blog post title.

You can attach most types of files and Posterous will post it along with the text of your email (the blog post). Posterous will convert the files to the most web friendly format available. It will resize individual photos and convert attached multiple photos to an image gallery.

So via your email you can post videos, photos, documents, audio files and links. If you attach an MP3 file, Posterous converts it to a Web MP3 player. An attached video file becomes a flash player.

URL’s (web addresses) are converted to hyperlinks and a YouTube link in your Posterous email is converted to an embedded YouTube player. Posterous can also convert URL’s from other video sites.

Posterous can handle a wide range of attached file types when you are email blogging. This graphic gives you some idea of the range of accepted files:

The email blog facility provided by Posterous is incredibly flexible and easy to use. Email blogging gives you a quick and easy way to communicate information. Posterous also offers you the option of editing your email blog online via a simple HTML/text editor.

Simplicity is the essence as far as Posterous is concerned and the email blog option provides busy small business owners with a quick and easy way to market online by sharing ideas and files on a high traffic site.

November 12, 2011November 12, 2011

Run a Webinar for the Price of a Burger!

The webinar has become the most powerful form of online marketing for small business. One of the leaders in the field of online conferencing, GVO Conference, now offers state-of-the-art webinar facilities for the cost of a burger (per month).

The benefits of conducting a webinar

Why would you use a webinar? Well, the benefits speak for themselves. I have seeen many benefits through participating in numerous webinars and running my own in the area of social media marketing. Through a webinar, you can:

use visual aids – slides, photos and video (…and Squidoo lenses as I have done)
build trust as participants get to hear your voice and see you
easily explain complex ideas
demonstrate products or services
quickly build awareness and credibility
interact with your audience via voice and text chat
reach a wider audience (even global)
achieve a sales conversion rate of 4 to 10 times that of other marketing methods.

Webinars make you and your expertise visible and engender personal relationships with your existing and potential customers.

What would you use a webinar for?

Well, you are really only limited by your imagination here. The webinar is such a flexible format that you can use it for many marketing endeavors. Here are some applications:

launch a new product or service
promote other products to existing customers
introduce your product and services to potential customers
provide ongoing training for customers
conduct meetings or training for geographically dispersed staff
develop product ideas with your customers or staff
conduct surveys or obtain feedback from customers
extend your customer base beyond your limited geographical area.

A webinar is a flexible medium if you purchase the right facilities at the outset. I have used four different webinar platforms and have found the GVO Conference facility to be the best in terms of cost and features.

Features of the webinar facility from GVO Conference

Online conference facilities vary widely. GVO Conference provides the most comprehensive facilities at the cheapest price. Here are some of the features of this webinar platform:

auto-display of conference room when participants click on the link provided by you
slide presentations such as Powerpoint
video streaming
electronic whiteboard
inbuilt (text) chat room
voice chat via headsets
no dial in required (so no phone costs for participants)
display browser results
record webinar (video and audio).

The last time I checked, you could get access to a 50 person conference room with GVO Conference for under $10 per month with no limit on the number of webinars you run.

How to use a webinar for promotion of a product or service

Professional Internet marketers increasingly use webinars for the launch of new products/services or re-launch of rejuvenated products/services.

The most common approach uses the following steps:

create a webpage with a sign-up form for the webinar
advertise the web page and send an invite via email to your mailing list
capture the email address of participants via the web form
offer valuable information during the webinar that is relevant to the new product/service (teaser information)
explain that there is a lot more to the problem/solution than can be covered in the webinar
introduce new product/service as a solution to customers’ problems/issues/needs
offer the new product/service at a discount for webinar participants (via a special participant-only webpage)
follow-up participants via the email addresses captured during the sign-up phase (and extend the discount period if desired).

The webinar is a very powerful form of online marketing for small business as it builds trust, credibility and understanding while extending the reach of small business to a global audience.