Undoing the Ego Tango: Book Review

Here is the scenario: person A, let’s call her Sarah, is unhappy with her web hosting service. After multiple attempts of getting help with the slow server, and unsatisfying e-mail exchanges she decides to cancel the service. Since she has paid for two years in advance, she kindly asks them if they could reimburse her. They tell her no. And that’s where she makes her big mistake: she writes back that she finds this very disappointing and unprofessional. Oh my, those web guys don’t like that. They reply with a nasty e-mail and you guessed it, tell her that there's nothing wrong with their server and it’s all her fault because she doesn’t know how to “debug”.

How did Sarah feel that morning ? Not very good. Aggressive, disappointed, taken for an idiot.

Did this ever happen to you ? How would you have reacted ?

If only Sarah had read Amy Carroll’s book “Undoing the Ego Tango - ” before hitting the send button !

In her book, Amy will tell you many similar scenarios that happened to her, and how she turned them around and made them into a positive experience. She has a very engaging and energetic style and you will just want to keep reading. To make it even more beneficial for you, she throws in some self-reflecting questions after each chapter, making it almost into one of her private coaching sessions.

The “Ego Tango” will help you take a deep breath, analyze the situation, decide if your ego is willing to take the blow, and then present your opponent with a solution that has a positive outcome for both parties. It is applicable for personal or professional relationships.

Being Swiss, I especially like her little hints at Swiss locations, mentalities or habits :-)

About Amy Carroll

Amy is American, but lives in Switzerland. She brings with her over 25 years of personal experience and education. Fourteen of those years were spent working in psychiatric, managed care and educational facilities before becoming a coach, trainer and speaker. Her understanding of the human psyche is extensive.

You can find out more about her book here or visit Amy’s website at www.carollcoaching.com

Or just head on over to Amazon and buy your own copy ! You won’t regret it :-)

11 Things You Shouldn’t Forget When Switching Websites

by Sarah Santacroce

picture courtesy of Salvatore Vuoto

When you are through changing, you are through. ~Bruce Barton

I think every small business owner would agree that change is a good thing and necessary in order to succeed. Well, my own little business is also going through some change right now, let’s say it’s “growing up”. After a year in business I have redefined my objectives and decided which areas I really want to focus on. This needs to be reflected on my website and my business logo and name. So you see, some big changes coming up (hint: “Simplicity” will stay, even though everybody has trouble spelling it :-)

But, in this post I don’t want to just talk about my upcoming changes, I want to share with you some things I have learned during this experience.

This post will focus on switching websites and what kind of things you need to look out for when going through that procedure.

1. Finalize website
   Of course you want to be sure that your website is finished and will impress people at first sight.
   
   
2. Test website
   I recommend you test all the links, forms, downloads and videos on your site before going live.
   
   
3. Decide on a weekend to switch website
   It is best to switch sites on a weekend. This way there’s less interruption for potential site visitors.
   
   
4. Redirect old domain to new domain
   It is very important to have your developer use 301 redirects to tell both people and search engines that the site has permanently moved to a new URL
   
   
5. Leave a “trail” in the meta tag description and keyword of the old site
   Make sure your meta tag description and keyword section mentions your old site name
   
   
6. Update your listings in directories
   Take the time to update your directory listings such as Google, Google Places, Yahoo, Yellow Pages etc.
   
   
7. Update all Social Media Accounts
   You will have to make a list of all the Social Media tools where you have an account and go in there and update your information. And there’s more than just Facebook and Twitter. Best idea is to do a Google Search for your company name and see what kind of listings come up. Every site where you have submitted content needs to have an updated profile with the new web domain. Here are a few that I came up with: Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, Scribd, Slideshare, Ezine Articles, Youtube, Xing etc. etc.
   
   
8. Update your e-mail signature
   Don’t forget to update your e-mail signature !
   
   
9. Update your Autoresponders and Newsletter settings and links
   Go into each of your Autoresponders and check if you need to update your links. Especially the ones to download your free offers. People would be quite upset if they subscribe to your list and then get a 404 Error message when they try to download your e-book !
   
   
10. Write a press release and host it on your website
    Since this is a major milestone for your business you will want to write a news release about it and send it to online press release directories (such as PRWeb.com or pitchengine.com). Also host it on your own website of course.
    
    
11. Send out an e-mail to your list
    Last but not least inform your subscribers that you have switched websites and give them the new RSS feed and a sign-up form to receive your blog posts by e-mail.

What did I forget ? Has anyone gone through this experience as well and can share some more tips with us ?

Increase your traffic with a Press Room on your website

by Sarah Santacroce

In a previous post I have showed you how to increase your online visibility with Press Release Marketing.
The strategy consists in sharing your press releases on online press release distribution sites. It is a very good approach to get your brand noticed on Google.

In this post I would like to show you the benefits of having a press room on your own website. But first, let’s define a “press room”, or also called a “news room”: A press room is a designated page on your website where journalists and other curious minds can discover the latest news about your company.

So why should your website have a press room ?

Reason #1: Increase your traffic

Besides your blog, your press room is the only other non-static page on your website.
If you update it regularly, the search engines will love to come back and reference your page.
You can also share your Press Releases through Social Media and increase traffic to your site this way.

Reason # 2: We are All Journalists Now

Before web2.0, press releases were just for journalists and only big company changes were announced to the press. Today press or news releases can be used even by small companies, and the whole wide world has access to them. By distributing your press releases you will be reaching out to a huge audience and who will be curious to see your updates and visit your website.

Reason #3: Be perceived as an expert in your field

By submitting great content you will boost your site’s "authority" and be perceived as an expert in your field. This is critical in order to increase your site's overall visibility in search results and thus deliver real traffic. So, don’t miss the opportunity to turn your site into a trusted resource that will drive deeper, longer term relationships.

What has to be on your press room page?

1. Your complete contact details
   
   
2. Your latest press releases, as downloadable pdf documents.
   
   
3. The logo of your business, as downloadable image
   
   
4. Photos of you, as downloadable image
   
   
5. Photos of your products, if you sell any
   
   
6. Audio and/or video clips for the time-starved reporter, directly embedded on your page
   
   
7. Links to your Social Media presence (Facebook page, Linkedin Profile, Twitter etc.)
   
   
8. News Feed for Automatic Receipt of Press Room Updates Make it easy for those who are interested to get press releases and other news hot off the press via an RSS reader
   

I hope these points have convinced you to go talk to your webmaster ;-)

P.S. Just a heads up that some change is in the air concerning my website and blog. Sometime this summer I will ask you to update my RSS feed. But for now you can still subscribe here.

360 Entrepreneurship Summit for Women Entrepreneurs

This is a guest post by Anna Persson, Founder of the 360 Entrepreneurship Summit

Anna has a solid background in women leadership development and extensive experience in the field of international conference planning and management. Before starting her own company, she worked over five year as Conference Director and Sponsor Account Manager for international business conferences in Europe with focus on women’s leadership evolution. But Anna’s true passion is connecting people to bring ideas into projects and actions, to activate team spirit and to make partnerships and joint ventures happen. Read Anna’s personal invitation to the one summit you don’t want to miss this year.

It’s a pleasure for me to invite you to join 360 Entrepreneurship Summit in Malmö Sweden 16-18 September 2011.

The 360 Entrepreneurship Summit designed for both experienced and new business owners alike and you can expect high level of training, practical and hands on content and of course great networking opportunities. For 3 days you will have access to a Mastermind group of internationally renown, inspiring keynote and workshop presenters delivering leading edge strategies, tools and resources to strengthen your business results! This is where you get the answers to your questions and you’ll be able to walk away with the strategies and the tool kit you need to accelerate your business. The 360 Summit presenters have helped hundreds if not thousands of women create, develop and grow their business and they are here to do the same for you!

Women today, represent one of the largest market opportunities in our lifetime both as producers and consumers, and a strong European network of committed, talented women represents an unlimited creative and economic force. And it all starts with you!
So what are some the reasons for creating a conference for entrepreneurs and small business owners?

Build valuable connections and expand opportunities - Relationship is one of the prime factors for doing business with each other and we want to do business with people we know, whom we like and trust. The summit will allow for truly developing and deepening contacts and you will meet with a large number of extraordinary business women who are serious about doing business in the “spirit of mutual benefit”

Promote yourself and your business - As an entrepreneur and small business owner it’s crucial to keep a high profile in business letting people know you exist. Creating rapport, getting to know your potential joint venture partners and potential clients is so much easier when having a face to face contact.

Personal development, improving and learning new business skills - If you want our business to grow you need to grow with it, and it’s necessary to keep up with a number of things; how to be a conscious and successful leader, develop a strong brand to attract business, get the social media working for you, not you working them, how to protect your intellectual property and also learn and adopt a health so you can stay on fire without burning out.
My aim is that 360Entrepreneurship Summit will give you lots of new business opportunities and connections, supporting your business development and strengthen both your business results and enhance your personal growth. And I really want you to feel welcome, inspired and included.

Maybe you don’t know just how important entrepreneurship and Small and Medium sized Enterprise is to the economy. Well, SME’s are true back-bone of the European economy, primarily responsible for wealth and economic growth, next to the key role in innovation R&D. I’ll share some interesting facts with you. The EU non-financial business economy counts over 20 million enterprises, where over 99% are SMEs. They provide 2/3 of the private sector jobs and contribute to more than half of the total value-added created by business in the EU. Even more intriguing the fact that 9/10 SMEs are micro enterprises where each provides work for two persons in average. So if it’s something we should support and encourage it is the development and growth of entrepreneurship and small business!

See you in Sweden 16-18 September!
Anna

For more information visit 360 Entrepreneurship website www.360entrepreneurship.com or join 360’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/360Entrepreneurship.

Get more website traffic with Flickr

by Sarah Santacroce

Photo: courtesy of Veronique Goy

When I asked my list subscribers this Monday what they would like me to blog about, several people asked me to write an other post on how to increase their website traffic. So that’s just what I’m doing :-)

This time I take a closer look at Flickr, a photo and video sharing website which is owned by Yahoo. If you are a local business, especially one that sells products (handmade bags, homemade birthday cakes, designer clothes or whatever it might be) or even some services (manicure, relooking, photographs or any other service that has an end product that shows nicely on a picture) Flickr HAS to be part of your Social Media Marketing Strategy. It is highly indexed and will increase your search engine visibility and hence drive more traffic to your website.

It’s easy to start working with Flickr. Just go to Flickr.com and create an account. Remember to use your company name for branding purposes.

A couple of things to boost your visibility (Search Engine Optimization):

• Titles: Use your keywords to create strong and descriptive titles for every picture. Think about unique ways to motivate users to click on your image.
• Descriptions: write descriptions with the user in mind. Put yourself in their shoes and think what would make them click on your photo.
• Hyperlinks: Add hyperlinks in your descriptions to relevant pages on your website
• Local place names: If you are a local business that only sells locally (no online sales) make sure you use local search keywords for communities you are targeting (for example, Lausanne, Switzerland, Suisse Romande) in your titles, descriptions, tags, and hyperlinks.
• Tags: Tag each photo with descriptive, searchable keywords. Include place names in the tags to attract local searches.
• Profile: Search Engine Optimize your Flickr profile page and Flickr photo "sets" with search-friendly titles, tags, fun and informative descriptions, and links.
• Flickr Groups: You can join relevant groups and post your photos there to get even more exposure.

Of course you will also want to use your Flickr photos and share them on other social sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. Flickr makes social sharing very easy, all the buttons you need are right next to every picture.

Oh, did I mention that Flickr is totally FREE (unless you want to go Pro, then it’s $24.95 per year).

One last tip: If you are in the music, entertainment or art business, make sure you check out www.webdoc.com. It’s a very cool new tool for rich expressions. You can use pictures, videos, sounds, and apps to create your own mini-webpages for example for a concert, vernissage, exhibition etc. and share it all over your social network. Have a look and let me know what you think.

Vanity urls for Facebook and Linkedin profiles

by Sarah Santacroce

“Vanity is my favourite sin.” Al Pacino

This short post is not really about vanity or even less about Al Pacino. It’s about personal branding and using vanity urls for your marketing. I want to show you how to get your personalized url for your Linkedin profile as well as your professional Facebook page.

But first, let’s quickly look at why it’s important:

• it’s part of your branding
• it’s easier to remember www.facebook.com/simplicityadmins then www.facebook.com/123034980348mmm7
• it’s easier to communicate on written publications
• it just looks better !

So, let’s start with the vanity url for your Facebook page:

Before all things, you will have to get 25 “Likes” on your page. Facebook only allows “usernames”, as FB calls them, for pages with more then 25 people.

Once you have reached the magic number, you want to choose a username for your business.
Then you go to http://www.facebook.com/username/ and check if the name you have chosen is available for your page. If yes, congrats, if no, choose another one.

Your username for the vanity URL must be at least five characters long and be all alphanumeric characters (A-Z, 0-9).

A word of caution: Don't go for anything funny or cute. Play it straight. According to Facebook, "Once it's been selected, you won't be able to change or transfer it."

That’s all there is to it, really.

Now let’s have a look at your Linkedin Profile:

Select the “Edit Profile” tab, scroll down a bit and next to the “Public profile” link click on “Edit”.
On the new page, scroll down a wee bit and find the box that says “ Your public profile URL” (see picture below).

You then click on “Customize your public profile URL” and choose the name you like, preferably the same that you have chosen for your Facebook page.

If you would like to see if your username is available on all other Social Media sites, have a look at Namechk.com. It tells you at one Glance which names are available for which site.

E-mail Marketing basics

by Sarah Santacroce

If you are a Small Business owner who is still using Outlook for their e-mail marketing campaigns, don’t be ashamed. You are not alone. There are so many entrepreneurs who are in the same situation as you: pulling their hair because they just don’t know how to keep their e-mail lists and campaigns organized.

If I can give you one advice though: Outlook is not the answer for e-mail marketing campaigns. Here is why:

• Outlook doesn’t apply to the CAN-SPAM Act
• You could be penalized if you send e-mails to people who didn’t agree to receive them
• Your Internet Service Provider might flag you as a Spammer
• People cannot automatically unsubscribe from your list
• You will be bombarded with “Out of Office”, “Undeliverable” and other annoying messages
• You cannot track who opened your messages
• It’s an administrative nightmare !

You see, you really need to get things under control and switch to a system that has been specifically designed to handle mass mailing of commercial e-mail campaigns. You need to use a service that will help you verify that people want to be on your list, will help you easily remove people from your list when they no longer want to hear from you, and will give you information about email bounce rates, email open rates, link click through rates, and much much more.

And don’t worry, this service won’t cost you an arm and a leg. Some providers even offer a limited service for FREE. For more information about E-Mail Marketing tools, please read my previous post “Newsletter Marketing – Available Tools”. In this post I focused on newsletters, but the same applies for traditional e-mail marketing campaigns.

Now it’s your turn ? Which tool are you using ? Share your experience in the comments below.