Here we go:

Social Business Has Risen.

You cannot afford to ignore social media. Consumers rely on social media to research and make buying decisions and for customer service issues. You need to leverage this with a strong presence on major social channels like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Google+ for real-time communication and service with your customers.

This should be the year that your small business becomes confident and adept at social media. Pick the specific platforms that make sense for your business. This year you should decide which platforms are the most worthwhile places to reach your audience, thus seeing greater returns as a result.

Responsive Web Design is Key.

Responsive web design provides an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices from desktop computer monitors, tablets to mobile smart phones.

With the astounding growth of mobile platforms and the incredible speed with which smart phones and tablet devices are being adopted, a responsive website is key to your online business success.

Mobile Has Arrived.

This follows the point above: Mobile Internet usage is rising exponentially, and it is here to stay. Mobile users are primed to outpace desktop users by 2014. This has critical implications for business. There are many ways to go mobile: creating a responsive website (above), sending out mobile-optimized emails, undertaking mobile advertising, using Google Adwords for mobile and mobile SEO. Mobile Marketing should be an integrated part of your marketing mix.

Content Must Be Quality & Personalized.

Your content is top quality is engaging. Take it step further, make it more personal. Content that exudes emotions and/or provides useful, surprisingly personal information increases social sharing and engagement. Take your product and our brand out of the story. Provide real value; don’t push your own agenda. You must be engaging, authentic and trustworthy; answer questions of prospects and clients without the sales pitch.

SoLoMo Marketing Takes Center Stage.

SoLoMo is an acronym for Social-Local-Mobile, referring to a new marketing approach: The growing trend of targeting consumers based on their current location and designed to be shared via social networks.

Consumers are going SoLoMo: They shop socially, search locally and do it all on mobile devices.

If you run a brick and mortar business like a restaurant, bookstore, coffee shop or a hardware store, then SoLoMo is right for your business and an important marketing tactic.

Marketing Must be Integrated

Consumers are shopping on a variety of channels and devices, often simultaneously. With so much information coming at them, a dispersed presence and message is frustrating and ineffective. Marketing efforts should be consistent and complimentary on both mobile devices and desktops, online and offline. You must establish the same unified presence and message across your website, social media, mobile, email marketing and offline presece. This clear communication will generate familiarity and a positive user experience, attracting new prospects and staying more connected with existing customers.

As you create your marketing campaigns, be sure a clear and concise theme ties all of your channels together. From social media to your website to direct mail the theme should remain clear.

I hope you find this advice helpful and that you give your business its best shot at tremendous success in 2013 with these marketing trends.

Publishing content that gets widely shared on social media is good for business. Every time your content is liked on Facebook, tweeted on Twitter, +1′ed on Google+ or shared on LinkedIn, it gets a stamp of approval—boosting its reach along with your website traffic, lead generation and search engine optimization.

Once you publish highly shareable content on a consistent basis, your social media clout will rise—expanding your influence and the reach of your company.

Here are 5 tips for generating content that will be shared:

1. Newsjacked Content

Providing real-time industry news along with insightful commentary can help you win on social media. When you discover a breaking story, act fast to newsjack it—riding its trending popularity to increased views, lead generation and enhanced SEO.

2. Statistical Content

People crave numbers and facts. Utilize industry research reports with data and statistics to give your content authority and increased relevance. Statistics can make your content more credible. Do not to just provide lists of statistics though; weave them seamlessly into your story —provide context and insight.

3. Case Studies

Sometimes your audience wants a real-life illustration of data, which is where case studies are particularly handy. Case studies can breathe life into data. Use storytelling to make your content more relatable.

4. Infographics

An infographic succinctly illustrates heavy data and complicated processes; they are usually brightly colored and visually appealing. Infographics are often shared on social media, particularly on visual sites like Pinterest.

5. Visual Content

Video content is very popular because it informs and entertains simultaneously. Also, it takes less time to watch a short video than read a lengthy blog post. Beautiful or funny photos are also highly compelling and have the tendency to get shared widely. If your company already has internal presentations that are engaging and informative, consider turning them into SlideShare presentations, which are very share-worthy.

Conclusion

Producing quality content consistently and frequently is a major challenge—requiring dedication, creativity, insight, real-time industry knowledge, a unique perspective and excellent writing skills. If you want to reach far and wide across social media, you need fresh and original content above all else. While there is no guarantee, these types of content are more likely to be widely shared.

No matter which medium you choose, your content must resonate with your audience emotionally. Create a compelling title, one that is clear, concise, and relevant — and maybe even slightly mysterious.

Invigorate your social media marketing with these content ideas, and you will see your content being boosted with shares across the web.

Please don’t hestitate to contact me if you need help with producing quality content for your company.

Smartphones and tablets are becoming a paramount marketing consideration, and skyrocketing mobile use has critical implications for business.

Mobile marketing should definately be an integral part of your overall marketing strategy. There are many ways to go mobile: Sending out mobile-optimized emails, enabling your website for mobile visitors, undertaking mobile advertising, Google Adwords for mobile and mobile SEO.

Here are some facts and stats to consider. Did you know:

• Mobile internet usage has almost doubled every year since 2009, and mobile users are projected to outpace desktop users by 2014.
• In 2013, 91% of Americans own a smartphone. An impressive increase from 35% in 2011 and 44% in 2012.
• Tablet use is rapidly growing among both genders. Currently, 31% of Americans own a tablet compared to 11% in 2011 and 22% in 2012. Tablets users cover a wide range of age demographics:

5% of tablet users are 13 to 17 years old 13% are 18 to 24 24.7% are 25 to 34 20.6% are 35 to 44 18.1% are 45 to 54 11% are 55 to 64 7.6% are 65 or older

• An impressive 75% of mobile Internet users make purchases on mobile devices.
• 70% of Americans use a second screen, such as a smartphone or table, WHILE watching TV.
• Three out of five internet searches are conducted on a mobile device.
• 90% smartphone searches lead to a purchase or visit.
• Time spent on mobile social media increased by a huge 387% from 2011 to 2012.
• Social media apps are the most popular ones among mobile device users with Facebook and Twitter being the most highly used.
• 70% of American consumers want to receive offers on their smart phones.
• 70% of all mobile transactions occur within the first hour of a mobile site visit.
• 74% of mobile users read email on smart phones or tablets.

There is a misconception that mobile Internet use mainly occurs on the go, when people are travelling to and from work for example. This is not the case; mobile devices are widely used at home as second screens and at the workplace.

Now is the time to get on board with mobile marketing and mobile business. Mobile device users are five times more likely to abandon your website, if it is not mobile-optimized. It is vital to enable mobile capability for your website to lessen the risk of losing valuable mobile Internet traffic, leads and greater business generation.

Mobile optimization is no longer optional. If you offer a service, your content must be clear and attractive for mobile readers. If you offer products or run an ecommerce website, it needs to be optimized for mobile purchasing.

To discover how much mobile Internet impacts your business, use Google Analytics to uncover your mobile statistics. Determine exactly how many prospects access your website on a smartphone or tablet.

Don’t neglect your email marketing. Check with your email service provider to find out how many people are reading your e-newsletter on a mobile device. Email marketing must be optimized for proper mobile display. If your emails are not easy to read for mobile users, you risk losing a significant number of email subscribers.

The influence of mobile Internet shows no signs of slowing down. Now is the time to hop on the mobile marketing train before all your competitors beat you to it. Make mobile a priority for your business.

Consumers are becoming increasingly savvy on the differences between spam and permission-based emails, and more and more of them are accepting permission-based e-mail marketing as a positive replacement for direct mail.

The best news is that the majority of people who receive permission-based e-mails open, on average, 78% of them.

Jupiter Research reports effective email marketing campaigns can produce nine times the revenues and 18 times the profits of broadcast mailings.

But crafting an effective business email is both an art and a science. Here are 6 tips that will help you make your email marketing to your current and potential clients and customers more effective:

1. Spam!

The average consumer receives more than 300 emails a week, 62% of which are spam. No wonder there’s such hostility towards the industry. But spam filters, bulk folders and “report spam” features are helping consumers become more at ease about the perils of spam.

So as a permission-based business email marketer, what can you do? One tip is to remind your subscribers to add you to their “safe senders” list. The second, and most important, tactic is to make sure your email service provider (ESP) has a good relationship with Internet Service Providers (ISPs). This will ensure that your email marketing campaigns go into your subscribers’ inboxes, not their junk mail folders. When choosing an ESP, make sure the company has strict anti-spam policies and complies with the guidelines of CAN-SPAM.

2. Images and Formatting: Why do my emails look broken?

Broken email campaigns are an increasing concern among email marketers, especially since several companies and web-based ESPs now block graphics as a measure to combat spam. In fact, according to ClickZ, 40% of email marketing messages delivered to inboxes are “broken” – or have issues with the image display.

When configuring your email messages, you often want to use your own custom images and photos.

When you create your email content, you can use HTML tags to display images within the email body. If you’re unfamiliar with HTML, you can quickly upload and embed image files into your email using the HTML Editor on your ESP’s configuration page.

In order to avoid issues with the image files, keep this tip in mind: while image files with spaces or punctuation (%, #, &, !, etc.) can be uploaded to your ESP, the links created using that filename may prevent your recipients from viewing the images. For best results, you should always name your image files without using spaces or punctuation so you won’t need to rename them if you decide to use them in an e-mail or newsletter.

For example, the following file name may cause problems: my email newsletter banner.jpg

So you should rename it as: my_email_newsletter_banner.jpg

3. Personalization and Relevant Content:

In a business e-mail, one size does not fit all. In a recent study by DoubleClick, email users were 72% more likely to respond to a business e-mail if its content was based on the interests they had specified. That number points out the absolute importance of allowing users to choose their own interest groups and have control over which business e-mails they receive. The most popular interest categories, according to the study, are coupons and household goods.

But your coupon is no good unless the user opens the email. Users in the study said the most compelling reason for them to open a business email is the name in the “from” field. So it’s a good idea to make sure your company name is clearly stated there. Another major factor is the “subject” line. Users cite discount offers and interesting news as the most compelling subject lines, followed by new product announcements and free shipping offers.

4. Click-through and Conversion: Show me the money!

So the user has opened your email and read the content. Great. But where’s the sale? There’s good news here. For one, consumers are increasingly likely to make purchases as a direct result of a business email campaign. One-third of users in the DoubleClick study had purchased something by clicking a link on an email. Another 42% clicked on an email link for more information, then purchased the product at a later time. Second, online couponing is booming: 73% of consumers have redeemed an online coupon for an online purchase, and 59% have redeemed an online coupon offline.

In terms of industries, the top performers are travel, hardware/software, electronics, apparel, food, home furnishings, gifts/flowers and sporting goods. All companies sending business emails in these categories said between 71% and 80% of recipients have purchased their products because of an email campaign.

There’s no need to fret if your company doesn’t fit in to one of those industries. The overall landscape for email marketing conversions is looking brighter every day. The average click-to-purchase rate has increased nearly 30% since 2004 and the average orders-per-email-delivered rate has increased more than 18% since last year.

5. Stats tracking: Who are my real consumers?

Email marketing is an increasingly popular tool in effective Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and more businesses should use this. Your ESP should include detailed, real-time tracking, of the emails that you send out. Real-time tracking is now an industry standard, and it’s highly valuable, as it allows you to see the exact moment a user opens your campaign, clicks on your link and makes that purchase. Studying your users can help you improve your communications efforts, so each campaign performs better than the last (several ESPs also let you compare the performance of your campaigns).

But many marketers are still in the dark. According to a recent WebTrends research, only 5% of marketers are very confident in the measurement of their online marketing efforts, while 26% admit they’re “flying blind.” WebTrends says the low confidence comes from arlack of knowledge when it comes to measurement, which means there’s still a lot of work to be done.

This is an example of a high level real-time tracking dashboard from an ESP. You should also be able to get much more detailed tracking as well: country, device, links clicked, etc:

6. Mobile, Tablet or PC: How are people reading my email?

Make sure your email is mobile and tablet friendly. Your ESP should also provide you with a mobile friendly version of your email, that renders well on all mobile and tablet devices: iOS, Android and Windows.

In just the last two years, smart phone usage and tablet usage have skyrocketed. The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism recently released a report with some amazing statistics: Half of all U.S. adults now have a mobile connection to the web through either a smartphone or tablet, significantly more than a year ago. 44% of U.S. adults now have a smart phone, which is up from 35% in May 2011. 25% of U.S. adults own a tablet computer as compared to just 4% in September of 2011.

With these numbers expecting to grow in 2012 significantly, having a mobile friendly version of your email marketing is going to provide you with a valuable edge over your competition.

Here’s an example of this email on an iPhone:

Your email marketing is a critical component of your business. Following these guidelines will allow you ample opportunity to expand your existing list, as well as your business opportunities.

Also, check out my blog on 22 Simple Tips to Grow Your Email List Organically.

As always, comments welcome!

As marketers and business owners know, Twitter is very powerful for getting the word out about your products and services as well as being able to engage directly and easily with your customers, and provide great customer service.

But don’t you wish that you had more people reading and retweeting your tweets?

Here are tips for doing just that!

Tips for getting people to read your tweets:

• Number 1: Create great content!
• Say something interesting, informative, useful to your industry and your targeted audience.
• Get creative.
• Be humorous. Be human.
• Don’t push your product or service. Be social, helpful, give advice. Be sincere. Be your best self.
• Be consistent and regular. Make sure you have a continual stream of tweets. This will build trust and familiarity.
• Establish yourself as someone who continually tweets great, useful content. Your followers will start reading your tweets with interest, and will more likely hit the retweet button.
• See my blog on Best Tips for Getting Your Posts Shared on Facebook – these ideas apply to Twitter too.

So how do you get your tweets retweeted so that your content spreads across the social network? (Retweeted posts are indicated by the ‘RT @username’ in front of the original tweet)

Tips for getting people to retweet your tweets:

• Keep your tweets short. 120 is the new 140. Tweets should be less than 140 characters to be retweeted as you need to allow space for an ‘@’ symbol, your username, the letters ‘RT’, and 2 spaces (one after RT and one after your username).
• Use hashtags. Hashtags consist of using the # symbol followed by subject words; e.g., #followfriday of #socialmedia. They help organize information into one pool of tweets. They’re commonly used at conferences, live events and webinars, but are very popular for general hot topics. You can search hashtags to see what people are talking about, or search on Twitter. Using hashtags is a very effective way gaining exposure in your industry or niche. The more interested eyes see your tweet, the more it gets read and retweeted.
• Schedule your tweets. Make sure you have a consistent stream of tweets and people on different time zones see your tweets when they are actually awake.
• Use keywords. Good Twitter content makes use of relevant words and messages. Make a list of keywords that best describe your business and industry. Use these words as you compose your 140-character tweets. Think quality over quantity. Make every character and tweet count!
• Ask your followers to retweet. “Pl. RT!”

TIP: The first words in your tweet are indexed by Google. When you retweet, cut the RT @username portion of the retweet and add to the end of the tweet.

Register, Find and Follow People:
Register your Twitter account appropriate Twitter directories. These Twitter directories are also a fantastic way to find Twitter followers:

• http://wefollow.com/
• http://www.twellow.com
• http://twiends.com
• http://justtweetit.com
• http://www.tweetfind.com
• http://www.twibs.com/
• http://www.whoshouldifollow.com

And the B-I-G question: What is the best TIME and DAY to tweet?

Well, there are so many different opinions, tests, analysis, reports that have been done. The majority seem to say tweeting between 9:00 AM – 3PM in your time zone is the most effective. Tweet the same message again at 4:00 pm. The best day? Majority say Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays…

See what works for you!

More great reading on this:

• Here are some more ideas from Social Media Examiner: Twitter Marketing Tips From the Pros
• Dan Zarella: 5 Scientifically Proven Ways to Get More Retweets

As usual, would LOVE to hear from you. Please add your comments of what has worked for you.

I am surprised to find how many of my clients (and many companies) OVERLOOK this or just simply don’t think about this small basic concept when creating content! Its social media marketing 101. So important. This “sharing” mantra must be integrated into ALL you do and all your output.

Make sure people can easily SHARE your:

• Blogs and Website pages
• Email newsletters
• Webinars
• Photos
• White Papers
• Videos
• Products
• Landing Pages for special offers or promotions

Making content easily sharable, means more eyeballs. It’s searchable, discoverable, and prolongs the life of your content online as more people share it. It’s the snowball effect. You will see tangible benefits and results wherever you use it, like: increased traffic to your blog or website, more followers on Twitter and Fans on Facebook, uplift in email newsletter stats, boost in webinar registrations, more video views, bigger white paper downloads…

Here is my short list of my best plugins and widgets that I use and recommend to my clients:

• Sexy Bookmarks by Shareaholic : This is my favorite plugin for all blog platforms: WordPress, Blogger, Joomla, bbPress, Drupal.

- It adds a row of social bookmarks at the bottom of your blog posts. It’s very easy to use and lets you choose from over 85 different social networking sites.

- You can customize the “tag line”. I chose “sharing is sexy”.

- There is a counter next to each icon, so you can see how many times your blog has been shared and by whom! (there is a a Social Engagement Analytics section coming soon, I believe…).

- And… Sexy has integrated the Facebook Like button! Too cool. So easy! See my customized SexyBookmark at the bottom of my blog.

• ShareThis widget lets people share your page on all their social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and by email, without leaving your webpage.

- You can customize the widget the way you want it to look, with or without a counter.

- You can choose the layout of the widget (portrait or landscape) to suit your page.

So sweet! Check out the left hand side of this blog to see what my customized ShareThis widget.

• Don’t forget! Share Buttons for email newsletters: If you are using an Email Service Provider (like a Constant Contact or MailChimp), they should all have social media sharing buttons and Tweet This button that can be EASILY integrated into your email template. You should also be able to FORWARD TO A FRIEND.

- If your ESP does not have a social feature, drop themyou can go to AddToAny website that offers a button/widget lets you share your email with the world by getting the “share/bookmark widget”:
- Mouse over the Get The Share Button and a window will pop up with choices. Click EMAIL

- Select the page you wish to share. For an email – this will be a hosted web version of your email – or your landing page.

- Select your button and hit ‘get code’. The button code is served up to use as email friendly HTML code.

- You can also chose to sign up for an account for a neat stat section, showing you how many people loved your email enough to share it!

• Another Don’t forget! If you have product pages, add the Facebook Like Button to increase engagement. See how Levi’s have done it. If I “Like” a pair of Levis Jeans on the website, this would automatically show up on my Facebook profile to show my friends and family that I thought this pair of jeans was cool.

These are ALL the plugins and widgets you need to make your content “sharable”. Its really easy and doable.

As always, please add your COMMENT below, so others can benefit – it’s so helpful and – shoot me a question – I’m always available to answer.

Yes! Twitter lists are really useful! They help you organize the people you follow (and don’t follow) into a specific “group” and when you click to view a list, you’ll see a stream of Tweets from all the users included in that group.

The “group” or list are targeted people that you really want to keep your eye on, follow their tweets and news easily without having to go into their profile all the time.

Note: you don’t need to follow another user to add them to a list; if you want to read a user’s Tweets but not see their messages in your main timeline every day, lists allow you to do that. And following someone else’s list does not mean you follow all users in that list. Rather, you follow the list itself.

Twitter allows up to 20 lists per account with up to 500 names in each list. Lists can be public or private. Anyone can follow a public list.

Here are some great examples of lists that can help you keep focused: Industry experts, industry peers/professionals, networking, fans, clients, potential clients, competitors, vendors, journalists/editors, bloggers, analysts, magazines, industry events, celebrities, research, geographic targets, role models, news sites for top news in your industry (make sure your name is there too!).

See Listorious for a great compilation of lists to find and follow. You can also see the lists that I have created here for an example. I refer to my own lists, like “Social Media Stuff” a few times a day to stay up to date on social media news.

And I *try* and keep my lists updated. That’s to say, every time I follow someone new, I add them in a list straight away.

It’s really easy and worth while to start Twitter Lists: See SIMPLE instructions here.

Here’s to your organized Twitter lists!

As usual, would love to hear your comments – please add them below!

So, way back in Dec 2010 (a lifetime in social media time) when Facebook upgraded and changed its personal profile pages with its new design, one of the most important changes was the personal info at the top of your profile, right under your name. This section contains your job title, place of work, where you live, your birthday, education, hometown, languages, college/high school, etc.

Now, mouse-over your Employer field — and if you did not know about this fix — you’ll see it’s not linked to your fan page! When Facebook changed your profile to the new design, it automatically hyperlinked your Employer field to an auto-generated Community page that is not yours, goes nowhere! Such a pity!

(Read this blog post to understand what a community page is and the difference between this and Business or fan page)

If you have your own company that has a Facebook fan page — or you’re an employee and your employer has a Facebook fan page that you want to promote — you should change this Employer field to link to the right fan page TODAY!

I still see literally hundreds of personal Facebook profiles with this mistake: the owner has never thought to click on this link and is completely unaware that it goes nowhere and is missing out on an opportunity to promote their fan page right at the top of their profile!

It’s really simple and easy to add your Facebook Fan Page as your Employer:

• Click Edit Profile, then go to the Education and Work section.
• Begin typing the name of your fan page in the Employer field.
• When see your fan page in the dropdown menu, select it.
• Then fill out the remaining fields (Position, City/Town, Description and Time Period).
• If you also add in any business partners/colleagues, this will show on their profile too under the Employer section!
• Click Add Job.
• You can also add Project(s) to any position and add business partners/colleagues. Again, this shows on their Employer section).

That’s it. So make this change today. And…SHARE this blog with share buttons below.

As always, let me know if you have questions, and post them at the bottom of the blog so other people will see and benefit.

If you have other mistakes that you’ve caught Facebook on, or tips for optimizing your profiles, please post!

• HootSuite: All-in-one Social Media Dashboard. You can post to all your social media channels at the same times, schedule your tweets/posts, build a custom dashboard to monitor mentions, direct messages, followers, and search results to follow specific search keywords or hashtags. Hootsuite also provides analytics to measure short links. Its a great tool, I could not live without it! (The free version is a limited version for users who don’t require advanced tools. I think it is absolutely good enough for the SMB).

• SocialMention Real-time social media search monitoring tool that allows you to easily track and measure what people are saying about you, your company, your competitor, a new product, or any topic across the web’s social media landscape in real-time like Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google, blogs etc. Great, easy to use to monitor all this.

• Google Analytics: Tracking and monitoring website visitors. It really gives you great insight into your website traffic data. An absolute MUST!

• Google Alerts: Automatically notifies you (by email or RSS) when new content from news, web, blogs, video and/or discussion groups matches a set of search terms that you’ve chosen. Keeps you on top of all that is being said out there.

• TwentyFeet: Aggregate your stats from your social media accounts it displays them in a nice slick interface all in one place.: Facebook, Twiiter, YouTube, Google Analytics, Bit.ly. One Twitter account and one Facebook user profile are free forever. Facebook pages, groups and apps are not free. For the first 30 days of your usage, every account you track with TwentyFeet is free of charge. It so cheap, it can almost be for free: $2.49 for one service account for one year. I use this all the time.

• TweetStats: Graph your Twitter Stats to see how many times you tweet per day or month. See who you’ve replied to the most, what Twitter apps you love and track your follower counts over time. Very useful little tool.

• Wefollow: Directory of Twitter users organized by interests so you can find new Twitter friends and potential clients in your area as well as very specific niche areas. Very easy to use and effective.

• Google Insights: Compare and gauge interest and volume in specific keyword search terms that are relevant and pertinent to your business and very important to include in your website and blog for SEO.

Please feel free to COMMENT below and let me know what free tools you use – this will be incredibly helpful to all of us.

Of course shoot me any questions – I will be happy to help and answer.

Email is used far more than Facebook and Twitter combined. How much more? Daily activity for Facebook: 60 million updates. Twitter: 140 million tweets per day. Email? 188 billion messages per day. Email continues to be used each day by 93% of consumers.

Think about it: Email is central to everything a person does, online and offline, every day.

Your email list is the core and infrastructure of your business. These names have more weight than a Facebook “like” or a Twitter follower, they are the most qualified, targeted leads that you are going to get! These people have willingly signed up to hear from you in the form of regualar email updates. They are the strongest candidates to purchase from you.

Obviously for email marketing to be effective, you’ve got to possess a list, right?

TIP: Don’t ever, ever buy one!

You must grow your list organically and you must do it by offering value, that’s it. This blog is all about how to do this.

List building starts with the sign-up process: You need to get people to subscribe. This means:

• Get lots of traffic to your sign up form.
• Get as many people who see your sign up form to take action and sign up!

Use an Email Marketing Service Provider. A good Email Service Provider (ESP) is vital to capture email subscribers and automatically add them to a database. I use Mail Chimp. I love them. There are many out there: Constant Contact, SilverPop, StreamSend, iContact, ExactTarget to name but a few.

NOW, HERE ARE MY 22 EASY, SIMPLE TIPS TO GET PEOPLE TO YOUR SIGN UP FORM…AND TO HAVE THEM SIGN UP!

1. Make Your Subscribe Form Visible on Every Page of Your Website: Make sure it is placed in a prominent spot on your site; above the fold is best. The more people that see your form, the more will subscribe.

2. Give People a Reason(s) to Sign Up: Let people know what they will be getting when they sign up.

3. Offer an Awesome, Valuable Free Gift: Depending on your business, you may offer 20% discount, an eBook, a White Paper, 30-minute free consulting…

4. Create a Compelling Sign-Up Form: Make the form appealing, include graphics of the free gift. Boxshot King is great for creating awesome 3D images (without Photoshop) for digital products that you can offer as opt-in gifts.

5. Create a Sign-Up Form on Your Facebook Page: It’s super easy and there are a few companies that you can use to do this: Woobox, Lujure, ShortStack, WildFire. I created a Facebook Custom App Thumbnail that opens into a simple form. This form brings me opt-ins over time, depending on how active I am on my Facebook page.

6. Keep It Simple & Short (KISS): People do not like to fill in long forms. Get the basic necessary information so they can fill it in in less than 5 seconds.

7. Integrate Testimonials on Your Sign Up Form: This is a really great way to re-assure people who are a little hesitant. Once they read good testimonials, they will be more eager to sign up too. Include Social Share Buttons: Make sure these are everywhere so people can share on their social media networks easily with one click!

8. Create a Great Thank You Page & Welcome Email: Lots of people forget to do this, but it just shows your new subscribers that you go the extra mile. When people sign up, make sure to take them to a great Thank You page and send out a Welcome Email, either reminding them what they will be getting, or something cute or funny. Encourage people to share with their friends. Include ALL social sharing buttons.

9. Use a Landing Page: Create a special Landing Page to drive people to Sign Up. This is really much more effective than sending people to your Home Page. Conversion rates can be increased by 50% with a specific landing page. Check out Optimize Press theme which is a great way to rapidly create a landing page. See the example below of landing page you can create with Optimize Press:

10. Use Social Media: Use your social media channels to send people to your landing page, share the link, and build amazing relationships while doing so. I think the best networks for this are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.

11. Include Social Share Buttons: Make sure these are EVEYWHERE so people can share on their social media networks easily with one click! Read my blog post on this.

12. Add Your Landing Page to Your Twitter Bio: A Twitter tip most people do not know is that you can include multiple links in your bio: Add your landing page link there.

13. Use Your Email Signature: Include a link and call to action to your landing page. Use the free tool WiseStamp to add an image and more to your outgoing emails.

14. Try Google AdWords (Pay Per Click): You may want to test the waters with this, starting off with a small budget. It’s really easy to set up an account. Then do the math and work out how much a lead costs you and how much business you have generated through that lead.

15. Write Articles: This is a great way to expose your business and your services across the web – in other blogs and websites – and get links back to your website. Be sure to include a sign up link in these articles.

16. Email Your Existing Contacts: Let them know about the Free Gift you are offering and ask them to pass or share this with their friends.

17. Comment on Blogs: Write insightful valuable comments on other people’s blogs. Leave your blog name and give your landing page URL.

18. Include Archives of Your Newsletters on Your Website and Landing Page: People like to browse older newsletters (or your blog) for content and to see an example of what they signing up for, so make sure these are accessible.

19. Give Your Newsletter a Cool Name: Make it different or suitable to your business or offering.

20. Create Valuable Content: Don’t make every newsletter a sales pitch. People will unsubscribe fast. Content must be rich, creative, awesome. Your subscribers will tell their friends and your list will organically spread by word of mouth.

21. Make Business Cards: Promotional business cards are a great way to build your business and your brand. If you get cards made up for your business, be different. Don’t create a boring ordinary card like everyone else. Use curiosity and a call to action. Something like: “Get a Your Free Gift When You Sign Up at www.yourlandingpage.com”.

22. Partner & Share Lists: If you can find someone with a similar sized list, and applicable target audience, you can share and “swap” your lists: You can send out an email on their behalf, and they can reciprocate.

As always, please comment and share your tips in the comments box below so we can all benefit from you!

• You are creating and posting good, if not great, interesting, compelling content and your Facebook page and Twitter feed are full of information, news, reviews and links.
• You are interacting with your fans on a daily basis.
• You have acquired a short USER NAME for your Facebook page. See my blog on how easy and important it is to do this!

Yes? Yes!

OK. So here are my tips that have worked for my clients on ways to get people to LIKE your Facebook page, and increase your Twitter followers, both online and offline:

#1: Website: Direct customers from your website to your Facebook Page with a Facebook “Like” and “Follow Us” button. Make sure these buttons are prominent on your home page as well as all your internal pages. And of course, your blog. Here are nice examples. Ask your web developer to attach the correct code – you can find it on Facebook here.

#2: Email Newsletters: Add these buttons to your email newsletters!

#3: Email Signature: Make sure you and your employees add and link your Facebook and Twitter URL within your email signature. See how I’ve done it on my email signature below:

#4: Printed Material: Add your Facebook and Twitter URL on your business cards, print ads, brochures, menus – anywhere that you have printed material. That’s why it’s so important to get a SHORT USER NAME for your Facebook Page, and not one with a string of numbers attached to it. For example, my Facebook user name is ymarketingmatters. So the URL is www.facebook.com/ymarketingmatters – easy to print this on anything.

#5: Get Local Sign Ups: Use real world traffic to find followers. If your business is local, and people frequent your store or your office, here are some great ways to increase your fans:

• Set up a computer at your store or office so people can log into Facebook and Like your page or follow you on Twitter on the spot!
• Take photos of them in your store or office, upload them on Facebook and tag them. Attach their photo to tweet.
• Print inexpensive flyers or small cards with “Like Us on Facebook” and “Follow Us on Twitter” with USER NAME info to give out.
• Involve them in competitions that they can only enter if they join your Facebook page or follow you on Twitter.

Offer an incentive, a nice “something” for them to do this.

#6: Promote Your Page: To get followers of other pages to your page, you need to post and comment as much as possible on on relevant Facebook pages, people’s pages and groups. Use the Facebook Directory and Facebook Search to locate other Facebook pages in your niche and look for public discussions based on search terms related to your business.

#7: Use the @ tag on Both Facebook and Twitter

• Use the @ tag on your wall: By placing the @ tag before a page or person’s name (tagging) on your wall, your post will show up on their wall.
• Use the @ tag before your name on other walls: By placing the @ tag before your page name when you post on someone elses wall will divert some traffic from that page to your own page.
• Use the @ tag with a person’s twitter handle afterwards as much as possible in your tweets.

#8: Use Facebook Ads and Promoted Tweets: One of the best ways to get a lot of extra traffic is to use the Facebook ads and promoted tweets. You can start off with a small budget, test results. You will need to spend a fair amount on advertising to get real results, but it’s the fastest way to find interested fans and followers.

#9: Make Your Content Sharable: Use easy social plugins and widgets to share your content on Facebook and Twitter which will drive people to like or follow you. See my blog on this.

#10: Add a Welcome/Like Us Tab to Facebook: This is called a Fan Gate or Reveal Tab. Its a customized welcome tab with “LIKE OUR PAGE” that people are sent to FIRST when they come to your Facebook page. Stats show that a custom landing tab DOUBLES conversion to fans. You will need a graphic designer to design the “LIKE US” graphic and “THANK YOU FOR LIKING US” graphic. You should give away something for people liking your page. Its tricky to build this tab on your own, but you CAN do it with WildFireApp, or contact me, and I can do it for you.

See my Welcome Tab on Facebook and here are some great examples of Welcome Tabs from Social Media Examiner: Top 10 Small Business Facebook Pages: 2011 Winners.

Please add YOUR tips on what have you done to be “liked” or “followed”! Would love to share this with my readers.