The time is now

Recently I saw a new television show on HBO called “The Shop,” which is about a barber shop in the African American community that Lebron James hosts, and has interesting conversations with other African American celebrities. In African American communities, the barber shop is where people go to have discussions about politics, the economy, family dynamics, who makes the best macaroni and cheese and more. It’s a little known fact in that community that when you walk into “The Shop,” you are likely to be

How Branding Your Company Can Make You or Break You

You may have heard that it’s important to keep your brand in tact when referring to your business. Well, that is true.  You may have also heard that in this economy one wrong move…and your done.

While all of this is very true (and a little scary), there is help! You have to think about your brand and how to keep it consistent over many different forms of media without causing alarm on any of those forums. Make a decision early on as to who you want to be known for and how you can

Young kid needs marketing help from you!

I had a call the other day asking me to help out a friend’s son to promote their blog. It’s actually a beautiful site. I was super impressed. Sure I said. You need me to help with your keywords? Your meta tags? What’cha need buddy? But, nope, he didn’t want that. He wanted to know how I could help get him advertisers on his site. Hmmm…interesting. So, I asked him what his site was about. He said it was a site about

How to correctly manage databases for B2B

The aim of marketing is to know your customers so well, that when your prospects are confronted with your product, it fits them so exactly that it sells itself! This sort of sounds like personalization right? Right! To be able to effectively personalize your message you need to have a great database with information that you can work with.

The one key here, is to know your

Want quality followers the ethical way?

Subscribing to some type of “Get followers fast” technique is NOT the right way to get quality followers if you are on Twitter and looking for ways to improve your business. If you’ve got a product you want to get across to people, you need to find followers that are of the same mindset as you.  So how do you do it?

Well, I posted an article several weeks ago titled “Twitter – who’s following who and how do I get more of them to follow me?” That is a great way to get followers, but I have also been testing a new method and it’s working out great for me. What I do is find a follower of my exact same interest. Then rather than reaching out to their followers, I check their lists. Most of the people on Twitter have a “List” created. But folks with the same interest or in the same industry as I am have lists that are VERY targeted.  Which only helps me. So I go to their lists and look for one that is about what I like. For instance if I see one titled “Social Media” or “Marketing” then I know they probably are going to be tweeting about something I am interested in. I then go and follow those people on that list in the hopes that they will in turn, follow me. It’s worked out well for me and I think if you try this, it will for you as well.

Now, please understand, if you do this, you MUST tweet about things that are interesting and valuable in order to get the followers to follow you. I like to think that my tweets are informative and interesting. I like to think that my blog posts are worthy of re-tweeting, but sometimes everyone will not think this. It’s also a reality check. If folks are not following you in return….well that may be a reality check to let you know, you aren’t saying anything that everyone else is saying or that is not that darn good. Time to go back to the drawing board and see if there is something else that you are more passionate about or that you know more about.

Good luck to you all and thank you each for your loyalty re-posting my articles! Follow me on Twitter @sylwilson

When is the right time to get a website?

I have spoken with many people about when the right time to have a website built is. Well, if you ask me, I think the best time to get a site is early on. The reason I say this is because in order to be found by clients, you need to reach a wide variety of people. The best way to do this is over the world wide web of course. So who do you hire to make one if you don’t know HTML? Well, I have a few places I know of that are referred to as CMS systems (content management systems) where you don’t need to have any knowledge of HTML code.  All you need is a pc to be able to upload your content. Now, when you do this, you might want to have someone set up the initial design (shameless plug for meJ) Or you can attempt it on your own.  There is a site called coffecup.com or you can look for others. I have about 10 different suppliers I refer clients to (another shameless plug), so just email me if you need help.

The most important thing, is to get your site up and running.  If you still don’t have the cash to get it started, consider a blog. WordPress, Blogger, and others are free. A blog is intended to be used to be a platform to alert others that you are an expert in your industry, so if you start it, be prepared to post a new article at least once a week. To be a great blogger, you should really do it more often. You can have multiple authors of your article posts though and that will alleviate some of the burden on you.

Good luck, and remember, a website is a description of who you are and what services you can provide. Make sure your content is accurate and use good keywords so that you will be found by search engines.  Examples of your work should be posted as well. You can do it though, because lets face it, if you are in business then its probably because you are passionate about what you do. You will probably become addicted to the writing of your content…or else you will be passionate about your agency that you hire (another shameless plug)!