It was almost 70 years ago that Dorothy ripped back the curtain for the first
time. "Who are you?" her voice boomed with authority. The short little man at
the controls turned sheepishly and said, "I-I-I am the great and powerful Oz."
And just like that, reality came home to roost. One little girl exposed the
truth about the power behind the Emerald City and the Land of Oz.
This rings true today. New media has wrested control from the spammers,
interrupters and the media elite. With new media comes a focus on people,
participation and persuasion. Connections are the lifeblood of succeeding in
this marketplace and the five tools I'm about to share are all boons to female
entrepreneurs.
1. Blogs
"All my WordPress sites are down," said the panicked voice coming over the
phone. "I was just facilitating an advisory board meeting with Mark Victor
Hansen, and nothing was where it was supposed to be," he continued. The call was
from my good friend Paulie Sabol, who is also a close confidante of Mark Victor
Hansen and Robert Allen. He was red-faced and there was nothing that could be
done. It was too late. This is just one of many horror stories I've heard when
business people eagerly jump into the new-media marketplace without any training
or knowledge of the potential pitfalls. Sure, blogs have finally gained the
recognition they deserve in the business community as a viable marketing tool.
But with all the hype that's out there right now, if you don't know some of the
pitfalls or how to upload your own plug-ins to prevent spam on your site, you
could find yourself in a great deal of trouble. This is if you don't have a
trusted programmer at your immediate disposal.
Check out Rent-a-Coder
or eLance to find
affordable programmers, or use a blogging platform that'll take care of all the
headaches for you.
One of the biggest reasons blogging attracts the attention of business owners
is because it can boost search engine rankings and direct streams of highly
targeted traffic to you. But it takes more than just setting up a blog and
starting to post regularly to get results. Don't fall for the hype that just
having a blog will work instant magic for your business.
You need to have a solid business blogging strategy, which includes doing
keyword research and being ready with hard-hitting tactics. You want to use your
blog as a tool to get your message across quickly; you don't want to waste
valuable time trying to market your blog or fix it when a free plug-in messes up
the code on your site or deletes all the content that you've worked so hard to
put up. Free isn't so free at that point.
It's happened to too many people, so be sure to do some research on the right
business blogging software to host your business blog.
2. Podcasts
Now, more than ever, the average business owner can get directly into the homes
of customers through podcasting. A big misconception is that a podcast is only
an audio track, but a podcast can also include video.
The best part about any podcast is you have the ability to not only get your
content listed on your website, but when you submit your content to iTunes and
YouTube, you'll also be in front of the millions of viewers using these
channels.
Then all your customers or potential customers have to do to see or hear what
you have to say is open their iTunes or other podcast reader and instantly
download anything you've recently uploaded.
3. Social Networks
Online social networking, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Or
better yet, let me count the number of social-networking sites to date. No. I'd
never finish this article if I did. That's because counting the number of social
networks online is like counting grains of sand on the beach. The moment you
think you're done, another 100 pop up out of nowhere. Instead, just start with
the No. 1 social networking site, MySpace.
Wait--don't skip this section. Just because you thought MySpace was a space
for horny teens or political pundits doesn't mean you can afford to ignore this
tool.
I used to think the same thing. I pooh-poohed getting a profile on MySpace
until I had to fly to Singapore to teach 360 business owners how to use it. You
can bet your left eye I quickly scrambled to get my own profile up and running,
adding friends by the hundreds and really testing out the site.
I've not only met thousands of brilliant people through MySpace, where I'm
known as the "Motivation MD," but I've also landed numerous $10,000 deals that
literally closed overnight, without ever even meeting my client face to face.
That's the power of using online networking, blogs, podcasts and videos to get
your message across. Let people meet the real you and hire you without
reservation.
4. Online TV
Have you ever dreamed about being a TV star, famous all around the world? Well,
this is the century where you can turn that dream into a reality.
Since the recent exposure new media channels have received, more and more
business entrepreneurs are using YouTube as their online video source to not
only watch content, but also upload their own content to attract new customers
from all over the world.
YouTube is an online TV provider where you are in control of creating and
viewing content. No longer can Hollywood deny your show from being aired to the
world. Finally, women entrepreneurs are being given a channel where they can
speak, and be heard and seen by everyone around the world.
Often, clients want to meet the person behind the product. When you have a
YouTube channel and let people meet you through the videos you upload, you're
able to fill this need, creating instant rapport with prospects interested in
your products or services. And your customers get to interact with you by
posting comments on your show.
5. Syndication
Syndication is most commonly referred to as RSS. The best thing about it is that
it's automated. Don't bother with how it works; you just need to know that it
does. RSS is already built directly into the best blogging platforms on the
market. And it works like you wish your children did while doing their
homework--silently, quickly and effectively.
What I love most about RSS is how it helps my in-person sales team. It frees
up their time to work on developing new products and delivering outstanding
services to our VIP clients because my RSS tool is out in the world, serving as
my virtual sales team. My RSS sales team goes out and knocks on thousands of
doors in the fraction of a second--the moment I hit my publish button on just
one of my many blogs.
And what's better than having thousands of virtual salespeople knocking on
thousands of doors for you? The fact that every one of these doors are instantly
opened by people who are eager to hear what you've got for them today.