Unlocking ONO: with Best Selling Author Marc Warnke

(30 Minutes)  

What does it mean to live a life of options, not obligations?

How can we have success in business, yet still maintain solid work-life balance?

Learn why Marc chose to self-publish over the traditional publishing route.

Learn how making over a million dollars in one year changed Marc Warnke’s perception of money forever.

For a signed copy of Marc’s book please come join the Family First Entrepreneurs at http://familyfirstentrepreneur.com/ and look at the notes on the left hand side to get 30% off his book.

 

(30 Minutes)

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7 Levels of Twitter Followers

All Twitter followers are not created equally. I would be fooling you if I convinced you otherwise. This morning as I was driving back from an early morning breakfast meeting I was thinking about how we don’t usually rank our friendships “Jack is my number 4 friend” or “John is definitely in the top 10.” We can certainly put Twitter followers on different levels though. I think this is especially appropriate for today, Follow Friday.

Level 1: The Bots These are automated Twitter accounts. They follow blindly, never engage, and sometimes spout out spam messages which get them quickly un-followed. These followers are useless, except to pad your stats.

Level 2: The Sleepers These are the silent Twitter followers. They never say anything, they have 10 updates total- but they are following you, even though they no longer spend any time on Twitter.

Level 3: Word Searchers These followers have followed you based on a word in your bio, or a term you have used in tweets. For example, when I mentioned that I like to wakeboard in a 22 Tweets interview, I was immediately followed by 2 wakeboard companies. These are only slightly more valuable than Level 1 or 2, because they are at least interested in something about you.

Level 4: Readers These are extremely valuable followers because they read your blog posts, read your tweets, and pass them on to others. Readers often times keep a low profile, but they can make a huge impact in helping you become a name in your industry.

Level 5: Engagers These are engaging Twitter users that will have a conversation with you about your tweets or blog posts. These people may be lawyers that like my articles about social media for lawyers, or social media junkies. Whoever they are, they are extremely important to me, because they help create the conversations on Twitter and on my blog. It doesn’t matter if these people agree or disagree with me, the important thing is that they create a buzz. Engagers is what makes Twitter so much fun. These should be highly valued.

Level 6: Contacts Level 6 followers are those who leave the mystic world of Twitter and become real contacts. The best was to turn an engaging follower into a contact is by setting up an appointment to have breakfast, or to have a phone call. Business people generally don’t understand Twitter, because they don’t understand how easy it is to take an engager on Twitter and turn them into a contact.

Level 7: Friend The holy grail of Twitter is turning online relationships that seem somehow less real, and turning them into offline friendships, partnerships, and (best of all) paying clients. I have had the opportunity to create Level 7 relationships all over the country thanks to Twitter. Whenever I stop in a different city, I try and meet up in person with the contacts I have built up on Twitter.

Whether it was meeting up with Melanie Green in the Minneapolis Airport, Gini Dietrich in downtown Chicago, or Tyson Snow for curry in Salt Lake City. Meeting contacts in person has helped me create some great friendships that have enriched my life, and helped my business.

Want to connect with a potential client on Twitter? Start by engaging, then you can move your way up. Its not that hard, give it a try.  I love engagers, so feel free to shoot me a message @adriandayton or leave a comment on my blog.

Adrian Dayton is an attorney licensed to practice in the State of New York.  His latest book, Social Media for Lawyers: Twitter Edition will be published internationally on September 4th, 2009.  Click here to learn more about it.

How Twitter Got Me Published

My first book will be published on September 1st, 2009.  The title is Social Media for Lawyers: Twitter Edition.    The path I took to get here, is so strange that I wouldn’t have believed if I hadn’t just lived through it.

I got on Twitter for the first time back in January of 2009 because I was trying to get another manuscript published, “The Year of 12 Virtues.” A friend told me that Twitter and a blog would be a big help in getting me published. As soon as I got on Twitter, I quickly realized that I loved Twitter. It is such an amazing marketplace of ideas. Read more

Dear Lawyers: Has Twitter Worked for You?

A couple of months ago Kevin O’Keefe assembled a great list of success stories from various attorneys who use Twitter.  You can see his entire post by clicking here: Twitter Success Stories

Here are some excerpts from Kevin’s collection of Twitter testimonials:

“I started using Twitter only weeks ago. . . Since then, I’ve been the twitter “go to” person, answering questions for many of my colleagues, even including our firm’s executive chairman. . . I’ve since received several calls from acquaintances wishing to discuss the state of the economy. I’ve been stopped at the elevator and on the side walk to talk about my tweets. And today, I landed a new client because of my blog and my twitter page!”

Read more

Voir Dire:What Technology Do Lawyers Need? with Niki Black

 

(31 Minutes)

Niki Black is the author of Criminal Law in New York with Thompson West as well as authoring four different blogs.  She is one of the top legal technology experts in the country.  Listen in to hear:

• What technology lawyers need
• What technology can be ignored
• How to use social media in an effective way

About Nicole Black

Nicole Black is of counsel to Fiandach & Fiandach, in Rochester, New York. She is also the founder of lawtechTalk.com, where she introduces lawyers to emerging legal technologies and provides legal technology consulting services.  She publishes four legal blogs, one of which is “Practicing Law in the 21st Century” http://21stcenturylaw.wordpress.com/

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Post Title Makeover: Good Post Titles Are The New Black

In my last post, Is SEO dead? No More Gaming Google I talked about how Google weights links more heavily in search results than it used to. But well-written and focused post titles in search results are the carrot that’s going to bring the reader to your site.

Readers have the attention spans of a gnat these days, and don’t spend more than a few seconds lingering on any post or article title found in search, deciding whether they want to read the following content. It gets worse on Twitter, where you only have 140 characters to entice someone to click through.

Follow these quick and easy tips to make your post titles descriptive and memorable.

Common sense rules for good post titling

Keep it short

State your post topic in as few explicit words as possible. Using Twitter has made me a better post title writer, for several reasons:

• it’s made me think of myriad ways to shorten my post title just so it fits
• It’s made me aware of the focus of my post. If I couldn’t state the point of my post in 140 characters or less, my post isn’t focused enough.

Include keywords

Users will be scanning the titles to decide whether to read further, but Google is also scanning it to decide where to rank you. Why not please both and include relevant keywords?

Use specific words

Keep your writing focused by using the most specific words possible. For example, don’t say “pool” if you could say, “above-ground pool.” This is also true for post content.

Use active tense

An active tense sentence by its nature is shorter than passive. It gets you to the point faster. It’s also easier to read.

Which is easier to parse:

More Readers For Your Site Are Found By The Writing Of Good Post Titles

Good Post Titles Drive More Readers To Your Site

Put keywords close to the beginning of the post title

Usability testing has shown that people scan the first few words of a post title and decide whether to read further.

Don’t assume context

Let’s say you are writing blog posts in a series. If you entitle it, “Post #14: Good Karma,” someone reading your blog might see the other articles and understand the context, but a stranger encountering this title in the wilds of Google won’t know what the heck it means, and click elsewhere!

Common Sense Makeover

Let’s look at an example to illustrate these principles. Let’s say I’m writing an article about choosing a Twitter Client.

Bad Post Title: Make It Easy!

The word “easy” is always enticing, but this title doesn’t tell me what the post is about!

OK Post Title: Make Tweeting Easy With The Right Twitter Client

Better, it has the keywords “Twitter Client.”

Great: Choose The Right Twitter Client and Tweeting Is Easy

Great! Uses active tense, and keywords are right up front.

Extra Credit: Adding Oomph To Your Post Titles

Just like in life, shiny is more appealing than plain. Descriptive post titles can be effective, (also for Google) but boring for your readers.  Last week I was trying to come up with a good post title for my blog post and went through a few permutations.

First draft: SEO is Dead, Content Is Alive
This one is fine, descriptive but a little blah.

Second draft: SEO is Dead, No More Gaming Google
This is the one we ended up going with. It has nice alliteration, and has a tinge of naughtiness with the word “gaming.”

Shiny but might be too provocative: Google Is a Demanding Bitch, What It Wants NOW
This doesn’t have the keywords of “SEO” and “content”, but if I can assume my audience knows what function Google serves, with a title like that, I KNOW it will generate clicks!

Too Much Time On Your Hands Credit: Makeover Per Audience

You can tool a post title to suit different purposes. For example, Adrian has this post title on his blog:

No Twitter for Lawyers? Hear marketing pro Larry Bodine’s Take

This post title functions well enough; it tells the who (Larry Bodine) and the what (Twitter). I think Adrian structured it in this way because Larry Bodine’s podcast is part of the post. However, there are a few ways I could rewrite this blog post for different results:

Twitter Useless For Lawyers, Says Legal Marketing Pro Larry Bodine

This is a bit provocative and makes me wonder WHY it’s useless! Also I added the word “legal,” because it makes him more of an authority for this legal blog.

Larry Bodine: Twitter Useless For Lawyers

This is shorter, and if puts the focus more on Larry Bodine.

………………………………

Hope this has helped you think about ways to tune up your post titles!

Charlene Jaszewski makes her living helping people make their websites easier to use, editing books so that their ideas are crystal clear, and making marketing materials sound less markety. Wanna see stuff she’s done? Click on over to http://charlenejaszewski.com. Oh and she makes killer marshmallows dipped in chocolate.

Don’t Hate Me Because I Auto-DM

Auto-DM:  A direct message sent automatically on Twitter by a 3rd party service like Tweetlater.  Generally these are sent as a welcome message to a user’s new Twitter followers.

I hate the annoying auto-DM”s.  They clutter my inbox and waste my time.  There is a however a right way and a wrong way to use auto-DM’s.  I am going to probably lose followers for saying this, but I feel like in full disclosure it is something that needs to be said:

My name is Adrian, and I send auto-dm’s to my new followers.

There, I admitted it.  I know its impersonal, I know it may be annoying, but I use auto-dm’s and I am probably going to keep sending them and here are three reasons why:

1.  I have a fairly large following, and I REALLY appreciate my followers.  I try to respond to every @reply and real direct message sent my way, and I try even harder to thank those who retweet my posts.  I would never send an auto-dm to my current followers- but when people first add me, I want them to get a feeling for who I am. Besides, I may never have a chance to interact with them personally otherwise.  If people reply to my auto-dm welcome message, I am always ready and willing to engage them in non-automated discussion.

2.  When I first got started on Twitter I benefited from a few kind Twitter users that showed me the ropes.  One in particular named @michaelhyatt sent me an auto-DM welcome with some tips he had gathered for new twitter users.  It was great information, and I  really appreciated that, so I put together a few 1-minute videos of my own that try and do the same for other new users- I wanted to give them the same helpful tips that got me started on the right foot.  My auto-DM mentions these free videos to new Twitter users.

3.  My auto-dm doesn’t try and sell anything.  I don’t sell the tips, in fact there isn’t anything for sale on my website, so the only benefit to me is the good karma.  Twitter is all about passing on the good information, so I think it is only appropriate to mention these videos to my new followers.

The Wrong Ways to Use the Auto-DM

1. Don’t invite me to your money-making scheme- I don’t know you yet, why would I have that kind of confidence in who you are and what you are about to join your business venture?

2. Don’t invite me to your scheme to generate tens of thousands of followers- that is a turn off when I have never even interacted with you before.

3. Don’t invite me to connect with you on Facebook- if I have never had an actual conversation with you, why would I want the greater level of contact with you that Facebook offers?

4. Don’t invite me to your mafia wars, ninja dojo, or to give you a “gift.”  Its not that I’m no fun- I just think there are better video games out there.

5. If you are going to use an auto-Dm, show some personality- let me know a little bit about who you are, not what you sell.  Try and add some value in a way that is not self-promotional.

Everybody has their own point of view on the auto-DM, and I was back and forth on them myself as a new user- but now I think they have real value to help build relationships.  What do you think of the auto-DM?

Follow Friday for August 7, 2009

So here they are, this week’s additions to my longer #followfriday list:

Shannon Cherry aka @shannoncherry

Shannon’s bio refers to her as the power publicist, and until I spoke to her this past week on the phone, I didn’t realize how true that is.  Shannon has been perfecting online marketing since most of us first realized that Google was a pretty nifty search engine.  She has a broad knowledge base, and some awesome ideas.  After speaking with her I look forward to collaborating with her in the future!

Sandi Mckenna aka @McMedia

She is currently producing an all Twitter TV show called Tweet Me TV where all of the stories and contacts are made through Twitter.  Sandi is one of the first people I met on Twitter, and right from the start she gave me some great encouragement and has introduced me to some important people.

Lori T. Williams aka @loritwilliams

Lori helps attorneys in the Detroit area bring in business and make connections with important referrals basis.  She has tons of enthusiasm and is a very generous person.  She and I are both starting out new businesses helping attorneys, so we have a lot in common.

Sarah Marshall aka AmericanWomann

I wasn’t quite sure what to think when I was first added to the #hunkalert list by a friend of Sarah’s, but after talking over the phone with Sarah she assured me it is all very tastefull.  Sarah is a Southern Bell with a great personality and the accent to match!  She showcases military men that are serving our country, and husbands and Fathers that are “Hunks” not just because of their looks, but because they are good people.  At least that’s how she explained it to me.

Randy Hall aka @4thGear

When I was hanging out with Gini Dietrich and Justin Brackett two week ago in Chicago, they both kept mentioning some guy named “Randy” – so I finally asked, “who is he?”  Randy has been in the highest levels of corporate America, and now he providies coaching and training to small business owners that want to take their business to the next level.  He has some awesome insights, and asks great questions.

That’s it for this week, now FOLLOW THESE PEOPLE!!!

Part 1: Is SEO dead? No More Gaming Google.

by Guest Writer Charlene Jaszewski

Google has grown up and joined the rat race in terms of ranking your site for searches.  It’s no longer what you know (content), it’s who you know (links).

In the olden days of search engine optimization (aka “SEO”), it was pretty easy to trick search engines: just stuff keywords in every piece of code and in your page content, and get tons of sites to link to you, and it didn’t matter who they were. But Google has grown up and gotten smarter. It can’t be fooled by trickery. This article will tell you how you make the most of your site content and links and impress Google (the only search engine that matters anymore). Read more

Voir Dire:No Twitter for Lawyers? Hear marketing pro Larry Bodine’s Take

 

Recorded June 30th, 2009

Larry Bodine, a legal marketing veteran with over 18 years of experience, recently came out clearly against Twitter claiming it was a waste of time, ineffective, and unable to deliver new business to attorneys. Has he softened on his stance since then?  Listen in as Adrian Dayton grills him on the subject in this edition of the Weekly Voir Dire.

You will also find out:

• How firms can stick their toe in the social media pool
• The most effective strategies for developing more business if your firm has a current area of strength
• A great solution for verifying a return on investment from marketing dollars

• The keys to a productive marketing strategy for lawyers and other professionals (hint: you need a plan)

About Larry Bodine

Larry Bodine

Check out Larry Bodine’s blog: http://blog.larrybodine.com where you can order a copy of his new white paper Thinking Like a Rainmaker.

Follow Larry Bodine on Twitter

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