KeySplash Creative CEO Susan Gunelius Wins Best Blog Award at 2011 Stevie Awards for Women in Business
On Friday evening, November 11, 2011, I attended the 8th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business where I received the award for Best Blog for WomenOnBusiness.com.
This is a blog I began in 2007 as a place to give women in business a place to demonstrate their thought leadership and share their expertise related to all business topics. I was thrilled to accept the award on behalf of the volunteer contributors who help make the site the authoritative online community that it is. The full press release is here.
The Stevie Awards for Women in Business recognize and honor women around the world in executive and entrepreneurial roles as well as the companies they lead. The Stevie Awards have been called the world’s premier business awards and referred to as the “Oscar Awards for business” by the New York Post. The 24 karat gold and crystal statues awarded to winners are crafted by the same company that makes the iconic Academy Award statues.
The 2011 Stevie Awards ceremony was attended by 300 finalists chosen from over 1,300 applications and benfitted Camfed (camfed.org), which fights poverty and HIV/AIDS in Africa by educating girls and empowering women to become leaders of change.
The complete 2011 award recipients list is available on the Stevie Awards website.
Quality vs. Quantity – The Truth about Twitter, Facebook, and Social Media Followers
I’ve been having so many conversations about the importance of focusing on the quality of your social media followers lately, that I thought it would be a good idea to share an excerpt from my book, 30-Minute Social Media Marketing
“There is a widely held belief that it’s important to get as many people to follow you on Twitter as possible in order to build your business. While it’s true that a large audience of followers raises the chances that more people will see your content and share it with their audiences, giving you potential exposure to an audience you couldn’t reach alone, using Twitter to build your business is truly about quality of followers, not quantity.
“Many people join Twitter and seek out as many people to follow as possible under the mistaken assumption that those people will reciprocate and follow in return. However, blindly following people who aren’t interested in your business won’t help you any more than untargeted advertising would.
“It’s better to have 1,000 highly interested followers than 10,000 followers who don’t care about you or your tweets. Remember, the goal of social media marketing, including using Twitter as a marketing tool, is to build relationships, particularly with people who are invested in your business and are likely to become your advocates. In other words, tweeting to 10,000 people who ignore you is a waste of time, but tweeting to 1,000 people who find value in your tweets can lead to direct and indirect sales.
“Don’t be tempted to follow anyone and everyone on Twitter, and don’t be swayed into thinking that Twitter profiles with large lists of followers are truly the most popular and powerful. Always think of quality over quantity when it comes to using Twitter as a marketing tool. Slow growth in quality Twitter followers trumps fast growth in quantity of Twitter followers when it comes to business growth that will last.”
– Excerpt from ’30-Minute Social Media Marketing’ (McGraw-Hill, 2010)
Remember, social media offers businesses the opportunity to move away from marketing on a one-to-many basis to marketing on a one-to-few or one-to-one basis. Leverage that opportunity by pursuing quality relationships with followers who value the content you publish and are capable of delivering long-term, sustainable, and organic growth to your business.
Susan Gunelius of KeySplash Creative Named Finalist in Stevie Awards for Women in Business
I’m happy to announce some exciting news for KeySplash Creative. We’ve been named as a finalist for two Stevie Awards for Women in Business. Following is an excerpt from the press release:
Susan Gunelius, KeySplash Creative, Inc. President and CEO, was named a Finalist for a Lifetime Achievement Award in the in the 8th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business. Susan’s popular blog, WomenOnBusiness.com, was also named a 2011 Stevie Awards Finalist in the Best Blog category. This is the third year in a row that WomenOnBusiness.com has been nominated for a Stevie Award and the third time the blog has been named an award finalist.
The Stevie Awards for Women in Business honor women executives, entrepreneurs, and the companies they run – worldwide. The Stevie Awards have been called the world’s premier business awards, and being named a finalist among over 1,300 entries is a significant accomplishment.
2011 Stevie Award winners will be announced at a special event to be held on November 11th at New York’s Marriott Marquis Hotel. The awards ceremony will be broadcast live on radio in the United States by the Business TalkRadio Network.
“Being named a finalist in the 2011 Stevie Awards for Women in Business is a great honor,” said Gunelius, “and it’s a testament to the importance of the work women in the business world do every day,” I’m very proud to be included in the group of inspiring women who make up the 2011 Stevie Awards Finalists.”
Details about the Stevie Awards for Women in Business and the list of finalists in all categories are available at www.stevieawards.com/women.
Click to read the full press release
How to Write Content for an Online Audience that Scans – Quickly
The online audience moves very quickly, and if you don’t catch their attention within a couple of seconds, you’ve lost your opportunity to connect with them. Social media marketing and content marketing require a different form and style of writing to communicate messages than traditional marketing.
Fortunately, there are some simple steps that can help you learn how to write content that not only gets noticed but also gets read in its entirety. Keep in mind, when it comes to online content, people skim and scan. Therefore, “read in its entirety” refers to motivating a person to actually skim through your entire piece of content to get the complete message. While it would be wonderful if every person who stumbled on your content on the web read every word, that’s not the reality. Go for scannability!
Following are several tips to get you started in the right direction:
1. Spend Time Creating a Great Headline
Create a killer headline that intrigues and offers the promise of useful or entertaining information. Often the headline is all people see on sites like Twitter and Facebook, so it needs to motivate people to click through and read your complete content.
2. Start Strong
Begin with your most important message. There is no time for pretty introductions. Get to the point and then offer supporting information.
3. Keep It Short
The online audience typically prefers quick-hitting content (remember, they like to move fast) over lengthy content.
4. Use Headings
Make your content even more scannable by using headings and sub-headings gratuitously.
5. Use Bullets and Numbered Lists
Break up text heavy pages and make your content more scannable by using lists.
6. Use Images
Sometimes people just look at the pictures in order to decide if they even want to scan a piece of online content. Tell part of your story through the images you publish with your content to intrigue your audience.
Image: len-k-a
How to Break Free of the Text Messaging Bonds that Limit Your Mobile Marketing
In my newest article on Entrepreneur.com, I offer 5 tips for mobile marketing beyond text messages.
In simplest terms, text messages can still be effective, but if the only way you’re marketing your business to the mobile audience right now is through text message ads, then you’re severely limiting your potential.There is just so much more you can be doing to grow your business through mobile marketing!
Today, businesses can connect with the growing mobile audience through mobile websites, geo-targeted apps, mobile content, and quick response codes (QR codes).
Don’t develop your mobile marketing plan until you read my 5 mobile marketing tips and learn about some of the other effective ways to market your business, brand, products, and services to the mobile audience.
Image: jetmedia
Comic Con and the Story of Brand Evolution
Remember when the annual Comic Con convention was a place where die-hard comic book fans gathered to geek out about their favorite characters and storylines? How times have changed.
Comic Con officially kicks of in San Diego today, and the cast of players has changed radically in recent years. Who would have thought back in the day that the big draws to Comic Con attendance and press would include movies like Twilight?
The die-hard Comic Con brand loyalists aren’t as quick to embrace the brand’s expansion to broader audiences than the conference leaders and sponsors would hope. However, steps have been taken to appease the most loyal and emotionally connected Comic Con audience. With smaller conferences held throughout the year that are focused on niche audiences, Comic Con is trying to find the right balance between satisfying loyal brand advocates who will keep supporting the brand long after Twilight fades away and the extended audience that brings money and buzz to the annual conference.
What do you think? Has Comic Con extended too far or is the brand expansion necessary? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.
5 Steps to Promote Your Business Blog Through Social Networking
In my most recent article on Entrepreneur.com, I share 5 steps to promote your business blog through Facebook, LinkedIn and social networking tools to build your brand and business. The tips come directly from my book, “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to WordPress.” In the article, I explain,
“Building an audience from scratch for your blog doesn’t always happen overnight. Fortunately, several opportunities are available through social media to help spread the word. Doing so will require more than creating a profile on popular sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, especially if you want to use social networking to increase awareness of your business and traffic to your business blog.”
You can follow the link to read the full article on Entrepreneur.com. Bottom-line, a blog can boost your business and WordPress is the tool I recommend to do it!
Image: stock.xchng
30-Minute Social Media Marketing on Radio America’s Business Owner’s Toolkit Podcast
On Radio America’s popular Business Owner’s Toolkit Podcast, host Greg Corombos interviewed me about my book, 30-Minute Social Media Marketing, and we talked about the keys to successful social media use by small businesses.
During the podcast, I offered insights on how to establish quality relationships and why your strategy for building contacts should integrate many of the same methods you would use in face-to-face situations.
You can listen to the complete podcast using the Business Owner’s Toolkit Player or click the arrow below to listen to the podcast without leaving this site.
You can also subscribe to the Business Owner’s Toolkit podcast, so you don’t miss future interviews.
Complete Idiot’s Guide to WordPress Now Available
My new book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to WordPress
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to WordPress is intended to be a beginner’s guide to using both WordPress.com and WordPress.org, but it also includes a great deal of advanced information. Since the book is written modularly (so each chapter can stand on its own), you can pick and choose the chapters to read that apply to you, or you can read the book from cover to cover and learn everything you need to know to start a blog that is positioned for success.
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to WordPress is part of the popular Complete Idiot’s Guide book series from Alpha Books/Penguin. If you want to learn how to create a blog or website using WordPress or if you want to learn about some advanced WordPress topics, pick up a copy from any book seller or download The Complete Idiot’s Guide to WordPress on Kindle
6 Easy to Follow Twitter Do’s and Don’ts
I shared some Twitter do’s and don’ts from my book, 30-Minute Social Media Marketing
Don’t overpromote.
Stick to the 80-20 rule of marketing. Spend 80 percent or more of your Twitter time on activities that are not self-promotional. No one will want to interact with you if you’re constantly talking about yourself and promoting your business. For example, the Red Bull Twitter feed is filled with useful information such as links to event information and tickets, questions posed to followers (e.g., “What’s your best Red Bull recipe?”), and replies to consumer questions. For example, when people asked for information about the sound track in a video published on the Red Bull Twitter profile, Red Bull responded not just with the title but also with a link where they could download it. Try to offer similarly diverse tweets in your own Twitter stream.
What do you think is the most important Twitter tip? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.
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