This week I attended the iStrategy Global Digital Media Conference in San Francisco. Randi Zuckerberg gave the closing keynote on “10 Social Trends of the Week”. The presentation was one of my favorites. I thought I would share my notes:

10 Social Trends of the Week

1) The Sharing Economy
Social sharing is a new trend responsible for the success of startups that give people the ability to share spaces, college books, cars and more. AirBnB, the platform that gives people the opportunity to rent out living spaces and Chegg, the social site that lets people rent or buy college books at a discount were mentioned.

2) People as Platforms & Media Brands
Considering the tools that we have available to communicate with one another, every one of us is a media platform. Things for businesses to think about: how do businesses communicate with customers when everyone has a platform using social media? How should businesses think about customer service? What is the best way to communicate?

3) Applying Gaming to your Lifestyle
Gaming was mentioned as a new fun phenomenon that is being used to improve people’s lifestyle. One example shared was Gympact, a mobile iPhone app that makes a game out of going to the gym. The concept includes setting financial stakes to incentivize your exercise.

4) Crowdsourcing
Another social trend mentioned was crowdsourcing, the act of taking the collective intelligence of the public at large to complete tasks that a company would normally perform itself or outsource to a third-party provider.

Randi mentioned an indie film called “Olive” that raised the majority of its money through the crowdsource platform, Kickstarter. It was interesting to learn that Olive is not the only film to take advantage of crowdsourcing — a majority of movies at Sundance were reportedly funded as well through Kickstarter.

5) Mobile First
Mobile as a trend was mentioned as new startups look first to mobile before developing their product for the web. Two examples cited were Foodspotting and Instagram.

6) Return to Intimacy
There’s a trend toward social networking with smaller, more intimate groups. One startup that aims to tap this trend is Path, a mobile social networking app that is similar to Facebook, however with the exception that you can connect with no more than 150 people.

7) People as Curators
The trend of being a content creator without creating content was mentioned as the art of curation picks up. Pinterest, a virtual pinboard that lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web.

Curation could be a huge opportunity for businesses that do not have the time or resources to create their own content but wish to be a hub or resource of information related to their business.

8 ) Incentive Advertising within Games

9) Subscription and Appointment Shopping
The trend of capitalizing on the motivation that comes with scarcity, as well as capitalizing on people’s love of surprise and gifts. Social products like Birchboxes were mentioned.

10) Social Moments
There are so many events happening within businesses, ask “how can you tap into social moments to extend the reach of the event?” The Google+ Hangout with President Obama was provided as an example.

11) Consider Charity
Philanthropy is a great segway into social. If your business has not immersed itself in social, a partnership or promotion of a cause could be a great way to get involved with communities online.

Thank you Randi for sharing your insights and many thanks to the iStrategy team for organizing this great event. Well done!

Are you looking to create a new website or upgrade your existing (non-WordPress) site?

If so, I recommend using WordPress, the open-source web software you can use to create a beautiful website and/or blog. If you are new to WordPress, consider the following 7 reasons why WordPress is a great platform to power your website.

1. You can update your website. This is one of the best reasons to use WordPress – you can update your site on a daily basis on your own, without the need to ask (and pay) your web developer to make changes for you. If you can use Microsoft Word, you can use WordPress. In fact, the visual interface is very similar to Word, giving you the ability to add a new article, image, video, and more to your site with the click of a few buttons. You no longer have to wait for your web developer or someone else to update your site, you can do it yourself right away with WordPress.
2. It’s free. It’s amazing to me that WordPress is free but it is. The core software is built by hundreds of community volunteers and is open-source.
3. There are thousands of plug-ins available.Plug-ins can help make your site do almost anything you can imagine. You can add shopping carts, forums, social sharing features, maps, and so much more functionality. Most of these plugins are free, and with WordPress’ easy user interface, installing a plugin literally takes just a couple clicks of the mouse.
4. You can add a blog to your site. Having a blog that you update regularly is one of the best ways to improve your website’s chances of ranking higher in Google search, as well as a good way to drive leads to your business. WordPress is considered by many to be a blog platform alone, but actually you can create a website and a blog together using WordPress. The blog part of WordPress gives you the ability to create posts with categories, tags, anti-spam features, widgets, comments, and more.
5. You can choose from thousands of (free) themes. WordPress provides a directory of thousands of free themes to use to style your site. There are also countless other premium themes you can buy and download that are quite affordable. With one of these themes as the foundation for your site, you can then customize the style to make your site look exactly the way you’d like. With WordPress, the theme and the content are separate — so you can swap out different themes to change the look of your site and the content will show up in place in the new theme.
6. WordPress is easy to install and upgrade. Many host providers have a quick one-click install option to speed up the installation of WordPress. If your hosting provider does not provide this option, you can install WordPress by uploading the files to your server via FTP. WordPress also provides 5-minute install instructions. When it comes to upgrading the software, WordPress will alert you when a version update is available and again, all you have to do is click the button next to the alert message to perform the upgrade.
7. You have a lot of support. With over 60 million people using WordPress to power their website, it’s easy to find developers to help you. WordPress also provides a great forum resource where you can get your questions and problems answered by the community.

In my next posts I’ll go over WordPress tips that I’ve learned along the way. If you have questions related to WordPress, leave a comment below and I’ll add them to my list of questions to answer in my next posts.

In my previous post, “7 Ways To Get Inbound Links & Rank Higher in Google”, I shared a number of ways to increase inbound links to your website to boost your site’s “authority” and ranking in Google search results.

Inbound links give your site the “authority” it needs to rank higher in Google search — but you also need the right keywords on your pages so that Google considers your site relevant to people’s searches. To rank high in Google then, you need both authority and relevance.

Relevance

How to make sure your site is relevant?

It comes down to Keywords: Identify the best keywords for each of your pages — then, make sure each of your pages contains those keywords so that the page will be considered relevant in the eyes of Google and other search engines.

For example, if your business is an eco-chic bed & breakfast in Santa Cruz, California, first you need to think about the keywords people will be using to search for your business. You may describe your business as “eco-chic”, for instance, but people looking for your business may be using words like “eco-friendly”, “environmentally friendly”, “sustainable”, “ethical”, or “green bed & breakfast” as well.

You can use Google’s Keyword Tool to see what other words are being used that are similar to your keywords. With this tool you can also check competitor sites to see what words they are ranking for to get additional ideas. Once you figure out the keywords people are using to find businesses like yours, be sure to include these keywords on your website.

One thing to note:
I often see sites that include their keywords in images on their site. If you do this, be sure to add “ALT” tags that attach your keywords to these images (the keywords need to be representative of the image when you do this), since Google’s search engine crawlers cannot read words contained in images alone.

Also, it’s important to include the same or related keywords within the text sections of your page. That way, your keywords can be found and indexed, resulting in higher “relevance” of your site, and a better ranking in Google search.

To your success!

@katrinah

There’s a great article about Sōsh on Techcrunch if you’re interested in learning more.

I found out about this site via a Facebook ad. So, if you have a new business and are looking to get the word out about your services or products, a targeted ad on Facebook could be a good idea. For a recent survey on what business owners think about Facebook ads, see this recent post at Huffington Post.

Enjoy!

You want your site to rank higher in Google search results, right?

Of course, you do — we all do! Ranking high in Google search means more leads, more potential customers, more opportunities, greater exposure, and most likely, much more success.

So — how do you rank higher?

Google doesn’t tell us exactly how they rank sites, but we do know that it comes down to two things: Authority and Relevance.

First, let’s talk about authority:

Authority

Authority is the most important thing when it comes to how sites rank. How do you get authority? The best way is to get inbound links from other sites. The more important the site is that links to you, the stronger the inbound link is for you, and the more “authority” Google thinks your site has (e.g. a link from New York Times is better than a link from an unknown site, for example).

How To Get Inbound Links?

1. Guest Blog on other sites: Blog owners often struggle to continue to create new content. You can help them out by creating a guest post and in return, the post can feature your bio with a link back to your site.
2. Ask other sites to interview you or feature you (promote yourself!): Similar to a guest post, you can ask other sites that interview people in your niche to interview and feature you. This works well of course, only if you have something valuable to say or share with the other site’s audience. When the story about you is published, make sure there’s a link back to your site, as well as a short bio about you.
3. Get featured in the News: When a story about you is published in the news, be sure to ask to have your website URL included when the story is published.
4. Create awesome content: When you create content that is valuable and worth referencing and sharing, people will link to it naturally as a resource.
5. Link to others in your blog posts: Connect with other bloggers who create great content related to your niche – give them some link love and they will notice you. If you produce valuable content regularly that would resonate well with their readers, they may link to your site from time to time as well.
6. Publish a SEO-friendly press release: You could use a publishing platform like PitchEngine to help you share your content via social networks, search engines, and mobile devices – PitchEngine has both a free and paid service. You could also try the free service PRLog.
7. Partner with other sites: Think about what other sites you can partner with to cross-promote both of your websites, services, and products. If you work at a co-working space, perhaps you and the co-working space could feature one another on each of your sites? If you are a designer in the fashion business, perhaps you can promote the sites of photographers and models and vice versa? How about if you are a non-profit organization that supports women in Africa? Perhaps you can promote funding organizations or complimentary organizations on your site and vice versa? There are so many ways to partner with others – be creative and think about how you can help promote others. Through reciprocity and goodwill, the more you promote others on your site, the more you will be on their radar and the more exposure (and links) you can gain for your website as well.

These are just a handful of ways to get more inbound links to your site and boost your site’s ability to rank higher in Google. What other ways can help to attract inbound links? Feel free to comment below.

In the next post we’ll look at the other ranking factor: Relevance. Stay tuned.

Creative Commons photo: big thanks to MaxKlingensmith at Flickr.

Who inspires you? Who lived or is living a life of resilience? What characteristics or qualities do they share?

Today I want to talk about resilience — a topic that’s fresh on my mind since it was the focus of a talk given at a women’s group event I attended this past weekend in San Francisco. We all need resilience, the ability to bounce back when obstacles and hardship cross our path. Our success in business and life depends on it. Who comes to mind when you think of people who have overcome setbacks and demonstrated great resilience?

For me, I think of people like Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, J.R. Martinez, J.K. Rowling, Walt Disney, and Oprah Winfrey, to name a handful. These people inspire me — their stories remind me that even the most unimaginable setbacks can be used as a springboard forward to our dreams and future success.

Enjoy these videos – may these stories inspire you and serve as a good reminder that when we encounter setbacks, valleys, and roadblocks in business and life, the most important thing we can do to help ourselves is to re-frame how we look at the experience, continue to believe in ourselves and our ability, and find a new way.

Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela was a leader of the anti-apartheid movement who eventually became South Africa’s first president to be elected in a fully democratic election. Mandela spent twenty-seven years in captivity, becoming one of the most famous political prisoners and an international symbol of resistance to apartheid.

J.R. Martinez
Veteran and “Dancing with the Stars” contestant J.R. Martinez tells Ellen about how his injuries occurred overseas, and how he’s been able to stay so positive through it all.

J.K. Rowling
12 publishers rejected J.K. Rowling’s book about a boy wizard before a small London house picked up Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Rowling also suffered deep depression and experienced poverty. “Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.”

Walt Disney
Creator of 81 feature films and hundreds of shorts, Disney earned more than 950 honors, including 48 Academy Awards. He founded the California Institute of the Arts. And, of course, he built Disneyland : ) What many may not know, however, is that Walt Disney’s first animation effort went bankrupt and he lost the rights to his first commercially successful character (the forgotten Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.)

Oprah Winfrey
Billionaire Oprah Winfrey hosted her own internationally popular talk show for 25 years, starting in 1986. She is also an actress, philanthropist, publisher, and producer. I love Oprah! It’s funny now to think that when she first started her career, the new director told her “nobody is going to remember the name Oprah”, and she was asked to change her name to Suzie. Funny! We all know Oprah. I love her!

Martin Luther King, Jr.
Baptist minister and social activist who led the civil rights movement in the United States. Dr. King inspired thousands of people through his eloquence and fearlessness. He showed through his courage that he was prepared to give his life for the cause of freedom. In 1964, Dr. King became the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

If you’re writing posts for your blog it can sometimes be a challenge to figure out what to write. It’s a common experience to get stuck sometimes – after all, we have the term “writer’s block” for a reason, right? So what can you do when this happens?

You could ask your readers what info they’re in need of as it relates to your biz. You could write about whatever comes to mind. You could scan news sites and other blogs. You could talk with a friend or colleague for inspiration. But then what? Even if you come up with what you think is a good idea, how can you know if your readers will be interested in the topic you have in mind?

Thanks to Google, there’s a free tool called Keyword Tool that can help out.

With Google’s Keyword Tool you can do a search to get keyword ideas, as well as to see how many people are searching for your keyword term. There are three options to choose from: searches by word or phrase, website URL, or category. To narrow down results by language or country, click “advanced options and filters” above the search button.

In the screenshot above, for instance, we see that a search for the keyword category of “adventure travel” results in the following keyword suggestions: “Galapagos”, “Zipline”, and “Kilimanjaro”. If your business provides adventure travel vacation packages, for example, you could consider writing a post about one of these topics or about any of the other suggested keyword ideas.

The Keyword Tool can help get your blog post off to a great start by helping you to identify topics that are likely to be of interest to your readers. From there, be sure to focus on producing quality content that readers will want to share. The more valuable your content, the more likely you’ll attract inbound links and leads for your business.

Do you use the Keyword Tool to help inspire ideas for your blog posts? What other ideas can help overcome writer’s block? Feel free to share suggestions in comments below.

Creative Commons photo thanks to alexanderdrachmann at Flickr.

When you’re first starting out on Twitter, it can be hard to know who to follow, for example. As a result, you may end up following anyone who follows you, including those who do not share your areas of interest. The problem with this is that your tweet stream will then be mostly noise – that is to say, updates that do not provide you with much value. When this happens the many opportunities that Twitter provides are lost. It’s at this point when many people give up on Twitter.

It doesn’t have to be like this.

Twitter can help your business: the key is to follow the right people. If you’re wondering how to find great people to follow, check out my previous post: “How To Find Awesome People To Follow On Twitter.”

Meanwhile, before you jump in to Twitter it’s important to know what you want to get out of it. If you are using Twitter primarily to grow your business, you need to know what you’re aiming for. That way you’ll have a better idea as you use Twitter if you’re moving in the right direction.

Top 15 Ways Twitter Can Help Your Business Grow:

Twitter gives you a way to …

1. Connect with people who may be interested in your products/services.
2. Develop and nurture an online relationship with existing clients or customers.
3. Find out about trends related to your niche.
4. Discover new opportunities that may help your business.
5. Learn what your target audience needs as it relates to your business.
6. Connect with experts in your field.
7. Meet people you would otherwise not have an opportunity to meet – thought leaders, people in other locations, etc.
8. Let people know what your business is about and give people a sense of your personality.
9. Develop the “know/like/trust” factor that is important to help your business grow.
10. Create links to your blog. (Twitter is currently ranked as the #10 Most Visited Site according to Alexa.)
11. Get breaking news about your industry.
12. Ask people questions related to your industry to find out how you can serve them better.
13. Answer questions to further establish your credibility.
14. Raise awareness online about your business and give others an opportunity to spread the word about your business.
15. Identify leads. (Be selective in who you follow, read profiles and check tweet streams to see if someone is mentioning an interest in or need for what you offer.)

Like anything, it takes time to see results. As you develop your presence on Twitter, keep the benefits above in mind as a guide to evaluate if the way you’re using Twitter is working well for your business. If you’re not getting the results you seek, it could be that you just need to adjust the way you use Twitter, rather than abandon Twitter altogether.

In my next posts, I’ll share insights related to Twitter best practices and how to get the most out of Twitter. Want to know how to find great people to follow on Twitter? Check out my previous post: “How To Find Awesome People To Follow On Twitter”.

To your success!

@katrinah

This got me thinking about the importance of a good tagline.

If the name of your business does not directly communicate what your products or services are about, a good tagline can help explain what your business does as well as help differentiate your business from competitors.

What should you focus on when creating a tagline for your business?

Here are some general rules of thumb:

• Make it memorable: taglines that are easy for others to remember and repeat are best.
• Keep it short: shorter is better (aim for ten words or less).
• Communicate what your brand and business is about.
• Be sure it’s positive and confident.
• Reflect the brand’s identity and personality.
• Be unique: use your tagline to differentiate your business from others.

Here are some great examples of taglines:

Each of the above taglines communicates what the business is about in a short, memorable way, while at the same time projecting a positive, confident identity. What do you think? Do you have a tagline for your business? Feel free to share good examples in the comments, as well as any challenges you’ve come up against while trying to craft your own tagline.

A common frustration among new users, however, is figuring out how to maximize time spent on Twitter and how to use it to help grow one’s business.

How do you use Twitter to grow your business?

To get the most out of Twitter following the right people is key. If you follow random people, you’ll get random results. It’s best therefore to select people to follow based on shared interests, industry, and target audience. Below are 10 ways to find great people to follow on Twitter.

1. Check out Twitter’s “Who To Follow” Suggestions – this is located in the top right menu when you are logged in to your Twitter account.



2. “View Suggestions”, the first tab in the selection, suggests users to follow based on who you are already following.
3. “Browse By Interest”, the second tab, provides a list of top users to follow by topic interest area. I have found the “browse by interest” lists to be the most helpful since it gives a quick glance of thought leaders and trendsetters in your selected topic area. It’s always a great idea to connect with leaders in your industry as you can learn a lot from their tweets: articles they are reading, what’s on their minds, trends they are seeing, new opportunities, and more.
4. “Find Friends”, the third tab, enables you to connect to services you use (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo!, and AOL contacts) to discover which of your friends are using Twitter.
5. “Search By Name or Topic”, located just above these three tabs provides a way to search for specific names, individuals, and topics you are interested in. For example, if you run a restaurant business and are looking to connect with local food bloggers, you could do a search for ["food bloggers" + your location] to find local food bloggers.



6. Search Lists: Through “lists”, Twitter gives users an easy way to organize the many accounts they follow. A time-efficient way to find new people to follow therefore, is to check out the lists of people you are already following. It’s especially helpful to check the lists created by thought leaders in your niche. In this way you can take advantage of the time others have already spent to find great people to follow.



7. Search WeFollow.com: Developed in 2009, WeFollow is a user-powered Twitter directory made up from tags created by users themselves. Although it appears that maintenance of this directory may have stopped (the copyright in the site’s footer says 2009), it can still be used as a helpful resource to find new users to follow. You can find people to follow by searching by keyword, topic, tag, city, and popularity.
8. Search Hashtags: On Twitter people use the hashtag symbol # before relevant keywords in their Tweet to categorize those Tweets to show more easily in Twitter Search. By searching for hashtags relevant to your business or niche you can find others who share your interests.
9. Check Out Who People Are Talking With: If you are already connected to someone in your niche area, see who they are talking to and check out that person’s profile. Just like at a dinner party when you meet friends through friends, you can find interesting new people to follow on Twitter by following people who are talking with the people you are already following.
10. Check Out People Who Mention or RT Your Tweets: You can search for mentions of your Twitter handle via Twitter Search. When people retweet or share your tweets with their followers they are essentially showing you that they found your tweets valuable, otherwise they would not be sharing your content, right? You can check out their profile and consider following them if you they appear to share your interests, industry, or target market.

By following the recommendations above you’ll be on your way toward getting more out of Twitter and creating online relationships that may lead to potential customers or clients for your business down the road. Know of other ways to find new people to follow who share your interests, market niche, or who are a part of your target audience? Feel free to share suggestions in comments below.