Are you ready to put social media to work and successfully integrate it into your organization? Join over 900 forward-thinking professionals and business owners who are rolling up their sleeves to get social media working for them. Over 34 hands-on, in-depth workshops will be taught by Top National Social Media Experts like Brian Solis, Mack Collier, Jason Falls, Joy Kennelly, and many more. Walk away with all the critical, new Internet marketing and communication skills and strategies necessary to apply the power of social media to your business immediately!

Bring your laptop to each session and experience hands-on demonstrations and interaction with all our instructors as they share step-by-step exercises and real-world case studies. You will learn key concepts on integrating social media, online public relations, website design and function, search engine optimization, email, mobile and video marketing, and more. Everything you need to know to survive and thrive in today’s business environment!

Social Media Optimization Summits registration fee is only $400 per person because you are a VIP of Joy A. Kennelly!

Visit www.OptimizationSummits.com to find out more about the event. (Scroll down.)

Sign up via Joy’s VIP Registration Page to receive your discount!

Beyond Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn: Introducing, Combining, and Leveraging New Opportunities to Boost Your Brand: Presented by Joy A. Kennelly

You’re aware of (and probably use) many of the new media opportunities out there to promote your message and brand; but did you know that there are literally hundreds more platforms out there that could be highly effective for your particular business and promotional efforts?  Imagine how much more effective your marketing could be just by using a few more of the opportunities out there; then envision the entirely new dimensions of success you could achieve by leveraging them together toward an exponentially supercharged result!  Attend this session and dramatically expand your awareness and knowledge of the online promotional opportunities available today and what they can do for you!

You’ll learn: how to search engine optimize your press releases to make them appear higher in Google rankings; how to promote your efforts using over 100 online calendars and other great online marketing channels; how to coordinate and leverage your efforts across multiple platforms (including LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Meetup, etc.) and gain the biggest possible promotional push and more!

Who Attends · Communications Professionals · Advertising Professionals · Marketing Professionals · Public Relations Professionals · Employee Communication Directors · Human Resource Professionals · Community Managers · Knowledge Managers · Customer Service & CRM Professionals · Business Managers

See you in Dallas! We can be reached by calling 727-784-9469 or by sending an email to info@optimizationsummits.com Help us provide you with pre-event information: Please be certain to use the business address where you receive mail. Please be certain to use the business telephone number where you can receive calls. Most if not all of our correspondence prior to the event will be done via email. This includes your confirmation, receipt, changes and updates for the Optimization Summits and tips that help you get the most out of the Summit. If you are completing this form for someone else please make certain you provide us with the email address of the person who will be attending so that they receive our communications. We respect your privacy and will not rent or sell your email address.

Optimization Summits With Joy Kennelly Thursday, September 16, 2010 8:00 AM - Friday, September 17, 2010 6:15 PM (Central Time) Sheraton (214) 922-8000 400 North Olive Street Dallas, Texas 75201 United States Map and Directions FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CALL OR EMAIL: Phone: 727 784 9469, Email: info@optimizationsummits.com, THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE WITH A COMPLETE LIST OF WORKSHOPS: Optimization Summits PAYMENT INSTRUCTIONS: Note: To pay by credit card please register online, select the “Will Call With Payment Information” option and either call or fax your credit card information to: Telephone: 727.784.9469 • Fax: 727.784.7978 -or- Make your check payable and remit to: Multifamilypro 3013 Regal Oaks Blvd. Palm Harbor, FL 34684

Cross-platform syndication enables you to write just once and to populate a variety of online media services. As an example, the same tweets I was discussing above were also captured by my facebook, linkedin and wordpress pages, which I had already set up to that end. Plaxo was in turn displaying the same updates by getting them from facebook.

I posted full length articles on my blog once a day, which get also further announced and propagated across tweeter, facebook, plaxo and linkedin. A “share this” or “add this” button enables others to continue to disseminate my content from my blog, also in a cross-platform syndication fashion.

Needless to say that this micro blogging and blogging activity kept me not only more focused on making the most of this conference, but also enabled me to engage in online conversations with others who shared the same interest in the event’s topic, some of which became face to face and, interestingly enough, email discussions that are still going.

LinkedIn offers account holders, those holding free accounts and those with a  Premium account, the ability to automatically show Twitter messages in their status updates. And, if you use WordPress or TypePad you can have each new post show on your LinkedIn home page.

A Facebook Fan page can be customized and one of those customized tabs can be an RSS Feed of your blog. Also, an application called Networked Blogs can be added to the Fan page to add your blog feed directly into the Fan page NewsFeed. The same application can be added to your personal profile page as well.

As of April 21, 2010 Facebook brings in your personal profile to other social platforms and gives you an opportunity to ‘Like’ that page or website, which posts to your personal profile NewsFeed.

Your blogging platform, free or otherwise, offers you the ability to announce your new blog post to all of your social media accounts.

Slow Down and Think Before Connecting

Now that you know this, please don’t go changing each of your accounts to reflect the status updates of the others just yet.

First you must consider the reason you have each account. Here are some basic reasons most of us have these accounts:

• LinkedIn – for professional use. To connect with professionals in your industry, learn and participate in groups related to your industry, and meet local connections.
• Facebook Fan Page – for business use. To connect with your customers and potential customers, separate yourself from your competition and create a space for people interested in your service or product to talk to you and to others.
• Facebook Personal Profile – for personal use. To connect with family and friends, share personal stories about interesting events in our lives, post photos of our kids and pets.
• Blog – for business use. To tell visitors interesting things about parts of your business, service or personnel  that they otherwise wouldn’t know.

If you are using all of these for one use, business or personal, then linking them together makes sense. But think about this; If your Twitter account is connected to your LinkedIn account, then the next time you tweet a message it will show up on your LinkedIn status – is this what you want your professional connections to see? Really? What if your last Tweet was about:

• Your reaction to a lousy movie?
• Your spouse’s broken finger episode?
• Your dog’s reaction to eating brussel sprouts?
• Your reaction to your dog’s reaction?

Seriously. Please consider the consequences of your social media sharing and make sure you understand what each platform is being used for – by other people. If you don’t, you will lose business opportunities and personal connections. There are many people on Facebook right now cleaning up their Friends list because their NewsFeeds are filled with product or business ‘advertising’. There are many people on LinkedIn removing contacts because the status updates are ridiculous or offensive (imagine reading a status update from a business contact that includes the F*** bomb).

Sometimes people get the misconception that social media is all about them. Well, it’s not. Social media is all about the other people reading and chatting with you. If you keep that in mind and apply common sense, basic etiquette (business and personal) you will find yourself connected to fascinating people interested in helping you succeed in your business and in your personal life.

I keep missing the Pittsburgh Tweet-ups (I never seem to be in town when one is going on), I missed a couple of LA Tweet-up’s over the past year, but I was able to finally attend a recent Tweet-up, this one was a Tweet-Up for LA Actors.

When I went, I already knew some of the actors as I had worked with them or knew them personally, knew some from online relationships we had developed, knew some via their Twitter name and met some great “tweeps” (peeps in Twitterease) at the event.

I was really impressed by the organization of the event and genuine fun we all had at the event.

Because of this, I felt inspired to share with you things that actors can teach us About Tweet-Ups.

1. Take The Initiative and Go To Your Target Audience. Make the effort to research your specific target audience for your event, and offer compelling information that your audience would want so they know you are a trusted source and they could get something out of your event.

2. Provide Event Details Early and Regularly. Since Twitter only allows updates of 140 characters or less, the Tweet-Up organizers sent updates in advance of the event – the update was in the form of a link to a website where you could go to get the event details and be able to RSVP to the event. That’s exactly what I did – I got the info, RSVP’ed and put the info into my iCal. Then, the Tweet-Up organizers tweeted regularly reminding everyone about the event. The reminders were enough that people would remember about the event, but not obnoxious to discourage them from attending the event. There is a fine line between good promotion and tacky promotion.

3. Be Ready to Cultivate. I don’t like using the word “networking”, it seems to have a negative meaning these days and implies schmoozing. The Tweet-Up organizers immediately created an environment to cultivate relationships:

-They had a bowl to drop your business card so you were on their list for future Tweet-Ups.
-They created specially-designed name tags to list your Twitter name (@susynandfolsom is mine, by the way) and let’s face it – most of us knew or met each other by our Twitter names, which was a great way to remember each other.
-Because the event organizers were clear about the event beforehand, everyone knew what to expect and it made chatting about a variety of topics and meeting new people all the more easier and effective.
-They provided such a great environment that everyone wanted to follow-up with each other and stay in contact. In fact, I ended up following many new tweeps and many followed me.

4. Be Grateful. I think the best part of the event was knowing how grateful the Tweet-Up organizers were that we were there.

I get invited to many events but the ones that make me feel good – the ones that make me feel like the organizer planned it just for me and wanted to make sure I enjoyed it – are the ones I treasure most.

People just love free stuff. Free is one of the most valuable marketing tools a blogger has. For a blogger, the cost of free is, well, pretty much free (sans your time). The trick to pricing free is that something has to make up for all that free stuff you give away.

Pricing Free

Now, I know this seems a little weird to talk about pricing free but bear with me for a second. What I mean is that the free stuff you give away has to be balanced by the stuff that people can buy. You also need to price this free content so you can really figure out what it’s worth to a customer. Consider the price of your free material as the additional price adder you have to add to your product offerings. These free offerings are what you hope will entice your customers to fork over their hard earned money for your products.
Some products are easier to give away free than others. Usually, these products are ones where the cost of production rounds to zero. Some of the products that bloggers can give away for free include:

• Free eBooks: Some bloggers will give away the eBook version of their physical book for free to give customers the ability to value the content by eventually paying for it. This not only lets customers “try before they buy” but gives you valuable marketing insights into what sells.
• Free Advice: Most of us that blog are really giving our readers free advice or commentary on certain subjects. If you make this advice high quality, then your readers will be enticed to purchase other materials from you. Think about that every time you post to your blog.
• Free Guest Posts: Guests posts are as free as posting on your blog. It can sometimes be hard to get a guest post but you should endeavor to try. A high quality guest post, on a high traffic site will be the best use of your time.
• Free Reviews or Comparisons or Compatibility Reports: Reviews can be a great free technique since usually people that stumble upon a review want to buy something.
• Free Pod Casts: Audio is a little more expensive than plain blogging but is still a good free strategy if the cost of production is not too out of control. Typical free Pod Casts include excerpts from longer, paid for material.
• Free How to Videos: Snippets or “commercials” of a video will cost you more than posting but will reach a different audience that might not want to read your blog posts.
• Free Manuals: Physical manuals or how-to-guides can be a little pricy to purchase but most people that are looking into how-to-do something usually want more details. So, giving away some of the manual for free (maybe as an eBook) is a good way to make up for the price of free on the full manual.
• Free Music: Depending on the quality, music is pretty cheap and is a great way to get people exposed to what you can do.
• Free Software: A trial or limited version of software is a pretty cheap way to allow potential customers to sample before they buy. If you provide a web based solution, then the free trial is your single best free marketing tool.
• Free Movies: Movies are expensive to produce but shorts or trailers are effective ways to get people interested in the full version.

Looking at all the options, it’s kind of obvious that when you price your free stuff, the costs to produce and distribute it is a critical factor. As you can see, the list above contains no “physical” products. It’s all just bits that once produced, can be reproduced really cheap. This is the critical part about pricing free – you want to give away products that are cheap for you to make and distribute but are part of bigger products. This means that your “free price” is actually reflected in your product price.

The Real Price of Free

I am sure you have gathered by now that we really don’t price free. Rather, we have to price our products to reflect our free offerings. These free offerings need to drive the customer to buy our other products. In order to support your free products, consider some of the methods that available to support your give-a-ways:

• Advertisements: Ads are a reasonably good way to at least cover your baseline costs. Ads really start to kick in when your traffic volume goes up. So, this method may work in the long run but your free offerings really have to drive traffic (which is kind of the point anyway).
• Affiliate Sales: Selling products that you write about is a more targeted way to cover your free offerings. Affiliate programs can also cater to your target market, which allows for more conversions.
• Premium Content: Video, Pod Casts, Interactive Forums: Some free content is just excerpts from premium content that allows the customer to taste a little bit about what might be inside. When pricing this kind of free offering, it’s important to give away some of the quality content so that potential customers can see real value.
• Books: Authors give away pieces of their printed books in order to give readers a better sense of what’s inside. When you free content is backed up by something a customer can buy, then the price of free may be that your book sales will only take off once customers can share more of the content with their friends.
• Subscriptions: Free content is a great way to get customers to subscribe to your service. In this case, the free offering needs to directly relate to the subscription service and allow a deeper, richer experience. The price of free in this case may be allowing free trails or having some key opinion leaders on your subscription site for free.
• Speaking Engagements / Seminars: Speaking gigs usually result from being an expert in some area. Your free content should give you the credibility to charge audiences for your time. So, the price of free would be the time it takes you to generate the free content.
• Full Length Movies / Music: A trailer or sampler can be just enough of a hook for a customer to buy the full length album or feature. In this case, the price of free is really just in making the trailer or sample – the full length feature is already going to be made.
• Premium Software: Since the cost of manufacturing software rounds to zero, the price of a premium software product as it relates to the free version is a matter of how much features and functions the free ones has. If you have too much free function, then that will encroach on sales but you can also limit the full version free trail to some fixed amount of time.

Free is Not That Free

For the content creator, giving away your content for free is a tool to sell your premium content. When pricing your free content, remember to look at the creation costs and the manufacturing/distribution costs. Strive to give away content that is essentially free to manufacture and distribute. That way, the cost adders to your premium content (the stuff people pay for) can be kept in check.