I had the most wonderful Sunday lunch at a local pub today with my daughter – just the two of us as she’s off on a school trip tomorrow and I wanted to spend today hanging out and enjoying her company.
What made our time together so wonderful was the engagement, the living in the moment mindfulness that comes when you truly connect with someone else. It’s that same presence and connection you need to bring to your interactions online – through blogs, emails, social media, forums and so on – in order to spread your reach and ramp up your influence.
Now, all of that might sound nebulous but isn’t that what the internet is all about: connection? With that in mind, this Weekend’s Takeaways are aimed at helping you do just that: build stronger connections that will boost you, your brand or message and ultimately your profits.
First up is this excellent piece on How To Get More Twitter Followers, not by slapping down a few bucks on Fiverr but by doing things the right way that gets real results:
http://diythemes.com/thesis/get-more-twitter-followers/
Now, I totally agree with them that email marketing is still King (more on that later) but Twitter is still a formidable force for engagement as well as research and traffic generation so I recommend you read this piece as well:
http://www.youngadultmoney.com/2012/09/12/how-i-got-50000-twitter-followers/
If you haven’t come across it, Just Retweet is a great site for increasing your Twitter following and therefore impact:
Of course one of the keys to increasing engagement is producing great content in the first place which brings its attendant Google love and SEO benefits. For a valuable take on that, go here:
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-increase-engagement-with-your-audience/62866/
Like things apptastic? You’re in luck because I also came across this nice guide to 5 of them that will make engaging even easier:
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-mobile-video-apps-to-boost-online-engagement/
On to this week’s Kindle freebies and I’m kicking off with a Kindle Marketing Ninja Guide. Kindle is an excellent way to not only make money but engage with your target audience and this concise guide contains some excellent nuggets:
http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Marketing-Ninja-Guide-ebook/dp/B00BLR40FC/
Remember that great content I talked about earlier and how it’s a crucial part of the online success jigsaw? Well, here’s another guide with some great ways to repurpose the content you already have and, in the process, make it work a lot harder for you:
http://www.amazon.com/Content-Marketing-Money-Machine-ebook/dp/B00D2YLZLY
I also rather like this short but informative book on Goal Sticking – there’s no point in my talking engagement if you haven’t yet started that blog/Facebook page/Twitter campaign so if you need some help going after what you want (online or off) this is definitely for you:
http://www.amazon.com/Goal-Sticking-Setting-Success-ebook/dp/B00BCVJ2NW/
And if you need some more free premium theme suggestions to help you set up that blog or refresh your current one so it expresses what you are about more strongly then check this lot out:
http://onwpthemes.wordpress.com/2013/05/18/15-of-the-best-free-premium-wordpress-themes-may-2013/
Finally, you know I’m a big fan of TED talks to inspire, ignite or simply educate and here’s a list of the Top 20 most watched of all time, aka the most engaging…watch and learn:
http://blog.ted.com/2012/08/21/the-20-most-watched-ted-talks-to-date/
And if you want to take a look at my favourite, here it is (yes, it’s a favourite with a lot of other people too and for very good reasons):
