Session Summary Prepared for Attendees of the NSA Winter Conference.

Your personal brand is made up of the thoughts, feelings, ideas and perceptions people holds in their mind about who you are. It is essential to first consider the brand you are building before trying to position yourself online using social media and social networking tools. Your website is the hub for your brand and it should powerfully reflect who you are and the value you have to offer.

To assist you with the personal branding discovery process, I invite you to take a 360 Personal Branding Assessment – [Read More...]

Social Media Marketing Notes Prepared for Attendees of the Be The Change Event.

Your personal brand is made up of the thoughts, feelings, ideas and perceptions people holds in their mind about who you are. It is essential to first consider the brand you are building before trying to position yourself online using social media and social networking tools. Your website is the hub for your brand and it should powerfully reflect who you are and the value you have to offer.

To assist you with the personal branding discovery process, I invite you to take a 360 Personal Branding Assessment – http://www.reachcc.com/360v4register. There is a premium version of this report [Read More...]

Often times clients will ask me, “Lethia, is my website a good website?” My response is always the same, “How much money are you making from your website?”

You see if your website isn’t bringing you more clients, then it is nothing more than an expensive business card used to share information with people who already know you.

When analyzing your website there are key things you must keep in mind:

1) Does your website accurately represent your brand?

2) Is your website easy to find via search engines? Is it search engine optimized (SEO)?

3) Do you have a powerful “Call To Action” (CTA) which leads visitors to your desired result?

4) Do you have a mechanism for capturing email [Read More...]

Personal branding and social media marketing strategy are hot topics for today’s business owners. Because these topics are so essential to effectively promoting your business online, I frequently encourage my friends, fans and followers to post their personal branding and social media related questions on my facebook fan page (http://facebook.LethiaOwens.com).

I am excited to share that last month (Dec ‘09) there were 49 questions and comments posted. The fan page was pretty active last month so thanks for taking time to stop by and engage with me. I would like to help even more people so please continue posting your comments and share the page with your friends.

One of the most powerful ways to connect with your clients and patients is through email marketing. In order to use this powerful method of communication, your reader must first opt-in to your list. This means they must first give you permission to send them information via email.

According to CNET News, junk and spam mail accounts for over 90% of all email messages. Users are becoming more and more skeptical and reluctant to give out their email address. For marketers this means we must be even more creative and clever when encouraging users to sign up for our list.

7 powerful ways to increase newsletter sign-ups: Compelling Offer – Give readers [Read More...]

You may have already heard how important Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to promoting your brand online but maybe you haven’t yet learned to leverage the power of Social media optimization (SMO). In order to understand the power of SMO, we must first revisit the definition of social media.

Wikipedia describes social media as…

The online tools and platforms that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives with each other. Social media can take many different forms, including text, images, audio, and video. Popular social mediums include blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis, and vlogs.”

As you begin to leverage social media as part of your online marketing strategy, you will increase your ROI by [Read More...]

If you want to attract more traffic to your website from local visitors, it is essential that you develop a local search strategy. Your strategy should consist of two main tools; Google Business Center and Google Profile.

Claiming Your Identity on Google Profile: 1) Visit www.Google.com/Profile and create a profile that is rich in keywords and powerfully depicts what makes you valuable and unique. As of now, your profile will show up at the bottom of regular search results, but as people begin to use the tool it is likely that Google will start featuring your profile at the top of search results for your name.

Examples [Read More...]

When working with clients I teach a four-step process for using the internet and social media to gain increased visibility for their brand. The first step is to “Create” content and add it to your hub (website) and other sites connected to your hub. The second step is to “Connect” all of the content you have created and create accounts on social networks so you can connect with “Fans”, “Friends” and “Followers.” The third step called “Promote” focuses on your promotion and marketing strategy. The fourth step is “Automation” and involves configuring social media tools in such a way as to put parts of your social media [Read More...]

Twitter is a powerful personal branding tool that levels the playing field and provides an opportunity for you to connect with people you may have otherwise never met. Though the tool is powerful, getting the most out of it requires a strategy for increasing your followers within your niche market. Here are 5 simple strategies for increasing your Twitter followers:

1. Brand Your Profile – People will be more likely to follow you if you have a branded profile page. Taking just a few minutes to add a photo, bio and description will go a long way in helping visitors decide if they want to follow your updates. To make your profile even more powerful I [Read More...]