VernonGirl

Inspiration is a friend with benefits for copy writers

According to Kelly Diels (owner of Cleavage, a blog about sex, money and meaning) inspiration is fickle. It's a friend with benefits for copywriters. Something that rarely comes, except maybe each six weeks. So copywriters must find inspiration in the mundane. Something beautiful can be found in a grocery list, an email to a friend, a bank lineup, or an SMS message. Ideas from everyday experiences are what Diels says to use for putting together brilliant copy. We all lead lives with responsibilities. Some of us are mothers, wives, workers. "Prisoners can still write brilliant poetry between beatings." she says

But Diels had more than that to offer during the two hour Red Shoe Blogger Writing Workshop I took July 2010 in downtown Vancouver.

Getting to the workshop on time was exciting.

I woke up at 4 a.m. and my husband and I packed our camping gear and kids into our F350 Diesel one-tonne truck and headed to Vancouver from Vernon. We were going to the island with our seven and nine year old boys for a holiday, anyway, so the workshop was a couldn't-miss opportunity.

A quick stop for breakfast at Denny's in Kamloops was a nice relief, but then I quickly realized that getting to the workshop on time would be tight. Over the Coquihalla highway we flew, with the kids asking, "How long 'til we get there?" about every half an hour. When we got stuck in a construction traffic jam in Surrey, I thought for sure I wouldn't make the one o'clock workshop at all. Traffic over the Port Mann bridge turtled along. We wound our way along Hastings, an area known to be populated with homeless, mostly heroin drug users. My kids were fascinated with the "Hobos." I have no idea where they got that word. We reiterated to them in our most serious parenting voices, "Never try those little white candies with the faces on them, or you'll end up here."

Finally, success. We arrived at the corner of Hastings and Cambie. My husband circled the block once so he could figure out exactly the right place to drop me off. (He takes care of me.) "I don't think I'll be able to park the truck here with all the camping gear in the back if we want to come back to any of it." he said. I said, "I've got my phone. I'll text you when the workshop is done. Are you going to be okay with the kids?" "we'll be fine." he said. I slipped into the Black Block building for a rich experience that will forever change my perspective about copy writing, words, language and memoirs.

The Black Block building was modern, clean and contemporary. Glass and granite, juxtaposed with brick and rod iron. A stark contrast from the down-the-street scene of needles, shopping carts, dirty faces and desperation.

I was late, but Kelly addressed me by name. "Hi Courtenay." I could tell who she was. She has very bright eyes. Curled eyelashes. Her students were around an Ikea-like white pine round boardroomesque table. Leaning into her. Some of them had chins on hands, like lovestruck teenagers. All women in their mid-thirties, early forties. Except two men. Young men. I think one was an Engineer. He seemed nice. Asian fellow. A white guy, kind of good-looking but a little annoying, kept asking Kelly about vulnerability. "Have you ever been too scared to post anything." He was either echoing his fears or trying to find cracks in her veneer. Either way, he bugged me. She handled him well, no getting defensive with his questions. He was verging on playing mind-games.

I noticed that no one was really taking notes. Maybe I missed the beginning where she told everyone that she would send them a copy of the presentation. I did arrive 15 minutes late. I hate being so rude.

Her workshop had me on the edge of my seat. But, I've learned from many failed university tests to take notes, even when I'm mesmerized. Here is my interpretation of Kelly's wisdom:

1) Grocery lists, emails, SMS messages and bank line-ups can all be inspiration for stories. Keep an audio recorder (I use my iphone) handy and record your thoughts. Take ideas from your daily interaction with people. Be constantly thinking about writing. Jot your ideas down so you'll have them for when you are ready to write.

2) Form a habit for writing. Take the time to sit down at the computer and give it the hairy eyeball until something comes to you. Like meditation is to yoga, ritual is to writing. Make it a daily ritual or habit. Give yourself permission to carve out time for it so it gets easier.

3) Don't expect Perfection. "Your skills will always fall short of your vision." Kelly says. Just write and see what comes of it. If you wait for perfection, it will lead to procrastination. Near perfection comes with practice. It's an art, a craft. Pursue it with diligence.

4) Don't wait for inspiration, go after it with a club. Consistency, communication, conversation, being open to engage in ideas, finding like-minded people, reading inspiring blogs, reading about writing structure and reading poetry will give you new ways of expression.

5) Write personal. Kelly calls this "emotional resonance." Weave your story into the article or piece you are writing. Your story is unique and universal. Kelly says, "it's emblematic of our time". Your story may seem boring to you, but it is really interesting to someone else in another place. In the future, the story you write today will seem very fresh: a new perspective or experience for the reader. Sometimes the story you write may make you feel vulnerable. Take a risk. Articulate the silence.

6) Make sentences surprising. Show, don't tell. Avoid cliches. Stop using dying or worn-out metaphors. Find another way to say something so it becomes interesting. Reverse the way you say something. (She used the example "hopeful cars and V8 hearts".) Remove the words "just" and "very". Describe the tiny details. (ie: "She hit me on the crown of my human head." instead of saying "She hit me on the head.") Start with one feeling and end with another. Contrast black with white, or sweet with sour (ie: ice cream with black pepper).

7) Fully explore a word. Uncover its meaning. "Riff on it." Kelly says. Deconstruct it. Learn its etymology. Roll it around on your tongue. Rhyme it. Examine the perceptions it invokes. Is it spiritual or practical? (Like Danielle LaPorte). Come at it from all angles and connotations. Add some flavour to your words with Virtual Salt. Check out YouTube for Def jam poetry. (Like this Jamie Foxx video.)

8) Use the basics. Get someone to edit for you. Read a piece aloud before you publish it. Stop using emoticons. Drop adverbs. Spellcheck.

9) Revive English-in-high-school tricks and find more. Amplification: repeat a word and phrase over and over to emphasize it. Understatement: flatly describe a fraught topic (Penelope Trunk). Hyperbole: imaginative but over-the-top. "Be extravagant and make shit up." Kelly says. Deliberately embrace run-ons and fragments. Insert conversation or something unexpected. Engage the senses - smell - touch - taste. Use cheezy hip-hop videos to find creative phrases. (ie: "I'll make your bedrock.") Or Hamlet (ie: "I'll speak daggers to her.").

10) Get intimate with voice. Mimic someone for a while. Get into their style. Develop new tools, new feeling and a new repertoire by learning how to write like someone else.

After the workshop, I slipped passed a group of Asian sailor boys dressed in their white navy uniforms down Cambie Street to find my husband and kids sitting in the truck licking icecream and just as happy as can be. While I was in my workshop, they toured Robson Street. As it turns out, my oldest son loved people watching. He really liked Vancouver. It truly is an amazing city.

If you ever get the opportunity to take one of Kelly Diel's writing workshops, I highly recommend it. In the first twenty minutes, I felt I got my money's worth. The next 100 minutes were a bonus.

Where do you get inspiration for writing your blog, stories, marketing pieces, poetry or general memoirs? I would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment at my blog at http://www.vernongirl.com.

Thanks for reading.

Courtenay Pitcher, aspiring writer

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/vernongirl

Slideshare - Grow Your Business With Social Media

Grow your business with social media

View more presentations from Courtenay Pitcher.

Here is a slideshare presentation of a recent presentation I made about How To Grow Your Business With Social Media.

There was a question that came up during the presentation:

"How do I invite people to become Fans of my Facebook page if they are not already my friends. I have their email addresses."

Answer: You must first "Friend" them on Facebook, using their email, and then you can invite them to be a Fan. If you don't want to "Friend" them, you just have to make sure that your Facebook Fan Page is engaging enough that they will Fan you themselves.

Remember, you could send them an individual email and ask them to become a Fan. I'm not suggesting that you SPAM everyone. But one nice personalized note, popped through the email, is still okay, in my opinion.

Thanks for reading!

Courtenay Pitcher

What are your website objectives?

An Internet presence should begin with a website.
Here are some objectives that your website can accomplish:

*Attract new customers
*Reduce the time to market of certain products or services
*Make announcements to current customers
*Reduce paper and postage charges by using email
*Inform and educate clients about products and services
*Service existing clients
*Advertise your business around the world
*Advertise your business locally
*Increase the value of your company
*Increase your company’s credibility
*Improve your company’s image
*Help you and your staff spend less time on the phone with customers
*Attract new employees
*Show examples of your work
*Replace your brochure with quicker information fulfillment
*Replace service manuals
*Help your customers locate key personnel
*Promote upcoming events
*Attract entrepreneurs to business opportunities
*Offer on-line product purchases and/or product knowledge
*Demonstrate that you are great corporate citizens
*Attract shareholders
*Open a new communication channel to media
*Explain who you do business with (partnerships)
*Book appointments or reservations
*Take applications

Establishing credibility is one of the most underestimated powers of a good website…and a dangerous one for some consumers. A colleague of mine – a webmaster – told me about his pawn shop client who has a website. If you walk into the guy’s store, you see carpet that hasn’t been changed for 30 years and dust that’s at least that old, too. Yet, he has the most incredible website – with nice graphics and professional design, great information and a sophisticated shopping cart system. (That’s because my colleague, the webmaster, designed it for him.) His customers from around the country who buy products off his site will likely never know what a pigsty his store is. His website is first-rate and that is all they will ever see. (Boy! You gotta be careful with Internet blind dates if this principle applies!)

Think of it the opposite way. Sometimes you are better off to pull an ugly website off the Internet if it creates a bad impression of your business. One of my clients had a large website for their Optometry business when they hired me to help them update it. It was so outdated we pulled it off immediately and posted a single page that said: “We are currently renovating our website to serve you better. Please enter your email address and we’ll notify you as soon as we launch our new site.” The former site just didn’t reflect the quality of their service and products and so they were better off not using it at all.

To meet your objectives of what you want to accomplish with your website, here are some items to include:

*Frequently asked questions
*Company structure and staff, along with phone numbers and email addresses for all key personnel
*Products
*Services
*Prices
*Hours
*Locations and contact information, including physical addresses
*Directions or maps on how to find your stores
*Testimonials
*Warranties
*Employment information
*Business or franchise opportunities
*Vision/mission statement or corporate philosophy
*Number of years in business
*Upcoming events
*Community involvement and sponsorships
*Newsletter
*Shareholder information
*Search tool – especially if your website contains lots of information
*Portfolio (for designs, plans, art work, etc.)
*Listings (real estate agents)
*Reservations (accommodation)
*Vehicles (used and new cars)
*Book your appointment (vehicle maintenance, dental, etc.)
*Activities (travel, tour companies, event company)
*Packages
*Mortgage calculator (mortgage broker)
*Site Map – for larger sites
*Applications – financial industry
*Partners (companies you work with)
*Resources (links to helpful sites)
*Promotions
*Customer Care
*Awards

Realistic Expectations…

 “A friend called me up the other day and talked about investing in a dot-com that sells lobsters. Internet lobsters. Where will this end? The next day he sent me a huge package of lobsters on ice.
How low can you stoop?”
--Donald Trump

The owners of a manufacturing company came to me to help them develop a website. They did not have a marketing budget and were struggling to sell their quality wooden fireplace mantels into the state of Washington. They thought that if they had a website, residential home developers would phone them to buy wooden mantels.

It is a myth that a website is the overnight answer to your marketing problems. Like a brochure, your website must be designed, published (or in the case of a website – launched), distributed (emailed or advertised in social media sites like Facebook, Twitter or StumbleUpon) into the right hands, read (or seen), have a ‘call to action’ and target a willing participant who acts on the call. If you expect new business from your website, it needs to be promoted properly, measured for effectiveness, maintained and kept ‘fresh’.

For most people, giving birth to an effective website requires a substantial investment in time, planning and money. Although most websites take from three to six months from concept to launch, a nine-month investment in your website baby is not unrealistic if you expect a quality result (unless you have a superior marketing company to project manage for you).

Websites also serve certain marketing functions. Getting new overnight business from them is definitely not one. There are pros and cons to consider before deciding to put the website bun in the oven!

Website Advantages

*A great way to get information into the hands of your customers immediately
*Can be updated immediately
*Can present information statically and dynamically
*Are interactive – providing you with valuable customer feedback
*Are visual and can include audio
*Have unlimited space (very affordable)

Website Disadvantages
 
*Require frequent maintenance
*Can be costly to set up – both in time and money
*Are somewhat of a mystery – kind of like your car if you’re not a mechanic. Your webmaster, like your mechanic, has a lot of power and knowledge and you are subjected to trusting him or her.
*Have continual yearly and/or monthly fees including hosting, domain name renewal and maintenance

Consider Your Timeline…

 “If I had to sum up in a word what makes a good manager, I'd say decisiveness. You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you have to set a timetable and act.”
--Lee Iacocca

A typical website project, from design to launch, takes at least three to six months. The majority of the time is spent gathering ideas, images and text. Set a timeline for yourself and your web design team upon starting this project. Here is a check list that will help:

1.    Gather information, plan your site, and develop a bid document
2.    Have three design companies bid on your project
3.    Choose a design company
4.    Meet with design company to begin your project
5.    Wait for initial design concept
6.    Review the home-page and sub-page concept. Provide feedback.
7.    Review the home page and sub page again, give the web design company the go ahead to develop the remainder of the site.
8.    Wait for the design company to incorporate all of your images and text into the site.
9.    Review the completed site, test links, proof read, and provide feedback.
10.    Wait for the designers to make final adjustments to the site.
11.    Review the final design and sign it off. Have meta-tags (we’ll explain later) programmed into the site.
12.    Launch the site.
13.    Submit the site to key search engines and announce it to media and customers.
14.    Get your backup and passwords from the design company and make your final payment to the web design team.
15.    Promote, Promote, Promote!
16.    Track your success.
17.    Keep it fresh!

Patience and planning are key to making your website project a positive experience.

Don’t get e-screwed!

 “There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody.”
-Adlai E. Stevenson

When your gut feeling tells you that the prices are ridiculous, they probably are. Continue reading and you’ll know whether you’re paying a fair price for the services you are about to receive!

Budget…
Establish a budget to determine what you can afford. Most website designs start at $900 and up. This cost does not include your domain name ($25 - $45/year), hosting (from $180 per year and up), database ($1,500 and up), or e-commerce ($3,000 and up). Other charges can include maintenance ($40/hour and up) and promotion ($100 and up).

When considering your return on investment, determine ways that a website can save or make you money if it:

*Eliminates or reduces the need to print brochures or catalogues
*Cuts postage and faxing charges
*Cuts time for stuffing envelopes and packages
*Cuts long distance phone calls to customers or staff
*Saves printing charges for brochures, catalogues, annual reports, owner’s manuals, etc.
*Saves personnel time speaking with customers
*Saves personnel time searching for information
*Brings new customers
*Sells products

To do Internet marketing well, it requires its own marketing plan. Every activity in your Internet marketing plan should have a budget, an objective, a market and a way to track success.

Each activity should include costs for creative, time (human resources) and items such as hosting, advertising, maintenance or design charges.

Target Market
Consider who will use your website and it will be easier for you to determine your objectives. Will it be…
*Staff
*Present Customers
*Suppliers
*New Customers
*Distributors

Important for pricing and language considerations, is to determine where your website will be accessed from…
*Locally
*Nationally
*Internationally

Determine which age group will use your website as it will help you consider the information, type style, graphics and technology that you include in the site…
*Kids
*Teens
*Adults
*Seniors

You get the idea! As with other types of media, you have to know your market before you can design an effective website for it.

Revenue
Consider the ways that your website can bring in new revenue streams….
*Support existing products and services
*Offer New products and services
*Advertising or link exchanges
*New customers

Expenses
Consider some of the expenses of website development and marketing…
*Photograph acquisition
*Copywriting
*Design
*Hosting
*Maintenance
*Promotion

Price
Pricing of the website design, hosting and maintenance is important to consider as part of your marketing plan. I always advise my customers to start small and build. Get on the Net with a small investment. Begin promoting the site and generating traffic to it. Then expand.

You also need to consider how to price your products on your website. For example, will you offer discounts for on-line ordering? Will you use your website to blow out slow moving products? Will you offer your purchases in Canadian or US currency, or both?

If you feel that the website will be worth your time, energy and money, then let’s get started!

Blogs are also great alternatives to a website. Read more about blogs.

Thanks for reading.

Courtenay Pitcher, Webmaster, Website content writer

This article was adapted from my book: Secrets of Internet Marketing

Five Tips For Giving a Blog Interview

As blogging becomes more popular, you might be approached to give an interview to a Blogger (aka Writer, Journalist) so they can create a story about you or your business for their blog. Here is some etiquette on giving the interview and interview follow-up that I have learned by working with various media and publicity personnel over the years in traditional media. I have updated it here to apply to social media as well.

1. Everything is on the record. Bloggers are typically very good interviewers and they will ask you to provide the highs and lows of your business. The Blogger will also assume that everything you say is okay to print. So, if you do not want something in print, don't say it.

2. Make time for the interview. Typically, a Blogger is on a time schedule to make a deadline.  If you can provide the interview when they call you, that is typically most effective. You can ask the Blogger to schedule the interview at another time, but this can lose momentum. You want your story to get out immediately. A third party endorsement is great publicity. So try to make time for the interview as quickly as possible. You may lose the Blogger's interest, or get smaller exposure, if you delay.

3. Be honest and intimate. Bloggers are like bloodhounds. They can sniff a story and don't appreciate bull. Be honest. Be yourself. It goes a long way. They can tell when you're holding back information. Try to give the Blogger a nice new tidbit of info that nobody has written about you or your business before. Maybe a new revelation you've had, an award you've just received or a new client would be something to talk about. 

Reveal something sort-of intimate or personal, like an "inside scoop" or breaking news or developments. If you make a mistake and say something personal that you don't want in print, tell the Blogger that right away. Say, "Oops, I didn't mean to say that. Can you make sure that stays out of print?" Yes, this goes against the "Everything is on the record" point I made above. But Bloggers want to be able to come back to you later-on for more stories, so they don't want to damage their relationship with you. They will recognize your mistake and respect your wishes, usually (unless you are the former Mayor of Vernon and you are fudging receipts, lol.) 

4. Follow up with information or photos quickly. Bloggers are usually working with inspiration, or a timeline in mind. I write when I feel inspired. Then, I want to get the story posted as soon as possible so I can rest easy and feel a sense of accomplishment. I'm not as organized as other Bloggers who have a story plan and a publishing schedule.    No way.     So when I ask someone for a logo or a photo, I want in NOW. (Sorry, I'm a Type A personality.)

Additionally....a story looks better with a photo. In fact, your story gets greater exposure with a photo or video and has more credibility. If you can provide large web resolution photos to the Blogger for their use with the story, it will get you more mileage.

In terms of information...if you don't have it at your fingertips during the interview, tell the Blogger you'll get it right away and then do it. If you can't get the information you want right away, let the Blogger know when you can get it and see if that timeline is adequate. Maintain your integrity as a good source of information by updating the Blogger about the status of that information or following through with it.

5. Thank the Blogger publicly. Once the story is published, leave a comment on the blog endorsing the story or adding something extra to it. Tweet or retweet the story on Twitter. Promote the story on Facebook and/or leave a Facebook comment. These are great ways to build links and traffic back to your website, to show appreciation to your local Blogger who took the time to write about you, and to "toot" your own horn.

Blog interviews are now the new "media" interview. They are important and necessary for promoting your business. Bloggers are often looking for new, refreshing stories, so don't be afraid to approach them about your business.

Have you given a blog interview lately? Leave a comment at the bottom of my blog with a link to the story. I would love to read it.

Thanks for reading my blog.

Courtenay Pitcher

June 21st - Vernon - Grow Your Business With Social Media Event

When Brenda Hala approached me to provide a workshop on behalf of The Professional Photographers of Canada - BC (PPABC), I was delighted to say Yes!

Formerly called the Professional Photographers Association of BC, the association now calls itself Professional Photographers of Canada - BC to create a stronger voice across Canada.

The Association promotes and fosters the personal ethics and professional development of the working photographer and/or specialist.

Brenda Hala says that the principle focus of the PPABC is the advancement of their members and associates within the photographic industry through education, fellowship and public awareness.

Brenda is the one who takes my portrait photo. I always enjoy working with her because it's fun.

Join me for a workshop about marketing with social media, presented by the PPABC! The event is open to anyone.

Monday, June 21, 2010
8:30 a.m. - Networking and Registration
9:00 a.m. to Noon - Seminar

Location:

Village Green Hotel
4801-27th Street, Vernon, BC V1T 4Z1

Cost: $25 per person. Please pay at the door.
Cheque or cash only. No credit card.

For more information, and to pre-register, please contact:
Brenda Hala
250.542.3010
brendahalaphotography@shaw.ca

Topics will include:

LinkedIn - Learn how to network with LinkedIn for advancing your career or small business. Create a LinkedIn profile, get and give recommendations, connect your LinkedIn profile to Twitter, customize your website link, start or join a group, share what you are reading, or promote your blog or RSS feed.

Blogs – You’ll see how cheap and easy it is to begin blogging. Learn how to post articles, photos and YouTube.com videos to your blog. Learn what a category cloud is. Understand why you should comment on other blogs to promote your business. Learn why blogging can leverage your marketing, earn trust, gain you clients and increase your credibility.

Twitter – Set up a profile, tweet, retweet, direct message, reply, customize your Twitter background, and schedule tweets. How to brand yourself, increase traffic to your blog or website, build relationships and increase your profile using Twitter. Learn how to use Hootsuite.com. Learn powerful automation tricks to save time.

Facebook – Set up a Facebook page for your business. Learn how to engage people on your page. Get people to write on your wall and start discussions. Learn how to automatically bring in your RSS or blog feed.

See you there!

Courtenay Pitcher, Social Media Workshop Presenter

Linkwithin: A free secret weapon for getting readers to stay in your blog longer.

Many bloggers ask the question, "How can I get people to stay in my blog longer?" Linkwithin (not to be confused with LinkedIn) is my new secret weapon for getting readers to stay on my blog longer. If you have a blog, it's something you may want to add.

It's free.

It's very simple to add.

It doesn't come with advertising (other than an unobtrusive linkwithin link).

I have been very pleased with how it looks, how it pulls related articles and how it makes my site more "sticky" (people stay longer).

Photos are so important to a blog, and this little widget drives that point home. Linkwithin automatically pulls suggested articles to the bottom of your most recent blog post, and all of your other posts, along with a thumbnail photo from each article. You can tell it to pull three, four or five suggestions depending on how you would like it to look on your site.

Platforms it works on include:

Typepad
Blogger
Wordpress
(Other) ie: your own site

It is so attractive that it entices readers to stay longer on your blog. Readers poke around in other articles you've written.

This is what the sign up form looks like.




Don't get confused when you're setting it up because the process is so easy and simple. It literally takes about 1 minute.

How to set it up:

1. Open your blogging platform.
2. Then open linkwithin in a new window.
3. Fill out the form.
4. Hit the "get widget" picture.
5. Finish the prompts in your blogging platform to complete the process.

Presto, it's in there.

Articles are pulled based on categories or tags. Voila, you've got yourself an automatic-article-suggester-of-sorts. Now, watch your pageviews per unique visitor go waaaaaaay up. (If you're not sure what pageviews or unique visitors are, read this article about google analytics.)

If you add Linkwithin to your blog, please let me know how you like it by leaving a comment on this blog post. I love to hear your feedback.

Thanks for reading!

Courtenay Pitcher, Blogger

p.s. If you would like to get a blog and have it customized to your other branding, please contact me for a quote.

Import a blog to Facebook and update Twitter to Facebook and LinkedIn

While training a group of professionals yesterday about social media, these questions were popular. I've linked to their answers:

How to import your blog or RSS feed into Facebook.

How to update Twitter from Facebook and Facebook from Twitter.

How to import Twitter to LinkedIn.

Thanks for reading,

Courtenay

Slideshow - How Social Media Can Help Your Career

This slideshow describes what social media is, some of the various types (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Blogs), statistics and how they can help your career.

How Social Media Can Help Your Career

View more presentations from Courtenay Pitcher.

Grow Your Business With Social Media - Workshop - Vernon - April 17

Grow Your Business With Social Media
A Workshop With Courtenay Pitcher

Saturday, April 17, 2010 - 8:30 to Noon
Schubert Centre - 3505 30th Ave.  - Vernon, BC

For members and future members of Vernon Women in Business

$20 for members.

RSVP by April 10, 2010.

Register for the workshop.

8:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.         Networking and Registration
9:00 to 12:00                       Workshop

Laptops are welcome. We will be working live on the internet. Wireless access provided.

Topics will include:

LinkedIn - Learn how to network with LinkedIn for advancing your career or small business. Create a LinkedIn profile, get and give recommendations, connect your LinkedIn profile to Twitter, customize your website link, start or join a group, share your blog or rss feed.

Blogs – You’ll see how cheap and easy it is to begin blogging. Learn how to post articles, photos and YouTube videos to your blog. Learn what a category cloud is. Understand why you should comment on other blogs to promote your business. Learn why blogging can leverage your marketing, earn trust, clients and credibility.

Twitter – Set up a profile, tweet, retweet, direct message, reply, customize your Twitter background, and schedule tweets. How to brand yourself using Twitter, increase traffic to your blog or website, build relationships and increase your profile. Learn how to use Hootsuite. Learn powerful automation tricks to save time.

Facebook – Set up a Facebook Fan page for your business. Learn how to engage people on your Fan Page. Get people to write on your wall, start discussions, and automatically bring in your RSS or blog feed.

For more information, contact me or Cindy Bertrand, Director of Education for VWIB education@vwib.com

Hope to see you there!

Courtenay Pitcher, Social Media Coach

How social media and government money can help your career in Vernon or Kelowna

How can social media help your career? If you are a client or an alumni of the CBD Network in Vernon, B.C., you can find out on March 25, 2010 from Noon to 1:00 p.m. when I speak to that group. If you are thinking of jumping careers, or if you are looking for work, you may want to consider becoming a CBD Network client and attending this event.

CBD Network stands for Career Business Development network. They help professional and highly skilled people find work. They are great at it too. In fact, I was a client in 1999 after I was laid off from a full-time marketing position. (My lay-off was a result of the restructuring of a majour ski resort.) I also became a client in 2006 when I decided to put self-employment on the backburner for a while and get a "job" with a regular paycheque. (Obviously, I got bored with a regular paycheque and returned to self-employment because here I am writing this blog and promoting myself as an on-line marketing coach.)

The CBD Network's process teaches you how to identify what you really want in a career and put this information into a resume that positions you as an expert in your skill set. Then, they provide coaching around how to network and market yourself to that perfect career, or one that will be the stepping stone at least. In my case in 1999, I chose a career of self-employment. With that choice, they referred me onto a self-employment program and I started my company Lava Marketing. In 2006, they were definitely instrumental in helping me land a great job that I enjoyed thoroughly and did well at until I got over my self-employment, life, baby-making, father-dying, fire-evacuating burn-out and got bored. (There are some stories there I will tell another time, or upon request.)

My career and self-employment transitions were made a bit easier with Government of Canada money that I accessed with the assistance of the CBD Network. And I didn't have to pay for the CBD Network's assistance because some government agency paid them.

The Okanagan is not exactly plentiful in the job department and finding a good job requires guerilla marketing techniques that you will learn as a client of the CBD Network.

In the one hour presentation on Thursday, March 25, 2010, I will review social media sites like LinkedIn and Twitter and provide some tips on how blogging can help a career.

If you are an out of work professional, contact the CBD Network in either Vernon or Kelowna to see if you are a good fit for their services. If you don't qualify as a CBD Network client or alumni, I offer one-on-one or group coaching on those techniques too.

Thanks for reading.

Courtenay Pitcher, not burned out, happy, professional job hunter

How To Track Your Advertising and Social Media Efforts On-line

This article has been adapted and updated from chapter three of my book Secrets of Internet Marketing: Streamline, promote, communicate and sell more effectively on-line.

Tracking programs


 

As you know, it is imperative to track your advertising – whether it is website banner advertising, television or print. With the advent of social media, it is also good to know how much traffic is coming into your blog or website through Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, YouTube or other sites. You must know where your business is coming from. If you have a banner ad on a website that is costing you big money and your referring URLs from that site are low, you have choices. (More about URLs below.) You can pull the ad, change the ad, change the location of the ad on the site, or negotiate a better rate or location for your banner ad on their site.

Tracking programs or website statistics are excellent for monitoring visitor and customer behavior. With them, you can track where your customers come from, where bottlenecks occur in your site, which content, products or services visitors prefer, how you can improve your customer support, the best way to convert a visitor into a buyer and which advertising campaigns are working.

I use Google Analytics to track my blog traffic. The best part about it…it is free.

Hits

Hits, also called a page hit, are the retrieval of any item, like a page or a graphic, from a web server. For example, when a visitor calls up a web page with eight graphics, that's nine hits, one for the page and eight for the graphics. For this reason, hits often aren't a good indication of Web traffic. Anyone trying to sell you on-line advertising based on hits should be asked to get out of the ballpark.

Page Views
A page view is a web page that has been viewed by one visitor. Rather than hits, page views are a much more reliable measuring tool for evaluating where to place your online advertising and/or your website traffic. You'll see by this image below, how my page views skyrocketed when I added K. D. Lang to my site immediately following the 2010 Winter Olympics.



Search Engine Reports

Software (like Google Analytics) that provides search engine reports can tell you which search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.) visitors are using to find your site. By knowing which search engines people are using to find you, you’ll be able to tell which search engines aren’t working for you. Then, you can attempt to fix your ranking in those search engines where you need improvement.

Keyword Reports
See which keyword combinations people are entering in search engines to find your site by looking at keyword reports. Keyword reports tell you that you have content in your blog or your site around those keywords. However, if you want to bring visitors to your site or blog with other key words, and you are not getting traffic from them, you’ll know what kind of content you should add.

Here is an example of my keyword report. Recently, I posted a YouTube video to my site and ever since then, my traffic has gone through the roof for K.D. Lang Olympic video searches.

Referring URLs (or Referring Sites)
A URL is a Uniform Resource Locator. It is a very complicated way of saying ‘website address’. Referring URLs are the websites that refer, send, divert or direct business into your site.

By tracking your referring URLs, you can determine which websites (in addition to search engines) are sending you business. This is extremely valuable information because it allows you to determine where your advertising is, or isn’t, working.

As you can see by this image below, top referring sites to my blog are Twitter, Kelly Diels, Facebook and Hootsuite. (That goes to show the power of blogs and social media to generating traffic.)

Return on Investment Calculation
Compare referring URLs to determine the percentage of traffic each URL brings. Track return on investment for each URL by assigning a dollar figure to the percentage and dividing it by the cost of your advertising. This method is used for comparison purposes. It doesn’t actually assign a real dollar value.

For example: let’s say you are a photographer and you have banner advertising on two sites:

Kodak.com
Gettyimages.com

Kodak is bringing you 50% of your visitors, but the ad cost you $500. Getty images is bringing you the other 50%, but the ad cost you $1000.

Return on investment (ROI) is calculated strictly for comparison purposes – the dollar figure means nothing in this case.

Your return on investment for Kodak 50/500 = 0.1

ROI for Getty is 50/1000 = .05 (half).

While they bring you the same amount of traffic, the traffic costs you twice as much with gettyimages.com.

Therefore, you may want to consider reducing your investment with gettyimages.com to see if you get the same amount of traffic for the same price, or negotiate with Getty to keep the same ad, but at half the cost based on your knowledge of Kodak’s results. As long as all other things remain equal, you may be in a very good negotiating position with Getty. Do you getty what I’m saying?

Most requested pages
Tracking programs also allow you to track the most requested pages on your website. The most requested page on your website is often your home page. But which page do your customers visit next? Is it your contact information, jobs, or what? This is useful information to know.

This is important if you are trying to convince a supplier or associate to buy advertising space on your website. You can indicate where the best place to advertise will be.

When I had a contract with a community Internet portal to sell banner advertising, we sold all of the advertising at the same rate – regardless of whether it was a busy page or a slow page. However, we quickly sold out the busy pages because we were able to prove to our customers that they could capture a portion of the traffic we were getting just by placing banner advertising on those busy pages. Interestingly, some of the busiest pages were bus route schedules on BC Transit, movie listings, and the ‘image of the day’ (a nice picture of the local scenery that the webmaster took each day). Accommodation was hugely popular in the tourism section and the news continually drew visitors to the site.

Tip: Movie listings are a great place to advertise on line if you are targeting teens. Facebook, is another. Ironically, Facebook is also great for advertising to grandmas!

The most requested pages are one of the first things you should ask if you are considering advertising on anybody else’s website. If it is a high traffic site, place your banner advertising on their most requested page, and you’ll see results!

Use your most requested pages as a place to put announcements and news, or move product. If you know it is a well-visited place on your site, use it to your advantage.

Average time spent on the site

    “The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it.”
      -William Gibson

A good tracking program can provide you with the average amount of time that your visitors spend on your site. If your visitors are not spending much time on your site, maybe it is not very interesting, maybe your pages download too slowly or maybe your shopping cart package is not user-friendly. Tracking this information allows you to re-think your site layout and/or content. Increase the amount of time a user spends in your site and you will likely increase the amount of money that they spend with you.



Unique Visitors
Unique visitors are measured according to their unique IP addresses. IP addresses identify each computer or computer network that is connected to the Internet. IP addresses have a unique four digit number that identifies a particular network and a host on that network. Except in special cases, one IP address equals one unique visitor no matter how many times they visit the site within a given period. The only flaw in tracking unique visitors is that one IP address can be assigned to a network having 500 employees on it – so the unique visitor will be counted once while up to 500 employees may have actually visited your site.

Unique visitor statistics can be useful if tracked on a daily basis to tell if more people visit your site on a Monday or a Sunday, or in August than March. They will indicate when your traffic increases or drops.

It is also important to know what this term means when you are sourcing information from advertisers about their unique visitor traffic so that you can compare ‘apples to apples’. It is better to ask ‘how many unique visitors do you have’ than it is to ask ‘how many hits do you get’ as an indicator for their amount of traffic. 

Path Reports
Statistics or tracking programs can monitor path reports. These indicate where visitors entered your site, which paths they took and where they exited. This is useful information for determining ‘jumping off’ points that may need to be re-designed. They will also tell you how people travel through your site which can arm you with information on how to improve your navigation.

Return frequency
See how many visitors have returned to view your site a second time, and how long they waited between the first and second visit. If visitors return to your site daily, you know you’ve got an interesting site. If they return monthly, you may need to reach out to your customers electronically more often with an e-newsletter, blog or special promotional deals by email.

Other Items Which Can Be Tracked

Software can track everything from the most common monitor resolution settings used by your visitors to their language setting, country and operating system.

Email Reports

Once you have set up Google Analytics, you can also set weekly or daily email reports to send to you in .pdf format.




Summary

*Tracking programs or website statistics can help you monitor customer behavior and traffic to your site

*Hits are a common, yet unreliable measuring tool

*Use page views to guide you in placing your advertising or to determine the most popular pages within your own site

*Keyword reports help you optimize your content

*Referring URL’s help you determine which websites (in addition to search engines) are directing traffic into your site

*Use referring URL’s as a measuring tool to determine your advertising return on investment

*Put your most important information or product offerings on your most requested pages

*Invest in advertising on other websites on their most requested pages

*Knowing the average amount of time that visitors spend on your site can help you provide better site layout or content

*Unique visitors are a better tool than hits for measuring traffic to a site

*Path reports tell you how people travel through your site and where they leave, giving you hints on how to improve your navigation

*If customers return to your site frequently, you have great Internet marketing. If they don’t, you need to reach out to your customers more often.

*Tracking programs can track just about everything. Focus on the tracking information that helps guide your Internet marketing the best.

More Information

If you would like coaching on how to set up and interpret Google Analytics to track your on-line marketing, please get in touch.

Thanks for reading!

Courtenay Pitcher, Google Analytics Cheerleader

How my blog made number one on Google because k.d. lang sang Hallelujah at the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Opening Ceremonies

When I posted the video of k.d. lang singing Leonard Cohen's song Hallelujah, I never dreamed my blog traffic would explode, it would make it to number one one Google and I would be having a discussion on Twitter about its relevance to the 2010 Olympics.

But that's exactly what happened. If you're interested in how I got traffic to my site, read on. If you're interested in my deep philosophical thoughts as to why I think k.d. lang's performance was completely relevant to the 2010 Olympic Opening Ceremonies, read on. And if you would like to see lang sing Hallelujah, read on.

How my blog traffic rose

Look at this picture of how my blog traffic rose yesterday (February 12, 2010). As you can see, my visitor traffic has always hovered well below fifty visitors per day. Probably closer to thirty. But yesterday, there was a spike. Above 200 visitors. Amazing!

Now look at this image of my number one placing out of 6,750 on Google for a search "kd lang sings at olympics". This is only one search term. There are over 250 search term combinations that people are finding my blog through that are related to lang's performance at the Olympics....and growing.

Those are only the statistics from yesterday. Today, my traffic is even much higher, but I will not know exactly how high until the day is complete and I can check my Google Analytics report.

How easy is it to post video to your blog?

It's easy. Very very easy.

It's free.

It takes only minutes.

How do you do it?

First, find a video on YouTube that you like.

Second, find the "embed" html code that is located to the right of the video as highlighted in yellow on the right of this screenshot I took from my vernongirl YouTube channel page.

Then, cut and paste that "embed" code into the html code (sometimes called the source code) of your blog post. It is that simple. And, it's legal. If someone who has posted a video on Youtube chooses to share their video, they will make sure that the "embed" html code is accessible to you. This allows you to cut and paste the code and use their videos on your blog or website. Now, how great is that?

There is advertising that comes up on the video that you have no control over, but it's worth it.

Blog about current topics and trends

This experience has taught me that it is a very good idea to be on top of current topics and trends, and to comment on them quickly on your blog if you want traffic. Sometimes it can pay off. I've been wondering when this day would come.

But it's also important to go with your heart. And since tomorrow is Valentine's Day, what a great segue into my next point about heart in sports and life and the relevancy between Cohen, lang, Hallelujah and the Olympics.

Why are k.d. lang and Hallelujah relevant to the 2010 Olympics?

This morning on Twitter, someone tweeted to me that they didn't see the relevance in lang singing about biblical infidelity.

This sparked a big discussion between me and my husband over morning coffee. He didn't see the relevancy either. So I looked up Leonard Cohen on the internet. I was pretty sure he was Canadian. (I'm not saying this tongue-in-cheek either.) Yes, I was right. According to the LeonardCohen.com website ....

"Cohen ironically describes himself as “the little Jew who wrote the Bible,”.

....He has immersed himself into Jewish culture, Christian imagery and Buddhist detachment. He believes that our human imperfections are finally what will bring us whatever transcendence we can attain." (I edited.)

Human imperfection seemed particularly relevant to me since the Georgian luger flew off the track yesterday and slammed into a pole, killing him instantly. I watched the video on the internet just before I sat down to watch the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics (but refused to send out links to it.) Human imperfection is apparent in the design of the track and the execution of the luger. Poignant. Plus Cohen is a celebrated poet and songwriter. Here is a link to Leonard Cohen's biography. 

k.d. lang grew up in Alberta, but now makes her home in Los Angeles, California. An incredible talent, she is no stranger to adversity. Being a lesbian in Alberta, I'm sure, had its challenges. (I grew up in Calgary.)

But overall, Canada is an amazingly diverse country. Not only is our landscape diverse, but so are our people. We are a cultural, religious and idealism melting pot. So to have k.d lang singing a song written by a self-proclaimed Jewish poet is completely relevant.

It celebrates diversity, art, expression, freedom, overcoming obstacles and choice. Choice in religious beliefs, sexual orientation and how you will triumph over human imperfection. Isn't that what Canada is all about?

Here is a link to the original blog post that sparked this story, and my blog traffic, where you can see the video of k.d. lang performing Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. Enjoy!

p.s. I have to give credit to Danielle Laporte’s White Hot Truth blog for giving me the idea to put this video onto my site. One day, I was looking through her blog and I came across this inspirational video of k.d. lang. (I read Laporte's blog for creative inspiration.) I love inspirational women. Laporte also writes about sex. I love that in Canada you can do that. And Danielle is from British Columbia too. Go Canada!

Thanks for reading.

Courtenay Pitcher, Born in Canada

Related posts: Automated reply system for Twitter: Antique collector and web designer unite to brand Twitter.
 

Video tutorial: How to add a Facebook Fanpage to Hootsuite.com

Here is a video tutorial on how to add your Facebook Fanpage to your Hootsuite.com account so that whenever you send a tweet from Hootsuite, you can update your Facebook Fanpage automatically.

Or, here are the written directions:

Open Hootsuite.com

Go to settings > social networks > add a social network




Click the “pages” icon. (as per the image above) Note: Do not click the "Facebook" icon.

Connect with Facebook (It will open Facebook and you'll have to type in your Facebook email and password).

It will bring up a list of Fan pages you have set up on that account and so you can tick the Fanpage that you want to come up.

Cllick "Allow Publishing".

If you're getting this post by email, you can watch the video at this link here.

Thanks for reading!

Courtenay Pitcher
Social media trainer and Hootsuite Fan

Jay Rosen's Video Tea With The Economist: Media After iPad

How to create a picture-in-picture video for your blog for under $400 USD

Dear Varada:

Thank you for your question:

    “How did you create the video overlapping the background demo on
    Socialoomph presented in your blog.”

Adding video has been an excellent strategy for adding personality and credibility to my blog and getting people to stay for longer. It has also resulted in exposure through Youtube and now my blog has been bookmarked on the site Delicious which pushes traffic into my blog.

Here is how I do it:

First of all, I believe that the video example you are referring to is this video on how to upload tweets and schedule them using Socialoomph.com.

I use two tools to create my demo videos:

1)    A Logitech Webcam Pro 9000 / QuickCam Pro 9000 that cost under $99 USD.

and

2)    Camtasia Studios 5.0 Screen Recorder Software that cost under $300 USD.

I launch the Camtasia Studios Screen Recorder Software and set the recorder to make sure it is using the Logitech® Webcam Pro 9000 to record my face and my voice at the same time that I am clicking on the screen. In the settings of the Logitech Webcam Pro 9000, I ensure that it is tracking my face. This image demonstrates what the face tracking settings look like:

Logitech® Webcam Pro 9000 has exceptionally great audio quality, so I recommend it. And it sits right on your computer screen which means that you don't need a cameraman (or woman) to operate it. You just have to make sure to check that you are centred in the viewer.

For lighting, I have two small table top lights that I set on either side of my computer screen. They seem to do the trick.

In the Camtasia Studios Screen Recording Software, I also make sure that I set the “cursor effects” to highlight the clicks of my mouse with a yellow circle so it’s easier for people watching my video demonstration to know where I’m clicking.

The Camtasia Studio Screen Recorder software records what I am doing on my computer screen at the same time it is recording my face. It essentially makes two video files: one of the video of me and one video of what I’m clicking on my computer screen. It calls this picture in picture (pip) and when you are editing the video, you can decide if the videos will lay side-by-side each other, or one overtop of the other. In this case, I've laid one over the other.

To prepare to take the video, I practice what I am going to do and say a few times before I go through the “real” demo. This is like a sound check to ensure that my audio is being recorded and to see how the video is looking. After practicing, I do the demo in one take so that editing is kept to a minimum. The only editing I do after that is to fade in and fade out the video of me so that the screen recording demo can be seen. Sometimes I also enlarge my video.

When I began producing video, I noticed that my computer was quite slow and this was effecting the quality of my video and causing it to be somewhat stilted. It also took a very long time to render the video, which is also what Camtasia Studios terms as the "produce" phase. So I upgraded to a faster computer. The processor speed is most important. I use an Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q9300 - 8 Gig System memory - 1 Terabyte hard drive. (I haven't included the cost of my computer upgrade in the $400 USD.)

Occasionally, I will get "chipmunk" voice when I record a video. This is when my audio comes out really fast and I sound like Alvin and The Chipmunks. When this happens, I close all of my programs and restart my computer. This takes care of the problem and then I start the process all over again.

Here is a video from Camtasia Studios that shows you how to place videos through pip (picture in picture).

Thanks for reading!

Courtenay Pitcher

Super Affiliate Handbook Review - Monetize and supercharge your website or blog

Have you been writing articles and posting them on your blog and not getting enough traffic to it?

Are you a traditional brick and mortar business who has a website, but wants to add revenue streams to it?

Are you an entrepreneur thinking about starting a blog?

Do you have a website with good traffic, but are you having a difficult time selling advertising on it?

Do you want to start a business with minimal risk and financial investment?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you’ll want to purchase and read the Super Affiliate Handbook, by the “Affiliate Queen”, Rosalind Gardner.

What percentage of visitors to your site will become your customers?

How much is each visitor to your blog or website worth?

How much does it cost to bring a new visitor to your site?

This book teaches you how to answer those questions.

I’ve been marketing on the internet since the late nineties, but this is the first book I’ve read that really explains in detail how to profit from a website or blog and how to promote a website or blog with software I had not considered.

The Super Affiliate Handbook by Rosalind Gardner was published in 2003, but it has been recently updated. Since internet marketing is evolving with the addition of social media and new technology, I was happy to know that the book wasn’t a dinosaur. It’s current and relevant. In fact, the book even lists changes and improvements since 2003.

First, you’ll learn seventeen benefits of being an affiliate. What stands out for me in this section, is how inexpensive, simple and virtually risk free it is to begin an affiliate progam.

Gardner explains:

 “An affiliate program is a program that facilitates the relationship between online merchants and their affiliates – allowing the affiliate to promote that company’s products or services for a commission. Affiliate programs may also be referred to as:
    *Associate programs
    *Referral programs
    *Bounty Programs
    *Partner Programs
    *Revenue Sharing Programs."

In the book, Gardner, who is a successful webmaster, online entrepreneur and affiliate marketer, shows and links to her own website examples so you can see live working affiliate websites. The well-written book reads like a full-fledged business and marketing plan. She tells you the software and tools needed, the process and steps to take, ways to stay organized, ways to identify a profitable niche, short-cuts, how to evaluate market demand and competition, how to choose a domain name, how to choose a web or blog host, design rules-of-thumb and how to build a website or blog with, or without, a webmaster.

Software she reviews in enough detail to really understand them are: Google Adsense and Keyword Tool, Wordtracker, Google Toolbar, Microsoft Excel, Eudora Email Client, File Transfer Software, Paypal, Wordpress, and Aweber Enewsletter Software to name only a few.

She explains how to create or find content, which content is essential for an affiliate blog or website, how to write product endorsements, secret ingredients every article needs, and how to make your site “Google” friendly. 

The meat of the book is in the middle where she goes into ways to monetize your site simply by adding small snippets of code to them. And, she shows you step by step how to do it and which ones to add. She explains how to evaluate affiliate programs and which ones are profitable and easy to work with. Recurring sales, commissions, lifetime commissions, multiple-tier programs, sales tools and sales statistics are covered. Page 132 of her book has a gem so good, I was too excited to sleep the night I read about it.

After she explains how to fill your site with content, she details thirty-one ways to market your site on-line. I’ve known about many of the tools and strategies she lists here, but she goes into them in detailed ways that shifted my perspective. Also, she reveals software on page 138 so powerful and effective (I watched the video) that I’m scheming of ways to afford it. After all, my internet marketing plan is ever-evolving too. That’s why I read great books like this one.

Like adding icing to a delicious cake, she puts a section at the back of the book called “Evaluate Your Site’s Performance” which explains how to determine:
1.    What percentage of visitors to your site will become your customers.
2.    The conversion rate for each Affiliate program.
3.    How much each visitor is worth.
4.    How much it costs to bring a new visitor to your site.

This section also teaches you how to assess individual product performance (clickthroughs, number of sales, commission amounts), compare products side-by-side for performance, evaluate monthly trends, grow commissions and profit from error pages and exchange rates. The number crunching techniques on these pages will keep your Banker and Accountant happy for sure!

The book is topped off with problem-solving and prevention tips plus a glossary of terms. “Twenty-five mistakes to avoid” is the maraschino cherry of this affiliate marketing masterpiece.

Rosalind Gardner lives in Penticton, B.C. Canada, just down the road (two hours) from me. Her book is 210 pages long and it took me six hours to read. I jumped over some sections I already felt I knew, but took longer on some of the links. This book comes as an e-book. After reading it, I printed it and put it into a binder that I will keep on my shelf and refer to often.

At just $47 USD, this book is excellent value. I give it 10 out of 10.

Buy a copy of The Super Affiliate Handbook here


Thanks for reading.

Courtenay Pitcher, Aspiring Affiliate Marketer

From Florence to Facebook: Calgary leather handbag designer's career is launched

 

Sabra Mottram is a Designer who makes earrings, cuffs, one of a kind handbags and moccasins out of leather. She launched her design career, Sabra Mottram Designs, a little over one year ago on Facebook. She says, "I started off displaying the things I make on Facebook for my own satisfaction in an album called: Things I Make. I made a bag for a friend on her birthday. Friends of mine would say, "I want one." The more bags that I put up on Facebook, the more orders I got." Now, she has a website, Facebook Fan page, Twitter account and blog. Avenue Magazine, last October, featured a bag of Sabra's as part of the Style section. Calgary Fashion has accepted her as one of their top designers. (Pictured above: Littlest Hobo Airporting Bag by Sabra Mottram Designs. Photo credit: Sanja Lukač)

In 2010 she plans to be part of Alberta Fashion Week and Vancouver Fashion week. "I will have two launches this year. I am going to be adding some clothing to my collection. Most likely some leather, but other fashions as well. The clothing line will be extremely small to start, but it will grow." she says.

Sabra Mottram's current collection is the Fall/Winter 2009 Collection. She hopped a plane in Calgary last Fall and flew to Italy where she hand picked the leather hides at Primorepelli, a leather distributor in Fucecchio (about half an hour from Florence) in the heart of the tannery district of Tuscany where fine Italian leather comes from.

"I picked good Fall/Winter colours I like and staples like black. After my trip to Italy I came up with new designs and decided to change the style of the bags slightly. I created three new patterns, cut out templates and starting sewing. I made a Hard Bag Overnighter style, Saddle Bag style and a completely Hard Bag which is a men's style. I also use Lindsey handbags which are Tandy Kits I stamp and carve myself with designs I make or use stencils for." she says.

(Pictured above: Swallow Lindsey handbag with custom design by Sabra Mottram Designs. Photo credit: Sanja Lukač)

The collection has a lot of appliques, which is the biggest change from the last collection. The collection was inspired by Nice, France and Pisa near Florence, Italy. Sabra says, "I went to Pisa and looked at the architecture in Florence. The architecture was classic looking and there was lots of French influence. I started the collection with one I made for myself, the Fleur de Lis of Florence. It has Fleur de Lis pull tags for the zippers and a large Florence Fleur de Lis on the side of the bag. It is named in French because I was going to France and Italy. I kind of tie things together."

 

(Pictured above: Larsen B Saddlebag by Sabra Mottram Designs. Photo credit: Sabra Mottram Designs)

All of her bags are named by their unique attributes. For example, she made a bag with white patent leather with holes and a turquoise back side. It reminded her of the Larsen B Ice Shelf that dissolved recently. It comes with wooden nautical-looking accoutrements for the zipper pulls.

She purchases all the material for the satin and lace interior linings of her handbags in Calgary. She  chooses lace that accentuates the satin and buys enough satin lining for two or three bags only. "I don't purchase too many materials at once because I do things as one of a kind, so it doesn't go out of fashion. I get bored with styles rather quickly." she says.

Most of her bags have been sold to friends and family, but recently a Calgary Flames player's wife purchased one and and she sold two custom ordered bags to a company as parting gifts for two male employees. "I had one men's bag already made, and I got the call. I asked the client what the bags were for and she told me she wanted a unique one of a kind gift. I ran to Tandy to purchase some leather that was more metropolitan and less rustic to show her. She ordered two."

Sabra has received many orders through Facebook from friends and family. Sabra remarks, "People want to buy local and from people they know. They like to support the Arts Community in Calgary, small endeavours, and the barter system."

Using Facebook, she announces art and fashion shows that she is at or is involved in. "Facebook events are easy because I can upload a picture, give all the details and send it out to everyone in my Facebook, as well as people in my email who are not on Facebook."

She has a Facebook Fan Page for Sabra Mottram Designs in addition to her personal page, which is only for close friends and family. "I have 51 fans. It has brought people from the public into my circle who are not my friends or family. They are friends of friends who I wouldn't normally have access to."

The barter system also works for Sabra. She put a request to exchange photography for a handbag on Facebook. "I got 5 replies immediately and the first I liked I went with." she says.

Using iWeb on her Mac laptop, Sabra created her website through painstaking hours of trial and error. The website features a Gallery to view her handbags in a slideshow format and Shop where purchases can be made by Paypal. Instead of going through MobileMe for hosting, she purchased hosting through Go Daddy. The clean design templates of iWeb suited her style and matched her brand which is her SM signature stamped on all tags and dust jackets for each handbag hand-sewn by her. Every bag is named individually, so it is a one of a kind collector's item. "Most designers use their name as their brand." she says.

Her fan page on Facebook automatically updates her Twitter. If she posts photos to her Fan Page on Facebook, a tweet is sent. For example: I posted 13 photos on Facebook in the album "AW09" http://bit.ly/8YdHw.

Fearless in the social media realm, she just launched Sabra Mottram Design's Blog on Wordpress  discussing the archaeology of style. Sabra is a University of Calgary graduate with a B. Sc. in Archaeology. She says. "Nothing is really an original idea in reality. Styles change through time, they come and go, ballooning out like a battleship curve and then fading away again. You can see aspects of certain styles that have carried through more than just costuming, but in small elements as well."

Sabra's designs are featured on a blog for a store called Worth. She keeps the bags in that store to sell at retail but if one sells through Facebook or other methods, she can pull them out any time because they are on consignment.

"When I was a little girl, I was sick a lot, so I used to stay at home with my mom. My mom taught me how to use a sewing machine.I always wanted to make drawstring handbags like Polly Pocket or Anne of Green Gables. I stopped sewing things for a while because I had so many problems with the bobbins. Instead, I began to bead things and make costumes from scratch." she says.

Sabra was an Account Manager for a sub-prime lender up until about a year and a half ago. When the financial crises hit, she was laid off immediately. She took a watercolour painting class, woodworking class and ceramics class. She says, "My creativity spilled out into new areas where I wanted to work with leather. My grandfather on my mom's side was a leather saddle maker, and on my other side of the family, the Mottrams, they were leather makers. I bought a turquoise deer hide to make a vest and couldn't find a pattern I liked, so I got bored and decided to turn it into a handbag. My friends on Facebook wanted me to make them one."

Sabra follows Fashion Television on Twitter so Jeanne Beker will some day find out about her. There is lots on the horizon, so it's really exciting. And this is just in one year. In three years, I'll be in London."

Sabra's website: http://sabramottramdesigns.ca/Sabra_Mottram_Designs/Home.html

Sabra on Twitter: http://twitter.com/sabramottram

Sabra's Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sabra-Mottram/117153635506

Thanks for reading!

Courtenay Pitcher, Sabra's biggest fan

Follow me on Twitter

Greater Vernon Chamber Manager Touts Twitter

Driving economic development, promoting members, attracting new members, getting donors and sponsorships, selling event tickets and building relationships are just a few ways Twitter is helping Val Trevis, General Manager of the Greater Vernon Chamber of Commerce in Vernon, B.C.

Val Trevis, Manager of the Greater Vernon Chamber of Commerce (GVCC), started looking at social media (Facebook, Twitter) at the end of 2008. The GVCC signed up for Facebook, but ran into issues about privacy and posting pictures. So they kept the Facebook site active, but not proactive.

Then, she signed up for Twitter and said, "I don't get it."

A local GVCC member and an early Twitter adopter, Brenda Ellis (known as Brell), met with Val in July 2009 and told her about a Twitter business day that was happening in Kelowna. Twitter business day was the brainchild of Nick Kellet. He had a vision to have Kelowna business connect on Twitter.

The Kelowna Chamber got involved and Connecting Kelowna became the Twitter business day that Kellet envisioned.

In visiting this site, where Kellet posted 722 Twitter Feeds for Kelowna and Okanagan Valley, and information on how to use Twitter, Val then said, "Hey, I get it."

She began using Twitter in August 2009 more seriously, and created Vernon biz day, a day designed to connect greater Vernon area businesses on Twitter. She put an article in the local paper, and got some response.

It was slow to start. Then on October 20th, Scott Davis came to Vernon and showed her group Tweetdeck. Val said, "That's when the light turned on.

With the various columns in Tweetdeck, she could see what her various accounts were doing. The GVCC has accounts for membership, chamber, Val and eco business (@gvccmembership, @vernonchamber, @valtrevis and @ecobizniz).

Val says, "One of the most valuable things I learned from Scott Davis, is that you have to be human on Twitter." That is one of the reasons why Val did not set up an automated message on Twitter, why she does her own tweets and why she often retweets her members and, even, non-members.

She also realized how Twitter could be an opportunity for some of her staff, including herself, to connect personally with members and potential members and for businesses to connect with each other.

"Twitter brings out electronic conversations. Then, they are connecting physically and it's much easier for them to talk to each other in person," Val said. At a Vernon Women in Business function, one Twitter follower even said to Val, "I feel like I know you because we've been Twittering." Val was at a meeting and a man stood up to introduce himself. She thought, "Hey, I Twitter with that guy." Afterwards, the conversation with him was warm and friendly, like they already knew each other.

Val attended some Canadian and BC Chamber functions last September and October and quickly realized that the GVCC is an early adopter of Twitter and one of the Chambers taking off with it in BC.

Val says, "I help a couple businesses each week by showing them what they can do. First, Twitter, then Tweetdeck. That's when most businesses get it."

One comment to Val from a member was: "We've been able to connect to business up and down the valley using Twitter." One Twitter follower recently mentioned to Val that he is hearing great things about the GVCC, and its use of Twitter, in the south Okanagan.

Val says that it has also created a network in Vancouver who want to have accessibility to the Vernon market. One Vancouver company sent two gift certificates worth $1800 when Val put a call out for donations on Twitter for GVCC's upcoming Christmas party. She says, "I've done over $2200 worth of business this week alone, selling tickets for the Christmas Party and getting door prizes for the Chamber, on Twitter."

Val is now working on a "Tweet Up". This will be an event to get members and non-members into one room to discuss Twitter and how it can benefit their businesses, provide Twitter training, introduce the Chamber benefits to non-members, get examples of how Twitter has helped local businesses and allow the Twitter community to connect with one another.

"One of my mandates is to drive economic development in the community." Trevis says, "Twitter is a free way of doing this."

"I throw up questions on Twitter and get answers now to help my members. We feature new members that join the Chamber. This is marketing that our members can do. And our non-members are helping us too," she remarks.

She says, "I tell businesses that you can isolate yourselves. Or, you can expand and look outside your boundaries of who can support. I am a huge proponent for shopping local, but try to draw people to your business from outside your community."

One board member asked Val why she was spending so much time on Twitter. Val asked the board member to try to understand Twitter, think about the role of the chamber and connect the dots. The board member got it.

"My husband says I'm a Twitter junkie. It's social. I don't have TV. I look for news on Twitter, email or the web. In that way, I'm never really off the clock," Val says. The GVCC just hit one thousand tweets, something Val is very proud of.

Val says, "We are looking at working with a social media college student to help us with Facebook and Twitter. We want to know what else we can do that we're not already doing." Val, at one time an anti-blog proponent, is also looking at blogging as a potential social media marketing opportunity.

A couple of weeks ago, Val wrote a Morning Star Article called "Unsung heroes" about how volunteers are the backbone of our community. She said, "I tweeted out a link to it and got two responses from New York, one from Columbia, one from Boston and one from the UK. They all said it was a great article. To think that people retweeted a local column written for our little Chamber in our community makes me think that blogging is no longer a bad idea too."

Membership has its benefits. Join the Greater Vernon Chamber of Commerce. (I just joined today.)

Thanks for reading!

Courtenay Pitcher, brand spanking new Greater Vernon Chamber of Commerce member and Twitter touter too.

http://www.vernongirl.com

http://twitter.com/vernongirl

My book-The Secrets of Internet Marketing

 
My book, Secrets of Internet Marketing: Streamline, promote, communicate and sell more effectively on-line is a 170 page paperback. It's now available in .pdf, with chapter links, for cheap. Just $1.95 USD. Yes, that's under two bucks.

Yesterday, I was looking this book over, that I wrote and published in 2003, and it is still a great read. I originally only printed 100 books. Today, those original books sell through used booksellers online (for more than triple what I originally sold them for) as rare, out-of-print books. 

The introduction to the book gives a little history about me. It tells you how I began selling adult novelties (a.k.a. marital aids, bedroom toys, sex toys) on-line in the early internet days, twelve years ago. This part is really quite revealing (so to speak). If I've already captured your attention, there is a buy button at the bottom of this story. If not, read on (if you can concentrate that is, ha ha ha).

The book is somewhat historical, because it has some references to people getting started in using email and the internet that seem kind of funny today. It also has a very good overview of H'obbe's Internet Timeline, written in layperson's language. As well as other details, this timeline includes when the Queen of England sent her first email, when Amazon launched its business plan for an online store, and when "surfing" the internet became available for everyone through browsers.

What I also still like about my book is the section on analytics (Strategy eight: tracking your success) and how you can use them to track your website traffic and make improvements to your internet marketing. Now, I use Google Analytics for free and it gives me great daily reports on my blog traffic, traffic coming in from search engines, traffic coming in from Twitter, the types of searches people are finding me from, and so on. If you have a website or a blog, I highly recommend that you incorporate Google Analytics. If you want insight into what their reports mean, you should read that section of my book.

Strategy One: Determine your objectives, is still relevant and helpful. It talks about your overall marketing strategy and what you want your internet marketing to achieve. These concepts still apply today, whether you are marketing on Twitter, Facebook, blogs or through your website and traditional media.

The section about Strategy Three: Gather text, is also still a great one for giving you ideas on how to get content for your website. I've personally seen how new content gets me Twitter followers and traffic and increases my credibility. In fact, just this week, I did a lucrative training session with a Kelowna business on how to use social media tools. I attribute it solely to publishing new stories on my blog this past month. They were so happy with the training, they gave me a nummy almond flavoured coffee on my way out the door, a hug, and a cheque. Now, those are the kind of results you want from putting good content on your blog or website. (Okanagan wine and dark chocolate would be good too.)

If you are a brand new internet marketer, you will find that this book will give you many ideas on how to develop your website. Even experienced professional internet marketers will find Strategy Seven: Promotion helpful. In that section, I talk about media relations and how to feed the press with stories about your business. There is nothing better than good press to push your site traffic and Twitter followers up.

If you are a professional internet marketer, you'll probably get a kick out of reading this book. It will take you back a few years and you'll say to yourself, "I remember that. Wow, that's different now". If you do read it, I'd love your comments about it on how things have changed, or what sections you think are still helpful and relevant to those new (and old) to internet marketing.

The .pdf is $1.95 USD, and I will email it to you. It is laid out in chapters and you can connect to various parts of the book from the table of contents through links. (There is a buy button at the bottom of this Table of Contents.)

Here is the Table of Contents:

Introduction
Internet Marketing History

Strategy One Determine Your Objective

What is Internet Marketing?
The Web
Intranet
Extranet
The Webmaster
Leave it to the pros!
Internet Marketing Manager
Give Your Customer A Reason To Visit
Who Benefits From Internet Marketing
Website Objectives
Realistic Expectations
Website Advantages
Website Disadvantages
Consider Your Timeline
Don’t get e-screwed!
Budget
Target Market
Revenue
Expenses
Price
Summary of Strategy One Determine Your Objective

Strategy Two Gather Images
Digital Assets
Images – Graphics
Image Speed
Hire a Photographer
How to choose a Photographer
Setting Up a Photo Shoot With Models
Getting Extra Mileage From Your Images
Dressing your models for a photo shoot
Using the right model for your target market
Don’t point
Stock Imagery
Supplier Images
Go digital and do it yourself
Product shots with a digital camera
Touch Ups
Maintain a portfolio
Illustrations
Give credit where credit is due
Graphic Formats
JPEG/JPG
GIF
Resolution
Supplying Files To The Webmaster
Size – Bigger is Better
Scan
Not all scanners are made equal
Logo
Repurpose
Summary of Strategy Two Gather Images

Strategy Three Gather Text
How To Get Text
Hire a copywriter
Supplier brochures
What Text To Include
Contact
About Us
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Staff
Company Structure
Products
Services
Prices
Shipping
Testimonials
Warranties
Employment Information
Business, Training or Franchise Opportunities
Vision Statement
Values
Mission Statement
Sample Mission Statements
Upcoming Events
Community Involvement and Sponsorships
Media Releases
Investor Relations
Packages
Partners
Resources
Promotions
Customer Care
Awards
Owner’s Manuals
Electronic Newsletter
Design
Name
Format & Content
Story Ideas
Photos
Subscription
Track Response
Call-to-Action
Time Sensitive
Issue, Volume Number & Date
Idea File
More Information
Summary of Strategy Three Gather Text

Strategy Four Digital Asset Management & Delivery Systems

Digital Asset Management
MetaData
Content Management
Rich Media
Games
Surveys
Webinars
Streaming Media
PDF
Flash
E-Commerce
Shopping Carts
Security
Databases
Database Program
Search Tool
Store Finder or Store Locator
Site Map
Forms
Listings
Web-Based Interface
Summary of Strategy Four Digital Asset Management & Delivery Systems

Strategy Five Send it to Bid

Qualifications
Graphic Design For A Static Site
Flash
Photography and Illustrations
Copywriting
Domain Name
Databases (shopping carts, etc.)
Credit Card Processing
Internet Marketing
Website Tracking & Statistics
Hosting
Connectivity Speed
Virtual Server
Growth Capabilities
Dedicated Server
Disk Space
Disk Transmission
Detailed Web Statistics
POP3 Email Aliases
Email Aliases
Catchall Feature
Email Virus Scanner
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP Mail)
Email Control Panel
Shell Accounts
CGI Bin
Free Scripts
Raw Log Files
Perl Support & PHP Support
Password Protect Directories
MSQL
Weekly and Daily Backup
24-Hour monitoring
30-Day Money Back Guarantee
Support
Maintenance
Checklist

Summary of Strategy Five Send It To Bid

Strategy Six Construction & Presentation

Navigation
Font
Meeting With The Web Design Team
Incorporating all Images and Text
Under Construction Process
Meta-Tags
Back It Up
Ownership
Timeline, Pricing, Terms
Summary of Strategy Six Construction & Presentation

Strategy Seven Promotion

Domain Names
What Is A Domain Name
How To Register A Domain Name
How To Choose A Good Domain Name
How To Purchase A Domain Name
How To Park A Domain Name
Business Cards
Staff
Email Addresses
SPAM
Search Engines
Top Search Engines
Submitting To Search Engines
Checking Your Rank
What is a good Rank?
Ranking high – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
Fixing Low Rankings
Doorway Pages
Banner Advertising
Questions To Ask To Determine The Best Banner
Advertising For Your Company
Ask Customers To Bookmark Your Page
Involve Your Audience
Sell Something New For Cheap
Pop Ups
Community Portals
Ebay.com
Community Shopping Malls On-Line
Cooperative Marketing
Associations – Trade Related Sites
Coupons
Classifieds
Exchanging Links
Media Release To Announce The Site

Summary of Strategy Seven Promotion

Strategy Eight Tracking Your Success

Tracking Programs
Hits
Page Views
Search Engine Reports
Keyword Reports
Referring URLs
Most Requested Pages
Average time spent on the site
Unique Visitors
Path Reports
Return Frequency
Other Items Which Can Be Tracked
Summary of Strategy Eight Tracking Your Success

Strategy Nine Maintenance
Useful Information, Resources & Suggested Surfing

Thank you for reading.

Courtenay Pitcher

http://twitter.com/vernongirl

http://www.vernongirl.com

Is blogging for Vernon, BC businesses?

Blogging is a new thing that I'm into. It started for me just four months ago due to the necessity of having to help one of my marketing clients set one up. Now, I'm addicted to it. But, it took me some time to feel really comfortable with the subject matter. I've agonized over what to blog about and when to fit it in. I came to the conclusion that my local community of Vernon, BC deserves to have more relevant information written about it. And now, that information can be accessible on the web.

But is blogging good for your business, even if you're a small business located in Vernon, BC, Canada?

Of course it is, as long as you enjoy writing. And if you don't, well you can hire a marketing company like Lava Marketing to write it for you!

Blogging is really just another way to keep in touch with your customers. It can be set up like an e-newsletter to go right into your customer's email in boxes. Where I find that it's better than an e-newsletter, is that the software allows you to categorize and tag the content so that, as it accumulates over time, you can sort and search it more easily. And so can your customers.

Blogging is also very good for search engine optimization. With relevant titles to your blogs that match your blog content, you can be found more easily in search engines. The more you blog, the better your chances of being found.

Publishing to a blog can be somewhat easy, with a small amount of training, or a little research. However, again, there are companies that will publish it up for you, while you still retain all control and ownership of the content and the subscriber system.

The best part.....is that it's cheap, cheap, cheap. For under $100 per year you can set one up. There are some free ones on the market, but I don't recommend them for reasons I'll go into another time. The biggest investment into a blog is the time to write and post. But if you're like me and you have more time than money, this may be a great marketing option.

cheers, Courtenay Pitcher