Monday, May 25, 2009

How Did You Do That?

A Twitter Tip (Twip?) You Can Use Now
by Julia D. Stege, MFA
@MagicalMarketer

I was busy with a plate full of greens at a networking lunch recently when the woman next to me showed me her iPhone. "You just tweeted me," she said.

I grabbed her iPhone and saw my latest Twitter update on her screen. I grinned. "Yup."

"How did you do that?" she asked.

I touched my nose and wiggled it Tabatha style. "Magic," I said. After all, I am the Magical Marketer, and this is how I get the reputation for being a Social Networking guru, of sorts. It's a reputation I enjoy.

However, though I have fun creating the image of owning super powers, I love empowering people even more.

So I told my buddy about the application I use to schedule tweets to go out when I'm networking, or digging up dirt in the garden, or even sleeping. It's called www.FutureTweets.com and it's a free application that allows you to schedule one time or recurring Twitter updates. And unlike some of the other tweet-schedulers, FutureTweets doesn't tag your tweets. This allows you to tweet without announcing you've used a scheduler.

FutureTweets saves a lot of time since you can schedule all your tweets at once instead of making multiple visits to update your status. You can take about 10 minutes to schedule a dozen tweets to go out over the next 24 hours, once per day, week or month.

And if you're worried about folks noticing your repetitive tweets, here's some sage advice. Make sure your tweets offer something of real benefit to people, like a link to a free educational podcast or blog post, an inspiring quote, or a daily reminder. Your perfect followers will appreciate having multiple opportunities to take in your tweet.

Including Twitter as an integral part of your Internet Marketing Plan is fast becoming essential. In my 10 week webinar, Attracting Perfect Customers Online, I instruct conscious entrepreneurs and holistic practitioners how to use the hottest social networks to attract their most perfect customers online. I teach time-shaving tips along with a practical attraction-based marketing plan that is fun, fulfilling and sustainable. See http://www.graphicgirlz.com/apco.html for more details.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Magical Marketer Julia D. Stege, MFA helps people attract their perfect customers with a unique combination of Law of Attraction, wildly attractive logos and websites, and smart Social Networking techniques. If you're ready to start attracting your perfect customers now, get Julia's free Magical Marketing Toolkit at http://www.magicalmarketingtoolkit.com/

Monday, May 18, 2009

How to Relax and Attract Perfect Customers

Have you ever stopped to notice that being stressed and uptight is not a great way to attract perfect customers?

I know it can be hard sometimes when you're wondering where the next customer is going to come from and you're looking at your bills that keep mounting. Believe me, I can relate.

But I have learned that worry ~ even one minute of worry ~ is completely 100% counter-productive to the results I want.

Even if I forget for a second that my thoughts are creating my reality, and I take a long logical look at how I come off to others when I’m anxious, really it’s not an attractive picture. It’s clear to me that my perfect customers will not recognize me at all when I am not being my true, authentic self. And doesn’t that make sense?

Now coming back to the fact that our thoughts do create our reality, can you see how worry is working against your dreams coming true? In fact, worry is a negative future projection.

In the book “The Law of Attraction,” Abraham-Hicks points out that even 17 seconds of continuous intention around a desire will start that desire coming to you. Unfortunately, focusing on a possible negative outcome, especially when coupled with strong emotion, is a powerfully creative act, though we may not like the outcome!

When I first read “The Law of Attraction,” I stopped to remember the last time I had spent a solid 17 seconds focusing on my positive intent without considering the opposite or my ‘shadow of a doubt.’ It was challenging to remember a time outside of a self-help workshop where I had stayed completely positive for that long. That was an eye opener!

Now with my penchant toward negative thinking revealed, I am empowered to try a worry-free approach to marketing. I have learned that staying true to my purpose and focused on the positive aspects is vital to the Attraction Marketing process.

Toward that end, I’d like to share some tips I’ve learned to RELAX, kick back and attract my perfect customers.

TIP 1: Be Kind to Yourself
Spend 15 minutes doing something you love. Sometimes a whole day can fly past without me stopping to smell the daisies. Now I make sure to go out to my garden at least 15 minutes a day to be with my beautiful plants. What is your favorite thing to do? Stop what you’re doing now and go do that for 15 minutes. Notice how attractive you feel when you do what you love.

TIP 2: Make your Strategic Attraction PlanTM:
One way to focus on what we like and want to attract is by creating our Strategic Attraction Plan TM (SAP) This simple 4 part plan helps us determine what is most perfect for us in our business and our life. Visit http://www.magicalmarketingtoolkit.com for free lessons on the attraction plan and marketing.

TIP 3: Take Attractive Actions:
It is always wise to take a proactive approach when marketing. The key is to make the act of marketing fun and expressive for you. Consider what you love to do and then look for ways to combine that with a creative marketing act. Maybe you love to do yoga… so grab your mat and your biz card, post card or flier and find places to post your ad on your way to yoga class. Or perhaps you like to party, so plan a party where you and everyone gets to show off their products and services. Or if you like to write, write an article or blog entry and send it off to your list. Obviously that’s one of my favorite fun marketing actions~!

TIP 4: Get Some Help:
Sometimes you just need help getting your marketing engines running. You may need a new image, or a website update, or you may want to learn how to get to page one of google. I have a variety of offerings at different price points that may be a perfect option for you to start stressing less and attracting more of your perfect customers today. Visit http://www.graphicgirlz.com/ to learn more about Magical Marketing.

Saturday, May 9, 2009

PJ Networking Strategies 2009

Updated for 2009 from 5/24/08
by Julia D. Stege, MFA
@magicalmarketer

One of the greatest benefits of living in the technical age is that we can do all sorts of things from home just by going on the internet. We can shop, learn, be entertained and connect with others without even getting dressed! As a social being, I like to go out in the world once in a while to network with friends and colleagues, but there's nothing quite like connecting with peeps from all over the world without leaving my ergonomic comfy chair.

Back in 1998 I started actively networking online using sites like craigslist.org, care2.com, yahoogroups.com and ryze.com to meet people, share passions, and make business connections. Now, with the addition of sites like Facebook and Twitter I can build my contact list by dozens per day, and on Squidoo and Hub Pages I can get to page one of Google almost instantly! This activity combined with a stellar website makes for easy online attraction, no matter what my hair looks like that day!

And it's fun.

Often I sit at home in my PJ's (guess what I'm wearing now!) and share my passions, illuminate with tips, offer help and advice, check out the brilliant sharing of others, and most importantly promote other people for free by writing on thier walls or retweeting them (see RT article). All this activity helps me to attract perfect customers. Sometimes I even do this while watching my favorite soap (recorded on TiVo). It's a really fun way to market and make friends. I cannot recommend this enough.

Remember that feeling good about your marketing is vital if you want to become a magnet for your perfect customers. They will sense who you are and as Dale Carnegie wrote back 100 years ago, people will buy from you when they know you, like you, and trust you. That's way more important than what you are actually offering (though that's hard to really grok at first.)

Here are some tips on networking online:


1) Find social networks that you really like and that reflect your personality. The two biggies now are Twitter and Facebook, and you can find almost any flavor of community there. Twitter is growing by 40% per month and Facebook is pushing 200 million users now. Interesting to note that the average Facebook user spends 20 minutes a day there. That's a lot of time for them to see your shares!

There are other social networks you can check out:
  • care2.com is for folks who like to contribute to causes,
  • ryze.com is for entrepreneurs,
  • theWell.com around since '85 is a "literate watering hole for some articulate and unpretentious thinkers"
  • Waccobb.net is for the West Sonoma County, CA community though Barry is expanding it to the whole Bay Area and beyond. (do you have an online bulletin in your community?)
  • YahooGroups.com has thousands of bulletins by category, many of which allow advertising from members.

2) Join the networks you like best and set up your profile. Make sure to include your picture (Jill Lublin says make sure your picture is no more than 2 years old), a description of what you do for biz, your personal passions, your mission, and your service/product list. Don't forget to include links to your website/s, blogs, and other social network pages.

3) Search your network for folks of like mind and heart and introduce yourself. You can find them through your friends or through groups by topic. Invite interesting people to join your network. Join their network. Re-Tweet their stuff. Contribute. Visit your network often and spend at least 1/2 hour per day. .

4) Respond quickly to inquiries from others on your social network. Timing is everything. Let people know you appreciate their desire to connect and make efforts to really get to know them. See if you can get involved in their network of friends.

5) Create a blog ~ blogger.com is the easiest to learn which is why I teach it in my 10 week Social Networking class This will be a great place to post your latest interests, info, tips and queries so folks can keep up with you, your discoveries, and your offerings.

6) HAVE FUN! Magical Marketing is all about doing what you love to do and being open to receiving all you desire!

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Magical Marketer Julia D. Stege, MFA helps people attract their perfect customers with a unique combination of Law of Attraction, wildly attractive logos and websites, and smart Social Networking techniques. If you're ready to start attracting your perfect customers now, get Julia's free Magical Marketing Toolkit at http://www.magicalmarketingtoolkit.com/

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Soulful Lead Generation: The Days of Targeting Anonymous Leads are Over!

by Julia D. Stege, MFA
@MagicalMarketer

I remember when I first heard of a "Lead." I was active in a network marketing company and was learning about what they called a 'numbers game.' The idea was that once you had already burned through your "warm market list" (ie your friends and family) you would want to buy leads (names and contact info of potential clients) from brokers and other resources. You would then target these people who don't know you from Adam and give them your well-rehearsed sales pitch. Since only a few would bite, you would need hundreds if not thousands of these leads to try.

This seemed to work for a lot of people but I lost the stomach for it in about 2 minutes.

The problem for me was that the relationship wasn't authentic. The leads were just folks who at one time had indicated interest in home based business. There was no way to sort by personality type or interests or their potential simpatico with me and with the environmental mission of my company.

When I discovered Social networking, I found that I could easily meet dozens of new people each day just from sharing my purpose authentically online. And soon I started receiving calls on a regular basis from folks who say I'm the bomb and are already sold on my offerings.
Want these results? Here are some steps you can use to start generating some soulful leads on the social networks.

1) Create an attraction plan. You can get instructions on creating your attraction plan at http://www.magicalmarketingtoolkit.com/. Your plan will help you focus on what you want rather than the lack you may be feeling right now. You will clarify who you're attraction, what makes you and them tick, what you want them to expect from you, and who you are being. This will help you to get ready for your most perfect customers so you will recognize them when they contact you. You want to give energy to those who match your plan and let the others go.

2) Get on the social networks. Do not delay! If you can handle only one or two, get on Twitter.com and Facebook.com first. These are the most popular social networks with millions of potential perfect customers for you. More and more marketers are finding these tools, when used consistently, generate good leads. (Learn about other social networks on my free teleclass next week. See invite at http://www.graphicgirlz.com/teleconference.html)

3) Locate your peeps: Make sure you connect with everyone you know on these networks, and then start searching for folks of like mind and heart. You can search for keywords on Twitter to see who is using those words and connect with them. You can join groups on Facebook to find simpatico people there. Search your friends' friends and connect with them.

4) Lend a hand. Network in a way that helps others. Answer their questions, post valuable articles and information, repost items from your friends that you feel others would enjoy. This way you'll build a strong, trusting following of fans who are happy to receive your occasional promotions.

It's time to put away the old paradigm of targeting customers and do some soulful lead generation instead. It's going to be more fun and fulfilling for you and profitable as well. Go forth and attract!

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Magical Marketer Julia D. Stege, MFA helps people attract their perfect customers with a unique combination of Law of Attraction, wildly attractive logos and websites, and smart Internet marketing techniques. If you're ready to start attracting your perfect customers now, get Julia's free Magical Marketing Toolkit at http://www.magicalmarketingtoolkit.com/

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Retweet Me Baby: The Key to Twitter Growth

As I become more active on Twitter, I'm noticing a wonderful trend I'd like to encourage, and that is the re-Tweeting trend. Whenever you see the letters RT on a Twitter update, that means that what follows was originally from someone else, usually named right after the RT.

So for instance if I tweeted the following: What you seek is seeking you ~ Rumi

and you liked it, to re-Tweet, you'd post the following:

RT @magicalmarketer What you seek is seeking you ~ Rumi

There are a few cool things about this.

Firstly, it's a kind jesture and it's a way to help promote fellow Tweeters that you like so you can build partnerships online.

Secondly, all your RTs will end up in their @theirname box, so if you Re-Tweet someone, they'll know about it and Twitter ediquette says those who aren't following you yet will now follow you. Good way to get cool people to follow you and like you too!

Thirdly, when you RT folks who have a lot of followers, and they return the favor, your tweet will go out to a whole new audience. More potentiall new followers await you!

I think re-Tweeting is the best use of my Twitter time and I try to RT at least one person per day. If you RT me, I'll RT you! So Re_Tweet me baby! And we'll watch our follower numbers grow.