Part 5 of 6 - Using Local Resources to Define Yourself as an Expert

As the Internet grows with more content, finding things in your local sphere of influence can be more challenging. A growing market of local search and information sites are becoming more popular and to use as a place to define yourself as an expert.

When search engines started to become popular, Yahoo created indexes categorized data by localities. Yahoo Local and tools on Google, in addition to many other search engines help users find things related to their location. You can use these indexes to get your content listed with local information. Looking like an expert online involves being found online where other experts are found. RachLocal is a service that helps you get on local searches and buy advertising with the search engines for local search.

There are index services that help find people in your area. For example, there is ColoradoBizBuzz.com. Merchant Circle is another site provides access to local companies. You can also find pay for sites like Angie’s List . However, I caution you to question the value in paying for the service with other free options.

Another aspect of Local Internet is local bloging sites. There are sites from the major players like Your Hub, The Denver Post, and others. Sites like Hello Denver, TDC Guide and Lone Tree Guide are other examples.

Getting involved in local search and local blogs is an important part of defining yourself as an expert.

Part 4 of 5 (now 6) Using Social Networks

One of the biggest buzz words in business and the rest of the world is social networking. Is social networking more than teenagers talking their weekend? It is, much more than this, especially as social networking sites grow. Social networks, as well as specific social networks, are becoming viable parts of a strategy to use the Internet to define yourself as an expert.

Stepping back from the main topic, two words in the last paragraph stand out as critical points to the overall series. The first is part – each of these articles discusses a piece of the overall puzzle. Just one part is not going to be effective unless it is part of a cohesive whole. The second word is strategy. The word implies that there is a plan and that your use of social networks or other tools is planned. Without a plan you cannot have success.

To get an overview of social networking you should read this article, but this blog post will cover the specifics of defining yourself as an expert.

The trick to defining yourself as an expert using social networking is to work with the social network and its norms. One should not to use it in a pushy way against the flow and norms of the network. For example, norms for LinkedIn questions expect you to ask and answer questions not by not trying to promote your products or services.

I am a user of LinkedIn AnswersLinkedIn Answers and I think almost any service business should be as complete. LinkedIn Answers gives business people a forum to ask questions about any topic under the sun. Answers can be voted as best and commented on. These best answers are ones that show your expertise but do not sell a specific solution. In this article on ReadWriteWeb there is a list of many Q&A sites and the types of questions they lend themselves too.

I have personally focused on LinkedIn Answers because one of these easiest ways to fail using social networks is to over-extend yourself. Answering questions for a bunch of different networks can’t be a full time job. Find one or two networks that you will focus on.
If your market calls for reaching young professionals, Facebook is your place. Facebook was started as a place for social interactions and it is exploding into a place for business. Facebook Pages and their connection to the Facebook advertising system are wonderful tools.

Squidoo is a network that has sections called Lenses where you can post content about a specific topic. If you are a florist, it might help your company if you discuss about floral arranging. Just because you write content about how to arrange flowers, it does not mean that the average Jane or Josh is going to be able to do their own. You have just given content that proves that you know what you say you know and that you are willing to share with the community. Read the book The Go Giver for more on why this works.

Meetup.com is another very popular site for use in business because it attempts to bridge the gap between social networks online and the real world . You can plan “Meet-up” events and then meet in person as well as keep in touch using the Internet site. The South Metro Chamber of Commerce is able to do this better than any other company I know.

Next week we will take this local and discuss how to use local Internet directories and resources. I will also be adding a sixth week to the series on tying it all together and making a plan.

Using Email Marketing to Define Yourself as an Expert Part 3 of 5

For the past two weeks of the five part series about defining yourself as an expert with the Internet, we have looked at web sites and blogs. Both of these tools are great, and if a reader of these posts wants information from you and he or she is therefore more likely to be in a buying mood The goal of an email is a bit different because email is something that comes when you send it and the reader chooses when to read it not when to receive it.

The value of email is to remind and inspire your contacts. The emails remind them about your existence and your position as an expert. They inspire a potential client to read more, buy something or take another actionable step.

For example, many of you readers are here because you found out about this five part series from my newsletter. The goal of that newsletter was to get you to my blog. The next step is to get you interested enough to read the remaining part of the series and then for you to see me and the Denver DataMan team as being experts in defining us as an expert using the Internet.

• Email marketing can take several general forms:
• Promotions
• Reminders
• Newsletters

We will focus on newsletters. Newsletters are key way to define yourself as an expert because you give your reader something special and say your product or information is something s to share it. When a business coach shares information about time management, they are showing that they are an expert so that you are willing to pay to get them to help you apply a specific concept.

The newsletter can have seminar reminders and even a special but it is about providing information. Here are some tips to add value to the information.

• Write about current issues
• Write about topics that your clients and prospects commonly ask about
• Make your newsletter feel exclusive

Each of these items will make people want to read your content and then will see that you are an expert. Come back next week for information on using social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook to define yourself as an expert.

Using Your Blog to Define Yourself as an Expert Part 2 of 5

Last week, I wrote about using your website to establish yourself as an expert. Blogs are another tool to sharing information with your clients, prospects, and partners, supports that will differentiate you from the crowd.

What is Blogging?

Blog stands for WeB Log, a type of web content that is used for sharing informal updates. Generally, blogs have at least one poster who shares information about their prospective about  anything in the world. Blog posts will generally have dates and be sorted chronologically. However, because there isn’t an Internet-wide guide for blogging, this can be implemented differently by different websites.   

There are bloggers who blog about politics, bloggers who blog about what they ate, bloggers who blog about parenting, bloggers that blog about their business, and those that share about anything else you can imagine. Because there is often no cost to blog, many people star a blog for the fun of it and the quality can vary greatly.

The quality of your posts must  be worth reading. I don’t always have my editor read my blog posts because they don’t need to be as formal as other items. However, this special edition is more formal and even though I am using my blog it has still been edited.

Blogs should be updated often to be effective. This can be very hard. We all have a hundred things that we should do and deciding to make posting on a blog a priority is not easy. However, if we want people to come back to our blog to see what we have to say, then we need to make the time. Popular blogs can have many people visiting them in addition to using RSS   to send updates. For example you can use RSS for  a feed of content updates about the DDM blog.

Other ways that people find your blogs are through links on your website, search engines like Google, and blog search engines like Technorati. Social bookmarking sites like Digg and Del.icio.us help drive traffic to your blog.

You can build a blog on your own site with the help of a web developer or you can use a blog service like Blogger, Word Press, Thoughts.com and others.  You should look for a service that is easy to use. I like Blogger because it is free, easy, and reliable. Ideally your Blog should look more like your website than mine does, but I am trying to demonstrate the use of a third party blogging site. 

Blogging on these sites are focused on text and having a few  ictures and video. Picture blogging, video blogging and podcasts are valid tools to use as well. If you want to make the assertion that you are an expert on a given talk, how better to do it than to make Podcast?  That is, if you have the time.

Video blogging, or blogging by posting video s something that is becoming more and more popular. This is still primarily a social trend, but if you have things you want to show or topics that require more of a demonstration, then video blogging can be done.  

Podcasting refers to audio recordings that are done regularly. Many news agencies and some companies are using Podcasting. You can use RSS tosubscribe to Podcasts so that they are automatically downloaded for you. iTunes may be the best tool for this job.

Overall, blogging gives you a less formal tool to help you establish yourself as an expert. Come back next week for part III using email newsletters.