Helping Hands For Coaches

If you’re a coach or speaker, and you’re new to your business, then a WordPress.com website/blog would be a great start to building your Internet Marketing presence. We gave a LOT of information on how-to edit your own WordPress.com blog/website this past Friday – here’s just a sample of what we did:
1. How to create your own header with an image
2. How to add images, video, or HTML to your blog post or page
3. Discussion on Pingbacks

4. Have a ‘traditional’ Home Page for your WordPress.com website
5. Comment posting
6. Widgets and protecting your blog from SPAM
To learn more, please listen to our podcast below. This Friday, we’ll be discussing how to promote and market your WordPress.com blog/website. Be sure to sign-up at the Webinar’s page!

Thank you to all 7 of our panelists for being a part of a first for Helping Hands for Coaches! We had an amazing group of successful coaches, speakers and a professional digital branding expert discuss why they use Twitter, how they use it, and the success they’ve had. Each used Twitter differently, yet successfully. I hope that each of you that listen to the call will take away that it doesn’t matter how you use it, so long as you do – and do so authentically. Don’t become a Spammer, only there to promote yourself, but realize that Twitter is a way to connect, communicate, and network with others you may not have reached otherwise.
The call was so successful, I will continue to have panelist discussions in the future. Be sure to sign-up for our classes if you wish to have notice of our Friday classes.
Enjoy!

Audio is 60 minutes in length.

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So, you have the blog up and running – but, now the big question (that I often get) – now what? You might be thinking, “There’s this big, beautiful, empty blog staring at me – and it’s a little intimidating!” The best advice I can give you, is first:

1. Research what other bloggers in your market are blogging about. Don’t shy away from your competition, but don’t write exactly the same stuff they’re writing about. Knowing what your competition is writing about will give you some ideas and a sense of comfort.

2. Be yourself – and don’t over-think it. One thing I’ve noticed from blogs that I follow is that they don’t over-think their post. Sometimes it’s spontaneous, sometimes it’s a great planned post, but it’s usually short, sweet, and to the point.

3. Don’t be a spam blog (an ugly name for a spam blog is ‘splog‘ – sounds like a flattened frog – yuck!). That means the only reason you have a blog is to promote you, you, you. Be interesting, or no one will be interested (and who really wants to be as interesting as a splattered frog?)

How do you know if the blog you’re reading is good? Check-out the Technorati stats:

1. Look at the Authority Rating: it should be higher than other blogs. This is relative, so I can’t say ‘it should be over 20′, because it  would depend on how popular other blogs are in the same category.

2. If you’re looking at the Technorati ‘Rank’: it should be a lower number (for instance, it would be totally awesome to be ranked in the top 100 blogs).

The best way to know what your audience would like to hear about is by talking to them. So, when you’re out at networking groups, or you’re talking with a client, ask them: What are your interests? What do you struggle with? What blogs do you currently read? What are you looking for? Then take note- they’re telling you how to bring your blank blog canvas to life!

Most of you have probably at least heard of Twitter by now, if not – get ready! It’s an amazing Social Media tool that can really help you get connected to other entrepreneurs, experts in your field, and of course, prospects and clients! But, I must warn you – it is addicting! You’ll find yourself tweeting live events, while walking to meet with a client, and during your own teleseminars! But, this is what makes Twitter so unique – it helps you to be and stay on people’s mind, even if you’ve never met them. Take, for instance, I’ve been following Warren Whitlock co-author of the Twitter Revolution (with @coachdeb), for a while – but I didn’t think he would recognize me – but here we were, last Friday at the Social Media Conference in San Diego, and he said, “Hey, don’t I know you? I’m following you, aren’t I?” Wow! I was floored – and what floored me more was how many times it happened after that! Now, wouldn’t you like to be known before you enter a networking group? Would you like a room full of potential prospects to feel warm towards you before you spoke? Twitter can do that for you.

So, I know I’ve been holding back from my coaches about this awesome tool – but, I don’t like to promote something until I have a grasp of it myself. So, read further for my resources, and how to get started (you won’t believe how easy it is!)

To get started on Twitter, I recommend going to Twitter, sign-up for an account, add your profile photo (go to ‘Settings’ in the upper right to customize your profile), and then type your first post – just a 140 characters. I  then recommend you to start following people that automatically follow others, as John Chow suggests. He recommends that you get beyond the 100 ‘followers’ count  to be ‘socially proof’.  How do you know if they’ll automatically follow you? Just see if their ‘followers’ count matches their ‘follow’ count.

Once you hit the 100 followers mark, then you need to make your tweets interesting. Whenever I mention Twitter, the main question I get is “Why does anyone want to know what I had for breakfast?” Good point – they probably don’t! I think some ‘Not Dead Yet’ moments are fine (for instance, “Drinking some coffee with the hubby at my favorite coffee shop: http://theneighborhoodcup.com/“), but generally that’s not going to get you a huge following. So, before you post, notice if what you’re about to tweet is interesting to your potential following (yes, you should have a goal of who you want to have follow you – mainly your target market).

One issue that I came across when I first started tweeting was understanding other tweets! It’s like it’s in a different language – one that’s constricted by 140 characters! Thanks to my friend, Mari Smith, I was able to understand the @ symbol in front of people’s names, and the short hand that tweaps use.

Some musts to help you save time while using this great Social Media tool:
TweetScan – a ‘search’ tool for Twitter – find your target market easily
Tweet Deck – a desktop software that allows you to know what’s going on in the Twitter world, without having to go online
TwitScoop – find out what’s the hot topic right now and join the conversation
TweetLater – want to be sure a tweet goes out at a certain time but not sure if you’ll remember to tweet it? Use this tool to schedule tweets to post in your account.
BudURL – want to see if all this Social Marketing is working? This tool will take your URL, and track the results – who’s clicking from where.
SocialToo – allows you to auto-follow followers, and can let you know when people stop following you.

Some Free Resources on Twitter that I used to get started:
GeekPreneur Twitter Handbook
Guy Kawaski : How to Use Twitter as a Twool, and Looking for Mr. Goodtweet: How to Pick Up Followers on Twitter
Warren Whitlock and Coach Deb: Free Twitter Handbook
Duct Tape Marketing: Free downloadable eBook on Using Twitter for Business
Twitter Lingo: by Mari Smith
Have another resource you found helpful? Add a comment and the link! Thanks!

As Warren said last Friday, the main thing is – Twitter has no rules – you can decide on how you want to brand yourself on Twitter. So, have fun and Happy Tweeting! Oh, and if you liked this post, please follow me at http://www.twitter.com/rachelpradhan  See you there!

Now that Indra Successful Coach Marketing and Blaze Interactive, our two companies, build websites utilizing WordPress, you’ll see some more video tortorials on how to utilize this great software as a content management system. All of our clients have been able to easily pick-up how to use WordPress once their website launched, but I thought it would be helpful if they have some extra support as well.

If you are a life or business coach, or an entrepreneur, on a major shoe-string budget, then I would recommend WordPress as a way for you to quickly and easily build a website. WordPress.com is the free version of WordPress in which you can set-up a blog in minutes. Their free templates aren’t the greatest, but it can easily be customizable. If you want your own URL, and host your own WordPress Website – then I recommend WordPress.org. For hosting the WordPress website, I always recommend BlueHost.

When we build a website utilizing WordPress, we first focus on the design of the site – utilizing our own 6-step design process that really captures the essence of our clients. We then build the site utilizing the WordPress technology, allowing our clients to easily make changes once the site launches. It’s also more Search Engine friendly than basic HTML websites.

This first video is how-to make basic changes in your WordPress website.

The second video is how-to make basic color changes to your WordPress website.

Just a reminder – your ‘Admin’ page to sign-in is your URL (or web address), plus /wp-admin. So, for example, for http://www.helpinghandsforcoaches.com it will be http://www.helpinghandsforcoaches.com/wp-admin.

If we didn’t help you develop your website, and you would like custom HEX colors (the series of numbers/letters that tells browsers what colors to show) – then you can visit this website: www.2CreateAWebsite.com