Hold on to your pantyhose, it’s time to rebrand!

Dita von Teese wearing stockingsHold on to your pantyhose, it’s time to rebrand! That sense of panic when you realize that you probably need to consider rebranding can be paralyzing. But this is a serious issue.  For many of us, when we get started online we think we have our thumb on the pulse of our niche. We think we have found a terrific topic and a great name and are creating a super brand.  Well, maybe you have and maybe you haven’t.  Really, the only way to tell is to give it  time.

I have found that our initial efforts are not necessarily wrong, but what ends up being the goal of those efforts changes over time. Maybe you thought that your blog was just going to be a good source of information on your site. But over time you realize that you have started focusing on your blog and want to use that to be your primary traffic driver. Maybe it is time to spin off your blog and rebrand it to work in tandem with your site.

Maybe you thought that videos were going to be your cash cow but your unique brand of photography is pulling in more people.  Is it time to change your focus and use video to support your photography rather than the other way around?

One of the biggest shifts people currently make is from company branding to personal branding.  Many times we start off branding ourselves with our company or studio.  We are one piece of the whole.  If your popularity gets big enough, then personal branding might be the shift you need.  Look at Jesse Jane, she is one of Digital Playground’s hottest stars. She is branded there as one of their girls. But she has also created her own branded empire.  When you think of Jesse you think of her first and Digital Playground second.  But that would not have happened if she did not brand herself.

As I am sure Digital Playground would attest, Jesse’s branding feeds into Digital Playground’s branding.  The two are not mutually exclusive.  The more successful Jesse’s branding, the more traffic and business Digital Playground will get.

Over time you will see the reality of what is working for you, what is driving traffic, what is driving sales, what is most popular and what you want your focus to be.  This is often divergent from what we started with.  Don’t be afraid to shift gears. Rebranding is not easy, but the payoff can be more than worth the effort.

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10 Tips for the best Twitter Bio

Tights with "Follow me" printed on the legsHaving a strong Twitter bio is important. This is your first impression – your first chance to get someone to like you. This is also how search engines find your profile, so you want to make sure it is SEO optimized.

Once a week I go through my new Twitter followers and I decide who I am going to follow back.  I consider a lot of factors in deciding why I follow or don’t follow someone.  One of the biggest reasons is their bio on Twitter.

Think of your bio as your 10 second elevator pitch. You have 160 characters to tell me why I should be interested in you.  If I like what I see, maybe I’ll click your profile and check out your most recent posts.  If those are interesting then I’ll follow you.  But the bio is your handshake.

5 Tips for a strong Twitter Bio:

  1. Tell me who you are. Are you a public figure? What do you do? Why are you here? I want to know who I am following
  2. Web Address: if you have a website, put the url in your bio.
  3. Don’t be crass or abrasive.  If you seem unfriendly and rude, then why would I want to follow you?
  4. Don’t try to sell me.  If your bio is trying to push a product, that tells me that you are about your sales and not about engaging with your followers.
  5. Be charming. Be nice. I want to think that if I follow you that you are approachable.

5 Tips to SEO optimize your Twitter Bio

  1. Web address in the bio. This is an easy way to have your Twitter associated with your business in the search engines.
  2. Business name in the bio. When people search for you, they often search for business names, so include it.
  3. Use industry key words in your bio. Do some keyword research and make sure to use some of the big keywords, that way when people search for those you have a chance of coming up in the search results.
  4. If your name is branded, use your name. This way when people search your name, they have an even better chance of finding you.
  5. Don’t shorten any words.  Search engines don’t search for abbreviations of words. So unless your key term is usually abbreviated, spell it out.
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Kim Kardashian does it, do you?

Kim Kardashian in a big feathery dressLast week I was drinking my morning coffee when I saw a brief interview on the Today Show with Kim Kardashian. Matt Lauer was talking to her about her personal brand-based empire. Though they did not focus on it, Kim shared that she often crowdsurfed Twitter to make both personal and business decisions.

In case you are not sure who Kim Kardashian is, she is the star of the reality TV show “Keeping up with the Kardashians”. If that didn’t answer your question (I know it didn’t for me), she is the daughter of Kris and Robert Kardashian. Her father, Robert, is a prominent defense attorney. Her parents divorced and later her mom married Olympic Gold Medalist Bruce Jenner. She has 9 siblings; 3 from her mom, 4 from Bruce and 2 from Bruce and her mom. Her family dynamic contributed to getting the reality show. But Kim is a PR maven. Like Paris Hilton, she is another person who has managed to become famous just for being famous.

Though Kim did not rely on her fame as a basis of success, she has created a very successful business. Starting off as a fashion stylist, she and her sister opened up a clothing store called DAS. She has also launched that into a high end fashion line in conjunction with fashion house Bebe; an Armenian-inspired jewelry line; a shoe company (shoedazzle.com); a fitness DVD, and most recently her own brand of perfume.

In the interview, Kim mentioned that she is often indecisive and will ask her Twitter followers for their opinion, whether it be about what color nail polish she should use or design concepts for the bottle for her new perfume. She said that involving her followers made her more accessible. It allows them to relate to her more easily and feel like they are a part of what she is doing.

This is the key. Crowdsurfing is great for gathering opinions and thoughts, but it is also an excellent way to allow people to feel that they are playing a role in your decisions. It keeps your audience involved and turns them into active participants. However, if you ask your followers for their thoughts and opinions and then completely ignore them, you will have accomplished the opposite of what you set out to do. If you are not actually interested in people’s opinions, then don’t ask.

Below is the short video interview from the Today Show – enjoy.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This post was originally posted on Blog Cubed

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Do you vid? The Facebook rumors might be true.

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woman laying down in lingerie on skype chat

Do you vid?

Do you offer one-on-one conversations with your clients through Skype? Do your clients want you to see them too? Well there might be another platform coming out for you to vid.

Facebook might be integrating video chat into their chat platform. There are rumors, coming from the discovery of video code in the Facebook platform, that FB might be integrating video chat into their chat application.

Video chat has been more of a “when” rather than an “if” for a long time but it is possible that our wait is coming to an end.

With one-third of the U.S. population on Facebook, there is a better chance that your friends are on Facebook chat rather than an email oriented platform like AOL, MSN or Google. And of course integrating FB chat into outside platforms like iChat and AIM just increase the reach and usability. This makes FB a likely platform for chat.

The integration of group chat into the new FB groups, and being able to have email announcements stream into your chat box, has just increased the attractiveness and probable development of the chat function.

Facebook would be a very easy platform for transferring conversations.  Though there are many Skype users out there, there are pleanty of people who are still not on it.  If you were networking on Twitter and wanted to move your conversation from 140 characters to a vid chat you could send someone your Facebook link.  Once they friend you, you start your video chatting.  Not only does this provide an easy way to chat but you have just expanded your network.

Through creating the cross-network relationship you have now increased your reach and can communicate with your clientele in more ways than before.  And of course if you want to build a strong client base and really grow the profitability of your business, your ability to connect to your clients on as many platforms as possible is an important key factor.

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Video Tutorial: How to Send a Direct Message on Twitter

A big question I often get asked is how to send a Twitter direct message. Especially after the New Twitter came out, some people were not sure how messaging worked.  So I put together a video tutorial to walk you through how to send a DM on Twitter. Enjoy

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