- 1. Use Social Networks to Build Your Brand
During my business mentoring sessions I encourage my clients to investigate modern social networks. If you have a brand that people like, chances are they will want to be your friend on these various different social networks that are out there. These days there are more and more Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles based around businesses, podcasts and important people on the Web. Many business mentoring programmes increasingly emphasise the important of these platforms, so I strongly advise you to investigate them.
2. Make New QUALITY Friends
Find like-minded people and friends and add them to your lists via the different social networks out there. This way you are building a little network of people who are just like you and probably will enjoy anything you write or post about. Don’t just go adding a million random people just for the sake of adding people. Find people that you think would have an interest in what you have to say.
3. Share a Lot
Use the message posting and sharing services they provide to your advantage. Facebook has the “Share a Link” function. Post teaser links (giving a little ‘bit of information’) and a link to go back to your own website.
4. Take Advantage of Gadgets
Some of the RSS gadgets out there can be added to spread the word about yourself. One option is FeedBurner’s headline animator. Another is SpringWidgets where you can put a flash powered RSS reader right on your profile.
5. Add a Link to your Forum Signature
Forums were social networking tools before social networking had a name (and can be a powerful business mentoring tool). Adding a few links to your signature (if allowed via the forum rules) is a good way to get some links coming back into your website too.
6. Add Your RSS Feed to Facebook
On Facebook you can plug your RSS feed right into your profile. Just edit your “Notes” section and include that they should be importing from your RSS feed of choice. Word of warning: if you post 20 messages a day, you could be getting yourself into trouble.
7. Stumble Yourself on StumbleUpon (and get others to stumble you too!)
Make sure you get your most popular content and websites listed on StumbleUpon in one way or another. This is a prime source for a boat load of traffic, if your content is good. Business mentoring can help you devise high-quality content for this purpose.
8. Include a URL on Your Profile Picture
Create a profile icon or picture for the services you sign up for that has your URL on it. This might sound like a cheap form of advertisements – but the more often you can get people to see that URL, the more likely they’ll give it a visit or at least have it stuck in the back of their head to use at a later time and date.
9. Add a Link Back to All of Your Various Projects
More likely than not, all of these services allow you to list at least one link back to your website or project. Take advantage of that. Make sure you include your links and give them descriptions as well so that people know what they are clicking to.
10. Don’t Forget Your Subscription Links
When you include your link to your website on one of the social networks out there, make sure that you include your RSS feed as well. You might put that little orange icon next to each link so people know how to subscribe to your content. You might also include the “Add to Google” or “Add to My Yahoo” type subscription buttons as well to make it easier for people who look at your link to subscribe via their subscription method of choice.
