Jane van Velsen

, , ,

Following the Karma Sutra: Blogging of a different kind.

In 1 on March 12, 2010 at 15:03

Karma SutraI watched the movie Julie/Julia the other day and I was impressed that Julie did so well out of blogging about Julia’s recipes. I thoroughly enjoyed her blogging style although I could never bring myself to wade through all those recipes in reality. I think I would have simply hired a chef and tasted them instead.

Anyway, it got me to thinking. What should I blog about next? I blog for so many other people – well, clients – and rarely have the time to think about my own blog let alone start a few more but this inspired me.

I wondered how my blog would rate if I decided to work my way through the entire Karma Sutra in similar fashion to Julie and Julia’s recipe book – however, this I would definately have to ‘wade’ through myself.

The original Karma Sutra positions were from an illustrated text on love, written by Vatsyayana. It was written in the first few hundred years after Christ was born. Written in India, the seven parts are written by seven different authors with many illustrations. There are parts about love, getting a wife, conduct for a wife, and attracting other people.

Illustrations and text are given with guidance on how to conduct ourselves with others and be proper and polite. Three versions exist of the Karma Sutra, one from the 1880s, one from 1970s, and one from 2002. The early translation isn’t as graphic because it was written in Victorian times. I have a later edition.

I put the idea to my husband as it dawned on me I’d definitely need his input (no pun intended) and, of course, his agreement that I could ‘talk’ about the experiences and the outcomes online.

He is still thinking about it after trying suggestions one, two and three.

I’m positive he’ll be only too happy if we manage to achieve positions ten onwards. Watch this space!

Comment »

, , , , ,

Knowing where to find your audience

In Advertising and marketing, Articles & Features, Blogs, Commercial writing, Copywriters & Writing, Network marketing, SEO copywriting, blogging, business and social media on March 6, 2010 at 13:21

A lot of my clients believe that building visibility online via social media is a blanket approach but this is not true. Just as in traditional marketing, you need to define and target your audience with relevant messages and you need to know where to find them.

Take baby boomers for example. They are just one of the most sought after social networking groups. If the baby boomers all got together on a single issue they could topple the government and their spending power is growing, not depreciating. They are a unique group as are many others online eg: Teenagers, Moms, Sports fanatics, investors.

The point is, you need to know them. WHere are they spending their time online, which sites are they active on and what behaviour to they exhibit? How are they using social media sites?

Nielsens state that more than 5.5 hours were spent on social networking sites by global consumers in December 2009 against the 3 hours spent by them in December 2008. That is a whopping 82% increase of time in just one year!

Getting to know your target market is key to any successful marketing campaign and social networking is no different. Pew Research Centre tells us that nearly 72% of teens use social networking sites compared to 40% of adults which is expected. The difference is that the teens are more inclined to use MySpace, less likely to have a LinkedIn profile and actively participate on Facebook (71%).

WHat’s interesting to me is that 75% of the global adult and older generation use Facebook as well.

Funnily enough it seems that teens are not drawn to Twitter in quite the same way as they are Facebook or MySpace and of those who do use it 13% are high school girls and only 7% boys.

EMarketer tells us that 46% of Boomers have a social network profile compared to 30% (Deloitte) in 2007 – so it’s catching on! Baby Boomers usage of FaceBook has increased 107% from 2008 to 2009 with 90% of those aged between 63 – 75 years old having an active profile. Twitter activity in the Boomer category jumped 714% from 2008 to 2009!

Baby Boomers use social networking to achieve lifestyle objectives such longevity and health as well as keeping in touch with fragmented families and friends.

Knowing the stats on the spending power of this group I’d advise all my clients seeking consumers in this sector to invest heavily in social media this year.

Get networking. Get a blog. Create a hub around your product or service and support it with the social marketing necessary to get your message out there.

If you need help….. contact me.

Comment »

, , ,

The do’s and don’t s of Tweeting!

In Advertising and marketing, Articles & Features, Blogs, Commercial writing, Copywriters & Writing, Network marketing, Press Releases, Social networking, Viral Networking, article writing and editing, blogging, business and social media, feature writing on February 25, 2010 at 09:27

A lot of clients ask about using Twitter in a campaign to drive traffic. They want to know how to use it properly and what the rules are but we have to tell you that there are none really, This article from club tweet maxi is a good guide to tweeting. http://www.clubtweetmaxi.com/free-how-to-twitter-guide/the-art-of-the-tweet-lesson-4/

They say that “The bottom line is to have fun, enjoy yourself, be transparent, be honest & respectful of others and to Tweet interesting things – ideally tweets that others might want to retweet(!).

Do
Tweet often – at least a few times per day
Retweet other people’s messages if you found them useful
Thank others that have retweeted your messages
Reply to others in public if you feel others would be interested
Tweet interesting things:
Offer advice, knowledge, information, and add value
Share pictures, links, and resources
Engage with your followers, invite questions, and take polls
Tweet your blog posts – but make sure that this is not all you tweet.
Answer anyone that messages you
Try and follow targeted people
Make sure you use a good photo, a great background, an interesting Bio that includes your website details (use bit.ly to measure results).
Don’t
Brag about how many followers you have. I have done this, no one has complained, but it has a so what factor (6000 today!)
Swear or use foul language @$!!
Sell on Twitter £@$
Have updates that are just RSS feeds or affiliate links – oops!
Try and pretend you are someone else – just be honest and open with people
Often we see people posting quotes, jokes and there is no shortage of really good web pages out there.”

All I can tell you is that if we support our article campaigns with catchy, relevant tweets, the unique visitors to the landing pages increase dramatically!


Bookmark and Share

Comment »