Do you ever stretch yourself beyond your close knit group of friends, local business contacts and those you follow on Twitter? I’m talking about beyond your city, beyond your country to the rest of the world.

Depending on your business you may not think you have to, but you should embrace your xenophilia and reach out to a wider world. Not just you but our media, our educational systems, the internet and more.

Luckily the world of Social Media has allowed us to do this instantly and like never before, are you taking advantage of your global reach?

There’s a whole world out there to discover but we’re often so trapped in our immediate surroundings that we don’t know for example that Japan has the highest number of users of Twitter followed by Brazil (11%) and then the USA.

Could they potentially be your customers, or at least some great connections to build a relationship with?

In this recent TED talk, blogger and technologist Ethan Zuckerman spoke about his desire to help share the stories of the whole wide world. He talks about clever strategies to open up your Twitter world and read the news in languages you don’t even know. I recommend you take time to watch it.

Taking A Global Perspective

For me this is especially important and probably one of the reasons I embrace travelling because it opens me up to a world of culture, tolerance, customs and differences that make me keep an open mind and a curious outlook.

WomanzWorld for me, has always been about engaging with women around the globe and hearing their stories, learning what business challenges are unique to their countries, city, village or community and to be able to better understand their unique circumstances.

Sadly North America and to some extent Europe dominates much of what we see, read, experience and consider on a daily basis and this shapes our perception of the world at large (unless you happen to devour the Economist, BBC World or sites like Global Voices).

I’ve recently been trying to engage with more women in Asia, Scandinavia and Australasia to feature them here on my blog. Don’t get me wrong I love all my Canadian, US and UK friends and connections and with regards to entrepreneurship some of the biggest trends and activities are happening in these countries.

But is that just because my sphere of influence and sources of news and information is largely based on the North American continent?

How to become a global player

If we’re just sticking to extending your global presence on Twitter as a start then  can I suggest using:

Twellow – the Yellow Pages of Twitter. Sign up, add your Twitter account and then search for the categories for your interest areas OR just use the search bar and type in`Business & Brazil’ for example for some fascinating results.

Twitter Search – take a look at #hastags for areas you’re interested in, countries you want to learn more about or expand your business into, just like this

TweetStats - a great way to look at what you actually do on Twitter both personally and professionaly, Tweet Stats allows you to look at the times of the day when you tweet most, the percentage of conversation vs RT and information sharing, your followers and also a Tweet Cloud of what you talk about most.

You can also view other peoples’ which is handy if you want to check in on your competitors and see how you compare. Get a broader perspective on the Twitter universe.

Here’s mine for @womanzworld

Kind of lovely I think.

I appreciate that there’s a world beyond Twitter too but it’s definitely one of the best sources of real time news and information plus trending topics with a truly global audience so why not start there.

Where do you go for your global fix?

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If you haven’t heard of Gary Vaynerchuk by now then where have you been?

The master of video blogging, Gary has single handedly built a $60 million dollar business by reinventing the rules on his own terms and working his ass off.

It’s clear that Gary is no ordinary guy, I’m not sure that he sleeps much and has more energy than an entire factory of Red Bull. So clearly much of his success can be attributed to his amazing work ethic and desire to live and breathe his passion for wines, marketing and business development 24/7.

His book `Crush It. Why now is the time to cash in on your passion’ is one of those super enjoyable books you can devour in less than two hours.

If you’re looking for an intellectual book on how to make money online through use of Social Media tools then don’t read this. If you’re looking to get jazzed up on his pure enthusiasm and ability to make something out of nothing then it’s a must.

What comes through most in this book is that you have to be prepared to hustle every single day, to engage, to respond and to treat your audience/ community/ customers like gold by ensuring they get your personal touch.

You have to believe and be constantly building your business. You can do so much of this using Social Media and I’ve summarized Gary’s key 12 steps to do this below.

I’ve also reviewed the book in this short and entertaining video which I decided to do unscripted and with just one take (taking a leaf out of Gary’s book – literally). Don’t judge! I did say I’d start doing more videos….

Gary Vaynerchuk’s 13 Steps to Crushing It!

1. Buy a domain name – nuff said (try GoDaddy.com)
2. Start a blog – use WordPress, Blogger or Tumblr
3. Hire a web designer – I have to agree with Gary on this, it’s worth it if you’re serious, you can do this further down the track though
4. Buy the tool for your business (Flipcam for Video Bloggers for example)
5. Create a Facebook Page
6. Create a Twitter account
7. Sign up for Ping.fm – distributes your content to as many social networks as you have in one hit
8. Start pumping out content – written, videos – whatever your poison is and make it personal. Be yourself.
9. Get your content out there (Ping.fm or Twitter or TubeMogul). Just do it Here’s where I think Gary’s business development skills started coming through if you already have those basics down pat (bar content, creating it is not basic!)
10. Use search.twitter.com to seek out people that may be interested in what you do, follow them and better yet @reply them to start a conversation. i.e if you’re a jeweller search terms to find someone like you! (I also highly recommend Twellow – the Yellow Pages of Twitter).
11. Go to Blogsearch.Google.com and type in keywords for your business, then go and leave a comment on each of those sites plus your name. (Note this may sound time consuming but it’s super valuable to do)
12. Do a Facebook search on say `Jeweller’ under all search results, then search pages and groups. Join several and start engaging.
13. Rinse and Repeat. In my mind this is one of the hardest things to do consistently but so crucial.

Also check out my free eBook `The Social Media Workout for Entrepreneurs’ for even more tips. Just sign up for my newsletter top right. Here’s a lovely review from Julia:

The Entrepreneur’s Social Media Workout is amazing. It helps a busy working woman learn what to spend more energy on AND what every network is and the best way to use it!

Julia Porter, Glamour Gals

Have you read Crush It!: Why Now Is The Time To Cash In On Your Passion? If so what were your key takeaways or what have you learned from it that you implemented for your business?

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As you may have noticed I’m a big believer in using Social Media as an integrated part of your business marketing approach. I also love coaching people where I can in how to use it effectively for their unique business situation.

Twitter has blown my mind with the ability it has given me to connect with a diverse range of terrific people from all around the world.

I’ve been able to reach people I may never have even discovered or had the chance to contact. In return people have found me completely by random and become fans of my blog thanks to links I’ve shared or retweets I’ve received from others in my community.

For all those people who don’t understand Twitter or bad mouth it – you’re missing out! If you want to know my key tips for using it for business and beyond then get your free copy of my eBook `The Entrepreneur’s Social Media Workout’.

Today I want to focus on profiling a few of the awesome women I’ve had the pleasure to connect with on Twitter. I recommend you follow them and here’s why: I appreciate their advice, their sharing of great information, their support, their style and the unique energy they give to women the world over.

If you enjoy this let me know and I can feature it regularly. There are so many more to mention!

Top 20 Women to Follow on Twitter for Business, Marketing, Technology advice and more

1. Ali Brown @AliBrownLA
   A self-made millionaire entrepreneur and a mentor to women around the world, helping them start and grow businesses and live extraordinary lives.
2. Aliza Sherman @alizasherman
   Strategist, Futurist, Speaker. Co-founder Conversify (social media marketing agency). Founded Cybergrrl/Webgrrls. Alaska-based World Traveler.
3. Kathy Meyer @2cre8
   eMarketing trends and technology enthusiast. She believes in balance and simplicity of design + form + function. She’s a Mompreneur, Foodie, Art, Music and iPhone lover.
4. Maren Kate @MarenKate
   Entrepreneur, start up starter, blogger and all around quirky chick.
5. Carrie Wilkerson @barefoot_exec
   Consultant/Strategist for work at home professionals. She aims to educate, empower, encourage & entertain men & women pursuing biz goals with integrity & passion!
6. Francine Allaire @thedaringwoman
   Founder of The Daring Woman™, Founding Partner of Supreme Social Media, Business Matchmaker, Social Media, Alliance and JV Strategist, Daring Lifestyle Designer
7. Linda Hughes @iempoweru
   Loves entrepreneurs – their inquisitive minds, fighting spirit & that persistence that moves mountains! Totally supportive of them in every way.
8. Anita Campbell @smallbiztrends
   CEO, Small Business Trends, an online small biz community reaching over 250,000 each month. Delivers small business success daily.
9. Simone Brummelhuis @thenextwoman
   Founder of The Next Women Business Magazine which features Female Heroes and News Interviews. Funding Community Founder Entrepreneur CEO TV Pitching Events Speaker – phew!
10. Karmen Reed @kickofftopic
    Provies marketing solutions through social media, online visibility and positive attitude. Loves to travel, cook and read.
11. Melissa Galt @prosperbydesign
    Dream Maker, Profit Architect, Social Media Muse, Life Designer, Tastemaker, Style Visionary, Foodie, Bungee Jumper, Adventurer, Optimist, Speaker, Author (clearly a keyword specialist
12. Anastasia Ashman @Thandelike
    Expat+HAREM neo-culture entertainment writer & producer. A Berkeley native who resides in Istanbul. TEDGlobalist. Hybrid identity adventuress. Seeker of the global niche.
13. Natalia @nakisnakis
    Founder & CEO of Pipeline (@PipelineWomen). Tweets about: #womeninnovators, #socent, @NYWSE, Gen Y, LGBTQ issues, OrgPsych, Healthcare, PopCulture & Gadgets
14. Kristi Colvin @kriscolvin
    Founder & Chief Creative Officer, Fresh ID. Creator of Twitterface. Opinionated user, brand experience designer & customer advocate.
15. Anita Borg @AnitaBorg_org
    Helping technical women connect with each other, resources and opportunities through her work at the nonprofit Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology
16. Coles Johnson @IndieBusiness
    Mom. Indie Beauty Network, Indie Business Podcast. One-time practicing attorney. Award-winning smallbiz advocate.
17. Manishka Thakor @ManishaThakor
    Personal Finance Expert for Women.
18. Tina Cook @TinaCook
    Social Media Marketing Mentor and Strategist and Guerrilla Marketing Coach, loves life by the Indian Ocean, photographing and creating inspiring visuals.
19. Elena Verlee @ElenaVerlee
    Loves to Talk About PR, Building a Biz and Living Life Fully. Has built 6 and 7-fig businesses, has 2 kids and lives in 2 countries. Has a great blog called PR in your Pajamas
20. Melinda Emmerson @SmallBizTalk
    Melinda Emerson is Host of #SmallBizChat, author, speaker, and smallbiz coach. Expertise in smallbiz start-up, social media marketing & developing content.

I would LOVE for you to add your own top women to follow in the comments section so we can all benefit and connect.

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In my previous post I gave an overview on the key takeaways from the Web 2.0 Conference I attended in San Francisco recently.

This follow up post focuses on my pick of the Keynote speakers who had the most fascinating information on innovations and technology that’s permeating the online world, but first up:

Open Leadership

My favourite speaker and workshop was held by Charlene Li, Founder of the Altimeter Group who talked about Defining Open Leadership. Altimeter Group is a strategy consulting firm that provides companies with a pragmatic approach to disruptive technologies.

What is open leadership?

It’s having the confidence and humility to give up the need to be in control, while inspiring commitment from people to accomplish goals.

How to give up control and be in command?

Open Leadership. It’s not about being completely open and transparent, it’s about finding the right level for your business.

For example Best Buy’s founders Steve Bendt and Gary Koelling went out to see make use of their people on the ground. Their staff go through a tremendous amount of training that makes them understand that they ARE Best Buy, they define it.

These two started creating a culture of sharing, where the individuals and frontline workers the ability to share best practices.

Barry the CMO of Best Buy was asked to start a blog. He initially thought this very scary and now he’s the face of Best Buy and always looking for ways to improve himself and Best Buy and to really reach the customers. He’s extremely open at the appropriate times and admit when he’s wrong.

Openness became a strategy, and Social Media became the tools to do this. They even used open market testing for their new logo and have used Twitter to answer 24,000 questions so far.

Focus on relationships not technologies.

Go beyond traditional customer data to the socialgraphic – who are they influenced by and who do they influence.

Charlene showed us the `Engagement Pyramid’: Focus on watching and sharing then commenting, producing and curating (at top of pyramid). You need to build the base first.

Look at all the options to engage openness on your site and sharing – white papers, free eBooks and commenting is important.

Curating is when someone feels so engaged in what you’re doing that they take your content and curate it – your best customers may do this because they feel it would benefit someone else.

Dell made $7 M on Twitter sales last year with offers like 15% off any Dell Outlet Studio. It’s trackable and you can have a conversation to support that sale.

Starbucks Big Idea concept allowed customers and employees to figure out ideas to make the Starbucks Experience better, got lots of vote and ideas.

#1 Align openness with strategic goals.

Examine your 2011 goals, pick one where open and social can have an impact

#2 Understanding the value

“We tend to overvalue the things we can measure and undervalue the things we cannot” – John Hayes, CMO of American Express.

The new lifetime value calculation

Value of purchases – Cost of acquisition + value of new customers from referrals + Value of insights + Value of support + Value of ideas = Customer Lifetime value

(%that refer, size of their networks, % of referred people who purchase, value of purchases, % that provide support, frequency and value of that support.)

#3 Understand how open you have to be

Information sharing  = explaining, updating, conversing, open mic, crowdsourcing, platforms
Decision making = centralized, democratic, self-managing, distributed

Determine how open you need to be to meet your goals. Today we’re around half way there to how open we need to be.

For example Apple have done well with their secretiveness to build hype for its products because they’re so great, aside from MobileMe launch 2 years ago which wasn’t and then it backfired.

#4 Find and Develop your open leaders

Change the mindset of people in your business from pessimists- worried skeptics, to optimists – transparent evangelist. The most powerful person in your org is going to be the Realist Optimist – they can collaborate to make real change happen as they can speak to each quadrant.

#5 Encourage sharing

This is a no brainer. Make it easy to spread your content.

#6 Embrace failure

We all make mistakes, we fear failure. Manage risk with Sandbox Covenants. Be prepared for it.

Keynote Speakers Top News:

The internet operating system

Tim O’Reilly told those of us innovating that we need to ensure our creation is one for the future, not just hot now. It’s crunch-time, we need to start thinking hard about how to keep the Web open.

How do we do this? Create more value than you capture. Facebook is doing a great job of this. Think about being part of a cooperating internet operating system.

The Real-time Web Eco-System

Hilary Mason, chief scientist at Bit.ly is the lady who figures out what to do with all the data they receive. How does it spread? How is it being exploited?

She provided an overview of the mechanisms of content sharing through the facets of social streams and the ways that content and behavior are evolving in this new environment. This has led to their launch of new service Fugu that analyses your personal graph, plus bit.ly tv.

Triage and capture: Rethinking Mobile Email

Jeff Pierce from IBM Research talked about their cool new innovation that separates out unread email from new and shows you where you should pay attention first, what’s most important on your mobile email.

You can apply types and actions to new email messages – next, deferred, reference. They then store and capture actions in a cloud storage so you can access it online, as well as a desktop application so you can access it instantly and deal with the emails that you have deferred etc.

IBM also look at providing those actions to the mobile device itself not just the desktop and they’re developing how that mobile experience fits in with the desktop and laptop experience.

HTML5 and the future of publishing

Jared Friedman, CTO and one Founder of Scribd showed that they’re starting over and moving everything over to HTML5. Scribd is the largest social publishing and reading site in the world and has 10s of millions of docs shared on it.

On Scribd, you can easily turn any file—such as PDF, Word and PowerPoint—into a web document. Documents generally have very complex formatting which is difficult to replicate in a web page and because browsers hade such limited fonts the process was to convert text to image which was not ideal.

Scribd supports 97% of browsers. They’ve had to convert millions of fonts to be read by these browsers.
Now they’ve developed searchable and copyable text that works across all devices. Magazines can now be easily transferred into powerpoint and scrolling views. It’s transforming the future of documents and sharing online.

More photos of key slides can be found on my Flickr account in the side bar or here.

And in case you missed this great interview I got whilst there with Shaherose of Women 2.0 on women entrepreneurs then watch it now:

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On Tuesday April 20^th I received this awesome email from Sarah Milstein, TechWeb’s General Manager and Co-Chair for Web 2.0 Expo in response to an email pitch I wrote a month earlier:

“Congratulations, Natalie. We’re giving you a full scholarship to Web 2. Expo SF, May 3 – 6 (http://www.web2expo.com/webexsf2010)! We received 100 applications in just a few days. Most of them were really strong, making it hard to decide on just ten winners…”

I was thrilled, valued at over $2,000 it was a treat to head off to San Francisco to attend this event as a social media evangelist and, as I’ve discovered, a slightly geeky tech enthusiast.

Co-produced by O’Reilly Media, Inc. and UBM TechWeb this four day conference showcased the latest Web 2.0 business models, development paradigms and design strategies for the builders of the next-generation Web.

I took a lot of notes, attended many workshops and was inspired by some excellent keynote speakers who showed the future of the web, the latest technologies and trends and innovations.

What follows is my attempt to summarize the key takeaways for you and your business on these key areas, I hope it’s valuable.

Below is more of the strategy and how to. I’ll be following up with a further post on thought leadership and innovations because there’s just too much to fit in!

Social Media Marketing and Strategy

Applied Communilytics

Social media is a leveling fact for small businesses. Measure continuously. Learn from what people like. It’s all measureable. It’s also scalable, what works for Dell can work for you.

Matthew Langie from Cy Catalyst discussed using Social Media for the following:

1. Brand monitoring and performance
2. Customer service (real time i.e using Twitter)
3. Competitor analysis and monitoring
4. Channel Optimisation (i.e Dell using Twitter with refurbished products) is it YouTube for you?

Erin Hunter from Comscore stated that if you’re tracking both:

1. Input side: Evangelizing the size and quality of your audience so you can track the money and;
2. Output side: The result/ outcome measure (customer bought something) then you’re doing a good job of monetizing your business.

In terms of  measuring your ROI of your online efforts with social media, even the experts admit that there’s no `turn-key’ solution and that by using a variety of analytics tools you’ll find a system that suits your business needs.

Social Media Metrics

Dave McLure, renowned Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur has developed Startup Metrics for Pirates out of frustration from the lack of metrics he witnessed when working at PayPal.

He believes that Social Media Platforms are great distribution platforms and for acquiring customers – doesn’t mean you can monetize them.

Social Media has dramatically reduced costs on development and distribution and that measuring is crucial, yet completing the loop seems to be the biggest organizational dysfunction. Use the data you’ve collected to assess your product market fit, the right target market or any feature issues.

In terms of Social Media metrics if you’ve got more than 5 variables you’re worrying about, that’s probably too many.

You may not need to change anything about your product, it might need to be better targeted to the appropriate market. It’s all about finding your `Product Market Fit’.

Analytic Tools
Many names were thrown around and I’m pleased to say I’ve used or experimented with many of them. But here’s the key ones you may want to check out for yourself

• Basic web analytics (Google Analytics, etc.)
• Split testing tools (Google Web Optimizer, Genetify)
• Heatmap tracking (CrazyEgg, ClickTale)
• Customer feedback applications (UserVoice, GetSatisfaction)
• Survey tools (Wufoo.com, Survey.io, SurveyMonkey.com)
• Mailing list software (MailChimp, CampaignMonitor)
• Event tracking analytics (Mixpanel, Nuconomy)

Sean at Akoha and Alistair at Bit Current had the following to say:

Vendor Relationship Management is reversing the marketing focus with Press Releases dying a horrible, long-overdue death – unless it starts a conversation (which you should use your blog for) and `Pay per change of opinion’, when measured is the new version of the Pay Per View model

Communities are the new CRM where every interaction is a ticket, belonging to a user (offer a 5% reduction if they use their Twitter handle for example)

The privacy elephant is becoming hugely important – the kind of data that’s available on you whether you like it or not will exist forever so be mindful of what you put out there for generations to come to see.

Drill down and drill up: Put out message> Monitor spread > Respond & relate > Track outcomes> Vary & Experiment

The Spending Gap: Internet ad spending was 12.6% in 2009 but still huge amount spent on print media despite how much time is spent on the internet! This will be changing as it’s way cheaper to advertise online and make it targeted and customized.

Community monitoring will follow analytics so you can see how your followers, fans etc and placement all affect your bigger picture not just analytics anymore. It’s whether your Press Release hit the front webpage of Digg etc.

Using Search Successfully – Life without Google

Top publishers are using the best of search and social – however referrals from social are better than search.
Google is not sticky – i.e NYTs gets 30% of traffic to site via Google but at the same time 30% goes back to Google.

The key is to use sharing and engagement features to make this traffic stay around. So rather than allowing people to then Google something they saw on your site, use applications that allows search to come to the page in your site that they’re already on.

Key trends to note are that:

• Email is still the most engaging tool for content sharing on the web!
• For news content it’s Twitter all the way
• For non-news content Facebook is best to drive traffic to your site
• Facebook works better for encouraging more time spent on your site
• Digg is driving very qualified and targeted users but lower than 12-24 months ago.

It was interesting to note that for the Wall Street Journal Twitter traffic is 3-4 times more valuable than Facebook tand that visitors from the site stay longer and go into more depth. Opinion is added to it.

Thought Leadership in SEO

Ran Fishkin talked about Social Media Traffic and that popular content makes it out there which turns into links which leads to get Search Engine rankings and this leads to highly qualified paying customers.

To get this it’s all about brand awareness, authority and being likeable – like Tom Hanks so that people go out of their way for you. Finally it’s all about Social Proof. We take our queues from fellow humans as I wrote about here.

• Choose a format to share your knowledge –WordPress, Twitter, Posterous and put the content in the same place.
• Establish a high quality bar for your work and go and do the things critical to building community.
• Find the thought leaders to emulate, stay humble, meet face to face where possible
• Don’t over promote yourself and be patient – it takes time.

The Art of Search Engine Optimisation

Stephen Spencer talked about the new label being bandied about `Social Media Optimisation’ and that you want the traffic to your personal or company site that turns into links. How?

• Consult the top 100 list on Digg (http://socialblade.com/digg)
• Use StumbleUpon send to function in the SU toolbar
• Use as many tags on your YouTube videos as possible, run a contest to submit videos
• Be creative but unpolished with video
• Build up your friends on MySpace (apparently it’s not dead yet)
• Add the `Like’ widget to your website or blog sidebar
• Distribute information to every social site by Ping.FM (my advice on this is be selective on using this tool)
• Add your email to your LinkedIn professional headline so people can contact you directly
• Put multiple word tags in your Flickr photos surrounded by “ marks and geo tag your photo
• Use social link sites with juice which include Propello, MyBlogLog and Technorati

Real World Lessons on how to grow your Facebook Fan (Like) Page

I was excited to see Victoria Ransom, CEO of WildFire Interactive (and fellow Kiwi) as one of the panelists speaking on building grassroots engagement through Facebook.

The panel discussed finding the right signal to noise ration in sharing content, how much and what types and offered these tips and tricks:

• Get a fancy news feed by getting in the Facebook algorithm by getting people to like your updates and comment on each post.
• Craft great status updates for more views, for e.g `We’re excited about our launch, if you are too then `Like’ this
• Ask for yes/ no answers on your page and then track your impressions per post
• Put links in to your status via Bit.ly URL shortener as opposed to using the Facebook link – it’s like a customized message so it hits the newsfeed
• Use polls to learn from your audience
• Target your status updates to country where applicable rather than to `All’
• Get people to share photos on your site (or do what CityMax have recently in their cool competition)
• Depending on your business consider using a livestream of video exclusive just to fans
• Use a landing tab and change up your content on it – so initially the tab drives to them becoming a `Like’ and the second page is to drive them to your website for example

In my next post I want to talk about Charlene Li’s amazing talk on Open Leadership and summarise the key note speakers who were talking about the cutting edge trends and innovations.

Top tip check out my Flickr photos from the event as I snapped away some of the key slides that were most important. Plus I’ll be posting short videos from key speakers to my YouTube channel so subscribe for updates.

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It’s not every day that you make the gutsy move to take a leap of faith into the world of full entrepreneurship.

But last week I decided to do just that and left the business I cofounded on an amicable note. I walked away from the blood, sweat and tears I’d invested into it to pursue my passion.

I figured I loved WomanzWorld too much to not focus on it full time and turn it into a real business – a movement.

What’s more I could hardly tell women entrepreneurs that this is the place to come `to court bolder dreams and turn them into reality’ if I wasn’t prepared to follow my own advice.

So here I am before you. Feeling scared, excited, daunted, overwhelmed, free and expectant of all that lies before me.

The Linchpin Lies Within

It’s been a tough 2010 by all accounts and one I’ve learned my best lessons from. I was hanging on to one business when I knew deep down I was passionate about developing this one, and at the same time growing others – yours.

It all clicked though last week, when Seth Godin told me (through his audio book LinchPin), that I owed it to the world to be indispensable. And so I decided then and there to do just that.

But how had I come to this point? Why had it taken me 33 years of my life to really become an entrepreneur?

The Real Story

I’d had the opportunity of a lifetime when I arrived on Vancouver’s shores in August 2008 to compete at the World Club Ultimate Frisbee Championships and start over in yet another new country.

I left behind a very well paid, high level job in London , my amazing friends and a house I’d just co-invested in to come to Canada.

It was all worth it when I met my business partner at a networking event and told him I was “a homeless, unemployed bum who wanted to start my own business”. In what was to become the best marketing line ever, I ended up as a co-founder of a tech start-up and the best 18 months of education that money could never buy.

Baptism by Fire

In no particular order I am honoured to have learned how to:

• Take an idea from concept to launch and build a team and a product
• Create a 1 page business summary, a 2 page investor teaser and a full business plan
• Develop a positioning statement (and change it again and again)
• Create a pitch deck and pitch to investors informally and formally
• Build a financial model based on assumptions and market research
• Help design, develop and launch an application in an ever changing social network platform
• Run a PR campaign on no money and combine that with a major business launch competition
• Work an integrated marketing launch plan into a dynamic development schedule
• Understand the mind of software developers and the art of agile development and much more.

More importantly I learned that:

• Feeling like you owned the world in the morning and were failing miserably by the afternoon is not abnormal
• Customers sometimes just don’t respond no matter how many times you reach out
• Product testing with customers is crucial to shaping your offering
• People don’t invest in the company they invest in you
• There needs to be more women owned technology startups and women investors
• Once you think you know everything about something you realise you know nothing
• Surrounding yourself with other entrepreneurs and mentors is a natural survival mechanism that works wonders
• Anyone who starts their own business deserves a lifetime award for sheer guts, tenacity and vision.

What now Natalie?

Why I’m glad you asked. I’ve been doing a ton of work on the future of my business and I’d love to share it with you. If you’ve heard of the 4 Ps of marketing – product, price, promotion and place, well I’ve come up with the 4 Ps of WomanzWorld Global Services Co.

Here’s my vision:

1. Publishing
   WomanzWorld.com is the Ultimate Resource for Female Entrepreneurs. It’s a blog that produces three to four quality articles every week covering the topics of business planning, marketing, social media, entrepreneurship and interviews profiling fantastic women in business.

   It also offers a tools and resources section that covers top websites, blogs and books that women in business will find extremely helpful on their entrepreneurial journey.

2. Products
   WomanzWorld produces a series of eBooks designed to provide women in business with bite sized chunks of knowledge to help them grow their business and their entrepreneurial skills.

   WomanzWorld also recommends and promotes the best products and services that cater to entrepreneurs.

3. Partnership
   WomanzWorld offers aspiring entrepreneurs the chance to become partners in achieving their business goals.

   The exclusive WomanzWorld Academy offers monthly programs to ensure aspiring entrepreneurs succeed in every aspect of starting a business and then growing it through a strategic integrated marketing approach. These courses include daily online learning modules, access to an exclusive community of women in business and motivating group coaching calls.

4. Promotion
   Natalie (that’s me!), Founder of WomanzWorld is an integrated marketer that offers consulting services to help aspiring entrepreneurs with their personal and business branding using social media and online tools. I’ll then be profiling their success on my site.

   Check out my freshly updated `About‘ page for more info and huge thanks to my first client on my first day of business.

There you have it. What do you think? I’d love your support. I’d adore your support.

You can spread the word to all your friends, you can sign up and receive this by RSS or email. Better yet you can sign up to my exclusive monthly newsletter. I want to build this into the most amazing online movement of kick-ass women entrepreneurs the world has ever seen.

Let’s get this party started, one step at a time.

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When I started Womanzworld back in late August 2009 I had no plan whatsoever. I just knew I loved to write and that I wanted share my thoughts on business and my experiences in the startup world.

It was a passion and a hobby. It was a way for me to connect with other women entrepreneurs. I had no idea that it would turn into a thriving site frequented by incredible, enterprising and everyday women in business.

The power of a blog

A blog is many things to many people and there’s over 200,000,000 of them. For some a blog is a diary, a hobby, and for a dedicated group of `A-List’ bloggers it’s a powerful promotional tool and great revenue source.

WomanzWorld.com has led me to be featured in the Visa Small Business Network site as one of just a handful of bloggers focused on entrepreneurship.

I’m honoured to be an official contributor to Forbes.com Work in Progress – for women who mean business. My first article was published at the end of March.

I’ve been able to meet and interview some incredible people and there’s more in the wings. Imagine where it could take you and your business.

The biggest muscle is content

It’s ironic that the tongue is the strongest muscle in the body. It `speaks for it itself’. In that sense so does a blog. It’s your voice. It’s a personality and it’s all about the content that you provide.

Search engines love fresh content that’s keyword rich. People love unique people. That’s why blogs are a crucial part of your Social Media Business Strategy.

Many people ask me why should they have one. I tell them you can’t afford not to. Think of all the ways you can use a blog to drive traffic and customers to your business. It’s endless. You just need to become the authority on your product, service or industry.

7 Exercises to Create a Healthy Business Blog

I’ve learned more than I could have imagined in the last 7 months and I feel it’s only right to share that knowledge. Here are 7 simple exercises to get you blogging for business:

Exercise 1: Ready, set, go Blog

Go to WordPress and create a blog in two minutes. All you need is a name and that’s it. WordPress is an easy to use blog platform that has incredibly powerful features.

Choose from several free themes that best fit your needs or search for customised ones online – some are free, some cost. Thesis is an extremely popular and SEO-friendly theme for your WordPress blog.

The option panels make customizing your font controls, design changes, layout combinations and other choices super simple to modify. You can change your theme and `reskin’ your blog at anytime. It’s just like changing your clothes, your body stays the same and all that’s in it!

But my advice is to just get started. Set up your blog and then start writing some interesting and relevant articles. (You can also use Blogger run by Google and TypePad. Millions do. I’m just a loyal WP fan).

Exercise 2: Work that dashboard

The dashboard of WordPress is easy and intuitive as you can see from mine.

Initially you only need to focus on three areas:

Posts, Pages and Plugins.

Posts:

Simply click on `add new’ and you’re off.

• Add an enticing title that draws the reader in and contains one to two keywords.
• Create categories to file your blog post under so people can search by interest area like `Marketing’
• Tag your articles with keywords that will allow people who search the web to find your content.
• Add a picture by using your own or from iStock, Freestock Photos or search creative commons images.
• Make sure any hyperlinks you create within the body of our post or for an image have a description once again using keywords. This also helps your SEO.
• Finally preview it before you publish to check what it looks like and proof your article.

Pages:

Here’s where you can get really savvy. WordPress can act as a website for you. You can add in as many pages and sub pages as you want. So you can include a home page, your blog and other static pages.

If you don’t yet have a website then this is the way to go. I’d recommend outsourcing to a WP whiz to customise your WP theme for a professional website.

Exercise 3: Get plugged in

Through a combination of trial and error I’ve learned which plugins work for my site. Plugins work like extensions to Firefox and Chrome – they extend the functionality of your blog.

Most of them are free and very useful. Since people often ask me what I use here are my key recommendations to get you started:

1. Akismet: Checks your comments and filters out spam ones. You’re in control of what’s published.
2. All in One SEO Pack: Out-of-the-box SEO for your WordPress blog.
3. FaceBook Share (New): Adds a button which allows you to share post and also shows the number of times the post or page has been shared throughout Facebook.
4. FeedBurner FeedSmith: This plugin detects all ways to access your original WordPress feeds and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber.
5. Google Analytics for WordPress: Useful plugin that adds Google Analytics to your WordPress blog to track it and link it to your Google Analytics account.
6. Supr by StumbleUpon: Su.pr is the URL shortener that gets you more traffic and saves time posting to Twitter, Facebook and StumbleUpon for you when you publish a post.
7. TweetMeme Retweet Button: Adds a button which easily lets you retweet your blog posts. Also allows you to track statistics.
8. WordPress EZ Backup: Fast Creation of Full Site Backups & Database Backups of your blog which can be emailed to you or backed up to your computer – which is crucial.
9. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin: Adds a list of related post entries at the bottom of your post which is much easier than constantly doing it yourself. Linking to previous posts is important for SEO and allowing your readers to see past content.
10. Add icons with links to subscribe by RSS or email plus your other social networks!

Exercise 4: Healthy Hosting

You can choose to host on WordPress in which case your URL would be blog.yourbusiness.com or you can buy a domain name and redirect your blog to it. This is pretty simple even for technophobes.

I recommend GoDaddy for buying your domain for very little and JustHost for hosting at around $6.95 a month or less for a year.

Instructions on both sites are really clear on how to set this up and WordPress has a great help resource as well as a user forum where you can find almost any answer.

Exercise 5: Keep it up

I’m sure you know that the difference between successful people and those who aren’t is that we’re consistently taking action towards achieving our goals. This takes discipline, focus and passion.

I’ve learned that in order to enjoy blogging I’ve had to view myself as a writer, with a purpose to produce quality content week in and week out.

I’ve yet to get into the excellent habit of blocking out 4 hours to just write a series of posts and schedule them for publishing. But I do know that I will commit to writing 3-4 posts each week that my readers will hopefully look forward to.

Set up a ritual of banking ideas you want to expand on, collecting links to refer back to, reading other related blogs and reading articles that interest you.

My biggest sources of inspiration are my everyday experiences and those of my fellow entrepreneurs. It’s likely that the same challenges and successes we have are faced by everyone else at some point during their business journey.

Enjoy!

This is my last in the series of Social Media Workouts. On Saturday I’ll be releasing my free eBook that includes all of these posts in one handy guide.

Plus I’m excited to be launching a fantastic business coaching online course starting May 1st. More details to follow.

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In this day and age it seems almost everyone and anyone can have a website. It can cost you next to nothing to have a basic website set up within hours.

This is great news for small business owners and the time strapped entrepreneur who needs an online presence now.

In fact there’s no excuse not to have a website to promote your business. I judge a business on its website. If a business doesn’t have one I generally rule it out.

However there’s a difference between having a static online brochure that looks unprofessional and a stunning, thriving website that drives visitors to take positive action to help grow your business.

The Ultimate Website Workout for Entrepreneurs

The purpose of this workout is not to tell you how to set up a website, but to look at persuasive web design that gets visitors to act. There’s no use having a website that provides no value.
I’ll also cover some excellent tools to use to get you up and running in no time though too.

Exercise 1: No pain, no gain

Whatever your budget and time constraints, just remember that before you build anything, you need to put thought into the purpose of your website and plan ahead.

Is it to inform and educate potential customers? To provide an ecommerce function? To profile your amazing team and their talents? To increase your reputation and authority?

Be prepared at the very least to look at your competitors’ websites as well as gather examples of websites you love the look of to show to your designer. Even if you’re going to build one yourself this is time well spent.

Look at what works, what catches your eye, examples of intuitive flow, call to action sites and clever navigation. Note it down. Ask your friends what websites stand out to them and why.

If you have a site-map in place things will be much easier. It’s essentially a skeleton of your future website. Like the contents page of your next book. Generally you need a Home page, About, Contact as the bare minimum.

Exercise 2: Train with the right tools

If you have next to no budget and no resources then I’d recommend the following:

WordPress
Initially built as a blogging platform, many businesses build their websites on their existing free and premium templates. You can be up and running in no time and always be in control of editing.
At any time you can outsource to a WP expert to make it look better and add in more interactive components without losing the base you already have.

Weebly
This company offers easy to use templates for setting up websites within a few hours with a basic content management system too. It’s very low cost and a decent standard.

SquareSpace
This software allows you to create beautiful websites without any HTML knowledge at all for a reasonable monthly price of around $20.

If you have a little more money to spend then I’d recommend:
Crowdspring and 99 Designs
Both these outsourcing agencies have a wealth of freelance designers available to you. So if you have $500+ for a website then simply register and start a project. Designers bid for your contract by providing designs which you rate. You pick the one you like the most and they deliver the work.

Designer or Agency:
Do your research and pick a website designer whose work is recommended to you or whose portfolio you like the look of.
Local is easier if you anticipate needing to meet regularly, otherwise location is not an issue. You can expect to pay anywhere from $1,000-$10,000 depending on your needs.

Exercise 3: Create your Trust checklist

We trust what we already believe to be true. We look for sources to confirm our beliefs. If a website matches our beliefs, we trust it more and will stick around.

Here’s a checklist of essentials that do just that:

• Credibility of organisation – if you’re new on the block you’ll have to work harder.
• Domain name – short, guessable, easy to spell, type and pronounce, memorable.
• Site design quality – visually appealing, navigable, product photos, error free copy.
• FAQs – helps just to have them, should be customer orientated and realistic.
• References & citations – back up claims, give sources if it’s important in your industry.
• Current Content – active, busy, and like there’s somebody home
• Archives – build this up over time as it shows effort has been sustained.
• External links – show sources of info, demonstrate you have customer in mind, link to
reputable sites.
• Contact info: Full physical address, phone number, possibly photos of real premises
• Policies that show trust – no questions asked return policies, free trials.
• Awards and certifications – if you’ve got it, flaunt it – but not unimpressive awards.
• Testimonials – for big brands big names help, for small companies use common people.
• No ‘tricky offers’ – avoid too good to be true, don’t hide things
• Copywriting tone – reflects your business values, straightforward, not pushy or overblown.
• Statements against self interest – be frank about your product’s disadvantages, compliment
your competitors, be frank and honest.

Exercise 4: The art of persuasion

There’s two ways you can appeal to your website visitors – logic and emotion.

Logical appeals include:
Stating the facts in clear language
Logical arguments – the benefits they’ll receive by doing business with you
Comparison charts of you vs your competitor and why you’re better
Step by Step process of how your product or service works
Demonstrations of your goods via videos or downloads of product guides
Offer incentives – discounts, award programs

Emotional appeals are:
Largely subconscious, automatic, irresistible, resistant to external factors, logic and less expensive.
Here are some examples:

Contrast Principle = Compare the cost, size, taste and attractiveness of your product to factors that makes yours look more appealing. For example the Economist subscriptions were as follows, with price and uptake:

Website only $ 59 68%
Print and Web $125 32%

They designed a new offer:

Website only $ 59 16%
Print only $125 0%
Print and Web $125 84%

Optimal Level of dissonance
If you say something surprising, on the very edge of believability that might just be true it’s irresistible and a great way of attracting visitors to your site. I.e Rental car company offers `Rental cars from just $19.95 every day.’

Social Proof
We learn by observing others, and we just do what others are doing, I.e `Best Seller’ – well it must be good. We love stories and model our behaviour on them.

Social proof works best with people we like. Who do we like, people like us. The most credible source of information is from people like ourselves. Get to know your target group, look and act like them, get testimonials and reviews from them.

Scarcity
Scarcity is a great motivator. As things become less available, they become more desirable: ‘End of season clearance, up to 80% off’, `Limited time offer, only 20 available at this price’.

When information is forbidden or secret, it seems more important and trustworthy. So position your products as scarce, selling out fast. Indicate that access to information is scarce and hard to get.

Rule of Reciprocation
When someone gives us something, we feel an obligation to reciprocate by giving something back. This is an automatic response, a result of our social evolution.

Do your customers a favour – give them something of value, a free report and in return ask for some feedback via a survey or a referral to a friend.

(Thanks to VKI Studios for their great course I recently attended where I learned a lot about website design).

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There were 3 key things I learned at the F5 Expo held in Vancouver yesterday

1. Always charge your iPhone and camera.
2. Not having an iPhone to multi-task on while watching speakers is saving me from brain damage
3. Malcolm Gladwell is a passionate intellectual who knows that online communities will not cause offline revolutions.

F5 Expo `Refreshing Business Strategies’ was a day for those wanting to know more about social media use for small business. I found it a little  101 in terms of information disseminated, and it seems I wasn’t alone – one of my 4 tweets was quoted here.

However there were some gems of information and I’ll share them with you below.

Tod Maffin – Taking Crazy Back

In some ways it was a blessing in disguise that my iPhone died 1 hour in, especially after listening to an excellent presentation from a lively and humorous Tod Maffin encouraging us to gain balance and stop multi-tasking. I found myself being present, listening and writing notes instead.

Work/Life Balance

Tod was an entrepreneurial wonder kid who took a napkin idea to launch and then public.

Overnight success for partners? $10Million.
Lifetime damage from 20 hour days and spreading yourself too thin by doing too much? Priceless.

Tod suffered a complete breakdown the day after they went public and went on to suffer depression and alcoholism and has been left with permanent damage.

He urged us to look at our actions and habits and lead less stressful lives for the sake of our health and sanity. As he said `Society rewards busy-ness, not working smarter or harder’. As a result depression is now the leading cause of short term disability in the workplace.

You are not an energizer bunny (aside from Winnie Lai), multi-tasking is not productive and creates short-term brain functionality as opposed to long term memory.

How to change?

We need to create a culture where asking for help is rewarded and mentorship and job shadowing is encouraged. We need to build `gut feeling’ into our decision making.

Normally we run a business on ability, reputation and price. He challenged us to

1. Trust your instincts
2. Abolish presenteeism – i.e “I’m having a shite week so I’m not coming in today”
3. Be crazy – unique, bold and brave.

Social Media Metrics

As this area grows people are rightly focused on ROI. But how do you track that?

Firstly you need to employ Darren Barefoot’s acronym of POST – People, objectives, strategy, tactics.

Identify where the people are, then focus on your business objectives, define the metrics that show your success – you’re most interested in the number of clicks – on your tweet links, on your ads, on your call to action buttons.

Then build your own social media monitoring dashboard. Throw stuff against the wall and measure it. Try things out – Google Ads, Facebook Ads, competitions and track it via Google Analytics, Bit.ly, Facebook Insights.

Best free tool to bring all this tracking info together is Netvibes.com – quick way to scan and report on qualitative and quantitative data.

Search Engine Marketing =

Pay Per Click (advertising)   +     Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)   +    Social Media Optimisation (SMO)

Someone searching for what your business offers is 25% more likely to click through if they see you in both paid and organic search – a culmination of the above.

Search engines sites all look for relevant and fresh content that’s being searched for by people. So use keywords and especially longtail keywords – phrases like `Internet marketing for small business’ that are relevant but receive less searches so are less competitive.

PPC and SEO work best if you’re descriptive about your product or service.

Video for Business Use

Look at your target market. Have a creative idea, make it quirky, interesting and address a problem.
Surround your video with more text so search engines find it first – it’s useful to embed it in your blog as well as post it on YouTube.

Video doesn’t need to go viral to be effective – needs to educate, engage and enlighten your customers.

When is it not useful to use video? When you’re providing a deep analysis of something, it’s better to use text then as it’s cheaper and faster to write an article and better for SEO.

Creating Revolutions in Social Media

Malcolm Gladwell’s a respected thought leader, intellectual and best-selling author of Outliers, Tipping Point and Blink.

He spoke about innovation and limitations. In his presentation he played devil’s advocate to the use of Social Media and stated why it can’t start revolutions. My takeaway notes are below plus the video intro of his speech.

1. The Internet exploits Weak Ties, but Revolutions are Built of Strong Ties. Social Media is excellent for allowing you to build weak ties but you must ensure you strengthen them by creating real relationships. Revolutions are caused by committed friends willing to risk their lives.
2. The Internet draws value from anonymity by creating freedom of expression, but revolutions are built of trust and if someone’s anonymous you won’t trust them.  Trust is built from lots of high contact interactions and physical proximity – something that is undermined by the internet.
3. Internet favors spontaneous activity but revolutions are always organized and built brick by brick over a long period of time. Social Media tools may provide instantaneous, cheap and easy to build momentum, but they can be just as easily dismantled. We need to build permanent infrastructure.

It was controversial, entertaining and filled with excellent historical examples. A great way to end the day. I’m looking forward to reading his new book.

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Did you know that people remember 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see and 70% of what they both hear and see?

With that in mind you can see why the growth of video is rocketing and why your business needs it.

According to ComScore 32.4 billion videos were watched in the month of January. Nearly 40% of those videos were YouTube videos. Average US viewers spend 3 hrs 37 minutes a month watching internet videos and 44% of this is done in the workplace.

If these facts alone are not convincing enough, here are the top reasons why you need to start leveraging the viral power of videos for your business:

Create a level playing field

Once upon a time making movies and compelling videos used to be for large companies with big budgets and technical departments. Today, creating compelling videos is extremely accessible to small businesses at a fraction of the cost.

Flex your viral propagation muscles

The beauty of video is that it has the chance to go viral and that means that your business brand, image, products and service go direct to locations like blogs, wikis and forums that you could never have imagined reaching.
If you truly want to see the master of video for business then check out Gary Vaynerchuk and his WineLibraryTV.

Get active. Be interactive.
Online video forces attention, and the Internet offers the capability for small businesses to directly leverage this. It’s no longer about passive information, you have the opportunity to showcase your products and services in a format that creates a lasting impression.

Advertising your video rights
Video is and always has been among the most powerful ways to advertise. It allows your business to leverage sight, sound, and motion to create an emotive and more memorable connection with potential customers.
Online video ads have the ability to break through the clutter of emails, text-laden websites and often annoying banner ads to communicate meaningful information.

Exercise 1: Have a plan of attack

Just like having a workout planned at the gym, the same applies to making a video.
What’s the purpose of your video, what’s the key message, how long will it take to make, how long will it play for. How do you want to feel after it (and your viewers). What’s the next step after watching it?

My advice is to mock it up on a piece of paper and then script it. For example your business offers project management software:

• Create a scenario: Ask a question `Are you struggling with managing your work projects and feeling overwhelmed
• Offer a solution: Once you’ve created a case study of your target market’s pain point then offer them the answer they want to hear – `We’ve created award winning software that makes project management as easy as pie.
• Take action: Leave viewers with a reason to call you, visit your website, email you or sign up for a free quote, analysis of your needs or limited time offer.

Exercise 2: Stay motivated

Peoples’ attention spans are short. ComScore states that the average person watches 3 minutes of video a day. For short promotional videos 30-120 seconds is ideal to feature your product or service.

For `how-to’ videos with an educational component you can break these down into 5-10 minute chunks depending on the nature of the content. If you’re conducting a full education video with a slideshow and voice-over then 20 minutes plus is probably appropriate.

Exercise 3: Get the right training tools

Here’s my simple checklist of what you need to get started:

1. Video or digital camera or iPhone
Just make sure it’s compatible with easy upload to your PC or MAC in .mov or .mp4 format. That said you can upload almost any video to YouTube.

2. Video editing software
After much testing the key tools I recommend are:

Animoto that takes your photos and makes them into an interactive video, it now incorporates video too. It’s very cool and easy to use and it’s free for 30 seconds video. Here’s an example of one I pulled together in 10 minutes.
Top Tip: For title or key message slides create a powerpoint slide and save it as a jpeg

Jing – cool software that allows you to capture anything you see on your computer screen and share it instantly as an image or short movie. It also allows you to talk and point at things on your screen which is perfect for educating viwers. There’s a free version and a pro version.

Camstasia – a pretty amazing full editing software program that allows you to edit audio and video, record your desktop and much more. It’s fairly simple to use but if you’re more technical you can do some amazing things. Here’s an example of a video I created for FundRazr.

3.YouTube account

If you didn’t know, YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google and that means using keywords in your titles and video tags is a powerful way to increase your SEO.

It’s free to set up and you can customise your business channel and link it to your Social Media sites. Check out and subscribe to mine!

Each video you upload gets a unique URL for you to send to customers via email and promote on your website as a start, plus unique embed code so you can place your video directly into your website or blog.

Top Tip: Give your video a great description and use keyword tags. Also include a URL at the start of the description so people can visit your business website or Fan Page.

Get a TubeMogul account

Why? Well as TubeMogul put it: ‘The simple video distribution and tracking. Period.’
You upload your video here and it will automatically ping it to the major social networking sites (including YouTube) so you don’t have too. That’s way more audience potential in one click.

This video of the rollercoaster ride we experience as entrepreneurs just came out via a friend. It’s a great example of creating a story that people want to share that eventually leads back to you or your business.

If you’ve found this handy then you’ll love my first ever eBook. The Entrepreneur Social Media Workout. Stay tuned.

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