We are happy to announce that you can now promote your show to all of your email contacts in Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, etc. right from your episode page. You just have to click on “email” at the bottom where all of your other sharing icons live. We are very excited about this new update because it’s going to make it so much easier for you to share your show with those in your personal network. Give it a try and see the results for yourself!
Social networking platforms are a great way to promote your online talk show on BlogTalkRadio. Using tools like Twitter, Facebook, Cinch, and MySpace, you can cross-promote your content and gain more followers, friends, and ultimately, listeners. In essence, the more people online who feel connected to you and your interests, and the easier you make it for them to stay connected and keep up with you, the more likely they are to check out your BlogTalkRadio show. Keep your friends and fans engaged and entertained, and you can be confident that your listeners will increase.
Here is the first in a series of posts on how to maximize these site’s offerings and expand your listener base online.
Here are a few basic tips to get you started:
Build Killer Profiles: Your profiles are what define you as you interact within the different social networks. Make sure yours is one that helps people find you and inspires them to connect. A keyword-rich description and good picture are a great place to start.
Cross-Link Your Profiles: When you are setting up new profiles on sites, make sure to cross-link them. For example, on your BlogTalkRadio profile link to your Facebook, Twitter and other profiles, and vice versa. This helps you build friends and followers across the different sites where you participate.
Promote Your Profiles: A simple way to get started promoting your profiles and your show is to include logos and links to them on your website and in your email signature.
In the weeks to come, we will cover tips for using Cinch, Facebook, and MySpace.
This week, here are some tips for using Twitter to promote your show:
Twitter offers a very short and sweet way to get your message out there, and using less than 140 characters and a link can get new listeners to your show fast. Once you have created an account (it’s a good idea to use your show’s name as your Twitter handle), be sure to follow your fellow BlogTalkRadio hosts, current listeners, and real life friends. From there, you can start searching for people with similar interests who would be intrigued by your show’s content, add them and then add their friends and followers. Often times they will follow you right back.
Another technique for building your network on Twitter is to use Twitter Search, or keyword search in TweetDeck to scan tweets for related content, and start conversations with new people. It is also a good idea to announce your Twitter handle during your show. You can connect your BlogTalkRadio account to automatically post to Twitter, which automatically publishes show promotion tweets when you are going on air. Here is a link to a screencast on how to do this. When it comes to content, don’t just tweet self-promotional messages, try to offer value to your followers by conversing with them, offering news and opinions that are interesting, useful, funny, or unusual.
Here are a few links to other articles that you may find helpful on Twitter:
http://www.twitip.com/13-twitter-tips-and-tutorials-for-beginners/
http://twittercism.com/10-easy-ways-to-maximise-your-twitter-experience/
Stayed tuned for Part 2 of “Using Social Media to Promote Your Show.”
Until next week y’all.
Christie Sweet
Here’s a newsflash you don’t stumble across much these days: Old-school media isn’t going the way of hoop skirts, gas lamps and horse-drawn carriages anytime soon.
In fact, it’s poised to thrive in our ever-engulfing digital age.
“People will start feeling so overloaded by information that they’ll have to start making choices,” Jean (above) tells us.
So say media gurus from both sides of the equation who spoke today in Manhattan at “Don’t Write Them Off: Television, Newspapers, Magazines, Radio Reinvented,” an Algonquin 3.0 conference hosted by Kaplow Communications President Liz Kaplow.
On the panel at the event (which was streamed live on BlogTalkRadio and Ustream.tv) were Jean Chatzky, financial editor for NBC’s Today show and a columnist for New York’s Daily News; Lincoln Millstein, Hearst Newspapers’ senior vice president for digital media; Lesley Jane Seymour, editor-in-chief of More magazine, Sree Sreenivasan, new media professor at Columbia Journalism School and host of BlogTalkRadio’s SAJA; and BlogTalkRadio CEO Alan Levy.
Following are highlights from the panelists. Continue reading
BlogTalkRadio welcomes Seth Godin, marketing guru and agent of change, to the IABC ConferenceCast. Godin’s blog, books and presentations are revered in the industry for their insight and creativity. Today he shares some of that with BlogTalkRadio.
Seth Godin is a renowned speaker. Keynoting this summer at the IABC 2008 International Conference, Seth joins Shel Holtz today at Noon ET (click to listen), for an exclusive interview about his upcoming appearance in June.
Among other things, Godin is author of ten books that have been bestsellers around the world, including The New York Times business book bestseller list. Godin is also a contributing editor at Fast Company, holds an MBA from Stanford, and was called “the Ultimate Entrepreneur for the Information Age” by Business Week.
His latest book, Purple Cow, was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. It’s all about how companies can transform themselves by becoming remarkable.
Martin Varsavsky is hosting his second Menorca TechTalk this weekend. Among the who’s who on the roster is Alan Levy, BlogTalkRadio CEO.
Alan, who wrote a post earlier this year about Martin, will be attending the four day event with some of the web’s greatest minds. From Martin’s blog post:
Last year we celebrated our first Menorca TechTalk, a gathering of Tech Entrepreneurs at my farm in Menorca. It was fun, relaxing, a great learning experience for all of those who participated and for those who attended the TechTalk itself…The gathering starts on Thursday morning and ends Sunday evening.
Some of those attending include Om Malik (Giga Omni Media), Andrew Mclaughlin (Google), Loic Le Meur (Seesmic), Jennifer Schenker (BusinessWeek), John Markoff (The New York Times), Joi Ito (Creative Commons, Six Apart Japan, Investor) and many more.
You can read the entire list of tech gurus on Martin’s original post.
Looking back at April 2008 shows us we’re still growing strong. In addition to all the conversations we’ve facilitated, we continue to add content to The Long Tail and provide a breadth and depth of content you’d be hard pressed to find housed on any other site. With over 70 categories and thousands of hosts, BlogTalkRadio is feeding the beast in record numbers. Take a look at these stats, for April:
I find it interesting that 77% of the shows produced since we launched BlogTalkRadio were listened to at least one time in April.
Chris Anderson‘s Long Tail theory, for example, predicts that demand for products not available in traditional bricks and mortar stores is potentially as big as for those that are. Take a look at the graph from Anderson’s site below.
The red part are the big hits, the top sellers. The orange part of the graph is the Long Tail, the niches, which the theory says is where the new growth is coming from now and will continue in the future. BlogTalkRadio and its hosts continue to add powerful, fresh content to those niche audiences. BlogTalkRadio is out to prove the Long Tail theory, that demand for content not available in your traditional media channels will be as big or bigger than what you can find on them. Our continued progress in this arena should be of interest to potential business partners and advertisers who want to capitalize on this growing demand for niche content – as well as our audiences who want that relevant information.
We’d love to hear from you; join the conversation.
Alan Levy, CEO
WNBC’s technology reporter Sree Sreenivasan reviewed BlogTalkRadio during his Tech Report this morning on WNBC.
His entire review was posted on the WNBC.com site and the video can be seen below:
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=Xr6oAanU-mY]
Immediately following his WNBC broadcast, Sreenivasan hosted a special interactive talk show entitled “Tech Chat with WNBC Viewers” on his own BlogTalkRadio show, Sree Tips, to discuss the BlogTalkRadio platform, as well as new and emerging technology trends. They had such a good response, they’ll be doing it again next Thursday, May 1 from 7-8am ET, as well. Join them live at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/sreetips/
This is the first use of BlogTalkRadio as an extension of a television news broadcast. BlogTalkRadio has been used as a discussion tool for major U.S. Newspaper articles with live interactive call-in shows between author, source and the larger community, but this is the first major television venture.
Sreenivasan, is the tech reporter for WNBC-TV, Dean of Student Affairs & professor at Columbia Journalism School and author of SreeTips.com and the New to Sree blog. Sree uses BlogTalkRadio with SAJA, the South Asian Journalists Association; his SreeTips.com tech tips site; and, more recently, to extend the reach of the Columbia Journalism School.
This Saturday is chock full of career advice, entrepreneur discussions and marketing tips from your BlogTalkRadio hosts.
Marketing Lady wants you to make time for marketing. Today at noon ET, on Let’s Talk Success, The Marketing Lady asks “Are you so busy that you don’t have time to even market your business?” Never fear, she will give you tips and advice on how to make time to do marketing for your business every day.
At 1pm ET, Words Cause Radio airs “Womentrepreneurs Part 2: Women Generating Business Opportunity Out of Thin Air and Having Fun Too” as Dean and Jared continue their series on women entrepreneurs including discussions with several extraordinary women: the founder of DanceHelp.com, the creator of three different businesses that are all focused on fun, and the coach of last year’s 2nd place team at the US Open of Swing Dance! Be sure to check out Part 1.
Then at 2:30pm ET, HelpIwant tackles the tough topic of making career and personal transitions – resetting your life’s path. Facing personal and professional realities which are sometimes forced upon us by external events can be daunting if not approached with a plan or some forethought. Deborah Bailey is a career coach and special guest who will provide her insights.