Content marketing is a fancy term for promoting yourself online by offering useful material. It's successful because it works on the power of attraction instead of distraction. In the same way we skip commercials, it's easy to tune out cheesy stuff online. Instead, we want to put out appealing, relevant content. Simple! Or is it? Do you have a hard time seeing your business through the eyes of an outsider? What may be an everyday, mundane thing to you (ho hum, here I am meeting with the wine rep again) might be wonderfully exotic to a new client (the handsome Italian wine rep - are you kidding me?!). With the goal of harvesting cool content for your social media marketing, here are 15 social media ideas that come out of the everyday things you probably already do. 

The best way to make the most of your online marketing channels - whether it's your website, blog, email newsletter or social media feed - is to develop a habit of keeping them fresh. For small businesses and nonprofits though, this can be a real challenge. As small business owners, we wear a lot of hats and marketing often ends up on a back burner. To remedy this, consider scheduling in a 7 step monthly update. Here’s a step-by-step guide to doing your first one and setting it up as an easy task each month.  

January Newsletter: Free 3-Month Marketing Planner | Online Marketing 101 Webinar | News | Soaring

It's not as if there are a zillion more of those suddenly. You're noticing them because the car caught your interest. It's been lifted out of the selective blindness that keeps us from being distracted by daily life's irrelevant details. So let's put that to work. Here are 3 very simple things that I do with my website clients to help them regain the precious skill of childlike focus.

Following on the success of last year I'm offering my live, online webinars again this year. These 1 hour presentations are designed to quickly get you up to speed on topics like Search Engine Optimization (SEO), social media marketing, blogging for business, using Facebook for business, the most effective ways to maintain your website and much more. These sessions are also valuable for small business people and nonprofit professionals who need to know enough to avoid internet scams and over-priced services. For example, what are the deliverables you should get in a search engine marketing service? What is Google Analytics and why should it be a part of any SEO package? How often and what sort of content should you be posting on social media? All that's required is to be online with your favorite device, if you want to participate in the question and answer period you'll get best results with a computer and headphones (or earbuds). There are 12 sessions in all and if you miss the live session on Wednesday night you can log in and view a video replay afterwards. As with my Web Labs I'm offering a nice discount for a Season Pass. While individual passes are a great value at $15 each, a Season Pass is just $144 which saves you $34. With a money-back guarantee you have nothing to lose and as professional development it's even a tax write-off.  See the full webinar list and sign up. 

I'm really excited to announce that all of the details are coming together for my upcoming Pixel Lava Webs Lab series. While I got a ton of great reviews last year, students all said the same thing - that they never got around to putting their new knowledge into action. That gave me the idea of creating these live, presenter-led sessions where we work together to build up our online marketing. In the same way that services like Blue Apron deliver a ready-to-make meal, each Web Lab features a standalone project with step-by-step instructions. I'll begin with a demo and then we'll get to work. My goal is for every student to leave every session with a new, ready to use project. The sessions are also a great way to get the support of like-minded small business owners and nonprofit professionals. By working together week by week, we'll motivate each other to stay on track and provide the accountability to GET THINGS DONE. To encourage students to take advantage of the whole series I've created a super deep discount of $385 for a season pass - that's 50% off. If you run a small business or nonprofit I encourage you to join us. You CAN bring in more clients, buyers, donors, volunteers, patients, visitors, etc. and I will show you how. With a money-back guarantee you have nothing to lose and as professional development it's even a tax write-off . Get all the details!

Your website exists for a reason - to boost the bottom line of your business or nonprofit. Whether it's booking a table, making a purchase, scheduling an appointment, signing up to volunteer, or making a donation - you want viewers to do something - this is your call to action. While a website may have several objectives, but there should always be ONE clearly stated and trackable call to action. Here are some ideas for creating a call to action that will generate tangible results.

Happy New Year! Whether you are a small business owner or part of a nonprofit organization the new year offers a chance to reboot. It's an opportunity to look at your online empire and make a plan for improvement. So out of several of recent conversations with my clients lately, here are my top 5 web resolutions for 2013:

1. Get a makeover
   Your website is your public face to the world, make it look as good as possible. It should have current information & news, be visually appealing and be stylistically contemporary. Where social media is your bullhorn to get attention, your website is where your content really lives, it's where you build your online presence and the narrative that drives powerful calls to action. If your site is looking dated and has dorky phrases like "Welcome to our website!" it's time for an update. 
2. Trim down while saving money
   Having a site you can update yourself makes it faster and easier to keep your content fresh. Consider investing in a site that you can maintain yourself. I'm not talking about forking over big bucks for software and learning html, I mean migrating your site to an easy to use content management system. You will quickly recoup the migration costs by being your own developer and your site will be more effective. By reserving your geek for the high end stuff you'll streamline your process and begin saving money every month.
3. Use positive self talk
   Pretty much every day I hear one of my clients say something like "Well, I'm terrible with computers but ...". I have heard this from 20 year old interns to 75 year old business executives and everyone in between. It's time to start saying that you can do things online and that you are learning. As long as you say you're bad at something you surely will be. Every day things are getting faster and easier to do online and from our local Continuing Education classes to iTunesU there is an endless cornucopia of tutorials and ways to learn for free.
4. Volunteer
   Dale Carnegie said "You can close more business in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you." I believe this idea is at the heart of successfully using social media. What knowledge can you share? What questions can you answer? What can you give to the world via your social media profiles that will be valuable to your audience? Use social media to give and your site will reap the rewards.
5. Simplfy
   Use technology to simplify your life. Get a smart phone (or upgrade your old one) and invest some time in really learning how to use it. Set yourself up with time saving apps including a good calendar (with reminders!) and a task management app and then resolve to work with them daily. Having your schedule and to do list instantly available saves time and let's you offload things from your memory, which helps keep your mind fresh through the day. Use services like HootSuite and IFTTT to streamline your work and employ techniques like email filtering to free yourself from mundane tasks. It is easier than ever to work smarter and smart phone apps are at the heart of this revolution.

I'm an optimist and as I talk to clients and listen to news I believe that 2013 will bring continued economic recovery, more beneficial political change and increased environmental action to address the world's most pressing threat, global warming. The web makes it easy to connect to a wide array of resources so use the new year to take a creative look at how you can make the most of the web.