I have been thinking about offering some sort of summer promotion for my writing services. I’d like to get some new clients. I want to spread the word about the blogging and social promotion services that I offer. And I really just want to be trying out some new personal marketing techniques.

Summer promotions seems like a great way to do this. There is a bit of downtime in the summer so I can focus on creating a cool promotion. The people I’d be interested in reaching are people who are probably spending hot summer afternoons checking out blogs and social networks anyway. And since it’s seasonal, I can try it out without committing to it for a long period of time.

I’m not sure what type of summer promotion I want to offer. I’m kicking around different ideas. I’d love to hear some thoughts from you about good summer promotion ideas for bloggers. Leave it in the comments or drop me an email!

Tags: blogging, business, freelance, kathryn vercillo, marketing, self-employed, summer promotion, work

I don’t have a logo for my business. I have a few different images that I use on my websites but that’s not the same as having a logo which truly brands you. I’m thinking about starting to use a logo for my work but I haven’t decided on this for sure yet.

In thinking about it, I’ve started doing some research into logos. Most recently, I found out that there are three types of logos. There are font-based logos which is basically just your name in a cool font. There are illustrative logos which depict what you do for your business. And then there are art logos.

I suppose that if I end up getting a logo then it’s going to have some sort of artwork on it. My name alone just doesn’t make for a good logo. I frequently use the image of a girl at her computer when I’m creating templates and stuff for my blogs. Perhaps this is something that could be worked into a cool logo?

I actually did have logos for two of my previous businesses. The logo for Moka House was a font logo. This was ineffective because the name didn’t say a lot about what we did (which was provide writing services). The logo for Create Me Free was the font-and-art – it was the name of the organization along with a rose drawn by one of the inmates. I think that one was more effective.

What type of logo do you have? Is it effective?

Tags: business, kathryn vercillo, logo, marketing, types of logos

More and more people are starting to use online press releases to spread the word about their products and services. These press releases are very similar to print press releases. However there are some key differences between the two.

Here’s a look at some of the differences between social media press releases and print press releases:

• Social media press releases may be easy to release to a larger group of people due to cost efficiency as well as to the global reach of the web.
• Social media press releases can be optimized for search engines to get random attention that you don’t get from print press releases.
• Social media press releases can link to other articles and sites around the web.

The one drawback of social media press releases is that some people find print releases to be more credible in terms of professionalism. People trying to reach a professional audience may do both types of press releases to get the benefits of each.

Tags: business, kathryn vercillo, marketing, online press release, press release, social media

I was one of the early members of MySpace. My account lay dormant for years since nobody I knew was active on the site. Then, all of a sudden, everyone that I knew was signing up for a MySpace account. For about a year, I communicated actively there. I even had multiple accounts – for work and for personal use. Then a couple of years ago Facebook seemed to take the place of MySpace and my activity on MySpace slowly dwindled down to almost nothing.

I’ve kept my account active just in case MySpace suddenly becomes big again but these days I mostly use Facebook and Twitter for social networking. Thinking about this got me wondering whether any businesses are using MySpace for marketing anymore? I did some research into this question and found that there are a few types of businesses that are still active on the site.

Music businesses are the main business that still seems to do okay here as compared to Facebook or Twitter. Other entertainment businesses, like comedians, are active on the site to some degree as well. And then there are the businesses that market specifically to the tween/teen demographic that is still regularly using MySpace to communicate. Other than that, most businesses seem to be focusing their social networking promotion elsewhere.

Does this mean that businesses who choose to reactive their attention on MySpace could potentially corner the market on users still regularly active on the site?

Tags: business, kathryn vercillo, marketing, myspace, promotion, Social Networking

I recently researched a company in the UK that pays drivers money to place advertisements for businesses on their car. Is this something that you would do? A lot of people who wouldn’t have answered yes to that question a year ago are turning up with applications in hand for this business because times are tight and the need cash.

It doesn’t seem like a bad idea at all. You get paid money for the driving that you would be doing anyway. This allows you to reduce the cost of driving and gain an income that you didn’t already have access to. You don’t have to go too far out of your way to do it either – just commit to driving a certain amount of miles each month, checking in with the company and parking in visible areas.

There are certainly some drawbacks to this. You have to make sure to keep your car clean and to drive appropriately since you’re representing someone else’s company. And you have to remember that you’re going to be supporting a business or product while you do this. But that seems like a small price to pay for a little bit of extra cash right now.

From the reverse side of things, this could be a great way for small businesses to get valuable advertising without having to spend a lot of money during these tough times. Are there programs like this in the US right now? If there are, would you consider signing up?

Tags: advertising, business, driving, earn money, kathryn vercillo, marketing, money, Personal Finance, Travel

When you create a website for your business you need to make sure that you flesh out that website completely with the information that readers are going to want to find when they get there. This includes information about your business, your products and services and where to find additional information as needed. You need to do this not only for the benefit of your site readers but also so that search engines know what’s on your website and can draw attention to it accordingly.

So how much website content do you need to have for your site to be a good one? The answer is really that there is no such thing as too much content. The only caveat here is that you need to make sure that the content is organized in such a manner that it is easy to find and understand and that it doesn’t overwhelm the reader of the site who is looking at it. Beyond that, the more the better.

A blog is a great way to continually add fresh new content to your site in an organized fashion. Blog archives are easy to search through and get stored on the site but they don’t fill your site with lengthy passages of information that would bore readers. Adding video and images to the blog further improves how compelling the site is for readers as well as how attractive it may be to search engines. Never stop developing your content!

Tags: blogs, business, content, graphic design, marketing, website

People who do a lot of social bookmarking to promote their own web writing will almost always focus their efforts on promotion through Digg. While it’s true that Digg is a great tool for driving web traffic to a site, I tend to prefer to focus my efforts on smaller niche social bookmarking sites. These sites are easier to gain a following through and that following tends to be more highly focused on the areas about which I’m writing which means that the traffic that is generated through the site is targeted and tends to create longer-lasting followers of my work.

Three of my favorite smaller social bookmarking sites are Mixx, StumbleUpon and Tip’d. Mixx and StumbleUpon are relatively large for social bookmarking sites. They allow for general posts on a diverse range of topics but they are still considerably smaller than Digg which makes it easier to use them to drive traffic to specific types of articles. Mixx has a really great setup for its groups which helps the community feel smaller than it is (in a positive way). Tip’d is a niche social bookmarking site specifically for finance topics which I find to be useful when promoting those types of articles.

I also used to really like Hugg when it was around – it was a great place for sharing articles on green topics – but apparently it couldn’t stand the test of time and ended up fading away. That’s one risk that you run when you use smaller social bookmarking sites. The same thing seems to have happen with Wordsy which was the only books and writing focused niche social bookmarking site I knew of. Which sites do you use?

Tags: blogs, business, digg, internet, kathryn vercillo, marketing, social bookmarking, websites, writing

Marketing has been a big business for a long time. Mobile marketing has also been around for quite awhile. Basically, as soon as mobile phones started being a popular item, savvy marketers started wondering how they could use it as a way to deliver marketing messages to people. But in the last few years, as mobile technology has seen some serious advances, the interest in the mobile marketing business has really finally boomed.

Mobile marketing refers to basically any type of marketing or advertising that is done through the mobile phone. In the past, the primary method of marketing has been through sending text messages that advertise a product. However, with mobile Internet growing so quickly, mobile marketing is now much more focused on advertising and marketing through the mobile web.

It will be really interesting to watch the changes that take place with mobile marketing in the next few years. The mobile web is starting to look a lot more like the desktop-based web so there may be no difference at all in how we receive marketing messages between the two. Then again, phones and computers still do have their differences and smart marketers may harness those difference to change the face of mobile marketing in a way that the rest of us haven’t yet predicted.

What do you expect to see from mobile marketing in the next few years?

Tags: business, cell phones, kathryn vercillo, marketing, mobile, mobile marketing