Cathy Stucker - The Idea Lady

Attract Customers and Make Yourself Famous

Make Yourself Famous

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fame.jpgMy tagline at IdeaLady.com is “Attract Customers and Make Yourself Famous.” Those things go hand in hand, as becoming even a little famous in your niche will cause customers to seek you out.

It is not as hard as you might think to get a little famous and, no, the paparazzi will not begin stalking you. Of course, publicity is a great way to gain fame, but you are dependent on the whims of the media for that.

So, while you are waiting for The Oprah to call, here are some things you can do today to make yourself a little famous. Many of these techniques are free, and all can help to create awareness of you and build your expert reputation while making you (at least a little) famous.

Become a famous expert by submitting tips to http://www.Lifetips.com/ and http://www.Lifehack.org/ Lifehack will give a live link with your tip, Lifetips allows you to mention your web site in your profile.

Put up a profile and some of your articles at http://www.EzineArticles.com/ They refer more visitors to my site on a consistent basis than any sites other than the major search engines.

Put your profile on LinkedIn.com, then connect with your network, and their networks, and their networks…this is MySpace for grown-ups with jobs or who are looking for jobs. No garish backgrounds or bad music, just the opportunity to make mutually beneficial connections.

Set up a page at HubPages. Post articles, photos, links to your site and more.

Post thoughtful comments on leading blogs in your field. Not sure who they are? Browse the directory at http://www.BlogCatalog.com/. You can also add your blog to their directory.

Distribute an online press release. When it goes out to the news services you will see an increase in traffic to your site. And there will be links to your site, well, forever.

Put yourself on a t-shirt. Or a mug, a mouse pad, a necktie…at http://www.CafePress.com/ or http://www.Zazzle.com/.

Watch yourself get famous by setting up Google Alerts for your name, web site, etc. Go to http://www.google.com/alerts and tell Google what terms you want to watch for. When they run across a term you want to know about, they will send you an email with a link to the page.

None of these things have to take a long time. Just select a couple actions from the list and get started today. A little weekly maintenance will take your fame to greater heights.

Do You Own Your Name?

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com.jpgI got a political brochure in the mail today, and it was a nasty piece of work. Perhaps the worst part is that the URL for their attack web site is the candidate’s name, as in “JohnSmith.com.”

Many times, people looking for information will simply enter the name of a person or company followed by “.com.” Voters wanting to learn about the candidate may enter his name and end up on a site set up by his political enemies. People who do not read the attack brochure carefully may even think that the “JohnSmith.com”  site is the candidate’s official site.

Fortunately for this politician, when you do a Google search on his name, his real campaign site comes up first and the attack site was not in the top results. However,  you can not be certain that this will happen if you are ever the victim of this kind of identity theft.

You may think that you do not need to own <yourname>.com. You do business under a company name, and you do not ever plan to run for office, so why do you need to register your name as a domain name? [Read more…]

Why I Do Not Follow You on Twitter

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There are lots of social media sites out there, and I am on several of them. The one I spend the most time with, though is Twitter. I love the immediacy of it, and that I can use it to keep up with lots of people I know or share interests with.

Twitter helps me not only to keep in touch with friends and colleagues but also to make new friends and business connections. I have used it to “meet” many new people, but I do not follow everyone who follows me.

Not familiar with Twitter? Watch this short video, then keep reading to see how I decide which Twits . . .uh, Twitterers . . .uh, people to follow on Twitter. You might want to use similar criteria to evaluate connections on Twitter and other social networks. And following these guidelines for your online profiles may help you get more friends and followers.

[Read more…]

I Am All A-Twitter

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Are you one of the Twitterati? Twitter is a social media site where members can “follow” each other and issue periodic updates on what they are doing at any point in time. Your first reaction may be like mine: Sounds like a colossal waste of time. Although it can be a less-than-productive way to spend your day, I have discovered several benefits of Twitter in the month or so I have used it that make the small amount of time I spend on Twitter worthwhile. (You can learn more and see what I am up to at http://www.Twitter.com/CathyStucker.)

Lots of bloggers are finding Twitter to be a good way to promote their blogs, find new material, and build more one-on-one relationships with their readers. Darren Rowse at ProBlogger.net posts about the value of Twitter here.

Here are the benefits I have discovered in 37 days of Twittering . . . [Read more…]