Increase my visibility

[NigelLane]

From my reading I understand that, in my market place, I need credibility and visibility. (I offer coaching and support services to families with teenagers).

I am reasonably OK with the credibility side (I have been full time in youth work for 20 years, written a book etc) - but I need to increase my visibility.

Ideas? Thoughts?

For example:

P.R. - how do I become a go-to person when issues of cyber bullying, social networking, parenting teenagers etc are in the spotlight?

But feel free to expand this question into broader areas.

(As always if this touches on a service you offer then I am keent to hear/buy).

[King]

I would suggest seeing if you can start a column weekly/fortnightly in the local paper.

This will give you enhance credibility, exposure etc.

This may take a little negotiation with the editor, but if you give some examples and how the topics covered are of real-world, ongoing topical interest. You might need to do a little research and take along some evidence, but it should not be too hard.

[DigitalDomination]

This is a great question!

I think you can have two different strategies here;

External Strategy
1. Guest blog on sites relating to your subject. Start with commenting in general. Be sure to add your web address so people can refer to it and you'll build credibility.
2. Subscribe to something like Sourcebottle - then you'll get alerts asking for experts in your niche which you can contribute to.
3. Newspapers could be good also - Trying to get a regular column is difficult, so you may just want to approach the editor to see if they need content on your chosen area of expertise.
4. Find where else your target market is - perhaps offer free seminars at the local high school with the intention of driving people to your site / buy your book etc.
5. Build a facebook page - lots of parents are on facebook so you could target them as a demographic and drive them to your frequent tips and advice to see signs of bullying etc...

Internal Strategy
1. Build your own brand on your own assets. IE: Have a website forum/blog and build your own audience. It's really important to control your own image and brand so get your domain and get a website done. Offer great advice, articles etc and then also provide additional resources.
2. I'd also consider running a subscription service of some kind, or a paid access only webinar which could include a Q&A at the end.

Hope some of these ideas help!

[Khalid Adam]

offer free entry level group coaching. get participants by identifying organisations who have access to your market. do it as a pro bono for the community and make it regular. at least once a month preferably fortnight.

you can get sponsorship from the same organisation who have access to your target market or those who want to sell to you target market (parents of teenagers and teenagers themselves)

then offer upsells for advanced, mastermind, audios, webinars, one on ones.

hope this helps.

[NickHumphries]

You need to get on TV.

To do that, you really need to be viewed as a expert first.

• Join 2 or 3 related trade organizations
• Read 3 top selling books on your topic
• Give one free 3 hour seminar at the closest well-known university or school.
• Give 2 free seminars at branches of two well-known big companies that deal with youths and bullying.
• Offer to write 1 or 2 articles for youth organizations, or a column in the newspaper.
• Join a service that journalists use to find experts to quote for articles

Good luck! It's easier than you think.

[Khalid Adam]

unless u are a large corporation, your priority should be more specific than just visibility. u need to cater to a niche market. know ur customers and what's going in their minds.

when u do finally get visbility, make sure you give something of value to collect their contact details.

too often people get visiblity and no sales. why? bcos sales is not order taking.

it's engagement, communication, education, relationship building, multiple communications and don't worry, all of this can be automated so u dont get burnt out but u cant do this without customer contact details (email, address and mobile preferably).

i've heard of people who come on oprah and dont benefit from the oprah effect bcos they didnt use the time to demonstrate differentiation and connect with their target merket.

[tonyk]

a couple of things you can do to increase your visibility that won't cost you a cent are starting a blog wiith wordpress and opening a twitter account.

[Crash Lander]

Originally Posted by tonyk

a couple of things you can do to increase your visibility that won't cost you a cent are starting a blog wiith wordpress and opening a twitter account.

I started a twitter account to try and get the name of my carpet cleaning business out there, and was 'followed' within days by some very attractive looking young women that began spamming me with porn! Not really what I was looking for.

[Samith]

Originally Posted by NigelLane

From my reading I understand that, in my market place, I need credibility and visibility. (I offer coaching and support services to families with teenagers).

I am reasonably OK with the credibility side (I have been full time in youth work for 20 years, written a book etc) - but I need to increase my visibility.

Ideas? Thoughts?

For example:

P.R. - how do I become a go-to person when issues of cyber bullying, social networking, parenting teenagers etc are in the spotlight?

But feel free to expand this question into broader areas.

(As always if this touches on a service you offer then I am keent to hear/buy).

Hi Nigel,

With a profile like that I think you are pretty fine with the credibility area. The Visibility part is what looks to be lacking.

I think having a solid online presence, a website where you can mention your services and your experience would be highly beneficial. Once you have a strong website in place, you can probably start your own blog writing and a forum where people can come and get advise from you (within your website), create a bit of a community, just like this in your niche. This is something I can definitely help you with.

Once you have a website you can start online advertising (online advertising is quiet inexpensive compared to conventional advertising unless you have a huge marketing budget)

Since you are specialised in teenage related issue, I would definitely recommend advertising on Facebook and Google. Facebook is a great way to improve your branding and getting the word out. You can find out about facebook advertising here http://www.facebook.com/business/dashboard/

Best of luck with everything.

Cheers!
Samith

[DigitalDomination]

Originally Posted by Crash Lander

I started a twitter account to try and get the name of my carpet cleaning business out there, and was 'followed' within days by some very attractive looking young women that began spamming me with porn! Not really what I was looking for.

Perhaps she misunderstood your references like;

• When the carpets matched the curtains
• Looking after your shag pile carpet