While I’m (hopefully) moving in the direction of speaking about topics like I did at last month’s Ignite event—addressing fear, hanging with change, and other “big” stuff—I still enjoy talking about social media and other communications-oriented topics to the right people. (If you like hearing about the underlying principles to good communicating, online or off, in the “teach a man to fish” spirit, you’re probably one of the right people. If you want a tutorial on Facebook, I’m not your gal.)

I like talking about social media because I’m a big consumer of it and a huge believer in it, and I want to share that excitement and love even as I keep people from “peeing in the well the rest of us are drinking from,” to paraphrase my friend, Merlin, in an excellent talk he gave about social media at last month’s WordCamp Phoenix. Since I quit acting, I’ve met most of the people I know in real life via social media to start with.

This week’s marketing round-up (below) is a perfect illustration of that.

The Biznik event I attended was hosted by my friend (and co-hostess of the monthly Biznik event I started on the West Side of L.A. in January), Heather Parlato. We originally met via Spencer Cross’s mailing list for designers, KERNSPIRACY; I originally met Spencer when we were both blogging for Metblogs L.A. (And I got that gig via—you guessed it—reading and commenting on blogs, as well as starting my own.)

The podcast I recorded was with Alaia Williams, a business acquaintance whom I met at a real-life networking event here in L.A. But I met her because of an online hookup to Colleen Rice Nelson via Ilise Benun, my old marketing coach, and—yes—Biznik, again. (As an aside, I met Ilise via a real-life workshop given by her partner in Marketing Mentor, Peleg Top, whom I found via Spencer on the KERNSPIRACY list.)

The one-on-one meeting I had was with a new friend, Dave Waite, whom I also originally met via the KERNSPIRACY list. We finally met one-on-one after sharing a great deal of online communication via email, Twitter, Facebook (and by reading each others’ posts on KERNSPIRACY), and meeting a few times socially at the monthly Biznik meetups I host with Heather on the West Side.

I’ll throw in one more, only because it helps illustrate the blurring of the lines between “work” and “play.” Last Friday, I made a funny little video with my friend, Adam, whom I met via Twitter, then in real life at SXSW. Adam lives approximately two miles from my boyfriend here in L.A., yet we met online via social media and again in person at an official event 2000 miles away before really becoming friends here in town and making something together (which, of course, we put online).

I’m building a head of steam with this because this email, I got a very frustrating (and to be fair, probably frustrated) email from a reader of my latest newsletter, on creating handles being the best method for connecting in this overtaxed, over-busy world we live in today. My thesis is that rather than badgering people to look at your stuff, to pay attention to you, to come to your thing, you make it easy for them to pull themselves closer to you by creating a handle they can grab onto when they’re ready, to pull themselves closer. This means making sure your product or service—which is herself, in the case of the actor who emailed—is exceptional, then taking equal care to craft ways of making it exquisitely easy and joyful for people to come closer.

As you can probably guess by this wind-up, the email was all about how she could get casting directors to pay attention to her. Because her picture/resume and postcards weren’t working. (Surprise, huh?)

I’ll leave off the railing and wailing and just refer to Beverly Sills’ words of wisdom on the topic: “There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” Which I always understood to mean just that there’s no quick way, but the truth is, there’s also no mapped way. You make your way toward every opportunity, but it’s not like there are lines painted on the ground. Part of the joy of purposeful guesstimating is the serendipity involved: you’ll meet people and discover great connections, but maybe not all the exact ones you set out to find.

I know it’s been one of the more gratifying aspects to my journey. And if you have any, I’d love to hear of some of your circuitous connections.

“Marketing” round-up for this week:

• 6 blog posts (five at the main blog, one here)
• Biznik networking event (originally met via online networking)
• Interview for podcast on entrepreneurial business (originally met via online networking)
• One-on-one meetup with colleague (originally met via online networking)
• email! email! email!
• morning and afternoon checkins with Facebook and Twitter

I’m still in paring-down mode after last week’s meltdown (oh, the good times! the goody-good times!), so this week was a lot less about marketing and a lot more about jettisoning projects that aren’t serving my key goals and cleaning up the horrific backlog that has built up because of my poor past practices.

I’ve already detailed much of what I’m doing to pare down, as well as what I’m working toward, so I won’t belabor it here. Just by implementing a few new practices and removing a few projects, I feel a huge sense of relief, including some hope that I may come out of this year with a much clearer sense of what next year needs to look like, both from an overall sense and a marketing perspective.

The marketing keepers

Since I’ve been doing this marketing and self-promotion stuff for a while now, it makes sense for me to look at not only what’s working for me from a business perspective (i.e., what’s bringing clients in the door, and prospects up to it), but also to really look hard at what’s missing from the mix as well as what’s fun for me. “Fun” doesn’t necessarily mean whoop-dee-doo and hallelujah: it’s more about what I find interesting, challenging and engaging—what is a good fit for my skills and bent.

The newsletter is a no-brainer, as is the blog. In addition to providing the means to share useful information with clients, prospects and fans, they keep me writing and the more I write—my core competency, by a country mile—the better I feel and do. I’m keeping my skills sharp, growing as a writer, and, because of the relentless nature of the writing, discovering by combination of necessity and accident some new avenues for my writing. Poetry Thursday, which I re-started earlier this year after not being able to write one single more long blog post, has turned out to be one of the most popular things I write. And I’ve never, ever identified as either a poetry lover nor a poet. Go figger.

The podcast is a surprisingly fun vehicle for me. I resisted it when Peleg and Ilise first suggested I try my hand at it, but like other things I think I hate until I meet them and fall in love, I’m a convert. What’s more, I’ve been genuinely shocked by the enthusiastic response to it from listeners. To me, the idea of listening to content when the same stuff is available to read is crazy, but that’s just me. And I love doing them, so there you go. Because of my commitment to the calendar project, I won’t starting my own podcast until 2010, but it’s gonna be a hum-dinger, trust me.

In-person networking with Biznik has been richly rewarding. I have really enjoyed hosting the events in the Marina, and it’s been thrilling seeing other people discover the value of them: so much that they’re willing to start up their own events. Having Heather come on as co-host was the greatest single thing that happened in the entire process. If anyone is interested in getting a regular event up and running, I strongly suggest figuring out a great, ambitious, fun, trustworthy colleague to partner with. You’ll each take the heat off of each other, plus you’ll forge an incredible bond. Heather even made me an SCD-legal pie for my birthday! (see pic top right!)

The marketing also-rans

Ilise, I’m ducking in advance, but cold calling is off the menu right now. Honestly, it’s been off since I abandoned the idea of taking my little branding and marketing song-and-dance for actors on the road. The combination of eviscerated university endowments and my split focus killed off my enthusiasm: as the old saw goes, just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. I’m really, really good at talking to actors about how to market themselves. But it pulls me from other stuff I’m even better at. The good news is that once I have a real reason to pick up the phone and ask people questions, I have no doubt that I’ll be able to. So this isn’t a loss—it’s a real win.

I love my Biznik events, because I’m making great connections while I hone my leadership skills, build something much bigger than myself, and hey—just have fun! (Don’t discount fun, ever!) But I’m going to be far, far more judicious about the number and types of other events I go to. I just can’t hit that many big conferences, unless I’m speaking and they’re paying me for my time. C.C. Chapman has a fantastic podcast episode on what he’s calling Personal Price Tags that addresses this; it’s short and compelling and well worth a listen. I get that it’s going to require more effort on my part to research what are and aren’t good events, but that’s much easier to manage than wasting time at the wrong dance.

The marketing “maybes”

I have to be careful, here, because I have a well-documented and chronic case of Eyes Bigger than Stomach Syndrome. But these are other marketing ideas that have my interest:

A video podcast, series of videos or narrated presentations/screencasts. It finally hit me that after all those years of performance and presenting, I have chops that I’m STUPIDLY letting go to waste. Plus, I love it. I love talking and I love performing. Not everyone is going to want to see and hear this stuff, but some people, we’ve established, like it better. So, untapped market + Colleen Fun = DO IT. Somehow.

A book. Yes, that book—the one that some people have heard me yakking about for years now. I finally have the title and the idea. Well, that’s not quite true: I have two titles and two ideas for two totally different books. Not sure how that’s going to play out, but I have until January 1st to wrap my brain around it. (I plan to start the proposal for one of them sooner.)

A tour. Not sure what this means yet, but I have a vision of myself doing some more extended versions of my now-annual PacNW trip. If you have ideas—or better yet, if there’s a way you would love love love for me to show up in your town, please let me know.

As usual, a huge part of the reason I’m blathering all this stuff in such detail is that I’m hoping to gain some clarity. Seeing it written out is helpful right away, but feedback from objective sources is always welcome. What am I missing that’s glaringly obvious to you? What do I do that’s good for me and for you that I should turn more attention to?

xxx
c

Marketing round-up for this week:

• 6 blog posts (four at the main blog, one here)
• attended the second Biznik Chicken Wing Thing
• lots of email (although the system helps when I apply it)
• morning and afternoon checkins with Facebook and Twitter
• sent hard copy thank you notes and a thank you gift
• revised one page on my website

There’s a flip side to growing your business with marketing: the inevitable aches and pains that accompany growth.

I’ve chronicled my crash after working too hard for too long, and how my more recent experiences with overwhelm (because let’s face it, there’s a pattern with me and overwhelm) led me to finally get some help in the form of service providers and counselors.

There’s another kind of help that I’ve been suspecting I need now for some time, of a slightly different nature: help freeing up my time. I’m close to maxing out on efficiency hacks and I know I can’t increase the number of things I’m doing in a day, just the nature of what I’m doing. In other words, while I’m thrilled that my consulting business seems to be taking off, paradoxically, the more I get into it, the more I see that ultimately, I’ll have to do less of it. It’s incredibly rewarding for me—I’m learning by leaps and bounds, and the work I’m doing seems to be really helping my clients*. Plus, you know, they pay me and stuff. Woo hoo!

So, what’s the next step—baby or “Mother, may I?”-giant—for a business of a certain size?

What work is vs. what forms it takes

I see consulting more as a great, rewarding outlet for my work than as my work itself, which, as I’ve described elsewhere, is to be a joyful conduit of truth, beauty and love (woo-woo flavor) or, slightly more straightforwardly, a translator of ideas into various languages (performance, design and words, not actual languages, which, sadly, I suck at.) It’s a vocation/avocation distinction, only (thank WHOMEVER), for the past 15 or so years, my vocation and avocation have been so closely aligned that they feel more like one and the same.

Getting the word out there about your business, then (or me helping you get the word out about your business, then) becomes a kind of holy work, minus the religion. Something to be taken seriously. As do all the support systems for your life and your business, because they help make it possible for you to do your work. As does (stay with me—we’re getting there!) your actual business model, because, to play off a popular truism usually applied to mothers, if it ain’t workin’, ain’t nothin’ workin’.

For now, my business model is working, or at least, seems to be, given my own, crazy, such-as-it-is measurement techniques. More work of the type I enjoy coming in, more money coming in, more excitement about the future as a result of it. (See what I mean about the such-as-it-is part? An MBA, I’m not.) I can already see how it will not be working, however, and in the not-too-distant future, unless I tweak it a little. Or maybe overhaul it a lot.

The non-skeevy making-of-money while asleep AND awake

Passive income of some kind is going to have to figure in somehow. I’m very slowly and cautiously looking at affiliate stuff, but given my weirdnesses around it, I’m not sure if it can ever be a huge part of my income mix. For one, I don’t find too many products and services I can unreservedly recommend. For another, I’m still not sure if receiving money for a recommendation doesn’t besmirch the reco, and my sterling reputation for doing it. Somehow, I’ve made peace with the Amazon thing; maybe it’s because it’s not a one-to-one sale, and because there are many other options for purchase (or even non-paid use) that I’m usually the first to pimp. Anyway, the jury’s still out on that one for me.

The other thing I’m resigned to is that I’ll need to be making more money per transaction for “high touch” stuff and/or spreading the costs out among a much broader audience. With 2,350 newsletter subscribers and 1,650 blog subscribers** as of this writing, I’m a far cry from the 1,000 True Fan model Kevin Kelly suggests as a viable option for the one-man-band creative type. That can’t stop me from working toward it, though, or at least fail-fast testing some of it. So I’ve got one book in the pipeline for a Holiday/2009 release*** and am sketching out my marketing plan and proposal for a book-book that I’m going to shop to major publishing houses. It’s not the first, second or third book that I thought I’d write, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be the one that will move my business forward if I do it right. Plus, it’s the one that I think will actually help the most people at the lowest price point to receive whatever useful knowledge they only have access to now via one-on-one consulting, or being related to me.

Seth Godin, bandwidth issues, and the best business graph you’ll see all year

Seth routinely startles and inspires me with his insight and the seemingly effortless—not to mention joyous—way in which he serves it up. I stumble, tweet and otherwise shout-out more of his stuff than anyone else’s (Merlin runs a close second, but he’s more privately prolific now, so there’s less to bookmark.) But this post, with accompanying graph, blew my doors off. Slowly. A slow blowing-off of doors. I had to read it a few times to really get it; I’ve kept the page with the post on it open in my browser for four days now (a personal record) because I had to keep dropping back in to look at it.

The graph seems designed to point out the differences in energy output and impact for creating businesses, but it’s just as useful for mapping where you’re at with the business you’ve got, if you’re a service provider with one of those more fluid-type businesses. Where you’re at and where you want to be. The lower-left quadrant is a sinkhole for most commercial ventures, while the upper-right offers potential high returns but at a high personal cost. I’ve been thinking a lot about work in terms of making a difference while I make enough money to keep making a difference; looking at this graph, it seems obvious that I need to spend more time in the green satellite if I’m going to die without leaving the work in me. A tad morbid, but you see my point.

What a crazy bandwidth graph has to do with marketing, besides everything

For them of us what’s interested in creating meaning that lands as much as money, a huge part of making that happen—the landing part—is clearing runways and building airports. That’s your marketing, in a transportation-metaphor nutshell: making it easier for people to get to the messages and meaning, and to take it on to their next destination. If you can build a good airport with great runways that’s safe and efficient, people will flock to it, enjoy the (hopefully) brief time they spend there, and tell their friends. If not? Well. Burbank is a great little airport, but it can only serve so many people per day. LAX is a shit airport that people use because they have to. Somewhere, there’s either an airport that hasn’t been made, or one that needs to be remade.

I wish I had a hunk of time coming up to meditate on this stuff. Instead, since I don’t, I will likely keep that browser window open for the foreseeable future, dropping in now and again to see where I’m at with the information, what’s speaking to me, and what are the likeliest next steps.

In the meantime, if you’re still with me, I’d love to hear your thoughts on balancing stuff inside and out of the green saucer.

xxx
c

*Which, of course, you’d have no way of knowing, since I have had no time to update my consulting page to more accurately describe what the work is, much less add any of the lovely testimonials I’ve gotten from people who seem to genuinely like what they’ve gotten from the sessions. Hell, I haven’t even taken the Monty out of beta yet!

**Those are communicatrix.com numbers, of course. I appreciate the stalwart 80 or so of all y’all who subscribe to this one, but I’m wise enough not to rely on you to keep me in peanuts and rent money.

During a speaking gig I did yesterday at a local Freelancer Meetup, someone threw out the question of measurement, as in, yeah, sure, we can do all this marketing and networking and social media marketing and networking, but how is it converting into dollars? How do you decide how much time to put in, and when (and how) do you decide whether it’s working or not*?

A very valid question, and one worth looking at as the mid-year mark approaches.

Personally, while I’m nominally (and, to a degree, generally) interested in getting business—speaking gigs and consulting gigs—I’ve had to take a cold, hard look at what my marketing is netting me. And I’ll be honest: I’m not making a mint off this marketing stuff. My consulting business hasn’t gone through the roof, nor am I getting paid bazillions of dollars to speak (yet). Really, this year thus far has been about me building audience and getting speaking gigs, period. As far as those metrics go, life is good: my actively engaged audience is up over 25% from the end of ‘08, and I’ve done 10 (holy cats!) speaking gigs so far this year, with a few more lined up right now for July and August.

Still, I’ve suspected for a time that something is getting in the way of my forward movement. I say this because I’ve been through three different and successful career starts so far in my life—advertising, acting and design—and while they’ve each required as much work as this start, I made much better (faster, more lucrative, more internally rewarding) headway with any of them than I have been with this one. It may be that my current problem resides with my choice of direction, but I’m beginning to think rather the opposite: that it is because of my lack of choice in direction. I say I want one thing, but my actions are pulling me in multiple directions. And in this climate especially, without focus, it’s game over.

So, despite the craaaazy economy, I’m investing some time and money in a couple of classes that I believe will push me out of my comfort zone and force me to look at some stuff I’ve been maybe overlooking, if not flat-out avoiding. It feels a little funny floating that out there—I know that one of the mantras of the self-employed is “fake it till you make it”—but right now, faking it feels like a serious wrong turn. I have a much better idea of what I’m good at (and not so good at) after hitting it hard for these first six months; I’m looking forward to getting more focused so that I can hit the back end of the year not hard, but precisely.

Oh—and because yes, I’m still blogging this process out loud, this week I got my newsletter written and out, posted to my site four times (and this one once), put together a new presentation on getting attention for yourself in a crowded marketplace and delivered it at a meetup, did a few more free sample consultations, got one of the backlog of podcasts recorded and out the door, reached out to a WordPress Thesis theme designer to discuss some business, and even sang my inspirational song for a roomful of strangers at a party.

And Facebook, and Twitter, and yadda yadda yadda. Of course!

*If you’re interested in the maturation of social media in the marketplace, which includes more discussion about accountability, measurement, and mapping of the audience, a good entry point is Chris Brogan’s blog, where he’s begun talking about the subject.

It was a jam-packed week of travel and planning for it that had me thinking a lot about about marketing—my definition of it, how it worked and what it was really about.

Back in January, a professor from my alma mater invited me to sit on a panel about social networking as part of the university’s annual Entrepreneur Celebration. Cornell has made a big commitment to fostering and supporting entrepreneurship both at the university level, where there’s now an entrepreneurial track, and amongst alumni, via the Cornell Entrepreneur Network. (I’ve attended numerous events and spoken at a couple, and they’ve been fantastic for building my own business network in L.A.)

I hate to say it, but in the sometimes-grind of keeping one’s marketing machine running, it can be easy to lose sight of the “why” behind it. Meeting some incredible entrepreneurs during my couple of days here and, on the way out here, reading the awesomely inspiring story of what one entrepreneur is doing to change the world, really reinvigorated me. At its most basic, marketing is about telling the stories that connect people to products and services and other people; done right, it can be a tool for helping to change the world.

Entrepreneurs are people who change the world

I’ve been privileged to assist many wonderful entrepreneurs to hone and refine their marketing messages, either through actual paid work or just the kind of assistance we all provide each other via blog comment threads, message boards, one-on-one meetups and every other kind of on- and offline networking.

For whatever reason, though—maybe the like attracting like factor—most of the entrepreneurs I’ve met and worked with have businesses like my own. They may not be communicatrices, of course, but they are very small or one-person businesses, with heavy emphasis on the creative services, doing fine work but doing it for a clientele much like themselves in many ways.

At the Entrepreneurship@Cornell Celebration, I was suddenly exposed to entrepreneurs with business models of all shapes and sizes. There were a lot of Internet business start-ups, which is to be expected, I guess, but there are also a lot of folks out there making stuff I’d never heard of nor imagined: an undergrad with an idea for a motorized bike he’d dreamed up after pulling apart engines with his dad. A startup seeking to become the premier nanotech-driven textile treatment service (better mousetrap for fibers). Another startup with a less expensive, less invasive, more effective treatment for restoring eyesight than corneal replacement. (You can read about the finalists in this year’s entrepreneurial challenge competition here.)

Before our panel, we took almost half an hour to go around the room and hear every attendee’s business story. It was a little daunting, heading into that discussion after hearing how diverse (and, um, smart) our audience was. But it felt great to be able to translate what I’d learned about using social media to reach people into basic, usable principles that would help anyone there draw attention to her story.

Lesson? Part of the value of a lifetime spent in marketing is learning how the principles apply across the board.

Marketing and microfinance and changing the world

Several weeks back, via Seth Godin, I applied to be a “sneezer” about The Blue Sweater, Acumen Fund founder Jacqueline Novogratz’s new book about poverty, wealth and the bridges that connect the two.

Due to bad timing and a mixup on my part, I ended up getting the book a little late; then, to tell the 100% truth, I was a bit underwhelmed when I pulled the book from the envelope. It has a pretty enough jacket design, but it looked…well…kind of dull and earnest: not my favorite combo in reading material.

Once I cracked it open, though, I couldn’t stop. Novogratz’s story, which takes up much of the book, is wildly interesting: how she, as a young banker, showed up passionate but largely clueless for her first job in Africa (how often have I been there, minus the Africa part); how, with the patient help and support of equally passionate native citizens, she slowly learned the skills and systems she’d need to address the challenges of lifting people up from poverty in a new and effective way. (Hint: the first 90 out of 100 skills have to do with listening.)

It’s an incredibly inspiring story just in terms of what she’s been able to accomplish, but what was at least equally fascinating to me was how she used time-tested tools—like very basic marketing—to help further the goals of the various programs she set up. There are some achingly familiar stories of the struggles one bakery collective had when it came to getting out there and promoting their product; my circumstances are cushier and I don’t sell doughnuts, but I related every step of the way.

VCs, entrepreneurs and the web that connects us all

It was a stroke of wholly unintended genius on my part to be reading The Blue Sweater while I was attending a mini-conference on entrepreneurship. Everywhere I looked, I saw parallels: between solopreneurs with a small service business and entrepreneurs with a vision for a huge business, between the poor workers in developing nations and the wealthy ones here at home.

In a panel discussion about dealing with the ups and downs of entrepreneurial ventures, I started taking note when something these high-level players talked about applied across the board; by the end of the session, my notebook was filled with evergreen, pan-applicable bits of advice like “dealing with what’s really in front of you vs. the way you want things to be” or not being afraid to fail, or not being married to a particular outcome, or the importance of surrounding yourself with good people and then empowering them to do their jobs. At one point, someone even flat-out admitted, “It’s kind of a miracle when it works.”

And it is. Whether that thing is something mechanical, like a plane, or has a lot of other moving parts, like a film, there’s always a bit of luck involved in getting a complex project off the ground.

Nuts and bolts

Before I left for Ithaca, I took a long, hard look at the calendar. I thought about how I wanted to spend my time here (seeing friends, exploring my old stomping grounds, networking with new people) and decided to write a number of scheduled posts for the blog. It’s been really helpful having features: every Friday is now reserved for recommending some small business, and I’m starting to release something that’s poetry-like (I still refuse to say I write poetry) for a longstanding blog tradition of Poetry Thursday. I twittered when I could, checked in with Facebook and took care of some email followup. Not the most fun on my creaky old 12″ PowerBook, but doable, and I’m glad I did it.

Obviously—or maybe not, but it happened—I got the chance to do quite a bit of networking while I was in Ithaca. It’s doubtful that everyone I met would be a prospect, but as I move toward my bigger goal of becoming a writer who speaks (as opposed to a speaker who writes), I think it’s good form to get out and meet as many people as I can who are out there changing the world in their way, and just connecting on some kind of meaningful level. (Ilise, feel free to disagree with me!)

The professor who brought me here wants me to come back in the fall to talk to her class, which is the best news of all: it gives me time and a reason to plan a trip around, so I can put together more of a mini-tour. (Back in January, I thought I’d have time to plan something for this trip; I looked up and it was a week before d-day. So much for that!)

And besides, in the fall? Ithaca truly is gorges!

This week: Optimizing your social media bios

After two tortuous weeks of cold research calling hell, I can barely express my relief at being back on some kind of familiar ground.

I love social media! I love writing bios! I love updating my social media bios!

Well, that’s not completely true. I do love social media, and I’ve grown to enjoy writing bios, if only for the puzzle-like challenge they provide: how do I best express myself quickly, in terms of my prospects (or fellow denizens), in a way that is appropriate to the space I’m in while remaining true to myself and consistent across the board?

Come on! It’s a party and a half, folks!

Seriously, it can be a lot easier and certainly more fun—not to mention less crazy-making—if you learn a few tricks to help you in your quest. Here’s what I’ve learned in my travels so far. Hopefully, my trials and errors will save you time and precious brain cell space.

The Power of The Formula

This troika of questions, which burst forth from my mouth in one elegant spasm as if channeled from on high, will change the way you write bios (or any kind of copy about yourself or your business) forever. It is a FANTASTIC tool for keeping you on point no matter where you are or whom you’re talking to. Ready?

1. Are you this person with this problem?
2. I can help!
3. Here’s how…

I’ve written about how to apply this tool on the Creative Freelancer Conference blog and expanded on it over at Biznik.com, so feel free to read up on it there. Basically, if you can come up with one block of copy that answers these three questions, you’re golden. You can then extrapolate from it to create one-line bios, elevator pitches, 30-second statements: you name it, it works.

Different sites, different (flavors of) bio

This week’s stated goal is to “optimize your online presence”—i.e., create your profiles for the various online networking sites that work for your stated goal if you’re not on any yet, or to update them if they do.

I’m pretty much everywhere big at this point (although I’m always on the prowl for new sites, and always grab my name when I find a good new one) so my job was clearly to take a look at what was up and tweak if necessary.

A word of caution before we proceed: I’m one of the least “business-y” business people you’ll meet. My market is creative solopreneurs, and my distinct personality seeps into everything anyway, so I try to be as upfront about it as I can without offending anyone. Which is to say, don’t click on the Twitter link if you’re easily offended, and never click on any link that cautions about “swears” or “NSFW” (e.g., “not safe for work”) unless you have a thick skin.

The main places I hang out these days (other than the mothership, communicatrix-dot-com) are LinkedIn, Biznik, Facebook and Twitter.
There are probably a lot of sites I’m on that could stand sprucing up,
but these are the most integral to my platform. The links will take you
to the various sites so that you can see how I changed it up for each
one, and if you want to see the whole magilla in action, you can check out my about page, my long-ass bio page, and my super-secret hire-me page on my main site. All are works in progress, and you could argue that there’s a bit of schizophrenia happening, but I believe that any one of them is a solid companion to any other, and that they represent a cohesive voice and POV, which for now, is my main marketing and promotion goal.

Updating bios: the modern version of herding cats

It is not easy to keep everything updated and in sync. Over a certain number of profiles, it starts to feel like spinning plates on sticks: you’ve no sooner gotten four of them going when five more threaten to crash to the ground. Here are some tricks to help keep you sane.

• Schedule it. I was relieved to see this turn up in the Marketing Calendar because it made me realize a simple habit could be a game-changer: put “update bios” into my own task list (Things for Mac, right now) as a recurring task. In the same way I’ve automated “check credit report” by slipping an index card with the name of each of the three reporting bureaus into folders four months apart in my tickler file, I can pretty much automate bio updating. (In case you didn’t know, you’re allowed one free credit report annually from each of the three services—a great idea to keep an eye on things and make sure nothing funky is going down with your money.)
• Keep archived copies of your bios in a folder on your hard drive. I started doing this in my acting days, back in the Stone Age. Whenever I was in a new show, they’d ask for a picture and bio for the program. Once I figured out this would happen each time, I kept a text file with the bio from each show. Then, depending on whether the next show was a comedy or drama, needed a short bio or a super-short bio (no one ever wants a long one), I could pull it out and edit it as needed. Saved hours of aggravation, believe me.
• Maintain a “social media” folder in your bookmarks toolbar. Put all of your bio or login pages for all of your social media sites in one folder in your Firefox or Safari browser (or—shudder—Internet Explorer, if you’re still using it.) It does two things: makes it easy to check in once or twice daily, and makes it easy to find the sites when you’re ready to do some maintenance.

A few final notes on Week Five’s assignments

It was really cheering, getting such warm reassurances from people that it was okay to not be perfect at any of this. Each of us are better at some things and, um, not as good at other stuff. While my online writing output remains good, my networking continues at a good clip and I’m filling my pipeline with the speaking gigs I really want, I’m nowhere near where I hope to be by the end of the year with my consulting and paid writing gigs. It’s just me for now, and there are only so many hours in a day. (I can’t wait until I can hire you, Deidre, or whoever else you refer me to because your dance card is full!)

But I’m starting to see some results, and in places I never figured. For one, the writing and connecting online (and off) that I’ve been doing for the last two years is starting to manifest itself in better numbers and more queries, even if not yet more actual fame and fortune. My newsletter subscriptions continue to rise, along with the open rate (huzzah!) so I’m learning there, too.

The most shocking thing to happen though, was actually having a little bit of fun with my research calls this week. Yes, I still did them in off-hours so no, no one actually picked up, but I’m getting more comfortable with the whole idea of calling (hey, it’s just about connecting a different way, right?) and also, I had a little fun doing some background research on the individual people I was calling which made getting even their voicemail kind of…dare I say?…fun. Yikes! Next thing you know I’ll be selling plots of land in Florida and asking for the good leads.

How’s your week gone? Now that we’re a month into this, have you noticed anything getting easier? Or less dreadful? Are you maybe even having fun with some of it yet?