The Office Autopilot Conference Lowdown 2012

So it took me a whole day to get my butt from Eastern Idaho to Santa Barbara and boy was it worth it! The Office Autopilot conference was full of inspirational speakers, success stories and interviews with the staff, who are the people who are behind the computers making Office Autopilot truly work for your business. Well just in case you could not make it to the conference I want to share with you some of the BIG CHANGES coming to Office Autopilot. 

Did I say BIG CHANGES; well I did so let’s talk about the first BIG CHANGE. Office Autopilot has changed its company name…..are you excited yet…its new name is…Ontraport! They said the reason behind the name change was based on the fact they did not feel like getting sued by Microsoft Office. Makes sense to me. 

Now I want to tell you about the most exciting updates to the back end of Ontraport (formally known as Office Autopilot). They have updated the interface. I know you are like whoop-De-do, new interface. This you should be really excited about. Ontraport has been listening to your suggestions and now has made creating campaigns, forms, rules easier than ever. Think of making rules and their outcomes in the same place or being able to change the customers information page as easy as clicking a dragging the content box. They said we should be seeing glimpse of the new interface within the next couple of months. I hope to be one of the first to start working on it. 

Other fun stuff I learned while I was at the conference. Ontraport is growing, and I mean growing fast! They have hired 12 new employees in the last 3 months. They were #102 in Inc. 5000 and where ranked 9^th in best software, they were awarded Red Herring Top 100 award in recognition of the leading private companies in North America, and was named one of Achievers 50 Most Engaged Workplaces. So yeah if you were not fully behind these guys then it is time to jump on board. 

Everything else I learned at the conference I will keep to myself or use with my clients. 

The Art of War

The Art of War for Women

 

Sun Tzu Ancient Strategies and Wisdom for Winning at Work

Chin-nigh chu

Turning “Liabilities” into Assets

“The first and most important bit of terrain to take into account exists inside your head. If you do not take time to truly think about your strengths and weaknesses, you cannot begin to deal effectively with the external terrain you face. 

How well you deal with your colleagues, bosses, employees, and clients- and your career in general- depends on how well you utilize your resources: both your positive and negative attributes….

It is the same with your personal characteristics. No attribute is purely positive or negative. It all depends on what you do with the hand you have been dealt.

Everyone’s life is filled with a certain number of liabilities. Yet these so-called disadvantages can be turned into secret weapons for winning. 

1.     Know who you are. It is possible to compete in a man’s world and still enjoy being a woman. You can enjoy having a male coworker open your doors without feeling that your power has been diminished. Or perhaps you feel more comfortable opening it for him. It’s our choice, and you should not feel you need to act one way or another because of what you believe is expected- or not expected- of you. By being competitive yet elegant, effective yet gentle, you will confuse, fascinate, and surprise your male coworkers and bosses. 

Whatever your personal qualities are- aggressive or genteel; elegant or sporty; collaborative or competitive – don’t be afraid to use them.”

I read this book two years ago and it empowered me in work and my daily life. I chose this passage to share because as I was looking through the book it caught my eye. Highlighting the good and bad attributes about your personality can make you a stronger player in everything you do. This was a good reminder for me as I head into this week, full steam ahead, to make new exciting things happen for my business. For myself my age is a bad thing because many older clients think that I am not knowledgeable enough in my field, but on the other had I get more work for social media because I am younger and have grown up communicating online and through new social mediums.  

How does this passage of the book inspire you? What liability’s do you have that you would like to turn into assets.

Setting Up Your Gravatar in 6 Easy Steps

What the heck is a gravatar you might be asking yourself? Well I just learned about this little jewel myself, while I was helping a client with a blog. I could not figure out how to make the image of a blank head change to his picture on the blog. Well after putting in a note to the Office Auto Pilot Team they steered me in the right direction. Now I want to share the knowledge with you and save you the hair pulling and teeth grinding, of what is supposed to be a simple task. 

The definition of what a gravatar is on the gravatar website goes like this; “your gravatar is an image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog. Avatars help identify your post on blogs and web forums, so why not on any site?” So now that we all know what a gravatar is we can talk about how to make them work for you. 

Do you recognize this image?  --->

If this image is familiar to you then you have not yet set up your Gravatar. Yeah I know, Mind Blowing! You can finally have your picture there when you log in. This also gives you an image if you are using the Agency Revolution or Fire Fly blog attached to your website. 

Step One: Go here get started

Step Two: Click on the Email Link and Set up Your Account

Step Three: click on “My Account” in the top right hand corer

Step Four: Select Manage My Gavatar

Step Five: Add an image, crop and finish  

Step Six: Select the image you want to use and Confirm it

Now it looks like this--->

Like I said before it also creates a picture for the blog. Easy to do and makes it look much nicer.

5 Ways To Engage Your Cusomers On Facebook

Images

Images are important to use on Facebook. A image can say a thousand words and if put with a strong message can create positive Facebook engagement. In studies on what people look at the most on a Facebook page the Page Wall always wins. This is where you post content and updates to your customers. Using images can help make your business posts more visible on your customer News Feed as well. This does not mean every post has to have an image, but it is a good idea. You can always test this theory yourself by posting a message with an image and see how many people see it verse a similar message without an image. If you are looking for some more information on what people spend the most time looking at on a Facebook Business Page then check out this blog on EyeTracking or use EyeTrackShop for yourself and see where your Page gets the most looks.  

  

 To show my point I added this image. What does it communicate to you? To me it says be cautious children are present. What if I added text which read, "About 100 children are killed each year while walking to or from school?" The texts makes this image much more powerful.

 

 Ask questions

Facebook is social so making it easy for your customers to be social is a must. One way to get some good social engagement is to ask questions to your customers. There are a few different survey tools out there for Facebook, but the easiest to use is right in your Status Bar. On your status bar click Event,Milestone + and select Question. Here you can create a simple question for your audience to respond too. Keep the questions simple and short. Also try having the question associated with an earlier Facebook Post to draw more attention and to see better replies.

 

 Good Content

Having good content is important with everything you put on the web, and it is just as important when posting to Facebook. You want to post material that is for your audience. Make your content to the point with a timely message. For more information on how to connect with your Customers on Facebook see my last blog here.

Integrate Facebook into your Blog/Website

This is an important one. Make sure to have a Facebook gadget to “like” or “share” your content from your blog or website. If you do not make it easy to share your businesses content then people will not share it. You want to make it as easy as possible to share what you are saying on social media.

I have started using the side bar gadget and have seen great results. Here is a gadget for WordPress that works just as well. If you are not a WordPress user then I would suggest Googling social media vertical gadget for (your website provider). This will take some time to make it just right, but hang in there because the results will be worth all the trouble. 

Stay In the Conversation

Now that you are an active business on Facebook and your customers are starting to communicate with you on Facebook, remember to stay social. If someone asks a question about a post remember to answer them. If you get a lot of comments or views on a post follow it up with a similar and relevant post. Show how your company is part of your community, and why it is important to buy from you. 

Keep Marketing

Remember just because you are an active business on Facebook does not mean everyone sees everything your business does. Make sure to spread the word not just on social media but using traditional media as well. Send out monthly newsletter, event postcards, post ads in the paper and other media locations. Social media is just a part of the whole picture when it comes to letting your customer connect with your business.  

How do you connect with your customers on Facebook?

The idea for this blog was from another great marketer and writer; Jeff Bullas see his blog here.