Goal: Connecting Your Expertise With Those Who Need It - Fast and Without Noise.
When an expert provides solid, authentic responses as answers in Q&A networks such as LinkedIN answers, site or blog, build a brand and ultimately drive real sales.
A Little Bit About Q/A Social Sites
Being one of the first two answers to any relevant question can substantially improve the chances of being voted a "best answer" and being read by more interested people. So fast is good.
- If your answer is good (duh!) fewer will bother to answer the question, and you'll have a better chance of being the "best" answer everyone reads.
- Few people read more than a couple of answers + the best answer. Being at the top means you'll get the attention.
- People are more likely to vote you up because you're above the fold, and plainly, the best answer :-)
- ZapTXT and their Vertical Response Email Marketing
- Google Talk Instant Messaging (Any IM works)
- My mobile phone (to get SMS messages) Let's get Started!
- Ability to share with a friend. Google Search RSS, and more. If you're feeling ambitious,
But keep in mind - stay focused on connecting with customer in need, with minimal delay.
17. Long-Term: Optimize your landing page
The custom page you set up to receive visitors may not be quite as effective as you like. The good news is that you can try out different approaches and see what works. This is why having it as a separate page is such a good idea - the "type" of visitor is different than the rest of your site, so being able to optimize for that group of people is a huge advantage.
That's It!
Please let me know how this works for you by leaving comments!
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Found an error or have a suggestion? Let us know and we'll review it.
TIP: On Yahoo! Answers you can answer quickly, and then "edit" your answer to fill in the details. As of this writing that will secure your position in the answers.
Flipping The Funnel
Answering consumer questions is a solid investment of time, but there are ways to make technology work for you and reduce the amount of work it requires to monitor your particular niche. This post is about using such technology to isolate just those consumers who need you and eliminate the other noise.
Keep in mind that answering questions does not just speak to the single person who asked the question, but also for the dozens or hundreds of people who will encounter the response sooner or later.
You are using your answers as precision content and offering it to people online.
Cutting Through The Noise
Yahoo! Answers is a horrribly "noisy" environment at times. You'll see questions like these all the time: "Where can I get a free _______" and "I need a cheap or free ______" and they are often out-of-category. Manually monitoring Yahoo! answers is tedious and often makes one lose faith in the human race :-) - so we'll filter that stuff out and lift you above your competition.
So we will use several services to slice, dice, and deliver only the Yahoo! answers you care about to the destination of your choice, 24×7, without your intervention. You can then skim this distilled list and answer the questions.
The Tools
In this example, I will utilize three services (and one optional add-on.)
1. Set up a Yahoo! Account (if you don't already have one) - you'll need it for Yahoo! Answers and Yahoo! Pipes. Make sure to save your username and password - Yahoo! is hard to recover. I recommend you consider setting your business name as your yahoo account (and This Week in Equine First Aid" or "What's New in Horse Wound Care." This list will be the touch point over time that keeps your brand in the consumer's mind.
You can use an existing web page for this but I don't recommend it. A purpose built page will work twice as well!
TIP:
ZapTXT.com and click on "Get Started"Zaptxt is an awesome cool new service that monitors, filters, and triggers alerts all from RSS feeds. It then intelligently sends alerts to whatever device is available or according to your specific times. ZapTxt works with almost all IM clients (MSN, Yahoo!, AIM, GTalk and Skype) - I personally like using it with Gtalk because it also runs on the iphone/Blackberry.
6. Set up a "ZapTask"
Add the keywords you want to search for (just use one for now)
I entered: "wound" (for now)Paste the URL for the Yahoo RSS feed into the "Website/Feed to monitor"
I pasted http://answers.yahoo.com/rss/catq?sid=2115500432
9. Name your filter
I used "Yahoo Answers - Horse Wounds" as the name - remember you may add more sources later.
Select "Advanced Search"
Enter the keywords to filter for in the "with at least one of these words" section.
I used "wound skin flesh infection scrape cuts cut gash sores wounds"
Enter any "negative" phrases in the "without the words" section.
I used "cutting cutter" (a type of horse)
14. NOW… Get To Answering Questions
Your answers on Yahoo! should be well thought out, researched, and posted rather quickly. You should include, on every post, a link to the "custom" web page we referred to earlier. But the "feeling" of every question should be more like "to participate in articles and blog posts that are relevant to your own business (we filtered, remember!)
Optional TIP: If your domain is lame, use a custom domain name for this page (most registrars will let you forward a domain to any web page.) Example: If you are answering questions about 57 Chevys, consider registering "57ChevyAnswers.com", forwarding it to your landing page, and using that in your Yahoo! Answers link.
15. Use your growing asset to grow your bottom line!
Soon, you'll start to notice traffic on that page, and people signing up for your emails. After your email list gets 40-50 people, you can start your weekly newsletter. This becomes a great way to increase traffic,
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