Joe Vitale Hm transcript

Social Media Marketing: The New 4t h Step To
The Hypnotic Marketing 2.0 Formula
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Copyright 2008, Hypnotic Marketing, Inc - HypnoticMarketing.com
Hypnotic Marketing 2.0 - Social Media Marketing 1

“How Can This Shy Genius Teach You to Use
Social Media Marketing to Build Your Online
Empire with Her Top Secret Information?”
Joe Vitale: Hello everybody, Dr. Joe Vitale of Hypnotic Gold and mrfire.com. I am so
excited for today’s interview that I am beside myself. I’m almost shaking in my chair.
You’re going to need pencil and paper. If you are driving, you’re going to have to be
very alert here because we have a lot of information. This is new. This is leading edge.
This is breakthrough. We’re going to be talking about social networks, social network
marketing, and all aspects of it. Believe me, I have a front row seat here because I want
to learn this and know this and use this more than maybe anybody listening right now.
This going to be powerful material, informative material, and the kind of material you
can take to the bank.
I have found a leading genius when it comes to this social network marketing, and doing
things with Facebook and some of the other ones like Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Mixx,
and these that you may never have heard of. I admit that I don’t know all of them. I’m
even very skeptical about some of the uses of all of them. I have found somebody who is
truly a genius at doing this. She’s a quiet genius. You’re not even going to be able to
find her because she doesn’t want to give out her website. Fortunately, I know where she
is. I found her, and I have her on today’s call. I want to make sure she’s on the call. Are
you still there?
Alicia Wright: Yes, I’m here.
Joe: Alright. I’m talking to Alicia Wright. Alicia has extensive IT and tech background
experience. She’s been with C&E certified novel engineer, an MCP, Microsoft Certified
Professional, as well as a ten-year active data tester for MS, Adobe, and other leading
software companies. Her background, her experience goes really deep into web 2.0,
social media, and community projects. She’s got an understanding and a vision about
how this works on a very detailed level. In fact, if I let her, she’ll confuse the hell out of
me. But, I’m not going to let that happen, because I want to learn how to use this in an
Internet marketing, street smart way.
We’re going to be talking about social networks, social network marketing, how to get
more traffic to your site, how to increase conversion, word of mouth, FaceBook,
MySpace, and I’m going to be picking her brains, being skeptical from time to time, but
always looking for the practical use of all of this including things you may never have
heard of like some of these things like StumbleUpon, YouStream.tv. Of course, you
know YouTube, I think, Squidoo.com. I can just keep on going.
Anyway, I found the source. I found the Holy Grail. I found the guru. It’s Alicia
Wright. Alicia, thank you for being on here.

Alicia: Thank you for the kind introduction. I’m flattered.
Joe: Well you deserve all of this. I want to make sure people know just how good
you are, and I’m going to tell a story of how you helped me.
A while back, I started a blog. I started my blog very skeptically thinking who’s going to
read my blog? Who cares about blogs? They all seemed like they were self-indulgent
diaries with nothing really happening. I started it, and I got interested in doing it. I
caught the bug of sharing myself, sharing my products, sharing my life. I found that
doing a blog was a relationship builder. I also knew I wanted to drive traffic to my site. I
wasn’t sure how to drive traffic to a blog. I can certainly get it to Mr. Fire, and my Mr.
Fire site has been up for decades, so it gets a lot of traffic automatically from all the
search engines that have found it. Of course, I keep adding content to the site, which
makes it interesting. But the blog, what do I do with the blog?
Well, Alicia Wright contacts me because she had been helping Pat O’Brien, and Pat
raved about her, so we exchanged a few emails. She came up with this idea of me
writing something about Valentine’s Day. I ended up spontaneously coming up with an
idea that was titled, “Desperate Valentines.” It was something like 15, 16 things that you
can do if you’re all alone on Valentine’s Day. So, while the rest of the world was talking
about how to buy flowers and candy and go on a date and have a good time, I went
contrary, and I said, “What if you’re all alone? What if you’re desperate? What do you
do?” So I came up with this to-do list, this little idea list, little brainstorming list called,
“Desperate Valentines.” I told Alicia about it. She did her magic, which today, I still
don’t know exactly what she did. Hopefully, she’ll explain it. Very quickly, that
particular post probably had 300 or 400 Diggs. She’ll have to explain what Diggs is in a
minute.
But, more importantly, overnight, my blog saw 20,000 new visitors, 20,000. This is on
top of what was already going to my blog. Because of what Alicia did, because of that
Valentines post, because it got dug, 20,000 new people went to my blog. I don’t know
about the rest of you, but that’s pretty darn exciting to me. So, Alicia, let’s just start
there. How did you do that?
Alicia: Well, that particular effort was finding the right content, and then book marking
it in the right places. The cool thing about this that makes it real simple for everybody, if
you just look at it this way, is to remember that we’ve been book marking for years. We
started out by using my favorites on our browsers, by just when we found a site we like, a
lot of people will click my favorite so they can remember to go back to it. It’s that type
concept that started social networking and social book marking. We’ve done the same
thing, fast forward to 2008. We take a post that we like, and I bookmark it on a popular
social networking or social site. What it does is, it puts it in front of a vast amount of
people all at once. It’s sharing data. Very simply, that effort, if you bookmark
strategically for your niche, and at the right time and the right place, then it propels new
visitors to your site instantly.

Joe: Wow. Well there are so many levels of questions right there alone. I’m in
kindergarten when it comes to social networking and all of what you just explained, so
break it down for me. Okay, I understand book marking. When I go to a website, I can
bookmark it there. I know how that works with my Internet Explorer. But you’re talking
about book marking it some place in particular. Can you give me an example or tell me
where you went?
Alicia: Yes. Okay. For example, what I do, I take the top 30 sites at Aelexa.com, which
is a traffic-ranking site. For instance, Google is number one. Digg is number 30.
StumbleUpon is 69. I make sure that I’m in the top 30, or at least the top 100 sites. For
whatever niche or particular blog or website that I’m trying to help, I help them identify a
site in that list that would be appropriate for sharing their data with. Then what I do, is I
teach them the content to write, or recommended content that would work on the
different sites, because they’re all different. Obviously a video works on YouTube. A
fun story or top ten list works great on Digg. Just your blog in general will work great on
StumbleUpon. So, you identify the correct type site for your niche, and then you make
the data on your site appropriate for the bookmark you’re trying to create. Then the rest
is just people. That’s the power of the people, word of mouth.
Joe: Meaning the people pick it up and they start distributing it virally, word of mouth,
that type of thing?
Alicia:
Exactly.
Joe: Okay. Well let’s back up here. I know when you encouraged me to write a blog
post, you knew that a holiday was coming up. In this particular case, it was Valentine’s
Day. A week or two in advance, you suggested I write something tied to the holiday. So,
first of all, is that a good rule of thumb? In other words, whatever…July 4th is coming
up, Christmas is coming up, maybe it’s an unusual holiday. Maybe it’s St. Patrick’s Day.
Is that where we begin, by just kind of looking ahead to see what’s going to be talked
about in the news?
Alicia: Yes. This applies across the board. I think anybody, in marketing, the first thing
they should do is take out a calendar and circle all of the dates for the entire year that are
important. There are two reasons for this. Naturally people are going to search for those
search words more in the search engines, and it’s going to be more appropriate to what is
going on that particular week.
For instance, if the Olympics are coming up, it’d be a great idea to write a post about the
Olympics. If Mother’s Day is coming up, it’d be a great idea to write a post about
appreciating your mother. Then you’re going to get found in the search engines. You’re
going to rank very high, your blog post is, anyway, simply because your blog post is
about something relevantly searched that particular time period. That helps your book
marking efforts, identifying on a calendar all the major days that you could use to write

about. It’s the same thing Hallmark does with their cards, and Wal-Mart does with their
displays. It’s just doing what they do, online.
Joe: I love that. Well, that’s traditional publicity, really. A good publicist is always
thinking about how do I tie what I do, not necessarily even on the Internet, but how do I
tie what I do to an upcoming news event, meaning a holiday, a special occasion,
something we know people are going to be talking about. So, you’re putting it online,
and you’re suggesting that I write something from my blog, I write something from my
website, tying it to what I know is going to be talked about in the next weeks or months
or something like that.
Alicia: Exactly.
Joe: Okay. So, that’s a great first step there. But, how do I know, or how do I even find
those sites? I mean even if I go to Aelexa, and I see that there are 30 different websites
that are very top ranked, how do I get them to bookmark what I’ve just created? I’m
missing something in my thought process here.
Alicia: Okay. Well, it is a process. It’s not something that you can just instantly do. I
think that’s the number one mistake that most marketers make. If they go out, and they
just try to instantly use the sites without doing some research. I think it’s very important
up front for you to research the sites that you’re interested in distributing your content on,
or having your readers distribute your content on. The key is to make it easy for your
readers who are usually pretty savvy. I mean, as days go on, people are getting more and
more savvy about what Digg is and what StumbleUpon is, and they enjoy sharing your
information. How many times have you gotten an email or heard a story, and you call up
Pat or someone, and you want to share it with them? A lot I bet. It’s the same concept.
Let’s say your blog readers, read a post, and they’re like, “Oh my gosh, I want to tell this
to my friend.” Well, a few years ago, the way to share it was to email it to a friend. Now,
the way to share it is to bookmark it. A lot of friends share bookmarks. It’s the same
concept except these sites like FaceBook and Digg and StumbleUpon have become
aggregators for people’s favorite topics. All you’re basically doing is providing data that
people can share.
Joe: Let’s break that down even more. You mentioned for example, Digg. I know there
are going to be people that don’t know what that is. Can you define Digg and explain
why it’s even at all important? What is Digg?
Alicia: Okay. Digg was started by Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson, two geniuses, just a few
years ago, believe it or not. They have become a leading news source online. What
happens is, that every day, people submit stories to Digg that they find interesting.
They’re voted up or down by the community. If it’s popular, it can drive an immense
amount of traffic to your site. I’ve seen it drive as much as 400,000 hits in three hours.
Unique hits.

Joe: Wow. That’s amazing. How does somebody Digg a story? First of all, do they just
go to Digg.com to see what this is all about?
Alicia: Yes. Then what I would recommend doing is, I would, if your niche is let’s say,
self-help, I would go to search on Digg, enter self-help, and see what kind of articles are
doing well. Look at the ones that have the most Diggs. That gives you an insight as to
what works on Digg. Then, I would read them and see what kind of content it is, see if
your content is like that, and if it is or you can tailor it, like a top ten list. I know they do
very well on Digg. Just like your post on Valentines, it was a favorite because it was a
different take on Valentines. There was so much mush and love that was on there that
day, yours was one of the few posts that told people what do you do if you don’t have
that. People really liked it. It think it’s just using your creativity.
Joe: You mentioned top ten lists. I want to point out too, that that’s a traditional
publicity technique to use. I’ve talked about it just for getting traffic to a website, not
necessarily a blog, even before Digg came around where I’d write a top ten list which
could be like David Letterman, top ten jokes of some sort. It could be practical, the top
ten ways to save on your taxes. But, it’s tied to whatever the person’s expertise is.
For example, if I wanted to promote, I’ve rewritten The Attractor Factor. It will be
coming out soon as a revised, expanded book. If I wanted to write about the law of
attraction to help create some traffic and purchases for The Attractor Factor, I might write
a top ten ways to engage the law of attraction, or the top ten funny ways the law of
attraction has been used. Am I on the right track with that?
Alicia: Exactly. The key is that I really think helps you, is if you do a little bit of research
beforehand, or have someone in your office do some research for you, and find out what
has done well. Also find out what has already been posted because you don’t want to
post something that’s a duplicate. Digg is one of the communities online that you really
have to be pretty savvy to post on. For instance, you don’t want to put a picture on there
that was on there two days ago. The best thing to do before you do a post is just to make
sure that, do a little research, take a moment, and do some research. It’s amazing…a
video the other day was posted on Digg. This is a classic example. It had 9 million
viewers in two days.
Joe: What in the world was the video?
Alicia: This particular video was a Matt Damon and a Jimmy Kimmel video. It was not
necessarily safe for work video, but it still had 9 million views posted. It’s amazing what
people sharing data, the power of it, how far, the reach of it. It’s just amazing to me.
That’s why I do this. I love it.
Joe: I can see why. I’m loving that you are talking to us about it, and breaking this down
so we can do it. How do you get anybody to Digg your article? In other words, when I
post things on my blog, there’s a Digg button there where somebody can click on it, and
they can go and Digg my article, meaning that they’re going to endorse it, I guess, and

get it listed on Digg. How do you get people to do that? Is there a way, a means, or a
secret?
Alicia: I think two things. I think it’s very important to have a conversation with your
readers and say, “I’d like to get the word out to even more people, and you can help me
by doing that.” Make them part of the process. Educate them in case they don’t know.
Say, “We’re going to be adding some new buttons to our site. One of them is Digg.com.”
Just tell them, “It’s a site that I’d love for you to go and vote up my content there if you
like this post.” You know how a lot of people, and I noticed on your blog you say, “If
you enjoyed this post, buy me a cup of coffee.” It’s kind of the same conversation. If
you teach your readers to do what you want them to, they’ll do it.
Joe: So I have to educate them?
Alicia: Yes.
Joe: It’s just a blog post. It’s not a big deal. I just tell them what I’m…like for example,
I’m starting, you may not even know about this yet, Alicia, because I’ve started
something to help end homelessness in this country. It’s called Operation Yes. I have
one little video that’s on my blog. It’s already had 70 some Diggs. People are liking it,
without me encouraging them; they are Digg-ing it. Most of my people, that go to my
blog, I don’t think they know how to Digg. I think there’s a Digg button there. I don’t
think they know what it is. You’re suggesting I need to tell them, and tell them why it’s
there and how to use it, what it’s for.
Alicia: Exactly. Something as simple as saying, “If you liked this blog post, why don’t
you share it with a friend by Digg-ing it. There’s a Digg button on the site now.” Write
them a short little paragraph about what Digg is and how you’re using it. I think they’ll
appreciate it because a lot of people that read your blog in particular are interested in
marketing ideas, and this will help them market their blogs as well.
Joe: You know, we’re talking about marketing here, but I know that somebody listening
has probably got the thought. Even though 9 million people go look at a video, or even
though I’ve got 20,000 new visitors to my Valentines post, does any of that convert to
actual sales or money, or do we worry about that at all when we’re just trying to drive
traffic? Are we just trying to create a relationship? Are we just trying to get popular, just
trying to get noticed? Is there a secret to maybe even embedding a product within
whatever it is that we just got posted, we just got dug? What are your thoughts on that?
Alicia: Okay. It goes back to, I think there’s a new trend. I think the trend is web 2.0,
social media, social marketing. I think people in general, don’t like being sold to. They
don’t like the spammy calls. They don’t like the spammy email. They would much
rather participate in a conversation. Just like you or I, we’re going to act on a friend’s
recommendation, or a referral from a friend, a lot more than we are just something that’s
shown to us on TV.
If we participate in, if we talk to people, our fans, our volunteers, our customers, other

bloggers, influences of our own, if we talk to them, and then we give them a reason to
talk about ourselves, then we have the tools in which to spread that message, that’s one
big conversation. Then, the key is to track that conversation and find out how it’s
working or not working for you. It’s the same thing that you do now. You find out
what ads work or copy works, except this time, conversation is what you’re tracking.
Joe: So, with my Valentines post, I got 20,000 people coming to visit, I don’t know that I
looked at it beyond that to see if it actually meant anything, or if I tried to do anything to
sell anything. For example, what should I have done differently, if anything, to make that
more profitable for me? You know, 20,000 new visitors are wonderful, but they didn’t
all stay. I don’t have 20,000 new ones that are there every day because of that post. Am
I missing anything in here, or is that just part of the process of doing the social network
marketing?
Alicia: It’s part of the process, but also one thing that I would recommend doing is
everybody should be using Google analytics. What you should do is, you should see how
many new RSS subscribers you got. You should see how many people came the next
day, or if your visitors picked up at all. I mean, can you tell me if they’ve increased at all
since then?
Joe: I’m sure they did. I don’t know anything about Google analytics. I’ve heard of it,
but for those who don’t know besides me, where do they get that, and what is it?
Alicia: Okay. You go to Google.com, and you literally type in the word analytics. It
will take you straight to it. It will take you, there will be a link to Google analytics, and it
will take you straight to it. There is a simple code that you can get either your web
person, or there’s instructions there for you to install it yourself on your blog or your
website. There’s also a WordPress plug in if you use WordPress, for instance. There’s a
WordPress plug in that you can download, again at WordPress.org. It’s free, and it’s
very, very simple to install. It takes two minutes. It will help you track your return on
investment on your blog every day.
Joe: Ok, I’ve got to do that.
Alicia: Yes, it’s great – something everyone should do
Joe: Well, that’s a major tip right there. Let’s keep going here. What are the most
popular social sites, and why and how should I use them for my business? Why should
we even care? All these popular sites, I hear about things like FaceBook, which I
finally joined, MySpace and Twitter and there are so many of them, it’s driving me
crazy. How do I know, what are the most popular ones, why should I care, how do I
use them?
Alicia: Okay, great. I think it depends on the business. That again is where if you’re
like a doctor’s office, your social sites are going to be different than the ones if you’re
a business. Let’s just say if you’re a regular business, and you have a product or
service that you’re interested in the mass amount of people knowing about, or even

you’re particular niche like self-help. If you want your self-help niche to know about
it, then you target the self-help niche on the sites.
For business in self-help, I would look at the top 30 sites on Aelexa.com that you feel
your content would be good one. For instance, like at Flickr.com, I would go and I
would post, like for you, I would take your book images, and I would title and tag them
“Joe Vitale” or “mrfire.com” and put them in Flickr in a public viewed photo album.
That way, if anybody does an image search for self-improvement, you’re going to come
up. There are all kinds of ways to get really credible back links and increase your traffic.
This isn’t just a quick increase. This is a long-term smart way to use these free sites to
get a lot of traffic to your website or blog. Another social site…you never what?
Joe: I’ve never even heard of Flickr before.
Alicia: Yes. It is a great site. Absolutely great.
Joe: Really? Okay. That’s another one to put on my list. Flickr.com.
Alright. Go ahead.
Alicia: Okay, for instance, like Flickr, it’s an image site. For you, I would find all the
author groups and all the self-help groups on Flickr, and I would go upload or have your
VA upload pictures again of your books, and you, you with a picture of your book. That
way, a group of 10,000 people have all the sudden seen a picture of you and your book.
It takes two minutes to do this. This is something that’s very, very simple to do. This is
not hard, to upload a photo. The key thing is, that rather than just searching for terms,
people are searching for a lot more specific terms now. For instance, they’ll search for a
video on self-help, or they’ll search for an image for self-help. If you’re on video and in
images and in text as well, you’re going to be inundated on Google, which is a good thing
for you.
Joe: And this is all done on
Flickr?
Alicia: Well, Flickr is for the images. YouTube would be for the videos. Then, for your
content, I would recommend Digg and StumbleUpon, Reddit, Mixx, Propeller. Those
would be the ones that I would target.
Joe: Alright. You just said a few more names that I don’t know, so I’m sure people
aren’t going to know all of them. Mixx, and you said one other one…
Alicia: Reddit.com.
Mixx.com.
Joe: What are those two?

Alicia: They are both like Digg; they’re just not as highly trafficked as Digg. Mixx.com
is a lot, I would say, friendlier than Digg. If that makes sense? On Digg, there are a lot
of tech users. They’re very, very tech savvy. So, it’s a harder crowd to market to. Mixx
is more of a community of everybody, so it’s a great place to put your content. Reddit, is
kind of in between the two, if that makes sense?
Joe: Okay. What about StumbleUpon? Pat turned me on to it, so I’ve had fun
playing with StumbleUpon, but you might want to describe what it is and why it’s
useful.
Alicia: StumbleUpon is incredible. It’s one of my favorite sites. It is the one that gets
you just an immense amount of long term traffic. Digg will get you quick instant traffic
with very low page time and not great conversion. StumbleUpon gets over two minutes
of page time each and has great conversion. It’s a site that 10 weeks from now, a
bookmark that was made today will still be popular. It’s an excellent resource for
everybody to use.
Joe: StumbleUpon, I’ll just ad-lib my own definition of it from a user, consumer, and fun
perspective. You go to StumbleUpon.com. I think you join it, tell it what you’re
interests are, and then you just stumble upon websites. It will randomly bring up
websites that supposedly are relevant to what you said your interests are, and you vote on
whether it was actually useful to you by saying, I like it or you say I don’t like it.
StumbleUpon memorizes that in an artificial intelligence sort of way, and does its best to
only allow the next websites to be more relevant to you. You keep stumbling upon them.
From the consumer, playful, visitor, browser aspect, it’s a very fun, insightful, even
surprising tool to use. But, from the other side, from the marketing standpoint, you’re
saying that if a website is actually listed in there, you’re being stumbled upon by all these
visitors who may never have seen it before.
Alicia: Exactly. The great part about it is, if you use all these tools in connection with
each other, if you sit down and you make a social media plan, which I encourage
everyone to do, then you build upon the efforts that you’re making at each site. For
instance, if you Digg something, then Stumble it, then it gets traffic and long term visits.
Then you can literally take a single post, like your Valentines post, I took it and I placed
it on Digg first. Then I Stumbled it. Then I shared it on FaceBook. It went three places
and lists in five minutes, and it got you 20,000 new visitors to your site.
Joe: I love it. When you say to create a social networking marketing plan, I think that
was the phrase you used, is there any model for something like that? Is there a website
that gives us like a step-by-step, or do you have one, or is there a book that kind of holds
our hands? Is there a social networking marketing for dummies out there of some sort?
Alicia: I can certainly make you a list. I don’t think there’s a definitive guidebook. I
mean, there are certainly books on the different sites. There’s a FaceBook book, and
there’s a StumbleUpon book. You can of course get the dummies guides to all of those.
They’ve got them. There’s not a book that has all of them. I can certainly write a little

.pdf for you on everything we’ve gone over today. You can share it with everybody if
you’d like.
Joe: Oh, my goodness. If you’d do that, that would be golden. Wow. I’ll politely
request that happen. That’s wonderful. Thank you.
Alicia: I will put all the links in there.
Joe: You are fantastic. What a gem. Well, I’ve got to ask you a couple other questions.
I have been cornered into joining FaceBook and then Twitter. I did it reluctantly because
this is again, me not understanding the value of FaceBook, MySpace, and Twitter, and all
these other ones. I go to FaceBook.com. I join it, and there’s like 40 people waiting for
me. It’s almost like they knew I was going to show up. I sign in, and there are 40 people
who want to be my friends. Of course, I okay that, and more and more people are
okaying being my friend, their friends, and this, that, and the other. I still don’t get it.
Why is FaceBook so important and so valuable? You may have answered it by saying,
you know, we don’t trust the traditional advertising. We trust other people. Here’s a way
for people to socialize. I certainly don’t understand Twitter, which is a way for people to
find out what I’m doing, and me to find out what they’re doing at any particular time.
They kind of stalk me in a polite, agreed upon way. What am I missing here with
FaceBook and Twitter?
Alicia: Well, there are definitely stalkers on both, so you want to avoid those. Like in
any business, there are some crazies out there, and there are definitely some crazies on
both sites. You want to be a little selective about who you choose as your friends. I
think that’s the best advice I can give you right up front. If you don’t know them, or
you don’t have a significant number of mutual friends, you might just want to be a little
careful.
Now, if somebody writes you a message, which I try to teach everybody to do, when they
ask for you to add them as a friend, it’s very important to jot them a little note and say,
“Here’s why I’d like to connect with you.” Just simple business etiquette of like, “Hi. I
see that you’re in a similar niche, and I think that we could share ideas,” something just
simple like that. Then, people are very responsive to that, and they’ll add you. It’s a very
simple way in a very short amount of time to get to know people all over the world.
Since I’ve started FaceBook, I have people who that are friends in the U.N. I have
friends in 30 plus countries. Where else in the world would you have an opportunity like
that if you didn’t have the Internet?
Joe: That is true, the Internet has changed my life of course, and has for the last 20 some
years. It keeps changing with things like FaceBook. FaceBook is a way for me to meet
other people, and all these other people are creating relationships with me, and they have
their own relationships, so my name, my work has spilled out through this domino effect,
I guess. But, within it, there are a lot of plug-ins. One I’m curious about is Twitter.
What’s your take on Twitter? Is that a useful, valuable, should we be doing Twitter?

Alicia: Oh yes. Now, I use Twitter for different things than probably you would. But, I
use it to find out about blog posts that I could submit since I’m a heavy social media user.
For instance, John Kawasaki and Seth Godin and yourself and Tech Crunch and a lot of
the top 100 blogs, they all post on there as soon as they make a new post to their blog.
Since I’m a social media user, it helps me find good content to post. For instance, if you
post, then there are a lot of people out there like myself that are looking for content to
submit to these sites daily. Yours will get picked up and posted.
Joe: I’m going to make sure I understand. I’m on Twitter now. In fact, I think if people
look at my blog, I now have a live Twitter feed on my left column of my blog that tells
people what I’m doing based on the last thing I posted to Twitter. It may something like,
“Now that I’m interviewing an expert on social media and social networking, and stuff
like that for my Hypnotic Gold.” I’ve seen people post things on Twitter that say, “I’m
having a cup of coffee,” or, “I’m going for a walk,” or “Boy, I’m doing the dishes now.”
I mean, is that the right thing to post, or does it matter? I’m still trying to figure this out.
Help me here, Alicia.
Alicia: Well, okay, Twitter is microblogging, where as a blog post is usually full of
relevant content for a particular subject. Twitter breaks it down, and there are people that
get up and they literally microblog every aspect of their day. They don’t do the next
thing without Twittering it. I personally do not use it that way, and I don’t know many
that do. But, you will have some people that end up getting in your group or that you
follow, or that might follow you, that do that kind of thing. If you watch the public
Twitter blog, that is like a blog of everybody, it is amazing what people will post on
Twitter.
I’ll give you a brief example. The Academy Awards came on. It was like watching it
with a hundred friends because everybody was Twittering about the, what they thought
about the Academy Awards. So, it’s a way that you can, again, let people find out about
you. For instance, one of the things that I’ve seen Seth Godin do, he will Twitter, “I’m
going to be speaking XXX.” Well, then people may see that and be intrigued, go to his
blog to find out, “Hey, what’s he speaking on?” It’s a free way to get the word out about
you. I mean, if people keep seeing, especially with you, with your clever titles, if you do
some really little clever Twitter posts, people will come to your blog to see what it’s all
about. It’s a free way to get more traffic. So, yes, you should be using it, definitely.
Joe: Okay. Well, it’s fun to use, I have to admit that. I’ve done silly things like say,
“I’m going to go in the hot tub now.” I’ve also posted things like, “I’m working on an
email to announce my new MSS service.” I know when I did that, it was just kind of a
test, but the next day, somebody had emailed me saying, “Hey, I’m interested in the
MSS. When’s it going to be released?” I thought, wow, that’s interesting. People are
paying attention to Twitter. Another day, I posted, “I’m about to go have lunch at Cedar
Grove Steak House in Wimberley. If you’re available, come and join me.” Anything
could have happened. I could have sat there and had 100 people show up. As it turned
out, nobody showed up, and that would be partly because first of all, I only gave them

an hour notice. Second of all, I had just been on Twitter, so there is not that many
people following me. But, I can see from a marketing standpoint, doing it the way Seth
Godin did, by saying, “Hey, I’m preparing to speak at such and such,” or, “I just made
flight arrangements because I’m doing a seminar on attract wealth in Atlanta.” That
would, for those who are following me on Twitter, get them curious, and may get them
to go check out that website.
Alicia: Exactly. I’ve seen people do things like, “Does your back hurt?” Simple things
like that. They’ll just put something to intrigue people, and if it’s somebody that is
intrigued by that comment, they’ll come check out, they’ll click on the link and check it
out. The thing I think people have to understand, even if you aren’t or they aren’t
currently using these sites, there are millions of people that are. You should take
advantage of it. You should take advantage of it in every way you can because it’s free.
Joe: I love it. Well, this leads to a couple of questions here. I hope you don’t mind that
we keep going because you’re just so fascinating. You’ve got so much information. It’s
just astonishing. I heard of something called DocStoc.com, I think it is. I have no idea
what that is, but I understand that you feel it’s a way to market business products and
services. Can you explain that, and did I get the website right?
Alicia: Yes, you did. It is a new site that was one of the Tech Crunch 40 finalists that I
discovered through just being online. I absolutely love it. It is a place where you can
upload your documents or a sample chapter of your e-book, or your press release, or
whatever information you would like to share with anybody out there. They get over a
million uniques a month even though they are a brand new site, so they have a vast
amount of exposure to a vast amount of people. That is one thing. You can link your
blog inside your profile, which I love.
For instance, when you create a free account at DocStoc.com, there’s profile there, and
you fill it out with your name, and your website address. It’s one of the few places I
know where you can actually link with a picture even of your blog inside there. So,
when people go, if they search for instance, for self-help, your documents will show up
in Google very high because of their page rank. Particularly if you’re a new business,
and your blog has no page rank, and it’s not being found on the first page of Google, it’s
good to use a site like Docstoc or any of the ones we’ve talked about already to show up
on the first page of Google. That’s a simple way of putting it.
For keywords that would otherwise be typically hard for you to rank very well for, a site
like Docstoc is a godsend. By simply going there, creating your free profile, uploading
a press release or a few documents that you’d like to share with people, like a sample
chapter of your book or you know a small article or something like that, you can get
ranked on the first page of Google very high, like usually in the top five on the first page
for those keywords. That’s not something that’s very easy to do for a new blog.
Joe: I’m stunned. I’ve never heard of this. Is it free, too? Is this…

Alicia: It’s free. Guess what else is great? If you have limited bandwidth with your
hosting, and I don’t mean to get too technical here, but I know that sometimes you have
to pay for your bandwidth especially on digital downloads that can get quite expensive.
It’s free, if your document is stored at Docstoc, you can even mark it private, so that it’s
only available via a link that you send out. For instance, not just anybody in the public
can go there and find it. If it’s a special link that you only want to share with your list,
you mark it private, but Docstoc will handle all the bandwidth and let you download it
to your list for free. So, it saves you money, too.
Joe: That’s worth the entire call, all of this. You’ve given so much information with
that one alone, I’m just jaw-drop impressed. As soon as I’m off this, I’m going to be
going to Docstoc.com, filling out my profile, and doing all of this. Listen, I’ve got to
ask you a question. How do you keep up with all of this? I mean, do you have an
Internet connection just right in your vein or something? I’ve got Blackberries. I’ve got
laptops. I’ve got computers, but gee, I have to go get sunlight sooner or later, and hot
tub, and workout, and eat, and have a life. How do you keep up with all of this?
Alicia: Well, you know it’s really the same techniques that you use now. For instance,
I’m sure in your marketing efforts you know how newspaper works for you, how radio
works for you, how TV ads work for you. It’s the same thing, except it’s websites.
Does that make sense?
Joe: Yes.
Alicia: So, what I do, it does take coming up with a system, which I think everyone
must do. You have to come up with a system, and you have to make this so you spend
the least amount of time with these efforts as possible. If you spend hours doing it, it’s
not productive, and it’s not cost effective.
Joe: Exactly.
Alicia: You do your research up front. You come up with a social media plan, and you
follow it and stick to it. I literally have gotten it down to where a business or even
myself can use all of the sites that I’ve mentioned effectively in less than two hours a
day.
Joe: Wow. And they can even hire somebody to do that if they didn’t want to do it
themselves.
Alicia: I recommend you hire somebody to do it. I mean, you can get a VA now, which
is a virtual assistant, for $900 a month and they’ll work for you 40 hours a week, for
$900 a month.
Joe: Where do you find that kind of VA? Do you have a recommendation?

Alicia: I have a whole list. I’ll include that in the list of links for you.
Joe: You are amazing. Thank you for doing all of this. I’m not going to let you go just
yet. I’ve got a few more questions for you. Are there like the top five sites that I, or
anybody listening should get a presence on. I know you’ll make a list, but is there a top
two, three, four, five, something we should be really jumping on besides Docstoc.com?
Alicia: Yes. FaceBook. FaceBook and LinkedIn. For business professionals, you
cannot have too great a resource right now. What I would do is if you’re not on those,
sit down and create a profile. Just like you would if you were going to create a press
release, create a profile on a piece of paper for you or your virtual assistant, whoever’s
going to be doing it. Then go to these sites that I’m about to give you and use the
information from that one sheet you just created, and put it on all of them, in the profile
area. It’s very simple if you just sit down and just do it. You can do it in 30 minutes, all
five of these.
FaceBook.com would be the first one. LinkedIN.com would be the second one. I
would create a profile on Digg. I would create a profile on Flickr. Then, I would create
a profile on StumbleUpon. If you had to narrow me down to five, those would be the
five that I would use. Then of course, Docstoc.
Joe: Then Docstoc. Okay. Well, five and a bonus. That’s pretty good right there. I
love it. Well, I guess there are so many other things I could be talking to you about.
When it comes to filling out a profile, are there any hints on doing that? I know when I
opened FaceBook, I just answered some basic questions here. But, there were some
other things like my interests, what books I read, my favorite movies. Are those, this
might be a dumb question, but were those opportunities for me to answer in a way that
might have brought more traffic to my listing on FaceBook? Are there some secrets to
filling out a profile, I guess is what I’m asking?
Alicia: Yes, there are. For instance, in every effort that you make online, if you are just
very strategic like you are in any marketing effort, think of it as just that, a marketing
effort. When you go to your profile, you have to fill it out for the group that you’re
trying to reach. So, for instance, in interests you should tag it with the appropriate tags,
meaning put the words there, like self-help, law of attraction, attractor factor, hypnotic
marketing, any words that people use now to find you on your other website, you should
put in there as your interests so that if people search on FaceBook by those terms, they
find you.
Joe: Got it. That’s a major tip in itself. I wanted to see if you could give us a couple,
two, three minutes of advice on doing, using some of these sites in social media to
market a book. Do you have a couple of quick tips on that besides just getting listed on
Amazon?
Alicia: Sure. Let’s say you were coming out with a new book tomorrow, or a month
from now. What I would tell you to do is get the image and your Amazon affiliate link,
of course. Have the image and the Amazon affiliate link handy. I would go to like

FaceBook, and I would utilize some of the applications there such as Visual Bookshelf
or Good Reads. FaceBook has applications within it that you can use to help make your
profile more appropriate for whom you want to share it with. For instance, if you’re an
author, you can have a bookshelf in there from Good Reads, or from Shelfari, you know
some of the popular book sites where people share their favorite book interests. You
can also have an Amazon, which I love, link in there as well. It’s a direct link to the
book that you’re about to promote. The great part is, is that they make it very easy, just
literally a click of a button by like, there’s a button called Share on FaceBook that I’ll
include in this list how to find that button. You click on that button, Share on
FaceBook, and it immediately posts it to your profile so that everybody that comes to
your profile sees that you now have this book posted there. Guess what’s even better?
This is what really excites me.
Then, it goes into the news feed on FaceBook, and everybody sees it, all your friends,
everybody.
Joe: That’s a good tip right there. I can’t wait. I have my book Inspired Marketing
which I did with Craig Perrine, comes out on Tuesday. People will know about it by the
time they listen to this particular audio, but I want to go use this as one of my marketing
steps here. That’s a big one. I know Good Reads…
Alicia: Can I say one more thing about that? What I typically do, like for instance, if
you were going to be promoting a book, I would do five things. I would immediately
share it on FaceBook. Then, I would Stumble it. You know, I would Stumble the actual
Amazon page with your book on it, or your blog, whichever one you want to drive
traffic to. I usually do both, the blog and the Amazon page. Even if it only gets like
three other people that Stumble it, it’s still getting book marked in one more place on
Google. That’s just one more place that it shows up. You can never show up on Google
in too many places. It’s just impossible.
Another thing, if you share that image on Flickr, and some of the user, all of these
groups that I’ve been telling you about today, FaceBook and StumbleUpon, and Digg,
they all have groups within them. There are author groups, and there are marketing
groups, and there are web 2.0 groups. Go and share with the community, your ideas, or
have your virtual assistant go post your books and so forth in these groups. If you join
the groups that have 10,000 people in them, that’s 10,000 more people that just heard
you’ve got a book coming out.
Joe: I love it. You said there are five things you’d do if you had a book coming out.
The first was being listed on FaceBook, the second, StumbleUpon, the third Flickr.
What are the next two?
Alicia: The next two would be to load up a sample chapter to Docstoc and any other site
like Docstoc. You can load up a sample chapter like AuthorsDen. That’s an incredible
old site, looks awful, but it has great traffic. You can load your content chapter up there,
and it gets, it’s a consistent top ranked link for you on Google, which is long term

traffic. The thing I would do, and I would hate to throw another site in here at the last
minute, but for authors in particular, this is a great site to use: Squidoo.com. It’s the
site that Seth Godin created. I would create a Squidoo lens about your book.
Joe: That is a fantastic list of things, too. I’m starting to get it, and I’m starting to get
more excited here. I still feel a little bit overwhelmed, so it’s going to be very helpful to
have that list that you are going to create. If you wanted to, you know, people are going
to want to try to reach you. Do you want to be reached? Do you want to put out a
website or just say you’re on FaceBook, or do you just want to remain anonymous?
Alicia: No, I mean it’s fine if they want some help, they can reach me through
FaceBook. How about that?
Joe: Okay. Alright.
Alicia: It’s Alicia Wright on FaceBook. You can find me through Joe. I’m listed as
one of his friends. Just befriend me, and I will help you whenever I can. I’m also on
LinkedIn. I’m on any of the sites that we talked about.
Joe: I would imagine you are. That is so amazing.
Alicia: I’m on StumbleUpon. I’m on Digg.
Joe: Well, Alicia, you have been just amazing. You are just a fountain of information.
I could just keep talking and talking to you. Are there a couple other things that you
want people to remember. I mean, my customers are online entrepreneurs for the most
part. So, I imagine they either have a website up, or they are about to have a website up.
In many ways, they are overwhelmed. They’ve heard about putting content on their
website, maybe they have a blog because they’ve been listening to me talk about
how it’s finally helped me. They might be selling digital information. Of course,
you’ve covered a lot of material. I’m just giving you the opportunity to say one, two, or
three things about, be sure to do this. Above all else, be sure to do this, or be sure to go
to this website. I’m just giving you an open-ended question.
Alicia: Okay. I think the one thing that I would say is, realize that there really is a new
trend. This is not a fad. This is not something that is going to go away. It’s here, and
it’s here to stay. It’s getting even better. Any businesses right now that jump on this
and participate in this web 2.0 social media world are going to benefit immensely from
it. Social web is all about conversations with people, and you can have no better
advocate than your customers. I just think if they get involved in the process, and there
are some books that I would like to recommend.
Joe: Oh, good. I love books. Tell me.
Alicia: There are two of my absolute favorites. One of them is, it’s called, actually I’ll
give out the website. It’s wordofmouthbook.com. It’s Andy Sernovitz. It’s Word of

Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking. I just absolutely believe
in his five T’s of word of mouth marketing, his principle. It is absolutely fabulous. If
you have never read that book, that is one that you should absolutely get.
Joe: Wordofmouthbook.com.
Alicia: Yes.
Joe: Okay. And what’s the other book?
Alicia: And I’ll include that link as well. Another one that I like is The Wisdom of the
Crowds.
Joe: Yes. That’s a brilliant book.
Alicia: I love that book. That is a great one. Those two right there, I think, give you a
lot of good principles that you should follow when you’re going to start participating in
social media. Honestly, I think just if people remember that happy customers are your
best advertising, I mean, you can’t go wrong.
Joe: Right. Keep everybody happy. They’ll talk about you. It causes word of mouth
marketing to take place. It’s a crowd, wisdom of the crowds. Let me ask you…
Alicia: Even that Joe, let me show you something about negative publicity. If
somebody says something negative, you can turn that into an opportunity by listening
and learning from what people are saying, and it makes you as a company and you as a
marketer, even better. I don’t think there’s a downside to, you know, communicating.
Joe: Yes. Even if there was something negative, you would turn it into a positive, you
would write about it, you would correct it, you’d find some way to share it, so that
people would start talking about how you turned it around. Is that what you’re saying?
Alicia: Exactly.
Joe: I also forgot to say in the intro, for you Alicia, that you have been a top social
media user on sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Mixx, FaceBook, and others,
but your past clients have included Planet Hollywood, E! Entertainment, Coca Cola, the
government of Argentina, ABC News, and other various businesses and Fortune 500
sites including mine. You are the guru of all of this, and I’m so astonished and so
grateful that you’ve shared so much so openly and generously with me and all my
customers. You’re just a delight. Thank you.
Alicia: Thank you, Joe. I’ve gotten a lot of your books over the years, and you’re one
of my absolute favorite sites on the Internet.
Joe: Are you talking about my blog or Mr. Fire, or something else?
Alicia: All of them. Mr. Fire, in general, the blog, the site, everything. I love it. I love
your books. Trust me, I’m the first one to buy your books when they are released.

Joe: Well, you don’t have to do that anymore. Give me your address by email, and I’ll
send them to you. I’ll autograph them and send them to you. I’m just really grateful.
Let me ask you something that I’m curious about. When it comes to my blog, what can
I do right now to improve it? My personal blog.
Alicia: Okay. You want to make it easy for people to find. Have it book marked all
over the place, easy through these steps that I’ll share with you more in the future and
that I’ve shared with you today. But, mainly make it where people can find it. Number
two, try to make it where, just like you do with any marketing effort, it catches their
attention right away. That’s very, very important. A headline and good relevant content
that’s updated daily. Yours is of course, but a lot of people, that’s the biggest mistake
they make. They have infrequent posts to their blog or to their website. They don’t
change the content. People aren’t going to come back if it’s not fresh and updated often.
I’d say update it often. You want to make it not real, you know, full of ads. So, you
want real subtle ads, like you do. I like your text ads. I think that’s a great approach.
You’ve got a great blog, you really do. I think once people find your blog, they end up
staying.
Joe: I’m going to relisten to this entire interview, take notes, then when you send me
your little cheat sheet list, I’m going to follow through and act on all of that. Then I’m
going to get one of my assistants to help me. I’m going to do all of this because you
have thoroughly convinced me and shown me the way to how to use the social media to
profit online. I, for one, am very grateful.
Alicia, thank you very much for spending all of this time with me. I just can’t say how
grateful I am. Thank you.
Alicia: Well, thank you. I have enjoyed it. I’ve enjoyed talking with you.
Joe: This is Joe Vitale over and out. Godspeed to all of you.

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