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I was just contacted by BBC and asked to appear on a breakfast program talking about psychotherapy.  It is not certain that it is going ahead but more likely than not.  Assuming it does what would you say would be the best way to utilise this opportunity through marketing (particularly internet marketing) afterwards? If this goes ahead I would be at the studio for 7am or so and be gone by 9am or so.  My website only gets a few hundred visitors through organic traffic and my Twitter and other social media accounts were only started recently so have fairly low levels of followings.

An issue that I do not see discussed about much in Internet Marketing circles is the importance of establishing and developing a presence on third party sites other than through guest posting and I was wondering how much other internet marketers focus on this area and recommend this to clients. I see many people wanting hiring internet marketers basically for SEO and the KPI's on which they are judged are SEO based outcomes (higher alexa rank, number of page 1 keywords, number of top 1, top 3 keywords etc).  I recently gave advice to someone who had very little time, very little money and very little SEO skills who wanted to rank in number 1 positions for their band for wedding and corporate bookings.  I basically showed them sites that were highly positioned in the SERPs where they could get develop a strong online profile and how this would work better than investing 3 hours a month badly into SEO. Ultimately what businesses want is strong convertible leads and sales.  For many businesses that might be better established particularly where budgets are tight through other elements whether it is Tripadvisor rankings, presence in other 3rd party sites or in an Ebay store than through SEO for their own site.  Obviously for big brands with big budgets SEO is essential but as many keyword terms become increasingly competitive how important should referrals from 3rd party sites be in businesses internet marketing strategy and to what extent do you feel current internet marketing businesses identify and promote this need rather than simply working on improving ranking performance for keywords?

With my business I had always intended kicking social media into gear much sooner but various other pressures put this back somewhat. Counselling is quite sensitive for a variety of reasons:- We want to disassociate ourselves from the masses of non- professional folksy type "advice" that dominates the net, People, particularly in the UK often do not talk about mental health issues nor would we always want people to if they had not protected their privacy enough. Key marketing messages such as "get the first class service you deserve" (in UK people are more likely to wait 6 months to be seen by a trainee with no choice of who they see or when they see it than pay for counselling, "there are no quick fixes for mental health and counselling can make a real difference to your life if you invest time, energy and cost into it" (in a market where read this 300 word article to never feel stressed again dominates) and "what help choosing the counsellor who is best suited to you" - are not the sort of thing many people are likely to "like" or share with friends. At the moment I am looking to focus on LinkedIn (for corporate work), Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.  I have a blog which is going to be producing excellent daily content including people's positive experiences of counselling, comprehensive self help tips, counsellor advice etc. On Google+ and Facebook I am looking to autopublish some of the blog posts and there are probably some other channels I will autopublish to but I do not yet know which to go for.  Initially I am going to do little else on Google+ to focus time and energy developing Facebook and Twitter. I am trying to achieve the following:- Social Legitimacy - having  decent number of engaged fans will make us seem more legitimate in an industry where trust is important (only 14 FB likes so far is not a good start) Engaging with Potential Content Creators - Reaching out to people who have experienced mental health issues so that this content can be used to provide peer support to others and enable them to see benefits of counselling Creating relationships with people and organisations where we can cross promote each other's initiatives, potentially co-deliver services in the future (community counselling work etc) Bring traffic to my site that will potentially convert into counselling clients in several cities in the UK through both people finding Promote my content more widely than is happening with organic search, reach different audiences, engage with potential customers, generate links to quality content I create Develop the social infrastructure to be able to leverage it for future goals, whether promoting an article, raising awareness for good mental health initiatives (that may have no financial benefit to the business but will help people) etc. Sorry this is so long but any comments, ideas, suggested tactics etc would be appreciated.