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Posts Tagged ‘blogging’

The Flexibility of Social Media

Monday, September 19th, 2011

I was meeting with someone last week about using social media, and she got me thinking about different ways to get value from social media.

Let me start by saying her attitude toward Twitter was…umm…less than positive. She said she considered it a waste of time because it “was just celebrities and other people talking about where they are and what they’re doing.”

True, there’s an awful lot of that happening on Twitter (and Facebook). We talked some more, and she told me some of her challenges in marketing her business. The three that relate to this post were:

1. Blogs and other content in her industry generally contained uninspired content
2. She wanted a source of indexed content
3. Some of the people she wanted to meet are hard to get to

As we talked, I realized Twitter could help her with all three.

1. Better content

As a blogger, I rely on Twitter to point me to good content as a source of inspiration. I’ve added to posts, disagreed with other posts and synthesized information to create my own analyses. Sometimes, I even repost material on my blog. I’d guess that 1/4 to a 1/3 of my content comes from inspirations gleaned from my reading.

I’m sure she and others could use Twitter as a similar source of information.

2. Indexed source of information

Well, no Twitter isn’t indexed, but the search feature isn’t bad. If you are looking for information on a particular topic, you can create a search and then follow that search instead of following a person. As you follow that search, you’ll likely find certain names popping up over and over. If they’re stuff is good, you could start following them.

3. Access to people

Maybe some of the people you want to meet are on Twitter. It’s funny. I’m noticing some people are more likely to respond to a Twitter @Mention than a phone call or email. So search Twitter. If the people or companies you want to meet with are present, build a virtual relationship. If you do it right, the virtual relationship can be transformed into a face-to-face relationship, giving you access to someone you might not have been able to meet otherwise.

See, social media can be good for a lot more than pushing your product or service or keeping up with the antics of your favorite celebrity.

How about you? How have you used social media to grow or add value to your business?

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Tags: blogging, marketing, Relationship building, social media
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Relationships and Blogging

Wednesday, December 15th, 2010

On Monday, I had a phone chat with Ari Herzog. We were talking about social media and relationship building (among other things).

He got me to thinking about my strongest relationships on social media. Not surprisingly, my strongest relationships continue to be people I see in person on some regular basis. @beyourboss, @ccooks3, and @paulineleitch are good examples. Check out my @Mention stream. Those three feature prominently. Also look at who I RT. Again, those three are prominent.

But thinking about other relationships I have on-line, there are a few people I do not see in person frequently with whom I consider to have a good relationship. Interestingly, they share blogs in common.

Ari is one. Jason Alba is another. I’ve offered to help both of them in the past, and, interesting timing, I’ve had or will have phone conversations with both of them this week. I don’t consider the relationships as strong as with the three I mentioned above, but they are certainly good.

Let me think of some people I have a Twitter-only relationship with. Ken Peters and I tweet back and forth about stuff, but it’s all reactive. I think he recognizes my handle, and I’m working on a potential referral for him, but I wouldn’t exactly say we have a real relationship. Thom Singer and Gabriel Strange would be other examples. We’ve tweeted back and forth, but that’s about it. They both have blogs, but I don’t read or comment on them as often.

Why are blogs important? I think it’s because you have more space to write, which gives you a better feel for a person. Commenting on blogs gives you more space to delve into an issue. Ari and I have (politely) argued points on each others blogs, and that gives a (somewhat) deeper understanding of each other. About a month ago, I was sensing some frustration on Ari’s part, both in his own blog, and in comments on mine, and that prompted me to reach out in an email and offer to help.

Could I have gotten that through Twitter or Facebook? Maybe, but I don’t sense as much emotion through those channels.

Obviously, I’m not advocating not using them. I love Twitter and am on it most days. I’m building and deepening relationships there, but the best relationships, for me, are ones that go beyond Twitter.

So it seems to me that social media relationships fall into the following categories-strongest to weakest:

1. Social media and in-person
2. Social media and blogs
3. Social media (not including blogs) alone

Anyone want to disagree with me? I’m only one person, and I do have a bias toward in-person relationships. Feel free to chime in and tell me I’m nuts!

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Tags: blogging, Relationship building, social media
Posted in social media | 7 Comments »

Social Media Roles: Be a Content Creator

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

An important role in social media is to be a go-to person for good content. There are two ways to act in this role. One is to be a Content Creator. The other is to be a Content Filter. I’ll cover Content Creator today and Filter tomorrow.

Let’s start with why you might want to fill the Content Creator role in social media. Probably you want to be known as an original thinker in your field. Or you might want to write a book, and you want to use social media as a way to build content and a future audience. Perhaps you are a free-lance writer or consultant and want to build credibility with your future clients. All of these are good reasons to be a Content Creator.

Where do Content Creators promote themselves in social media? A blog is the obvious place to start. A blog provides a foundation for all other interaction. Much of your time in social media is aimed at driving people to your blog so they can read and share in your content.

By the way, that blog doesn’t have to be written. A video blog or podcast are good options as well, depending on what content you are promoting. Are you a writer? A written blog is essential. Are you a trainer or speaker? A video blog or podcast might promote you more effectively.

Once you’ve set up your blog and decided on the format, what other forms of social media are going to work well to promote the blog? I’m a fan of Twitter for blog promotion. Twitter has better tools for promoting outside of your immediate contact sphere. While Facebook has introduced a “retweet” function, it isn’t used as commonly. Facebook is excellent for maintaining close relationships. It’s not as good at promoting or making something “go viral.”

If you are doing a video blog, YouTube is required. It’s a good place to host the video, and it has excellent search functionality. With the ease of liking or reviewing a video and the tracking of times the video has been watched, it’s a good platform for promoting your content.

So most likely, you’ll have your blog on a schedule, and you’ll be using YouTube and/or Twitter to promote your posts. Where does this leave you from a time management perspective?

Obviously, you’ll need to allocate time to write or film your content. For most of you, this will probably be your biggest time commitment. The rest of your time will be monitoring your blog for comments, Twitter for retweets and comments and/or YouTube for reviews.

In addition to monitoring, you need to be engaging with your followers. Perhaps someone in your field has written a related blog post? You can comment on it and link to it. This allows you to engage with other writers in your field and promote them. What goes around comes around. If you promote them, they will likely promote you in return. Over time, you can build a close relationship with your audience and other influential people in your field.

How does this get you business? If you are selling a book or tele-series, your blog allows people to get a feel for who you are and if they might be interested in paying for your content. If you’re a speaker, people can see your style before they book you. Consultants and other professional service providers can build a reputation as a go-to person in their field. Once you are known as the go-to person, people use and refer you.

Does any of this sound like you? If so, great. Now you know where to start. If not, don’t worry. I’m going to cover several other roles over the next week.

Tune in tomorrow for Content Filters, the flip-side of Content Creators.

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Tags: blogging, Relationship building, social media, time management, writing
Posted in social media | 1 Comment »

Goals and Social Media Strategy

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Several months ago, I wrote a post on how your goals will affect which social media channel you use. Today I’d like to expand on that by discussing how your goals will affect how you engage in social media.

This idea came out of my Netmasters group last month. When I asked about social media goals, I received some interesting answers, all of which dictated slightly different engagement strategies.

1. Become a creator of content

Not surprisingly, a couple of people wanted to be known as experts in their industry. But not all of them were going about it the same way. One attendee was a writer. Obviously she wants to use social media as a way to get the word out about her services. As we brainstormed on her business, it became obvious that she needed a blog. What better way to showcase her talents? So her strategy for engagement was to use social media to promote her blog and to publish a list of short writing/grammar/spelling tips. Self-created content is going to be a significant part of her social media stream.

2. Become an aggregator of content

The real estate agent in the session also wanted to be known as an expert in his industry. But his approach turned out to be different from the writer. His goal was to sift through all the often-conflicting information in his industry and be known as a place to go for the best and most up to date information about real estate. He doesn’t have to create content. He needs to read, filter and promote the best articles he can find. He might also want to discuss some of the bad articles to show people the difference, but he won’t need to do much writing. He can get away with posting links and doing a lot of re-tweeting.

3. Meet cool people

This one was fun, and my favorite. His goal was similar to a face to face networking goal. He wants to meet interesting people who have good stuff to say and build relationships with them. His strategy is going to be to find and follow leaders in the industries he’s interested in. He will see who they find worth following and follow them. It will be sort of a free-form “Six Degrees of Separation” approach. What will his social media stream look like? Lots of re-tweets and back and forth discussion, either through @ Mentions on Twitter or Wall posts on Facebook.

See how it works? Your goals certainly affect which channels you will use. But they also dictate what your engagement will look like. What are you waiting for? Go set your goals now. And share them in the comments. We’ll help you out!

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Tags: blogging, social media, task management, time management
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Updated: When I Blog

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

Last month, I wrote a post on when I write my blog posts. Ironically, that post was obsolete the day after I posted it. Because that’s when I decided to change my writing schedule.

I can write blog posts anytime. I can only work on my book in the morning. So I was using my time inefficiently. I’ve been working on my new schedule for about a month now, and I’ve decided it works. Hopefully, I won’t change it again the day after I post this.

Having a number of posts in the can still doesn’t work for me. I need the sense of urgency to write every day. One or two written in advance works well, but I don’t keep consistent if I have more than that.

What has changed is when I do my daily writing. Previously, I wrote each day’s post that morning. What I do now is write a tomorrow’s post in the late morning or afternoon, depending on the rest of my schedule.

As soon as I get up, I review, publish and schedule my tweets about the post. That is always done before 9:00. Then later in the day, I find/make time to write the next post. Rinse and repeat the next day.

This preserves my morning creative time for my book while still getting my blog post written. I still do most of my blog writing on my phone, using Evernote. When I get back in the evening, I sync Evernote, and I’m ready to cut and paste into WordPress.

I used to write in WordPress for iPhone, but I’ve started using Evernote instead. WordPress for iPhone gave me some problems, and Evernote is more stable.

Moral of this post? Just because something has been working for you, don’t hesitate to change it when it stops working.

Anyone else want to share when you write your posts? Or something that used to work but doesn’t now?

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Tags: blogging, iPhone, task management, time management
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60/30/10 and Social Media

Monday, June 21st, 2010

Last week I wrote about how networking can get you in front of the 60% of prospects who don’t yet know you exist but probably need your services. Today I want to write about how social media can get you there.

Many of the businesses who are successful with social media in this way will be the ones who sell impulse purchases. Restaurants are a good example of this. Perhaps you are getting ready to go home and you check Twitter before leaving the office. One of the restaurants you follow has tweeted about a menu item and posted a picture. You look at it and think how good it looks. Before you saw the tweet, you didn’t have an intention of dining out, but that tasty-looking picture changed your mind. Before you checked Twitter, you were in the 60%–you needed food but weren’t actively considering a restaurant for that evening.

Retail stores can do the same thing. Posting a special to a Facebook page or a video of a new product on YouTube can create either a need or an urgent want for your product. Again, the prospects might not have been thinking about your product, but the social media interaction nudged them in a direction they were willing to go.

Obviously, you’ll want to be honest in your offerings. If you say you have something, make sure it’s in stock at the price indicated. Sure, you can trick a prospect into your store, but you won’t keep them, and they won’t come back.

You’ll notice I mentioned the use of pictures and video. We’re more likely to want something if we’ve seen it. The visual will trigger other sense or experiences. If we see the mouth-watering dish, we’re more likely to imagine ourselves eating it than if we just see a description. Use every technique at your disposal to enhance your odds. Creating the idea of scarcity is also effective. If we see a cool gadget and also see there are only 10 left, we’re more likely to give into the impulse to buy.

Okay, that works for impulse purchases at retail stores and restaurants. What about service businesses? Can you use social media to attract the 60% pool? Of course you can. And blogging is your most effective tool. If you give away information to introduce potential prospects to solutions you can provide, especially if those solutions are unusual in some way, you will attract people to say “Tell me more about that.” From “Tell me More,” you can ask questions to determine their needs and how you can meet them. If they reach out to you to ask, they are unlikely to start shopping your competition.

These are just a few ways to use networking and social media to attract clients who might not otherwise seek you out. Anyone else have any ideas to share? We’d love to hear about them in the comments!

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Tags: blogging, Referrals, social media
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