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Posts Tagged ‘blogging’

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
Posted in social media | 2 Comments »

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
Posted in Time and Task Management | Comments Off

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
Posted in social media | 1 Comment »

Blog Posts are Useful

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

Bloggers tend to be insecure people. We worry about who is reading our posts or if anyone is reading them. We obsess on how many comments a post gets. Does a post get retweeted?

Guy Kawasaki in his book, Reality Check, says that a blog is valuable even if only your dog reads it. He’s right, and I’ve had some recent experiences to prove it.

One of the most obvious uses for a blog is material for books. I’m working on compiling some of my themed posts into a series of e-books. That’s in addition to the fiction ebooks I wrote about last week. I’m soon going to have a ton of ebooks for sale.

Back to my post on writing and selling short fiction. I considered that almost a throw-way post. I was tired and needed something to write quickly. Well, recently I was meeting with someone who has a friend who wants to get a book published. She asked if I could coach her friend through the process. I said I thought I could and suggested she send her friend a link to my post. Not bad for a throw-away, desperation post!

I used a post as a way to get a referral for a contact. Remember my post on the guy who was such an awesome networker? I used a link to that post in an email to a contact he wants an introduction to. If I liked someone enough to write a post about him, that should be a compelling reason to agree to an introduction.

Finally, last week, I was at a networking event, and a financial planner was talking to me about bringing me in for a lunch and learn in her office. I sent her a link to my post on Social Media and Regulated Industries. That post establishes my credibility as someone who can speak on the topic and gives a nice teaser.

So your blog posts have value beyond who read them (or didn’t) or who commented on them (or didn’t). Be creative and find other ways to make them work for you.

Anyone other bloggers have a good story to share in the comments?

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Tags: blogging, Referrals, reputation, sales
Posted in social media | 3 Comments »

Sometimes Dreams Do Come True

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

This is a little off-topic, but what’s the fun in having a blog if you can’t occasionally share cool stuff?

30 odd years ago I had the dream of becoming a fiction writer. I wrote short stories and then a couple of novels between junior high and college. One of the novels sucked mightily. Everyone who read the other one loved it.

So I tried to get it published. And after about a year gave up in frustration. The feedback was that it wasn’t bad. It just didn’t fit. I didn’t want to rewrite it to make it fit, so I got a “real” job and kind of forgot about the dream.

A couple of years later I had a vivid dream that was the inspiration for another novel, which I wrote. I joined a writers group, wanting feedback. Some of the feedback was spot on. I do tend to “info dump,” and I was okay with fixing that. But the message was pretty much the same. Not a bad book, but no agent will pick it up.

I wanted to write the stories I wanted to tell. I didn’t want to write stories for agents and publishers. So I fed my need to write by writing fanfiction. Everyone who read my stories loved them. I still get comments on some of my stories more than a decade later.

I told myself that the real test of being a writer was writing stuff people liked to read, not getting paid for it.

Now, I’m a blogger, so writing is part of my job. I told myself that I am a writer now. I’m living my dream. But it’s never been quite the same. I wanted to get paid for fiction.

I’ve been following a writer/blogger for a while now. He’s J.A. Konrath, and his blog is A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing. His story and information have inspired me. He talks about how to make it as an self-published author. I’ve been paying attention to what he’s done, and I’m ready to start trying it myself.

Having a large volume of work is key, so I’m starting on a series of short stories. When I have five or six written, I’m going to self-publish them as e-books. I know how to market through social media and networking, so I’m confident I can make money at it.

Will I quite coaching to become a full-time fiction writer? Nope. I love coaching too much to quit. Besides, I get too many great ideas from my clients. I’d be a poorer writer without them.

But I will write enough and publish enough that I can finally achieve a decades-old dream I thought was dead. And if that isn’t something to get up for in the morning, I don’t know what is.

Stay tuned. You all will be among the first to know when there’s something available.

And if you have a dream you thought was dead, pull it out of the drawer and see if you can’t breathe some life into it. Dreams should live. Not gather dust.

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Tags: blogging, social media
Posted in General | 3 Comments »

Social Media Time Schedule

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

I get asked all the time, “What is your schedule for checking in with social media?” I guess if enough of you are interested, it’s worth me writing about.

My typical day looks something like this:

1. Wake up and pummel brain into activity with reading light fiction (works better for me than coffee)

2. Read blogs in Google Reader and check Twitter (if I have time)

3. Write blog post for the day (and maybe tomorrow if the next day looks particularly crowded). I check my @1to1Discovery mentions at this time and respond if needed. Some days, this is my only Twitter check-in.

4. Head off to a meeting (client or one to one)

5. Eat lunch (preferably at home) and catch up on Twitter or blogs

6. Race off to afternoon meetings.

7. Exercise after meetings and before any evening networking events

8. If there’s no evening event, touch social media again, this time mostly fun stuff. It’s important to catch up on the latest Doctor Who news and fanfiction.

I do try to get to meetings early and check Twitter on my iPhone. In 15 minutes, I can catch up on the important stuff.

Since social media is part of what I do for a living, I probably spend more time on it than many. And even I’m not on it all day.

By the way, you’ll notice I didn’t mention Facebook. I do check Facebook, but it comes in through Tweetdeck with my Twitter stream, so I don’t always think of them as separate.

I do try to space out my social media activity, but if you follow me on Twitter, you’ve probably noticed I tend to tweet in bursts. That’s because I’m on in bursts. I’ve started to use Hootsuite to schedule some of my tweets, especially ones that aren’t time sensitive. But I never delay retweets. Those go out as I see ‘em.

One thing that helps me from spending too much time is to check social media between other appointments. If I know I have only 15 minutes, I’m a lot more efficient than if I have two hours in front of me.

I hope this was helpful. Social media is an effective way to grow your business. And you can engage in the media without it becoming a second life.

Anyone else have good tips to share?

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Tags: blogging, iPhone, social media, task management, time management
Posted in Time and Task Management | 3 Comments »

Finding Blogging Topics

Monday, April 5th, 2010

Some of you are just starting out blogging or are thinking about starting a blog. If you’re still thinking about it, I say get started. It is a very effective way to grow and promote your business on-line. The monetary cost is minimal. The real cost is in time.

I’ve done several posts on managing time in social media. Head back into the archives if you want more information on that topic. They all use the “time management” tag.

But what I haven’t yet written about is how to find the topics. New bloggers (I know; I was one) worry that they won’t be able to come up with enough material to keep a blog going. I had the same fear. Turns out there was no reason to worry.

I get ideas from reading other blogs and following people in social media.

I get ideas from networking events, both good practices and bad.

I get ideas from my clients. Sometimes they ask questions that turn into blog posts. Sometimes things they try work out very well, and I use them in posts.

I get ideas from watching the news.

Sometimes I get pissed off and need a place to rant. My blog is a good one for that.

As I come up with ideas, I jot them down in Evernote. I tag them “blog topic” and whenever I am feeling stuck for a topic, I go back to my list. Currently I have 11 notes, a little over two weeks worth of topics. That’s a lot of “stuck” I can get out of.

If you are just starting out, I suggest you create a list in advance. 10-15 possible topics is a good starting point. Write a few of them, to find your style and voice.

And then go out and post them. When you meet with clients, take a moment to think about the meeting and uncover new posts. Jot down the questions people ask about your business or industry.

But most of all, don’t worry. Topics do come. They are the easy part. The harder part is getting into a rhythm of writing, posting and promoting.

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Tags: blogging, time management
Posted in social media | 4 Comments »

Cross-posting to Multiple Social Media Sites

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

The big three social media sites (LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter) all have features to link updates from one site to the others.

This can be a big time saver or a real problem, depending on how you do it and why.

If your audience/following for each site are the same, it can be a significant time savings. Just make sure the links are doing what you want. For example, if you post a link on Facebook and link that status update to Twitter, you’ll get a tweet with a link. But instead of leading to the site you linked to, the tweet will lead back to your Facebook page. Your follower must then click a second link. The more links we have to click, the less likely we are to click them.

But the bigger danger is in publishing content appropriate to your audience in on one site and inappropriate for your audience for the other.

I met with a client yesterday, and this issue came up. She’s a non-profit. She has a Facebook Cause page, a fan page, a LinkedIn account, a blog and a Twitter account. (Yes, that’s a lot of social media, and it makes sense for her.) Her non-profit is trying to attract multiple audiences, which is why she has so many accounts. The Cause page is for attracting donors. The fan page and blog are for people needing the services her organization provides. LinkedIn and Twitter are for attracting/finding policy makers in her area of specialization.

Her sites are aimed at different audiences. We talked about linking content among the different sites, and most of the time it didn’t make sense. Linking her blog to her Cause page would overload her donors with information they didn’t want or need. Same with promoting her blog through Twitter. Publishing the same content to the Cause page and fan page didn’t make sense either.

By the time we finished the session, she had a plan for what content was appropriate for each audience. We even came up with some ideas for blog topics that could be relevant to donors and her service community, and we developed a schedule for how often it made sense to cross-post.

Cross posting to different audiences can make sense. Her donors need to see their money is being used well. The people she is serving need to see she is actively raising money. But it can’t be done too often or her targeted messages will get lost.

Being on multiple social media sites can make sense. But before you cross-post content, make sure you’re aiming your content at the right audience.

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Tags: blogging, communication, marketing, social media
Posted in social media | 1 Comment »

Why Are You Engaging In Social Media?

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Yesterday I talked about “what is social media.” Obviously you need to know what something is before you can decide if it’s right for you. But the next most important question is why are you there?

And no, because some blogger said that “everyone must have a Facebook page” is not a good reason.

There are lots of good reasons to be there. And your reason is going to influence what social media channel(s) you use.

Here are a list of reasons people engage in social media:

1. To keep up with far-flung family and friends
2. To make loyal customers more loyal
3. To find new customers
4. To stalk…I mean keep up with…celebrities and their antics
5. To keep up with the news
6. To be known as an expert in some field
7. To market a book or a product from their website
8. To extend the geographic reach and recognition of their brand
9. To offer a better customer service experience
10. To attract customers from certain age groups

And the list goes on. Your reason might be one of the above, or it might be something entirely different.

Certain social media channels are better than others for accomplishing your goals. Facebook is a better channel to keep up with family and friends than Twitter. Twitter is a great way to spread your message widely and to build relationships in other parts of the country, or the world. A blog is just about required to be seen as a thought leader in a particular field.

It’s not enough to just sign up for a Twitter account. If you don’t know why you have that account, odds are you won’t do anything with it. Or you may be doing good things with it that don’t meet your goals.

Example. A couple of weeks ago, I met with a prospect. Their goal with social media was to extend their reach. When they get a client, that client stays very loyal because their product is that awesome. So they need more clients. Lots more clients. What social media channel are they using? A personal Facebook page. Which is great for keeping in touch with family and terrible for extending their reach. Not to mention in violation of Facebook’s terms of service (you can’t use a personal page for commercial gain).

See why knowing your goal is so important? Their page is active. And their loyal customers friend them and interact with them. But that’s not their ultimate goal. If someone had asked them why they are using social media before they set up a page, they could have found a more effective channel. Like Twitter. Or Foursquare. And since they are a specialty shop, a Yahoo! Group might be effective as well.

If you are already engaged in social media, stop and ask the question. Why am I here? Make sure your channels are the right ones. If you are thinking about social media, ask the same question. The answer may guide you in a totally unexpected direction.

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Tags: blogging, Relationship building, social media
Posted in social media | 2 Comments »

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