Well everyone
It certainly doesn't feel like it but another year is about to become history and live only in our memory.
As a final thought for 2010, as you ponder all your new years resolutions for 2011 for you personally, let me remind you that it is equally important to think about and commit to business, marketing and of course social media objectives that you will build strategies around and ultimately be accountable for.
What ever they may be, please give them some thought.
Thanks for reading and all the best for 2011.
Until next time, good luck and good marketing.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Major Upgrade to Foursquare
The leading geolocation social media platform Foursquare has jsut announced that it will now be adding on two significant features to its already impressive site. Namely comments and pictures for its members using smart phones.
This ability has now been activated for iPhone users and will be available to Google android system phones within a week, with Blackberry users getting the chance to to the same in the new year.
Foursquare is experiencing quick growth having recently also announced that it had five million, further reinforcing its creditials as a must have social media platform.
Some would say that this was an inevitable expansion of its original functionality to now offer users the chance to better communicate where they were and what they were doing in a way that augments the message.
It may be early days for the geolocation sites such as foursquare, but the excitment, scope and engagement that they offer strongly suggests that they will only get bigger and better in 2011 and beyond.
And one final thing from me is I'd love to wish everyone all the best for Christmas and the New Year. I hope your festive season is a great one.
Unit next time, good marketing and good luck.
This ability has now been activated for iPhone users and will be available to Google android system phones within a week, with Blackberry users getting the chance to to the same in the new year.
Foursquare is experiencing quick growth having recently also announced that it had five million, further reinforcing its creditials as a must have social media platform.
Some would say that this was an inevitable expansion of its original functionality to now offer users the chance to better communicate where they were and what they were doing in a way that augments the message.
It may be early days for the geolocation sites such as foursquare, but the excitment, scope and engagement that they offer strongly suggests that they will only get bigger and better in 2011 and beyond.
And one final thing from me is I'd love to wish everyone all the best for Christmas and the New Year. I hope your festive season is a great one.
Unit next time, good marketing and good luck.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Creating a Dashbooard For Your Social Media
As the scope of social media continues to expand and the type of marketing platforms seem to have no limit, it becomes increasingly important to focus on our stated social media and overall marketing objectives to determine how well (or otherwise) our key performance indicators (KPI's) are being met over time.
To be able to answer this we need to do a couple of key things.
Firstly we need to be clear about what it is we want to be able to measure from its existing point moving forward and why these measures are the key ones for us. If we focus on the wrong measures, then even if they are properly assessed, the result will provide little useful data for the business.
Secondly and almost as almost as important is the way the metrics will be displayed. Too often, managers are inundated with and overwhelmed by copious amounts of raw data making it difficult to focus clearly on the key data points and trends.
For this reason it is wise to set up a simple, efficient and practical dashboard that will provide management with facts and figures designed to update and provide added insight into what has transpired.
There are I'm pleased to say various existing providers of Dashboard templates and resources available. Some are free and some will cost you some money.
iGoogle (www.google.com/ig) and MyYahoo (http://my.yahoo.com) both for example provide free tools for the respective Google and Yahoo home pages.
For Twitter, Hootsuite (www.hootsuite.com) provides a dashboard specifically for the brief Twitter messages.
Specifically for social media you have free dashboard services such as: Pageflakes (www.pageflakes.com/default.aspx) as well as paid versions from suppliers such as: UberVU (www.ubervu.com)
Regardless of whether you opt for the free service or pay a little more for the one of
the paid options, the point is simply that you need to be starting to get your structure set up so that all valuable information is routinely gathered, analysed, seen and understood by the business.
Until next time,
Good marketing and good luck.
To be able to answer this we need to do a couple of key things.
Firstly we need to be clear about what it is we want to be able to measure from its existing point moving forward and why these measures are the key ones for us. If we focus on the wrong measures, then even if they are properly assessed, the result will provide little useful data for the business.
Secondly and almost as almost as important is the way the metrics will be displayed. Too often, managers are inundated with and overwhelmed by copious amounts of raw data making it difficult to focus clearly on the key data points and trends.
For this reason it is wise to set up a simple, efficient and practical dashboard that will provide management with facts and figures designed to update and provide added insight into what has transpired.
There are I'm pleased to say various existing providers of Dashboard templates and resources available. Some are free and some will cost you some money.
iGoogle (www.google.com/ig) and MyYahoo (http://my.yahoo.com) both for example provide free tools for the respective Google and Yahoo home pages.
For Twitter, Hootsuite (www.hootsuite.com) provides a dashboard specifically for the brief Twitter messages.
Specifically for social media you have free dashboard services such as: Pageflakes (www.pageflakes.com/default.aspx) as well as paid versions from suppliers such as: UberVU (www.ubervu.com)
Regardless of whether you opt for the free service or pay a little more for the one of
the paid options, the point is simply that you need to be starting to get your structure set up so that all valuable information is routinely gathered, analysed, seen and understood by the business.
Until next time,
Good marketing and good luck.
Friday, December 3, 2010
A Cautionary Tale on Social Media Marketing
Hi again everyone.
This week I want to devote my blog post to a quick bit of feedback from a presentation I gave the other night at a W omen's Business Network meeting. I was asked to speak on the role of Emotional Intelligence in Business and the positive benefits that flow from having a team of people with high EI. It was a great night and I walked away with two strong memories from the night.
1. How tight the group was and how mutually supportive they were of each other. Great stuff, and
2. That in some discussions later people had the view that as one person put it:
"I've done the all the social media things and it didn't work. My sales are flat."
Hearing this I asked a couple of questions about exactly what she had done. Cutting a long story short, she hadn't done everything. No Slide Share, no blog, no LinkedIn, No social book marking, etc, etc.....
Now to her credit she had done some things, but even there they were incomplete.
What I'm trying to get at here is that as we all know or should no, social media is not a simple check list of tactics that you set and forget.
It flows from broad strategy that we implement through appropriate tactical platforms and tolls and monitor closely and adjust and change over time.
If for what ever reason you think you have done it all, you wont have to add your sales are down. It will probably be a given.
Keep studying, keep testing and measuring, keep fine tuning and the benefits will begin to flow over time.
Good marketing and good luck,
Regards,
Daniele.
This week I want to devote my blog post to a quick bit of feedback from a presentation I gave the other night at a W omen's Business Network meeting. I was asked to speak on the role of Emotional Intelligence in Business and the positive benefits that flow from having a team of people with high EI. It was a great night and I walked away with two strong memories from the night.
1. How tight the group was and how mutually supportive they were of each other. Great stuff, and
2. That in some discussions later people had the view that as one person put it:
"I've done the all the social media things and it didn't work. My sales are flat."
Hearing this I asked a couple of questions about exactly what she had done. Cutting a long story short, she hadn't done everything. No Slide Share, no blog, no LinkedIn, No social book marking, etc, etc.....
Now to her credit she had done some things, but even there they were incomplete.
What I'm trying to get at here is that as we all know or should no, social media is not a simple check list of tactics that you set and forget.
It flows from broad strategy that we implement through appropriate tactical platforms and tolls and monitor closely and adjust and change over time.
If for what ever reason you think you have done it all, you wont have to add your sales are down. It will probably be a given.
Keep studying, keep testing and measuring, keep fine tuning and the benefits will begin to flow over time.
Good marketing and good luck,
Regards,
Daniele.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Marketing Metrics: Should 'The Bottom Line' Be The Real Bottom Line
In recent times I seem to have had several discussions on metrics with different people.
Why do we need them, which are the ones most people use, are some more appropriate based on the different stages stages in the sales process, and so on. All good questions to be sure.
Interestingly in every case I have found that each of these individuals were most focus on the proverbial bottom line as a definitive metric to measure the success or failure of their social media and electronic campaigns. No problem there you say. True but consider this.
Despite the fact that the lifeblood of any business is it's ability to earn, sustain and grow its profitability over time, at any given point this level of profit is a historical marker that granted is the ultimate metric for what has happened to this point. However there is a more dynamic and predictive marker for future profitability i.e. satisfaction.
How satisfied are your clients, customers, patients, key accounts or members?
Quite conceivably your profits especially during the launch, re-branding or restructuring phases may be modest and tracking below budget, however if your client base is genuinely satisfied and pleased with your work, there is a tremendous capacity to leverage this goodwill to drive future sales.
Despite its obvious importance to few businesses (and especially SME's routinely benchmark, set goals for and measure the level of satisfaction within their most important resource. Their customers.
Please don't also make that mistake. Until next time.
Good marketing and good luck.
Why do we need them, which are the ones most people use, are some more appropriate based on the different stages stages in the sales process, and so on. All good questions to be sure.
Interestingly in every case I have found that each of these individuals were most focus on the proverbial bottom line as a definitive metric to measure the success or failure of their social media and electronic campaigns. No problem there you say. True but consider this.
Despite the fact that the lifeblood of any business is it's ability to earn, sustain and grow its profitability over time, at any given point this level of profit is a historical marker that granted is the ultimate metric for what has happened to this point. However there is a more dynamic and predictive marker for future profitability i.e. satisfaction.
How satisfied are your clients, customers, patients, key accounts or members?
Quite conceivably your profits especially during the launch, re-branding or restructuring phases may be modest and tracking below budget, however if your client base is genuinely satisfied and pleased with your work, there is a tremendous capacity to leverage this goodwill to drive future sales.
Despite its obvious importance to few businesses (and especially SME's routinely benchmark, set goals for and measure the level of satisfaction within their most important resource. Their customers.
Please don't also make that mistake. Until next time.
Good marketing and good luck.
Friday, November 19, 2010
How Connecting Your LinkedIn Contacts Builds Social Influence
As if we needed any further convincing that we needed to continue to be proactive in helping our contacts on LinkedIn connect with each other, right on cue today I read this great piece by Stephanie Sammons, published November 18, 2010 on the topic. Have a read I think you'll agree how easy it is to do in the simple 3 step process.
Are you wondering how to leverage your presence on LinkedIn to build social influence?
Regularly updating your status, joining and participating in groups and answering questions is just the start.
There are also a number of ways to build deeper relationships with your connections on LinkedIn. I’m going to ask you to shift your thinking and consider the following:
Spend some time on LinkedIn connecting your contacts.
If you truly want to build social influence with your connections and become more valuable to them, dedicating time to strategically helping others can elevate your “social” status.
People want to be connected with a connector! Connectors are considered valuable resources because they’re genuinely interested and engaged in helping others succeed.
Working to connect your connections on LinkedIn not only helps you become a more influential person, you’ll also benefit from triggering the rule of reciprocity. Essentially, the rule of reciprocity states that when you do something that can benefit someone else, you’re making a psychological deposit with that person and he or she will feel obligated to repay the favor.
LinkedIn is the perfect environment in which to put the rule of reciprocity to use.
Why? Mostly, the network is transparent. LinkedIn members are sharing not only information about their professional background, skills, and experience, but they’re also sharing personal hobbies and interests. Never before have you been able to see all of these details about your professional network laid out right in front of you. The power of the LinkedIn network provides a compelling opportunity to grow your business.
A 3-Step Process for Connecting Your Connections on LinkedIn
#1: Analyze Your First-Degree Connections
Here’s a big-picture exercise that will get you thinking about who you know, what’s important to the people you know and who should know one other within your LinkedIn contacts.
Go to the Advanced People Search tool within LinkedIn. Under the “Relationship” section on the left, filter for your first-degree connections only (see image below).
This will bring up a list of all of your first-degree connections. Make sure to choose “Expanded View” to see more details about your connections within this search. A free LinkedIn account will show you up to 100 profile results per search.
The Advanced Search tool is located at the top right of your profile page.
Filter for first-degree connections.
Once you’ve pulled up the search results, scroll slowly through your entire list of first-degree connections, looking closely at faces and titles. Simply spending some time scanning through this list of connections can help trigger and uncover common ground among your connections that you may not have thought about. Take notes as you go through this process.
Next, identify your 10 best business relationships from this list and jot them down. Also add the 10 most influential people you’re connected with (there may be some overlap). Now it’s time to analyze your first-degree list of best relationships and top influencers.
Are there similar personality types? Do any of the career and business paths of your connections intersect or have complementary characteristics (i.e., could you connect an executive leadership coach with an executive, or an entrepreneur with a venture capitalist)? Whom can they benefit from knowing, being connected to, or working with on your list? Do any of these individuals live in the same geographic area? Do any of them have similar personal interests or belong to the same LinkedIn Groups or outside organizations?
Unfortunately there is no quick way to conduct this in-depth search other than to view the profiles manually and identify all the potential links. However, it will be well worth your time! Bringing together your best relationships with your top influencers is a very powerful exercise and you should get to know as much as you can about these individuals.
An example in action—connecting the dots:
John owns his own technology firm and Sam is a financial professional. They live in different states but they’re my first-degree connections. Through my relationships with these two individuals I’ve learned that they’re both Ironman triathletes who blog about their triathlon training and experiences, and they both strive for their personal best in business and in life. In my mind, these two must know each other and there could certainly be an opportunity for them to do business together as well.
Both John and Sam were extremely grateful for the introduction and were thrilled to meet a like-minded acquaintance with a passion for competing in triathlons. In this example, I was able to come up with this mutually beneficial connection by simply scanning through my first-degree connections and concentrating on what I know about each person, both personally and professionally. It’s all about connecting the dots!
#2: Filter Your First-Degree Search by Geography, Industry and/or Keywords
This time, start your Advanced LinkedIn search for first-degree connections, but run some filters. We’ll start by filtering your search results for geography and get more specific from there.
Using the Geography filter, choose the location where you have the most connections. Now study these profiles and go through the same questions listed in exercise #1. Who in this group of connections should be connected to one other and why? Can you see any professional common threads among those professionals who live in your area?
Now let’s narrow it down further and apply some filters for industry. First, view your connections who work in the same industries. Are there any opportunities for these individuals to benefit from networking with industry peers? Next, check the boxes for a handful of industries that could be complementary (i.e., financial and legal, marketing and design). Are there opportunities to connect any of these individuals where it could be mutually beneficial from a business standpoint?
Finally, let’s narrow it down even further by applying a keyword filter that describes a hobby or interest. The strongest ties are those that center on personal interests. The Keyword search box will be at the top left of your Advanced Search screen. If you need help coming up with a keyword for personal interests, look at your own interests that you’ve listed on your profile and use one of those words or phrases. What are you interested in and passionate about? What are your best connections interested in and passionate about?
An example in action—personal interests are powerful:
I’ve got about 130 professional LinkedIn connections in Dallas where I live. After I’ve run the first two filters (location and industry), I’ve got a list of 37 people whom I feel would benefit from being connected on a professional level. I then decided to run a keyword filter for the word “golf,” and that narrowed it down to 4 individuals! Now I’ve identified 4 of my connections who all live in my area, work in similar or complementary industries and enjoy golfing. I can decide from here whom I want to connect, and even connect the entire group of people through a golf outing!
Filter your searches to find common ground among your first-degree connections.
Go through this process numerous times with your first-degree connections, but reverse and play around with the order of your filters.
For example, start with a keyword based on one of your interests, and then filter for geography, followed by industry. You can certainly connect others across the country as well. There are really no rules here other than the more common ground you can identify among the connections you connect, the more relevant and meaningful that introduction will be for both parties.
#3: Send Both Connections a Private Message
Before you utilize the LinkedIn introduction tool, I strongly suggest you send a private message to each of the individuals you’re going to be connecting. First you’ll need to decide who’ll be the person you introduce and who’ll receive the introduction. Send a private message first to the person you’ll introduce. Use something like the following to let him or her know what to expect:
“Hi Sam, I know someone whom I think you would really enjoy meeting and we are also connected here on LinkedIn. His name is John ______ and he owns a technology company here in town. I realized that both of you are passionate about triathlons and even do some blogging on the subject. I wanted to introduce the two of you because you seem to have a lot in common, and you’re both here in Dallas! I will be sending an official LinkedIn introduction over to him shortly to introduce the two of you and you can take it from there. Let me know how it goes! Hope business is going well and let’s get together soon!”
Warm regards,
Stephanie Sammons
For the person who’ll be receiving the introduction, send him or her a private message as well as notification that your introduction will be coming soon. Always send these private messages first to make it clear to both parties what you’re trying to accomplish, otherwise it can be confusing.
Once you’ve sent the private messages, you can send over the official LinkedIn introduction. You can access the link entitled “Make an Introduction” from your connection’s profile.
LinkedIn makes it simple for you to introduce others.
The best way to ensure that these new connections you’re creating on LinkedIn will evolve into potential relationships is to do the work up front, and uncover all of the potential intersecting points or commonalities with your first-degree connections. The more people have in common—especially around personal interests—the more likely a new relationship will develop and thrive! You’ll be appreciated and respected for taking the time to connect the dots and piece these introductions together, and most importantly, you’ll build significant social influence!
It takes work to be a connector, and the benefits may not be immediately measurable. Long-term, however, you’ll reap the rewards in ways that you may not even be able to imagine today. Not only will you become a more valuable and influential person to your existing connections, you’ll open the door for new connections and introductions for yourself.
Are you wondering how to leverage your presence on LinkedIn to build social influence?
Regularly updating your status, joining and participating in groups and answering questions is just the start.
There are also a number of ways to build deeper relationships with your connections on LinkedIn. I’m going to ask you to shift your thinking and consider the following:
Spend some time on LinkedIn connecting your contacts.
If you truly want to build social influence with your connections and become more valuable to them, dedicating time to strategically helping others can elevate your “social” status.
People want to be connected with a connector! Connectors are considered valuable resources because they’re genuinely interested and engaged in helping others succeed.
Working to connect your connections on LinkedIn not only helps you become a more influential person, you’ll also benefit from triggering the rule of reciprocity. Essentially, the rule of reciprocity states that when you do something that can benefit someone else, you’re making a psychological deposit with that person and he or she will feel obligated to repay the favor.
LinkedIn is the perfect environment in which to put the rule of reciprocity to use.
Why? Mostly, the network is transparent. LinkedIn members are sharing not only information about their professional background, skills, and experience, but they’re also sharing personal hobbies and interests. Never before have you been able to see all of these details about your professional network laid out right in front of you. The power of the LinkedIn network provides a compelling opportunity to grow your business.
A 3-Step Process for Connecting Your Connections on LinkedIn
#1: Analyze Your First-Degree Connections
Here’s a big-picture exercise that will get you thinking about who you know, what’s important to the people you know and who should know one other within your LinkedIn contacts.
Go to the Advanced People Search tool within LinkedIn. Under the “Relationship” section on the left, filter for your first-degree connections only (see image below).
This will bring up a list of all of your first-degree connections. Make sure to choose “Expanded View” to see more details about your connections within this search. A free LinkedIn account will show you up to 100 profile results per search.
The Advanced Search tool is located at the top right of your profile page.
Filter for first-degree connections.
Once you’ve pulled up the search results, scroll slowly through your entire list of first-degree connections, looking closely at faces and titles. Simply spending some time scanning through this list of connections can help trigger and uncover common ground among your connections that you may not have thought about. Take notes as you go through this process.
Next, identify your 10 best business relationships from this list and jot them down. Also add the 10 most influential people you’re connected with (there may be some overlap). Now it’s time to analyze your first-degree list of best relationships and top influencers.
Are there similar personality types? Do any of the career and business paths of your connections intersect or have complementary characteristics (i.e., could you connect an executive leadership coach with an executive, or an entrepreneur with a venture capitalist)? Whom can they benefit from knowing, being connected to, or working with on your list? Do any of these individuals live in the same geographic area? Do any of them have similar personal interests or belong to the same LinkedIn Groups or outside organizations?
Unfortunately there is no quick way to conduct this in-depth search other than to view the profiles manually and identify all the potential links. However, it will be well worth your time! Bringing together your best relationships with your top influencers is a very powerful exercise and you should get to know as much as you can about these individuals.
An example in action—connecting the dots:
John owns his own technology firm and Sam is a financial professional. They live in different states but they’re my first-degree connections. Through my relationships with these two individuals I’ve learned that they’re both Ironman triathletes who blog about their triathlon training and experiences, and they both strive for their personal best in business and in life. In my mind, these two must know each other and there could certainly be an opportunity for them to do business together as well.
Both John and Sam were extremely grateful for the introduction and were thrilled to meet a like-minded acquaintance with a passion for competing in triathlons. In this example, I was able to come up with this mutually beneficial connection by simply scanning through my first-degree connections and concentrating on what I know about each person, both personally and professionally. It’s all about connecting the dots!
#2: Filter Your First-Degree Search by Geography, Industry and/or Keywords
This time, start your Advanced LinkedIn search for first-degree connections, but run some filters. We’ll start by filtering your search results for geography and get more specific from there.
Using the Geography filter, choose the location where you have the most connections. Now study these profiles and go through the same questions listed in exercise #1. Who in this group of connections should be connected to one other and why? Can you see any professional common threads among those professionals who live in your area?
Now let’s narrow it down further and apply some filters for industry. First, view your connections who work in the same industries. Are there any opportunities for these individuals to benefit from networking with industry peers? Next, check the boxes for a handful of industries that could be complementary (i.e., financial and legal, marketing and design). Are there opportunities to connect any of these individuals where it could be mutually beneficial from a business standpoint?
Finally, let’s narrow it down even further by applying a keyword filter that describes a hobby or interest. The strongest ties are those that center on personal interests. The Keyword search box will be at the top left of your Advanced Search screen. If you need help coming up with a keyword for personal interests, look at your own interests that you’ve listed on your profile and use one of those words or phrases. What are you interested in and passionate about? What are your best connections interested in and passionate about?
An example in action—personal interests are powerful:
I’ve got about 130 professional LinkedIn connections in Dallas where I live. After I’ve run the first two filters (location and industry), I’ve got a list of 37 people whom I feel would benefit from being connected on a professional level. I then decided to run a keyword filter for the word “golf,” and that narrowed it down to 4 individuals! Now I’ve identified 4 of my connections who all live in my area, work in similar or complementary industries and enjoy golfing. I can decide from here whom I want to connect, and even connect the entire group of people through a golf outing!
Filter your searches to find common ground among your first-degree connections.
Go through this process numerous times with your first-degree connections, but reverse and play around with the order of your filters.
For example, start with a keyword based on one of your interests, and then filter for geography, followed by industry. You can certainly connect others across the country as well. There are really no rules here other than the more common ground you can identify among the connections you connect, the more relevant and meaningful that introduction will be for both parties.
#3: Send Both Connections a Private Message
Before you utilize the LinkedIn introduction tool, I strongly suggest you send a private message to each of the individuals you’re going to be connecting. First you’ll need to decide who’ll be the person you introduce and who’ll receive the introduction. Send a private message first to the person you’ll introduce. Use something like the following to let him or her know what to expect:
“Hi Sam, I know someone whom I think you would really enjoy meeting and we are also connected here on LinkedIn. His name is John ______ and he owns a technology company here in town. I realized that both of you are passionate about triathlons and even do some blogging on the subject. I wanted to introduce the two of you because you seem to have a lot in common, and you’re both here in Dallas! I will be sending an official LinkedIn introduction over to him shortly to introduce the two of you and you can take it from there. Let me know how it goes! Hope business is going well and let’s get together soon!”
Warm regards,
Stephanie Sammons
For the person who’ll be receiving the introduction, send him or her a private message as well as notification that your introduction will be coming soon. Always send these private messages first to make it clear to both parties what you’re trying to accomplish, otherwise it can be confusing.
Once you’ve sent the private messages, you can send over the official LinkedIn introduction. You can access the link entitled “Make an Introduction” from your connection’s profile.
LinkedIn makes it simple for you to introduce others.
The best way to ensure that these new connections you’re creating on LinkedIn will evolve into potential relationships is to do the work up front, and uncover all of the potential intersecting points or commonalities with your first-degree connections. The more people have in common—especially around personal interests—the more likely a new relationship will develop and thrive! You’ll be appreciated and respected for taking the time to connect the dots and piece these introductions together, and most importantly, you’ll build significant social influence!
It takes work to be a connector, and the benefits may not be immediately measurable. Long-term, however, you’ll reap the rewards in ways that you may not even be able to imagine today. Not only will you become a more valuable and influential person to your existing connections, you’ll open the door for new connections and introductions for yourself.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
LinkedIn Company Pages
Hello again everyone.
This week you may have heard that LinkedIn (the worlds premier business networking site), launched their new Company Pages. Surprisingly though it seems not to have received much attention.
So I thought I'd write this weeks blog post on it.
To access this new feature simply go to: www.linkedin.com/companies and sign in using your regular user id and password. If your not already a member it's a great reson to join up.
This then leads you to a page where you input your company name and an email that will be linked to this page, but remember it needs to be an email that reflects the company name, so gmail accounts and yahoo mail type accounts will not be accepted. Remember this is LinkedIn which is all about serious business.
Once you do this you will be sent a confirmation email that you need to confirm.
From here you will then be able to reenter the page and fill in all your company information to build a profile about what you'd like people to know about your business.
You will also be able to add your company logo for branding purposes.
Try it out and let me know what you think.
This week you may have heard that LinkedIn (the worlds premier business networking site), launched their new Company Pages. Surprisingly though it seems not to have received much attention.
So I thought I'd write this weeks blog post on it.
To access this new feature simply go to: www.linkedin.com/companies and sign in using your regular user id and password. If your not already a member it's a great reson to join up.
This then leads you to a page where you input your company name and an email that will be linked to this page, but remember it needs to be an email that reflects the company name, so gmail accounts and yahoo mail type accounts will not be accepted. Remember this is LinkedIn which is all about serious business.
Once you do this you will be sent a confirmation email that you need to confirm.
From here you will then be able to reenter the page and fill in all your company information to build a profile about what you'd like people to know about your business.
You will also be able to add your company logo for branding purposes.
Try it out and let me know what you think.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
The Value of Metrics Grows As Twitter Purchase An Analytics Company
In recent times, Twitter has announced that it had purchased a cloud-hosted Web analytics firm.
Smallthought Systems Trendly allows Web masters to gain deeper insight into traffic data that Google Analytics collects about their sites.
The Smallthought staff have now been intergrated into Twitter's analytics team, to help intergrate and align the existing Trendly systems into Twitter's IT systems.
This purchase is an exciting vertical intergration step for twitter who earlier in 2010 also launched the Promoted Tweets program, which is set up as a platform to aid firms their promote their products on the Twitter.
Promoted Tweets analyses how much traffic the respective ads generate to help detirmine their overall effectiveness. As Twitters usage continues to grow these additions to the Twitter arsenal signal an ongoing roll out of Twitter startegy, that no doubt is focused around keeping the platform fresh, adaptive and relevant to the needs of its millions of users.
Smallthought Systems Trendly allows Web masters to gain deeper insight into traffic data that Google Analytics collects about their sites.
The Smallthought staff have now been intergrated into Twitter's analytics team, to help intergrate and align the existing Trendly systems into Twitter's IT systems.
This purchase is an exciting vertical intergration step for twitter who earlier in 2010 also launched the Promoted Tweets program, which is set up as a platform to aid firms their promote their products on the Twitter.
Promoted Tweets analyses how much traffic the respective ads generate to help detirmine their overall effectiveness. As Twitters usage continues to grow these additions to the Twitter arsenal signal an ongoing roll out of Twitter startegy, that no doubt is focused around keeping the platform fresh, adaptive and relevant to the needs of its millions of users.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Video Blogging
Hi again everyone. I just cam across a nice piece on the: 10 Steps to Successful Video Blogging
By Dino Dogan showing exactly how easy it is to incorporate video into your blog.
Have a read and see what you think.
Have a read and see what you think.
Have you considered video blogging?
In the age where online reality is replacing actual reality in every facet of our lives, having YOUR face behind YOUR virtual real estate is paramount for people to feel close(er) to you.
This blog post will be your comprehensive guide.
Why Video Blogging?
Video blogging helps you build connections with your viewers like no other blogging format. The close second is perhaps audio.
A case in point is Michael Stelzner. He’s the face behind your favorite business blog SocialMediaExaminer.com, and he used this method to introduce himself and his website to his audience in a very effective way. Have you introduced video content to your personal or business blog? If not, why?
The usual excuses given are “I don’t have the right equipment” or “it takes too much time” or “I’m not entirely sure how the whole process works.”
In this article, I’ll show you the minimal, yet crucial, amount of equipment you’ll need and the quick and dirty way of getting your videos out there in record time.
So let’s get started.
Shooting a Video
#1: Audio
It may seem bizarre to start an article about online video blogs by talking about audio, but “hear” me out. (Pun totally intended).
If the audio sucks, no-one will watch your video. Simple as that. End of story.
Even if video comes out totally terrible, you can still salvage your shoot by turning your video post into an audio post. So how do we make sure audio comes out OK?
Many low-end and certainly mid-level camcorders come with a MIC in port. Buy an external microphone, plug it in and beyond that, all you have to do is make sure your levels are decent and you’re all set.
If you have a camera that doesn’t have a MIC in, you can record the audio on a separate device and merge the audio with video in post-production.
Do you know why movie directors use the clapper (a.k.a. clapboard) before starting every scene?
Tip: You can easily sync audio and video in post-production by using your hands to clap a few times to denote the starting points in which audio and video should match up. The audio spikes will be visible in the editing software and can then be synchronized with the video of you clapping.
If you’re forced to use the camera’s built-in microphone, be keenly aware of the following two factors:
Environmental—for example, a strong wind if you’re shooting outside and electromagnetic interference or air conditioner noise if shooting inside.
Position of subjects—you’ll notice how on-cam MIC mostly picks up the person shooting the video while the subject who is few feet away (or further) is quite low during audio playback.
In other words, be prepared to do some post-production magic to get the audio properly leveled and equalized.
Alternatively, you can look for the magic spot through experimentation that will yield good-enough results with minimal post-production editing.
#2: Lighting
If you’re going to spend money, this is the area where most of your budget should go. If there’s one thing video experts agree on, it’s the paramount importance of proper lighting in shooting a video. In fact, proper lighting is more important than the type of camera you use. Why?
Most modern digital cameras (even cheapos) are quite serviceable and have good-enough resolution for YouTube.
Whenever possible, take advantage of natural light. Make sure the source of the light (usually sun, or if indoors it’s the window) is always behind the camera (or slightly to the side).
Here is some “lighting” terminology you ought to be familiar with before we list the types of lighting equipment you may consider.
Key Light: As its name implies, this is the “main” light. Usually placed to the right of the camera and about 3 feet above the subject’s eye level (thereby emulating downward casting naturally produced by the sun).
Fill Light: This lighting fixture is placed on the other side of the camera and its job is to “fill” the shadow cast produced by the key light.
Back Light: Placed behind the subject. This light is sometimes called “head and shoulders” light because that’s the part of the subject it ought to illuminate.
Light kit options abound, but do keep in mind that entry-level lights—while quite affordable—will only last for few hundred shoots at the most.
Trick: Proper lighting is as much a science as it is an art. Having proper equipment and a zeal for experimentation are paramount. Have fun with it and allow imperfections to slide.
No-one expects Hollywood-style production from your blog. In fact, polished videos reek of corporate subterfuge so much that even content-producers who CAN make a polished video choose not to. You can check out these videos on lighting, they’re free, authoritative and extremely useful.
#3: Camera
What kind of camera will you need to do online video? Well… what kind of camera do you have? I would definitely start there.
No need to run out and buy a new camera if you already have one sitting around your house or office.
I’ve started out with a $75.00 cam I purchased at Rite Aid, then moved on to a $300.00 cam with an external MIC-in, and now mostly shoot with the new Olympus. They all do a fine job. In fact, even a PC cam will do.
Real Life: Most of the videos I make for my Facebook dog-crew on how to use Twitter are done using a PC camera. Why? Because it’s quick and easy. The idea is to get your face out there so that clients and potential customers can see you, hear from you and “feel” like they know you.
Golden rule of sales: People buy from people they know and like.
What to consider when choosing a camera:
Video Format: Some manufacturers save the on-cam video in proprietary formats that require special software to be converted into standard video formats (.mov, .mp4, .avi, etc.). Look for a cam that natively records in the format understood by your video editing software.
Sound: Look for a cam that has an external MIC-in. See the Audio section in the beginning of the article.
Storage: I like cams that use SD cards for storage instead of internal HD. It’s a preference, but SD cards allow for easy transfer between cam and computer (no cable necessary) and I can carry multiple SD cards in case one fills up and I need more space on-the-fly.
Batteries: Some cams can only be charged via a USB or power cable while others allow for replacement batteries that are charged independently. Having a spare battery for extended shoots comes in handy.
Size: The best camera is the one that you’ll actually use. So a small cam (iPhone or Flip Cam) that fits in your pocket and can be used on a moment’s notice may be exactly what you need. Otherwise, be prepared to carry your equipment with you wherever you go.
Beyond these five points, just make sure you can afford the cam and look for one that can be mounted on a tripod in case you need that functionality (most bloggers will at some point).
#4: Screen Capture
Who said you even need a camera to produce your next video post?
You can use software like Camtasia (for PC) and ScreenFlow (for Mac) to capture your computer screen. Combine it with an audio track and you can create visually rich and useful instructions for your viewership.
Tip: I strongly recommend you wear a pair of headphones with a mic while recording the accompanying audio track. This will eliminate the bulk of the ambient noise.
Honorable Mention: Screenr is a Twitter-integrated free online service that allows you to create screen casts. It’s quick and dirty and exactly how I like ‘em.
Editing a Video
(don’t edit if possible)
#5: Editing on YouTube
If at all possible, for the sake of speed and simplicity, don’t edit your videos.
The next step up from there is to edit (trim) the very beginning and the very end. In fact, you can do this on YouTube.
The next step up from there is to edit (trim) the very beginning and the very end. In fact, you can do this on YouTube.
Trick (sort of): You’ll need to have your video uploaded and sign in with your Google/YouTube credentials.
Confession: YouTube has had a checkered past with online editing. The feature was available a while back but it was pulled due to molasses-on-a-cold-day qualities of its “speed.”
Now that YouTube is owned by Google, the powerful infrastructure is there to support simple editing capabilities. No, this feature is not part of YouTube-proper, but it’s available under the “sandbox” area which can be accessed here.
YouTube has a really good help section that gives you the basic info you need to create effective videos, from formatting and editing to lighting and split screens. See here.
Trick: Make sure your URL is the first line in the description of the video. This will make it easy for people to locate and visit your virtual real estate. See the link here as the very first line in the description field below.
Optionally, you can embed your website’s URL in the video itself; however, you’ll need to use a locally installed video editing app to do this. See next section.
#6: Editing Using Locally Installed Apps
MovieMaker (on Windows) and iMovie (on Mac) are free and quite serviceable.
If you don’t mind spending a few hundred bucks, my favorite apps for editing a video locally are Camtasia (for PC) and ScreenFlow (for Mac).
Trick: Yes. The same apps that allow you to capture your screen also allow for basic (but sufficient) video editing as well.
These two apps are quick, easy and intuitive. Here are the links to those tutorials again.
More advanced solutions include Final Cut (Express and Pro versions) for Mac and Sony Vegas Studio HD for PC.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a great (and free) online training resource for Final Cut.
Check out this course by Israel Hyman. The course consists of 16 wonderful and free video tutorials.
Larger Implications: The subtle implication of all this is that if it feels like the days of specialization are over, well… you’re right.
Specialization is a concept invented by the cogs of the industrial revolution and it’s NOT a natural state of the human psyche.
Imagine if Leonardo da Vinci specialized only in art. The world of science and architecture would have a gaping hole in it.
My point?
We all need to become jacks of all trades and masters of few. It’s not enough to be an amazing real estate agent or a photographer; you must also become an effective content producer.
Distribution Channels
#7: YouTube
YouTube is the second largest search engine. That should speak volumes in terms of the significance and importance of having a presence on YouTube. The other important factor is that YouTube is a social networking site on par with Facebook. You can make friends on YouTube (subscribe to channels) and others can make friends with you (subscribe to your channel).
YouTube allows you to tag your videos, share them easily on other sites (Twitter, Facebook, etc.), and it’s as socially integrated as a site gets. There are two very solid arguments to focus your strategic efforts ONLY on YouTube (basically ignoring other platforms like Viddler or Vimeo).
YouTube is the largest and arguably best integrated with Google and other colossal Internet hubs (in fact, YouTube IS an Internet hub of its own). If mastering multiple platforms seems like an overwhelming task, you would be well-advised to focus your blogging efforts on YouTube alone.
OK, Dino. I hear what you’re saying. But what kind of things should I put on YouTube anyways?
Well, here are some ideas.
#8: Other Distribution Options
blip.tv
blip.tv is not your average bear. The focus is on episodic content and the unique feature of blip.tv is that it can distribute your episodes to other video distribution sites (like YouTube, Vimeo, etc.).
Assuming your content qualifies, your episodes can be viewed via cable service providers (on TV) who’ve partnered with blip.tv.
Vimeo
Vimeo was established in 2004 (one year before YouTube) and it’s a solid alternative to YouTube geared toward skilled content producers. Vimeo doesn’t allow commercial, gaming or pornography videos; or anything NOT created by the user to be hosted on the site.
As per Wikipedia: As of March 2010, Vimeo has over 3 million members and an average of more than 16,000 new videos uploaded daily. Roughly 10% of uploads are in HD.
Viddler
Viddler allows you to make a comment at any point in the video. Very cool and unique feature.
Videos uploaded under the free service have advertising automatically overlaid, which is kind of lame.
The service does come with powerful paid options (detailed analytics, priority encoding, HD encoding, iTunes support, branding and control over advertising, including a revenue-sharing option).
In other words, hold off on using Viddler until you’ve established your video blog as the powerhouse it deserves to be.
Honorable mention: TubeMogul can distribute your videos far and wide (to other video distribution hubs like YouTube, Viddler, Vimeo, etc.) and provides powerful statistical analysis and even geographic tracking. Most advanced features are pay-to-play, of course.
The Secret Sauce
#9: Blog/YouTube Integration
This section is strictly for owners of self-hosted WordPress blogs. I will recommend 2+ WordPress plugins that are seldom used yet provide a powerful integration between your blog and YouTube.
Genki YouTube Comments plugin
After uploading your video to YouTube, you did remember to embed it as a blog post in your piece of web real estate, right?
If your tags are useful, your descriptions accurate and your content fascinating, you’re likely to receive comments on it. Why not “feed” those comments back to your blog using Genki?
Smart YouTube
Smart YouTube is a WordPress YouTube plugin that allows you to easily insert YouTube videos/playlists in your post, comments and in RSS feeds.
But wait…there is more…
The success of your videos will depend not only on the quality of the content. Your video blog should be easily shared and content seamlessly posted on other social hubs (like Facebook, StumbleUpon, etc.).
To that end, you may want to consider these additional useful plugins:
#10: When You’re Ready to Go Pro
This entire post was focused on the do-it-yourself crowd. When you’re ready to go pro and enlist help from people who have the deep know-how, there are three people whose work I’m personally familiar with and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend.
Full disclosure: While I’ve worked in one capacity or another with two of these content creators, it was strictly a labor of love and no money has exchanged hands at any time.
TWTMedia
TWTMedia is Tony Brokenborough, the man and the brains behind 2wheeltips.com (Facebook-like social site for motorcycle enthusiasts with a heavy educational slant).
Here are a few challenges Tony has had to overcome that you might benefit from if you enlist his services:
Motorcycle videos present a unique challenge in terms of not only shooting but also post-production stabilization processing due to vibrations introduced by the motorcycle.
One of the major drawbacks of having your videos hosted on YouTube is that YouTube might end up playing your competitors’ ads over your video content. You have no control over this and it can prove to be a case of your content working for your competitor.
Tony has figured out how to have complete and total control over the video content to the extent where he is playing the role of YouTube-like service to websites that feature his high-end quality motorcycle videos—and Tony is the one “feeding” the ads.
TWTMedia also specializes in Facebook fan page customization, particularly in the realm of Facebook/video integration.
Graphic Planet
Graphic Planet is Kenn Bell. If you decide to visit The Dog Files (Kenn’s labor of love and an effective showcase for his skills), you’ll find TV-ready 10-minute episodes, production values of which are head-and-shoulders above your average video blog.
In addition to creating killer video content, Kenn really knows how to tap into the power of the niche. Kenn’s latest video honoring Hero Dogs of 9/11 blew up among dog people.
Over 100,000 views (in less than 2 weeks) and 4000 of his closest Facebook friends shared his video on their Facebook walls.
Kenn’s magic is that he’s able to take your modest budget for a video shoot and churn out an episode that looks like a million bucks.
Last but certainly not least is…
Dan Perez Films
Dan’s work is awesome. It’s fresh, fun and addictive. Check out the brains behind Dan Perez Films video.
It doesn’t take much to fall in love with Dan’s video creations. I guess the fact that he’s an award-winning filmmaker, video producer, father and husband to a rock star doesn’t hurt either.
All three of these gentlemen are not only amazing content creators whose medium happens to be video, but all three have a deep understanding of the social media space and can help your company develop the right strategy for online video distribution.
#11: Bonus Tip: Skype, Skype Baby
One of the most underutilized methods of creating video content is having a sit-down with an expert in your field and recording the entire conversation. However, experts are often far away and that can present a challenge. In comes Skype.
Trick: In addition to Skype, you’ll need an application that can capture streaming video/audio.
Two apps I’ve used are:
You can schedule a Skype interview with someone on the other side of the planet and record the entire conversation. What a great way to develop content and provide a service to your viewers as well as a platform for the expert. Because the interview is recorded, you can edit audio and video in post-production, trim the fat, add an intro if necessary and fine-tune the audio levels.
Here is a Skype interview Tony and I did with motorcycle legend David Hough using Skype and Call Recorder.
Honorable mention:
wetoku allows you to record and share a conversation between two people. The drawback is that you don’t have as much editing control over the content.
What do you think? I’m sure there’s an amazing resource, application or perhaps a technique that I’ve missed. Something you’ve had experience with and found tremendously useful. Add your thoughts in the comments box below.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Amplify.com - A New Source for Quality Content
I recently read a well written piece by Elijah Young on Amplify.com titled:
Can Amplify.com Help You Find Great Content?, Published on September 21, 2010.
See what you think.
Can Amplify.com Help You Find Great Content?
Most of us use the Internet every day. Whether for work, school or play, the Internet is woven into the very fabric of our lives. Although we spend so much of our time online, we rarely give much thought to what actually makes up the content of the Internet.
Let’s be clear, the Internet is really divided into three types of stuff: (1) terribly addictive, uncomfortably funny or tremendously valuable content, (2) average, run-of-the-mill, “I already knew that” -type content and finally (3) utter crap.
As a marketer, you’ve created content in all three buckets before (nobody bats 1.000…), and as a web surfer, you know that the Internet is almost 99.999% composed of bucket #3.
No, seriously, the Internet is almost completely filled with useless, boring content that probably only appealed to the one person that made it.
Not to be a downer, but I only harp on this fact to say that I had a dream. I had a dream that I lived in a world where the Internet was only filled with interesting, valuable and funny content.
Things that would make me look 100 times smarter than I am, and content that would make my potential customers flock to my accounts and talk to me for days about whatever I had shared.
Then one day, I was asked to review Amplify.com, and I thought my dreams had come true…
Yes… that is a water cooler.
Ampli-Who Dot What?
On the surface, Amplify.com just seems like another site that wants you to share what you like (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) and connects you with friends who do the same. The front page graphic gives off a music site feel. I even thought it was a bit rock-star (like myself)… until I saw the water cooler in the middle of the crowd.
Amplify.com is as simple as the graphic on the front page suggests. They want you to share interesting things from the Internet with your peers, but only “water cooler-worthy” stuff. More on that in a second…
What Can It Do?
Like Twitter, But Longer
Amplify.com lets you microblog just like Twitter, but your limit is 500 characters. The days of showing restraint online are numbered.
Blog Via Email
You can post content (blogs, snippets, photos, etc.) to your Amplify stream via email. Amplify.com gives you a personal email address to send content to, which will automatically add that content to your stream. Unlike other sites with this feature, Amplify.com doesn’t make you memorize a 6,000-character email address. You have a short convenient address customized to your username. I consider that a victory for the little guy.
Don’t try to post to my blog. I’m keeping my eye on you guys…
Find Content Based On Subject
Want to find all of the best content for social media? Easy. Just click “social media” and browse the best stuff. There are several categories to choose from and the content is sorted chronologically.
What’s The Main Event?
Ok, I’ll be honest; none of these features by themselves are impressive. You can do all of these things on Facebook without ditching your friends and setting up another profile (which we all LOVE to do… right?). Fortunately, Amplify.com redeems itself from a life of redundancy by adding one simple feature that can save the entire Internet. Interested? Let me explain.
Remember when I said that the Internet is 99% utter crap? That’s true, but if we’re really being honest, even the really good articles that we read are at least 30% filler (not this one, though J). It reminds me of a lesson I learned when I took a speed-reading class:
“There are plenty of good books to read, but more importantly, there are plenty of good chapters to read.”
Think about that. What if you could share a fantastic article without having to share the part that isn’t amazing? Amplify.com has the answer. They allow you to clip any section of any site and share only that section on Amplify.com, or one of the several social networks that you can post to automatically.
Amplify.com’s clip tool in action.
Find a great couple of paragraphs in a New York Times article? Great, only share that section. Find a blog with three great tips? Take the tips, leave the rest.
Amplify.com has given us a chance to trim the fat off of the Internet. Yes, my heart just fluttered.
This is a TechCrunch article clipped for Amplify.com, all fluff removed (no offense, TechCrunch).
Why I’m Not Doing A Cartwheel Right Now
Unfortunately, it’s not all butterflies and candy corn with Amplify.com. While bringing us one of the greatest tools online, they’ve also allowed some of the tools that kinda make the Internet suck in the first place.
The site needs a filtering option. I click on a popular topic and about half of the options are in a language that I can’t understand, and that’s bad news. Chronological order is OK, but if the section is called “popular topics,” I expect the links to be… you know… popular. That leads me to my real point.
Amplify.com is a great site, but it would be amazing with a ranking system. The problem with the Internet is that anyone can post anything on it and you have to sift through the junk to get to the goods. Amplify.com’s clip functionality is useless if I still have to sort through everyone’s junk to get to the best clips.
Allowing the site’s users not only to comment (they allow this already) but also to rank content would really “Amplify” the best clips and move the site to the “water cooler-talk” level that the front page suggests.
Final Thoughts
As with most dreams, my love affair with Amplify.com was slightly soured by having to sift through so many posts. As with any new site, there will be kinks along the way. And while there is a “Recommend” feature, it works more like a retweet than a content judgment system, which is what it would take for me to really like it.
Amplify.com has a bright future ahead of it, and the issues I see now seem more of the “growing pain” variety than the “death knell” variety. As of today, Amplify.com scores a 7 out of 10.
Have you used Amplify.com yet? What did you think about it? Do you know of another site with the “clip” functionality? Have a site that you’d like to see reviewed? Let us know in the box below!
Can Amplify.com Help You Find Great Content?, Published on September 21, 2010.
See what you think.
Can Amplify.com Help You Find Great Content?
Most of us use the Internet every day. Whether for work, school or play, the Internet is woven into the very fabric of our lives. Although we spend so much of our time online, we rarely give much thought to what actually makes up the content of the Internet.
Let’s be clear, the Internet is really divided into three types of stuff: (1) terribly addictive, uncomfortably funny or tremendously valuable content, (2) average, run-of-the-mill, “I already knew that” -type content and finally (3) utter crap.
As a marketer, you’ve created content in all three buckets before (nobody bats 1.000…), and as a web surfer, you know that the Internet is almost 99.999% composed of bucket #3.
No, seriously, the Internet is almost completely filled with useless, boring content that probably only appealed to the one person that made it.
Not to be a downer, but I only harp on this fact to say that I had a dream. I had a dream that I lived in a world where the Internet was only filled with interesting, valuable and funny content.
Things that would make me look 100 times smarter than I am, and content that would make my potential customers flock to my accounts and talk to me for days about whatever I had shared.
Then one day, I was asked to review Amplify.com, and I thought my dreams had come true…
Yes… that is a water cooler.
Ampli-Who Dot What?
On the surface, Amplify.com just seems like another site that wants you to share what you like (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) and connects you with friends who do the same. The front page graphic gives off a music site feel. I even thought it was a bit rock-star (like myself)… until I saw the water cooler in the middle of the crowd.
Amplify.com is as simple as the graphic on the front page suggests. They want you to share interesting things from the Internet with your peers, but only “water cooler-worthy” stuff. More on that in a second…
What Can It Do?
Like Twitter, But Longer
Amplify.com lets you microblog just like Twitter, but your limit is 500 characters. The days of showing restraint online are numbered.
Blog Via Email
You can post content (blogs, snippets, photos, etc.) to your Amplify stream via email. Amplify.com gives you a personal email address to send content to, which will automatically add that content to your stream. Unlike other sites with this feature, Amplify.com doesn’t make you memorize a 6,000-character email address. You have a short convenient address customized to your username. I consider that a victory for the little guy.
Don’t try to post to my blog. I’m keeping my eye on you guys…
Find Content Based On Subject
Want to find all of the best content for social media? Easy. Just click “social media” and browse the best stuff. There are several categories to choose from and the content is sorted chronologically.
What’s The Main Event?
Ok, I’ll be honest; none of these features by themselves are impressive. You can do all of these things on Facebook without ditching your friends and setting up another profile (which we all LOVE to do… right?). Fortunately, Amplify.com redeems itself from a life of redundancy by adding one simple feature that can save the entire Internet. Interested? Let me explain.
Remember when I said that the Internet is 99% utter crap? That’s true, but if we’re really being honest, even the really good articles that we read are at least 30% filler (not this one, though J). It reminds me of a lesson I learned when I took a speed-reading class:
“There are plenty of good books to read, but more importantly, there are plenty of good chapters to read.”
Think about that. What if you could share a fantastic article without having to share the part that isn’t amazing? Amplify.com has the answer. They allow you to clip any section of any site and share only that section on Amplify.com, or one of the several social networks that you can post to automatically.
Amplify.com’s clip tool in action.
Find a great couple of paragraphs in a New York Times article? Great, only share that section. Find a blog with three great tips? Take the tips, leave the rest.
Amplify.com has given us a chance to trim the fat off of the Internet. Yes, my heart just fluttered.
This is a TechCrunch article clipped for Amplify.com, all fluff removed (no offense, TechCrunch).
Why I’m Not Doing A Cartwheel Right Now
Unfortunately, it’s not all butterflies and candy corn with Amplify.com. While bringing us one of the greatest tools online, they’ve also allowed some of the tools that kinda make the Internet suck in the first place.
The site needs a filtering option. I click on a popular topic and about half of the options are in a language that I can’t understand, and that’s bad news. Chronological order is OK, but if the section is called “popular topics,” I expect the links to be… you know… popular. That leads me to my real point.
Amplify.com is a great site, but it would be amazing with a ranking system. The problem with the Internet is that anyone can post anything on it and you have to sift through the junk to get to the goods. Amplify.com’s clip functionality is useless if I still have to sort through everyone’s junk to get to the best clips.
Allowing the site’s users not only to comment (they allow this already) but also to rank content would really “Amplify” the best clips and move the site to the “water cooler-talk” level that the front page suggests.
Final Thoughts
As with most dreams, my love affair with Amplify.com was slightly soured by having to sift through so many posts. As with any new site, there will be kinks along the way. And while there is a “Recommend” feature, it works more like a retweet than a content judgment system, which is what it would take for me to really like it.
Amplify.com has a bright future ahead of it, and the issues I see now seem more of the “growing pain” variety than the “death knell” variety. As of today, Amplify.com scores a 7 out of 10.
Have you used Amplify.com yet? What did you think about it? Do you know of another site with the “clip” functionality? Have a site that you’d like to see reviewed? Let us know in the box below!
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
The New Digg is Now Online
You may have heard that renowned social media sharing site: Digg ( located at: http://www.digg.com/ ) has been relaunched yesterday with some major upgrades and changes.
No doubt a lot will be written about and spoken about in the days and weeks ahead, however there are a couple of the more significant changes that I thought I'd briefly touch on.
Firstly it should be noted that although in the past Digg rule makers were absolutely against people submitting their own work. So for example a blogger could not submit their own posting. Thank fully this rule has now changed and so anyone can submit anything they choose to. Common sense preveils at last.
As well the other intersting change is that you can now set accounts and other people can follow you in the same way that you might follow someone on Twitter.
Suffice to say if you havent had a look at Digg before or it's been a while between drinks, this may be an opportune time to check out and start leveraging the power of the new look Digg site. Enjoy.
No doubt a lot will be written about and spoken about in the days and weeks ahead, however there are a couple of the more significant changes that I thought I'd briefly touch on.
Firstly it should be noted that although in the past Digg rule makers were absolutely against people submitting their own work. So for example a blogger could not submit their own posting. Thank fully this rule has now changed and so anyone can submit anything they choose to. Common sense preveils at last.
As well the other intersting change is that you can now set accounts and other people can follow you in the same way that you might follow someone on Twitter.
Suffice to say if you havent had a look at Digg before or it's been a while between drinks, this may be an opportune time to check out and start leveraging the power of the new look Digg site. Enjoy.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Does Someone You Know Qualify for Free Nationally Accredited Business Training
I have no doubt that one of the outcomes of the recent daily focus and general frenzy around the Federal Election has been that one of the more attractive and useful Government initiatives has gone largely under the radar for a lot of people.
Having personally spoken with many people about it, I was amazed that no one had heard about it prior to our discussion. And so for this reason I am writing down some thoughts in the hope that you may be able to benefit from it.
Essentially there is Government funding available for the nationally accredited, Diploma of Management course which is usually valued at around $3500. However as an incentive for businesses to have their
personnel trained, eligible candidates may receive the training free.
Sadly with the high levels of mortality within the services sector and on the back of the difficult economic times most businesses have experienced over the last couple of years it is not surprising that funding has been made available to raise the bar in terms of key management and leadership skill s, as a key driver of improving business productivity and outcomes.
However the need to up skill people quickly and in a way that fits in effectively with their work commitments is also as we know very important and has been well thought out, so the Diploma of Management has now been streamlined and can now be done over four days where the student does one day a month for four months.
What Does the Diploma Cover?
The Diploma is made of eight key units of which two are delivered over each of the four days.
Specifically they are:
Managing Personal work priorities and Professional Development
Show Leadership in the workplace
Managing an Operational Plan
Facilitating Continuous Improvement in your business
Leading and Managing a Sales Team(s)
Providing Mentoring and coaching within you Business or workplace
Managing Quality Customer Service
Managing Budgets and Financial Plans.
What are the benefits to my business of my staff doing the Diploma of Management?
There are several key benefits for any business that up skills its staff with such a robust course.
To begin with the diploma helps to allow you to carefully plan out your succession planning within one or multiple practices by ensuring that people are appropriately trained with the commensurate level of leadership and management skills required to be effective.
As well, training is a great retention tool for quality, high performing and high potential staff that we want to keep. Almost invariably people have an expectation for more and better training as part of their personal development. This in turn demonstrates to them that they are a valued member of the team that is being developed for bigger and better things down the track.
It should also be noted that if any staff member then wanted to progress to a full business degree, doing this course will mean they only have to do the second and third years of the Bachelors degree.
Finally this type of training will make the individual more effective, a better leader and more strategic in their thinking about the business and where possible opportunities for growth may lay in the future.
Is every state eligible for Diploma of Management funding?
Sadly no. Not every state is eligible for this funding and even within those that are,
there are differences in qualifying criteria and the rewards on offer for businesses.
If you live in Victoria:
The business has a net gain of $2500 for each student who meets the criteria on completion of the Diploma of Management. In every instance they must be an Australian citizen who works full time or part time over 13 hours per week. Beyond this it is further broken down by age?
For people under 25, who have not completed a degree or diploma, the business receives $2500 for each student that completes the course.
For people 25 and over, who have not completed a degree or diploma and have started with the firm within the last weeks, the business receives $2500 for each student that completes the course.
If you live in Queensland, South Australia, the ACT or Tasmania:
The business can get staff trained up in the Diploma of Management for free if they meet the specified criteria as follows:
Regardless of age, the candidate must be an Australian citizen who works full time or part time over 13 hours per week. As well they cannot have completed a degree or diploma. As well they cannot have completed a qualification higher than a Certificate III in the last 7 years that was not completed within 2 years of finishing high school. If these criteria are met, the course will be free.
If you live in New South Wales or Western Australia:
There is no funding available for the Diploma of Management at this time; although this may change in the future as funding is reviewed.
Suffice to say, if you personally have any interest in this type of training for you or your staff please or think this may be of use to someone you know, please as Molly would say "do them a favor" and forward this post on to them. As well anyone should feel free to call me and I’d be pleased to discuss the criteria with you and direct you more precisely based on your needs and situation.
My direct contact number is: 0413 297 617.
I hope this can help you and your business as we all continue to pursue continual improvement and grow.
Having personally spoken with many people about it, I was amazed that no one had heard about it prior to our discussion. And so for this reason I am writing down some thoughts in the hope that you may be able to benefit from it.
Essentially there is Government funding available for the nationally accredited, Diploma of Management course which is usually valued at around $3500. However as an incentive for businesses to have their
personnel trained, eligible candidates may receive the training free.
Sadly with the high levels of mortality within the services sector and on the back of the difficult economic times most businesses have experienced over the last couple of years it is not surprising that funding has been made available to raise the bar in terms of key management and leadership skill s, as a key driver of improving business productivity and outcomes.
However the need to up skill people quickly and in a way that fits in effectively with their work commitments is also as we know very important and has been well thought out, so the Diploma of Management has now been streamlined and can now be done over four days where the student does one day a month for four months.
What Does the Diploma Cover?
The Diploma is made of eight key units of which two are delivered over each of the four days.
Specifically they are:
Managing Personal work priorities and Professional Development
Show Leadership in the workplace
Managing an Operational Plan
Facilitating Continuous Improvement in your business
Leading and Managing a Sales Team(s)
Providing Mentoring and coaching within you Business or workplace
Managing Quality Customer Service
Managing Budgets and Financial Plans.
What are the benefits to my business of my staff doing the Diploma of Management?
There are several key benefits for any business that up skills its staff with such a robust course.
To begin with the diploma helps to allow you to carefully plan out your succession planning within one or multiple practices by ensuring that people are appropriately trained with the commensurate level of leadership and management skills required to be effective.
As well, training is a great retention tool for quality, high performing and high potential staff that we want to keep. Almost invariably people have an expectation for more and better training as part of their personal development. This in turn demonstrates to them that they are a valued member of the team that is being developed for bigger and better things down the track.
It should also be noted that if any staff member then wanted to progress to a full business degree, doing this course will mean they only have to do the second and third years of the Bachelors degree.
Finally this type of training will make the individual more effective, a better leader and more strategic in their thinking about the business and where possible opportunities for growth may lay in the future.
Is every state eligible for Diploma of Management funding?
Sadly no. Not every state is eligible for this funding and even within those that are,
there are differences in qualifying criteria and the rewards on offer for businesses.
If you live in Victoria:
The business has a net gain of $2500 for each student who meets the criteria on completion of the Diploma of Management. In every instance they must be an Australian citizen who works full time or part time over 13 hours per week. Beyond this it is further broken down by age?
For people under 25, who have not completed a degree or diploma, the business receives $2500 for each student that completes the course.
For people 25 and over, who have not completed a degree or diploma and have started with the firm within the last weeks, the business receives $2500 for each student that completes the course.
If you live in Queensland, South Australia, the ACT or Tasmania:
The business can get staff trained up in the Diploma of Management for free if they meet the specified criteria as follows:
Regardless of age, the candidate must be an Australian citizen who works full time or part time over 13 hours per week. As well they cannot have completed a degree or diploma. As well they cannot have completed a qualification higher than a Certificate III in the last 7 years that was not completed within 2 years of finishing high school. If these criteria are met, the course will be free.
If you live in New South Wales or Western Australia:
There is no funding available for the Diploma of Management at this time; although this may change in the future as funding is reviewed.
Suffice to say, if you personally have any interest in this type of training for you or your staff please or think this may be of use to someone you know, please as Molly would say "do them a favor" and forward this post on to them. As well anyone should feel free to call me and I’d be pleased to discuss the criteria with you and direct you more precisely based on your needs and situation.
My direct contact number is: 0413 297 617.
I hope this can help you and your business as we all continue to pursue continual improvement and grow.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Customer Service 2.0
Following up from an earlier article on customer service from the February 2009 issue titled: Are You Being Served, I’m pleased and pleasantly surprised by the tremendous response I have received from people that have read it and how much of a wake up call it has been for them to initiate some action.
For example one business owner told me that he decided on doing some market research to gain an insight into how his customers felt about the level of customer service they were receiving, which to his disappointment revealed some disturbing feedback regarding widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo.
This type of feedback although upsetting, is none the less particularly relevant for any business when you consider the findings of the well known and often quoted landmark TARP study on the effects of customer dissatisfaction through poor customer service.
It confirmed what most people suspected to be true about the ripple down effect of poor customer service and the inevitable reaction of the dissatisfied customers.
The study found that every very dissatisfied customer would tell ten people about their experience who inturn would tell another five people on average. Do the maths. For every complaint you know about, up to one thousand people may be hearing about it.
Problem number 1. The same data showed that for every complaint made, around nineteen are not made. This rings of truth to me because most people are conflict averse and will try to avoid direct conflict unless they have no other option.
Problem number 2. The results of the TARP study were released well before the advent of social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook, where we know that around 85% of people are likely to trust their respective peers that they network with. As little Wednesday Adams says in the Addams Family movie, “be frightened. Be very, very frightened”.
As a result these numbers may quite possibly be conservative and underplay the scope of the potential harmful effects of ongoing, poor customer service will bring.
And as for legal remedies, well consider that for deformation to be present, you need to show that the statement being made is incorrect and that the intention of the person making it was do harm. The only real defence is a proactive offence that completely lives, breathes and delivers quality, consistent customer service every time that people will rave about.
Since the earlier article, along with some dreadful examples I wont talk about, I’m pleased to say I’ve also seen some really first rate customer service. Here are some examples. Can any of the principles be applied to your business or brand?
1. Having recently traded my old Nokia for a new Blackberry Bold I one unwanted side effect. Namely that by deleting my emails on my phone (and not on my laptop), I would clog of the server and stop receiving emails.
I asked by my telephone company and the retail outlet for help but was politely ignored by both. Help cam from my ISP of all places (Spacelink Connect) who generously invited me to their office and fixed the problem free. Of charge while I waited. Key take out: When you can help someone, do so.
2. Like a lot of others this time of year my trees have grown and are causing problems with blocked drains and gutters. Accordingly I called Taylor’s Tree and Stump Removals and booked a time. The day prior they let me know they had some people out and would need to reschedule which I did. Later that week a written apology and $20 Bunnings voucher arrived in the mail.
Key take out: When it’s your fault, take accountability and show your remorse.
3. Finally an example around income protection insurance. Now for people not familiar with this area, the bottom line is that once you have formally applied for IPI with one insurer, there is a duty of disclosure to tell any subsequent insurer you approach about it, which they can then check. I therefore wanted to know if someone with my particular (albeit unremarkable) medical history would have any issues obtaining it without having to go on record formally. I’m pleased to say that Halstead Financial Services were very helpful and conducted a pre-assessment, which meant they asked about the profile generically without having to provide a name.
Key take out: Give your clients and customers greater control.
In each of the three examples above, the firms did not know me and definitely had no idea they would be later cited in an article extolling the virtues of customer service. In each case their responses were customer focused, fair and reasonable. No customer could expect any more and no customer should ever have to put up with anything less.
For example one business owner told me that he decided on doing some market research to gain an insight into how his customers felt about the level of customer service they were receiving, which to his disappointment revealed some disturbing feedback regarding widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo.
This type of feedback although upsetting, is none the less particularly relevant for any business when you consider the findings of the well known and often quoted landmark TARP study on the effects of customer dissatisfaction through poor customer service.
It confirmed what most people suspected to be true about the ripple down effect of poor customer service and the inevitable reaction of the dissatisfied customers.
The study found that every very dissatisfied customer would tell ten people about their experience who inturn would tell another five people on average. Do the maths. For every complaint you know about, up to one thousand people may be hearing about it.
Problem number 1. The same data showed that for every complaint made, around nineteen are not made. This rings of truth to me because most people are conflict averse and will try to avoid direct conflict unless they have no other option.
Problem number 2. The results of the TARP study were released well before the advent of social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook, where we know that around 85% of people are likely to trust their respective peers that they network with. As little Wednesday Adams says in the Addams Family movie, “be frightened. Be very, very frightened”.
As a result these numbers may quite possibly be conservative and underplay the scope of the potential harmful effects of ongoing, poor customer service will bring.
And as for legal remedies, well consider that for deformation to be present, you need to show that the statement being made is incorrect and that the intention of the person making it was do harm. The only real defence is a proactive offence that completely lives, breathes and delivers quality, consistent customer service every time that people will rave about.
Since the earlier article, along with some dreadful examples I wont talk about, I’m pleased to say I’ve also seen some really first rate customer service. Here are some examples. Can any of the principles be applied to your business or brand?
1. Having recently traded my old Nokia for a new Blackberry Bold I one unwanted side effect. Namely that by deleting my emails on my phone (and not on my laptop), I would clog of the server and stop receiving emails.
I asked by my telephone company and the retail outlet for help but was politely ignored by both. Help cam from my ISP of all places (Spacelink Connect) who generously invited me to their office and fixed the problem free. Of charge while I waited. Key take out: When you can help someone, do so.
2. Like a lot of others this time of year my trees have grown and are causing problems with blocked drains and gutters. Accordingly I called Taylor’s Tree and Stump Removals and booked a time. The day prior they let me know they had some people out and would need to reschedule which I did. Later that week a written apology and $20 Bunnings voucher arrived in the mail.
Key take out: When it’s your fault, take accountability and show your remorse.
3. Finally an example around income protection insurance. Now for people not familiar with this area, the bottom line is that once you have formally applied for IPI with one insurer, there is a duty of disclosure to tell any subsequent insurer you approach about it, which they can then check. I therefore wanted to know if someone with my particular (albeit unremarkable) medical history would have any issues obtaining it without having to go on record formally. I’m pleased to say that Halstead Financial Services were very helpful and conducted a pre-assessment, which meant they asked about the profile generically without having to provide a name.
Key take out: Give your clients and customers greater control.
In each of the three examples above, the firms did not know me and definitely had no idea they would be later cited in an article extolling the virtues of customer service. In each case their responses were customer focused, fair and reasonable. No customer could expect any more and no customer should ever have to put up with anything less.
Friday, August 6, 2010
14 Attention Grabbing Tactics for Launching a New Business Blog
Are you doing enough to ensure that your blog is up to scrtach. You have some small amount of competition of course with over 12o million other blogs already out there competing for people's time and energy. So what are some things you should be routinely trying to do to be certain yours is a blog others will read, follow and possibly even share with others. Here are some thoghts by Denise Wakeman from August 5, 2010 you might find useful. Enjoy.
So you’ve created a blog for your business. Now what? You’re probably asking yourself, “How do people find out about my new blog?”
The simple answer is: You have to promote your blog and let people know it exists.
Optimizing your blog for search engines is critical, but just like any website, product, book or service you create, you have to promote the launch of a new blog.
There are a lot of ways to promote a new blog and I’m sharing 14 tactics to help you get the word out about your new baby. Heck, you could use these tactics for an established blog as well if you want a boost in traffic and subscribers.
But before you tell the world your blog exists, make sure you have completed these essential tasks first:
Does your masthead (banner) make it easy for new readers to know what your blog is about and if it’s right for them (target audience)?
Is your name as author/publisher easy to find?
Do you have an About/Contact page?
Do you have subscription options (RSS and email)?
Do you have a call to action to get more info (join your mailing list, get a free report, etc.)?
Do you have social sharing buttons on your posts?
Do you have links to your social networking profiles?
Do you have comments enabled?
Do you have 7 to 10 posts published?
Point #9 is important because you don’t want to send people to a blog with only one or two posts. New readers will want to get a sense of your style, content and expertise before they commit to subscribing. I strongly recommend having a minimum of seven posts published before you start promoting your new blog.
Implement the Obvious First
Before I get to the 14 creative ways to promote your blog, implement the obvious and see #12, 13 and 14 in this article.
Syndicate your blog content to your Twitter stream.
Link your blog to your Facebook business page.
Link your blog to your LinkedIn profile.
Submit your blog to the appropriate blog directories.
Write and post a media release.
Send an email announcement to your list.
The Not-So-Obvious
When I was thinking about this topic, I decided to “tap the wisdom of the crowd” to get the best of the best ideas. I posted the following question on LinkedIn Answers:
Question posted on LinkedIn Answers.
There were 27 responses in 7 days. There were many similar recommendations and a few that stated the obvious (like using social media and writing engaging content). I’ve culled through them and offer you a selection of tips I feel are the most effective for launching your new business blog.
#1: Host a Live Streaming Video Event
When Mike Stelzner launched Social Media Examiner, he created buzz and a lot of traffic by hosting four back-to-back video chats with the initial contributors (me, Mari Smith, Jason Falls and Chris Garrett).
#2: Use Offline Marketing
Boris Mahovac recommends going offline and sending postcards to your existing clients, asking them to promote your new blog to their contacts. Using a unique URL will allow you to track new visitors/signups, and this can be a way for you to reward the one client who sends the most traffic to your new blog. You need to give your clients an incentive to promote your new blog—say a chance to win an iPad, or something more expensive, depending on the business (model).
#3: Create a Video to Promote Your Blog
Apryl Parcher suggested using Animoto.com to create a video about your blog. Post it on your YouTube channel and Facebook page. Send the video link to your email list as well. Several others also mentioned creating videos and with the popularity of video, I encourage you to include it in your launch plan.
#4: Use Remote Blogging Sites to Extend the Reach of Your Content
Brandon Uttley uses Posterous.com to post excerpts from blog posts with links back to his main blog and other social media sites. Remote blogging sites often have high traffic and this puts your content in front of potential new readers.
An excerpt of the original blog post is published on a Posterous blog with a link back to the original post.
#5: Host a Live (In-person) Event for Your Announcement
As Barry Hurd says, “I think a lot of people forget the social part of the media. Launching a new blog is really about reaching through your relationships.” Host a private reception, dinner or cocktail party with industry leaders in your niche. Or, go big and host a meetup or tweetup and cross-promote with a charity. Live events are an opportunity to connect face-to-face, get to know the needs of your target audience and build a lot of goodwill.
#6: Repurpose Your Content
I could relate to Kathi Browne’s suggestion to submit blog posts on article sites like EzineArticles.com. There’s more on repurposing your blog posts here.
#7: Feature Experts
It comes as no surprise that Liz Strauss , a master at building community, shares a tip about featuring other people on your blog. Start an interview series that features experts who folks want to know better. Invite a wide range of people to participate in short interviews that ask unusual and insightful questions. Include the expert’s name in the blog title. Additionally, make heroes of other people who are just starting out. Point out their work as well.
#8: Comment on Other Blogs in Your Niche
This suggestion was offered by quite a few people, and with good reason. As Janet Fouts says, “Commenting on other blogs with useful (not promotional) information and insight can pique the interest of other readers and also build those treasured backlinks.”
#9: Do Some Guest Posting
This idea came up many times as well. There are two sides to this: inviting other bloggers to guest post on your blog and offering to guest post on complementary blogs. Both ways can generate visibility for your blog. The value is in creating connections with colleagues and creating win-win-win for you, other bloggers and your readers. The links and buzz will support your blog launch.
#10: Host a Webinar
Along the lines of a live video chat or an offline event, create a webinar or teleseminar to introduce your blog. Rather than simply announcing your blog, make it a learning experience by teaching or demonstrating an aspect of your expertise. Remind your audience they can continue getting the same great content by subscribing to and reading your blog.
#11: Run a Contest
Dawn Pigoni offered this excellent idea: Run a contest based on the content of the blog. Have an “answer hunt” where the answers to win the prize(s) are found within the blog posts. That will get people reading the quality, content-rich posts while attempting to win a prize. Then use Twitter to post questions and the winner(s).
#12: Host an Online Radio Show
BlogTalkRadio is a popular and free site that provides the tools and foundation for creating your own show. Because of high traffic and the syndication options on Blog Talk Radio, a show focused on your niche could generate an ongoing stream of visitors to your blog. If hosting isn’t for you, most radio hosts are always looking for guests to fill their time slots. No doubt you can find many shows that are in alignment with your blog’s niche.
#13: Create a Related Special Report
Brian Clark of Copyblogger.com shared his secret: Release a valuable piece of “extended content” such as a PDF report or video tutorial (without an opt-in) fairly early after the blog launches. While the content itself is valuable, it also acts as a “sales letter” for subscribing to the blog, due to the promise to keep expanding on the themes presented in the extended content in more detail. This allows you to create a “content event” early. And it’s a natural way to attract long-term subscribers if well done. Just be sure to have the opt-in call to action at the close of the extended content, because that’s the action you want people to take.
#14: Advertise Your Site
Clay Franklin recommends using Craigslist, eBay classifieds and Facebook ads to boost awareness of your new blog. This will depend on your budget. If you do want to spend some advertising dollars, you can test a Google Adwords campaign and see what kind of results you get.
If you were to implement just three or four of these ideas, you would see a boost in visibility, traffic and blog subscribers. Pick the tactics that fit with your business model, style and intended audience and you’re sure to experience success.
Now it’s your turn. What creative tactics have you used or observed to launch a new blog? Share your ideas in the comments box below.
So you’ve created a blog for your business. Now what? You’re probably asking yourself, “How do people find out about my new blog?”
The simple answer is: You have to promote your blog and let people know it exists.
Optimizing your blog for search engines is critical, but just like any website, product, book or service you create, you have to promote the launch of a new blog.
There are a lot of ways to promote a new blog and I’m sharing 14 tactics to help you get the word out about your new baby. Heck, you could use these tactics for an established blog as well if you want a boost in traffic and subscribers.
But before you tell the world your blog exists, make sure you have completed these essential tasks first:
Does your masthead (banner) make it easy for new readers to know what your blog is about and if it’s right for them (target audience)?
Is your name as author/publisher easy to find?
Do you have an About/Contact page?
Do you have subscription options (RSS and email)?
Do you have a call to action to get more info (join your mailing list, get a free report, etc.)?
Do you have social sharing buttons on your posts?
Do you have links to your social networking profiles?
Do you have comments enabled?
Do you have 7 to 10 posts published?
Point #9 is important because you don’t want to send people to a blog with only one or two posts. New readers will want to get a sense of your style, content and expertise before they commit to subscribing. I strongly recommend having a minimum of seven posts published before you start promoting your new blog.
Implement the Obvious First
Before I get to the 14 creative ways to promote your blog, implement the obvious and see #12, 13 and 14 in this article.
Syndicate your blog content to your Twitter stream.
Link your blog to your Facebook business page.
Link your blog to your LinkedIn profile.
Submit your blog to the appropriate blog directories.
Write and post a media release.
Send an email announcement to your list.
The Not-So-Obvious
When I was thinking about this topic, I decided to “tap the wisdom of the crowd” to get the best of the best ideas. I posted the following question on LinkedIn Answers:
Question posted on LinkedIn Answers.
There were 27 responses in 7 days. There were many similar recommendations and a few that stated the obvious (like using social media and writing engaging content). I’ve culled through them and offer you a selection of tips I feel are the most effective for launching your new business blog.
#1: Host a Live Streaming Video Event
When Mike Stelzner launched Social Media Examiner, he created buzz and a lot of traffic by hosting four back-to-back video chats with the initial contributors (me, Mari Smith, Jason Falls and Chris Garrett).
#2: Use Offline Marketing
Boris Mahovac recommends going offline and sending postcards to your existing clients, asking them to promote your new blog to their contacts. Using a unique URL will allow you to track new visitors/signups, and this can be a way for you to reward the one client who sends the most traffic to your new blog. You need to give your clients an incentive to promote your new blog—say a chance to win an iPad, or something more expensive, depending on the business (model).
#3: Create a Video to Promote Your Blog
Apryl Parcher suggested using Animoto.com to create a video about your blog. Post it on your YouTube channel and Facebook page. Send the video link to your email list as well. Several others also mentioned creating videos and with the popularity of video, I encourage you to include it in your launch plan.
#4: Use Remote Blogging Sites to Extend the Reach of Your Content
Brandon Uttley uses Posterous.com to post excerpts from blog posts with links back to his main blog and other social media sites. Remote blogging sites often have high traffic and this puts your content in front of potential new readers.
An excerpt of the original blog post is published on a Posterous blog with a link back to the original post.
#5: Host a Live (In-person) Event for Your Announcement
As Barry Hurd says, “I think a lot of people forget the social part of the media. Launching a new blog is really about reaching through your relationships.” Host a private reception, dinner or cocktail party with industry leaders in your niche. Or, go big and host a meetup or tweetup and cross-promote with a charity. Live events are an opportunity to connect face-to-face, get to know the needs of your target audience and build a lot of goodwill.
#6: Repurpose Your Content
I could relate to Kathi Browne’s suggestion to submit blog posts on article sites like EzineArticles.com. There’s more on repurposing your blog posts here.
#7: Feature Experts
It comes as no surprise that Liz Strauss , a master at building community, shares a tip about featuring other people on your blog. Start an interview series that features experts who folks want to know better. Invite a wide range of people to participate in short interviews that ask unusual and insightful questions. Include the expert’s name in the blog title. Additionally, make heroes of other people who are just starting out. Point out their work as well.
#8: Comment on Other Blogs in Your Niche
This suggestion was offered by quite a few people, and with good reason. As Janet Fouts says, “Commenting on other blogs with useful (not promotional) information and insight can pique the interest of other readers and also build those treasured backlinks.”
#9: Do Some Guest Posting
This idea came up many times as well. There are two sides to this: inviting other bloggers to guest post on your blog and offering to guest post on complementary blogs. Both ways can generate visibility for your blog. The value is in creating connections with colleagues and creating win-win-win for you, other bloggers and your readers. The links and buzz will support your blog launch.
#10: Host a Webinar
Along the lines of a live video chat or an offline event, create a webinar or teleseminar to introduce your blog. Rather than simply announcing your blog, make it a learning experience by teaching or demonstrating an aspect of your expertise. Remind your audience they can continue getting the same great content by subscribing to and reading your blog.
#11: Run a Contest
Dawn Pigoni offered this excellent idea: Run a contest based on the content of the blog. Have an “answer hunt” where the answers to win the prize(s) are found within the blog posts. That will get people reading the quality, content-rich posts while attempting to win a prize. Then use Twitter to post questions and the winner(s).
#12: Host an Online Radio Show
BlogTalkRadio is a popular and free site that provides the tools and foundation for creating your own show. Because of high traffic and the syndication options on Blog Talk Radio, a show focused on your niche could generate an ongoing stream of visitors to your blog. If hosting isn’t for you, most radio hosts are always looking for guests to fill their time slots. No doubt you can find many shows that are in alignment with your blog’s niche.
#13: Create a Related Special Report
Brian Clark of Copyblogger.com shared his secret: Release a valuable piece of “extended content” such as a PDF report or video tutorial (without an opt-in) fairly early after the blog launches. While the content itself is valuable, it also acts as a “sales letter” for subscribing to the blog, due to the promise to keep expanding on the themes presented in the extended content in more detail. This allows you to create a “content event” early. And it’s a natural way to attract long-term subscribers if well done. Just be sure to have the opt-in call to action at the close of the extended content, because that’s the action you want people to take.
#14: Advertise Your Site
Clay Franklin recommends using Craigslist, eBay classifieds and Facebook ads to boost awareness of your new blog. This will depend on your budget. If you do want to spend some advertising dollars, you can test a Google Adwords campaign and see what kind of results you get.
If you were to implement just three or four of these ideas, you would see a boost in visibility, traffic and blog subscribers. Pick the tactics that fit with your business model, style and intended audience and you’re sure to experience success.
Now it’s your turn. What creative tactics have you used or observed to launch a new blog? Share your ideas in the comments box below.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
7 Social Media Marketing Lessons Learned from Hypnosis. By Dan Zarrella
Another great piece by the Social Media Scientist. Over to you Dan.
For over a hundred years people from charlatans to respected academics have been studying the power and uses of hypnosis. Two forms have emerged recently as the most well-researched and effective: clinical hypno-therapy and stage hypnosis, in fact there are many therapists who dabble in entertaining stage hypnosis. As social media marketers, there are many lessons we can learn from the field of trance and suggestion, below are 7 of my favorite.
1. Suggestibility
Suggestibility is a measure of how inclined a person is to act on the suggestions of other people. Research has shown that there is a correlation between how suggestible a person is and how hypnotiseable a person is.
Stage hypnotists spend a lot of effort on identifying the most suggestible people in their audience to bring up on stage. They’ve developed a wide range of quick tests to highlight those people who will demonstrate their abilities to the rest of the crowd, making them more suggestible as well. Clinical practitioners also have tests and scales of suggestibility and hypnotizeability.
In social media it is somewhat difficult to administer traditional stage or clinical tests, but once we understand that people who comply with initial, small requests are likely to engage in later, larger requests we can begin to identify the most suggestible of our audience. Simply asking people to joining mailing lists, ReTweet links, or supply comments are rudimentary forms of suggestibility tests.
2. Social Requests
Experiments conducted on highly suggestible people in 1998 showed that subjects who were given non-hypnotic social requests to send a series of postcards to the experimenters did so more often than those who were given hypnotic suggestions. While the social request subjects said their actions felt more “planned and effort-ful” and less “compulsive,” this seems to indicate that simple social requests can be just as powerful with subjective people as full-on hypnosis.
As marketers we should remember this research when we are constructing our calls-to-action. We can achieve the same levels of compliance as professional hypnotists with well formed social requests, especially when accompanied by the other lessons in this post.
3. Expectancy Manipulation
Clinical studies, including ones done by University of Connecticut researcher Irving Kirsch have shown that by creating the expectations of suggestibility, subjects can be made more suggestible than they’d otherwise be. Experiments were done in which subjects were given baseline suggestibility tests, then shown “evidence” that they were highly suggestible. When the subjects retook the tests, they registered as far more suggestible than they were before. Expectancy manipulations like this have also been show to work for pain, blood pressure and nausea reduction as well as increasing the effect of placebo medications.
One of the most common motivations for sharing content on social media is that people want to increase their personal reputations. As marketers we can take advantage of this, by increasing the expectation that sharing our content will do wonders for our audience’s reputation. One example would be retelling stories of how other people who’ve shared your content got more followers or Facebook friends.
4. Authority
Stage hypnotists work hard to establish an image of authority or “prestige and faith.” They rely on their audience’s belief (and expectations) that they are gifted hypnotists who always get results. They are also very quick to eliminate non-responsive subjects who would erode their effective image.
Memetics researcher Francis Heylighen has pointed out that for an idea to spread it has to come from a source that is authoritative in some regard, so did WWII rumor-weapons experts.
In social media we should work to always appear authoritative, without saying so much our self often. Subtle indications of social proof like high subscriber or follower counts can help.
5. Psychological Barriers
Stage and clinical hypnotists engage typically have a speech they give to their subjects prior to hypnosis called a “preinduction talk.” The idea of the talk is to establish rapport, remove the fears, about hypnosis, and establish favorable expectations.
Developing rapport with your audience as a marketer is generally a long-term strategy, but the more you can align your own interests and motivations with your audience the better. To make your audience identify with you, you need to make it clear that you understand their problems and desires. It is also useful to ingratiate yourself with your audience by remaining humble and frequently commenting on their intelligence. Remarks like “you guys are smarter than I am, so I need your help,” satisfy both the identification and the ingratiation demands.
Our readers understand that every piece of content they share in social media will be viewable by their friends. If you’re asking them share something they might be embarrassed by, do your best to anticipate their social fears and assuage them before you ask them to share.
6. Direct Suggestions
In their 1956 book on hypnosis, Charles Edward Cooke and A.E. Van Vogt discuss how to structure therapeutic suggestions. They give three “rules” that can be applied to social media calls-to-action: “Be Positive,” “Be Specific,” and “Be Detailed.”
In explaining how to alleviate phobias through hypnosis, they explain that by saying “you are not afraid” you are creating a large mental image of “fear” with a small label “not.” Negation requires higher level mental processing to understand, so avoid calls-to-action like “don’t hesitate to ReTweet,” state everything in the positive form.
They also direct the hypnosis operator to be as specific and detailed as possible. For social media calls-to-action this means that we should say things like “ReTweet this article by clicking on this link.” Avoid vague calls to “share” content, describe the action you want your reader to take as specifically as possible.
7. Repetition
Most hypnotic subjects reach deeper levels of trance each time they are inducted by a practitioner and the suggestions they are given likewise increase in power through repetition.
As marketers, not only can we enhance the power of our calls-to-action by repeating them more than once in a single piece of content, but we can also build on their effectiveness across touches with our audience.
What are your thoughts.
Please let us know your comments.
Regards,
Daniele.
For over a hundred years people from charlatans to respected academics have been studying the power and uses of hypnosis. Two forms have emerged recently as the most well-researched and effective: clinical hypno-therapy and stage hypnosis, in fact there are many therapists who dabble in entertaining stage hypnosis. As social media marketers, there are many lessons we can learn from the field of trance and suggestion, below are 7 of my favorite.
1. Suggestibility
Suggestibility is a measure of how inclined a person is to act on the suggestions of other people. Research has shown that there is a correlation between how suggestible a person is and how hypnotiseable a person is.
Stage hypnotists spend a lot of effort on identifying the most suggestible people in their audience to bring up on stage. They’ve developed a wide range of quick tests to highlight those people who will demonstrate their abilities to the rest of the crowd, making them more suggestible as well. Clinical practitioners also have tests and scales of suggestibility and hypnotizeability.
In social media it is somewhat difficult to administer traditional stage or clinical tests, but once we understand that people who comply with initial, small requests are likely to engage in later, larger requests we can begin to identify the most suggestible of our audience. Simply asking people to joining mailing lists, ReTweet links, or supply comments are rudimentary forms of suggestibility tests.
2. Social Requests
Experiments conducted on highly suggestible people in 1998 showed that subjects who were given non-hypnotic social requests to send a series of postcards to the experimenters did so more often than those who were given hypnotic suggestions. While the social request subjects said their actions felt more “planned and effort-ful” and less “compulsive,” this seems to indicate that simple social requests can be just as powerful with subjective people as full-on hypnosis.
As marketers we should remember this research when we are constructing our calls-to-action. We can achieve the same levels of compliance as professional hypnotists with well formed social requests, especially when accompanied by the other lessons in this post.
3. Expectancy Manipulation
Clinical studies, including ones done by University of Connecticut researcher Irving Kirsch have shown that by creating the expectations of suggestibility, subjects can be made more suggestible than they’d otherwise be. Experiments were done in which subjects were given baseline suggestibility tests, then shown “evidence” that they were highly suggestible. When the subjects retook the tests, they registered as far more suggestible than they were before. Expectancy manipulations like this have also been show to work for pain, blood pressure and nausea reduction as well as increasing the effect of placebo medications.
One of the most common motivations for sharing content on social media is that people want to increase their personal reputations. As marketers we can take advantage of this, by increasing the expectation that sharing our content will do wonders for our audience’s reputation. One example would be retelling stories of how other people who’ve shared your content got more followers or Facebook friends.
4. Authority
Stage hypnotists work hard to establish an image of authority or “prestige and faith.” They rely on their audience’s belief (and expectations) that they are gifted hypnotists who always get results. They are also very quick to eliminate non-responsive subjects who would erode their effective image.
Memetics researcher Francis Heylighen has pointed out that for an idea to spread it has to come from a source that is authoritative in some regard, so did WWII rumor-weapons experts.
In social media we should work to always appear authoritative, without saying so much our self often. Subtle indications of social proof like high subscriber or follower counts can help.
5. Psychological Barriers
Stage and clinical hypnotists engage typically have a speech they give to their subjects prior to hypnosis called a “preinduction talk.” The idea of the talk is to establish rapport, remove the fears, about hypnosis, and establish favorable expectations.
Developing rapport with your audience as a marketer is generally a long-term strategy, but the more you can align your own interests and motivations with your audience the better. To make your audience identify with you, you need to make it clear that you understand their problems and desires. It is also useful to ingratiate yourself with your audience by remaining humble and frequently commenting on their intelligence. Remarks like “you guys are smarter than I am, so I need your help,” satisfy both the identification and the ingratiation demands.
Our readers understand that every piece of content they share in social media will be viewable by their friends. If you’re asking them share something they might be embarrassed by, do your best to anticipate their social fears and assuage them before you ask them to share.
6. Direct Suggestions
In their 1956 book on hypnosis, Charles Edward Cooke and A.E. Van Vogt discuss how to structure therapeutic suggestions. They give three “rules” that can be applied to social media calls-to-action: “Be Positive,” “Be Specific,” and “Be Detailed.”
In explaining how to alleviate phobias through hypnosis, they explain that by saying “you are not afraid” you are creating a large mental image of “fear” with a small label “not.” Negation requires higher level mental processing to understand, so avoid calls-to-action like “don’t hesitate to ReTweet,” state everything in the positive form.
They also direct the hypnosis operator to be as specific and detailed as possible. For social media calls-to-action this means that we should say things like “ReTweet this article by clicking on this link.” Avoid vague calls to “share” content, describe the action you want your reader to take as specifically as possible.
7. Repetition
Most hypnotic subjects reach deeper levels of trance each time they are inducted by a practitioner and the suggestions they are given likewise increase in power through repetition.
As marketers, not only can we enhance the power of our calls-to-action by repeating them more than once in a single piece of content, but we can also build on their effectiveness across touches with our audience.
What are your thoughts.
Please let us know your comments.
Regards,
Daniele.
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