Business Blogging Pros

Doing Facebook Right: Eilean Donan Castle

Situated in the Scottish Highlands on an island at the point where three great sea lochs meet lies Eilean Donan, probably the most iconic castle in Scotland.

Almost everything about Eilean Donan is unique and noteworthy, and one of those things is their Facebook page. Thanks to the efforts of David Win, whose title is Castle Keeper', Eilean Donan's Facebook page has over 40,000 fans (Likes) and half of them have been acquired just this year. Not only that, theirs is one of the few Facebook pages I actually look forward to checking.

If you could sum up Eilean Donan's Facebook strategy in one word it would be 'sharing'. Eilean Donan refrains from crass commercial promotions (ie '50% off castle admissions today'). Instead, they share beautiful imagery and anecdotes of castle activity. Almost every day they post a different stunning image of the castle. Creating this endless stream of stunning photos all by themselves would be a lot of work - probably too much work. Instead, many of these images are by local photographers such as DRW Photography, And by doing so, they are helping these photographers achieve some notoriety. And one more thing: These images are so stunning that they get shared all over Facebook, raising Eilean Donan's profile even further.

David's posts often share interesting information about what is going on at the castle at the moment, making you feel like an insider or member of the Eilean Donan family. Recently, David has begun venturing out with his video camera once a week, capturing some of the gorgeous local scenery and giving fans a vocabulary lesson known as 'The Scottish Word of the Week'.  Judging by the volume of Likes and comments, these posts are eagerly awaited by Eilean Donan's fans.

And the communication is not one-way.  Comment on one of their posts and they will often respond. I still chuckle when I remember  the conversation David and I had about midges. (I think one of the biggest mistakes most companies make on their Facebook page is not engaging in conversation with their fans.)

I encourage you to LIke Eilean Donan's Facebook page. Enjoy the content but more importantly,  pay attention to how they are leveraging Facebook.

 

Does Your Website Say "Our Logo Is So Wonderful" ?

I visited a website today (I'm not going to say who or show a screenshot - I don't want to embarrass them) on which the only thing shown above the fold was the company's logo on a nice solid-colored background.

When someone lands on your website you have fifteen seconds - probably much less - to evoke the “This is what I’m looking for” emotion before they click the ‘Back’ button and leave. 

1. Who is your perfect client?
   
   
2. What problem do you solve for them?
   
   
3. How do they articulate that problem in their own words?

Have you figured out numer three (above)?  If so then THAT's what belongs on your home page above the fold.

 

How Often Should I Blog?

More often than not, we hear a one-size-fits-all answer to the question "How often should I blog?"  The real answer is "It depends."  Who is your intended audience?  What are your blogging goals?

If you have a brand new blog and are trying to get well-ranked in Google very quickly you may need to publish a new post several times a day.  Many times I've started a new blog and by posting twice a day I've been able to rank favorably in Googgle in just a couple of weeks. Not long ago a colleague started a new blog in a very competitive space and for the first month blogged six times per day. If your goal is to quickly get ranked well in Google then many short blog posts is a good idea.

Now let's consider the other end of the spectrum: Suppose your audience is the Fortune 500 C-suite, and imagine that they are subscribing to your blog and getting your posts in their email. They're not going to appreciate six emails/day.

How Long?

The follow-up question of course is "How long should my posts be?" I'm a big fan of a mixture of long and short posts.  Many of Seth Godin's posts are just a paragraph. My own experience is that posts of at least 500 words seem to have more impact upon Google page rankings. Sometimes however you may need 1500 words to explain a concept clearly.

If someone is busy and sees a 1500-word post they are likely to think "I'll come back to it later". The reality is that they never do.  So you should always make sure you give those people something shorter to read.

 

In Your Clients' Words, Not Yours

I once had a personal growth coach describe what she does for her clients: "I help people overcome 'timid living'".

Except that I bet her clients never called it 'timid living'. It reminded me of this cartoon by Hugh MacLeod, GapingVoid. We get so wrapped up in our idustries jargon that we fail to describe to our clients how we can help them in a way that really resonates with them.

When we meet someone for the first time - or they visit our website for the first time - we get just a few seconds to cause them to think "You have exactly what I need."

We need to 'get outside our jar' and listen to how our clients describe what we do for them.  Then remember those words. Use them on your website and in your conversation instead of what YOU think you do.

What Do Your Website Visitors Want To Know?

I had an appointment with a client this morning. We agreeded to meet in a cafe at a trendy shopping mall that is on the other side of the city - a spot that I visit infrequently. When I arrived I parked my car, got out, and did what a zillion other people do: I wanted to know exactly where this cafe was located.

Pulling out my trusty iPhone, I went to the mall's website.  LO and behold they have a mobile-specific site. Guess what was NOT on the mobile site's home page?  You guessed it: a link to a map of the mall.

We often find that mobile website visitors are looking for a small number of specific items, just as in this example.  That's why we like to tailor mobile websites to the needs of your clients.

Do You Have Multiple Audiences?

We were recently brainstorming with a brand new client. This client provides client-server software in a very narrow and specialized niche that facilitates a significant and mission-critical aspect of their clients' business.

While they have been doing a good job blogging with the customer's CEO (the formal decision-maker) in mind, they had overlooked two other important buyer personas:

• The IT Admin who must install and maintain the software
• The employees who must use the software every day.

It's important to ask, "Are there other buyer personas involved in the sale of my product or service?" When the time has come to make the buying decision, the CEO will look to the other 'influencers'. They too need to be nodding their heads saying 'yes'. 

Mke sure you understand what is important to all of the parties involved in the decision. Write separate articles for each audience addressing the issues important to them.

The Question Nobody Asks About Blogging - Part 1

As I talk to business owners about the benefits of blogging I get asked all the usual questions: what platform should I use? What should I write about?  Should I have multiple authors? What about guest blogging? etc.  There is one question I never get asked:

What should I do before I start blogging?

You should do to things.  This article will cover the first one:

Who Is Your Audience?

Think about who will be reading your blog.  Actually, think about who you want to be reading your blog.

If you want IT admins to be reading your blog then write for IT admins.  If you want CEOs to be reading your blog then write for CEOs even if that's not who your initial readers are. 

Your target market may well require that you write for two audiences:

• The Decision Maker
• The Key Influencer

The decision maker often is not an expert on your product or the problems you solve.  He/she will rely upon the key influencer who is the expert. You will need both heads nodding yes to make the sale.

What Do They Want To Know?

The chances are very good that your new readers encounter your blog while searching for a solution to a problem or other related research. What do they want to know? The best blogs are ones that educate their audiences. You are an expert in your field. Share that expertise. 

What is important to them?

Your has some great wiz-bang features. Your buyers however seem to be interested in only a subset of them.  Sound familiar?  Usually your reader has a problem they are trying to solve.  Focus on their problem. Your objective is to demonstrate that you really do understand their problem and all its implications.

Buyer Personas

All this information can be gathered easily using buyer personas.  A buyer persona is an imaginary figure (who often even has a name, like 'Sarah') who embodies all the important characteristics of your ideal buyer. The best way to develop good buyer personas is to have conversations with your customers. Have conversations that are open-ended and gently-guided. Let them talk. You'll be surprised what you learn.

 

"My Website Gets Lots of Traffic But..."

I was listening to a podcast buy an SEO expert. He was interviewing a client who said:

"I get lots of traffic to my website but very few of them convert."

The SEO expert began to postulate reasons why, "Maybe it's this", "Maybe it's that".  I found myself shouting at the iPod asking, "Why are you guessing?"

This is a perfect example of why we place such great emphasis on understanding your customers, why they buy, and how they buy.  Don't guess, ask them. A little bit of research and a few skillful interviews and you would know your customers' buying process well enough that the answer would be obvious.

Not only that. You'll know exactly what to do in order to fix the problem.

"I know they need my service, I just can't get them to buy"

That's because while they may have the problem you solve for them, they have not reached that Point of Epiphany where they say "I have to solve this problem, I can't live with it any longer."

Knowing this will prevent you from spending an inordinate amount of time trying to convence them to buy now. This knowledge also allows you create activities designed specifically for people in this stage of their buying process.

 

 

Social Media Is Not A Checklist

All too frequently I encounter someone who says, "So-and-so is doing my social media for me."  Usually what that means is that they have someone else doing the same old non-productive Facebook-Twitter-LInkedIn-etc routine instead of doing it themselves.

The first problem is that getting someone else to do non-productive activities doesn't make them any more productive. 

The second problem is that outsourcing social media doesn't make it very social does it?  The real power of social media is it's ability to create and nurture relationships. Using Facebook and Twitter to publish marketing messages every few hours is not going to endear you to your audience. Over time they will drift away and your messages will be doing nothing more than adding entropy to the universe.

Social Media IS a powerful tool. We just need to be smart about how we use it.  Stop treating it as a broadsword and start using it like a surgical instrument.

Focus on your customers and the problem you solve for them.  Focus on their mental journey from "I need to solve this problem" to the point where they write you a check. How did they find you? How did they pick you over your competitors? Pinpoint the specific areas of this process that you can facilitate.  Then and only then are you in a position to pick a specific tool (Facebook, Twitter, etc) and a specific activity you should be doing.

Social Media ROI

ROI will come when you focus your social media efforts on activities that directly impact your customers' buying process.

Buyer Persona eBook

If you've been reading this blog for a while then you know I'm a strong proponent of Persona-Based Marketing.  Well, Adele Revella of the Buyer Persona Institute has just published her eBook on the subject.

It is a must read for anyone who wants to get smarter about their marketing.

Click to open, Right-Click (Mac:Ctrl-Click) to Download:

"Nobody ever taught us Why"

One of the biggest benefits - after time savings - of our framework is that clients know WHY they are performing each task.  For example, they're not just spending time in Facebook.  They are in Facebook to perform specific tasks for specific reasons.  The choice of the tool (in this case facebook) and the specific activity can be related directly to a goal they want to achieve.

Once you understand the 'why', the 'what' and 'how' become a lot more interesting.

BIATWC Disease

'BIATWC' means 'Build It And They Will Come', but the reality is that they won't. Too many people suffer from the illusion that all they have to do is to build the website and the business will come pouring in. I call it the BIATWC Disease.

A few days ago, I met with a bright ambitious lady with a wonderful product that has tremendous potential. Her marketing plan consisted of:

1. Build a website

I asked, "Tell me about your customers who buy this."  she didn't have any yet.  She had no idea of the kind of people who would be buyers.  I asked, "What motivates someone to buy a product like this." She didn't know.  I asked her what sets her company and product apart from her competitors. She didn't know.

I don't want to denigrate this lady because she really is a talented and ambitious woman.  She has spent enormous amounts of time on the product.  I told her that before she did anything else - especially before she spent any money on advertising - She needs the answers to three questions:

Who Are Your Buyers?

Find out what kind of people buy from you.  What are their circumstances? When is their mindset?

Why Do They Buy?

What is that 'moment of epiphany' that causes them to decide they need to buy a product like yours.  Why do they choose to buy your product instead of your competitors? In other words, What problem do you solve for your clients and how do you solve it better than anyone else?

How Do They Buy?

What is their buying process? Where do they look for a solution?  What criteria do they use to decide among several solutions?

As social media becomes less of a bright shiny new object and more of one part of an integrated campaign, it becomes more and more necessary to think like a marketer. Not until you know the answers to these questions can you create a plan of action that has any hope of success.

Social Media: Don't Start With a Strategy

Raise your hand if you've been told that you must have a social media strategy. Good.  And it's true, you need a strategy.  The mistake is thinking that developing a strategy comes first.

Your strategy supports your goals.

Your goal might simply be to boost your Google page rank.  Or your goal might be to energize your most loyal enthusiastic customer and turn them into evangelists for your company. These two goals require entirely different strategies.

Now I hear you saying, "OK, let's set some goals first."  we're making progress here, but we're not ready to set goals yet either.

Know Your Audience

The real place to start is to ask yourself two questions:

1. Who are my customers?
2. What problem do I solve for them?

Who Are Your Customers?

Who are they, really? Not just at a superficial demographic level, understand them at a deeper level.  What is her job like? If your customer is someone in a corporation, what goals is she being measured against during her annual review? Is your product or service and integral part of meeting one of those goals? Or is the problem you solve simply one of those things getting in the way of meeting her goals?

What Problem Do You Solve?

Be able to articulate it in your customer's words, not yours. You want the description to resonate with your future customer on an emotional level. When they read the words on your website or tweet or Facebook page you want them to say to themselves, "Oh man this is it!". 

When someone is using Google to search for an answer to their problem, Google presents them with millions of websites. I know you spend a lot of time and money getting that person to click on your link. Think about this: She is going to spend just a few seconds scanning your website to see if it is the answer to her problem.  Make those seconds count.

If you can't articulate the problem you solve in your customers' words then you are just adding to the noise.

Here are the magic beans: Learn to ask yourself these two questions and you start to understand the real value you bring to your customers.  You begin to see how you are different and better than your competitors. 

When you learn to ask yourself these two questions it will change the way you think about your business. 

What Happens When You Don't Listen To Your Customers

If you've been around me for a while you know that I am a proponent of using Buyer Personas as an integral part of your marketing.

Ask your customers, "Why did you buy our product/service?" Why did you choose it instead of our competitors'? Equally important, ask "Why didn't you buy our product" of the ones that got away.

And so here we have Aston Martin, preferred supplier to Her Majesty's Secret Service. Builder of some of the fastest, most powerful, most gorgeous automobiles on the planet. And they're making an econobox.

Not just any econobox, mind you:  It's a rebadged Toyota at twice the price. 

Do you think the people who chose not to by an Aston Martin told them, "I was really looking for something slow, ugly, and overpriced instead of gorgeous and fast."?

Use Google Analytics to Build a Better Blog

Google Analytics is a powerful feature-rich tool providing great insights into what your readers are reading and want to read. You can easily use it to create a more interesting blog that draws more traffic.

The problem most people have is that Google Analytics provides so much information that they are overwhelmed.  I believe you should use Google Analytics to answer four questions:

• What are my visitors reading?
• How long are they staying?
• Where are they coming from?
• If they are coming from a search engine then what were they searching for?

What Are They Reading?

The Content Overview box displays the top five destinations on your blog. (You can click the View Report button to reveal a longer more detailed list.) For example, I can see that this post is the post popular one on my blog by an overwhelming margin.  

Now that you know what people are finding the most interesting, you can start to provide more of it.

Of course, you should ask yourself, "Does it reinforce my desired brand image to provide more of what they are reading?" Consider that your readers' view of your brand may be different from yours.  You'll have to decide how to handle that.

How Long Are They Staying?

Let's find out. At the bottom of the Content Overview box there is a "view report" link.  Click on it. When the page refreshes click on the View Full Report Link.

Example the Bounce Rate column.  Bounce rate is the percentage of people who left your site after visiting that page. Pages with a lower bounce rate indicate content that is interesting enough to motivate your visitors to explore your site further. You should probably start providing more content on the topics with the lower bounce rates.  What if the content you really want them to read has a high bounce rate?  Figure out how to make that content more interesting.

Where Are They Coming From?

On the Dashboard, click on Traffic Sources, then click on Referring Sites. When you see a significant amount of traffic coming from another website or blog you should make it a point to reach out to that site or blog owner and develop a relationship with them. Get to know that blog or website and try to reciprocate.

If They Are Coming From a Search Engine Then What Were They Searching For?

On the Dashboard, click on Traffic Sources, then click on Search Engines. This will tell you which search engines are sending you traffic. Click on a search engine in the list to reveal the actual search terms entered by users coming to your site.

Now that you know what they are looking for you can provide more of it.

Brand Alignment

Throughout this process you should be viewing this data as a measure of your brand's alignment.  What do I mean by that?  The most popular articles and search terms give you some insight into the world's perception of your brand.  Is that the perception you want them to have?  If so then fantastic.  If not then you' have some work to do. (Years ago, we paid gazillions of dollars for focus groups to give us this information.  Now we can get it for free.)

 

The Power of Video

I was reminded again today of the power of a simple video.

You probably know that I am a gourmet chef. Lately I've been toying with the idea of making my own doughnuts.

Here is a link to a great doughnut cookbook on Amazon

Now watch this video:

 

Which one better motivates you to buy the book and/or make doughnuts?

Social Media Marketing Doesn't Have to be This Hard

"I'm tweeting and blogging and facebooking and I'm spending a huge amount of time but I don't seem to be getting anywhere."

One of the most satisfying parts of my business is to work with business owners who are saying this and transform them into marketers with a focused strategic plan.  It really is possible to reduce the time you're spending on social media and be more productive at the same time.  It's not rocket science.  I promise.

If you feel like you are on a hamster wheel it's probably because you don't have a clear strategy that is tailored to your business.

First, Know Your Customers

Go beyond the normal client profile and get to the point that you understand them on an emotional level.  Understand the problems you solve for them on an emotional level. Understand why they buy from you and not your competitor.  Understand why they choose to buy at all (instead of just living with the problem). 

It's the Message

Remember that problem you solve for them?  Be able to articulate it in your customer's words. Your goal is to be able to see their world through their lens and articulate their problem using their language structures.

Research

Now that you know your customers well, it's time to switch gears.  A little research combined with some right-brain intuitive thinking will reveal the right tools and the places you need to be online.

Our Framework

We've developed a fraamework that we work through with each client. The framework's purpose is to produce a social media marketing strategy that meets the client's goals and is tailored to the client's business. 

Why Don't We Call it a Methodology?

Perhaps it's a matter of semantics.  To me a methodology implies a set of defined specific steps.  While our Framework does have steps, they are at a higher level - meta-steps, if you will.

For example, our framework entails developing "Buyer Personas" (A buyer persona is a detailed profile of an imaginary individual who is representative of a group of customers possessing the same characteristics.) We have several methods for developing buyer personas and we plugin the method that best fits you, your customers, and other specifics of the situation.

The beauty of this is that once you've learned our framework you can use it in any other business you decide to start in the future. 

 

 

Social Media is Like a Bicycle

If you are a Boomer like me, I'll bet you had a bicycle.  That bicycle was an integral part of your life.  Everywhere you went, that bike got you there.  It would take you farther and faster than any other means available to you.  You and your friends got together and worked on your bikes.  You and your friends went everywhere on your bikes.

Now consider Generation-Y.  (Did you know that as of 2010 they outnumber us Boomers?)  They grew up with MySpace.  To them, social media is their bicycle.  It is an integral part of their lives and plays a role in almost every activity. It is a critical tool for getting information and making buying decisions.

 

 

Social Media: Why it Works, Why it Doesn't

How many times have you heard someone say, "I had a blog/twitter/facebook for a while and it just didn't work".  

When I hear someone say that, I have a vision of a farmer 100 years ago being invited to sit in a horseless carriage for the first time and invited to try it out. He proceeds to lash at the hood with his buggy whip a few dozen times before giving up, muttering "This thing just doesn't work.  

Social Media has this same problem.  People attempt to make it fit their worldview of how things wok. 

Here is the key to making social media work for you:

Social Objects and Relationships.  A social media effort works when it leverages one or the other.  it works extremely successfully when it leverages both.  It fails miserably when it leverages neither.

 Stay Tuned.  We'll delve into this more deeply in the next few posts.

Get Inside Their Heads

I was doing some random web surfing this morning and found an interesting article on a blog called 'A Sales Guy'. It it was a letter form a customer.  It said:

The truth is, you have no idea what my life is like. You may think you do, but you don’t–and you need to if you’re going to get my business.

Bingo.

When I'm working on developing a social media strategy for a client we spend a session or two on buyer personas. A buyer persona is a detailed profile of an imaginary individual who is representative of a group of customers possessing the same characteristics.

You're probably thinking, "Oh yes.  That just a client profile, we have those."  In actuality a buyer persona goes much deeper. It gets inside the buyer's head so that we know what her day is like, what drives her.  We know what she's beingmeasured on when her annual performance revue comes.  We know her top problems. etc.

When you now what her day is like, you can then speak to her in her language, on her terms, from her frame of reference.

The End of Google's Dominance: You Can See It From Here

A few weeks ago, the first small tremor was felt: For the first time, Facebook out-ranked Google as the most visited website on the Internet. 

Google's days as the dominant 'ask-the-internet' function are numbered.

This year (2010) Generation Y outnumbers Baby Boomers.  Gen Y is the 'MySpace Generation'.  They grew up with social media and have learned from an early age how to leverage it.  Years ago, futurists predicted that as a person's network began to grow and mature, he/she would increasingly turn to that network for answers and information.  That day has arrived.

I saw this quote on a blog yesterday:

“I don’t ever buy a product because of an ad,” he said. “The only reason I buy a product is because one of my friends or someone I know tells me about it and says it’s worth buying.”

Social media is a fundamental shift in the way we communicate, ask questions, and make buying decisions. As people begin to understand how to leverage their networks, they will turn to them for information.  I can ask my 4,000 Twitter followers a question and almost always get a good answer.  Generation Y figured this out a long time ago.  As they become more dominant in society over the next few years, what do you think will happen?

If I've enabled you to see how I've connected the dots then you can see that Facebook outranking Google is not an isolated curious factoid. It's a trend. Analogous to the first passenger airline flight (bye bye, railroad Barons) Analogous to Henry Ford's Model-T (bye bye, buggy manufacturer)

This week another tremor occurred: Facebook announced Facebook connect.  I've already installed Facebook's Like button on this blog and my website.

What does this mean to you, the business owner?  It means that your strategy must be to engage and become part of people's networks.  People trust their networks.  When you are a part of someone's network you become her trusted expert.  She'll listen to you.

Branding

Yee Haw!  O wait...Wrong kind of 'Branding'.

I know you've worked really hard on your branding: The thing you want to be known for.

But guess what: Your brand is not determined by you.  It is determined by the collective impressions of everyone who has interacted with you.

Social media is a great too for spreading the message of your brand.  You should create several blog posts, each on a different topic or answering a common question in your field.  Make those posts easy to find. (You'll notice 'Popular Articles' in the menubar of my blog.) Spend some time each week seeking out people who:

• Need help you can provide
• Have a question you can answer
• Need advice you can give

Both Twitter Search and Google Blog Search are great tools for this. With any luck, you already provided that help/answer/advice on your blog and so you can simply direct them to the appropriate post.  This simple tactic will spread the message of your brand faster than anything else I have ever encountered.

But Are People Getting The Right Message?

You've worked really hard spreading the word that you make the most durable, longest-lasting, well-engineered, and safest widgets known to man. Is really how people think of you?  But what if the world thinks of you as the leader in the luxury widget market?  See the disconnect?  YOUR impression of your brand is not aligned with the WORLD's impression of your brand.

It used to require thousands of dollars spent on focus groups to uncover these surprises.  With social media you can do it for free.  Use Google Alerts, Twitter Search, and Google Blog search to run searches for you, your company's name, the names of your products, etc.  Then keep track of what's being said.

How Do You Stack Up?

Would you like to know how you compare to your competitors in the public's eye?  Easy: run those same searches on your competitor's names and compare what the world is saying about each of you.

This is an example of what's so exciting to me about social media. A decade ago only the largest companies could afford to do the research necessary to stay on top of their brand.  Now anyone can do it.  The playing field has truly been leveled.

Video from BusinessBloggingPros.TV:

Humanize Your Business

Last week I gave a presentation about social media to a group of realtors and after it was over one of them walked up to me at said, "I tried that spinach and zucchini recipe on your foodie blog and it was fantastic!" 

You see, one of my hobbies is gourmet cooking, and I'm not bad at it either. I also blog about it. When I'm in front of a group of people speaking about social media I often talk about it as well.

Why? because it humanizes me. I'm no longer an impersonal consultant, I'm a foodie and that provides a point of connection for almost everyone. It's important to understand that social media is about real people and real relationships.

One of my clients is a bulk candy distributor. One of our early objectives was to humanize their business. They wanted people to know that theirs is a fun-loving family business. We made this video and put it on their website and blog. That video has now been viewed 3-4,000 times. People call and say, "Can I talk to the guy who was on the forklift?" because they know he's the owner. With that and several other videos, the image of their company has been transformed from an impersonal candy distributor into a company that's fun to do business with.

"People don't do business with you, they do business with your company"

When you are at a Chamber of Commerce networking event do you talk strictly business?  Of course not. You talk about your kids, your hobbies, your recent fishing trip. And you interact with other people doing the same. Why? Because that's how relationships develop that turn into business.  You already know that. Social media is no different.  It's just a different tool.

Oh Yeah: that photo is a lemon-and-herb-roasted chicken, basted with melted butter and sprinkled with Herbs de Provence just before it went into the oven.

Getting Personal, Being Personable

You probably know that I am an amateur gourmet chef and also have a cooking blog, The Fumbling Foodie.  Yesterday I was speaking to a group of realtors and after it was over a guy from the audience walked up to me and said, "I tried that zucchini and spinach dish on your blog and it was fantastic!".

That brought home for me once again the power of bringing a bit of your personal life into your blog. It humanizes you.  It turns you from a 2-dimensional cardboard cutout into a 3-dimensional person.  It gives your readers a way to connect with you and engage with you in a very non-threatening manner. 

People Don't do Business With Your Company, They Do Business With You.

Give them some 'you' to grab hold of.

Owning a Hammer vs Building a House

A few days ago, my friend Mark Roberts wrote a great blog post about smores (Social Media Whores). From his comments to me this morning it's obvious that he stirred up something.  It's a topic I feel strongly about so I want to elaborate:    

You may know how to use a hammer, level, and saw but that does not mean you know how to design and build a house.

Gary Vaynerchuk said the same thing using a different analogy at the AZ Entrepreneurship Conference last year:

The Telephone is not a Marketing Strategy.  It's a Tool.

When I started this business - way back before the term 'social media' became popular - a business owner could start a blog almost anywhere, write anything anytime to anyone and he would likely get noticed. Maybe even end up on the front page of the NY Times.  Businesses that blogged were that rare.

It's different today.  Technorati's 2008 State of the Blogosphere says that one million new blog posts are being created every day. "If you write it they will come" doesn't work any more.

As another friend and colleague Dave Cooke says, you must start with a strategy.  Who are your clients?  What does your perfect client look like?  What are the problems you solve for them?  What are their reasons for not buying from you now?  

For example, in my Twitter webinars we talk about using Twitter as a branding tool, but if you don't know what you want to be known for then you've got the cart before the horse.

There are a lot of consultants and 'experts' who only want to talk about the tools. Why? Because tools are cool.  Particularly bright shiny new tools.  Several months ago I mentioned to one of these smores that I was planning to offer webinars.  He immediately replied that I should use XXXXXX for that.  Why did he recommend XXXXXX? Because it was new and it was what he was currently fixated on.  A quick review of XXXXX revealed that it did not fit the needs of my business.  It wasn't even close.

Don't focus on the tools. Focus on the business.

Mark Roberts has some great recommendations for steering clear of smores.  I'll add my own:

Look for someone who starts with, "Tell me about your business".  Questions like "What's your target market?", "Who's your perfect client?" and "What problems do you solve for your clients" tend to indicate that you are taking so someone who understands business and marketing, not just the tools.

When you engage us to create a blog for you, we spend over half of the entire engagement focused on issues like these.  We help our clients answer these questions.  The results is not just a better social media strategy, but a better business strategy as well.

What Should I Write About on my Blog?

If blogging is part of your business strategy then you've probably asked yourself:

• What should I be writing about?
• How should I be writing it? What should the tone of my posts be?
• How can I best use my blog to tell people about my business?

Think of your blog as a symphony orchestra, and each blog post is an individual instrument. As the conductor, your job is to make this collection of blog posts work in harmony and deliver a rich message to your audience in a way that makes them want to read more. 

So what do you do if your orchestra sounds like a couple of kazoos and a banjo? (No offense to banjos, I play one myself) The instruments in a symphony orchestra are divided into four groups: 

• Strings  
• Woodwinds 
• Brass 
• Percussion 

Similarly, you should be writing four kinds of posts in your blog: 

• Describing problems you solve for your clients. 
• News and trends in your industry, education, and information. 
• Behind the scenes activity in your business. 
• Personal anecdotes that humanize you and your company. 

A symphony orchestra may have as many as 32 violins but generally only one bass drum. Used at specific moments, one single bass drum can have a tremendous impact upon the audience. However if the sound of the bass drums is the only thing the audience hears, they will probably be shaking their heads and walking away. 

The point is that proportionality is important. A few posts about the antics of your cat are endearing and provide a point of connection for your animal-loving audience. Too many such posts and it's a blog about your cat and not about your business. 

Describe Problems You Solve For Your Clients 

This is the most important group and by far the hardest one to get right. Classic marketing texts call it your USP or Unique Selling Proposition, but it's more than that. Your blog is not about you or how you "efficiently and effectively integrate a wide range of resources and core competencies to provide flexible, scalable, ground-breaking industry-standard, cutting-edge solutions." Instead, your blog posts in this group must be about: 

• Me, your reader, 
• My problems, 
• Conveying to me that you really do understand my problems, and 
• How you solve them 

The most important - and most difficult - part is to articulate it the same way your customer does, not the way you would do so. Look at their problem through their lens. Frame it in language they would use. For example, a personal growth coach might be working with people who are living too timidly, but her client would never say it that way. Her client would say something like "I keep wimping out." 

If making this shift in thinking is difficult (you're not alone), try calling your most recent dozen or so customers on the phone. Begin with, "Hi, how are you doing?" Let the conversation be open-ended and non-directed. After the conversation has warmed up a bit simply ask, "So tell me: I’m curious why you chose to do business with me instead of my competitor." Then listen. Really listen. Take notes. 

Write about the problem in a way that doesn't bury it half-way down the page; Get it right up there in the first sentence so that your reader doesn't have to invest a lot of time to learn that you are talking about his problem. 

Most of us get too formal in our blog posts. When you are writing, imagine yourself sitting across the table at a coffee shop from your client who is an old friend. Write like you would say it. 

Your objective is for your readers to think, "She really understands my problem."  

News and Trends in Your Industry. Educate and Inform 

You are an expert. The more you share that expertise, the more you will be considered an expert by others. The objective of this group of blog posts is for your readers to think, "She is eminently qualified to solve my problem."  

For example, if you are a tile installer, explain the process of installing tile in a shower stall in such a way that it stays intact for twenty years instead of falling down in three. Educate your reader. Strive to help your readers be informed consumers. 

Behind the Scenes 

Everyone loves to get the inside scoop. If you are a printer and the new printing press arrived today, blog about it (better yet include some pictures!). Blog about getting it set up and calibrated. If you are an auto mechanic, blog about the new diagnostic machine. If you are a janitorial company, blog about your hand-held air-born particle counter. You have clients who are your fans. These are the ones who drive past six of your competitors to buy from you. Make them feel like they are part of your inner circle. 

Personal Anecdotes that Humanize You and Your Company 

Now that your reader recognizes that you understand his problem and knows that you are qualified to solve it, there is one more thing you want him to think: 

"She is the kind of person I am comfortable doing business with. I can trust her."  

People don't do business with your company, they do business with you. You want your readers to know that you are not a big cold impersonal company. Write about your hobbies, kids, pets, and personal achievements. Readers who are your future clients will connect with you. 

Video is a great way to accomplish this. With YouTube, an inexpensive video camera, and some free editing software, anyone can include video in their blog. 

One caution: It's easy to get carried away and let the volume of posts in this group overwhelm the rest. The objective is for posts in this group to act as that one lonely French horn in your orchestra that gives the whole thing an emotional tug.

TypePad Help: Technorati Tags

Very few people understand the significant Google juice provided by Technorati Tags.  You are fortunate for two reasons:

1. Support for Technorati Tags is built into TypePad
2. I'm going to explain how to use them

First The Experiment

It had been about 2 years since I last tried to quantify the impact of Technorati Tags upon Google rankings and so I decided it was time to run the experiment again.  

I created two blogs under my TypePad account and made them as identical as possible.  As the subject, I chose the Planet Magrathea (deliberately misspelled 'Magrathia') from the famous Hichhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book.  I posted the same content to both blogs.  I specified the technorati tag "Magrathia" in every post on one blog and used no Technorati Tags on the second blog.  Here's what I saw after about a week:

The blog in which i used the Technorati tags is ranked number 5 an 6 in Google for the term "Magrathia".  In fact if I expand the "Show more results from..." link, the results for the blog in which I used Technorati Tags both out rank and outnumber the one in which I did not.

Using Technorati Tags

When you create a new blog post, scroll down to the Keywords and Technorati Tags section and expand it if necessary.  You will see the Technorati Tags field.

What do you put there? Put words or phrases that describe what this post is about.  Put yourself into the shoes of your reader.  If this blog post answer's a reader's question, how would they type the question into Google?  Whatever that is, put it here.  You can use multiple tags separated by commas.  Each tag can be a word or phrase.  It helps if the word or phrase also appears in the body of your post.

Displaying Technorati Tags in the Post Footer

It does no good to enter TechnoratiTags for each post of you don't display them. Click on the Design Tab.  Click on Organize Content.  Locate the little edit icon (it looks like a pencil) adjacent to Post Footer and click on it.

Make sure that Technorati Tags is checked.

"Nobody Can Show Me that Social Media Leads To Business"

An 'old media' guy said that. 

He's viewing social media through a traditional TV/Radio Advertising lens instead of a Networking/Relationship lens.

I can attribute more than half of my business to referrals from people I am actively engaged with in social media.

Social Media is nothing more than building, nurturing, and maintaining relationships.

That same old media guy can probably rattle off lots of business he's gotten from building relationships at places like Chamber of Commerce mixers and other networking events.  Social Media is the same activity, just in a different medium using different tools.

The most important word in social media is social.  It's about real people, real relationships, and real conversation.

If I Twitter do I still need a Blog?

Yes!

Pamela Slim (@pamslim on Twitter) and I were having a conversation via Twitter today about the frequency of our blog posts since the advent of Twitter.  The truth is that the combination of your blog and Twitter is very powerful.

For example, I've discovered that the same half-dozen questions about blogging ('Which is better: Typepad or Wordpress?') get asked over and over on Twitter.  I've written blog posts answering those questions.  I continually search - using TweetDeck - for terms like 'Typepad'.  WHen I see one of those common questions come up I send the person an @reply containig a link to the specific post on my blog that answers their question.  They get their question answered and they explore, learning more about me and about blogging.  Many times I not only gain a new Twitter follower and blog reader, I gain a client too.

There are lot's more ways that Twitter and your blog make a powerful conversation.

If you want to attend a webinar about leveraging Twitter in your business click here.

I Hate Hit-And-Runs

I'm not talking about automobile accidents.

I'm talking about the guy who shows up at your regular networking venue for the first time and you exchange business cards. You never see him again. Except suddenly you are receiving his newsletter.

When are these people going to learn the value of permission-based marketing?

It's MORE Than The PageRank, Stupid!

I just read this post on Ted Dziuba's blog entitled "Corporate Blogs, It's the PageRank, Stupid!"

My first clue was that Ted does not have comments enabled - trackbacks either. Perhaps he doesn't understand that a blog - corporate or otherwise - is about conversation, relationships, and learning from your market.

Dell Computer is the counter-example that immediately comes to mind, folowed by many others. Remember "Dell Hell"? Dell's stock price had tumbled. Del's igniting laptop made the New York Times. Del's support reputation was mud.

Dell started their blog - accepting comments and all. And Dell listened to those comments.

It Wasn't About PageRank, It Was About Conversaion!

Dell understood that. I understand that. Who says corporations can't have tribes? Who says that blogs are not effective tools for corporations to connect with their tribes?

If a consultant tells you that corporate blogs are only for Google Juice, fire that consultant.

Social Media is the New Sex

Yesterday while out for a walk I had a flashback: It was the early seventies and I was in college. I was hanging out in a popular drinking establishment across the street from the university. Across from me sat one of my few non-geek friends. As might be expected from a couple of testosterone-poisoned young males, the conversation eventually turned to the subject of sex. I still remember my friend sitting there - beer in hand - saying, “Hey man, sex is a great way to meet interesting people!”.

And because social media is also a great way to meet interesting people, at that moment it occurred to me that in some ways, social media is the new sex. By that, I mean that some of the same behaviors are present:

Mr Stud

You know the type: each encounter is just another notch on his belt. The only thing that is important is the number of women he’s had. Just keeping score. (I’ve met a few females with the same attitude.)

They’re in social media too. These are the ones who smugly talk about the number of LinkedIn connections or Twitter followers they have. Just keeping score. Life is a game to see how many followers they can add each day. These are the ones who collect everybody’s business card at networking events and then promptly go home and enter them into LinkedIn. These are the ones who will follow anyone on Twitter who can fog a mirror with the hope that some of them will follow back.

Ms Casual Sex

These are the ones who use sex to fill an empty space in their lives. It feels good. And for as long as it lasts they experience a taste of the intimacy and connectedness that is at the very core of a real relationship.

Yes, they’re in social media too. They are the ones who’ll do anything for an @reply. Give them an @reply or two and they don’t need meaningful conversation. In fact, try to engage in an actual deep conversation with one of these and they start backing away fast.

Real Relationships

At a recent Social Media Club meeting, my friend Brian Shaler made the comment that his main use of social media is to find and build great offline relationships. And that’s the crux of it.

It’s all about relationships.

Yes: use social media to build awareness of your brand. Yes: use social media to grow your business. But don’t stop there. Forge meaningful relationships. Use social media to nurture and maintain the meaningful relationships you already have. That’s when it starts to get rewarding.

Years ago I heard someone predict that the Internet would cause us to become much more impersonal and isolated. The opposite is true. Social media allows us to become more closely connected to our friends - if we work at it. And it makes it easy to make new friends without waking up in the morning needing a penicillin shot.

Hmmmmmm. Maybe there’s another blog post: What part of social media is like a social disease?

Blogs Make Great Websites

Starting your own business? A blog makes a great website.

Get Your Site Up Quickly

Using a blog, you can have a web presence in hours or days, not weeks or months. If you've just escaped from cubicle nation, you know you need to move fast. You're running on what's in the bank and the sooner you can get established, the better. And face it, you are not looked upon as a legitimate business unless you have a website.

Low Startup Costs

Sure, there are web-hosting companies and domain registrars that tell you they can deliver a website tonight.  It usually looks that way too.  First impressions are important, and you want your clients (as well as your friends and family) to see a professional-looking site,  Even with custom graphics, the cost of a blog will be much lower than what a reputable web-design firm would charge.

Your Own Domain Name

Yes, your blog/website can be at www.YourDomainName.com.  'Nuff said.

The Best Reason

You don't need a webmaster.  If you've had a website in the past, you know the drill:  Type up the changes and give them to your web guy.  He makes the changes. You review the changes and make corrections.  He puts the corrections up there.  When you're finally done he makes the changes live. Sometimes it takes weeks.

With a blog as a website, you are using and very easy simple online tool.  You login.  You bring up the text you want to change.  You make the changes.   You hit 'Save'.  That's it. Doing without a webmaster saves you money, but more importantly it gets everyone else out of the way. You are in control.

We're doing a lot of these 'Blog As A Website' projects lately. And we have several underway right now.  We can turn these projects around very quickly.

Times Have Changed

Overhaul your marketing engine. Now more than ever, you're going to need to be able to create an authentic relationship with your buyers that are based on a solid understanding the realities they face and how they want to do business with you. Provide a more flexible mix of services vs. hype that builds an experience that they'll appreciate.

Times are different, you have to act differently.  Don’t do nothing.

Embrace the idea of your 'tribe'

I Hate Captcha

What is Captcha? It's that obnoxious little box you see with the hard-to-decipher letters and numbers you have to type to prove you are a real human. Take that fourth character in the captcha box you see here: Is it an el?  i?  t?  

The last time I left a comment on a blog that used Captcha, the letters were so distorted that I needed to do it two or three times before I figured it out. Usually, if what I type fails on the first attempt, I abandon my attempt to leave a comment on that blog and simply move on. 

Feedback from your readers is too valuable to let this happen to you. 

You should set your commenting system up so that the barriers are as non-existent as possible. You want it to be easy to leave a comment. If you are having trouble with spam comments, don't shift the burden to your readers. That's being lazy. Moderate comments to deal with the nasty ones and use some sort of ant-spam function to deal with the rest. 

If you have done a good job with your blog, the people reading it are your fans. They are emotionally invested in your success. Their feedback is priceless. Don't make it hard on them.

Add Twitter to your Reputation Monitoring

There is a lot of conversation going on using Twitter. tons of conversations. For Twitter users, it is often the first place they turn to vent when they are unhappy about a product or service.

I have long advocated using search-driven RSS feeds to monitor what is being said about you, your company, your products, services, website, etc. Twitter searches should be a part of it.

You don't have to understand Twitter or even be a Twitter user. Use TweetScan to search twitter, click on the RSS link, then save the feed URL as part of your drifnet.

Admitting Guilt

David Meerman Scott's Web Ink Now is one of my favorite blogs on the subjects of marketing and PR. He recently wrote a great post about Olympic athlete Marion Jones' emotional admission of guilt.

No matter what your feelings about Ms Jones' and her offense, you can't help but feel differently after watching the video. You can't help but feel a little more empathy and perhaps a little less judgmental. I know I am generalizing but I think we Americans as a culture are quick to forgive when presented with a heartfelt mea culpa.

Good businesses that 'get' blogging use their blogs this way: to say, "We made a mistake", "We have learned from it", and "Here is how we are going to do better next time" .

Sadly, a lot of companies when faced with the question, "Should we put this on our blog?" will respond with "If we don't put it on our blog then fewer people will find out about it". Wrong answer, wrong answer, wrong answer.

Markets are conversations. Believe me, the world will find out about it. And they will talk about it. Given that the conversation will take place anyway, it is better for that conversation to be on your own blog than somewhere over which you have no control. And you have a better chance to get your side of the story told and get your message out on you own blog.

On the other hand, suppose that by reading about it on your blog, someone does learn of your faux pas who would otherwise have remained ignorant? They'll come away with a positive impression of your company's honesty and integrity.

There is another benefit but it is more insidious. Changing the culture in a company - to one in which airing the dirty laundry is not only OK but is actualy advantageous - can be very disruptive. Once accomplished however, the company is better for it. The company doesn't just appear to be more honest and open, it actually is more honest and open. And then the entire relationship with the customer undergoes a welcome change too.

Technorati Tags: What They Are, Why They Are Important, and How to Use Them

Long, long ago, on a galaxy far, far away, in a time before The Empire, we had web directories. You would submit your website to the directory and along with the URL, you would provide a list of words or phrases that described what your website was about. When someone searched the directory and entered your matching keyword, the directory would serve up your site’s url. In a way, life was good then. Those primitive tools based their results not upon what some algorithm thought was important about your web page using keyword density and voodoo; they based their results upon what a real human being said the site was important about the site.

Technorati tags give us this same humanized approach today. When you configure your ‘Compose Post’ page to display the Technorati Tags field, it gives you the change to tell Google and other search engines what your blog post is about. Google recognizes that you, a genuine intelligent human being, are far better at determining what a blog post is about than Google can, even though Google’s brain is reportedly the size of a small planet.

If your post is about widgets, it will rank much more highly for the search term ‘widgets’ with a Technorati tag ‘widgets’ than it will without. Much more highly.

Do you want an example? Ok, I’ll give you one. My house is presently for sale and to prove I could do it, I created a blog that is essentially a brochure about my house. I tagged every post in that blog “85302 real estate”. After two weeks of posting twice a day, that blog was number one for the search term “85302 real estate”. (CAVEAT: Don’t interpret this as my recommendation that you try to sell houses this way. I did this only to demonstrate the power of Technorati Tags and a blog’s Google Juice.)

The lesson learned from this is that Technorati Tags and frequent postings can be combined into a powerful tool for boosting your search engine rankings.

Strategy

I recommend that you decide upon a small number of themes. These should topics that you write about frequently. You may write about many topics, but your themes are the topics you always return to. From your readers’ perspective your themes are your blog is about.

Then create a tag for each of those themes. The tag can be a single work or a phrase. Each time you write a blog post on one of your themes, tag it. You can include multiple tags by separating them with commas.

Be consistent in your use of theme tags. Always use the same word or phrase. Over time then, Google will see a large body of work tagged with the same search term and as a result your blog will rank higher in Google.

“What about Categories?”, you ask. For all intents and purposes, Technorati Tags and Categories perform the same function. My recommendation is to pursue the following methodology:

• Your Categories should be broad and less specific that your Technorati Tags.


• Your theme-related Technorati Tags should provide the next level of specificity.


• Include one or more additional tags or keywords in a posts Technorati Tag field that are very specific to that particular post.

One final caveat: Google is much less interested in Technorati tags that do not appear somewhere on the page. If you use a term or phrase as a Technorati Tag make sure that same term or phrase appears elsewhere too, even if it is in the sidebar.

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What Your Business Blog Needs

Many web hosting companies are now offering a blolg as part of the package. In my opinion, most are - unfortunately - not really suitable platforms for a professional business blog. They provide the basic functions of an online diary or journal but a blog for your business needs to be more than that.

Here are some of the features and functions that a blog for your business must have:

• RSS Feed. The most desirable readers (the ones you want in your sphere of influence) don't read your blog by bringing it up in their browser. Instead they subscribe to your blog's RSS feed and read it in their Feed reader. If you don't have an RSS feed then your blog won't be read. I describe RSS feeds and their significance in a little more detail here.


• Your RSS Feed should be easy to subscribe to.The Mac Browser (Safari) and Internet Explorer 7 have their own buttons that are live when the browser detects that a blog has an RSS feed and allow me to subscribe to your feed wiith a single click. Other people are not so lucky. Google Reader is probably the most popular RSS feed reader today. You should strive to make it as easy as possible for users of Google Reader - and other online feed readers - to subscribe. That's why you see the chicklets in the sidebar of this blog under the heading Subscribe. A Google Reader user can simply click on the 'Google' chicklet to subscribe.


• Connection to Feedburner. Feedburner is the premier aggregator of RSS feeds. They also do a lot more. They provide great stats about your feed subscribers. They can integrate podcasts into your RSS feed and make it easy to publish on iTunes. Any blog that has an RSS feed can be connected to Feedburner, but some blogging platforms make it easier than others.


• Email Subscriptions. Your readers should be able to subscribe to your blog via email. I predict that newsletters will someday go the way of the Dodo bird thanks to this function. (Bringing you this capability is one of the great things Feedburner does for you).


• Technorati Tags. The combination of frequent postings and Technorati Tags is what enables your block to quickly climb to the top of the Google rankings for any given search term. Your blog should have a field on its 'Compose Post' page that allows you to easily enter Technorati Tags.


• Categories.You should be able to group your posts into categories - and you should publish the list of categories in your blog's sidebar. Readers can click on a category name in your sidebar and see everything you have written on that topic. In time, your blog will become a reference site. I often send people to the Blogging 101 category of my blog to give them a place to start learning about blogs.


• A Link to Your Website. Not only do you want interested readers to be able to easily find your website, consider this: Every time you create a new blog post it looks like a new web page to Google. If every one of those pages has a link to your website...


• Recent Posts. If your sidebar contains a list of recent posts, a new visitor can quickly get a feel for what your blog is about. (Yes, I know. I have no 'Recent Posts' section in my sidebar. That and other things going to change soon.)


• Trackbacks. The most important factor in the success of your blog is for you to engage in conversation with the blogosphere. Find other bloggers speaking to the same audience as you. Read their blogs regularly. Leave insightful comments. Write articles on your blog about what you've read and include trackbacks and hyperlinks in those posts. If you go to your own blog and write about this post here on my blog, and you trackback to this post, I receive notification that you have written about it. That notification includes the URL of your blog. When I approve the trackback, an excerpt of your post appears in the 'comments and trackbacks' section of my blog's post. You must be able to do trackbacks.


• Accept Comments. Don't just accept feedback, welcome it. (That's why you won't see CAPTCHA or other forms of authentication on blogs I configure.) Not only that, the comment form should have fields for the commenters name, email address, and website/blog URL.


• Comment and Trackback Moderation. You do however, want to make sure that inappropriate comments never see the light of day. You should be able to configure your blog so it holds all comments for your review and approval prior to publication. The same is true for trackbacks.


• Google Pinging. The other day at one of our Real Estate Blogging Seminars, Jay Thompson was live-blogging during the event. Before the seminar was over his blog post was on Google. You don't want to wait the 4-6 weeks for Google's spider to get around to reading your blog. You want your blog to automatically and immediately notify (we call it a ping) Google each time you publish a new blog post. The same is true for Technorati, Feedburner, blo.gs, and weblogs.com .


• Social Bookmarking. The social bookmarking sites like Digg and Del.icio.us can be powerful tools for spreading your message virally. For that to happen, you must have three things: (1) You must write good content that other people want to read. (2) Create engaging titles for your content, and (3) Make it as easy as possible for people to bookmark you. -- The first two are up to you. Your blog should take care of the third one for you.

You are going to be spending a lot of time and energy on your business blog. In return, it needs to do the best possible job for you. In order to do that I believe these features and functions must be present.