Business Blogging Pros

Google+ or Google Plus: Why Google Is Pushing It

Google is not pushing Google+ in order to compete against Facebook. Google has bigger ideas.

Google is pushing Google+ because they want to incorporate social metrics in some future iteration of their page rank algorithm.

Social Media Should Be 2-Way Radio, Not Am/FM Broadcast

I am a ham radio operator (callsign WB7OBG). I keep a radio tuned to a local UHF FM repeater most of the time, and most of us who use it know each other to some extent.  Think of it as a little community. We even get together in person about once a month.

Everyone in this little community is an equal.  We use our radios and the repeater to converse with each other about a variety of topics, most of which are not even related to ham radio. We all have an equal voice (though the repeater's owner is a 'little more equal' than the rest of us, I suppose).

Contrast this with the local AM or FM broadcast radio station that you probably listen to: The only 'voice' or 'message' is that of the broadcaster.

Unfortunately, there is a tendency by business owners to use social media like AM/FM broadcast instead of 2-way radio. They bast out their marketing message on their blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.  They never listen for feedback or dialog. They may even have outsourced their entire social media activity to a third party.

Which is a shame. Using social media solely as a broadcast medium reduces it to the level of junk mail. When's the last time you paid attention to a piece of junk mail? This is not to say that you should never mention your latest product or service - it means that it shsouldn't be the majority of your content. You'll never build community and create conversation by talking exclusively about your product.

 

 

Why I Think Facebook Is Doomed.

If you are a photography buff and own a Nikon then Nikonians is the place for you - A vibrant community full of the entire range of people from experts to beginners all passionate about their topic and eager to share and talk about it.

Play the banjo? There is a community for that. There are communities for cooking, hunting & shooting, and learning a language. There is even a community for people who raise chickens. 

All of these communities have one thing in common: They are full of conversation and knowledge.  Each time I visit Nikonians I learn so much and come away feeling enriched.

None of these communities are on Facebook.

Pick a topic and try to find a vibrant group on Facebook for it. In fact, there doesn't even seem to be a way to find people who share your interests. And even if you could find them and 'friend' them, most of their Facebook posts will have nothing to do with your specific shared interest. Facebook used to have a Discussions tab you could add to a page. That function was removed a long time ago.  In fact, Facebook is devoid of the structure necessary for people to gather around a common interest and focus on it.

Perhaps this is why so many people feel that Facebook is a waste of time.

The message here for small business owners is that you need to think carefully about what you are trying to accomplish with social media. Sometimes Facebook is the perfect tool.  Sometimes it is not.

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.

An Application of Our Framework

“I’m blogging, tweeting and updating but without a strategy, so it seems like a huge waste of time.”

A familiar refrain. Is it yours?

We’ve developed a systematic framework we teach to all our clients. It’s purpose is to provide a system for reaching the right people with the right message, and do so when they want to buy. It eliminates the wasted energy of trying to be on every social media site. It eliminates the frustration of feeling like you are wasting your time.  It allows to to say - for example - "I need to be on Facebook today for just three minutes to perform a specific task for a specific reason."

We're in the middle of an engagement with a client right now that illustrates the value of tis framework.  Our client is interacting with three distict groups of people:

The Tribe

These are people who have bought from my client multiple times and are raving fans. If you ask these people about their experience they'll say "I'll never buy this product anywhere else."  They are part of the 'family. They are already steeped in my client's business culture. It is this culture that keeps them coming back.

New Clients

These are people who have bought from my client once, probably as a referral from someone in my client's tribe, but are not yet steeped in the culture.

The Public

These are people who are expressing a need for my clients product but are unaware of my client's existence.

The Strategy

In accordance with our framework, we define a set of goals, tools, and tactics for each client persona. While exploring these personas it became clear that my client's overall strategy needed to look something like this:

The primary goals for each persona are:

Our Tribe

Energize Tribe members and turn them into evangelists. Create tools and an environment that boosts their natural tendency to engage in word-of-mouth advertising on my client's behalf. 

The Public

Reinforce the impression of my client provided by Tribe members.

New Client

Inculcate first-time-buyers into the culture, turning them into Tribe members.
 
Tactics and Execution

Now that we have distinct, understandable, and easy-to-articulate goals for each group, we then determine the specific social media tools and tactics to use for achieving those goals. This is so very different from the scattershot approach we see others typically take.  It narrowly focuses your time and energy. More importantly, you'll know why you are doing what you are doing.

 

Buyer Persona Coaching from THE Expert - Free

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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.

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.

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?

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'

Once in a Lifetime Opportunity

Small Business Owners: Consider what you are facing. Not "the worst economy since the Great Depression." Not "the worst unemployment rate in 26 years."

You have before you an opportunity that may occur only once in your lifetime.

The playing field has suddenly been leveled. Money has been neutralized as a weapon. Last year the 800-pound gorilla in your market had a million-dollar advertising budget and three marketing people, and he beat you up mercilessly with them. He doesn't have them any more. Now it's just you against him. Mano a mano.

And he's coming to this battle at a disadvantage. He's still in the mindset of playing by the old rules. You have a new tool available to you: Social Media. It allows you to build your brand and spread your word globally for almost no money. Social media allows you to accomplish what big companies with millions of advertising dollars cannot do.

Yes, It takes time and energy to successfully leverage social media, but a ton of time and energy is a lot easier to come by than a ton of money.

The playing field has been leveled. Seize the advantage.

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.