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Gevril and Haurex Italia dinner during Baselworld in March 2011 with Larry Brauner standing in the background.
Baselworld 2012 March 8-15.
Oct
24
7 Reasons for Disappointment with Facebook’s NetworkedBlogs Application
Filed Under Blogging, Facebook, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Social Media and Social Networking Sites | 17 Comments
NetworkedBlogs is a Facebook application, which syndicates blog content and networks blogs to help them gain followers and readership on Facebook.What blogger would not want to tap into Facebook, the networking giant, to grow his or her blog? That was the allure of NetworkedBlogs for me.
NetworkedBlogs has simplified my Facebook syndication to a small extent. However, despite building a large presence on NetworkedBlogs, integrating my blog with Facebook in this manner has resulted in few new readers.Here are seven reasons for my disappointment with the NetworkedBlogs Facebook application:
- Many of my NetworkedBlogs followers are following my blog only because the NetworkedBlogs application asked them to do so at the time they followed another blogger’s blog covering the same topics. They have little interest in reading my blog.
- Only a small percentage of users visit the NetworkedBlogs Home Page regularly or at all to see their NetworkedBlogs News Feed. Many users don’t even realize the importance of the NetworkedBlogs Home Page. NetworkedBlogs needs better instruct users, so that users will get more out of this potentially useful Facebook application.
- I, like most bloggers, post at most a few articles per week. However, the top blogs on NetworkedBlogs are group blogs with many articles per day, thereby dominating the News Feed on the NetworkedBlogs Home Page. NetworkedBlogs needs to adjust its algorithm to compensate for the disproportionate number of articles generated by group blogs.
- Moreover, on the NetworkedBlogs Home Page, the News Feed is not sequential. Instead, it gives the highest-rated blogs priority, just as the Facebook News Feed gives priority to the most relevant posts, based upon each post’s Facebook EdgeRank. Because most people follow top blogs on NetworkedBlogs, they’ll infrequently be shown less popular blogs. Networked blogs needs to modify its algorithm to display a greater number of lower-rated blog posts.
- People tend to follow many blogs they have little interest in reading. This too diminishes the usefulness of the NetworkedBlogs News Feed and its perceived importance, as well.
- Facebook greatly limits that which the NetworkedBlogs application can do on our behalf. NetworkedBlogs cannot create user notifications as it had been able to in the past. Therefore, NetworkedBlogs needs to be extra creative in order to increase user engagement with the application and its content.
- NetworkedBlogs users, including myself, aren’t proactive enough to compensate for the shortcomings of the NetworkedBlogs Facebook application. How we can use NetworkedBlogs more proactively and productively will be the subject of a future article, which I plan to call The NetworkedBlogs Challenge.
Before you comment on this post, please “like” my Facebook page and follow me on NetworkedBlogs.
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Tags: blog, Blogging, Facebook, Facebook applications, Facebook EdgeRank
May
16
25 Common Social Media and Web Marketing Mistakes
Filed Under Best Practices, Best of 2010, Blogging, Books, List Building, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines, Web Marketing | 37 Comments
Who wouldn’t want the kind of web presence that drives hundreds or thousands of targeted visitors to his or her web site or blog and converts them into customers or followers?I’ve created that type web presence for myself. However, most businesses that try to build such a web presence fall short of achieving that objective. How about yours?
This a long article that covers a lot of ground. My hope is that this article and those articles and resources it links to will enable you to take a fresh look at your social media and web marketing program.
Over the past few years I’ve identified dozens of factors that contribute to lack of web marketing success, and in this article I discuss 25 of the most important ones:
- Failing to Plan - Strategy must precede tactics. Taking action is easy, but will that action help you achieve your objectives? Do you know precisely what those objectives are? It’s imperative that you define your objectives and devise marketing strategies to help you reach them effectively.
- A Flawed Plan - Including thinking too big or too small, e.g., with your keywords, quantity of social networking sites you employ or frequency of your blog posting. Be ambitious but realistic. Your time is limited. Make a plan that’s simple but not simplistic. Shama Hyder Kabani’s The Zen of Social Media Marketing provides an excellent overview of the planning process.
- Ignoring Your Competition - Developing your plan in a vacuum without any competitive intelligence prevents you from learning from your competitors and identifying optimal marketing strategies and tactics.
- Having Unrealistic Expectations - View social media and web marketing as a marathon, not a sprint. It takes a substantial amount of time to build credibility with your potential customers and with search engines too.
- Not Focusing on Your Niche - The more focused your message, the more it will influence your target audience. Trying to be everything to everybody will make your website look like a patch quilt. I’m sure you’ve been to websites that look like menus at diners or aerial views of battle zones. You hit the back arrow and breathe a sigh of relief. Successful offline marketers know that a highly targeted ad gets the best results, even with those people who aren’t targeted by the ad.
- Following the Pack - Don’t do anything solely because it’s trendy. Check new options at your disposal for consistency with your plan and expected return on time invested. You’ll need to rely mostly on intuition, but the more extensive your knowledge, the more reliable your intuition will be.
- Not Optimizing Your Web Site - What good is a website that looks great yet is dysfunctional? It doesn’t attract any traffic. Search engines are confused by it. Or it attracts traffic, but that traffic doesn’t convert. The lack of web site results is so wide spread that business owners tend to be very skeptical about the web’s marketing potential. See 10 Easy Way to Improve Your Blog or Website and 10 More Easy Ways to Improve Your Website.
- Optimizing for Search Engines Only - Some marketers optimize their web sites for search engines but fail to optimize for humans. The result: traffic that doesn’t convert. Optimizing “user experience” is more important than search engine optimization. SEO is only one of numerous ways to attract visitors to your site. On the other hand, all methods drive traffic to your website, and if that site is weak, your work is in vain.
- Your Logo or Flash Dominates Your Website - A constant battle! A client said he wants his website to have an upscale image similar to that of the fluffy Tiffany site. Will that work for him? He’s trying to build his brand online. The Tiffany brand was powerful before the web even existed. All they really need is a pretty site with product illustrations and a shopping card to help you spend your extra funds on beautiful high-end jewelry. However, let’s be real. If you’re not a Tiffany or an Apple, nobody cares as much about your logo or flash as you do. They want content to digest. They want to know what you can do for them and whether or not they can trust you.
- Too Little or Lame Content - They say that content is king. I believe that is true. People are searching online for content. To succeed, feed people great content, such as text, video, pictures, podcasts, etc., and you’ll gain positive recognition for your brand.
- Trying to Spam the Search Engines - Search engines are smarter than you might think. Game them, and you’ll come to regret it. But, feed them lots of solid content, and over time they’ll send your web site thousands and thousands of targeted visitors.
- Leaving Everything to Your Web Developers - Web developers are neither experienced marketers nor skilled copywriters. Check out Web Developers Don’t Know Social Media.
- Making Bad Money Decisions - How about the following example? You spent tens of thousands to engage top notch social media and web consultants, but you don’t want to spend a couple of thousand on the new website design they recommend. Why not? Because that would imply that the money you spent on the original design was wasted. Am I missing something here? Tell me.
- Not Hosting Your Website or Blog Yourself - Your website or blog is the core of your web presence. Should Blogger or Wordpress.com determine its disposition? Invest in a web hosting account — it’s not pricey. Learn how to use the Wordpress.org content management system to create and maintain your website or blog.
- Not Building Yourself an Online Community - If you have doubts about social media or the power of your own community, Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk will make you a believer. Gary has built a community of wine lovers around his Wine Library TV brand, and his social media efforts have greatly added to the bottom line of his business, the Wine Library.
- Not Engaging Your Community - To cultivate and nurture your community of customers and fans is a golden opportunity to connect with the people who matter to your brand.
- Not Being Authentic - We live in an age of trust and transparency. Being who you’re not will set you apart from your competitors in a counterproductive way.
- Not Integrating Online Marketing with Offline - Relying only on Internet marketing when you can achieve results offline as well, including driving visitors from offline to your website. Marketing offline is not dead.
- Never Meeting People Face-to-Face - Nothing builds trust like an in-person meeting. If you’re in the New York area, let’s have coffee or do lunch.
- Not Diversifying - Don’t put All Your Social Media Eggs in One Basket — nor all your other eggs.
- Not Using an Autoresponder to Build an Email List - Most potential customers need to get to know your brand better before they buy. Keep in touch with them by letting them add themselves to your autoresponder newsletter or blog subscription list — even if you use RSS.
- Not Touching Base Frequently with Your Email List - If you don’t stay on people’s minds, they’ll forget you. Then when you do email them, they’ll flag your message as spam. That in turn will hurt your ability to get your email through the filters of the Internet service providers.
- Relying on Trial and Error - Keep reading. Keep learning. Trial and error is a luxury you may not be able to afford.
- Never Seeking Help - A little help can save you from much trial and error and many hours of spinning your wheels but remaining where you are.
- Taking Your Web Marketing Too Seriously - Lighten up. Make friends. Have fun.
Here are social media and web marketing resources you might find useful:
- Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk
- Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel
- The Zen of Social Media Marketing by Shama Hyder Kabani
- 31 Days to Build a Better Blog by Darren Rouse
- Building Social Equity free and premium social marketing videos
- Who’s Blogging What free web marketing newsletter and digest
- Web marketing articles from this blog and other archived posts
Wishing you success with your web marketing.
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Tags: Books, marketing books, SEO, Web Marketing, web presence
Feb
14
10 Types of Widgets for Your Blog or Website
Filed Under Best of 2010, Blogging, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Widgets | 27 Comments
This article about widgets is brought to you by Small Business Networking, a new social networking website for open business networking and ongoing business education.How much do you know about website widgets?
Last week, in Website Widgets and Ads Raise Security and Privacy Issues, I shared my concerns about security and privacy issues connected with the use of widgets on a blog or other website.
I concluded, “You are responsible as a blogger or website owner to protect the privacy of your visitors as best you can. Use widgets from reputable sources and banner ads, too.”
Today, I list 10 types of website widgets that can enhance your site:
- Community Building Widgets - I use both Google Friend Connect and Facebook fan page widgets here on Online Social Networking. They work on blogs, as well as other websites, and I like them very much. Make sure you enable and use the Google Friend Connect newsletter feature.
- Subscription Widgets - I use RSS and NetworkedBlogs widgets, which are suitable for blogs, and I also use an email subscription widget that works with any website.
- Tracking Widgets - In addition to embedding Google Analytics internally on every page of this blog, I use Get Clicky, Alexa, Page Rank Checker, Website Grader and Flag Counter widgets to acquire a broad range of additional statistics.
- Social Networking Widgets - Social network widgets encourage visitors to connect with you on Twitter, Facebook, BlogCatalog, MyBlogLog and other key social bookmarking and social networking sites. An Entrecard widget enables me to network and expose my blog to thousands of bloggers.
- Polls and Survey Widgets - I use the interests and comments features of Google Friend Connect to obtain feedback and preferences from my GFC community.
- Content Sharing Widgets - The Add This widget at the end of each article makes it very easy (hint, hint) for you to share content with friends in your networks.
- Advertising Widgets - Ad widgets from Google Adwords, ad networks and retailers such as Amazon help you generate income from your blog or other website.
- Syndication Widgets - Display news, other information, YouTube videos and Flickr pics on your site.
- Widget Bars - Here’s an example of a page with a Digg toolbar widget (hint, hint again). Widget bars are becoming more and more common.
- Widget Gadgets - See Google Gadgets for everything else under the sun.
My favorite website widgets are community building widgets, subscription widgets, tracking widgets and social networking widgets. In a subsequent article, I’ll provide useful tips for using widgets.
However, one more thing before you leave. What types of widgets do you use? What are examples of each?
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Tags: advertising, Blogging, Measurement and Tracking, social bookmarking, social networking, WidgetsSharing is Caring!
Feb
7
10 More Easy Ways to Improve Your Website
Filed Under Best Practices, Blogging, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Search Engines, Web Marketing | 20 Comments
How well is your blog or website performing?This past November, I wrote, “Some web sites clearly have it together. They have lots of traffic and appeal to visitors.
“Other sites aren’t bad. They have good potential. With a few tweaks here and there, they could enjoy much more traffic and appeal much more to their audience.”
I listed 10 Easy Ways to Improve Your Blog or Website and indicated that there might be more suggestions to follow.Here then are ten more tweaks (presented as problems and fixes), bringing the total to twenty. Hope they’ll keep you busy for a while.
- Key Content Hidden “Below the Fold” - You have seconds to capture a visitor’s attention. If visitors need to scroll down to view vital content, you’ll most likely lose them. Similarly, if you have an important widget, such as a Facebook fan page widget, place it where it will be visible without scrolling down.
- Long Flash Intro - I hate sitting through flash intros designed to impress. Don’t you? Why would you want to subject your visitors to long (or even short) flash intros? Flash intros are dead time. Why not instead impress visitors with your knowledge and the relevance of your content?
- Clutter - Some websites have too much going on; they look like patch quilts. Others have ads that fill every nook and cranny. What can I say? Such sites are overwhelming.
- No Call to Action - What do you want your visitors to do when they visit your site? To buy? To subscribe? To leave a blog comment? Let them know what you expect, and if your request is reasonable, they may very well comply. If you don’t ask, they may not know what to do, and they’ll leave, perhaps forever, without taking action.
- Distracting Ads - Pop-up ads, blinking ads, glaring banners, sexy ads, scripts that forward to advertisers’ sites after a few seconds, inappropriate auto-playing audio, etc. I dare say, these are “the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.” Make sure your ads don’t interfere with your content. If your ads are your content, then please disregard everything you’ve ever read on this blog.
- Images Not Labeled - Make your visitors and the search engines happy. Whenever possible, describe your images using alt and title parameters in your img tags. If all this is gibberish to you, worry not. Your web development or HTML guru will know what to do.
- Hard to Navigate Site - Don’t confuse your visitors. Keep your website simple and provide a site map if you can.
- Difficult to Understand - Write for your audience. Not everyone will have an advanced degree, some could have nothing or as little as a certificate from an online school – unless of course such people are your target audience.
- Spelling and Grammar Mistakes - There ain’t no excuse for bad spellin and grammar.
- Stale Content - Fresh content is good for SEO and for attracting repeat visitors.
Implement as many of these ten website improvements (and the ones listed 10 Easy Ways to Improve Your Blog or Website) as you’re able to.
How time flies! Already, we’ve come to the part of the blog post where people usually leave a well thought-out comment.
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Tags: Blogging, Search Engines, web development, Web Marketing, web presence
Feb
3
Neglected Stepchild of Social Media Marketing
Filed Under Best Practices, Blogging, Facebook, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Outside the Box, Twitter, Web Marketing | 23 Comments
You want to market on the web and take advantage of the vast potential of social media. You start your blog, create your Twitter account, launch your Facebook fan page, and you’re ready to go.Or are you? Have you missed any crucial first steps?
Sandy Abrams, begins her new book, Your Idea, Inc., with words that have been attributed to Mark Twain:
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking down your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”
This quotation presents three problems, which I believe ought to have troubled Samuel Clemens:
- Isn’t “breaking down your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks” itself a step in the process?
- Aren’t understanding your needs and clearly defining your objectives vital preparatory steps as well?
- How do we determine the optimal sequence in which to execute all the small manageable tasks?
These are three aspects of planning.Planning is not popular, which explains the all too common lack of direction and focus in social media work.
Lack of direction and focus impedes progress and can cause frustration.
Your Social Media Plan
Before you jump into social media, devise your social media marketing and PR plan. Here are 16 key areas that might factor into your social media plan:
- Understand your business and objectives.
- Think about your products and services, what makes each special and their respective market segments.
- Develop positioning strategies for each market or program.
- Compile a list of your online competitors for each market.
- Identify suitable social media, such as social networking sites and social bookmarking sites, for both your vertical and horizontal campaigns.
- Identify desirable directories and other sites that might link to your content.
- Research and evaluate the extent and quality of industry-specific online content.
- Devise strategies and techniques for developing and promoting your content.
- Define a policy for governing your employees’ interactions with the public through social media.
- Study the online methodology of competitors and identify their search engine keywords.
- Analyze and critique your existing web presence.
- Gauge your competitors’ online success based upon their standing in search engines, the number and quality of links to their site, and estimated traffic.
- Identify opportunities to outmaneuver your competitors.
- Use a process called keyword discovery to develop a potentially useful vocabulary that will attract targeted search engine traffic to your content through SEO.
- Analyze keywords to determine which ones ought to be emphasized, based on the frequency of search and the amount of competition for each keyword phrase.
- Create a lexicon as an output of your keyword research and as an aid to your content development.
Action is Everything
You need not be concerned about every one of these areas. Use your judgment, since these are more suggestions than requirements. Certainly, do not use the length of my list as an excuse not to take action.
Action is everything. However, action begins with planning.
What are your thoughts?
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Tags: keyword research, keywords, Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Public Relations, SEO, Social Media, social media marketing, Web MarketingSharing is Caring!
Feb
1
5 Top List Building Destinations
Filed Under Blogging, Facebook, List Building, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Ning Sites, Public Relations, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Twitter, Web Marketing | 14 Comments
I’ve written about list building extensively in connection with social media.It’s time to revisit social media list building once again. In this article, however, I focus more on where to build lists than how to build them. In other words, I focus on social media list building destinations.
A few remarks are in order before I address the where-to of list building.
Importance of List Building
In List Building Using Twitter, I discuss the importance of list building in marketing. List building is equally important in PR, CRM and other types of communication.
Reach is the quantity of people your message reaches, while frequency is the average number of times each person is reached.
Frequency builds trust and drives your message home. Advertising without frequency is rarely effective. Marketers rely on list building to repeatedly reach their audience and achieve their target frequency levels.
New List Building Paradigm
In List Building Paradigm Shift, I discard the stereotype of list building as “a well-written lead capture page linked by a web form to an auto- responder” and redefine it as the process of acquiring and nurturing followers.More precisely:
List building is the process of subscribing members of your target audience, in order to engage and nurture them and brand yourself and that which you represent.
This definition leaves plenty of room for creativity and customization of the list building process, yet it defines our objectives: engaging, nurturing and branding. Prescribing our objectives enables you to gauge the relative merits of each list building venue at your disposal.
List Building Destinations
These are my five favorite venues for list building. They are just as useful to owners of static websites as they are to bloggers.
I use all of them and let people choose for themselves which they prefer.
- Autoresponders - Reports of the death of email have been greatly exaggerated. Everybody receives email and knows how email works. Every website should provide email subscription. Emails sent to opt-in subscribers will have an open rate of about 30% and a click through rate of approximately 10%, which is excellent. The downside of email subscription in general is anonymity, lack of interactivity and changes of address. I use an autoresponder service to maintain my database and deliver my email. My service has a high delivery rate, many important features, good customer service, and it integrates with Google’s FeedBurner RSS if you have a blog.
- Ning Social Networks - You can connect with members of a Ning network, interact with them and broadcast messages to them as the site creator, as an administrator, as a group creator and as a friend. They all work. However, only as the site creator do you actually own their data. My primary Ning site is Small Business Network. Subscription through Ning can be powerful, but it takes much more work to join a Ning site than to opt into an email list. A big problem with Ning is that if somebody joins more than one site or group of yours, they can receive duplicate mail from you. If you’re already established on Ning, incorporate it in your list building strategy. If not, to Ning or not to Ning will not be an easy question to answer.
- Facebook - A Facebook fan page widget lets Facebook members register for your page with one click. Based on my experience, response to posts runs at around 5%, about half the rate of email, which is good. The quality of traffic is superb with high average time spent on site. Your posts on Facebook can promote interaction and draw comments themselves from the members of your page, which helps you brand yourself. The potential also exists with Facebook pages to benefit from viral effects.
- Twitter - Posts on Twitter, or tweets as they’re called, can easily be retweeted and spread virally throughout the site. In a future post, I might list the reasons why, not withstanding the viral effect, I like Twitter much less than I like Facebook for list building. Nevertheless, I’m very happy to make Twitter subscription available, and I love all the traffic it brings me. (I’m @larrybrauner.)
- Google Friend Connect - This is Google’s attempt to add a social element to every website. I doubt that it’s very successful from a social perspective, but it’s from Google, so I’m in. If Google uses or will use GFC membership to assess the relevance of websites, I’m covered. One nice feature of GFC is its newsletters. Make sure you enable them and use them to email your GFC subscribers.
I also use RSS subscription for my blog, but it doesn’t support interaction, and I believe that the response rate from RSS is very low.
If you’re not yet a subscriber, please choose a destination and subscribe.
Your comments about list building or social media list building destinations are welcome.
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Tags: autoresponders, Blogging, email marketing, Facebook, Google, List Building, Ning, Social Media, target, TwitterSharing is Caring!
Jan
25
My Top 10+ Blog and Website Traffic Sources
Filed Under Best of 2010, Blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Ning Sites, Search Engines, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Targeting, Twitter, Website Traffic | 45 Comments
In 8 Simple Ways to Penetrate Social Media Clutter, I recommended that you leverage multiple traffic sources. In Looking for Traffic in All the Wrong Places, I gave you a partial list of the places I look to get more website traffic.Based upon Google Analytics data pertaining to my recent blog visits, bounce rates and average time on site, I present my top 10 blog traffic sources along with some notes on each:
- Search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and Bing - They account for 35% of my traffic. When my blog was new, I didn’t get any search engine traffic at all. Now, however, I get 5,000 visits from searches per month — including business people seeking precisely the types of services I offer. The credit goes to search engine optimization and to a growing reservoir of content.
- Entrecard, a traffic exchange for bloggers - Admittedly, Entrecard provides me with lots of worthless traffic. Fortunately, however, the site provides me with some great traffic too and an opportunity to build key relationships with other bloggers. One of my favorites at Entrecard is Gera from Uruguay, owner of the Sweets Foods blog. He and I are now also connected by email, Facebook and Twitter. As with all other traffic sources, to benefit from Entrecard you’ll need to make a long-term commitment to developing it.
- Twitter - I’ve written at length about Twitter. Read Twitter Stats Defy Measurement. I’m happy to have started with Twitter in 2008 when Twitter’s rules didn’t get in the way of building a large following. Today, different tactics are necessary to connect with your target audience. Start by encouraging your website visitors and friends on social networking sites to follow you on Twitter. Then gradually introduce new Twitter tools into your mix. My favorite tool, Tweet Adder, which I use daily, is worth the small investment.
- Facebook - I turned my attention to Facebook in June 2009 and experimented with the NetworkedBlogs application, which may have introduced new readers to my blog, but proved to be a poor source of ongoing traffic. On the other hand, profiles, fan pages and events showed themselves to be excellent traffic sources. It seems to me, so far, that Facebook fan pages are very effective as a form of web site subscription.
- Ning social network - I’m sorry to report that Ning has morphed into a host of unrelated niche sites. If you have your own Ning site, or a group or lots of friends on someone else’s Ning site, you can use that site to move traffic. As with Twitter, getting started with Ning is harder than it used to be, and the marketing benefits are fewer. I belong to many Ning sites and have several of my own. My primary Ning site is Small Business Network.
- Business Exchange - Discovered this social bookmarking site recently and wrote about it in 12 Tips for Using Business Week’s Social Bookmarking Site. I’m hoping that Business Exchange will help me generate a lot of high quality traffic in the year to come.
- Blog Catalog - If you have a blog and decide to use BlogCatalog, start your own group there; make many friends on the site and invite them to join your group. Those who join are interested in you and your group’s theme.
- StumbleUpon - Planning to learn much more about StumbleUpon and use it much more this year. I’ll keep you posted.
- LinkedIn - While well connected on LinkedIn, I’m not using it much at present. Most of my LinkedIn traffic is coming as a result of the Twitter LinkedIn integration.
- Ryze - Here I first encountered online social networking back in 2003. I find Ryze very underwhelming in 2010. The traffic I get from Ryze comes from posting in groups, which are really forums.
I believe that Blogger is sending me websitetraffic because of Google Friend Connect. Also, I heard a rumor that Yahoo! is dumping MyBlogLog. Will let you know about both of them.
You made it all the way down here. Why not scroll down a drop more and leave a comment?
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Tags: blog, Blogging, Business Exchange, Entrecard, Facebook, Get More Web Site Traffic, Google, increase website traffic, LinkedIn, NetworkedBlogs, Ning, Ning social network, Search Engines, Twitter, Website Traffic
Jan
3
Why Blogs Make More Sense
Filed Under Blogging, Networking and Marketing Strategy, Public Relations, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Web Marketing | 25 Comments
As we begin 2010, I wish you real success, both online and off, in the year ahead.In a video I’ve already already shown you, marketing expert Darren Rouse, author of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, explains in detail his blog-centric approach to building a web presence, in which his blogs are his home base, and social media sites such as Facebook and YouTube are his outposts.
Some readers have questioned the necessity of starting a blog, since a blog can consume more time than a business might be prepared to invest in their social media initiative.
I agree that starting a blog is not absolutely necessary.
Businesses can choose among various alternatives when establishing their social media home bases. However, these alternatives are less ideal than a blog for one or more of the following reasons:
- Inadequate Control - When a site is owned by someone else, they modify the terms or remove users arbitrarily, not caring at all that it’s your home base.
- Inadequate Communication - The site’s features don’t sufficiently enable two-way communication between you and your community members.
- Inadequate Flexibility - The structure, linking or other features of the site are too rigid.
- Too Resource Intensive - The expense far exceeds the alternative cost of starting and maintaining a blog.
These are some major alternatives to the blog-centric approach and the reasons they are problematic:
- Static Website -Inadequate communication and flexibility.
- Your Own Ning Network or Facebook Page - Inadequate control and flexibility.
- LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Squidoo etc. - Inadequate control, communication and flexibility.
- Self-Hosted Social Networking Site - Too resource intensive.
Note also that search engines are consistently receptive to blogs, and that some social media sites and Facebook apps cater to blogs and bloggers.
If I couldn’t use a blog for whatever reason, a static website (equipped for lead capture) coupled with a Facebook Page or perhaps my own Ning (or SocialGO) social networking sites might be workable, but…
There ain’t nothing like a blog!
Start 2010 off right: Subscribe and leave a comment.
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Tags: blog, Blogging, Social MediaSharing is Caring!
Dec
30
Real Social Media Success in 2010
Filed Under Blogging, Facebook, Outside the Box, Personal Development and Success | 25 Comments
As the year and the decade draw to an end, success is a topic on most people’s minds.In 1,000 True Fans, Kevin Kelly develops a marketing paradigm for artists of all types, including musicians.
A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version.
Focus on connecting with people. Convert 1,000 lesser fans into true fans, which is all you need to earn a living.
In First, organize 1,000, Seth Godin generalizes the model and applies it to politics and business, “1,000 people voting as a bloc can change local politics forever. 1,000 people willing to try a new restaurant you find for them gives you the ability to make an entrepreneur successful and change the landscape of your town.”
Again, the focus is on connecting with people, “You don’t find customers for your products. You find products for your customers.”
Connecting with People through Social Media
What I really love about social media, in particular, blogging and social networking sites such as Facebook, is the facility with which they enable me to connect with people.
I can write an article or post a link that sparks a public conversation. Some remarks can then lead to private discussions via direct messages, email or telephone. If I help somebody or solve a problem, I now have a true fan.
Why 1,000 True Fans?
Don’t attach importance to one thousand. 1,000 is a round number, chosen arbitrarily, to take the number of fans or customers needed to earn a good living — which is fairly abstract — and make it more concrete.
Unfortunately, the emphasis on 1,000 true fans might lead us to “see the forest for the trees” but to lose sight of each individual tree. However, each individual we touch is, somewhat paradoxically, as important as the overall group.
Impact the life of even one true fan, and you have achieved a measure of success.
Real Social Media Success
The changes made possible by technology and social media in the ways we communicate and conduct business have been phenomenal. How glorious it would be if we could witness corresponding improvements in the human condition.
Sadly, the opposite is true. Technology and social media are used for evil as well as good, and our world and its peoples continue to have little respite from their fear, pain and suffering.
Our world is made up of individuals. We, as individuals, must seek ways to bridge our differences, to heal our conflicts, and to ameliorate our Planet Earth. We, as individuals, must connect with other individuals, through our businesses and otherwise, and help them improve their lives.It would be super if, in our businesses, we could look beyond the bottom line and use social media to make the globe not only smaller, but kinder, saner and safer as well.
That would be real social media success.
May we all achieve success in 2010. Have a happy new year!
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Tags: critical success factors, Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Seth Godin, Social Media, Success StrategiesSharing is Caring!
Dec
28
8 Social Media Marketing Basics
Filed Under Best of 2009, Blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn, List Building, Ning Sites, Personal Development and Success, Public Relations, Search Engines, Social Media and Social Networking Sites, Targeting, Twitter | 17 Comments
I’ve bookmarked and skimmed a dozen or more articles that project the path of social media in 2010. Collectively these articles represent many days of researching and writing.Search Social Media 2010 on Google, and you’ll be able to compile your own social media 2010 reading list. If the information in all the articles isn’t sufficiently comprehensive, a list of 44+ social media books to buy and read can help fill the gaps.
Not that I don’t like reading about trends and innovations — I do. However, I learned long ago that the bleeding edge cuts both ways, and there’s merit in waiting until the timing is right.Blogs and Facebook have been around for years, yet only recently have they emerged as key tools for main- stream businesses.
I suggest that we watch and see how social media and technology play out in 2010, but that we focus on the basics and build our web presences right now using techniques and resources at our fingertips.
Here are my eight social media marketing basics for building a web presence 2010:
- Core Marketing and PR Competencies - Analytics, branding, communication, competitive intelligence, design, list building, market segmentation, marketing research, targeting, etc.
- High-Quality Relevant Content - Producing and sharing articles, videos, podcasts, pictures, conference calls and talk shows.
- Search Engine Optimization - Social media and SEO complement each other. Read Social Media vs. Search Engine Optimization and Website vs. Web Presence.
- Blogging - Also in Website vs. Web Presence, Darren Rouse, author of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, shares in a video his blog-centric approach to social media marketing, an approach to which I subscribe.
- Social Networking Sites - Nearly any social media site can present opportunities to network. By social networking sites, I mean sites that exist primarily for networking rather than content sharing.The principal social networking sites for business are LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. You can also throw into the mix Ning and other niche social networking sites.
- Content Sharing Sites - Two of the most popular content sharing sites are YouTube and Flickr, but there are many more.
- Social Bookmarking Sites - There are hundreds of business and social bookmarking sites. Two of my favorite sites are Business Exchange and StumbleUpon.
- Blog and Web Site Networks - There are many blog and website networks. My favorites include Entrecard, NetworkedBlogs, Technorati, MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog and Google Friend Connect.
With these social media basics, you can build a huge web presence in 2010. It’s not possession of the latest technology or an inside scoop on a new FB app that’ll enable you to soar in 2010. Your success will depend largely upon your own creativity, skills, efficiency and inner motivation.
I hope you have already mastered the all-important skills of subscribing to blogs and commenting on blog posts.
Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to my RSS feed or by e-mail. Visit my About, Services, Media Buzz and Connect pages to learn about Building Your Audience and Brand on the Web. See also my Disclosure Policy regarding affiliations and compensation.
Tags: Blogging, content sharing, SEO, social bookmarking, Social Media, social networking sites, web presenceSharing is Caring!
