6 New Social Articles on Business 2 Community |
- The Secret to Better Blogging
- Social Media is a Giant Field Trip
- 10 Ways You Should Be Using Your Blog to Build Business (But Probably Aren’t)
- Phone Number Sites Accused of “Keyword Stuffing”
- How Much Time Should I Spend on Social Media
- With Enterprise Online Communities, Simplicity Wins. Or Does It?
| Posted: 28 Apr 2012 02:00 PM PDT
They argue that, without one, you’ll procrastinate… or you’ll fizzle out…. or you’ll stray from your goals, producing off-target posts that fail to earn you followers. I’m not so sure they’re right. Sure and steady output—even without a plan to back it up—may be just the thing for you. In fact, a content plan may be the last thing in the world you need. If planning your blog’s content seems foreign, you might be the kind of writer economist David Galenson calls a “seeker.” Seekers, Galenson says, share “persistent uncertainty about their methods and goals.” And that uncertainty leads them to be dissatisfied with their output. “Their dissatisfaction impels them to experiment, and their uncertainty means that they change their work by trial and error, moving tentatively toward their imperfectly perceived objectives.” One example of such a writer is the novelist Virginia Woolf. Describing her production of Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf wrote, “the idea started as the oyster starts or the snail to secrete a house for itself. And this it did without any conscious direction. The little note book in which an attempt was made to forecast a plan was soon abandoned, and the book grew day by day, week by week, without any plan at all, except that which was dictated each morning in the act of writing.” How about you? Are you a planner? Or a seeker? |
| Social Media is a Giant Field Trip Posted: 28 Apr 2012 01:30 PM PDT
In the dream, I was on a field trip, kind of like school but everyone was all grown up. I, along with a mass of other people, were going to this gigantic museum, and everybody spread out to all floors and all galleries. I was with a small group and we were all looking at the same things, but I'd get little messages from people in other parts of the museum. "This is what I'm looking at" or "What you're looking at sounds pretty neat!" I realized that this is really what the sharing aspect of social media is like. We are all doing our own things in our own galleries, but then we find something to share and we send that thought over to people in another gallery. Meanwhile, those folks are popping back messages about what they're seeing and experiencing. Before you know it, you start to look forward to those updates from other galleries, those updates from those other people, and even though you're traveling in all different directions in no specific order, you're all still in the same museum, exploring different galleries and sharing what you learn. If you were to ask me why I like social media, that sharing aspect would be my first answer. Learning what other people have learned, getting new perspectives on what I have learned. This part has nothing to do with business (although sometimes it could). It's just about being in this gigantic space and saying, "Hey, what's on your mind?" What do you think? Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/orangebrompton/6940597124 via Creative Commons |
| 10 Ways You Should Be Using Your Blog to Build Business (But Probably Aren’t) Posted: 28 Apr 2012 10:00 AM PDT Part 2 of 2: Did you miss part 1? Now that we've given voice to the ultimate secret for blogging success (actually populating your blog) and talked about some easy, painless ways to do so (even if you don't consider yourself much of a writer) let's go on to the remaining: 9 ways you should be using your blog to build business 2. Use your blog to educate readers about your business, products or services. One way to do this is to have a spotlight product or service of the week (or month). Incentivize newly blog educated customers by providing an offer relative to your product or service of the month, such as a complimentary trial version, free add-on or another goodie. On your working calendar (whether it's electronic or old fashioned paper and pen) schedule out 15 minutes each week and write down the name of each product or service that you'll write about. For each, you only need to write 2-3 paragraphs, and you will likely be able to cut and paste from manufacturer's websites or flyers, or even take scripting from product packaging itself. 3. Brand it. Your blog – along with your website, email newsletter, Facebook timeline page and all other online platforms – should be designed so that a customer knows they are interacting with your business (and with the same business) no matter which site they were on. For example, I recently designed a website for my husband's dental practice. Note how the Walker and Kraus DDS’ Enumclaw dental practice website, blog and Facebook page – while not identical – still have enough harmony so that you can easily identify them as united.
4. Optimize it. Now more than ever it's important that you utilize your online communications effectively and strategically. I know it sounds complicated, but a little reading and research on your part about optimizing your blog posts to help drive traffic not only to itself but also to drive more traffic to your business' website will pay off. (And if you don't want to do it yourself, you don't have to. Content writers like me would simply love to do it for you!) 5. Engage, provoke and otherwise invite feedback. The point of communications channels like your blog are primarily to build brand awareness and foster relationships. You should write from the standpoint of wanting to create intrigue among readers – a desire in prospects to want to know more about your business (or do business with you), the development of customer loyalty and referrals among existing clients, and so on. Use your blog to gauge feedback, solicit reviews and testimonials, find out how well your customer service, fulfillment, service department or other segments of your business are doing, etc. 6. Establish and build on your reputation as an expert. No matter what business you are in, you want your customers to view you as the authority, the go-to-guy for whatever it is that you do or sell. By using your blog to educate customers and prospects, you set yourself up as a perceived authority. In addition, by populating your blog strategically and improving your SEO result placement, you enhance your reputation. True or not, people perceive businesses to be more (or inherently) trustworthy when they place higher in Google search results. 7. Ensure cross-channel coordination. Blog posts should be scheduled, in part, to be coordinated with your overall communications strategy. Not only should you use other channels to link to your blog post, but even topics themselves can receive focus across the entirety of your business in conjunction with the point in time that it's being featured on your blog post. An example of this would be creating a promotion around a product that will receive "product of the week" status. in addition to blog post and social media status updates, you could put a snippet on your on-hold system, place bag stuffers in box shipments or bags when customers check out, send a postcard to customers or prospects who have purchased that product in the past or who are more likely to buy in the future, include it as a featured product in your email or print newsletters, and even provide service providers or point of sale employees with a special script about that product. 8. Make emotional connections. People expect blog posts to be written by real people. And when you get to write like a real person, you have more ability to make emotional connections. Use analogies about people, places, pets and other things in your life that your customers or prospects might relate to emotionally. Talk about local schools, charities, civic initiatives and other worthwhile endeavors which you support. Give people emotional reasons to see themselves as connected to your brand and your business. 9. Turn it into a resource. When you populate your blog with posts that have value (i.e., value in the eyes of your readers, customers and prospects), you establish your blog as a resource. When you provide a valuable resource, you give people reasons to come back. Reasons to forward your blog posts on to friends and family. Reasons for them to check back to see what's new, what's special, what's incentivized, etc. In addition to talking about your business, you can also talk about your community and provide links to other businesses, city organizations, events, etc. Set your business blog up as a hub for people to come back to visit, time and time again. 10. Think series of posts, rather than one and done. There's no reason that you can't write out the story of your business in a series of posts, especially if you can tell the story of your business in a compelling way and leave people wanting more. And writing in series sequences (instead of one and done) also enhances your SEO as search engines view pages with back links as having more value and authority. |
| Phone Number Sites Accused of “Keyword Stuffing” Posted: 28 Apr 2012 07:30 AM PDT
"We do consider it to be keyword stuffing to put so many phone numbers on a page," said Matt in his post, which you can read here along with the ensuing comments. He adds, "There are a few websites that provide value-add for some phone numbers, e.g. sites that let people discuss a specific phone number that keeps calling them over and over. But if a site stuffs a large number of numbers on its pages without substantial value-add, that can violate our guidelines, not to mention annoy users." As I mentioned in a previous post, The three reasons why people visit your website, you should remember to include your phone number in your website. (I like to see it at the top of the site on every page.) If Google can index the phone number along with the text of your pages, it can then show your web pages if people search for your phone number. This could happen if, for example, someone at your company calls a potential customer and the call does not connect, but the customer types the number into Google to find out who is calling them – something I do occasionally. What Matt Cutts is saying is that, in this scenario, the person searching for a number may be presented with web pages full of useless lists of phone numbers instead of a page from your site that allows the customer to interact with you. |
| How Much Time Should I Spend on Social Media Posted: 28 Apr 2012 06:30 AM PDT
Spending time each day needs to be the focus of your time. The amount of time you spend on social media is dependent on where you are in your social media learning process. Here are some of the processes that I went through as a part of my learning. Pay attention to the highlighted areas to get a sense of how much time is needed at a minimum to be successful with social media. Learning how to use Social Media Sites Your time spent on social media platforms will be a lot more int the beginning and really should be so that you find comfort in know what to say and how to create interesting conversations. Learn from people who have a lot of followers or who post interesting content. Your main goal is to learn who the great people are and what they talk about. Start with 1-2 platforms in the beginning and try to spend 1-2 hours looking and searching people you want to follow. Create a Plan Talk to people who work with these platforms, especially people who use it directly at their work site. This way, you will begin to learn how these channels work and/or don't work for companies. Take some time to work up your plan and don't be afraid to seek out information online or in person. Take 1 month and create a plan that fits your needs. Start small and grow your plan over time with new goals and objectives. Make sure you also decide on some tools to use to analyze your activity and assist you with posting information on sites. Some familiar tools are Hootsuite and Tweetdeck. Execute your Plan Start spending 1-2 hours a day and execute your plan. Schedule time throughout your workday, (Example check site at 8:00am, 10:00am,12:00pm, 2:00pm and 4:00pm. Also, check out your social media platforms in the evening too. Track the activity that is occurring with respect to your posts and people's replies. Refine your Plan Take 2 hours and refine your plan after a couple of months, and determine what processes are working well and which processes are not working well. Two months is really fast and it may take a little longer. My only point here is that people who work with online marketing and social media platforms in particular are always updating their plans and processes as they learn more and more each day. Execute your Plan By this time, you have a new set of processes and some new goals. Continue to execute and try new processes. It is the best way to learn how to work with social media sites. Spend 1-2 hours each day with these new processes and execute your plan. Be consistent and try to work on your initiatives each day if possible. This way people will start to see your posts and will start gaining respect for your work. Summary The number of hours listed above is the minimum amount needed if you are going to learn how to be effective on social media sites. If you want to accelerate your learning time, I would suggest spending additional time at night or before work and learn. The best part about social media is that an audience is always online. In addition, once you post content on social media platforms, the information can be read by anyone and on some platforms like Twitter, you may see some instant responses. Social Media takes time to learn and execute. I highlighted the time above so you get an idea of the investment you need to make. Is Social Media right for every company? – Check out an earlier post and use this information to make sure you are ready to take on this initiative with respect to spending time on social media. |
| With Enterprise Online Communities, Simplicity Wins. Or Does It? Posted: 27 Apr 2012 04:00 PM PDT With Facebook's recent acquisition of photo effects and sharing mobile app, Instagram, it is easy to see how one could say that simplicity wins the day in social networking software. Twitter's meteoric rise and the success of employee collaboration tool, Yammer, are also examples of the power of simple, easy-to-learn social applications with easy-to-use social networks. Social business professionals have even written about the importance of simplicity in enterprise online community platforms. However, the reality is slightly more nuanced that that. Simple social networks have a dark side when companies and membership organizations try to engage their online communities to improve specific facets of their performance – productivity, sales, member retention, customer satisfaction, etc. Let's examine both sides of the coin. Simplicity is Important for User AdoptionWhen people generalize about requirement that social business software must be simple, they are only telling half the story. They are most likely referring to the end user experience. It is true that the processes and features of your private online community should be simple and easy for customers, employees, and members to participate in. Here are some things that should be simple, straightforward, and take little to no instruction:
As Chelsi Nakano, wrote in the above referenced article, "At the end of the day, the power is in the people, not the software." If your online community's user experience is not easy-to-learn and easy-to-use, the next part is irrelevant. Simplicity Can Hinder an Online Community's Impact on Business GoalsIn order to be able to successfully analyze, grow, and manage a private online community, not all aspects should be basic. Back end systems can and should be more complex to keep people engaged, ensure that the community offers up enough value to your target audiences, and provide actionable business intelligence to multiple departments in the organization. Here are some examples of community building functions that need to be more robust:
Unfortunately, it is often the case that organizations implement a member or customer community for its simple interface and intuitive features, then realize that the breadth and depth of the platform limits their ability to provide their customers with the value they demand. These organizations then need to incur the financial costs and embarrassment of switching online community software platforms, or live with a basic system that only provides limited results when compared with their initial vision and business plan. Online Community TakeawayWhen adding a private online community to the center of your member or customer engagement strategy, be sure to keep in mind that simplicity is paramount in customer-facing features, while community management tools need to be intricate enough to see your community well into the future.
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Many social media experts insist that you cannot succeed at blogging without a content plan.
I had a dream last night that I think was actually was my brain trying to figure out this whole social media experience – the part that I really enjoy.
Matt Cutts of Google has posted a message on Google Plus to say that web pages full of telephone numbers are guilty of breaching Google's guidelines. Understandably he says that it is not useful when people search Google for a specific telephone number to be presented with pages full of numbers without any useful information.
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